Worry

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Overcoming Worry

March 2, 2008

Bob Bradley

_________________________

Philippians 4:6-9

6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

9 Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

Paul is writing to the church at Philippi. In chapter four, I want us to think about something tonight. The first question I want to ask you, and I want you to raise your hand.

How many people here ever worry about anything?

I believe that I saw every hand in the building go up.

Worry, we all do that. I was reading about a study a fellow had done on worry. In his study he determined that eight percent of the things that we worry about are actually things that have some value to them. What I mean by that is that actually eight percent of the things that we worry about are things that we should be concerned about—not worry about, but we should be concerned about. The other ninety-two percent of the things that we worry about are things that don’t matter, things that we cannot change and things that have no value to them at all. But ninety-two percent of the things we worry about are things that we can’t change, have no meaning, has no value, but yet we worry about then.

Tonight, before we get started, we should talk a little about what worry really is. What do you think worry is? How would you define worry? If you looked in the dictionary, in your dictionary and could come up with a definition for the word worry, what would it be?

Stressful

Not content

Dread

Consuming

When you look at the word worry, look down in verse six, it uses the word “careful.” The word “careful” when you look at it in the Greek, means “to be anxious.” When you look at these words, it means “to be pulled in two different directions.” When we are worrying about things then we are being pulled into two different directions. The root of our English word for “worry,” comes from a word that actually means “to strangle.” …To strangle the life out of something. That is what worry does to you and I. Not only is worry pulling us in two different directions, we have our hope in Christ that pulls us one way and then we have all these other concerns and all these other things that are pulling us in a another direction and we are being pulled apart. That is what worry does to us when we are worrying, when we are anxious, then it is pulling us apart.

As I used the word strangle or that’s actually what the word means, it means strangling life; the greatest thief that we have today—of joy--is worry. The greatest thing that steals joy from our life is worrying. It strangles the life out of us. It is just like we put our hands around someone’s neck and we choke them until they don’t have any more life in them, that is what worrying does in our spiritual life.

Jesus made the statement, “…how many of us by taking thought can add one cubit to our stature?” We can’t change one hair on our head from white to black by worrying. What have you ever accomplished by worrying? Worrying—not only does it cause us some major spiritual problems but it also causes us some physical problems as well. Not only does it strangle our spiritual life, but physically it causes us a lot of problems. Many people today—the physical problems that they have today—are because they worry about things. They are being pulled apart. They are being pulled this direction and they are being pulled this direction [opposite] and it is strangling the very life out of them.

If you talk to doctors and read medical books, do you know what you will find out? That one of the greatest problems in America today—as far as disease goes—is stress and people worrying. One of the greatest things that causes headaches is people that worry. Our leg pain, back pain, neck pain, losing coordination and so many other things; our digestive system does not work right when we worry. Worrying not only has a drastic effect on us spiritually, but it also has a drastic effect upon us physically.

Victory over worry

Paul here is going to give us a plan, give us an avenue, and give us a map here that we can look that if we want to have victory over worry, we can.

I know we can say today that I am not going to worry anymore. I am not going to worry; I am not going to do that anymore. I am just going to quit worrying. You are wasting your time because it has to go deeper than that. Worry is an inside job. It is in our hearts. Worry comes from within. Worrying comes from us lacking and having a secure mind. In other words when our minds are not what they should be and when our minds are not what God wants them to be, then we are going to worry and the only antidote for us not to worry is having our minds right with God. It has to be that way.

For me to have a secure mind, and for me to have the peace that God wants me to have, then there are some things that we have to do.

If anybody had a right to worry, it was the apostle Paul. As he was writing this letter to this at Philippi, the church here had some problems. There were some women here that could not get along. Read the first five verses here and you will find that out. They had some women here that could not get along. It was causing division in the church. That was a concern for the apostle Paul. That was a concern for him. Not only that but when you look at all the other responsibilities that he had with all the other churches was a great concern. The thing concerned him the most was that he couldn’t be at Philippi; He could not be at any of these churches, because he was chained to some soldiers. If anybody had a right to worry, it was him. He wasn’t worried because he knew that there was a way that he could live that he could have victory over worry.

