Is Worry Sin?

Well, today I'm going to talk about something that, when you hear my topic, you might think, why are you talking about that before the Passover in Days of Unleavened Bread? But it's a topic and become a huge problem in America. It's prevalent in society. In fact, it's costing, as one estimate I read this week said that employers, it's costing them somewhere around $300 billion a year because of this one thing that's happening in America and that's becoming more and more prevalent and has been increasing over the last few decades. And as society goes, we in the Church can sometimes become prey to it as well and hopefully don't go into it the full way that society does, but it can have its effect on us too. We might find ourselves looking at things and doing things that we wouldn't have done or would have done differently 5, 10, 15 years ago. And we can look at things and do things just because we get into the habit of it without really thinking about how would God look at this. And the thing that I want to talk about today is worry. I'm going to use three words throughout the sermon today. Worry, anxiety, and stress. And all three of them really are the same thing. All three of them really are having an effect on people, and I know are having an effect on people in the Church as well.

And as we go through the sermon, there's a couple questions that I want to answer by the time this is done. One, is worry sin? And two, how do you break the habit of worry? Because worry can become an addiction like alcohol, it can become an addiction like drugs, it can become an addiction like many other things if we allow ourselves to be full prey to it.

So, I want to, you know, something we all deal with. You know, some worry is good and healthy. Sometimes stress is good. It motivates us to doing things. Sometimes worry will lead us to a solution. But all too often, worry is something that just we just dwell and we revel, if you will, in the worst-case scenarios of what can happen.

A week from now, this will happen. If I let this go on, all of a sudden, my mind takes it to the worst possible scenario of what can happen down the road. And we can let this work on our minds and we can let it dictate our lives and we can become, we can just become a slave to it, if you will.

I was reading, I wasn't reading the book, but I was watching an interview by a doctor by the name of, I forgot to write down his first name, I think it's Martin, but Dr. Rossman. And he recently wrote a book called The Worry Solution. And I didn't read the book, but he was featured and the book was featured in one of the newsletters that we get on holistic health. And I was reading that and as I was reading it, I knew the things, but to hear him say it, because he graduated from medical college and started practicing in 1969.

So he looks at the last 50-plus years of what's going on in America and he can see the span of what was medical practice like back in 1969 and where has it gone today. And we all know that health care is a well used thing in our society today and much more so than it ever was. I mean, that's why you see new hospitals going up, new urgent care centers going up, new doctor's offices going up all over the country. And he says some things about worry that I wanted to share with you, just some experts, excerpts from his books.

He says, worry may be one of the most common causes of suffering in America. Science, he says, has repeatedly shown that anxiety and stress take a profound toll on health and may even be a more significant influence than poor diet. Some studies suggest as many as 75 to 90 percent of illnesses have some sort of emotional underpinning.

That's kind of an amazing statistic, isn't it? United, I read another study that said 75 to 90 percent of all doctor visits really are based in stress. When the doctor gets down to it, it isn't a physical problem, but it's more some kind of mental anguish and anxiety that people have put themselves through. They've worried too much about something and made themselves sick. And we know that that's the case because we've probably all done it, right? And if we look around the world, I mean, there's plenty of things that we can worry about.

And we can worry if we want to look at the world scope. We can worry about terrorism. We can worry about what's going on in the Middle East. We can worry about what's going on in Russia. We can make ourselves sick if we wanted to about what is going to happen with all these things. On a personal level, we can worry ourselves sick too, can't we?

We can worry about the new boss we have. We can worry about how our job is going. We can worry about what did this person say? What did they mean when they said this to me? We can worry about relationship problems. We can worry about aches and pains that we have. And never, because I've done it just like you have, when I worry about something, it never turns out good. The end result is never a good thing. Our end result is always the worst that it can be. I'm going to lose my clients. I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to lose my health, whatever it is.

It's never a good thing. It always has a detrimental effect on us emotionally. And that has a physical toll as well. And that's what the doctor is talking about here. You know, I don't get many physicals. I rarely get them because I don't really, I don't know, I don't think I ever learn anything except for the lab test when I have a physical. But the last couple of times I've had a physical, I've been kind of irritated that, you know, I spent a half an hour answering questions about stress this, stress this, and going through everything, job, home, whatever.

And I thought, I can do that myself. I don't need to talk to you about that. If I want to do a self-assessment on stress, I can do it. But I understand, after reading this, you know, why it is. Dr. Rossman goes on and says, he says, it's pretty amazing when you look at it, there are direct effects of stress which are significant.

When I talk to physicians, I say a huge part of the job of a primary physician today is to try to tell what isn't anxiety, stress, or worry. Isn't that something interesting for a doctor to say? I tell them, just look for what isn't anxiety, stress, or worry. And some of the direct effects of anxiety, stress, and worry are high blood pressure, headaches, chest pain, upset stomachs, asthma, depression, and the list goes on and on, if you will.

