The Christian and Worry (by Pastor Ben Hottel)

Dear friends, do you worry? Without question, in some form or another, each of us worries. The extent to which we struggle with it differs from person to person. But truth be told, our natural tendency is to worry—worry about how the bills will be paid, about whether we will have enough food for the week, about whether we can afford a new pair of khakis for work, and on and on it goes.

I will share briefly some worries of mine recently. I serve as Associate Pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church in Evansville, Indiana. The Lord has let us stay here now for 4 ½ years. We are in our 14th month of a pastor search process. I do not tend to worry about much, but this process has brought out the best, and the worst, of me. My worries cover the gamut of how well the committee is handling itself, to my future position in the church, to how our church is going to continue providing for 2 full-time ministers.

Recently, God finally had His way with me on this issue. I had been counseled well by friends and fellow ministers on how to guard my heart during this time. I read a sermon by a well-respected pastor in Minnesota, which proved to be the back-breaker. Since then, God has provided a great deal of peace, which He has promised to do in His word when we submit to Him our requests. But that is the subject of the next post. Let’s have a look at what our Savior Himself said regarding the Christian and worry.

In Matthew 6:25-34, we have recorded by Matthew the apostle these words of our Lord (and as translated in the ESV): "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,
yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Let’s make a few observations, shall we. First, the first and third major imperatives we find are "do not be anxious." In this passage, we are not to be anxious about 3 areas: "your life" (v. 25), "your body" (v. 25), "tomorrow" (v. 34). Concerning your life, you are not to be anxious what you will eat or drink. Concerning your body, you are not to be anxious about what you will wear. Concerning tomorrow, you are not to be anxious about your future.

Next, why are we not to be anxious about these things? Jesus argues from the lesser to the greater in the first two instances. He says that God feeds the birds of the air, and we are of much higher value than they, so we should not be concerned about the basic necessity of food. Next, He says that God clothes the lilies and the grass, and they wither and die in a short time, so we should not be concerned about whether we will have appropriate clothes to wear. In the final case, Jesus tells us that today has enough trouble of its own. I think that what is implied here is that God knows that today has more in it than we can handle on our own anyhow, we have no need to worry about tomorrow, especially since none of us is promised tomorrow. Let’s get through today, trusting Him for the needs of today.

So we have seen the "what" and the "why," now what about the "how"? How are we to not worry? The second major imperative that Jesus gives us is "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness" (v. 33). First, Jesus points our direction upward to God. We must focus on the Supreme Object. I believe that Jesus was speaking to His followers in this passage. It is part of a larger portion of Matthew called the Sermon on the Mount, which when viewed from the outset (5:1), we are told that "His disciple came to Him." The link is that this message applies to His followers still. We are to fix our spiritual eyes upward to God, because we have been given a new life (2 Cor. 5:17). All things have been made new. This seems to be what Jesus is getting at when He says, "For the Gentiles seek after all these things" (v. 32). Seek after what? Food, clothing, events about tomorrow. Those of the world fix their gaze on the bigger, better deal. Non-believers trust in their money to get what they want. They worry about all sorts of things that are of earthly value. They are caught up in materialism. But not the believer. Our aim is higher. A.W. Pink states, "Let [man’s] affections be set upon things above and they will be detached from things below." That is the call of the believer. Look to God.

Second, the focus is to be on God’s kingdom (v. 33). Article 9 of our Baptist Faith & Message sums up accurately what I believe Jesus is conveying concerning this point. God’s kingdom has both external and internal aspects to it. God rules over all of His creation as its rightful King. He has set up that rule spiritually in the hearts of those who have trusted Christ.

Third, the focus is to be on God’s righteousness. God reckons His righteousness to those who have trust in Christ as their Savior, based on the obedience of Christ. He works in the believer’s life through His Spirit to grow in holiness, or His righteousness.

However, this seeking cannot be done on our own initially, for "there is none who seeks for God" (Rom. 3:11b). How can this be? Only God in His grace can set a person to search the Scriptures, to believe the gospel, to repent of sins, to believe on Christ alone for salvation, to be converted in his soul, and to await the full fruition of his faith. This is all God’s work.
What then should be our response to these things? Jesus seems to be saying that our basic necessity is salvation. Should we become a child of God, all other necessities will be met (v. 33b). Some will have more than others, no doubt, but our basic needs will be met. The one thing needful is to turn from our sins, to which we are enslaved as is the rest of the world, and be converted.

