No Longer Slaves to Worry
Series: No Longer Slaves
Chuck Sligh
February 3, 2019
PROPS: 2 small weights, 2 heavy weights and 2 strong laundry cloth bags, one inside the other to be strong enough to hold all four weights.
NOTE: A PowerPoint presentation is available for this sermon by request at chucksligh@hotmail.com.
TEXT: Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew 6:25
INTRODUCTION
Illus. – William Knibb sailed to Jamaica to be a missionary in 1824. He evangelized the slaves in Jamaica, educated slave children, taught their illiterate parents to read, and established churches throughout the island for slaves.
This did not go down well for the slave owners. In fact, the magistrates forbade slaves from attending services, prohibited the building of new chapels, flogged slave church leaders, and tore down their chapels.
Still, the slaves openly sang hymns and prayed for each other and the numbers of slave conversions merely skyrocketed the more the magistrates persecuted them. Imagine the effect on the soul of these now literate slaves as they read, Galatians 4:7, where Paul said, “Wherefore thou art no more a servant [literally a slave], but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”
Eventually Knibb sailed back to England, and his testimony swept away any hesitation from England’s churches to support the abolition of slavery.
On August 1, 1834, slavery was finally abolished throughout the British Empire. The night before the edict was to take effect, a service with over 10,000 men and women sang praises to God until the stroke of midnight, when they were literally freed from the bonds of slavery.
From that point on, there was not a person in Jamaica who was truly a slave. Unfortunately, in remote areas, there were those who did not hear the news. They continued in slavery because they were not aware of freedom. Former slave masters kept these slaves in the dark, and free people continued to work as slaves for months after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Sometimes we believers are like those slaves in remote parts: We’re free from Satan’s chains, but we’ve listened to our former slave owner’s lies that we’re still enslaved.
Today I begin a series titled, “No Longer Slaves”. There are many ways Satan keeps us enslaved. But God wants His people to be FREE!!! Yes, we will face problems, but there’s no problem a Christian can’t overcome in Christ’s power and there’s nothing God cannot free us from by His power.
Today we want to look at worry, something that can enslave any of us if we’re not careful.
Follow along with me as I read Matthew 6:25-34 – “Therefore I say unto you, ‘Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
Jesus tells us how to be free from worry through two examples of creation—fowls and flowers.
Verse 26 tells us that the FOWLS OF THE AIR don’t worry about food or where it’s going to come from, because their Father feeds them.
Verses 28-30 say that the LILIES IN THE FIELD don’t worry how they look. They don’t think, Will I be able to clothe myself and family? Jesus said that these flowers would put Solomon’s temple and all His kingly splendor to shame in their beauty!
So, God uses these fowls and flowers to bring home a truth to us: Don’t worry about whether you’ll have the provision for your daily needs. Jesus sums it all up in verse 34 – “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
The command, “take not thought for,” doesn’t mean not to plan. – The idea is that not to let tomorrow’s cares consume your thoughts, or we would say, “Don’t worry.” That last phrase, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” simply means, “Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
The Bible says that we’re not to take thought about a certain thing—TOMORROW—for tomorrow will take care of the things of itself. In other words, God’s saying, “Hey, let me do the thinking about tomorrow!” He’s already thought thoughts about tomorrow. Your burden for tomorrow, your weight for tomorrow, your challenge you’ll face tomorrow—God has already thought about that.
Illus. – I recall in our church in Wiesbaden a wonderful helper I’ll call June. She was such a blessing, but she also had a habit of taking initiative on things without checking with us and doing things we really didn’t want her to do!a One day, we were talking, and she said, “You know Pastor, I’ve been thinking about the lobby in the church. I think I need to redecorate it.”
I thought to myself, Oh, no—June’s been thinking again]
I said, “Uh...June, we’ve already thought about that ourselves. I appreciate your help, but we’ve already got some plans laid out.”
I didn’t want to hurt her feelings—although I did—but we’d already thought about that and honestly, we didn’t really didn’t want HER thinking about it!
I wonder sometimes if that’s how God feels. God’s already thought about tomorrow, so maybe we ought to leave thinking about tomorrow to Him!