You can change your mind if you want to. You can change your words if you want to, but have a secure mind and have victory over worry; has to be a lifestyle change. That’s true. It has to be more than I am just going to purpose intellectually that I am going to change. It has to be a lifestyle change. If you want to quit worrying you can but you are going to have to change the way that you are living to get there. Not only that—we will talk about three things here just in a moment—we are going to talk about three things here that if we want to overcome worry that we are going to have to do. Is it automatic? Absolutely not. Is it something that I am going to be required to do? Absolutely! Is there going to be some thing that I am going to have to change? More than likely!

The question is this. Do you want to have victory over worry? Do you want to have security in your mind? Do you want to quit being pulled apart? Do you want your Christian life to not have the life being squeezed out of you? Do you really want that?

If you do, then there are three things that we are going to have to do. The first thing is that we are going to have to learn how to pray. Not only that but we are going to have to learn how to think. Also, we are going to have to learn how to live.

Paul said these three things in what I just read to you tonight. Here in verses 6 and 7, he makes the statement:

6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.

7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Do you know what Paul is talking here about? He is talking about praying.

If I am going to have victory over worry, if I really want victory over worry, if I want my spiritual life not be stolen away by worry then I am going to have to understand that I am going to have to pray right. There is a way—we talked about this morning doing things right and when we do things right that God will bless us and God will take care of us and we can all rejoice and have a great time. Not only was that true with David and moving the Ark, and not only is that true in our church services here, but it is true in our own personal lives. Friend, I am going to have to learn how to pray, if I am going to have the blessing of God upon my life and if I am going to have victory over worry. I am going to have to pray right. Many times we only pray when catastrophes come. Sometimes the only time we pray is when we come to church. Some of us don’t even pray at all. We wonder why we worry and we wonder why our lives are being pulled apart. We wonder why we don’t have any spiritual strength at all. It is because that we are not spending any time with God in prayer and praying in the right way. That is important friends.

Paul says here if we are going to have victory over worry then have to learn how to pray right. He uses the word here; he makes the statement here, “…let your requests be made known unto God.”

Today, we need to pray. When we look at the word pray and prayer, we think about that and sometimes we think that we have to use big flowery words. Sometimes we thing we have to be heard because of our much speaking. Sometimes we think that we have to go through this big elaborate thing here when we go to the Lord in prayer. However, I heard something a long time ago; God wants me to talk to Him like I talk to anybody else. What I mean by that is this. God expects me, when I come unto Him, he uses the word prayer here—it is a general term—it brings out the idea of us bringing our request, our desires, unto the throne of Almighty God. Do you know what we need to understand? There is a great big all-caring God sitting out there on the throne tonight waiting to hear from you and me. He wants us to pray. He is waiting for us to pray. He is listening for us to p ray. Why don’t we pray? Just in general, making our requests known to God [saying], “Lord, I need help here.” Those things that concern me, concerns God. Sometimes we think that it has to be big things. Sometimes we think that it has to be enormous things. I prayed about a lot of different things before and if I would tell you some of them then some of you would think that the boy has lost his mind. I have not lost my mind because those little things that some people thought were insignificant and crazy, God answered those things. They might have been insignificant to other people, but it wasn’t insignificant to me.

Paul says this here. “Be careful for nothing…” We know that it talks about worrying. Don’t be anxious for nothing. He says here, “…in every thing by prayer…” We need to pray. In general we need to take our requests to God.

Get this! Many times when we go to God in prayer, we go in haste. Sometimes we go there out of anger because of what someone else may have done to us. Sometimes we go there for many reasons, but when you look at the word here for praying and what he is trying to tell us to do—when we come to God, we need to come to God in adoration. What I mean by that is when we come to Him prayer we need to come to Him and worshiping Almighty God. Not only that, friend, but we need to be devoted. We need to have devotion towards Him. We need to praise His wonderful name. When we get down on our faces before Him, sure, we need to take our petitions and bring our petitions, but this should be done in a way that we can praise Him. Do you know what we want to do a lot of times? We ask for a lot of things that does not praise God. We ask for God to do a lot of things many times that God will never do because it has nothing to do with worshiping Him. When we go to the Lord in prayer, let’s go there in the right way; worshiping and reverencing and praising Him. Then I’ll guarantee you that God will listen. Do you do that? You should!