It doesn't say that everyone that has those situations is suffering from stress or worry, but a lot of times that's what that's the root cause of the physical problems that we have. You may have heard, and I know some people who have suffered from this, heard of a thing that is again increasing. Never heard of it until maybe five, six, no, maybe ten years ago, something called adrenal fatigue. You ever hear of adrenal fatigue or know anyone who has adrenal fatigue? You know what adrenaline is and it serves a purpose. We get excited, we have a stressful situation, we have to counter something that's going on, and adrenaline helps us to get through that.

But the way it works is that you get through the situation. The adrenaline helps you see things clearly, have the extra strength you need, whatever it needs to do to see you through that, but then there's a calming down period, and you're not always in adrenal stress. It's just periodically there, and then it goes back and has time to recoup again.

Today, adrenal fatigue is becoming almost an epidemic that people have because what happens, as the doctor says, and I'm going to read from one of the leading adrenal fatigue websites, is that people never allow their adrenal system to go back to normal. They're always anxious about something. It's not like the way it used to be, that there's a stressor that comes into my life, I deal with it, and life goes back to normal. They're always worried, they're always stressed, they're always anxious. And so the adrenaline in that whole system is just always on fire, if you will, and never has the time to go back into the normal situation that it is. And so, when that happens, adrenal fatigue comes, the leader, you can have adrenal collapse, which is a very serious life-threatening condition. Now, according to the Adrenal Fatigue website, they say this, the number one cause of adrenal fatigue is without a doubt stress. Without a doubt stress. And as you know, this can come from any area of your life, whether it's a relationship gone wrong, an unreasonable boss, relocation to a new city, sleepless nights looking after a newborn baby with colic, the effect is all the same. This is the kind of low-grade stress that feels manageable in the short term, but can have terrible effects on your health in the long term. All from something we worry about, something we allow ourselves to become anxious over. Now, I know you could all tell your own stress and worry stories. I've worried just like everyone in this room has worried. There was a time back, I don't even know how many years ago, before I was a pastor when I was working in the other field I used to work in. And I started waking up at night, and I would be up for two or three hours at a time. You know what I was doing the whole time that I was awake? I was thinking about everything that went on at work or with one of my clients. I was thinking about what this person said. I was thinking, and I learned the hard way that not every employee is always loyal to you. We lost some clients because of those type things. And so I began to think, what is going on here? What's going on there? And I could spend two or three hours and have myself work up into a frenzy by the time those two or three hours were done. And I was just stressed, and I was wound up, and I wasn't getting any rest at all. And this was a thing that would happen right very regularly. Maybe not every single night, but most nights. And you know, it was a funny thing when I would get up in the morning and I would go out to the clients and what? It wasn't as bad as I had imagined. Things were kind of okay. There were things I could deal with, but it wasn't the, you know, sky is falling, sky is falling thing that I had imagined in my mind that had me so wound up.

And I learned, I can't keep doing this. I can't keep doing this. And I'll get to that a little bit later. But maybe some of you have that same situation. Maybe there's things going on in our lives where we find ourselves just fixated on what does the future hold? Where does this going to lead? How is this going to work out? And it can be a damaging thing in our lives. You know, Dr. Rossman, he makes a comment on that because it is something. You know, it is something that deals with us. And I could feel some physical effects of what was going on in my life back then. But Dr. Rossman addresses this. He says, here's what happens when people are under constant stress and they start allowing and it begins to take the physical toll. He says they end up, they go to the doctor and they end up on a half a dozen different medications. Then you start treating the side effects of the medications. They don't really cure the problem that the person has. The cure, if there is one, is really a pretty radical change in lifestyle. And that begins in the mind.

And isn't that the case in our world today? We go to the doctor, we get on one medication, that medication causes something else, we get put on another medication, and the root stem or the root cause is really what's going on up here. What we're allowing to have happen up in our minds.

As we watch endless news, as we think of endless scenarios, none of which turn out good about the things in our life that are very important to us. So, too much worry, too much stress. They take a terrible physical toll on us. The Bible has a lot to say about worry.

Has a lot to say about worry. And we'll look at some of those things today and answer those two questions. Is worry sin? Now, what can we do if we find ourselves worrying too much about this or that and everything that happens? Let's first turn back to Luke 12.

Let's look at a couple really stressful situations. There are you and I, at least I haven't. Maybe you've been in a situation like this. But back in Luke 12, Christ is talking at the end of the age, and maybe he's talking in Luke 12 to the Jews of his day or the people that would be following him.

And he tells them they're going to be brought before authorities. They're going to be held accountable for what they believe. And there's a time ahead of us when we could be brought before government agencies. We could be brought before whoever it is and ask, do you believe this?

