Anxiety

It's good to be back here in Garnavello and I'm going to ask you please to turn to Matthew chapter 6 for a reading. Matthew chapter 6 please and we're going to read from verse 24 down to the end of the chapter and I want to speak in this session about the subject of anxiety. So Matthew chapter 6 verse 24 to verse 34.

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Therefore, or wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek.

For your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the moral, for the moral shall take thought for the things of itself.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Now we trust that God will bless, we know that God will bless the reading of his precious word. Someone has called our age, the age of anxiety.

And that's certainly true over our way. The culture facilitates it, in fact, manufactures it, I think, particularly in younger folk and particularly in younger girls, this problem of anxiety. And it very much in our culture is linked to what is visual, how people appear, how people are perceived, how people communicate is much more visual than it ever was.

Language is less important than pictures nowadays in communication. So people communicate and they say very little, but they communicate by images, short videos, TikTok, whatever. And they send this stuff and communication seems to be very visual and it produces anxiety.

And this word anxiety actually is an interesting word. And it comes from a background, certainly in the English language, from the Latin dead language. And the Latin word from which anxiety comes speaks of constriction or narrowness.

And that constriction or narrowness is at the root of the idea of anxiety. The Latin word is the word from which we get angina. And I don't know if you suffer from angina.

You might be taking pills already. But you know and I know that angina, one of the symptoms of angina is pain in the chest and a constriction within your body, a feeling of suffocation. And if you think about what is physical in terms of angina, and you think about what is emotional or what is physical as well, anxiety can produce physical symptoms.

It has the same idea. It is the idea of constricting. It is the idea of feeling suffocated.

And it is the idea of being threatened. One definition says this, that anxiety is the feeling of constriction, a kind of feeling in which we get the idea that we are being threatened. And this feeling of anxiety is an indefinite sense of being threatened.

Threatened by something. Threatened by someone. It might be an experience you have to go through.

It might be a place you have to walk into. It might be a relationship that you're part of. It might be school.

It might be work. It might be family. But something is producing that which causes anxiety and there is a threat involved in it.

And the world that we live in recognises the significance and the problem of this and the debilitating effect of it in some people's lives and prescribe all sorts of solutions for anxiety. All sorts of medication. All sorts of therapies.

All sorts of lifestyle adjustments to deal with anxiety. Now when of course you come to scripture, you find this, that what is significant on earth always finds an answer in God's word. And there is a lot of scripture that deals with this subject of anxiety.

I just want to pick out this section here from the teaching of the Lord Jesus. The Christian gospel does not ignore the problem. The Christian gospel does not ignore problems full stop.

But it does not ignore this problem. In fact, the Christian gospel, the gospel of the Bible deals with the subject of anxiety in the light of God's revelation. God has revealed divine truth and within that divine truth, there is that which can meet our need even in this realm or area of anxiety.

Now just a little kind of context for this passage. If you're familiar with Matthew's gospel, you know that you're reading the Sermon on the Mount, as it's commonly called. And the Sermon on the Mount has kind of two book ends.

If you were to come into my little house back home, I used to have a lot more hard copy books than I have now, but I still have some. And on some of my bookshelves that comes from Botswana, my in-laws brought me, are two book ends. They're very unattractive because they're the kind of backsides of cows and elephants and they're shoved in like this and then you've got the books in the middle.

But the idea is just this, that you have a book end either side and you've got the substance in the middle. Well, if you just turn back a little bit in your Bibles, let's discover the book ends to the Sermon on the Mount that actually gives structure to it. So if you go back to chapter four and verse number 23, it says this.

If you just turn to it, you'll see it for yourself in your own Bible. And it says that Jesus went about all Galilee. And here's the first thing, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom.

That's number one. Number two, and healing all manner of sicknesses and all manner of disease among the people. So that is the first book end.

Now turn over to chapter nine, if you would please. Chapter nine and verse number 35. It's a bit of deja vu.

