Is there a sin that good middle-class Christians commit more than the sin of worry?
You wake up ten minutes later than expected and anxiety begins to dominate: what if I’m late? What about traffic? What’s the weather like? You walk past the mirror and fear that your face has more wrinkles than before, go downstairs, and since you are in a hurry, let your children eat whatever they want, then you start to wonder if sugar really causes cancer. When you save children, you realize that one of your children hasn’t done his homework yet. You worry about not knowing if he will ever have his mind, and as you drop your kids off at school, you wonder if they will. involved with the wrong crowd or falling off the horizontal ladder.
- As soon as you get home.
- You check Facebook to relax.
- There you read how amazing the children of all and all the fantastic cupcakes that your friends are making and you are afraid to be a failure as a mother.
- Pain in the knee again.
- You worry about having to undergo a total knee replacement and whether the insurance will cover and how you’ll pay for it and who will take care of the children if you’re immobilized for a month.
- Pain that can be a little worse.
- So look at all medical sites and realize that you probably have a rare case of whoother cough that has spread to your limbs.
Hours later, when your children are in bed, you turn on the television to forget what happened that day. As you scour the channels and get involved in the news, you begin to worry about the economy, the polar vortex, and the rise in crime in your city. You worry about the racial divisions in the country and how you are going to talk to your friend who sees things a little differently, and perhaps you worry about not knowing if the police would treat you fairly or if you would. Worry about your brother’s safety. who is a police officer. So you turn off the TV and talk to your husband and you worry about his cough that doesn’t seem to get better and you worry about layoffs at work. And finally, when you go to sleep, you have a tremendous sense of anxiety and you don’t even know why. For reasons you may not even understand, you begin to worry about your life and your children and your parents and your church, your health, your flight, your driving, your sleep and your food, and the general fear that the days ahead will truly be. bad. .
Can you identify yourself?
Jesus can help.
Anxiety is perhaps the most common sin among “normal” people. Now you can find it’s not very encouraging. ” Great, I worry about everything. And now, in addition to my concern, I’m going to feel bad about worrying and I’m going to worry about that. Animated: If concern is only a part of your personality or part of what it means to be a mother (or student or entrepreneur or whatever), God may do nothing to help you, but if concern is a sin, then God can forgive you. and help you get through it.
Matthew 6:25-34 is one of the great passages of the Bible on anxiety. Jesus says three times, don’t you worry? (25, 31, 34). But it doesn’t stop there. Jesus is interested in more than the transmission of commandments, He wants to work with our hearts. And then it gives seven reasons why we shouldn’t be anxious.
Reason 1: Life is too important (Mt 6:25). We need to set our priorities. It really matters that you have the best things in life; food, fine drinks, fancy clothes?Do you live your whole life looking for a label on the back of your pants or inside your shirt that makes you feel?Will you look back and want to be more demanding in choosing your clothes?Is life more than a group of cells trying to make a living, trying to feel good, trying to look good?
We live in a time when people are going crazy for food, although most people throughout the history of the world have wondered if they would get anything to eat, we’re worried about the kind of life chicken had before they ate it. We should not worry about how animals are treated, but let us remember that life is more than food and the body is more than clothing.
Reason 2: You are too important (Mt 6:26). Not only do we insult God when we care about food, clothes, and money, we insult each other. Anxiety tells the world, “I’m worthless. ” Anxiety is an affront to God’s goodness and the value of man and woman made in his image. Let birds and squirrels be your preachers. God feeds them. When you see them looking out the window, they say, “What are you looking at?Do you trust God?. When you hear the birds singing, they sing a song to remind you of God’s provision. God takes care of small animals; I’ll take care of you.
Reason 3: It doesn’t make sense (Mt 6:27). Have you ever thought about the difficult times of life and thought, “I don’t know how I could have done this if I hadn’t worried?No one reflects on the past and concludes: “Money was missing, but anxiety really made me overcome. “Elementary school was difficult. I just wish I’d worried more. ?” The diagnosis was scary, but then I made all my friends worry about me.
If we all stopped now for a few seconds and cared about paying, paying the mortgage or not being insured, we wouldn’t live another second. I haven’t checked this out with the doctors I know, but I don’t think they’re going to go up to bed at any point and say to the patient, “Well, ma’am, the picture hasn’t been. “t. se looks good. All we can do right now is worry.
The man doesn’t know his time. It is not for us to guide our steps (Jr 10:23). All our days were written in the book of God when none of them were still there (Psalm 139:16). You and I must admit that we are powerless in certain things. I’m incapable of doing all sorts of things. I can’t make anyone believe in the gospel, I can’t resurrect the dead. I can’t sit by the crib all night to make sure the baby keeps breathing and I certainly can’t live a nanosecond any longer than I should. No one lived an extra hour because I was worried about when I was going to die.
Reason 4: God cares about you (Mt 6:28-30). God grows the flowers of the fields. Why? Because he wants to. Because they’re beautiful, because he’s creative. Because she likes beauty, because she wants people to take advantage of her. Because he cares about flowers and even takes care of the lawn. The grass will die. Your lawn will turn brown, will it be cold, frozen, dead?probably already is. But in a few months, everything will come to life and you’ll have nothing to do with it. Maybe you’ll plant more seeds. You can hire a lawn care specialist to make it look good. But even if you do nothing, the lawn will grow back, because God is God and loves green grass.