Second, our duty is to simply trust God. Paul taught Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:6-10 about contentment. Should we have our basic needs met, we should be content with what we have. Also, our Savior told us in Matthew 6:11 in the Model Prayer that we are to pray "Give us this day our daily bread."

Trusting God is a day-by-day trust. I am going to trust Him today to meet my needs, worrying neither for tomorrow nor any other day in the future. My job is to do God’s will today, with what He has provided for me today. The Christian is not to worry. In humble obedience, we trust Him to lead is in His will. We follow our Guide and Shepherd into green pastures and beside still waters.

Let us look at two other passages that deal with worry in the believer’s life. We will look at each passage in turn. Then, each of the three passages viewed in this short series will be compared.
First, the words of the apostle Paul to the church in Philippi found in 4:6-7 (again from ESV):
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

We find at the beginning of this well-known passage the word "anxious." I want to deal with this word when all three passages are compared. But suffice it to say that this passage deals directly with the topic at hand—worry. Keep in mind that Paul was writing these words while he was in prison. These words follow on the heels of his command to "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!" You may find this odd, as I do, that a man imprisoned has these words to say. Keep in mind as well the prison in which he found himself was not an air-conditioned or heated cell with a nice mattress and all the amenities a prisoner may avail himself of in our American penal system. Most likely, he was writing from a cave used as a prison, or a pit dug out in which the prisoner was lowered. He probably was not directly writing these words but speaking them to a scribe who wrote exactly what he said. Now, read the passage again with these things in mind. Is this not phenomenal! Consider your own situation for a moment. I doubt that it was anything like Paul’s. Mine surely is not. Yet, we still worry, so let us look at the antidote for a moment.

First, we are to pray. Second, we are to offer "supplication." Third, we are to "let [our] requests be made known to God". I am indebted to a host of resources that help me understand the original languages. One of my favorites is Kenneth Wuest’s Word Studies series. Here is how he explains these three forms of prayer: "The word ‘prayer’ is the translation of a Greek word which speaks of prayer addressed to God as an act of worship and devotion. ‘Supplication’ is from a word that speaks of supplicating for one’s personal needs. ‘Requests’ is the translation of a word which emphasizes the objects asked for, namely, the things requested."

So, when it comes to worry, we are to not worry about anything, for we are to focus our direction God-ward, ask God for help with our needs, and let Him know specifically what we need. This sounds strangely familiar.

Now, how are we to offer these prayers? Paul says "with thanksgiving." We are to thank Him for His grace and mercy toward us, for meeting our needs, and for answering our prayers. All of this is designed by God to get our focus off ourselves and whatever is worrying us and back on Him where it belongs.

He promises, then, that when we pray in this fashion, he will provide a guard for us—His peace! His peace will stand as a sentinel over our thoughts, emotions, and minds, blocking the way when worry tries to creep in. More specifically, He will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus—the Author and Finisher of faith and the One on whom our gaze must be focused in our Christian life (see Hebrews 12:1-2)
Let’s look at 1 Peter 5:5-10 now: Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

Peter was writing to a group of Jewish Christians being heavily persecuted for their belief in Christ. They had been dispersed all over the Roman empire (see 1:1). Naturally, they would be filled with worry over some things.

The first point Peter makes in this passage is that the believer is to be clothed in humility. Humility is a most difficult trait to get and to keep. Yet it is a hallmark of a mature Christian. In the instance in which Peter wrote this letter, the original audience may have been questioning why their Christian walk was met with such great suffering and difficulty. Yet they were to accept trials as God’s way of making them more like Christ in His humility. The believer’s time to be exalted is rarely here and now.

Listed in the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 is "longsuffering." Every version that translates this word "patience" does a great disservice to our understanding of this word. One of the marks of the Spirit-led believer is that he or she suffer long. It is a word that helps us understand as believers that no matter what difficulty may come our way due to our faith in the Lord Jesus, we are to persevere through it. When you have been persecuted for your faith time and again, and suffered long, God produces in you the great quality of humility. This is quality so desperately needed in the lives of American believers. We really have no idea what our fellow believers throughout the world endure because they have believed on the Lord Jesus. This is to our shame. Our belief in the Lord Jesus is met with smiling faces, a hand shake, a dip in a heated pool of water, and entrance into a wonderful social club of people just like us. This is a bit of an overgeneralization, but I speak of the American church culture at large. And at any rate, I digress.

