What Does the Bible Say about anxiety?

Check out the message video! https://youtube.com/live/LPVu6JPt1k8?feature=share

I want to let you in on the story of Southern Alberta's worst first-time preaching story that has ever existed. I take that crown with joy in my heart because I know that my first time preaching was the worst it could have ever been in any situation. It was absolutely atrocious. I was in bible college, and my Bible college course was very mission-focused. The whole program was leading up to going to Africa. So, we did a few extra mission trips in between to get us ready to go there. One of them was going to Vancouver, BC. Vancouver is 30% “Wow, this is really cool.” And 70%, “Oh my goodness gracious, what the heck is going on here?” Because it can be pretty wild in Vancouver. So we went on this mission trip, and going into this, people kind of saw me as the Bible nerd. They saw me as the person who was “Wow, you and kind of knows his Bible pretty well. He obviously knows how to preach really well. Obviously, if he's reading his Bible at least once a day, obviously he's really, really good at preaching.” I was not. I had never preached before, ever in my entire life. So they picked me to preach at this little hole-in-the-wall food bank slash soup kitchen. I found this out two hours before we got to Vancouver. So, I thought, “How am I going to make this message as good as possible?”

I was getting all wound up and really nervous. What are they going to think of me? What is my teacher going to think of me? What are the people going to think of me? Am I going to get injected with heroin while I'm on stage or something? It was really scary. There were all these wild people there, and I was getting all hyped up. Then, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I decided that I was going to rip off my favourite preacher's sermon word for word, and I was going to speak it up there. It was going to be great. I figured that no one was going to know that I was a terrible preacher because I was going to rip it off from this person. So I started writing down the sermon, and I actually got so confident that halfway through the sermon, I just stopped writing it. I was so confident that I knew what this guy was talking about that I could just do it.

So there I was with half a manuscript of this guy's sermon, and I was fixing dinner in the soup kitchen before I preached. There were rats in the fridge and in the kitchen. And the lady that I was cooking with was a really nice Chinese lady, but she didn't speak any English. So I was trying to put this ingredient in, and she was trying to put this ingredient in, and by the end, even though we were trying to make lasagna, we ended up with soup. It was not good. So I was already flustered because of this, and I was all wound up, and I stepped on the stage in front of an audience of around forty, maybe a little bit more, homeless people that had come off the streets.

And I was excited. I was prepared. Now, all these people had to listen to my sermon first before they got to eat. That's why they were all there was to eat. They didn't actually want to hear me speak; they just wanted the food. So I was standing up there all confident. For some reason, I figured that all these people were there to see me speak, but they were just there to get this lasagna soup thing that we'd made with expired food. So, I went up on the platform and began speaking. I introduced myself, and I was talking about how good God is or how to live a holy life or something like that. I was not doing a very good job. I was reading this manuscript and had the book in front of me, and within two minutes of being on the stage, I heard a man in the back yelling something. I was trying to listen to what he was saying as I was speaking, and then I heard it: “Boo! You suck! This is the worst sermon I've ever heard!”

That started everyone else up. I began to hear comments like, “Oh my gosh, get off the stage. I'm hungry.” It was terrible.

So I spoke for another five minutes and I was shaking and  finally I said, “Okay guys, have a good night.” And I'd gone off the stage within about five minutes of me preaching my 20 minute message. And yeah, in the meantime, there was some guy barking like a dog in the back as well. It was just a wacky time. So, the anxiety that I started with actually ended up coming to fruition. In the end, people looked at me like I was some terrible preacher, and my classmates were kind of laughing at me. People looked at me differently. They no longer saw me as the Bible nerd. They saw me as a first-year Bible college student. I was just like the rest of them. And for me, it took a lot from me. I didn't know how people saw me and how people felt about me. So I was always anxious. I was always anxious about how they would see me. And that came right from the beginning of my prepping that sermon. I wanted people to see me as someone who was really good at something I’d never done before. And obviously, it was terrible. I got booed off the stage. That's why I say that's the worst Southern Alberta first-time preaching story. I don't know anyone else who's gotten booed off the stage on their first message.

Today, we're talking about anxiety. I was pretty darn anxious through that whole period right till the end, and it was pretty tough. So even throughout that anxiety-inducing story--through that wild time that I had in Vancouver--I think that some of you may be recalling sometime in your life when you had anxiety about something. Maybe that story is bringing up something like, “Man, maybe I have had an anxious spurt like that.” Today, we're going to look through what the Bible says about anxiety in this under-pressure series. But I want to say one thing before we get into this.