Even though the country wants you to believe another thing, and we might be called on to answer things. So when we read Luke 12, we can kind of identify what is going on here. Let's look at verse 11. He says, Christ says, when they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and authorities.

Kind of a stressful situation. When they do that, don't worry about how or what you should answer or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you want to say.

Well, I know me, the natural me. If I knew I had to point with the magistrates, authorities, and the high powers, I would probably worry. I would probably be rehearsing in my mind, this is what I'm going to say, this is what I need to say. God says, don't worry.

He'll provide what we need to say. That certainly is a more stressful situation than I think I've spent in my life. If I put myself into the words of what Christ is saying here, he says the same thing back in Luke 21. This time, clearly speaking of the end time, the Olivet prophecy, if you will. And in verse 12, well, we get the time, the time frame here. There will be great earthquakes in various places, famines, pestilences. There will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven. But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for my namesake. But it will turn out to you, for you, as an occasion for testimony. Therefore, settle it in your hearts. Think about it. Make yourself and set your heart not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer. Don't write it out. Don't spend hours on it. Don't spend sleepless nights on it. Settle it in your hearts that you won't do that you on what you will answer. For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist. Everyone in this room, we may face that one day.

Now, we will see. If we plan the words to say ourselves, they're probably going to fall flat.

But if we let God, if we trust God to say, we'll have exactly the right words. That'll be hard for anyone to resist. Let's go back to Matthew 6. Probably when I said the word worry, you probably thought of Matthew 6 because Christ has quite a few verses back in Matthew 6 that He talks about worrying. And the typical place to start would be in verse 25. Let's back up a few verses. Let's get the context of what Christ is talking about here. Because if you notice in verse 25, where He first hires saying, using the word worry, it's made in His with therefore. Therefore. So there's something that becomes before what He's talking about that He wants us to understand. So we get the whole scope of what He's talking about here in the rest of what we would call Chapter 6. So let's go back to verse 19, where He opens the subject and there's a new paragraph, if you will. Verse 19, Christ says, Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. So it's a do not. When Christ says do not, we pay attention. When He says do, we should pay attention. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. Don't let that be your primary area of attention. Now we all live, we all work, we all are supposed to be making our way on earth and God blesses us for it. He's saying don't make that your number one overall priority what's going on on earth. Don't worry number one about your job over everything else. Don't worry number one about your family, about everything else. We know where number one should be. He says don't do that. You Christians, you follow me, don't let earth and what goes on on earth be your number one priority. But, verse 20, lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

Worry about and have your focus on developing the character that God wants you to have. Focus and let Him lead you by your Holy Spirit to mold you into who He wants you to be. Let that be your overall writing force in life so that it permeates what you do at work, what you do in your family, what you do at home, what you do in recreation, what you do in entertainment. All those things happen in life, but the overriding thing is we are becoming like God wants us to become. That's what He's called us for. And He's saying you do that. You do that. Do all the things in life, but the overriding thing is you keep your eye on God and the calling that He's given you. Christ's words. For, verse 21, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

And we know that to be the case. Verse 22, the lamp of the body is the eye.

If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.

Now what He's talking about in verse 22. You know, with our eyes, what do we do? We see. Right? I can focus on any one of you. I can focus on the things that I do. We focus with our eyes. It's the focus of what we're doing, where we're going, where we should be going. And God says, if your eye is good, it's the lamp of the body. If your eye is good, if it's focused in the right direction, if it's focused on the right things, and if your heart is focused on the right thing, your whole body will be full of light. You'll feel the love, the joy, the peace, all the fruits of the Holy Spirit. If your eye is good, if you're focused, following what He said in verses 19 to 21 here, if you're focused on treasures in heaven, rather than treasures on earth, if you're focused on who God wants you to be, rather than the day-to-day things that we live with every day. Verse 23, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.

If you're focused on the things of the earth, and that's the number one priority, you're not going to have a very enjoyable life. It's not going to be full of the love, joy, peace, and fruits of the Holy Spirit. If, therefore, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? Verse 24, he wraps up this section. He says, No one can serve two masters, for either one will hate the one and love the other, or he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You can't love them equally. You can't have God first. You can't have God and earth, worldly things, on an even plane. Either you're going to love the world more, or you're going to love God more. And he tells us in the preceding verses what we should do if we want light in our life, if we want future, if we want the things that God promises, where our priorities lie. No one can serve two masters. He will hate one, love the other. And he publishes the verse with, You cannot serve God and mammon. You can't serve God and also the things of the earth. And then verse 25, giving all the things, even all the things that we've talked about, the fact of what we've, the difference between looking at the things of God and looking at the things of the earth. Therefore, therefore I say to you, don't worry about your life. What you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on, isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing? Well, I would hope all of us would say, yes, there's a lot more to life than what we do, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the house we live in, the car we drive. Life is a lot more than that to us. If it's not, then we might want to examine who we are and what God is leading us to. Going on to verse 6, look at the birds of the air. They neither sow, nor reap, nor gather in the barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they? Well, you never see animals. There's no mental health, is there, for mental health practices for animals, the birds. You don't say, well, you know what? I don't know where I'm going to sleep tonight. That tree was cut down. What do I do next?