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, number one, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people, number two. So you have two book ends. The verses are the same virtually.

And they sit either side of a significant section of Matthew's gospel. And contained between these two book ends, you have chapter five through to chapter seven, which is the teaching of the Lord Jesus, the preaching of the Lord Jesus, what we call the Sermon on the Mount. And then you have chapter eight and chapter nine, which are the record of a series of healing miracles that the Lord Jesus did.

So you have the preaching of the kingdom and you have the power of the kingdom in these two sections. And that is framed, that five chapter unit is framed by the teaching of the Lord Jesus and by his healings and miracles and that summary verse, which frames that section. Now within this area of Matthew's gospel, there is a specific audience.

There is an audience to the teaching and there's an audience who are observing the miracles and the healing. And it's important when you read about things that are taught in scripture that you understand who they were taught to. And it's not just important to understand who taught it and what was taught, but the audience is important because much of the teaching is framed for the audience.

So you get the audience, you get context to what is being taught. That's still the same here. I mean, I've got an audience, I would think mostly of Christians, probably not all Christians in front of me, but if I was standing in a gospel context, that would be the opposite.

I would have mostly non-Christians and maybe some Christians. And that would very much affect the way I present the word of God and the truth that I would bring from it. It's the same with the Lord Jesus.

So if you would, we'll stop turning over our Bible shortly, but go to chapter five and verse number one. Chapter five and verse one. And notice this expression, and seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain and when he was set, notice this, his disciples came unto him and he opened his mouth and taught who? He taught them.

See, so first of all, he's teaching his disciples. But then if you go over to chapter seven, verses 28 to 29, as the Sermon on the Mount is coming to a conclusion, it says this, and it came to pass when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. So you would understand this, that primarily the message of the Sermon on the Mount is directed to his disciples, but not exclusively.

And so what is being taught to his disciples, the Lord Jesus wants the, basically the multitudes, the crowds to hear as well. And there will be a blessing and a benefit for them to hear what is in context being taught to his disciples. And what is being taught is an instruction to these disciples about the kingdom of God, but it is also not just instruction about the kingdom of God, it is a proclamation, it is an invitation to those who are not yet part of the kingdom to see the beauties and the glories and the wonder of being in this kingdom so that it might be an attractive invitation to them to respond and to become a disciple.

That's always where I think a conference and teaching context should be. Primarily teaching to the Christians, but for those Christians not present, there ought to be an attractiveness of what is being taught so a desire arises by the Spirit of God that what is being taught to the Christians, what has been experienced, what has been enjoyed, that's something that I would like to have, that's something that I would like to be part of, and every teaching meeting should also be a proclamatory sermon if you like to those who are not yet saved about the wonder of what is being taught. So that's just by way of introduction.

You have the crowd and the multitude and so forth and you've got the proclamation of it. And of course the word beatitude comes again from a Latin word which means beautiful and that's the word blessed, some translate it happy, and no wonder it's a proclamation as well as an explanation. You think about the people who were all listening to this in the multitude, those people that were dispossessed, those people who were sick, those people who had a brokenness within their own being and they're listening to this as the Lord Jesus describes to these disciples the full character of what they're experiencing as a child of God, as someone who's in the kingdom of God.

And the idea is just this, you really want to experience the beauty of life, the joy of life, the happiness of life, call it what you will. Realize that you're spiritually bankrupt, come to God who alone can grant you true blessing, that's how the beatitudes start. It's not blessed are the poor, it's blessed are the poor in spirit.

It's about spiritual condition, moral bankruptcy and a realization of it. Come to God who alone grants you the true beauty that can be experienced in life here upon earth. You want to be happy, you want to be blessed, groan and mourn and agonize over your violation of God's law and your sin and he will bring you the comfort of salvation.