This is the first step in being able to overcome worry is praying right.

It uses the word “supplication” when you go down through this verse. “Supplication” means earnestly sharing our concerns cares and desires with Almighty God.

Do you know what we do many times? We just run through the motions. God bless me and my family and my children, job, home and I love you and –Amen. That is the extent of some people’s prayer life. You are wasting your time. You are wasting your breath. If you are a Christian and that’s all you ever pray is for me and my family then you are wasting your breath. Sure we need to pray for our family. I need to pray for mine, if I can’t keep my family straight and in line and have the blessing of God upon them then there is no way that I can help you.

If we are going to have victory over worry then we are going to have to bring our honest, sincere, earnest petitions unto God—things specific. We pray in general many times. We pray about our homes, jobs, and kids and about all these things, but there are things that come up in everyday life that I need help in. There are things that I face—I get phone calls everyday that I need God’s help in. You may have a need that I cannot supply. We need to earnestly take those things unto God. God expects us to do that. Are we doing those things? Do we have any spiritual intensity about us at all in our prayer life? Is it something we do last; after we have done everything else that we want to do? …after we wore ourselves out running, walking, riding, shopping, fishing, eating and doing all that we want to do all day long and we spend 23 hours 59 minutes and a half of this day doing what we wanted to do then we want to give to God the last thirty seconds right before we shut our eyes. Our prayer life has to be more than that.

Sure, praying before we go to bed is a great thing. Is it something that we are putting any spiritually intensity into? No. God is not going to hear us because of much words that we speak. God knows what is in our hearts and God knows why I am doing what I am doing. Is it just to satisfy myself or is it to ask Him and praise Him.

Not only that but he uses the word “thanksgiving.” When we generally take our petitions, the things that we pray for everyday, when we take the specific things and supplications unto Him, we need to do so with “thanksgiving.” When we ask God to do something, then I expect God to do those things. If we are living as we should be living and praying as we should be, then why can’t we say thank you for answering that prayer before He even answers it. Do you know what we do? “Oh, Lord, if it’s your will.” I totally understand that because I don’t know God’s will in everything. I pray for people all the time to be healed and God may not heal them. I am not going to tell you that God is going to heal you. God has got a will; God has a plan for your life. I will tell you this. When we do pray we can say thank you Lord that you are listening, thank you Lord that you are aware of this petition, thank you Lord that this prayer has reached heaven, thank you Lord. …thank you Lord for what you are going to do here. Whatever it is and however you are going to take care of it, thank you Lord for what you are going to do there.

It is Awesome that the God of eternity would listen to somebody like you and me. That’ truth. We are not much when you look at us compared to Him. Sure, He loves us. However, don’t ever think, don’t ever get so lifted up in your self that you think that you are on His level because you are not. He does not need us but we need Him.

Not only that, but we need to pray and thank God for what He is doing.

7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Many times wrong thinking leads to wrong feelings. When wrong thinking begins here in our minds and wrong feelings are in our hearts. If I am going to be able to overcome worry then my thinking and my heart are going to have to be right with God. Praying is how that we get there. The Bible says that the peace of God which passeth all understanding, shall keep…the word. “Keep” in the Greek, is the word that means garrison. It is a word that means “to guard” as a soldier would stand and guard over a treasure or stand and guard at a prison; it means to “watch over and take care of.”

When you and I live as we should live, when we pray as we should pray, when we take our general petitions, our supplications, those things in prayer that are very specific, when we give God praise for what He is doing then the very peace of God guards our heart. Isn’t that great tonight to know? The God of heaven, when I pray, when I seek His face, when we do what we need to do in praying then I have peace in my heart.

Right thinking in my mind and right feelings in my heart—I’m going to have to have those if I’m going to overcome worry. So many people have wrong thinking, and wrong feelings in their heart and they wring their hands everyday. Their very spiritual life is being chocked out of them simply because of wrong praying, wrong thinking, and wrong living.