I think this is a really important point to say: there's no one fix-all for anxiety. I don't want to bring it across like that today. Anxiety is something that we all may go through, each and every single one of us, some people more than others, but in the end, I want to show you guys that there is hope today and in eternity as well. It's something that we all may go through, but how can we grow through this as well?

“There is no “fix-all” for anxiety!”

— Pastor Ewen

Before we get into this message today, I want to go over something really important, and I think this is something that we really need to touch on: what is anxiety? Anxiety is not worry. We have to draw a dividing line between anxiety and worry. They are not the same thing. They have similar attributes, but they're not the same. Pastor Stephen even touched on it in his message about worry, where he addressed it by itself because they're very different.

But I'm going to show you why it's different because I think it's pretty important for us to see these differences. The very first one is that worry stays in our minds, whereas anxiety affects our minds and also our bodies. Have you ever worried so much that you felt sick? I felt pretty sick when I was doing that first message. I felt like I was going to pass out, especially after I got booed off the stage, I felt like, oh man, I'm going to faint. It's terrible. But have you guys ever felt like you were worrying so much that you felt sick? See, it might have not been worry. You might have actually been going through a little bit of anxiety.

Worry more or less stays in our mind. It's just up here in the head. Whereas anxiety will show itself physically. You might feel lightheaded, you might feel a little bit sick, you might feel a little bit weak. Sometimes we can even have anxiety attacks. That's the number one difference between them is that sometimes anxiety can be felt actually physically when we're going through a really stressful anxious time. The second one is that worry is temporary, but not anxiety. Worry is temporary. Anxiety is long lasting. Anxiety will consume us if we allow it. The third reason that anxiety isn't worry is that worry does not impair our day-to-day functions, but anxiety will. Worry won't really make it that difficult to get out of bed. Maybe we'll feel a little bit of a tinge inside. Maybe we'll feel a little bit stressed when we wake up in the morning, but anxiety seeps into our psyche a bit. When I say a bit for some people it can be a lot and it makes us tough to focus on these day-to-day tasks. It consumes our focus. That's a big one. I want you guys remember is the word consumes anxiety. It consumes our focus and it consumes our day. And unlike worry, anxiety might make you call in sick, might be so anxious, you're like, I can't go into work today. I can't think about anything else. Maybe some of us have gone through that before. It can be really tough that way. But I want to share the biggest difference between all of these.

The biggest difference between anything between worry and anxiety is that worry is rational. Whereas anxiety is irrational. See, like I said before, worry will get us off our butts. It'll actually get us moving. It'll say maybe it's a temporary situation that we're going through like, man, I should do something about this work's getting tough. Things are getting tough. I need to do something about this and it'll push us in the right direction. In some cases, it invokes this push. But anxiety is a completely different beast, completely different than worry. It will overestimate absolutely everything. It'll become so irrational that it's not even funny. I want you guys to think a bit like this. You work in a company of 10,000 people, and they're doing a layoff of 1% of the entire employee base. See, worry will make you think about it and say, “Man, maybe I should get my office in order. I should make sure that I get everything working well and make sure that I'm putting in a good effort.” Though you will be worried about it, you won't necessarily be thinking about it once you actually start to do these things. Once you have your office in order, you stop worrying about that. Once you start to get a bit better at work, you'll stop worrying about that. Once you actually show up on time to work every day, you'll stop worrying about it. You know that you're in the right. Whereas with anxiety, the 1% will become 100%. For a person with anxiety, it's almost as if that 1% is “I'm going to get laid off, I'm going to get laid off, and there's nothing that I can do about it.” Or if you start trying to do something about it, it's almost like the thought of getting laid off will consume you.

“The biggest difference between worry and anxiety is that worry is rational. Whereas anxiety is irrational.”

— Pastor Ewen

You're like, “Am I doing good enough? What does my boss think about me? What do my fellow employees think about me? What does my wife or my husband think about me? Am I doing enough? What do my customers think about me?” It'll overestimate absolutely everything. Anxiety is all-consuming. I want to share with you a quote from Rocky Balboa. This is what he says. “I don't care how tough you are; it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.” I love that movie, and that quote has always stuck with me, but I think it's a perfect indicator of anxiety. It will beat you to your knees if you let it. Absolutely, 100% anxiety can be a big thing, and that's not to discredit it at all because anxiety is a tough thing to work through.

