The Courage to Keep On: Facing Our Fear of Running Out
January 17, 2016
Dr. Tom Pace
Matthew 6:25-34

We are thrilled today to have you with us. Our Chancel Choir and our youth are both on retreat today and we’re thrilled to have the Women’s Concert Chorus from the University of Houston. The Peach Bowl winning University of Houston. Go Coogs!
And we’re thrilled to have you all here. You’re going to be blessed. I’ve heard them at both of our earlier services and they will touch your hearts. Jeb Mueller is their director and we’re thrilled to have him and Jeff Hoover always supporting us on the organ while Rob is gone. So I know you’ll be blessed today.
We’re continuing our series focusing on courage and today we’re going to look at anxiety. I want you to hear this teaching from the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 6.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worryabout your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.Are you not much more valuable than they?Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendorwas dressed like one of these.If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you — O you of little faith?So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.But seek first his kingdomand his righteousness, and all of these things will be given to you as well.Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has trouble enough of its own. (Matthew 6:25-34 NIV)
Oil at $29.70 – lowest in twelve years – first two weeks of the year on Wall Street, the worst first two weeks of any year ever. That’s what the newspaper said. That’s the word that we get from the world. That there are lots of good reasons to be anxious.
I have a friend who is a pastor who some time ago on a Saturday night began to feel some pressure on his chest. It always happens on Saturday night if you’re a pastor, something like this. He began to feel this pressure in his chest and on his back. He thought, “Maybe it’s just indigestion. I don’t know…” He called his wife and said, “This is worrying me.” So he went to the ER, thinking that they were just going to listen to his heart and send him on his way. But no, no, they admit him. They had to run a whole bunch of tests. Then after the tests came back, he called his associate pastor and said, “You’re going to have to preach for me tomorrow.” So the tests came back and they showed nothing. They began to ask him questions that he thought were maybe a little more personal than they should have asked. Questions like, “Are you having any financial difficulties? How is everything at home? What’s your work life like?” And they finally came to the conclusion that he was having some sort of a reaction to stress. That it was just challenging for him.
Friends, anxiety is real for us. It is incredibly destructive. I’m going to tell you right now off the bat that I’m not going to give you an answer that is magically going to make your anxiety go away today. It just doesn’t work that way. There are some people who are blessed and they just don’t struggle with it. Most of us are not that person. And what we have to learn to do is to manage that anxiety.
Sometimes we know exactly what we’re anxious about. You can point at the situation that seems to be dominating your thinking. Sometimes anxiety is just this general thing. Someone I know says he wakes up every morning with just this sense of dread. It’s in the pit of his stomach and he can’t really identify what it’s about but it’s just there.
I read this week that pathological anxiety, in other words anxiety that becomes disabling, has surpassed clinical depression as the number one diagnosis of mental illness. General Anxiety Disorder. Forty million Americans struggle with a pathological anxiety.
So it’s clear that this is not new because both Jesus and Paul address it. So what I’d like to do is we’re going to pray and look at these two Scriptures. They tell us one thing not to do and three things to do.
Let’s pray together. O God, open us up. Open our eyes that we might see and our ears that we might hear. Open our hearts that we might feel. That your healing grace might pour in. And then, O Lord, open our hands that we might serve. Amen.
This is going to sound kind of silly but the thing that both Paul and Jesus tell us not to do is “do not be anxious.” Do not worry. Well, that sounds easy, but it’s not so easy. But there’s a very logical statement about it if you look at Matthew 6:27 where it says, “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”
My wife and I and some friends went to see the great movie two weeks ago, “Bridge of Spies.” Perhaps you’ve seen it. It’s a Tom Hanks and a Steven Spielberg movie. It’s going to be good, you know that. Mark Rylance plays a Russian spy who is captured in 1960 and Tom Hanks plays the lawyer who is recruited to defend him after he’s been captured in the United States. And the Russian spy is convicted and not sentenced to death but sentenced to life. No, actually to thirty years, I think. But they kept him because they thought they might need to trade him for an American spy. Indeed they did, and they exchanged them on the bridge, hence the name of the movie.
