Worry-free Wealth
Matthew 6:22-34
Intro: “I have a mountain of credit card debt”, one man told another. “I have lost my job. My car is being repossessed and our house is in foreclosure, but I am not worried about it”, exclaimed his friend. “No, I’ve hired a professional worrier. He does all my worrying for me, and that way I don’t have to think about it.”
“That’s fantastic! How much does your professional worrier charge for his services?” “$50,000 a year”, he replied. “$50,000 a year? Where are you going to get that kind of money?” “I don’t know”, comes the reply. “That’s his worry.”
-A story is told about a man who came face to face with the dangers of worry:
Death was walking toward a city one morning and a man asked, "What are you going to do?"
"I’m going to take 100 people," Death replied.
"That’s horrible!" the man said.
"That’s the way it is," Death said. "That’s what I do."
The man hurried to warn everyone he could about Death’s plan.
As evening fell, he met Death again.
"You told me you were going to take 100 people," the man said. "Why did 1,000 die?"
"I kept my word," Death responded. "I only took 100 people. Worry took the others."
-One study claims that about half of all the people in America’s hospital beds are constant worriers. 43% of all adults suffer health effects due to worry and stress. 75% - 90% of all visits to primary care physicians are stress-related complaints or disorders. Worry has been linked to all the leading causes of death including heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis and suicide. An estimated 1 million workers are absent on an average workday because of stress related complaints. Stress is said to be responsible for more than half of the 550 million workdays lost annually because of absenteeism. 43% of all employee turnover is related to job stress. Mental distress can even lead to death.
-Today we’ll be talking about worry as it relates to money. God wants us to trust Him and follow Him rather than trading the gift of relationship for what we can acquire on this earth. Here’s the main thought of the message:
Prop: God wants us to discover the worry free wealth of loving and trusting Him.
Interrogative: What dividends can we expect when we give our love to God?
TS: Let’s look at the results of giving our love away to wealth, first of all, and then we’ll take a look at the real wealth that comes from loving God.
I. Loving money results in darkness (Matthew 6:22-23)
22 "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
-Jesus uses the eye here to symbolize the heart or inner being of a person. If your heart is good, then it follows that you will do what is good. While some people in the first century may have believed that the human eye emitted light which enabled sight, Jesus gives the idea here that if your eye is healthy or good, then it will let light in. Light most often refers to truth, which Jesus said would make us free. In this context the amount of light that gets in affects the moral condition of a person.
-We could stop and talk about that for quite some time. How much light are you letting in? Are you open to truth? Do you welcome God’s truth to come in and light up your soul? Or are you content to keep seeing things the way you’ve always seen them? Jesus said that if your eye doesn’t let the light in then your whole body will be full of darkness. Obviously, He isn’t talking about 20/20 vision here. He is talking about how willing we are to see things God’s way.
-More specifically, Jesus seems to be referring to whether a person is generous or not. A generous person was typically described as having a good eye. A stingy selfish person was described as having a bad or evil eye. From the preceding verses we can conclude that this is a person who has put all his eggs in his earthly basket and has not stored any treasure in heaven. We talked about this a couple weeks ago. One way we can store treasure in heaven is by giving to those who are in need. Whoever gives to the poor lends to the Lord and the Lord will repay. The stink-eyed person wants to hoard what he has, keeping it for himself. But the generous person with the good eye can clearly see that nothing in this world lasts except the good that God does through our lives.
-So let’s not live in darkness, keeping all the goods to ourselves. Let’s be open-eyed, open-handed, and open-hearted.
II. Loving money is incompatible with loving God (Matthew 6:24)
24 "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
-We serve what we love. Some people serve in order to feel good about themselves. Some people do have an affection for this world and commit themselves to serving it in humanitarian, scientific, social, medical, political, or other ways. On the other hand there are many people who couldn’t care less about the world but will serve in return for money.
-Now understand there is nothing wrong with working for money. The Bible has a lot to say about people working for what they receive. We should do that. However, if the value we place on wealth and material things becomes greater than the value we place on other human beings, then we will find it has also eclipsed our love for God.
-Here’s a good litmus test for all of us. If you recognize the value of a dollar bill, but fail to see the value in other people, you just might be in love … with money that is. If we don’t show love and concern for people who were created in God’s image, we are not serving God. We might be serving mammon (money). Jesus is being very clear about the fact that we cannot give ourselves to money and to God. Why? Because both demand allegiance. Both require our time, energy, attention, commitment, our life! Many people have worked their entire lives to accumulate a fortune only to get sick and spend it all trying to get well. They don’t even break even because even if their health returns, they can never get back all the time they lost with their family, playing with their kids, or investing in relationships that last forever.
-Don’t sell out for money! It leaves you empty and dark, unsatisfied, and bankrupt when you leave this life.
III. Loving God produces trust (Matthew 6:25-30)
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?