Besides this humbling of ourselves to God’s redemptive purposes in lives, we are to "cast all [our] anxieties on Him." Here is our word again—worry, anxiety. God cares for His own so much, that He wants us to throw our worries on Him! His care is us. Our delight is trust in Him. Further, we are to have self-control over our minds and to be ever-watchful. Why? Because we have an Adversary whose name is Satan, a.k.a., the devil, Lucifer, the serpent of old, the dragon. Here he is described as a "roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour."

What is your view of Satan? I pray and trust that your view is formed by Scripture rather than by our culture. In our culture, he is viewed as fairly innocuous, sitting opposite the angel that whispers in your one ear telling you to do what is right, while he tries to convince you of doing the wrong thing. He’s depicted with a pitchfork, pointed tail, and little horns. I wonder if Satan delights in this cartoonish caricature of himself. It certainly presents him as little more than the bad-boy/girl side of your conscience. The Bible presents him as far more powerful and sinister. He is the accuser of the brethren; a liar; a thief; the one who seeks to steal, kill, and destroy; here, a roaring lion, seeking to devour. He is also described as one who can masquerade as an angel of light. Make no mistake about it, Satan is powerful, and he is seeking to destroy YOU as a believer. He wants to destroy your witness, damage your credibility, and subject you to pain and misery. We are powerless on our own to stand against him. But we can, if we will take on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18) and, in our passage here, "resist him, firm in your faith." Remember that "your faith" was a gift from God. You were powerless to respond to God until the Holy Spirit regenerated you and gave you eyes to see and ears to hear. Southern Baptists define this truth from the whole of God’s Word by stating, "Regeneration, or the new birth, is a work of God’s grace whereby believers become new creatures in Christ Jesus. It is a change of heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through conviction of sin, to which the sinner responds in repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ" (Article IV, Salvation). So, even here, our resistance is in the strength God supplies.

Encouraging words follow this call to action. Fellow believers all over the world are suffering the same fate as us. Be encouraged; you are not alone. And after we have all suffered a little while, God Himself will mend us (restore), confirm our foundation in faith, provide strength for further battles, and establish or settle us in hope.

How does all this fit together? Let’s deal with our key word, anxiety. In Matthew 6 and Philippians 4, we find the verb form of the word, which we would write, "Do not worry." In 1 Peter 5, we find the noun form of the word. These two words are from the same Greek root which refers to a "divided mind." We are not to have a divided mind. The New Testament speaks in several places that the person with a divided mind is an unstable person.
The verses of our study in Matthew 6 followed a teaching Jesus gave on one’s loyalties. Are they on God or money? Our mind is not to be divided on this. Trust in God for salvation, and He will supply your needs. As we live the Christian life, and worries start to hit, we are not to worry, but to pray, supplicate, and present our requests to God. He will set up the guard of peace so that we can remain singularly focused on the concerns of the kingdom. When trials and tribulation come our way (and they will), keep your mind engaged, be ever-watchful. We have an enemy seeking to devour distracted sheep. We are to remain humble under God’s providential hand by casting all our worries on Him. It is His concern to take care of us. We are His children.
By the way, when we worry, we are placing too high a value on ourselves. We are setting ourselves on a pedestal. We are saying my problems and concerns are bigger than God can handle. This is just the opposite of the humility we need to have. This pride must be put to death. The "old guys" called this process "mortification". Humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand. He cares for you.

Isn’t Scripture wonderful? We as Baptists have a long history of holding to the inerrancy and infallibility of God’s Word. One of the reasons we do so is because of the unity of Scripture. This is Article I of our Baptist Faith & Message. Each of these passages under study in this series points us in one direction: "to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation."

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

In Christ’s service,
Ben Hottel
[Ben Hottel (M.Div., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Associate Pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church, Evansville, IN. Check out Ben’s blog at benhottel.blogspot.com]