Crowns are frozen over. Somehow they always find food. They just do. They just do. And God says, they're animals. He loves them. But He says, look at what you are. Look at what you are to me and the purpose that I have for you. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you, by worrying, can he add one cubit to his stature? Has worrying ever solved anything? You know, I look back at my life and I think I have spent hours and hours, and all the worrying I did didn't solve the problem.

I lost a lot of sleep. I was pretty angry. A lot of nights, it didn't solve the problem.

So we can worry and worry, and nothing changes. There was a quote that I wrote down that I found on the Internet about worry. Yeah, worry is like a good rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere. And isn't that the truth? I think we can all attest to that. I certainly can. So God says, what are you going to change by worrying? So verse 28, So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. And yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? See what Christ has done?

He's talked about worry. Several times he said, don't worry about this. And then he's taken it and said, why are you worrying about that? O you of little faith. Now hold that thought on O you of little faith. We'll come back to that in a little bit and finish the chapter here.

Therefore, he says, again, another therefore, based on everything we've said leading up to this, therefore don't worry, saying, what will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? For after all these things, the Gentiles seek. They have not the purpose that God has given you and me. They haven't been called like you and me. They don't have the idea of what mankind is, what God's plan is. They don't know what a future is beyond today and what life is beyond more than how much money they make, what kind of car they drive, and how good their health is and their relationships are. They don't have what you and I have. This is why the Gentiles seek after that.

But that isn't what we should be seeking after, he says. After all these things, the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows you need all these things. In verse 33, we've seen these words. We say the word. If I had written down this verse or said this verse and said, write down, most of you could have told me this is Matthew 6, 33. Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. We say the words. We sing the words.

Seek first. Make it your priority in life. That's what you should be concerned of, and take and believe all the words that Christ said before. Don't do this. Don't worry. Don't fret. Don't be anxious. Therefore, don't worry, verse 34, about tomorrow. For tomorrow, we'll worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Don't think about, oh man, if I leave this goal next year, this is what's going to happen. Now, you understand what I'm saying. When we worry about it, anxious about it, fret about it, get stressed about it, lose sleep over it. Take care of the things that's today. Keep your focus on God.

Now, a few chapters over. First, let me go over to Matthew 10 first. Then I'll come back to another chapter. Hold your thought on, oh you a little faith there in verse 30. But in chapter 10 of Matthew, in Christ has said in the Sermon on the Mount, don't worry about food. Don't worry about clothes. Don't worry about these things. Make your life with God, your priority, and these things will be added on to you. And then in Matthew 10, he begins sending the disciples out to preach the kingdom of God. As it says in verses 6, 7, 8, go to the lost sheep of Israel, preach the kingdom of God as is heaven, heal the sick, cleanse the leopards, raise the dead, cast out demons, freely leave every seed, freely give. And then he says something interesting in verses 9 and 10.

Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor sats, for a worker is worthy of his food.

Now, I don't know about you, but every time we go on a trip, I make sure I've got money in my wallet, I make sure I've got my wallet, I make sure I've got my credit cards, I pack a bag, I make sure I have changes of clothes. I do all those things. Now, this verse is not telling us we shouldn't do that.

But if someone told me, you know, well, the next time we go up to Cincinnati, don't take anything with you. Just hop into the plane or hop in the car and go up there.

I would think, really? But God told these people, you know, that was sending out, don't provide any of these things. Don't take money. Don't take extra sandals. Don't take extra tunics. Just go there and do that. And they did exactly what Christ said. They stepped out on faith and did exactly what he said. And the result of it was everything they needed was provided for.

Everything they needed was provided for. They didn't need that suitcase. They didn't need the credit card. They didn't need American Express that you take all the world for the world with you.

They had everything they needed. Just like Christ said in Matthew 6, don't worry about those things. Now, I'm not advocating. Okay. I don't want to come to the peace time and say, hey, he said, don't worry about reservations. Don't worry about making any plans. Just go. Now, we do need to play plans. I'm making an example here of what Christ did as he taught the disciples this.

