Don’t Run For Gatorade - Matthew 6:28-33 Series

Matthew 6:25 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Introduction

The problem of stress

A dear friend of mine came to me this past week to talk to me about the stress that he is facing in his ministry. He said, “It’s gotten so bad – I literally can’t handle it.” He told me he cannot even function in his job. In a field where he has worked all of his career, he cannot even do fairly basic things – even to the point where he said it will be a miracle of providence if he does not get fired. He said, “I spend twelve hours on a project and get two hours worth of work done.” This is a very strong, very solid, mature believer who I have known for years and I have never known him to be overly emotional at all. Yet the whole time he was telling me all this it sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

A couple days before that Tracy got a call from the wife of another close friend of mine. She was asking Tracy to ask me to call her husband and encourage him because he is so overcome with stress he does not know how to handle it. Both men ended up resigning from their ministries at church last week.

Our culture has tried to define that sort of thing as a mental disorder so psychologists can bill insurance companies for the counseling. But we all know that stress can push even the strongest, most mentally healthy person to the breaking point. It is not a mental disease, it is not a nervous breakdown – it is the natural result of anxiety. Jesus described it in Matthew 13 as being like a plant that is getting choked out by weeds.

The reason one Christian can handle tremendous stress and remain strong and joyful, and another finds himself crushed under the weight of the stress is not because something in him broke down, but because his source of strength got choked out.

When stress and anxiety manage to crowd the ministry of the Word of God out of your life, it has a choking effect on your spiritual life. You are still reading your Bible, you are still listening to sermons, you are still memorizing Scripture – you are doing all you can to expose yourself to the influence of the Word of God, but it is not working. It is getting choked out by the anxieties and stresses and worries in your life, so it does not have its strengthening, life-giving effect. That is why the exact same Word of God is flourishing in the soil of someone else’s heart, but it is getting choked out in the soil of your heart. And that is a terrifying thing to experience. Even though you know what is happening, you feel powerless to do anything about it. And the more the life is choked out of you the less energy you have for seeking life from God through His Word, and so it becomes a vicious cycle. As I said last week – anxiety is deadly, so our compassionate Savior takes some time in the Sermon on the Mount to teach us how to deal with stress.

It seems to me there are at least three kinds of worriers. Some worriers are aggressive pessimists, who just scan the future searching for something to fret about. The next group is what I would call the distracted worrier. They are fine while they are thinking about God being on the throne, but somehow when stress hits they just seem to forget to think about God. And third, you have the group Jesus refers to in verse 30 – those of little faith. They just have a hard time believing God’s promises and trusting Him to supply all their needs. Jesus gives us principles for overcoming all three kinds.