But let's today go through what the Bible has to say about anxiety because I'm going to tell you right now, just like a lot of our other under pressure series, honestly, the people in the Bible were some really mentally unhealthy people in a lot of situations. We can look at David, we can look at Saul, we can look at the disciples, we can look at even Jesus went through a lot of these things. But today I want to share with you a really interesting story about a lady named Martha. You may know the name Martha. For those of you who haven't heard the Bible story, maybe the phrase “Don't be a Martha” will come up for you. Or maybe you've heard that before. I remember when I was younger, I called an older lady “Martha” because she was really uptight about something and that didn't go over well.

Martha was a very uptight person. She was someone who was anxious and she was very worried, unlike her sister Mary, who was only focused on Jesus when he came through. So today, let's go through the story in Luke 10:38-42.

“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”” (Luke 10:38–42, ESV)

You can see the anxiety that's coming off of Martha, but at the very same time, Martha just had the God of all creation, the Lord of the universe, the Prince of Peace, say, “Calm down.” I hate it when someone tells me to calm down. When someone says, “Chill out” or “Relax. It's not a big deal.” When someone says that to me, I'm like, “It's a big deal now that you've made it a big deal!” But Martha just had God tell her that. So, obviously, it was a bit of a deal here. So, I want to break down these verses. We're going to start in verse 41, and we're going to break things down from here. See, verse 41 says that Martha is anxious about many things. She says many things, but this lines up very well with us today, which is that anxiety is all-consuming.

Martha's anxiety has consumed her daily functions. It consumed her when God himself entered her house. The first thing that she thought of was not him in terms of going to greet him, going to be with him like Mary was. Instead, she was worried about how he viewed her. But we go into the first part of verse 42, and Jesus states one thing here. He says there's only one thing that is important. See, Mary chose the rational thing. Mary chose the rational thing, whereas Martha chose the irrational thing. She was very anxious about all these things. I'd only think about the things that she was thinking about. How does her house look? What is the food going to taste like? How is the stay going to be? I'm going to try my best not to bother him while he's here. What are the disciples going to think about me? Am I going to be healed as the people around me going to be healed? Let's not bother him too much.

All these things are probably stirring in Martha. You can see it through her actions. She's anxious about so many things when the God of the universe has come to stay with her when God incarnate has come to stay with her. But here's the thing: that anxiety can be a big thing, a massive thing. It can be one of those things that consume us, but at the same time, anxiety sometimes becomes part of who we are in a lot of ways. Just like Martha and Mary. You can see a very stark difference between the two of them, and it's a perfect example because there's a rational and an irrational portion to the story. There's a rational Mary and an irrational Martha.

So this is what Jesus says. Again, going down to still in verse 42, in the second part, he basically says that Mary has done the rational thing and that Martha has not. See, this isn't a condemning thing. I don't want to condemn anyone who has anxiety, but I want it to show us one thing: that anxiety can happen to us all. Anxiety is something that can impact all of us. And Martha was an anxious person by nature. As I said, you could see between Mary and Martha, she was an anxious person by nature, and it was the irrational thing that she did that was just normal for her. This was a normal process of life. Just like I said, it can become part of us. We don't even know that we're anxious sometimes. So, let's look ahead to anxiety. How do we tackle anxiety? And like I said at the beginning of this message, that's kind of a hard statement to make because I'm not going to give you a five-step process on how to fix your anxiety or a 10-step process on how we can go about our day without anxiety.

I'm not going to do that because, like I said, anxiety is different for us all and for all of us. It can be a process, and it's not something to toy around with and to tell someone, “Hey, you have anxiety. You are in the wrong.” That's not true at all. Jesus even comforts so many people with anxiety, and I think that's our job as well: to comfort and console.

I want to go through a few things that we can do going ahead, looking ahead for anxiety, and even if you don't have it, maybe if you have friends that maybe are a little bit anxious, maybe having some talks with them and just conversing about it, seeing how they're doing.

Get Help and Talk About it.

