From His Heart

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If you worry a lot, what does that actually accomplish? Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

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Corrie Ten Boom said, "This worry doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrows. It empties today of its strength. Each day has enough trouble of its own. So don't be anxious, don't be worried about tomorrow."

Listen, you can tell very easily if you're trusting Jesus, if you have him enthroned as king, or if you have gotten off course. Is there peace in your heart right now?

He can heal every scar with real truth, real love, real hope from his heart.

Speaker 1

This is from his heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. Thank you for joining us today for the final part of the final lesson in Pastor Jeff's series, the Land of the Giants, and today's message, the Giant of Worry. God doesn't want you and me to worry. He doesn't want that. How do we know that? Because in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us over and over, don't worry.

So today, Pastor Jeff will remind us of that truth and he'll present a threefold action plan for finding victory over the giant of worry. If you're just joining us this month for the first time, today's lesson is one of seven in the series Land of the Giants. I'll tell you more later.

Now, though, open your Bible to Matthew, chapter six. Here again is Pastor Jeff to complete this three-point strategy for defeating the giant of worry.

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Matthew, chapter 6, beginning in verse 25. For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life. Do not be worried about your life as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, nor for your body as to what you shall put on. Is not life more than food and the body than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. And yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single cubit to his lifespan? And why are you anxious about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin. Yet I say to you that even Solomon, in all his glory, did not clothe himself like one of these. But if God so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will he not much more do so for you, O men of little faith? Do not be anxious then, saying, "What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or with what shall we clothe ourselves?" For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek. Your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Jesus was speaking on the Sermon on the Mount. He was speaking to people who were worried about the basic necessities of life: what we shall eat, what we shall drink, and with what shall we clothe ourselves. And I want you to see, as we talk about winning the battle with this giant, a threefold action plan. You can have victory over the issue of worry and over the giant of worry. So let's look at these three steps.

The first step: How do you have victory? You trust God to take care of you. Trust God to take care of you. Jesus told them, "Look at the birds," verse 26. "Look at the birds of the air that they do not sow, they don't dig up and plant things, they do not sow, neither do they reap nor gather into barns. And yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" Birds don't have a pantry, they don't have a fridge, they don't have a storage unit outside in the garage. They just trust God to provide for them. And as they go seek food, the Lord provides them food. And the Lord says, "Hey, do you see the birds? It's the lesser to the greater argument. Do you see the birds? If I provide for the birds, don't you think I'd provide for you, O men of little faith?" Well, God does provide for us, and so we can trust him to take care of us.

So here's what I want you to see about worry. Because we tend to do worry so well, it just comes naturally to us. The best thing that we can say about worry is that worry is useless. Worry is useless. Jesus said in verse 27, "And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single cubit to his lifespan?" I mean, what does worry do? Worry doesn't do anything. Worry never dried a tear. Worry never solved a problem. Worry never does anything constructive. Hey, you can't worry your way to a longer life because worry is useless. But not only is it useless, worry is harmful. Worry will do to your body what sand does to machinery. Worry will gum up the works. Worry can cause ulcers, it can cause colitis, it can cause high blood pressure, it can cause eczema, it can cause insomnia, it can cause respiratory problems, all sorts of harmful things because of this thing called worry. So worry is useless, worry is harmful, and worry is sinful. See, worry is the opposite of faith. And Romans 14:23 says, "And whatever is not from faith is sin."

Hey, how do you win in the battle with worry? The first step: you trust God to take care of you. Step number two: give God ownership of all you possess. Now look at the definition of worry again. It's the tension and distress experienced over the anticipated loss, whether real or imagined, of some valued possession. Worry has to do with possessions. Worry has to do with your possessions. It has to do with your things. It has to do with your family, your car, your marriage, your job, your 401k, your future. It's a personal possession. We don't worry about other people's stuff. We worry about our stuff. We don't worry about other people's kids. We worry about our kids and our grandkids. It's a personal thing, and it has to do with possession.