Blessed are they that mourn, that's the context of it. You want to be happy, you want to be blessed, you want to experience the beauty of life, be meek not proud, be broken and ultimately you inherit the fullness of the kingdom of God. So he goes on, you want to be truly satisfied, stop hungering and thirsting for things that don't satisfy and rather hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God which truly brings satisfaction.

That's the context of the beatitudes. That's education for saints and that is a proclamation for sinners. Come and experience the wonders of God's kingdom here upon earth and throughout eternity.

That's background. So we come to our section which is part of this and he's going to speak about the issues of anxiety for the beauty of life here upon earth is sometimes destroyed by anxiety. It can ruin people, debilitate people, make people sick.

The issues of anxiety. So he's going to deal with that and he starts dealing particularly with it in verse number 25 but notice if you would keep your eye on the text if you would notice in verse number 25 he begins with the word therefore. Therefore.

So he's building in something that's gone before. Whenever you hear the word therefore you ask the question wherefore. That's what we were taught in our bible class.

So you're looking back the way. What has gone before and what is the consequence, what is the outflow of what has gone before? That's what he's going to teach you. Therefore.

Well the immediately preceding verse is the verse that I started our reading at which is significant in relation to anxiety. He says this, no man can serve two masters. That by the way is the cause of most anxiety on earth.

No man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Someone who's torn in their loyalty and service for one master or another and someone who's torn between the two finds a lot of anxiety and he says this you cannot serve God and mammon. You see the key to it is this.

You're either slaves of God or slaves of something else. You cannot be slaves of both and the wonderful assurance and certainty that comes to life in relation to all these practical things is this. When you remember that we are the slave, we are the property, we are the born servant of God of Jesus Christ.

He's in charge. We belong to him in the totality of our being. He is total ownership, total responsibility and therefore we are his responsibility.

He's the master, we're the servant and when we remember that relationship lots of the stuff that causes us anxiety should not cause us anxiety because it's out with our control. It's in the hands of our master. It's in the hands of our Lord.

It's in the hands of whom we serve. You see if we're serving money and that's our idol, that's our master, we're going to know a lot of anxiety. You're going to be an eye on the share price.

You're going to be worrying about the inflation rates. You're going to be obsessed about the economy and all that. Why? Because you're serving that stuff and that stuff's controlling your thought processes.

Now obviously we're going to see this I'm not talking about business and needs to be done properly and well. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about master-servant relationship.

Who do you really serve? Well he says this, let's get into it very briefly. He says be not anxious, do not be anxious, take no thought. That's the idea.

It's not that you are thoughtless but rather you are not consumed by anxiety. Verse 25, verse 31, verse 34, it is repeated. He says don't be anxious about your life, about your life.

Now it's important to understand this. Some Christians in the New Testament misunderstood this and they gave up their work. They were waiting for the Lord to come.

So they just downed tools and thought we're just going to sit and wait. Someone else can take care of us. You know the Lord will drop pennies from heaven as we call it back home and we'll just sit here and wait and do nothing.

Well Paul deals with that in Thessalonica and says no you need to get back to work. You need to be working hard. Work is good.

Work is of God. Work is actually worship. You need to get back to work.

So people would get lazy and it was like me before exam times. I used to pray for the rapture so I didn't have to sit the exam every time. The Lord never came, the exam had to be set.

But you see that's what you do. You default to that position. He says no this is not don't be careful.

This is not don't be a planner. This is not do the best job you can do because other scriptures teach us that whatsoever we do let us do it heartily as unto the Lord. So it's not that.

He's speaking about over anxiousness. You know when sin came into the world it didn't revoke the divine mandate that Adam and Eve had been given. To go and work for Adam and to go and care for Eve.

That doesn't mean Eve couldn't work and it didn't mean Adam couldn't care but they were the primary areas of responsibility before God. One was to work to provide. The other was to care and nurture in relation to family life.

That was never rescinded when sin came into the world. All that happened was it was going to get harder. It wasn't going to stop and so he says be not take no thought for your life.