Not only does he teach us how that we need to pray…

8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

“…whatsoever things are true…” Truth is something here that we must have. If you and I are going to live as we should live, truth is something that we must have. Truth is something that we have to accept. Truth is something that we need to think about. The Holy Spirit of God takes truth and controls us with it. The Holy Spirit of God controls us with truth. The Holy Spirit of God can control us and the way that we think with truth.

If we always fill our minds with garbage then do you think that the Holy Spirit of God is going to control us or control the way that we think? That is not going to happen is it?

That is why I talk about so much about what we see on television. I talk to our young people and our old people in this day and time about how devastating pornography is in the world that we live in. It is everywhere that you look. Its on billboards, you see naked people. You turn your TV set on and you see naked people on there. There are all kinds of pornography everywhere. That is not the bad part about things. The bad thing is when we go down here and go in some of these places and pay our money out that God has blessed us to have to buy it and then take it home and hide it somewhere, that is the bad part. Shame on you, if you are doing that.

Shame on you, if you are sitting around in the night looking at junk on your TV set or on your computer. What happens is that the Holy Spirit of God cannot control our minds if we are filling them with junk. It is not going to happen. You see, I am never going to overcome worry if I am not thinking about truth. Jesus said, “…I am the way, the truth, and the life…” He is truth. If I am not thinking about Him then how is the Spirit of God going to control me and control what I think about? It’s not going to happen.

Not only things that are truth, but he uses the words “honest” and “just,” worthy of respect and those things that are right. If I am expecting the Holy Spirit of God to control what I am thinking, then I need to think about things here that are worthy of respect. If I am going to think about junk, hatred, malice, envy, jealousy, and getting back and all that; do you think that God is going to control my mind? It is not going to happen. However if I think about those things that are worthy of respect, and worthy of honor then God will bless us. He’ll bless our minds.

It is amazing how our minds work, how that we can go from one thing to the other just that quick, how that we can look at something and think about that, how that our mind can say move your arm and you move your arm. This is the bad part sometimes, our mind can say; move your mouth and we can move our mouth. Our minds are an amazing thing, but if our minds are going to be controlled by the Spirit of God, then we cannot think about things that are junk. We have to think about good things; things here worthy of respect and that are right.

He uses the words here “pure,” “lovely” and of “good report.” “Pure” means moral purity.

We cannot think about having an affair with somebody else’s wife or husband and expect the Holy Spirit of God to control our mind. If we are thinking about impure things or sexual things all the time then we cannot expect God to control our minds. That is not going to happen. We will never get to the place that we will overcome worry if these things are flooding our minds. That is not going to happen. It gets quiet when you talk about things like that. Do you know why? Everybody in here is probably guilty of that at one time or another. There is a difference between sitting around thinking about evil and having an evil thought. Many people sit around and that’s all they think about is evil. There are times in my life that I have evil thoughts and you do too. It may not be those evil thoughts, but it’s just as bad.

If God is going to control our minds then we have to think about those things that are moral purity. Not only that, but he uses the word “lovely”—beautiful things or things that are attractive. We must think about those beautiful things that God has done.

In the Spring of the year, flowers start coming through the ground and buds on trees and grass growing; I don’t know how we could go out there and look at that and look at the beauty that is out that and not see the hand of Almighty God in that. When we think about lovely things that God has done—there are a lot of lovely things in this world that has nothing to do with people. It has to do with our God. The Word of God is a beautiful book when you look at it. There is a great love story in here. Some of you like to read love story books or whatever; read the Bible, there is a great love story in here.

He goes on and uses the word “good report,” or “things worth talking about.”

How many times do we sit around and think about things that absolutely don’t need to be talked about. They are things that we don’t even need to think about. How much time do we do that? If we are going to spend time thinking about something, let’s think about things that are worthy to be talked about. Things that are worthy. Why do we think that if we think about junk all day, why do we think that junk is not going to come out? If we put junk in then junk is going to come out.