Now this is what you need to remember: God owns everything. And God allows you and me to manage his possessions. When the company gave me a company car, with that company car came the onus of taking care of it. Now, I didn't pay for anything associated with it, but I had to take care of the car. I had to make sure that I changed the oil on time, that I made sure that things were running right, and that if it started to have mechanical problems, I took it in early. And so it was on me to manage the possessions of the company and manage the car of the company. But it wasn't my car; it was their car. And when I left the company, they took the car back because it didn't belong to me. It belonged to them.

Now, the Lord says this in Matthew, chapter 25, when he tells the parable of the stewards who were supposed to take care of his stuff. He said this: "For it is just like a man about to go on a journey who called his own slave and entrusted his possessions to them." He didn't give them his possessions and say, "Now those are yours." No, he said, "These are my possessions. I'm entrusting these to you." And as it says in Luke's Gospel, Luke, chapter 19, "Do business with this until I come." In the passage in Matthew, chapter 25, when the king came back, he gave each one of them a talent: five talents for one guy, two talents for another guy, one talent for the third guy. Well, he came back and he settled accounts. "What did you do with what I gave you? I want to have my return on my investment. I allowed you to manage this. Show me what you did with it." Well, they didn't get to keep any of it. It all belonged to the king. All they did was manage it.

And see, you and I are managers of God's stuff. And remember this about worry: worry is always future. It's the anticipated loss of some possession of value, and it's future. Nobody's worried about what happened last year. No, we're worried about what is coming up because worry is anticipated in the future. And so what do we do when we worry about things? We're going to lose something, so we just want to hold on to it. "I'm going to lose my house. I'm going to lose this. I'm going to lose that. I'm going to lose my loved one." And so we try and hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm going to worry, worry, worry. Worry is wasteful. Worry is harmful. Worry doesn't solve a problem. Worry is useless. But we do that. We worry because we're trying to hold on to it so we don't lose this valued possession.

When I was 20 years old, I was in my apartment in Austin studying for a final exam at the University of Texas. I was at the kitchen table studying. I was getting tired and I needed to reinvigorate myself to be able to study. So I scratched my head real hard to get the brain cells going again. And when I scratched my head real hard, about 12 hairs came out. I thought, "What in the world? It's got to be a fluke." So I did it again. Ten, twelve more came out. I quit scratching. I said, "Could it be? It can't be. This can't be right. I think I'm losing my hair, man." When I was younger, I had hair. I had lots of hair. And now it was starting to give up. It was starting to let loose. And, you know, it's like the old expression: men turn gray but don't turn loose, you know, and mine was turning loose.

As it just kept getting worse and worse, I was glad I had hair in my wedding pictures, you know, at 23, but it just kept falling out. And, you know, for those of you who are losing your hair, you really agonize over that. You spend time in the mirror and you really are looking and you're starting to comb it and your part starts to change, you know, and you're trying to cover up some things. And then you look in the back and you're like, "Good night. Where's this gonna stop? And when's it gonna end?" And you'd hold on, and I'd see people, friends that I hadn't seen in a while, and they just stare at the top of my head. One of my roommates from college, I saw him some years after I got out of college, and he's staring up here. It's like, "Down here, down here," you know? But he's staring at my hairline because it was just going away. And, man, it's traumatic to lose your hair.

Until I got to the place where, you know, I just had about four or five brave soldiers there, you know. And I was like, "Guys, we lost the battle." And I just shaved it all off. And let me tell you something: it's one of the most freeing things to shave your head. Because as a guy losing his hair, once you just say, "I give up," and you shave it all off and you lose it all, then you don't worry anymore about losing it. Why? Because it's gone. There's nothing there anymore. I never think about my hair anymore. As I told one group years ago, "I always look the same. You come to my house at 2 o'clock in the morning, this is what you see." Debbie, sometimes when we first got married, she'd wake up in the morning and she looked like Belle d' Arcone head. I mean, she's got a lot of hair and just goes everywhere, you know? I didn't have that. It's like, "What you see is what you get," you know?