Now, let's go back to Matthew 8. Now, draw your attention back to what Christ said in verse 30 of Matthew 6 when he said, you know, why are you worrying about these things? Oh, you of little faith. In Matthew 8, we have an occasion. Three of the gospels talk about this thing. It's one of those events that happened in the Bible that we've all heard of and talked about before. And it's when Christ got into the boat, you know, after he had spoken to a number of people and he was tired and he was stressed because he was a human like us and he needed to rest. He needed to get away from it all. They went onto the boat and we can see here in verse 23 that he was tired, just like you and I are tired. Verse 23 it says, when he got into a boat, his disciples followed him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea so that the boat was covered with the waves. But he was asleep. Storms were raging. Now, you know, if we had the opportunity to be on a boat, a little boat, and we are out on the ocean and the waves were roaring.

You've seen the movies of how those waves can be out there and the sea was tempestuous.

And they thought their lives were at danger or at risk. And here they were and here Christ was sleeping. In verse 25, the disciples came to him and awoke him saying, Lord, save us. We're perishing. Now, you could feel the stress. They might have been a little worried. They were a little anxious. What's going to happen? Is this boat going to capsize? Are we going to all die out here in the middle of the sea? You can kind of feel the anxiousness in them and the fear of what they're facing here. And so they come to Christ and they say that in verse 25. And then he said some very interesting words to them when he wakes. He said to them, Why are you fearful?

Oh, you of little faith. Oh, you of little faith. Now, isn't that an interesting thing to say when the sea is raging and the boat is tossing and turning and the disciples are all anxious and upset because they see what's going on and Christ wakes up and he says, Why are you fearful?

Oh, you of little faith. So I pause here to ask the question. Is worry sin? Is worry sin?

I'm not going to give you the answer, yes or no, but I'm going to draw you back to the things we've talked about in the last few minutes. How many times have we read Christ say, Do not worry? Do not worry. And by the way, the Greek word translated worry in Matthew 6 is anxious. It's translated the same word that we're going to see here in a bit in Philippians 4-6.

Don't worry. Three or four times in that one discourse in Matthew 6, we've read, Do not worry. Twice in Luke 12 and 2-21, we've read, Do not worry. Christ in Matthew 6 equates worry with, Oh, you of little faith. Here in Romans or here in Matthew, Matthew 8, he says in a very stressful situation, What are you fearful? What are you worried about? Oh, you of little faith.

Let's go over to Romans 14.

In Romans 14, Paul is talking about one of the problems in the ancient world, and that was food. You know, not talking about clean and unclean food, not talking about that, but food sacrificed to idols. Some people didn't bother to eat food sacrificed to idols. Others, it did. Some wanted to eat vegetables only and not meat. Some others didn't see the validity of that. So he's addressing those issues, less like he did in 1 Corinthians 8.

And then in the last verse of chapter 14, as it is here, says he, verse 23, Romans 14, He who doubts is condemned if he eats, but because he doesn't eat from faith.

And then just look at the last phrase there, because every word in the Bible is meaningful, for whatever is not from faith is sin. For whatever is not from faith is sin.

So I leave you to answer the question. Is worry? Undo worry. The type of worry that I did for night after night after night for probably years, I don't remember how long, is it sin? Was I worrying from faith? When you worry, are you worrying from faith?

You know, God never said that he would call us and it was going to be a bed of roses all the way through. He said we would have trials, we would have tribulations, we would have health issues.

But he never said worry to yourself to death over him. He makes it pretty clear what we do when we face those things. If we have faith that all things work together for good to those that God called. Never said in that that there's never going to be a problem, there's never going to be an issue. If we believe that God has called us, if we believe that Jesus Christ is returning, if we believe that he will set up his kingdom on earth, if we believe that he's working with us and that he will mold us into who he wants us to be and that we will be there with him, if we yield and follow him in this lifetime and dedicate our minds, hearts, and our lives to him.

If we believe him. So that's one question. What do we do about it? If we're prone to worry, the whole world, I won't say the whole world, so many people in the world are prone to worry. That's why we have the health bills we have, that's why we have the medications we have, that's why we have a lot of the problems that we have health-wise and otherwise as well. Because, you know, as you read through Dr. Rossman's book, when people are stressed, they look for relief. They look for a way out of it. They are tired of worrying. They're tired of the things and the stress around them. They're tired of the anxiety. So what do people do? Well, some turn to alcohol because it gives them a release and they can forget. Others will overeat and they medicate themselves, if you will, with food. Others will turn to pornography. Others will turn to prescription medications. Whatever gives them a release because they don't know how to get rid of the worry and they just want it to stop for a while. And it's an issue, as you know. And it's a problem, no different than any of the other addictions that I said, if we allow ourselves to get into the thing that everything that happens, we worry about. Everything that happens, we worry about. Well, if we go back to Matthew 8, we find one of the things that we can do if we are prone to worry or if we find that worry is having a detrimental effect on us psychologically. Because, you know, with all the physical effects that worry and anxiety and stress bring us, just imagine what it does to us mentally. Just imagine what it does to us spiritually. When we do the things that Christ says, do not, do not do or allow yourself to do. Back in Matthew 8, in this account here of Christ and the vote and the disciples, we were in verse 26 and he awakes and he tells them, Why are you fearful, O you of little fakes? And then he arose and he rebuked the winds and the sea. Verse 26, And there was a great calm. He stilled the storm.

