May 4

Transcript

(Transcribed by TurboScribe)

Shaila, happy 16th birthday yesterday. Was the Lion King good? I think so. I was thinking when you said we're on our way, I'm thinking, couldn't you just stop at my house and take me with? It would have been wonderful.

Some of your birthdays I know, some I don't. If I don't know your birthday, make sure that the office has your birthday, then I will know that it is your birthday, and I can say happy birthday. So it's not my favourites that I say happy birthday, it's those that I have the dates for that I say happy birthday.

There was a moment, Lord Jesus, when people came looking for you, and they said to the disciples, where is this Jesus? Because we want to see Jesus. And that's what we pray this morning, that we will see Jesus, and only Jesus. Amen.

So we're in the second of our series called Choices. Last week, we spoke about forgiveness. This week, we're getting into the ring of WWE, but not the one that you are thinking of.

This ring has three ropes. It says I will choose worship, there's your first W, over worry, there's your second W. Every day, there's your E. Because we're good warriors, right, with an O. We worry about things that are going to happen, things that are not going to happen, things that didn't happen, things that might happen, and all of the what-ifs, and we just load that on ourselves. I don't know if it's happened to you, but have you ever had one of those moments where you take your phone or your tablet, and you sit down to check something, and then 45 minutes later, after running through all the news feeds and everything, you feel like the whole world is falling down on you? There's a term for that.

Does anyone know what it is? It's called doom scrolling. Because we consume so much negative stuff when we're busy with this, that this negative stuff starts consuming us, and that's where worry starts. And you know just as well as I do that worry doesn't work.

If it does for you, come tell me how, because it's never worked for me. So Jesus says, I have a better idea than worry. So go with me to Matthew chapter six, verse 25.

And Grace, I hope I have the right translation today. Last time I said to her, NIV, and I read from the NLT, and boy, poor Grace, she was looking, what is going on? NIV, Jesus says, therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you'll eat or drink, or about your body, what you'll wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air.

They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life? The New Living Translation says, can any one of you, by worrying, add a single moment to your life? The Greek says, can any one of you add a puchane? Puchane is translated as a cubit. It's measured from your elbow to the tip of your middle finger.

Can any one of you add 18 inches to your life? By worrying. It's quite the thought that Jesus says, right? So why worry, he says? Now, when he says this, he's not saying that I should not plan for tomorrow, that I should not take care of tomorrow, that I should not take care of things like my finances, my family, taking care. He's not saying, don't think of that, don't plan for that, don't work on that.

What Jesus is saying is that sometimes we get so stuck in these things that we worry about that we never take a moment to breathe and to enjoy this amazing life that God gives us. The loved ones around me, the gifts of his grace and his care. Don't let that take over your life, he says.

Go enjoy that moment. Let me give you an example of how this works and how we work and how God works. From the Old Testament, Israelites were just, God just rescued them from Egypt.

So it's about two and a half months, nearly three months in. They're in the desert and then we read in Exodus chapter 16. In the desert, the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.

The Israelites said to them, oh, if only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt. There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted. But you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.

And I'm thinking, are these the same people that saw God do 10 miracles in Egypt? Sometimes we call them plagues. Are these the same people that came to the Red Sea and saw God split that sea and they walked through that sea on dry land? Are these the same people who were crying to God, please help us, we can't do this anymore. And now all of a sudden, Egypt is this five-star all-inclusive holiday resort.

How quickly they forgot. How quickly we forget that it is God who provides. It is God who takes care of our needs.

Every moment, every day. As someone said, God meets our daily needs daily. Not weekly, not monthly, not annually.

God meets our daily needs daily. Problem with them was, problem with us is, they just see the problem. God doesn't see the problem.

God sees an opportunity to provide for us. Verse four of that same chapter. Then the Lord said to Moses, I will rain down bread from heaven for you.

The people are to go out, underline, each day, and gather enough food for, underline, that day. In this way, I will test them to see whether they will follow my instructions. I will provide each day, and let them go take what they need for that day.

Isn't that what Jesus taught us to? What did he teach us? And thank you, Father, that you give us our weekly bread, our monthly bread, our now and then bread, or did Jesus teach us to pray for our daily bread? See, here's the thing. God has tomorrow handled. Will you please hear that? God has tomorrow handled, and instead of worrying, why don't we take that worry, and we change the worry into worshipping the God who has tomorrow in place, who has today in place, who has me in his hand, and who will provide my daily needs daily? Can we turn our worry into worship every day, as he provides for each day? How do we do that? Because you're saying, oh, beautiful, nice, pie in the sky when you die.

How do we do this? Let me try three things that I try in my own life. Try praying more, and you're saying, come on, that's obvious, we pray. No, no, no, no, no.

What I'm saying is this. Usually when we worry, we don't pray because we're so fixated on the worry. I'm saying, instead of fixating on that, why don't you change that, and you pray, and you start talking to God? Because when I pray, I'm not worrying.

When I'm worrying, I'm not praying. That's why Paul gives us wonderful advice, and I did a whole series for you on Philippians 4. Can you remember? Verse six, do not be anxious about anything. Why are you worrying about everything? Do not be anxious about anything, but in, and here comes the everything, but in everything, through prayer, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, when you pray, you bring it to God, you ask God, and you thank God because God will provide every day what I need for that day.