But the Russian spy just seems to have this incredible calm about him. This sort of flat affect, nothing seems to bother him. Nothing seems to work him up. And it just drives Tom Hanks crazy. It just makes him nuts that he doesn’t seem to be worried about it. So he’d say to him throughout the movie, “Aren’t you worried that you’re going to be convicted? Aren’t you worried that you’re going to get the death penalty?”
Then when he’s going to be traded back he says, “Aren’t you worried that when you get back to the Soviet Union they’re going to interrogate you and maybe kill you because they think you gave up secrets?”
And every time his answer to the question “Aren’t you worried?” was the same and he would say, “Would it help?” It’s one of those short punchy statements that make you go “Well, duh… it doesn’t help.”
In fact it hurts. Our anxiety, our worry, what it does is to keep us focused in the problem, doesn’t it? It keeps us focused in the issue. It keeps our head down. It keeps us wallowing in the problem that’s there as we live in the anxiety. It paralyzes us and we’re not able to take actions to correct it. We’re not able to respond because we’re stuck in the problem.
One of the coaches I sometimes read is a guy named Bob Rosen from Savannah. He had a post recently that said, “If your attention is on a problem, you’re in trouble.”
So what I want you to note is that what Jesus is teaching and what Paul says – they’re both doing the same thing – they’re inviting us to change our attention. To change our focus. Friends, you can think about the mental energy you spend worrying. That’s where your attention is. Your attention is there. So what Jesus says is, “Let’s take our attention out of that and let’s transfer it to something else.” Then he gives us three things to put our attention on.
The first one is, to take our attention out of the problem, out of our anxiety and put it on the God who provides. Keep us focused on a God who always, always provides.
One of my favorite names of God is Yahweh Jireh, which in Hebrew means “The God who provides.” Here’s the Scripture in verse 30: “If God so clothes the grass of the field which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”
Realize that this is a God who always provides. Focus on God’s provision instead of on the problem.
David Horton is our pastor at the Gethsemane campus and he’s preaching this same text. And in our conversation about it this week he gave me a great image that has been very helpful to me throughout the week. He said, “Imagine a scale – you know those old fashioned scales – and imagine all your troubles and anxieties on one side of the scale. Now most of us, when we pray, we say, ‘God, take away those anxieties, take away that problem. Fix this, get this all off of here. I want to be care-free. Take away our problems.”
That’s not the way God works. What God does instead is to put God’s provision on the other side of the scale; to keep piling on that God will give us whatever we need to face the problems that are on this side of the scale. “I’ll give you what you need. I’ll always provide for you.” Notice how he focuses the attention, “Consider the birds of the air… consider the lilies of the field… think about these things. Focus on the fact that I will provide for you whatever you need. I’m a God of provision.”
Paul gives us a more specific way to do it. He says, “Do not worry about anything. Do not have anxiety about anything. But in everything with thanksgiving by prayer and supplication make your requests known to God.”
So what is prayer but a sustained focus on God? Not on our problem. Prayer is a sustained focus on the God who provides. It’s a focus on that other side of the scale, continuing to give us the grace we need.
One of the images that has been helpful to me is the idea of looking up. Instead of looking down and being stuck in our problem, we look up. Psalm 1:21: “I lift up my eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help. My help is in the name of the Lord.” So the idea is that we’re going to look for God’s provision instead of focusing continually on the problem.