That was the answer to the sea raging. That was the answer that they needed. They didn't even know it at that point, but he was able to calm the storm. They weren't. No other thing that they could have had on earth were, but Christ was able to calm that storm and give them peace. So the men marveled in verse 27 saying, Who can this be that even the winds and the sea obey him? Who can this be? How is he able to calm all these situations in life?

How is he able to do it? Let's go back to Philippians. Philippians 4.

Paul says in essence the same thing here, but in different words. Philippians 4. Philippians 4. Philippians 4. Philippians 6. He says, Be anxious. We all know what anxiety is, right? There's anxiety medications. Pharmaceutical companies are making fortunes off of anxiety medications. Be anxious for nothing. By the way, that's the same Greek word that's translated anxious there that Christ used as worry in Matthew 6. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. Don't be anxious. Instead, take it to God. Let your supplications, let your request be made known to God. He is the only one who can truly calm the storm. He is the only one who can truly solve these problems. We can worry. We can press. We can make all the plans in the world, whether it's during the daytime or at night when we're laying awake. You know what? There's one. One who can solve these problems and who can get them who can get them resolved. There is, I was going to read verse 7 too, and the peace and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. And isn't there a peace and isn't there a calm that we know that the world doesn't know? In times of stress, you know, sometimes people can marvel. I remember one business situation, and I just simply, as one of the few probably, I didn't worry about. And I just put it in God's hands because it was beyond me. I knew to even salvage the situation, and it was salvaged. It was salvaged. And I remember one of the attorneys that were working with us on this said, How did you stay calm through all that? I told him I just trusted that God would work it out, and even she had to admit. Didn't think it would work out that way, but it did. But it did. You know, there's a Psalm, a beautiful Psalm, that talks about these type things back in Psalm 91. Many of you probably turned to the Psalm in times of trouble.

In Psalm 91, God makes a lot of promises in Psalm 91. And, you know, some of the commentaries will ascribe Psalm 91 to Moses. It doesn't say in Psalm 91. It doesn't have an authorship claim there in Psalm 91. But as you look through some of the commentaries, some will say it's a Psalm of David because it has no title on it or it's not ascribed to anyone.

Others will say it's of Moses. And the Jewish commentaries say, well, it's of Moses for a reason in that in the Psalms. There's no authorship ascribed in one Psalm. Then you go back to the prior Psalm, and whoever wrote that is the one who did that. So Psalm 90 says it's the Psalm of Moses. It's clearly indicated there. But the other one is I perused or pursued that. Who wrote this psalm? And I certainly don't know exactly.

Only God knows who wrote this psalm. But in verse 1 of the commentators made a comment that, you know, sometimes you can ascribe authorship by the way that people talk. There's phrases I use that you never use. And if you heard me say things, you would think, oh, that's kind of the way Rick says that and whatever, and you do that to your wife, you do that to each other. And they say you can do that in the Bible too.

You can kind of look at phrases and say, oh, no one else uses that phraseology except that author. And one of the things they point to is Psalm 91.14. This is kind of an aside. Where Paul, where the author says, because he has set his love upon me, therefore I will deliver him. And they say there's only one place in the Bible, only one other place in the entire Bible that phrases things like that because his love is set upon me.

And that's found in Deuteronomy 7.7 when it says, you start to set your love on God. And they say, the only place like that, so based on that and the fact that Psalm 90 is written by Moses, their conclusion is likelihood that it's written by Moses. It really makes no difference one way or the other. Just an interesting thing. But if it was written by Moses, I ask who had an opportunity to worry and to be anxious about things more than Moses?

None of us has had the life that Moses had. For 40 years. For 40 years, he was in Midian. He lost everything in Egypt he had to run into exile in Midian for 40 years. And then he had a people that he was leading. And they were always worried. They were always anxious. They didn't trust in God for anything. And every time they had a problem, they were just wanting to go back to Egypt.

And so he had to be stressed all the time, thinking, what are these people going to get it? No matter what God does, whatever the problem is, he solves it. But they never got it. They never learned to trust God. And they never learned to be at peace. They were always in the state of consternation of what was going to happen and how they had been led astray and blah, blah, blah to be in the wilderness all those years.

So Psalm 91, when we read it, whether it's David who wrote it, whether it's Moses or someone else, it's still words that comfort us today. And there are some promises that God makes in here. Let's just read through the 16 verses of Psalm 91 here. Then we'll come back and talk about it a little bit. Psalm 91, verse 1, He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Eternal, He is my refuge in my fortress, my God, in whom, in Him, I will trust.

Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge. His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. Horrendous times, horrible times, God says you won't be afraid of any of those things. A thousand, verse 7, may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you.

Only with your eyes shall you look and see the reward of the wicked. Verse 9, Because you have made the Eternal, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against the stone. You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent, you shall trample underfoot. Can you even imagine?

Because he has set his love upon me, God says, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. With long life, I will satisfy him and show him my salvation. Can you put together 16 more meaningful and uplifting verses than that? That's the God you and I worship. That's the God you and I were called by. That's the God who works with us and who puts his Holy Spirit in us and wants to mold us into and give us things that we can't even imagine, but we just believe because God says it. Great promises, great promises that no matter what befalls us in life, we can look at it and say, hey, God, I trust in you. I look to you. But if you look at Psalm 91, while it's full of God's promises, they are conditional promises.

He'll do all those things, but there in Psalm 91, there are some things we have to do. It just doesn't happen to everyone. There are some becausees in chapter 91. And when God says, because you do this, I will do this. That means we have our responsibility, right? He will do this when? He will do this if we do those things. So we have our part in Psalm 91. God is sure. God will absolutely do His part. The question is, will we do our part? So let's go back and look at five things in Psalm 91 that God would say is our responsibility if we want to claim His promises, if we want to cast our cares and concerns on Him, as Peter says in 1 Peter 5.7, if we want Him to take care of these, then we don't want to worry. First one we find in verse 2, I will say of the eternal, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God. In Him I will trust.

You know, God doesn't make any of us trust in Him.

Israel didn't trust in Him, even though they saw plenty of things in the wilderness. They still didn't trust Him. Every time a problem came up, what are we going to do now? It's like God didn't even do anything before. They never learned to trust Him. God won't make us trust Him either.

But we have to learn to trust Him. If we're going to ever please Him, if we're ever going to be who He wants us to be, if we can claim these promises, one of the things we have to do is learn to trust God. That means unwavering faith, absolute belief in Him, absolute belief and trust in Him that the road He's leading us on is really to the kingdom of God, that He's just not making our lives miserable and He's not playing games with us, but everything that we do in life is for the purpose of purifying us and getting us ready for what He wants us to do. And sometimes those things can be taught. Sometimes we have to learn lessons and we have to put things out of our lives, well, like we'll be picturing of the days of Unleavened Bread. I'm getting ahead of myself and putting something in, you know, to replace that that we put out. But number one, we have to trust in God with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul. Trust in Him.

Down to verse 9, He says, Because, because you've done this, because you have made the Eternal, who is my refuge, even the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, because you've made God your dwelling place. You know, God wants to dwell with us. He wants to abide in us. Right? We can turn over to John 14. John 14. Christ says words similar to that. Keep your finger there in Psalm 91. And John 14. Nope. John 15. John 15. Christ's own words before He was arrested on that last Passover that He was alive on. John 15. Then verse 4, He says, Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch can't bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. Make me your dwelling place. I'll dwell in you. And today, we have God's Holy Spirit. When we repent and we baptize and we have hands laid on us. Verse 5, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit.

For without me, you can do nothing. We are nothing. We can do nothing. We're going nowhere without Him, unless we abide in Him and Him in us. Verse 6, If anyone doesn't abide in me, his cast out is the branch and his withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. Harrowing words for those who God has called, that He may abide in them, and we abide in Him. Verse 7, If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, during the days of unleavened bread, we put God's words in, right? We put out all the old thoughts. We put out all the things that God has shown us are wrong, and we put the unleavened in. So, one of the lessons of the days of unleavened bread, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, if you put them in your heart, if you put them in your mind, if you let God write them on your heart and mind, more and more as we go through life, you will ask what you desire, and it'll be done for you. Interesting words. If we abide in Him, and if we allow Him to abide in us, or, as it says in Psalm 91, if we make God our dwelling place. So, we've got two things we can look at. Also, in verse 14, if we go back to Psalm 91.

I'm sorry, we were in verse 9. Let's go down to verse 14. We find the next because in Psalm 91, because He has set His love upon me. And this is God speaking, you see the capital M in me, because He, you and I, has set His love upon me, therefore I will deliver Him.

Well, that's what Christ was saying in Matthew 6, right? 19-24. If you set your eyes on me, if your eyes are focused on me, if your eyes are focused on God, I'll deliver Him, where our eyes focus. Of course, we can go back to John 14, or yeah, John 14-15, and it says, how do we love God? We keep His commandments. Christ said it twice. If you love me, keep my commandments. He said another place in Matthew, why do you say you love me and not do the things that I say? So if we set our love upon Him, we make the conscious choice to follow Him, do His will, obey Him, follow His principles, live as He lived, give up self, give up pride, give up our way and adopt His way. Because He has set His love upon me, therefore I will deliver Him.