Now, I want us to spend the rest of this message on the little phrase at the end of verse 34 which simply means, “Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Object Lesson with weights (HAVE A VOLUNTEER FROM AUDIENCE TO COME UP. MY VOLUNTEER WAS NAMED TJ.)
You see, God has already mapped out for TJ a will for his life. God has a specific will for every day of his life. God says, “Now TJ, don’t worry about what’s ahead. I’ve got it all planned out. You don’t have to worry about it because I’ve got it figured out.”
Now here’s how we get ourselves into trouble: God says, TJ, here’s what I want from you today. I’ve got these two weights for you. I want you to carry these around. This is what I have for you TODAY. It’ll be your job just to carry around these weights.” [GIVE 2 SMALL WEIGHTS TO VOLUNTEER.]
Do you know why God would give him a weight like that?—Because He knows it will make him stronger, and He knows he has the strength for it today. You see, TJ, could carry these all day long.
But towards the end of the day, suppose TJ, starts worrying about something in his college class. “Wow! I’ve got a big test tomorrow. How will I ever pass it?” So, he starts to worry about the big test. (HAND AN EXTRA WEIGHT TO VOLUNTEER)
Do you see his problem?—He’s MESSING WITH TOMORROW! TOMORROW he could carry this because God will give him the strength to carry those weights tomorrow. But tomorrow he won’t have the weights he has TODAY. “Each day has enough trouble of its own,” Jesus said.
Now suppose that not only was he worrying about tomorrow, but he also started worrying about yesterday—Look what happens (ADD ANOTHER WEIGHT.) “I wish I hadn’t hurt my parents the way I did.” “I wish I hadn’t fallen into that sin and hurt my wife and family the way I did.” And now I’m carrying yesterday’s burdens as well as today’s and tomorrow’s.
I would like for you to consider three problems with borrowing from tomorrow or yesterday:
I. FIRST, YOU LOSE STRENGTH FOR TO DEAL WITH TODAY’S BURDENS.
You start wrestling with these weights for tomorrow—when all God gives you is the strength for today—and you’re going to lose strength and get tired out.
Corrie ten Boom said, “When we worry, we are carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength; carrying two days in one.”
God doesn’t give you the strength to lift the burdens for tomorrow when it’s only today! You start messing with tomorrow today and you’ll get WORN OUT worrying and fretting and stewing about tomorrow. [DEMONSTRATE BY CARRYING THE HEAVY DUFFLE BAG WITH THE WEIGHTS IN IT. ACT WORN DOWN.]
God says, “Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
II. THE SECOND PROBLEM WITH BORROWING FROM TOMORROW IS…YOU FAIL TO PROPERLY DO YOUR GOD–GIVEN RESPONSIBILITIES FOR TODAY.
When you start worrying about your responsibilities for tomorrow, you start forgetting about what you’re supposed to do today! You waste a lot of emotional energy, and you find yourself failing with what God wants you to do TODAY.
Illus. – You come to church and you say, “Pastor, I’ve got a big inspection tomorrow. I’ve got so many things to take care of. I’ve got so much weight on my shoulders and I don’t want a mark against my career. My soldiers are counting on me.”
Wait a minute—that’s not TODAY!…That’s not your mission TODAY. Your job TODAY is to be in church and hear God’s Word. Your responsibility TODAY is honor God with THIS DAY! Your job for TODAY is to learn, and worship, and listen to the Lord.
Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t plan or prepare for the future. That’s just being wise, and it’s we’re taught to do that many places in the Bible The sin is in the ANXIETY and the WORRY of it all.
Most of what we worry about is a waste of time. 99% of what we worry about won’t come to pass anyway, so what a waste! If you’re worrying about something about tomorrow and you come up with a hundred scenarios for how it will turn out, there’s a good chance that the final result will be NONE of the scenarios, and at most there can only be ONE. So that means that the best you can do is envision 1% through worry, and it could end up not even thinking of the right one in the end, so 0%.
No wonder someone said that “Worrying is like rocking in a rocking chair: it’ll give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere.”