Here's the sorts of things that should not keep you awake at night. What sorts of things? What you shall eat, what you shall drink, what you shall put in your body or put on your body. He says don't be stressed, don't be anxious about that kind of stuff and he's going to explain why briefly.

I've got 10 minutes. Let's run down this and you know I'm in a farming area and I am not a farmer and in fact I am not even a country person so you will all know more about this stuff than me. So I'm just going to run down through it.

He says look at the birds of the air. He doesn't say shoot them by the way, just says look at them. I know you like to shoot stuff out here.

He says look at them and he says learn from them. Learn from them. So look at verse 26.

He says this. Look at the birds of the air. Look at the fowls of the air.

They do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. They're not harvesting. Yet your heavenly father feedeth them.

Are ye not much better than they? Now the people who are listening to this, Palestine was the cross migratory crossroads, it still is, of so many of the birds and he's arguing from the lesser to the greater and he's saying if God takes care of them he will take care of you. I don't know much about birds but they always seem to be in perpetual motion. It's not as if they're you know sitting there with their beaks open to the sky hoping that the Lord will drop down stuff into their mouth and feed them.

They have to work, forage, whatever they do, but ultimately it's God that feeds them. That's the point and when we are thinking about the food we put into our stomach we should have the same idea. We've got a responsibility to get it, to earn it, to provide it, but ultimately we know this, it's God that's making the provision, ultimately.

Then he moves on and he says look at verse 27, human inability. So you've got the birds of the air verse 26, you've got human inability verse 27, which one of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? That by the way doesn't mean you're trying to make yourself taller, otherwise I wouldn't be this height, it doesn't mean that at all. It has the idea more of adding length to your life.

So many people in the world want to extend their life. This reminds us we cannot extend our life by one hour. There's a time to be born, there's a time to die, these things are in the hand of God.

We can extend the quality of our life, but we cannot extend the extent of our life. It's in the hands of our sovereign God and we're happy to leave it there. We speak of our life as milestone events because life is a journey and there's a beginning and an end to that journey.

We cannot by worrying ourself extend it. You know people speak about worrying yourself to death, you can't worry yourself to life, you just can't. Then he speaks about flowers, so he says in verse 28, why take ye thought for raiment? He's talking about clothing.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they tall not neither do they spin, yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now I don't know who chooses your clothes, I can tell you who chooses mine, but the idea is just this, let's not get obsessed about things like clothes. You know clothing is essential obviously, the bible tells us that sin made it a necessity and clothing has the purpose of covering and that's the essential reason for it.

It's interesting that this world has inverted that particularly with women and made clothing not so much to cover but to reveal and there's a different idea behind clothing in our world today. But biblically clothing covers and it is to do with modesty, however that is and I'm no fashion expert so I'm not going to go there, but that's the essential reason for it, male and female. But we shouldn't get obsessed by it, we certainly shouldn't be losing sleep over it because he says this, look at the flowers, you're never going to be as beautiful as that which is natural in the field, you're never going to have the beauty of what God can actually provide and even Solomon with all his wealth was not arrayed by what we see what God does out there in the beauty of nature, flowers.

Then he speaks about gentiles, the ungodly in verse 30 and verse 31. He says if God so clothe the grass of the field which is here and gone tomorrow basically, take no thought what we shall eat or what we shall drink or wear with shall be clothes, excuse me, for after all these things do the gentiles seek. He says a basic thing, he says that's the kind of stuff the world spends its time thinking about.

Now we know that, look at the media, look at culture, look at the world of which we form a part, what are the main drivers of our economy? Food, clothing, the care of the body, so on. The health and extension of life, all the resources of our economies pour into these areas and nothing, virtually nothing, goes into the spiritual. You see he says the ungodly are focused on that, the Christian should be focused on something else.