And then the second part of verse 14 has the next one. I will set Him on high, because He has known my name. He's known my name. He knows who I am. It doesn't mean Aloyim, it doesn't mean Yahweh, it doesn't mean El Shaddai, it means He knows my name, He knows who I am. You know, the concordances or the commentary solace, there's three hundred some names for God. He knows who I am. He knows that I am all I am, always will be, and that I have everything He needs. I can provide everything, future, eternal life, all those things that no one else and nothing in the world can ever begin to even imagine providing those things. I will set Him on high, because He has known my name.

He will call on me, and I will answer Him. Verse 15, He knows my name, and when He runs into trouble, and when there's a problem, He calls on me. He doesn't run to someone else. He's not like the Gentiles to seek all the answers in the world around Him. They come to me. They know my name, they know what I'm capable of, they know what I do, they know what I've said. And He calls on my name.

He calls on me, and when He calls, I will answer. I'll be with Him in trouble. I'll deliver Him and honor Him, and with long life I will satisfy Him and show Him my salvation.

There's five things in Psalm 91. God's very specific on what He will do, not promising us, never a trial, never a health problem, never a relationship problem, never this or that, but perfecting us. He will weed out those imperfections in us to make us like Jesus Christ and to develop us who He wants to be. But we have to make choices along the way, too.

So if we look at Psalm 91, and if we worry, and if we fret over things, and if we think that we're doing that too much, and it's causing a problem in our life, and maybe we have an issue that we need to deal with, because this is the time of year that we look at those issues and say, this is something maybe I need to put out of my life. We can look at some of those things, and maybe we need to go back and look. Where is our faith? Do we believe God the way He wants us to believe Him? Do we love Him the way He says to love Him? Do we trust Him?

Are we in close communication with Him? Call on His name? We go to Him in prayer. We have that relationship with Him that our first thought is God, not whatever else might be there in first place, but God is the first place. We might want to go back and look at those things if we determine that that might be a problem in our lives.

I mentioned that I was having some sleepless nights, and they took their toll after a while. Now, this was several years ago, not in the last five or six. I've learned something in my lifetime, very little, I think, but this is one I've learned.

As I watched myself do these things, and there were things besides jobs that caused some of the stress and anxiety in my life as well. One day, I noticed that I was having chest pains I had never felt before. Then, a few weeks later, I had a numb left arm and things happening in my left arm that, all the internet says, this and that happens in your left arm. So, I decided I should go to the doctor and see what is going on. As the case is, they run you through every test. When they got done with the test, he came in and told me, you are in perfect health. There's nothing wrong with your heart. There's nothing wrong with any of you. He gave me the lecture on stress, and I had to admit, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But I decided there that the sleepless nights and the worrying about what was going on in this and this area ended. So, I thought, this is having a detrimental effect. I'm not living my life this way. I came to realize that's not what God wanted me to do either. I realized I had to change those sleepless nights. I couldn't stop myself from waking up, but I could stop myself from thinking about the things that I was doing because I knew that was causing the problem. We'll turn over to Philippians 4. Philippians 4. Philippians 4.

We'll read verse 6 and down through verse 8. We read verse 6 already. But be anxious, Paul says, under inspiration from God. Be anxious for nothing.

But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. Take it to Him. And the peace of God, which set for the path of all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds to Christ Jesus.

Verse 8. Finally brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are a good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. Think on these things. Don't think about what the end result of this comment from someone is. Don't think about the end result of this pain that you got. Don't think about this end result of what your wife did or didn't do. Think on these things.

And as we go into the days of Unleavened Bread, and one of the things I had to train myself in, it wasn't easy. When I woke up at night, and I still wake up at night, but now I kind of enjoy waking up at night because I don't fret over this or that or whatever, I've learned and I took the time and I made myself think on these things. And when I lay it like that, I said, no, I'm not going to worry about what that person said. I'm not going to worry about what that administrator said on this client. I'm not going to worry about that. Instead, I'm going to think about the things of God. Instead, I'm going to think about the things that are pure and noble.

And I took a lesson from David. Meditate on those things. Meditate on his law, how good it is when we put those things into his life. And slowly but surely, when I woke up, it was a pleasant thing. I woke up in the morning and I wasn't wound up and I wasn't tense and I wasn't fit to be tied.

And those sleepless nights turned into something that I don't thread. I kind of enjoy the time that I have in the middle of the night to think about those things and get up and pray and read, or just think and meditate about what is there. If your life is full of worry, if you think that that's it, take the time, take the lesson of the days of unleavened bread. Make worry a thing of the past. Put in God's law. Do what he says. And like he says here in Philippians 4 verse 7, you don't have to read a book. The worry solution that Dr. Rossman wrote, you can read the worry solution right here in the Bible. You do what God says and the peace of God, the peace that surpasses all understanding, it will rule in your life.