Through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God, and what will happen? And the peace of God that transcends all understanding will guard your hearts where the worry starts, and your mind, which keeps the worry going, in Jesus Christ. Pray more and worry less. Just think what'll happen if when the worries come, and they will, if when that temptation comes to want to worries, when the troubles come, and I want to worries, and they will come, instead of focussing on the problem, I focus on the one who is the solution.

And I take his hand and I say, God will meet my daily needs, daily. And when we do that, maybe we will need less, and we will worship more. A good friend, David, gives us advice about this.

You remember David, right? David was a shepherd boy, and then God called him to become the king of a people called Israel. They called him their shepherd, and then David writes this beautiful word. He says, the Lord is my shepherd.

I lack nothing, because God provides my daily needs, daily. He takes me to green pastures, and there, whatever I need, I can have. And if I just want to lie down, I can lie down, because my God provides each day what I need for that day.

And when I need something quiet, He takes me to a place of peace and quiet, where I can drink and I can be refreshed, because that's how He provides. And sometimes when I go through the difficult parts of my life, like sheep who are afraid going through a dark valley because they don't see, I won't worry, because I know He can see the other side. And in that dark valley, He's walking with me, because here's the thing, the goodness and the love of the Lord follow me.

How many days of my life? All the days of my life. When? Monthly, annually, daily. When I learn to choose worship and prayer over worry, I learn to live differently, freely, lightly, and I learn to live each day.

And when I say that, I'm not being fatalistic, like I have only one life to live, I'm saying it's this day, this life that I can live, where I can wake up in the morning and say, Lord, thank you for this beautiful woman that you have put next to me, that I have loved and have been married to for 43 years of my life. Thank you for that little buddy that I hear coming, running up the stairs to come jump on my bed and say, good morning, Opa. Thank you for the grey skies, but I know the sun is somewhere out there.

For the breath that I can breathe, which I'm not breathing all that well today. Thank you for the breath that I can breathe. Thank you that I may choose worship over worry each day of my life.

But you see, I have a problem. I have this tendency of going to look for things to worry about, and then I start carrying this junk around. I don't know, I don't know what it is for you.

Maybe it's a financial thing, and you're thinking, man, I'm not sure with the way that stuff's going. I don't know where I'm going right now, whether I can make it in my retirement. I'm not sure that the car is gonna break down.

It feels like it, and I'm not sure I'm gonna have enough money to do that. Will I be able to fix the car? What am I gonna do with this stuff? And I start adding it. Maybe you're worried about your health, because the tests have come back and they might not sound that great.

Is God gonna carry me through those tests? Am I gonna feel better? Is this cough gonna go away while I be able to get through the sermon? And I just add them up, and I put them in my old bag, and I start carrying them around, and I find them all over. Maybe you're worried about friendships. Thank you, Bradley, for putting the cloth up there.

Worried about the relationships. What's gonna happen? Is this gonna work out? I really like that girl, and I'm not sure she likes me. I said something to my friends, and I'm not sure we're gonna be able to fix that relationship, and I start carrying all of these weights around in my life, and I put them in my life, and I carry them.

Maybe I'm worried about the future. Will the future, sorry for giving the camera guys a hard time this morning. Will I worry about the future? What's the future gonna hold? Will my little girl come back and be home with me? What do I do? And I put them away, and then there's this one.

I don't know what this one is, but you do. What is there that you are carrying around that makes it heavy in your life? Comes that burden, which is a problem. As we pack up our worries in our old kit bag, and we smile, and we smile, and we smile.

It's not true. It weighs me down because it's heavy, and all day I'm walking with this, and it's bringing me down, and my patience runs thin, and I get really irritable, and I'm tired, and I don't sleep well, and I don't eat well, and life just is not as full of fun and joy as it should be because I'm carrying the weight of all of these worries on my back. Here's the thing.

God never intended that for me. Can you remember Matthew 11? I did a whole series for you on that, too. Are you tired? Are you worn out? Come to me.

Come walk with me, and I will help you to restore your life. Come with me, and I will give you real peace. Walk with me, work with me, learn from me the unforced rhythms of grace.

I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you, but when you come with me, I will teach you how to live lightly and freely. That's what he intended, not this, not all of this heavy stuff on my back. So what do I do? I take this, and I bring it to the foot of the cross, and I lay them down, because there on that cross, when he opened his arms on that cross, he took all of the weight of this world on himself.

And if he carried the weight of the world on this, do you think he can't carry you? Do you think he won't take this stuff from you? And put it on his own shoulders? There's no problem too big that Jesus can't solve it. There's no mountain too high, there's no mountain too high that he cannot move it. There's no storm too dark that he cannot calm it.

He carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. I know that he will carry you, my brother, that he will carry you, my sister. You don't have to carry it.

You can go put it down right there. We need to make a choice. Will I worry, or will I choose worship over worry each day? Matthew 6, the last two verses end like this.

Jesus says, so why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow? They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all of his splendour was dressed like one of these. Why would I carry that? If I know that God meets my daily needs, daily.

So what are you gonna choose, worship or worry? Amen. Take a few moments of silent prayer. Thank you that you invite us to come to you, all who are weary and burdened.

Promising that you will give us rest. We hold on to that promise, Lord Jesus. In your name we pray, amen.