What's the point? The point is this: you want to win in the battle of worry. You want to beat the giant of worry. Quit holding on to things that don't belong to you anyway. Give them over to God. Say, "God, that belongs to you." And when you lose it to God, there is peace that comes because you're not worried about that stuff anymore. John Wesley, the father of the Methodist Church, was told one day, "Mr. Wesley, your house just burned down." And he said, "That can't be right. I don't have a house." He said, "The one I live in belongs to God." Now, if his house burned down, that's just one less thing I have to manage. That's the attitude that you need to have. It all belongs to God. So I give it to God.

Hey, what's the first step in winning the war? Trust God to take care of you. What's the second step? Give God ownership of all you possess. And the third step? Seek God first in your life. Verse 33 says this: "But seek first his kingdom, his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." Seek him first. So start your day with God. You want to have victory over the giant of worry? Start your day with God. Seek him first.

I was reading something by Kathy Lee Gifford. She wrote a new book, "The Rock, the Road and the Rabbi." In the introduction, she talks about how the Lord's been working in her life. One of the things that she said was in her quiet time, the Lord said to her, "Kathy, you need to seek first my kingdom." She said, "That's right, Lord. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." He said, "No, you need to seek me first." And she said, "Well, I'm endeavoring to do that, Lord." He said, "No, you need to seek me first." And she said, "Do you mean first thing in the morning?" He said, "Yes." And she said, "Well, Lord, I work on Good Morning America, and the car comes for me at 6 a.m. to take me an hour's drive to the studio. And she said, 'If I seek you first, I'm gonna have to get up really early.'" And God says, "Seek me first."

And Kathie Lee said she started getting up before 4 a.m. to spend time with God in prayer and time with God in His Word. She said those times changed my life. They gave me such a desire for God and such an appreciation for His Word, and they just filled my heart with joy when she sought God first. I love this poem by Ralph Spalding Cushman. It says this:

"I met God in the morning when my day was at its best.

And his presence came like sunrise, like a glory in my breast.

All day long the presence lingered. All day long he stayed with me.

And we sailed in perfect calmness o'er a very troubled sea.

Other ships were blown and battered, other ships were sore distressed.

But the winds that seemed to drive them brought to us a peace and rest.

Then I thought of other mornings with a keen remorse of mind

when I too had loosed the moorings with the presence left behind.

So I think I know the secret learned from many a troubled way.

You must seek him in the morning if you want him through the day."

Seek God first. Start your day with God. What does he say? "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all these things, what you shall eat, what you shall drink, what you shall clothe yourself with, all your needs, all these things that you need will be added to you." He will take care of that if you put him first and then take life one day at a time.

Verse 34: "Therefore, do not be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Don't think about tomorrow. Because worry is always in the future. You're always thinking in the future. And it's take one day at a time. Don't think about tomorrow. Now, you can plan for tomorrow, but don't worry about tomorrow. There's a big difference between planning for tomorrow and worrying about tomorrow. Live in today. Because each day has enough trouble of its own. And listen, God is a daily provider. "Give us this day our daily bread." God's a daily provider.

And the daily bread that he gave the pictures in the Old Testament when he rained manna down from heaven. And when did the manna come? Every day in the morning it came, and they would gather it up. And if they waited, it wasn't there. The sun would burn it off and it was gone. Now, on Friday, God would give a double dose because they weren't supposed to gather on Saturday. But every other day, it's, "You gather it in the morning and don't store it." And some of them tried to store it, and it grew foul and bred worms. Because the Lord says, "You're not storing it up. It's your sustenance, your daily bread. You eat it today; I give you more daily bread tomorrow."