-Before I say anything more about the current woes of our economy, let me just say that I am sorry for those who have lost thousands or tens of thousands over the past few months. It must be discouraging at the very least to have expected a certain amount of retirement only to see it all flushed in just a few days. I’m guessing that most of us are relatively untouched by the Dow Industrial Average or the number of points up or down on the stock market. But for those who are, there is a whole lot of worrying going on. Sometimes there are hidden blessings in living simply and within our means. If you have nothing to lose, then you have nothing to worry about.
-Here are a few stats on worrying. 40% of what we worry about will never happen. 30% has already happened. 12% is unfounded criticism from others. 10% is our health. The last 8% is the actual problems we have to do something about. That means 92% of worry is useless! And worrying about the 8% didn’t help the situation one bit!
-So don’t worry about your retirement. Worry won’t stabilize our economy. Don’t worry about your savings account or your investments. Jesus boiled it down to the basics. Don’t worry about having enough food to eat. The birds don’t stockpile for the winter like squirrels do, yet your heavenly Father still feeds them. Don’t worry about having adequate clothing. If God is your designer, He can make you more than presentable. Look what He does for the lilies when they can do nothing for themselves. He makes them beautiful – just the way He likes them. And that is what He will do for us – if we will trust Him.
-Love and trust go hand in hand. Trust is an important part of any close relationship. It is hard to love someone with power over us if we do not trust them. As parents, I’m sure there were times when you did not trust your kids, but you still loved them! Perhaps they had proven themselves untrustworthy in the past. You never stopped loving them – you just kept them on a short leash.
-However, when we’re looking up the ladder, so-to-speak, trust is essential. We will never yield ourselves to someone we do not trust. That is one reason it is important to get to know the God of the Bible. Read all about Him. Find out for yourself that He has never ever bailed out on anyone. Talk to Him. Worship Him for who He is. The more you get to know Him the more you will trust Him.
-Jesus described His listeners with these words: “You of little faith.” I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not be known as Mark the guy with little faith. Mark, the guy who doesn’t trust God much. I don’t want to be skeptical about the grace and provision of God! I may get skeptical about people (including myself) sometimes, but I never want to doubt the goodness and capableness of my Father in heaven. Let’s shed that label and start believing that God really does love and care for His kids. He’s a better Father than I can ever hope to be and He won’t let His kids go hungry or without adequate clothing. He will take care of us.
IV. Loving God eradicates worry (Matthew 6:31-34)
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.
-We are talking about relationship here. Our heavenly Father already knows us and He knows what we need. Furthermore, He promises to provide for us. In light of that Jesus says to seek the Father’s kingdom first and foremost as priority one! The worry-free wealth that we’re talking about today is a close trusting relationship with our Father who is in heaven.
-Those who don’t know God are on their own – at least in their own minds. That is why they have to devote themselves to acquisition. They run after all these things. But as for you, God’s kids, you are to run after the King. Run after His kingdom- that is, His leadership or rule in your life. Pursue His righteousness, which comes by faith and is lived out with loving obedience. The result? You will be provided for, and you will have more than enough because your Father is a more-than-enough kind of guy! No need for worry. If you have a loving heavenly Father, your wealth is worry free.
-Dr. E. Stanley Jones, missionary to India, writes this in his book Transformed by Thorns: “I am inwardly fashioned for faith, not for fear. Fear is not my native land; faith is. I am so made that worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life; faith is the oil. I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is gasping for breath — these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breathe freely — these are my native air. A John Hopkins University doctor says, ‘We do not know why it is that worriers die sooner than the non-worriers, but that is a fact.’ But I, who am simple of mind, think I know. We are inwardly constructed in nerve and tissue, brain cell and soul, for faith and not for fear. God made us that way. To live by worry is to live against reality.” Fear deteriorates the quality of my life and even destroys me physically. I was not designed to live this way. Faith breathes life and joy into my mind and body, and I find wholeness.
Conclusion: As we close, I hope that you’ve been challenged to trust your heavenly Father more. Trust will bring you closer to Him and help you love Him more. It will help you be more generous to those around you who are in genuine need – even when you don’t think you can afford it. Trust will help you get rid of that load of worry you drag around behind you all day.
-Said the robin to the sparrow, I would really like to know, Why those anxious human beings, rush and worry so.
Said the sparrow to the robin, I think it must be, They have no heavenly father like the one that cares for you and me.
-Maybe the sparrow was right about someone here today. Do you have a heavenly Father? Do you know who your Daddy is? I pray that you would know God’s pure love that He has for you. If you do know God as your heavenly Father, do you trust Him? Has your worry made you a person with little faith? If so, tell Him you’re sorry and start trusting Him.
[Portions of this message adapted from Tony Brit, Jerry Shirley, Ken Kersten, and Rodney Buchanan, all contributors to sermoncentral.com]