The very first one is get help and talk about it. That is the number one thing. I literally cannot say a bigger thing here. Get help and talk about it. Talking will change everything. See, this is the thing with anxiety is that getting help can be anxiety inducing. It can be so anxiety inducing that we don't actually want to go out and get help because we're worried about what people are going to think about us. We're thinking that they're going to look at us in a different way. But I want to encourage you today, if you are struggling with anxiety--maybe you've been anxious for years!--find someone to talk with, even if it is just a friend to begin with, I really do recommend going to a counselor as well, a Christian counselor. Or if you don't have the finances, like Pastor Stephen wrote last week, come and talk to me or Pastor Stephen or Pastor Embree. I mean, we cannot guide you as deeply as a licensed counselor can, but like Pastor Stephen wrote, people have told us that we're pretty good at listening.

Try to think rationally

The next thing I want to let you know is: begin to Think Rationally.

That's one of the biggest things we've been talking about it throughout this whole time, is that anxiety is irrational. So the way that we can combat this is by training ourselves to think rationally. It's going to be very difficult for some, but begin to pull yourself out of the situation, begin to pull yourself out and take a third person perspective. For some of us who maybe don't struggle with anxiety on a regular basis, that's a pretty easy thought. for people who have and the people who are here that do go through anxiety, it's a lot to pull yourself out of a situation, but I want to encourage you that it is possible if you are in a situation that's anxiety-inducing, maybe go into a different room, go on a drive.

My favourite one is if someone's really stressing me out, I love to text my wife and say, “Hey Rachelyn, can you give me a call right now so that you can tell me that I need to be somewhere so that I can get out of this conversation?” That's one of the ones that I love to do. If someone's stressing me out and making me anxious, or maybe they're just going on too long, that's a good tip from a pastor. Yeah, so if you see a phone ring when you're talking to me, I hope that's not what's happening.

But here's the thing is that when that 1% becomes the 100% chance for you and for us here or for your friends or for your family, pull yourselves out of the situation. Begin to think rationally and to get into a space that's healthy. This one is all about taking a break, and getting your bearings. And for some people, that situation might be in bed. It might be you are so anxious that you feel like you're bedbound, and I want to encourage you if you are feeling like you're stuck in bed, that there is hope.

Live with thankfulness

The third thing I want to get into here is be thankful as the Bible says. I want you to be thankful in all situations and you'll see why here in a moment. Let's go to Philippians 4:6-7.

“do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6–7, ESV)

There's some pretty good stuff in there. See here is the great thing about this is that this passage doesn't actually say that this is one of the things that old-timey Pentecostal churches or even some charismatic churches might go into is this is saying don't be anxious because anxiety is a sin. However, that is not what this passage is talking about at all. Anxiety is not a sin and it's not something that is terrible. Some people try to blame the person with anxiety. But what this passage is saying is that when anxiety comes, give it up to God. When anxiety comes (because it will) it will put you on your knees if you let it, but when anxiety comes, give it up to God, present your requests to God with thanksgiving and the peace of God will be with you.

Now, what I'm not saying is that this peace is going to fix your anxiety immediately. For some of us that might not be a thing. For some it may. When I pray, I feel at peace quite often and I feel like a lot of people go through that as well. But what I am saying is that anxiety can be given to God. Let's give it to God through thanksgiving, not by demeaning or by condemning or by complaining about our life, but rather, in this Thanksgiving season, give thanks to God for all that we have.

That's a great first step. If you're dealing with anxiety, thank God for what we have in our lives today. Thank God. I want to let you in on a little Bible secret: Jesus went through all of these things himself. You might think that cannot be the case because he is God. You might think that he didn't have the brain of a human. I want to say for those that might believe that, that Jesus didn't have a glowing orb in his head! Jesus was 100% man and 100% God. He had the brain of a man, an actual human with a human brain. And this is the thing with Jesus is that he experienced the exact same emotions and the exact same feelings that we go through on a day-to-day basis. See, Jesus' earthly father died, possibly when he was a little younger or even in his teenage years. Jesus was also on the run all the time. Wouldn't that make you a little bit anxious being on the run during the three years of your ministry? He had followers that left him. Not once, but twice. All the friends that he made along the way, leaving him in his most desperate time, and through everything that happened, Jesus knew that he was going to die an absolutely painful, terrible death. Would that not make you anxious knowing that you were going to die the worst way possible?