So what does that say to us? God provides his grace for today's needs. He doesn't provide his grace today for tomorrow's needs. And so if I worry about tomorrow, the Lord says, "I don't have any grace for you tomorrow. I just have grace for you for today." And so live in today, live in the moment, and don't worry about tomorrow. Corrie Ten Boom said this: "Worry doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrows; it empties today of its strength." Each day has enough trouble of its own. So don't be anxious, don't be worried about tomorrow.

And then lastly, let Jesus be your one and only master. You know the backdrop of all the verses that we read from Matthew 6:25 to the end, verse 34. The backdrop is verse 24 where it says this: "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and riches, God and mammon, God and wealth. You can't do that. You can't serve God and anything else. Because God is to be God alone in your life. And so choose to let Jesus be your one and only master.

You know, the Bible says of him that he's the Prince of Peace. And when the Prince of Peace is enthroned in your heart, there's peace. Mary and Martha had Jesus over for dinner in Luke chapter 10. And Mary and Martha are in the kitchen making meatloaf for the master. They're all excited because Jesus had come over for dinner. And then all of a sudden, as Martha's preparing, Mary slips out. She goes in where the men are, and she sits at Jesus' feet and she's listening to his word. And Martha's in the kitchen all alone, and she gets upset because Mary's not there to help her. And she goes out to Jesus and she says, "Jesus, do you not see what's happening? My sister has left me all alone to do the cooking and to do the work. You tell her to help me." Jesus said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things, but only a few things are necessary, really only one. For Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her."

The good part is to put yourself at Jesus' feet and listen to his words. When the Lord is there in the house, who cares about dinner? Who cares about meatloaf for the master? It's all about the master. And you put him first and enthrone him as your king. Listen, you can tell very easily if you're trusting Jesus, if you have him enthroned as king, or if you have gotten off course. Is there peace in your heart right now? There can be.

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You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. And the question, would you like to have victory over your sin and peace in your heart? The complete peace that Jesus has purchased for you by his death? How do you find that peace? It all begins with receiving Christ as your Savior and as your Lord.

And if you're not certain that you have that relationship with him, today is the day for you. Just pray this simple prayer from your heart. Pray it with me. Say, "Lord Jesus, I know that I'm a sinner and I'm lost and I can't save myself. But, Jesus, I believe that you are God in the flesh. I believe you died on the cross for my sins, and you rose again from the dead. And, Lord, right now I repent of my sins, and I ask you to come into my life, and I surrender it all to you. Thank you, Lord, for saving me. In your name I pray. Amen."

Listen, if you'll pray a prayer like that and mean it and surrender your life, Jesus will come in and you'll never be the same. Now we'd like to invite you to go to our website at fromhisheart.org. Click the "Why Jesus" link. There will be some information there to help you get started in your Christian walk and let us know about your decision for Christ. What a joy that will be.

Well, today's broadcast, "The Giant of Worry," can be heard again or downloaded online at fromhisheart.org. For your gift of any amount, we'll also send you the entire seven-message series "Land of the Giants" on CDs, DVDs, MP3 download, or USB flash drive. It's our thanks for your gift today of any amount to From His Heart. Call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or go to fromhisheart.org.

Your gift is important today as we've partnered with Pray.com to launch a new initiative to have all of our radio and television broadcasts translated into Spanish and Portuguese, with the potential of reaching three-quarters of a billion people. A giant of a job. But when you want the message to land in other countries, this is the way to help that happen. So please consider a gift today when you call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-BIBLE) or go online to fromhisheart.org to find out more.

That's all the time we have. I'm Larry Nobles hoping you'll be here tomorrow as we continue our theme on big problem solving with a series called "Facing the Giants." That's Friday here on From His Heart.

Speaker 2

There is treasures true There is love There is hope that you always dream Love he can heal every scars of truth Real love, real hope From His Heart.

Speaker 1

From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and hurting world.

Remember, no matter what, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

Find out more when you go to promisheart.org.