What a waste of time and emotional energy! And worry makes you irritable so you can’t be the parent you ought to be because instead of focusing on today’s duties TODAY—meeting your family’s needs—you’re worrying about the possible 1% scenario that may or may not occur. Instead of taking care of TODAY’S business, you’re eating up your time and energy working up a good worry. When you worry, YOU’RE JUST BORROWING TROUBLE!
The same thing happens when we stew about YESTERDAY. (PICK UP A WEIGHT FOR TODAY, ONE FOR TOMORROW AND A 3RD FOR YESTERDAY.) I know people who are carrying around a load of guilt over the past and they’re loaded down with this extra weight God doesn’t want them to have.
Illus. – I remember a lady in my church in Wiesbaden I’ll named Robin I’m using her real name because she has given me permission to use it. Before she and her husband had come to Christ, Robin had rebelled against her parents, had gotten on drugs, had had two abortions, and cheated on her previous husband, resulting in divorce.
Technically, she was “free” as a believer, yet she was carrying a lot of guilt. One day her husband asked me over to talk to her and him because they were having problems in their marriage.
She told me about this awful load of guilt for past sins she carried around. It produced a lot of tension in her life that spread to her family. We looked at scripture after scripture about God’s forgiveness of our sins.
But the thing she just couldn’t seem to feel forgiveness for was her abortions. I share with her several scriptures, but she just couldn’t feel God’s forgiveness for what she had done. I quoted over and over to her 1 John 1:7, “…and the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from ALL sin,” and repeatedly asked, “Robin, what does the word ‘ALL’ mean?”
Suddenly the light of God’s Word broke through and the tears of joy flowed, and her life was forever transformed. She got rid of the load she was carrying! She now has 36 grandchildren and two more are on the way! Listen to what she posted on Facebook on February 1, 2019 and which she gave me permission to share:
I once believed that in the first 8 weeks of pregnancy the baby was only a little mass of cells. That was what I was taught in school. When the Lord showered me with His mercy, I saw my great and horrible sin of murder. Murder to the innocent. They would have been 33 and 30 this year. Not a day goes by that I do not remember that I was once a murderer. Not a day goes by that I do not remember that Christ came to save sinners and I am one of the biggest. Resting in His forgiveness did not come easy, and at times I still struggle. Without Christ I am nothing. In Him is forgiveness, mercy and love.
Here are 2 pics of my grandchildren that, Lord willing, will be born in March. The Lord has blessed me beyond what I deserve and I thank him for His mercy. They have already been named even though they are growing in the dark. Real human babies.
If you’re carrying a load of guilt, you can experience the joy of forgiveness and peace and drop yesterday’s weight and deal with the weight of just today’s burdens! Never take up the yesterday’s burden, for it will just weigh you down from today’s duties.
III. THE THIRD PROBLEM WITH BORROWING FROM TOMORROW OR YESTERDAY IS THAT HELPING OTHERS TODAY BECOMES DIFFICULT.
You see, if you’re carrying all these weights [PICK AS MANY OF THEM UP AS I CAN AND ACT OUT BEING BURDENED DOWN] and someone comes along and says “Hey, can you help me with something?,” I’ll look at you and think, Are you out of your MIND! You ought to be helping ME! Can’t you see this stuff here I’m carrying from YESTERDAY and TOMORROW?
And you know what?—If you get too heavy-loaded like this, then the Christian life is no fun anymore, and you become a LOUSY ADVERTISEMENT FOR CHRIST.
I want you to see something from two verses in Galatians 6:
Galatians 6:5 – “For every man shall bear his own burden.”
Galatians 6:2 – “Bear ye one another’s burdens…”
The word for “burden” in verse 5 was the word for a soldier’s rucksack. That’s my weights I have the strength to carry today. But verse 2 says we’re also to bear one another’s burdens, and Paul employed a different word here for “burdens,” one which means “an extremely heavy burden, one too difficult for one person to bear alone.” If YOUR burden is too heavy today, I can help you out for a while and help you bear some of your burden so your burden is lighter for awhile.
Now I can do that for a while—but, I can’t do that at ALL if I’m burdened down with my own burdens of the cares of yesterday or tomorrow. And I’ve robbed myself of an opportunity to be a blessing and a help to you in your time of need.