See what Jesus calls worries? He calls us “the little faith. “Our concern is an insult to God’s character. When we are worried, we do not believe the truth about God. We doubt that he will see, that he knows, that he cares, that faith is more than a vague notion that Jesus existed and that we go to heaven if we ask him to enter our hearts, faith is a practical way of seeing the world, the biblical faith extends throughout life, not just to the salvation of our souls. When we are worried, we say to God, “I do not trust you to live my life. I don’t think you’re really in control. I’d better worry about those things. I have to do everything I can take care of myself just because I’m not sure you do. But think about it: God takes care of wild animals. He takes care of the flowers in the fields. He even takes care of the weed, why don’t you take care of him?
Reason 5: pagans are concerned (Mt 6. 30-32a). Some of us care so much that we can even be atheists. We live as if God didn’t really exist. That’s what heathens do.
A heathen does not need to be someone who worships idols and sacrifices frogs; a heathen is someone who thinks life consists of eating, drinking, dressing; pagans believe that life consists of the abundance of their goods; pagans spend and accumulate their money as if there were no God in the universe to protect and care for them.
Let me stop here because some of you are asking the question that the rest of us are afraid to say, “But what if God doesn’t take care of me?”What about Christians starving?What about Christians evicted from their homes?What about the thousands of good Christians who will die of cancer that year and car accidents or heart attacks?Doesn’t God promise to take care of them too?
Are these questions acceptable? And questions that would not surprise Jesus or any of the biblical writers. The book of Revelation speaks of several martyrs. Paul told the Romans that even in the midst of tribulation, persecution, hunger, nudity, danger, sword, and massacre, we would be more than victors. Jesus said to his disciples, “And ye shall be delivered even by your fathers, brethren, relatives, and friends; and some of you will be killed. You will all be hated because of my name. However, not a single hair will be lost from your head. Is it in your perseverance that you will win your soul. ? (Luke 21:16-19). Jesus never told his disciples that being a Christian was a free gift to get out of suffering.
So can we count on God or not?
First, we need to remember the context. Jesus speaks of people who serve Mammoon instead of serving God (Mt 6:24). In Luke 12’s account, Jesus speaks of rich fools who build larger, more pessimistic, worried attics that accumulate treasures on earth. What he’s trying to prove is that we won’t die because of great generosity. That’s the first thing to notice.
But that is only part of the answer. I think the rest of the answer is in verse 32: “Does Heavenly Father know that everyone needs it?” Which are? Verses 30 and 31 suggest that? Let it be food and drink, and why do we need these things? To live. Does God know what we need to keep living? For so long he wants us to live. God knows that we need clothes, food and drink to live and will give us all the clothes, food and drink to live until He wants us to die.
This is based on a profound theological truth: God is not stupid, God sees us. He knows we are here. He didn’t go out to lunch, he’s not taking a nap. It is not like a father who loses a son elsewhere in the supermarket, it is for you, not against you. Jesus doesn’t promise that all your wildest dreams will come true, but he does promise that God will give you what you need to glorify him and live each day that he wrote in his book.
It may sound silly, but it’s really deep. There is more to life, Jesus says, than living. We’re dying. Therefore, don’t set the goal of your life just to stay alive; you will fail in this regard. We’re here to do more than prevent death. “God will give you all the food, drink and clothes you need to live,” Jesus says. “And whenever you stop living, you’ll stop living. “I’m in control. You were placed here for a bigger reason than just living. To be consumed, says vers. 33, with the kingdom. Let yourself be carried away by the flash of God’s reign and dominion over his life, his family, his church, and the lost peoples of the world. After all, you’re not pagan.
Reason 6: The kingdom is more important (Mt 6:33). Jesus wants to free the troubled pessimists. When we have cars, boats, tractors and cool houses, we care about them. What happens in the event of an accident, lightning strike or if a thief breaks into the house?Why not lose your life for the things that are left?As Randy Alcorn says, “You can’t take the money, but you can send it in advance. “
Don’t get rid of all your goals: replace your pagan goals with divine goals. Let yourself be consumed by the kingdom. Let yourself be invaded by the glimpse of the kingdom and God’s dominion over your life, your family, and your church. Spend for the lost peoples of the world. Make it your priority to introduce more people to the king, bring more people into the kingdom, empower people to live under the authority of this king and his kingdom.
Jesus may not make your life easier, but It will make your life happy. He wants to free us from the search for the dead end we have entered. If you live for the money, you’re right to be anxious. What happens in your life is your career, it can go wrong. If your health, appearance, or children are your true passions, you may be deeply disappointed. You have reason to worry. But if you’re looking for the kingdom first, you can’t miss it.
Reason 7: Tomorrow will be concerned about itself (Mt 6:34). Today’s grace has gone to today’s trials, and when tomorrow’s trials come, God will have a new grace waiting for you.
Anxiety lives the future before it comes. The lord’s mercies do not consume us, for their mercies have no end; are renewed every morning. Great is your loyalty. My part is the Lord, says my soul; therefore, I will wait on it. (Lm 3, 22-24).
What’s going to happen tomorrow?
Can I give you a thousand examples of things we don’t know? Diagnostics, accidents, work, tests, meetings, babies, reviews, difficult conversations, even death. We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. But here is one thing you and I can count on: there will be a new mercy from the Lord when we get there.
How can I stop worrying? He has the support of Jesus, but he also looks at Jésus. Il go. He knows, he cares. He’s a compassionate high priest. And he’ll never leave you or leave you.