Suffocating In Worry

E. Stanley Jones, a missionary to India in the early 1900’s, stated, “I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is grasping for breath - these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breathe freely - these are my native air.”(1) Jones had a better quality of life through faith than by worry. In fact, he said that worry caused him to feel as though he were grasping for breath; and there are many believers today who feel this way.

Park Tucker, a former chaplain of the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, tells us, “Many people are walking around half-dead because worry has built a mountain of problems over which there is no path, and they have surrendered to fate.”(2) Worry causes us to feel as though we’re grasping for breath and walking around half-dead. In fact, the English word “worry” comes from an Anglo-Saxon word that means “to strangle.”(3)

Corrie Ten Boom declared, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”(4) If you’re going through some dilemma or problem in life and find yourself completely immersed in that situation trying to come up with a solution, and you tend to think about it day and night, then you know all too well how worry feels. Worry zaps our life and drains our strength; and in our message this morning we’re going to see that in order to have true life in the Lord, we must place all our cares and burdens in the hands of Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Pt 5:7).

Worrying About Food and Clothing (vv. 22-23)

Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing” (Luke 12:22-23).

Two things that are abundant in America are food and clothing. Jesus once spoke of having abundance of life (Jn 10:10); and if a person could ever have abundance of life in a material sense, it would be in today’s western culture and society. We know, however, that Jesus was referring to abundant spiritual life, and not material things.

We have so much available food that people are using it as a substitute for life, trying to fill their emptiness inside with an addiction to food, resulting in rampant obesity and major health issues. We’re presented with so much temptation today to wear the latest fashion, that some people will spend most of their income on clothing, and then have to “worry” about how to meet the other expenses in life.

It’s strange that in a place where you find an abundance of food and clothing that we worry about these things. You would expect it in a poverty-stricken country; however, we can’t seem to wait for the next morsel of food, or the next big shopping spree! We think these things will bring us happiness and satisfaction, but once we obtain them we’re still left empty with a deep void inside, and we’re completely discontented.

In 1 Timothy 6:8, the apostle Paul said, “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” We should be satisfied with the food we have on our table and the clothing on our body; however, like most Americans, many of us are dissatisfied. We worry about acquiring all these things, because we think they’ll bring us true life and fulfillment, but they can’t. In Luke 12:23, Jesus said, “Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing.”

In John chapter six, we read that Jesus once fed five thousand people from five loaves of bread and two fish (Jn 6:4-14). The very next day the people came looking for Jesus, and He told them,

You seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you . . .

My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world . . . I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst (John 6:26-27, 33, 35).

You see, life is more than food, for true life is found in Jesus Christ! Once our spiritual hunger is satisfied, then we’ll obtain abundant life.

Life is also more than clothing, and what we “put on.” This expression “put on” is found elsewhere in the Bible in reference to how a believer should clothe himself in Christ. For example, Paul admonished the believers in Rome, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Rom 13:14).