Stress-Free Suffering - Matthew 6:27-34 Series

Matthew 6:25 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 cubit to his stature? 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? 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.

Causes of Anxiety

If I had a whiteboard up here and asked you all to brainstorm about the various causes of stress in our lives, what kind of a list do you think we would get? Probably a list of common troubles, right? Relationship problems, health problems, work load, not enough money, etc. We have been studying verse by verse through the Sermon on the Mount, and in the closing section of Matthew 6 Jesus gives us a list of the causes of anxiety. And in this list we discover something very shocking – anxiety is not caused by trouble. Nor is it caused by suffering. Jesus shows us here that all the causes of anxiety are inside our own hearts. Nothing that happens to you causes anxiety. (If it did, how could Jesus command us not to have anxiety, since we cannot control what happens to us?) Anxiety and worry and stress are caused by your heart. They are the reactions of the heart to circumstances. So really there is no such thing as a stressful circumstance. There are hard circumstances and easy circumstances, but no stressful circumstances, which is why the exact same circumstance can result in anxiety some times and not other times. The issue is the condition of your heart. And that is great news because if stress were caused by circumstances, that would be outside of your control. But this passage is the greatest instruction ever written on dealing with stress, and it says nothing about manipulating circumstances or fleeing from hard things. It is all about the heart. I titled this sermon “Stress-Free Suffering” to highlight the fact that suffering is not the cause of stress – the heart is. If your heart is as it should be then suffering will not cause sinful anxiety.

Jesus gives us seven causes of stress. But here is my advice: Instead of writing them all down and trying to get it all, try this – try just listening for which ones are applicable to you. Not everyone with anxiety has all seven of these causes, so if you have a problem with anxiety just listen for which one or two or however many of these may be the culprit in your heart. I will go fast through the first three because we have already covered them the past few weeks.

1) Treasure on earth

When you store up treasure on earth (you have some earthly, temporal thing that you feel you have to have in order to be happy), you will automatically have anxiety when that thing is threatened or taken away or when that thing fails to make you happy. And since earthly treasure is notoriously vulnerable to loss and notoriously unsatisfying, having earthly treasure is guaranteed to cause anxiety. Correct that by emptying your earthly treasury.

2) A low view of God

You do not really think of God as being either powerful enough or loving enough to take care of you. People like this say, “We planned our picnic for Saturday, so I’m sure it will rain” or “With my luck, I will probably hit every red light.” Think about what you are saying when you talk that way. Just because you have a particular desire, God will probably do the opposite … and for no other reason than to make you suffer? If you have that kind of twisted view of God, Jesus directs your attention to God’s care for the creation. No one can think that way about God if they look thoughtfully at how God cares for the birds and the flowers. If the Creator cares for the creation how much more will the Redeemer care for the redeemed?