Now that's not to say you don't make sure these things are taken care of, of course you do, you get responsibilities there. Responsibilities to provide for your family, responsibilities in work, in clothing, in accommodation, in transportation, all these things are necessary but they're not the big thing, they're not the big thing. So are we living like the ungodly or are we living like the godly? So where's the focal point of our lives? But he's not finished, excuse me, he goes on and he'll say this, for your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

Here's the basic difference, we are part of a different family. Now you don't come to gospel halls in North America before you discover this, that there are families stroke tribes stroke dynasties, there are massive family names and everywhere you go from east to west you discover people are connected and families, extended families, not just gospel halls but all over the place, they spread out over time and each of these families, well they all have their own stories, they all have their own background, they all have their own characteristics and so on, mine does back home. Well we are part of a different family than the ungodly, for we have a heavenly father and just as an earthly father is ultimately responsible for the welfare of his family as he is, this world says he's not, this world says that's not his job anymore, the bible says it is his job, it is part of what it is to be a father, to provide and protect, that's it and that's exactly what God our father does for us, he doesn't fall down in the job, would you deliberately see your children without clothes and without food, would you deliberately see your children put in place of danger or would you put them in, no of course you wouldn't, so why do you think God our father would do the same? Because where we are poor fathers in many ways he is the perfect father and of course he cares for us and he knows the things of which we have need, the crucial word being need.

I think our western culture, we've distorted need for want and we've flipped them, travel beyond the western culture and you'll see something of what need is, true need, our heavenly father provides, you have people working day jobs for day wages, you have people if they don't work they don't take home to eat that night, you get people who've got a lot of fires in their little houses, shacks and whatnot and you know it's literally hand to mouth existence, they're not whether so much what their clothes look like, they're more worried about the functionality of their clothes, will they keep them you know looking modest and they keep them warm. In our western culture we've got very little needs, lots of wants, our heavenly father takes care of our needs and so what's our responsibility as I conclude, it's just this, he says verse 33 and verse 34, how do you stop worrying? You don't, see the Lord Jesus doesn't say stop worrying and pull yourself together, that would be easy to say but you would leave here and it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to you, you'd be worrying about the fact that you're still worrying, some people are by nature worriers, that's not going to change after a conference, worry is an activity of the mind and of the heart that is actually outwith your control, if you're going to try and stop it and you are a worrier, you'll simply be repressing it, just accept that is the case and then the Lord Jesus also doesn't say, listen don't worry it might never happen, it usually does, it usually does, no that's not the biblical answer, Job or Job in the Old Testament said, the thing which I greatly feared has come upon me, that's usually what happens, no the Lord Jesus would give us an example in himself but also it would be taught in our New Testament and the idea is this in Philippians, be not anxious over anxious, the idea there that Paul would teach is just this, with prayer and supplication make your requests known unto God and the God of peace and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall garrison your hearts and mind, the idea is just this, God has given us the facility of prayer in order to bring, acknowledge there are worries, acknowledge I do worry but bring all of that to the Lord in prayer and ask him for peace, he alone can give, even the Lord Jesus did that very thing, do you remember in times of extreme, I was going to say anxiety but not so much, the extremity of his anticipation of his suffering he's found in prayer in Gethsemane, you remember in the cross, my God, my God why hast thou forsaken me, he is taking it to God, that's an example for us but you know the truth of it is just this, we need to take our anxieties to the Lord in prayer and what did the Lord Jesus Christ say to his disciples, he said my peace I give unto you, not as the world gives, give I unto you, then what did he say, let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid, what is the antidote to anxiety, not denial, the antidote is the peace that Christ alone can give and you only get that in one place, you get that before the throne of grace, it's the only place it's given out, you don't go there you don't get it, it's like if you need pills you need to go to the pharmacist, you don't go to the pharmacist you don't get the pills, if you need peace it's the throne of grace, if we're not there we're not getting it, one quote said this now sit down, he said anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows but it does empty today of its strength, let us take our cares, our prayers, our anxieties, our troubles to the Lord in prayer, may the Lord bless this world.