I was talking to Andrew about it this week as well, the guy that we had the video of last week, and Andrew was talking and explaining a little bit more on his topic of death and how the idea of death is a comforting one because we get to be with Jesus. He said, “The idea of death is great, but the idea of me dying in a painful, terrible way is not great whatsoever.” It's an anxiety inducing topic. See, Jesus was so anxious and stressed that in the garden of Gethsemane, he even sweat drops of blood. But here is the hope in all of this. I'm not just telling you this so that we can feel bad for Jesus because that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is comes in Hebrews 2:14-17.

“Now since the children have flesh and blood in common, Jesus also shared in these, so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death. For it is clear that he does not reach out to help angels, but to help Abraham’s offspring. Therefore, he had to be like his brothers and sisters in every way, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest in matters pertaining to God, to make atonement for the sins of the people.” (Hebrews 2:14–17, CSB)

What this verse is saying is that Jesus became a man so that he could be like us. Jesus knows what we go through because he's been there, he's experienced it, and because of that, we can give our anxieties to him. We can give our anxieties to him with thanksgiving and we can say, “Lord, I need your peace. God, I need your hope.” And for us today, there is a hope and a peace for now, and there's a hope and a peace for eternity as well.

I don't want to get your hopes up too much, because this world is cruel and this world can be hard and the things that we go through in life will differ from person to person. And I've even talked with some people who say, “I really feel jipped in this life,” but I do want to give you guys hope. For me, I know that I would be an absolute nut basket if I did not have Jesus in my life. If I didn't know that I had a hope for later, I would be anxious with no end. But because I have the hope of Jesus, because of his gospel, because he came and he lived and he died and he rose again for me and for all of us, I know that there's a hope and that there is a way that I can go that does not lead to death, though anxiety will come.

I want to encourage you today that it's okay, though it may not feel like it is okay. We have Jesus. We have God, and he's faithful to his promises. He's so faithful. If you have been going through a ton of anxiety, remember that Jesus has us in his hands and that Jesus is trustworthy because he's been where we've been and even today, he's still fully God and fully man, ruling at the right hand of God; interceding for us, praying on our behalf so that we will be able to walk this life that can feel so terrible sometimes. So, today, let's pray that God will be with us and that we won't lose sights of the great things that He has promised us.

This post is taken from Pastor Ewen Erickson’s message, “Answering Anxiety”

Why Worry? A Mental Health message

Click to watch the sermon video on our Youtube page

I've been building a garage in my backyard, so I ran electrical to the garage, and this last week here, I had my electrical inspection. The walls were already closed off and painted, and everything was done. And so I was sitting there, worried that this inspector would say something like, “I need you to rip open the walls for me.” Or, “Oh, you did this wrong, and you have to pull it all out,” or something like that. And so was I was stressed out waiting for this inspection. So honestly, I was ready to fight like, oh no, you have to do this, but you said I don't have to.

That's where my head was, just building up into this thing. And so, as so often happens when we're worried, what ended up happening to the electrical inspector, he came out, and we talked about his beehives for 10 minutes. Then he said, "Oh, you need to add this to the ends of these things, and you need to run a copper wire on the outside of your wall over to your heater. I was like, that's it. Okay, how often do we sit there and we're worrying, and we're worrying all of our energy going into the world is going to end, and then it turns out to be no big deal? Have you ever had a meeting where maybe your boss calls you and says, " Hey, tomorrow I need to speak with you in my office? And so you spend all that night, all your dreams at night, they're all about what you might say or what they might say and how you'll respond. Then, you're in the shower, and you're like formulating responses and all this kind of stuff, getting ready because, man, they're going to demote me, or they're going to yell at me, or they're going to do something, right?

And you walk into the office, and they're like, “Hey, can you help me add my Gmail account to my mail app?” Right? We worry so much; we destroy so much of our lives with worry. Did you know that research says that Canada is second place in the world for worrying behind the U.S.? We are the world's second most stressed-out worrying country, which makes no sense because what do we need to be stressed out for? There are people in the developing world it's like, “Oh man, I didn't work today. I guess we're not having our rice!” People are starving, and we're more stressed out than them. Barna Research recently released some results of some studies they did. They say 60% of adults worry or stress daily; that's adults. Now, if you look at our teens, how much are they stressing out? This world is broken, right? We can agree on that whether you're a follower of Jesus or not. When you look at this world, you're like, “There's some stuff out of place. There's some stuff that I don't like. This doesn't seem right,” and maybe we differ over what we think is right and what we believe is wrong, but fundamentally we know that things are not right in this world.

