“This Message is for the Birds”
Matthew 6: 25-34
We come to our 2nd question that you have asked this morning in our series of Questions we would like to ask God. This passage intrigues me because it is no surprise that Jesus starts teaching on the subject of worry right after He has just spoken on the subject of money. Worry and money seem to go together for many people. But in this passage Jesus addresses worry in general. Not just about money but about everything.
All of us have worries. Yours are not the same as mine; mine are not the same as yours but we all have them. Pastors sometimes worry about their Sunday sermon (1) we worry that we might not have something to say that will be helpful to someone (2) we worry we might not have something new/fresh to say (3) we worry that we might preach too long and that we might not say enough or that the message is clear to us but won’t be to the congregation. Or we will put people to sleep. Or we worry that when we give the invitation no one will respond.
A young woman in college wrote the following letter, but I didn’t want you to worry about the fire in the dorm and my concussion, which happened when I fell out of the window trying to escape. I’ve been eager to tell you about the nice man from the 7-11 around the corner who took care of me until the ambulance arrived. I’m out of the hospital now and feel great now that I am living with the fellow from the 7-11in his room over the garage. I know that you will be happy to know that I really care about him and that you will soon be grandparents. In closing, let me tell you to stop worrying. There was no fire, I didn’t fall out of the window, I didn’t have a concussion, I am not living with anyone and you are not going to be grandparents. I told you all of those things because I made a “D” in Biology and an “F” in history and I just wanted you to put that into perspective.
Jesus spoke on the topic of worry and money because He was trying to help us get some perspective on what is really important. You see that’s what we worry about usually are the things that really matter…now I know that isn’t a very profound statement but I want you to understand that most of us have let too many things that really are not that important…consume us.
So we look for advice. And there is always plenty of advice and plenty of free advice. Some of it goes like this…..
Don’t worry..…be happy.
Don’t worry…just stop thinking about your problems. Think about something else.
Don’t worry…everything will be fine. All of those statements share at least one thing in common. They don’t help. They don’t work.
Let me say that in this life you will never conquer worry completely. But we do need to learn to manage it because if we don’t it will manage us.
Let’s begin with a definition. When I look up the word worry Webster defines it as anxiety. When I look up the word anxiety he defines it as “to be worried.” Worry and anxiety are very connected. People worry so much that many people today suffer from what are now called anxiety attacks.” Or maybe you will identify with this definition of stress I read this week. Stress is that feeling when our mind overrides the body’s basic desire to choke the living daylights out of some jerk who desperately deserves it. Interesting definition because the English word worry comes from 2 words that mean to choke or to strangle.
One more. When used in the scripture this word worry means to have a divided mind. That one I understand. That’s exactly what worry does to me. It causes me to have a divided mind. Know what I mean?
So let me ask you and I want you to write it down in your notes right now. What are you worried about right now more than anything? More than anything else, what’s on your list? For the most part when I speak to people about their worries there is usually one of four areas they begin to speak about. See if one of these is the word you just wrote down.
1. Loss of a job? Income. Money. Will I have enough? Will anyone ever have enough? If you get a little more will that be enough?
2. Along those same lines, but more specific…..how we will make a certain payment? The car payment, the house payment or progress energy. These things matter and they are essential so we worry.
3. We worry about other people. We worry about other people’s business. I’m sorry but it’s true. We worry about what other people think, how to please them, what they’re doing; what they’re not doing.
4. We worry about things in the past. That happened years ago. It is one of the primary reasons many people go to counseling. Things in the past. Things we cannot change.
5. We worry about tomorrow. The unknown. Because we don’t know what the future holds for us.
Jesus knew these were the kinds of things we would worry about. What’s amazing is that he knew it 2000 years ago when this was written down. You see the worry list really hasn’t changed that much. Look at verse. 25. This is what Jesus is saying. Watch your focus. Let me tell you something that may make you feel better… Jesus is not saying that these things do no matter because they do. I believe that most of the things we worry about matter. Not all, but most. That’s why we worry. It does matter that I have enough to eat and drink; it does matter that I have adequate clothing to wear, but here’s the problem…some of us have begun to think these things are more important than life itself. Jesus is saying watch your focus. Look at v. 26.