Years ago, I used to work in North Carolina and we dealt with garbage. We had this big facility that we recycled stuff. We recycled garbage. They would bring their garbage in, household garbage, and we would dump it out on the floor. We run it in our hoppers and it would go through … and all that stuff. It would separate garbage. Everything that they separated—this pile, this pile and this pile—it was just garbage because that was all that we put in it was garbage. We would put it in this end and it would come out this end, but it was still yet garbage. What I put up here, it will come out down here and if all I put in here—all that is going to come out of here is garbage. That’s what these members [arms, legs, etc] do. They carry out what we think about.

Not only does it say that but it goes on and says this. He tells us, and he uses the words “virtue” and “praise.”

What we should be thinking about on days like today, is the great time that we had this morning. Instead of, “I’m going to miss the NASCAR race tonight. I’ve got to go back tonight. I’m going to miss the NASCAR race.” Or “We didn’t get out until five minutes after twelve. When I got to Bob Evans there were lines everywhere.” Why can’t we think about praising God? Why can’t we think about the great time that we had instead of thinking about all the negative things? Did you ever think about that? I know you have.

If we think about things that are honest, pure and lovely and of good report, virtue and praise; if these things floods our minds then there will not be any room for garbage. If my mind is thinking about things that I should be thinking about, then my heart is going to be feeling right about things and about people, then I’m getting in a good position that I am going to have victory over worry.

9 Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

We talked about right praying. We talked about right thinking. Now this is right living. Paul says, “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do…” If we want to pattern our lives after someone, let’s pattern it after Jesus Christ. Or, let’s pattern it after the apostle Paul. Do you know what we want to do? We want to pick out somebody that is sort of struggling through their Christian life, that is falling and stumbling—and we do that from time to time. But we want to compare our life to theirs and say, “I’m doing good compared to that guy.” If we want to compare our living to somebody, let’s put our life up beside the apostle Paul and let’s see how you are doing.

He says, “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do…” Use my life as an example, he says. Live right. Do what is right. Act like a Christian should act.

This is the test tonight whether we are really living in the will of God or whether we are not living in the will of God. The test is this.

You have your life—and I can’t do that—but:

If your life is like someone that has their hands around your neck squeezing the life out of you…

If your life is like you are being pulled apart this direction and that direction…

If your life is always in a mess…

If you are always thinking about junk…

If you don’t take time to praise God as you should in your prayer life…

If you are not living as you should be living…

Do you know what you are not going to have? You are not going to have the hand or the peace of God upon your life. It’s going to be like somebody is chocking the life out of you. It is going to be like someone is pulling you apart. It is not going to be good.

He says this here, “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.” That’s a positive. That is something that we can count on.

Paul says if we pray right, think right and live right, we will have the hand of God upon our lives.

Do you know what every born again child of God has tonight? We have eternal life.

If we are saved tonight then we are on our way to heaven. I don’t have to worry about waking up in the morning and being lost. I purposed a long time ago that I was going to follow Him. Where ever He goes, I am going to go. I may not like it. I may not like the place. I may not like the directions. I may not even like the trip getting there. If He leads, I am going to go because I want His hand, the peace of Almighty God. I made peace when I got saved and you did too. However, there is more to the peace that comes from God than just not worrying about the judgment of God, but you can live in peace with Almighty God.

Jesus Christ can be the best friend that you ever had. You can tell Him the secrets of your heart and you don’t have to worry about Him telling anybody. There have been one or two people in my life that I could do that with—not very many—but I can tell Jesus anything that is on my mind and I don’t have to worry about Him telling anybody about it.

Not only that, but peace is something that we all need. The reason that people today are killing themselves, the reason people today are committing suicide, the reason people today are sitting around saying that we don’t have any hope is because they don’t have any peace.

Give your heart to Jesus Christ.

Live right

Think right

Pray right

…and you will overcome worry. That is the antidote to overcoming worry.

Pray right

Think right

Live right

…and you will have the peace of God on you. Whatever comes your way, you won’t have to worry about it. You know that you are in the hand of God and you will have God’s peace with you and everything will be just fine.

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