FOUR GREAT SAYINGS OF JESUS IV
A Series of Devotional Sermons
Fourth Great Saying . . . “Do not be anxious for your life.” (Matthew 6:25)
A favorite Mark Twain saying of mine: “I’m an old man, and I have known many problems in my life, most of which never happened.”
We spend a lot of time worrying about things before they happen; but, often, the things we spend time worrying about either never happen or, if they do happen, the intensity is usually not as great as we thought.
Sunday night of last week I received a phone call from a doctor who was calling from Central Georgia Regional Hospital. With permission of her patient, who is a counselee of mine, the doctor was calling to ask me some questions so that she could decide as to whether or not to keep the patient for observation and evaluation.
The gist of the matter was that the patient - my counselee – had been driven by worry to the brink of self-destruction. His anxiety about what might happen to him - “if this happened” and “if that happened” - had gotten so intense that he was overcome by fear of the unknown.
He had become so fearful, and irrational in his thinking, that I had told his wife to call 911 and take him to the emergency room. From there he was sent to one of our regional psychiatric hospitals – but that experience got his attention and prompted him to beg the doctor to let him out of there.
Thus, the doctor called his counselor – me – to ask my opinion. Confidentiality forbids me from going into the details of my conversation with the medical doctor, but suffice it to say that my client was admitted to the hospital for observation, evaluation and treatment.
It is so sad to realize that so many people are so burdened by worry that too many times folks throw up their hands and give up on life.
God does not want His children to give up; He wants us to “keep on keeping on” even though we may not see anything to be gained from living.
Although Jesus said, “Do not be anxious for your life,” there are troubling times when we get sick and wisely seek medical attention . . . get concerned about financial matters and wisely seek financial advice . . . get overwhelmed by family problems and seek wise counsel . . . get our dander up over injustices in our lives and seek to right the wrong . . . get down spiritually and seek spiritual guidance.
Life is not always fair! I could tell you story after story about folks who have had a raw deal in life . . . the props knocked out from under them . . . their material possessions taken away from them . . . their reputations ruined by malicious gossip. . . their lives cut short by medical mistakes.
Life is not always easy! One of the sayings I learned as a teenager has stuck with me because I have found it to be so true; and it goes like this: “Life is hard by the yard, by the inch it’s a cinch.”
Only on rare occasions has anyone gotten anywhere in life without hard work. As I grew into manhood, I got so tired of folks in my family telling me to “get a job” that I went out and got a job. My first job as a carpenter’s helper paid me fifty cents an hour . . . the next year I made seventy-five cents an hour . . . and then my brother promoted me to the position of “rough carpenter” and paid me a dollar an hour!
That carpentry stuff was hard work - but you know what? Every Friday, when we got paid, it felt so good! Forty dollars a week! Earning my own way was not easy, but it sure was rewarding. Through the years I inched my way up the ladder of higher earnings until I was able to take care of a family.
The next lesson I learned in life was that, whereas life is not always fair nor is life a bed of roses, the most important thing in life was to make a life - not just make a living. That, too, is hard work.
Just because I gave my heart and life to the Lord did not guarantee me a good life. No Christian is guaranteed happiness . . . fulfillment . . . a life without worry. The Christian life that Jesus taught us to live comes at a price. Expenditures of time and effort are required for becoming the person Christ wants us to become. It’s something we have to work at – regardless of age or stage in life.
We never get too old to learn from Jesus. I know, I know. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” But you can if you give the dog an incentive.
It’s sort of like the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” Well, maybe so; but you can take the horse by the salt lick on the way to the water. You can make the horse thirsty so that he will drink the water.
You know, the more I study the Bible, the thirstier I become for more of the enrichment which I receive from God’s wonderful words of life.
Jesus did not go around preaching and teaching just for the heck of it. Every time he opened his mouth, the words He spoke served a purpose – to enable His followers to live life to the fullest – to enjoy life – to make a life that is pleasing to God. Every one of us wants to do that. We want to live life to its fullest and to come to the end of our way on this earth having pleased God to the best of our ability.
Remember in our last devotional this great saying of Jesus? “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep; and my sheep know me.” Do we not find it reassuring to realize that He knows me and I know Him?
Yes, of course, it is wonderful to know that we do not walk alone; He walks with us . . . we do not talk to a stranger when we pray: He speaks to us by way of the Spirit of God . . . we do not seek to know truth in vain; He is the truth, and by His Spirit He teaches us.
Therefore, when He says to us, “Do not be anxious for your life,” how am I supposed to respond to that “do not?”
When we read the Ten Commandments, “Do not kill” . . . “Do not steal” . . . “Do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” . . . how do we respond? I do not do whatever the commandment says I should not do
Jesus comes along and says, “Do not be anxious for your life.” How does He want me – His follower – to respond? He wants me not to worry about my life. You want to know why? My life is in His hands.
Yes, I am going to go see the doctor . . . take my medicine . . . seek financial advice . . . ask for spiritual guidance . . . eat when I am hungry . . . do all the things I need to do for survival.
But when I have done everything God gives me the ability to do, and I have cooperated with all those who God brings into my life to help me do the best I can, and then, when it comes to the quality and the quantity of my life, I am not going to worry about it because He is in control of my destiny.
The day my wife and I were planning to drive to Augusta to celebrate our daughter’s birthday, the weather forecast predicted snow; my sister called the night before and was worried about what the weather might do. “What if this” or “what if that?” I said, “Betty, I cannot control the weather, nor can you.” I will let tomorrow take care of itself. In the meantime, I am not going to worry about what the weather might do; so, I will cross that bridge when I get to it; and if it is bad enough, I will not cross a bridge at all. I’ll just wait and see what happens.
Well, as it turned out, the weather was not as bad as the forecast; the roads were not iced over; the bridges were safe to cross; we drove carefully and took no chances; we arrived safely and we returned home without any incident at all; in fact, we had a better trip than usual because driving over to Augusta was not as boring as it usually is; I was excited about the possibility of driving in the snow; but due to the fact that we were headed in a direction that was not in the snowstorm path, my wish did not come true.
You see - had I worried about something that I could do nothing about, or had I gotten so uptight about something that might happen but never did happen, I would most likely have not enjoyed the trip whatsoever. And, if it had turned out that we did not get to go, we could always go another time.
With God as our Father, with Christ as our Savior, with the Holy Spirit as our Companion, with Heaven as our Home, why be so anxious about life that we miss the JOY of living?
In conclusion, let us read without further comment all ten verses of what Jesus said about not worrying - inasmuch as His discourse on this subject speaks for itself - Matthew 6:25-34 . . . Amen.