Max Lucado has written so many great books. In his book called Facing the Giants, he’s talking about the story of David and Goliath. The giant Goliath that David goes to face. Here’s what he writes: “You know your Goliath, you recognize his walk, the thunder of his voice. He taunts you with bills you can’t pay, people you can’t please, habits you can’t break, failures you can’t forget and a future you can’t face. But just like David you can face your giant even if you aren’t the strongest, the smartest, the best equipped, or the holiest. For those who know the sound of Goliath, David gives us this reminder. Focus on giants, and you will stumble. Focus on God and your giants will tumble. Focus on the giant, you’ll stumble. Focus on God and the giant will tumble.” It’s a neat little sound image. Where will your attention be? On the God who provides, or on the problem?
Okay, here’s the second thing he tells us. Not only do you focus on the God who provides, but you get about the business of the Kingdom. You focus on that which really matters. See, we have to ask ourselves – what really matters to us? What are we really all about?
So here’s the Scripture, “Therefore do not worry, saying, ’What will we eat, or what will we drink, or what we will wear’ For it is the gentiles…” Remember he’s separating. Here’s how disciples live and work, he’s drawing distinctions. One of the distinguishing characteristics of a disciple…” Gentiles – the world – strive for these things…” what we will eat, drink or wear…” but your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”
If we spend our energy focused on the problem we find ourselves drawn in and anxious. But if on the other hand we say, “What really matters? What am I really all about?”
In a former church there was a man there who was one of our better teachers. It was a small church and he taught our youth for a while and then he taught our young adults. He was just one of our best teachers. He developed Parkinson’s disease and it advanced fairly quickly and he had difficulty fairly soon with a tremor and a difficulty speaking. He and I went to lunch at one point and we were talking about it. I was really trying to be nice, but it wasn’t the right question. I said, “If there’s ever a point where you don’t want to teach anymore, please understand that that’s fine and we’ll find something else that you can be involved in.”
That really wasn’t what I should have said, because you could just see him sort of buck up. And he said, “You know, I have Parkinson’s but that’s not who I am. That’s not what defines me. That’s not what I’m all about. All my life I have been about teaching, and doing these things. This is the work that I’m called to do. So I’ve got a problem, but that’s not who I am.” When we begin to lift our eyes and our hearts out of the problem and stay focused on that which God calls us to do, what we’ve been put into the world to do, the Kingdom work that we’re all about.
Jim Moore used to have this little phrase he’d say to his kids when they’d come to him. For those of you who don’t know, he was my predecessor here at St. Luke’s. When his kids were smaller they’d come to him and say, “How come we don’t get to go on fancy vacations like other people do? How come I don’t get to drive a new car like my friend Johnny does?” And he’d say, “We’re rich. We’re rich in the things that matter.” They didn’t think that was very funny but it was a good lesson.
Ask yourself “What really matters? What do you really want to be all about?” Because what happens is that when these problems come up, when we’re anxious about what we’ll eat, or drink or how to pay the bills or how we’ll deal with this disease, or whatever the situation is, all of a sudden that becomes what we’re all about. He says, “No, that’s not it. Keep focused ‘Strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.’ That’s what you’re going to be all about.”
Paul says it a little differently. “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is just, whatever is honorable, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Be about that business about what’s God’s doing, the amazing good things going, instead of keeping your energy focused on problems. It’s a matter of attention. Where will your attention be?
Here’s the last one. First, focus on God’s provision, second focus on the Kingdom work, God’s Kingdom work, and this is third: In verse 34 Jesus says, “So do not worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Focus on today.
I have been to probably twenty time-management seminars. You only go back because you really don’t catch on the first time. That’s probably exaggerating, but it feels like twenty. And almost all of them teach one simple truth, and that is to not make a list of everything you have to do and carry it around with you. That’s what we tend to do. We think, “I’m going to make a list… I‘ve got to make my ‘to-do’ list.” Then you make this “to do” list that includes every single thing that you have to do in your life - forever. Figure out where I’m going to be buried. Really? Well, someday I’ll have to do that – it’s important.
What they tell you is that you can put stuff on a list but make sure it isn’t visible to you, except what is visible for today. You should say, “This is what I’m going to do today.” Because if I keep looking at all that other stuff I’m going to get overwhelmed and my attention will be drawn away. Just today. What am I going to do in this moment?