Jesus says take your mind off of worry and instead watch the birds. Be a birdwatcher. You see birds don’t worry. You know why? Because they’re not always trying to accumulate things. They don’t store things up. They take care of things for the moment. For today, not tomorrow. Jesus is not saying they don’t work; they actually work hard. But the point is that they do not worry. You may have heard someone in fact say” don’t worry, worrying is for the birds.” Actually it’s not. They don’t worry.
So watch the birds? Why? Because they don’t think like we do.
There are three things he mentions here that they don’t do that you and I constantly do. Here they are. We sow. We reap. We store away. Birds don’t do any of these things but God still provides for them. He says watch the birds. Why? Because birds know something we don’t know. Birds know how to live one day at a time. Everything they pick up, they use that day. Not us. We have pantries. We store them full of food. We have garages we can’t even fit our cars in. Why? Because we have so much stored away. Birds don’t do that. Now Jesus is making a point here….he is comparing how we live to how a bird lives. I don’t think he is saying that it’s wrong to sow and reap and store away. He’s simply saying watch the birds. Their pantry is empty but they don’t worry. Yours is full. Yet you still worry.
v. 27. Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Good question? In fact just the opposite is actually true. What happens when we worry? Doctors say that at least 4 things that can then happen. (1) our immune system is affected. Ever gotten physically sick because you were worried? (2) we develop muscle tension. Our muscles tighten up. (3) we become forgetful. We have memory loss. We stop thinking clearly. (4) We develop heart disease. We put ourselves at risk of a heart attack.
So this is where we get the term, “worried sick.” Researchers estimate that 75-90% of all visits to primary care physicians are for complaints that are, in some way, stress related. Every week 112 million people in the U.S. take some form of medication for stress related symptoms. Our society is worried sick. Worry will not add hours to your life; in many cases worry will reduce the length of your life.
vv. 28-29. Now let’s be honest. Most of us don’t worry about what we’re going to wear. We may have trouble making up our minds about what we are going to wear but that’s because we have too many choices. Every married man has at one time or another heard his wife say those famous words……I don’t have a thing…to wear.
Jesus says “Don’t worry.” Instead watch the birds. And now He says instead watch the flowers. Why? Again, they know something we don’t know. He says there are 2 things that they don’t do… they don’t labor and they don’t spin. He is talking about making clothes. Working and spinning thread. Women in the day of Jesus spent a great deal of time making clothes for their family. It took a long time. There were no sewing machines. But listen to what He says… nothing, even all of the clothing Solomon had compared to these flowers. Like the food we store up in our pantries we have closets to store our clothes. And for most of us those closets are full. So watch the flowers. He says notice that they are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow. And literally they were. The flowers would bloom one day on a
hillside in Palestine and the next day they would pull them up and use them as fuel to keep the ovens hot enough so they could cook. These flowers would burn fast and they would raise the temperature. Here today, gone tomorrow. Yet God takes care of them. How much more will He take care of you and me?
He gives us several things here to hold on to. He says worry is characteristic of the heathen/pagan/unbelievers. Those who do not know God. Do you realize that Jesus is telling us that when you worry you are living like a un-believer. You are living like someone who doesn’t know God. So stop it. Instead do these two things. (1) v. 33. Put God ahead of everything else. (2) live one day at a time.
I am told that on one of the mountain peaks in Colorado that there once laid the ruins of a very large tree. Historians say it had stood there for over 400 years. Through thousands of storms…it had actually been hit by lightning 14 times they were aware of. But none of that brought it down. You probably can’t see what I have in this jar. It’s a beetle. It’s tiny. It’s so small I could crush it right now…relax, but I could. This is what took it down. Not just one of course. A lot of these little guys got together and took it down. And Satan can do it to you and me as well.
The story is told of a woman who for ten years couldn’t sleep at night because she was always worrying about something. Money, bills… she even worried about being robbed, she worried that if she were to go to sleep that a burglar might sneak in and rob them. The story goes that one night her husband heard a noise in the house, so he went downstairs to investigate. And when he got there….sure enough there was a burglar. So he says to the burglar, come upstairs and meet my wife. She’s been waiting for ten years to meet you.” Listen a real burglar can steal from you, but usually only once…worry can steal from you for the rest of your life…every day…every night.
All of our worrying, all of it will not change the future. In fact it won’t change a thing. So just stop it. Today.