CONCLUSION
So, when Jesus says, “Each day has enough trouble of its own,” He’s saying there’s enough problems and troubles for THIS day without you having to worry about the problems and troubles of either yesterday or tomorrow. Brethren, don’t add to your troubles today by adding the troubles of tomorrow or yesterday. Jesus said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Let’s close by looking at two final Scriptures, both in the book of Philippians.
First, let see what to do about the burdens of TOMORROW. – Look with me at Philippians 4:6-8 and note four things this passage says to do about the burdens of tomorrow:
1) Paul begins verse 6 saying, “Be careful for nothing…”, which means, “Don’t be full of care about anything,” or we would say, today, “Don’t worry about anything!”
Folks, that’s a command! O.S. Hawkins said, “Many of us assume that God merely looks upon worry with a frown, but the fact is: He strictly forbids it in His word.”
Charles Trumbull went so far as to say, “Worry is sin; a black, murderous, God-defying, Christ-rejecting sin....We will never know victory over worry and anxiety until we treat it as sin. For such it is. It is a deep-seated distrust of the Father, who assures us again and again that even the falling sparrow is in His tender care.”
2) Paul goes on to say, “…but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
Paul says that when you’re full of worry and anxiety, PRAY—Take your problem to your heavenly Father. That’s how we get the peace talked about in verse 7 – “And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
As Joseph Scrivener wrote in his famous hymn, What a Friend We Have in Jesus: “O what peace we often forfeit / O what needless pain we bear / All because we do not carry / Everything to God in prayer!”
3) Did you notice that verse 6 says to pray “with thanksgiving…”? – THANK God for the burdens you have—and also thank Him for the grace to bear them.
When you realize that your heavenly Father truly loves you and cares for you and when you know that He will turn all seemingly bad things into good for you if you are a Christian, you can truly THANK GOD in your trials. Instead of WORRYING about things, TRUST your Heavenly Father.
As Corrie ten Boom said, “Don’t wrestle, just nestle.”
Illus. – A ship was sailing from England to New York. This trip the Captain of the ship brought along his wife and his eight-year-old would proudly refer to him as “Cap’n.”
During the trip, the ship found itself in a bad storm Awakened by the storm, the captain’s daughter asked her mother, “What’s the matter?”
Her mother told her nervously they were in a terrible storm. The little girl asked, “Is Cap’n on deck?”
“Yes, he’s on deck, Honey.”
The girl then laid her head on her pillow and went back to sleep.
Listen!—OUR CAP’N IS ON DECK! When we worry, we are distrusting His control and care. Trust Him and THANK Him for the storm.
4) But all is in vain unless you understand verse 8 – “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
Paul is saying here you have to change your thought patterns. Stop dwelling on your problem, and start keep your mind focused on good, wholesome, praiseful, uplifting, things. Think on God and His goodness and His Word and His blessings on your life.
What do you do about the burdens of YESTERDAY?
First, if you can, resolve them.
Do you need to ask someone humbly for forgiveness? – That goes a long way to bring healing to the mistakes we’ve made in the past. Do you need to forgive someone for a past offense against you? Holding on to bitterness only hurts you; it only weighs YOU down; it only allows that person to continue to have a stranglehold on your life. You can only be released from the hold that person has on you by forgiving him or her in grace, whether he deserves it or not.
Second, put the burdens of the past behind you. – Philippians 3:13-14 – “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended [arrived, spiritually speaking]: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
Forgive yourself; put the past behind you and refuse to think about it again. That’s the path to freedom from the past.
Much of what we will discuss over the next couple of months have to do with problems that we as believers have because we allow the enemy a foothold back in our lives.
But there is a bondage far worse and far more dangerous to your eternal soul if you have never turned to Christ to save you.
In John 8:34, Jesus said, “Whosoever commits sin is the slave of sin.”
Without Christ, the Bible is clear that you are under the bondage of sin, it controls you, and it dooms you to death and hell. But two verses later, Jesus gave this wonderful promise: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
Jesus, the Son of God, paid the penalty of your sin in your place by dying on the cross. If you would turn to Him, He would free you from the bondage of sin and give you eternal life. I invite you to repent of your sin and turn to Christ to save you.
