When The Upright Get Uptight

Have you ever found yourself fretting over some situations. Someone does something and you worry about it. Things don’t go right financially, and you get anxious and fretful? Why do we do that? What is the source of fretfulness? Better said, “Why do the upright get uptight?

We get uptight because of the iniquities of life. things just don’t seem fair, verses 1-2, 7. The seeming inactivity of God. God is not solving our problems. Our ignorance of the ways of God. Isaiah 55:8-9, these things combine in the life of the believer and causes him to be fretful, to get uptight, to worry.

Now what I want us to look at tonight is the sin of being fretful. You say, “Is it a sin for a Christian to get uptight?” Absolutely. “You mean it is a sin for a Christian to worry and fret and be anxious?” Absolutely. It has to be a sin because it is a violation of a plain command of the Bible. Here in this passage, God says three times, “Fret not thyself.” So, if I fret, worry and or anxious, I’m simply disobeying the command of God? Absolutely. This is what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 6:25, 31-32. Don’t worry about it, Philippians 4:6.

It is a sin for a Christian to live in fretfulness. I know folks who are always living n the edge of anxiety and fretfulness and when your around them you get the feeling that at any moment they are expecting bad news. At any moment the worst is going to happen. It’s like living in the eye of a hurricane. That is a sin. It is not necessary.

While we must live with and in the pressures of this world, God has given us resources. I want us to look at three things that causes fretfulness to be sinful in the sight of God.

I. It is a Sin because it Reveals a Lack of Trust in God

1. It is the sin of unbelief, verses 1-3. fret not thyself by trusting in the Lord. You cannot have complete faith and be fretting at the same time.

2. All fretfulness, anxiety, worry in the life of the believer is nothing more than a revelation of my lack of faith in God.

3. In verse one, notice they were envious of the wicked. Why would any believer be envious of a wicked man? Why would you be envious of their prosperity?

4. God has promised to meet our every need. He gives us peace, joy, grace for every trial. He'll never put anything in our path greater than we can bear. Why should we then be envious of the world?

5. It is an indication that my faith is anemic. Faith and worry are not compatible.

6. When we worry and fret it makes us act like the world, Matthew 6:31-32. it is a sin. It denies the truth of God.

II. It is a Sin Because it is Harmful.

1. Verse 8

2. One translation says, “Quit being angry and dismiss fury, do not get heated, it leads only to evil.”

3. Another says, “Stop your anger! Turn off your wrath.” Don't fret and worry, it only leads to harm.

4. We fret as though it would lead to a solution, but it only leads to harm and more sin.

5. Fretfulness is harmful to the one doing the fretting. It doesn't harm the world. It doesn't change the situation, But it recoils against you and leads to evil.

6. Fruitfulness is a killer. It will kill your spirituality. It can kill your emotional health. Your physical health. it is a number one enemy.

7. notice, the word says, “Fret not thyself.” We freed ourselves. Nobody else frets us. It's not the world, it's not the circumstances.

8. Often, we blame circumstances for our anxiety. We blame adversities, the iniquities of life, the injustices we have received, our disappointments. They are never to blame.

9. Problems do not create anxiety, but rather it exposes a weakness in our own character.

10. You can easily prove this. Give two people the same circumstance and one will fret over it and the other one will not. There are many examples.

11. If you are fretting today, you have done it to yourself. It harms your own life and the lives of others around you.

12. I've seen anxiety and worry kill a great many things in people's lives.

13. It can murder you emotionally. It can kill your joy, strangle your prayer life, stifle your witnessing, destroy your ability to worship.

14. Worry always leads to sin.

15. God knows what he is saying when he commands us to fret not.

III. It is a Sin Because it is Needless.