Don’t Worry About Anything?
June 3, 2001
Remember the song by Bobby McFarren, “Don’t worry, be happy”? Impossible not to have… played all the time!
- nice idea… but can be pretty annoying… esp when your facing difficult times.
- In Phil 4:6 Paul expresses part of this saying, “Be anxious for nothing” or, as the Living Bible translates it, “Don’t worry about anything.”
- Fact is, worry seems to be a perfectly natural response to the challenges of life.
- We live in a high stress culture
o Stress from lack of job security… few people believe they’ll be in the same job 5 years from now.
o Financial stress… as soon as you are on top of your finances, the car breaks down. Stress of watching your portfolio drop lower and lower.
o Fast paced... doesn’t slow down for you. GETTING together: 3 weeks!
o Survey say that families hardly eat together. HABIB: eat while walking?
o Work, relationships, kids, health
Fact is, the Mayo Clinic claims 80-85% of total caseload due directly to worry and anxiety.
- Many experts say that coping with stress is the #1 health priority of our day.
o One leading physician has stated that, in his opinion, 70% of all medical patients could cure themselves if only they got rid of their worries and fears.
- We know that medical science has closely tied worry to heart trouble, blood pressure problems, ulcers, thyroid malfunction, migraine headaches, a host of stomach disorders, amongst others. For example…
o 25 mill Americans have high blood pressure due to stress/anxiety; 1 million more develop high blood pressure each year. 8 million have stomach ulcers
o every week 112 million people take medication for stress related symptoms.
In this kind of place, how can we NOT worry?
- If worry is the natural response to the realities of life, then who is Paul to tell us not to worry about anything?
- It is fair to ask, “How credible is Paul on the issue of worry?” He never lived in 2001
- I think we’ve looked at Paul enough to be able to easily answer this.
- He wrote these words while, according to chapter 2, was about to be “poured out as a drink offering… waiting for His trial before Nero.
- 2 Cor 11 catalogs his sufferings… how he was beaten, stoned, in constant danger, faced financial stresses which caused him to grow hungry at times; relational stresses watching all his so-called friends turn on him.
- PAUL HAD CREDIBILITY to speak about worry.
- But we need to understand what Paul meant when using the word, WORRY.
- a Greek word, MERIMNAO. Comes from “merizo”, “to divide”, and “nous”, which means, “mind”. The word “worry” means to have a “divided mind”.
- A mind divided by between the worries of the world, and the peace of God; between worldly attitudes and Biblical truth.
- Another thing we need to understand is that we need to draw a clear line b/t Deconstructive Worry and Constructive Concern.
o Paul never tells us, when facing a crisis… test at school, the possibility of loosing a job, difficultly with one of your children… that we aren’t to be concerned about it.
o But he does say, “Don’t Worry about it.”
Deconstructive Worry
- DW, unlike Constructive Concern, depletes our resources. It drains you of energy.
- Always has a circular reasoning process to it… your worry takes you round and round on a down spiral, which always brings you back to the same point.
- Example:
o I have to pass my test tomorrow
o If I don’t pass my test tomorrow I’ll be put on academic probation
o If on academic probation, I could get thrown out of school
o If I get thrown out of school, I’ll never find a good job
o If I don’t find a good job, I’ll never be able to buy a house
o If I can’t buy a house, how can I ever get married?
o I have to pass my test tomorrow… and so on.
- After all our worry, we never come 1 inch closer toward a solution, which could help you pass the test!
- Constructive Concern seeks a solution… I have a test tomorrow… I better stay in and study… and I better ask God for help! It moves you from a problem to a solution.
Even 2000 years ago, Paul understood worry to be the #1 thief of joy in our lives
- Have you ever been robbed? I have! John calls Satan a thief and worry is a powerful weapon that easily neutralizes our joy, peace, and intimacy with the Father… as well as our effectiveness in the Kingdom.
- How do we break free from Deconstructive Worry?
- Start in vs 4: Rejoice in the Lord always; and, I say rejoice!
o Must be important as Paul repeats himself
o Paul’s heart is to help the Philippians, & us, so that our natural response to the inevitable crisis of life is to turn to the Father rather than worry.
o We rejoice “in the Lord” not in our circumstances.
o David prayed, “I would have despaired if it had not been for the goodness of the Lord.” In spite of his situation, he takes joy in the fact that God is good.
o We need to rejoice too as the crisis come… that the Lord, as Paul writes in the next verse, “is near!”
- “I don’t have it in me to worship or thank You… but I really am glad that you are with me… and I guess I do thank you for being such a good God.
o rejoicing in the Lord like this, at the very least, becomes like a life raft for us to hang on to during the challenges we will face.
But Paul wants us to do more than just survive in this life.
- He wants us to walk in victory in spite of what we might face
- We learn, in 2 Cor 4, what to do when we come face to face with worry/crisis:
o Having encouraged us to rejoice in the Lord… in His nearness, He now encourages us to lay aside every man-made prop, psychological device, everything we humanly rely on to keep us from worrying.