We have runners running the marathon. Some of you have run marathons. I ran one and I will tell you that if at mile nine you think to yourself, “I have seventeen more miles to go” you’ll die. There’s no way you will finish. Okay, you elite runners, you don’t count. But the rest of us – the riffraff – all you think of is “How can I get through the next mile?”
What God says is, “I’m going to give you what you need for today, for this moment. Don’t borrow trouble from tomorrow, but focus on what you’re going to need today.” The Children of Israel were in the wilderness and God provided manna for them. But only enough manna for one day. A few minutes ago you just prayed the prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Daily.
There’s a great story and you probably know it. It’s about Corrie ten Boom, who wrote the book, The Hiding Place, and it was about how she and her family hid Jews in their home in the Netherlands during the Nazi occupation during World War II. And in the book she talks about the struggle she had with her father, the worry she had that her father would be killed and that she would be left alone to fend for herself. This is the conversation she and her father had: “I burst into tears. ‘I need you,’ I sobbed. ‘You can’t die, you can’t.’ ‘Corrie,’ he began gently, ‘when you and I go to Amsterdam, when do I give you your ticket?’ ‘Why, just before we get on the train.’ ‘Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we’re going to need things, too. Don’t run out ahead of him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will have to die, you will look into your heart and find the strength that you need. Just in time.’”
Some of you may have been in a Twelve Step group and you know the mantra. “One day, one day at a time. I’m going to get through today. God’s going to give me what I need for this moment.”
Now here’s the neat part about it. We can sort of “flip side” it. If you become anxious about tomorrow all the time, if you continue playing those “What ifs.” We have the positive “what ifs” and that was our Capital Campaign, but there are some negative ones too. Like “What if I lose my job? What if I get sick? What if I lose my house? What if….” You can go on and on about the “what ifs.”
Now we need to be prudent and to plan and all of those things, but if our attention is always focused on the “what ifs” of tomorrow, not only will we have trouble getting through today because we’ll be overwhelmed, but we’ll miss all the joys of today. We’ll miss all the awesome things that God is doing all around us, because we’re too worried about “what if” could happen, about the troubles of tomorrow.
If you’ve run a marathon you’re familiar with what is called the “hoopla.” That’s all the stuff that goes on around the marathon. Like signs that they lift up as you run by. I’ve seen some that said, “Why do all the cute ones run away?” Or another was, “Run like you stole something.” That was a pretty good one. A lady I talked to last week was an older person and I kind of teased her. I said, “Hey, are you running the marathon?” She said, “Well, I did one last year.” And I thought, “Never mind.”
Her name was Millie but she said something really neat. She said “You know, I put in giant letters across the front of my T-shirt the word ‘Millie’ and on the back ‘Millie.’ Because all my life I’ve wanted to hear people yell, ‘Go, Millie!’” She said that was what happened all along the race.” That’s awesome, right? To experience that?
There are belly dancers along the way; there are Elvis impersonators along the way. If you get to mile 24 there’s free beer as you run by. And that means you only have two more miles to go and some people think, “If I can only get to mile 24 I’ll be all right.”
This is the “hoopla” – the life along the way. And what I would say to you is to just enjoy the mile you’re on. And God’s going to give you everything you need. If you stay focused on the race that’s been set before you, the work of the Kingdom, faithfulness, righteousness, stay focused on that. God will give you everything you need to get through this mile. And you can enjoy all of God’s blessings along the way.
“So seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all things will be provided to you as well.”
Let’s pray. Lord God, we confess that we are sometimes anxious. And we find our attention drawn into difficulties, into challenges and into fears. And they begin to own us. Forgive us, God. Remind us that that doesn’t help. But draw our attention to you, to how you provide for us, to the amazing work you call us to do. And to the joys of today. In the name of Christ, Amen.