- Those of you who would call yourself worriers… or those who are caught up in a cycle of worry… you’ve tried not thinking about it, tried minimizing the problem, pretending the problem didn’t exist, stress reductions, vitamins, diet, whatever… Paul says, get rid of your human resources!
- Paul writes this under great distress. When we spoke of whether Paul had credibility or not… it isn’t only b/c he faced stress well… but also b/c at times he didn’t.
- 2 Cor 1:8 “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.” The word despair means to anguish beyond hope.
What then did Paul learn from that time of despair? I think Paul writes what he did in 2 Cor 4, so that we can see six “man-made” props that he needed to do away with as He sought the Father’s help rather than fall back into worry or despair.
1. He learned to stop trusting in himself: In vs. 8 we read that even though, in his heart of hearts he felt the sentence of death on him, he realized that he could no longer trust in himself but rather, he could trust in a God who has the power to raise the dead!
a. So, even if you feel like you’re near rock bottom, it isn’t too late to turn your focus from situation to God.
b. You don’t have to trust in your own capacity to keep you from worry or despair.
c. “I thank you God that you’re near and that you have the power to change things.”
2. He learned to remain true to his convictions: In verse 2 Paul explains that I’m not kept going by any scheming or cutting corners… but by God’s love and presence.
a. In the face of financial stress, you don’t twist the truth on your income tax
b. If you are desperate to find a job, you don’t lie on your resume’.
c. He learned that straying from our convictions always makes the situation worse b/c now, on top of everything else, we have to worry about getting caught!
3. He stopped leaning on his own strength: In verse 8 he says, “We are hard pressed from every side… but not crushed.” He has faced intense pressures, but learned that his own strength isn’t going to keep him from imploding. Because He learned to trust in a God who really does have the ability to help him, Paul is not crushed.
4. He stopped relying on His own understanding: He says, “We are perplexed but not in despair”. Perhaps he learned these lessons from the time he referred to in 1:8 when he did despair. It’s not his smarts that keeping him going… or his ability to understand why these things were happening to him. Sometimes we think that if we could only figure out why this is happening… if I could only see the bigger picture (why God would have let me loose my job; why He let me get sick), then I could handle it better. Paul had no idea why things were the way he did… he was perplexed! Yet, he wasn’t in despair.
5. Paul learned not to rely on his relationships alone. He says he was “persecuted but not abandoned”. It wasn’t His relationships that propped him up… those whom he had considered his friends were often the ones persecuting Him. Yet he was not abandoned... God was with him.
6. He learned he couldn’t even rely on his own optimism. He says that he was “Struck down but not destroyed”. Sometimes we think that if we could only see the light at the end of the tunnel… then we could begin to have some peace. In saying he is “struck down”, Paul is saying, “I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel” Yet, I’m not destroyed… God is my help.
Bottom-line: “God has showed me that I need to get rid of every single human prop that would naturally look to, to keep myself from worrying”.
- not leaning on my scheming, strength, understanding, relationships, or optimism to keep me going… but that I would lean on God who promises to be my help.
- The only thing that really keeps me going… so that I’m not just surviving… is GOD!
- We cannot fight worry and the crisis we face through human means… but through the provision of the life of God inside of us… the Holy Spirit. This is why we need to, as Paul says in Ephesians 5, continually ask the Lord to fill us with the Holy Spirit. The degree to which we remain in the Father’s presence, full of the Holy Spirit, will be the degree to which we will be able to resist or break the downward spiral of worry.
He says, “Be anxious for nothing… but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
- He doesn’t just say, “Pray about it”… rather he uses 3 different words to describe how to respond the worry/anxiety we face.
- “Don’t let your mind be divided about anything… but in all things, by prayer, supplication, with thanksgiving, come to God with all that is your hearts.”
- “By Prayer” The word prayer is the general word for making our requests known to God. It carries the idea of adoration, devotion, and worship. Whenever we find ourselves worrying, our first action needs to be to get alone with God and pray... rejoicing in His nearness… in His goodness.
o Through worship we see the greatness and majesty of God… realizing that He really is big enough and caring enough to solve our problems.
o So, we need to express our hearts to God in prayer with an adoring heart.
- “By Supplication” which expresses an earnest sharing of our needs and problems. Supplication has an intensity to it… but isn’t a hyped intensity… but passionate. He wants us to express ourselves from the heart, not just the mind. David models this so well in the Psalms. “Why O Lord do the wicked prosper?”
- “With Thanksgiving”… in all these things, we give thanks to God. When Jesus healed the ten lepers, in Lk 17, only one of the 10 returned to give thanks. We don’t want to be like that.
When faced with adversity, Daniel did the same thing. In Daniel 6:10 Daniel “prayed, gave thanks, and made supplication”. And the result was an authentic peace from God in the midst of those difficulties.
The result of all of this is that the “peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Like the two soldiers guarding Paul day and night, God will stand guard over the two areas that create worry in our lives… our minds and our hearts.