But because of that, what I've found is that we tend to default to worry over worship, tears over trust, and fear over faith. And you might be thinking to yourself, “Pastor Stephen, I don't need a message on worry. None of these examples that you gave me have anything to do with my life.” If that's you, wow. But honestly, most of us will deal with some worry or stress at some point in our lives, if not right now, right?

I need to clarify that we're not discussing anxiety today, okay? We tend to conflate the two. Don't we tend to say, “I'm so anxious about this,” or “I'm so anxious about that,” but what we really mean is that we're worried? Let's try to differentiate the two, at least how we will use them in this message series. Worry tends to be specific—“I am worried about this,” and where we feel worry is in our mind: we're thinking about it where obsessed with it, “Am I going to make my flight tomorrow?” That's worry. On the other hand, anxiety tends to be more general, and it's more felt in the body: “Travel makes my chest hurt.”

That general anxiety over travel, or when you're just in a room full of people and all of a sudden there's this weight, and your stomach is all wrapped up in knots, you're like, “I don't know what's going on, but I can't do this!” That's anxiety, and that will be what Pastor Ewen talks about on Thanksgiving weekend. But today, we're talking about worry. In our minds, we start to mull over something and all the possibilities and things that could go wrong when maybe none of it's actually in our control.

Today, I want to bring our attention to a book of the Bible called Matthew.

This is the recorded account of Jesus' life that one of his followers, Matthew, wrote. And so we have this firsthand account here, which we find in Matthew 6 24 to 25, and Jesus is teaching here, and this is what he teaches, “No one can serve two masters for you'll hate one and love the other. You'll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life. Whether you have enough food and drink or enough clothes to wear, isn't life more than food and your body more than clothing?”

So, Jesus addresses the overall picture of what we tend to worry about. And he says, don't worry. And all of us go, “Right, I'm worrying about these things,” but what does Jesus say? He says, don't worry about money, don't worry about food. Don't worry about your health or your future. That's everything. That's all the stuff I worry about every day. That's the stuff that consumes my thoughts. That's the stuff that makes me exhausted. Aren't you the same? You have these things, and you're like, man, I wonder what I'm doing with the rest of my life, man, where's our country going in the future? How many of you have been worried about that lately? Man, my retirement was looking so good.

And now my stocks have tanked, and I will be working till I'm a hundred. We're worried.

Let's take a look at these. The first one is money. Jesus says you cannot serve God and money. He's not saying you can't have money if you serve God. He's saying, “Where is your focus?” What is important to you? Where do you place your trust? See, for some of us, if there's an issue, our default is that I need to find a way to get more money and listen. Sometimes, that's a good response. I can't pay my bills. So we either need to reduce our spending or raise our income. That's our two options. But how often do we jump into thinking, “Oh my goodness, I don't know that I'm going to make ends meet this month. I had to take a day off for sick leave, and I'm not getting paid for that. Now I'm going to be short, and everything's going wrong, and what am I supposed to do?” When does prayer come into it? Where does the trust come into it? Who do we focus on? Do you believe that if your finances were suffering while following Jesus's call on your life, would Jesus provide what you need?

Amen. Now, what you need, not necessarily what you want. Now he, he's a good father. He loves to give good gifts. That's scriptural. Jesus says the Father loves to give his children good gifts, but those good gifts need to be what's best. And sometimes, what's best is that we lean on him.

Interestingly, many of us sit there and say, “Yeah, can't serve God and money…. That’s good; now I need to focus on my investments. Let's go double down on work. I want to climb the career ladder. I want to be successful in my life. I want to be comfortable in my life.” But the audience that Jesus was speaking to here was hand-to-mouth. What I mean by that is a lot of these people, they were day labourers, and by day labourers, what I mean is they would stand around in the square, a lot of them and the rich people and the people with land and the people with work, they would come on by, and they'd be like, you and you, you're working today. And at the end of the day, they'd get just enough money to go out and buy some bread and feed their family. They got just enough to squeeze by. They were teetering on the end of destruction. And Jesus is like, don't worry about it. Doesn't that make it seem silly when we're like, man, I am so worried. What if I make the wrong decision about which one of these coats to buy? What if it only lasts one fashion season? These people are like a coat.

I'm not saying we ignore our finances, okay? I'm not saying that you go, “Good, I don't need to budget anymore. I don't need to pay my bills. I don't need to go to work. It's all going to work out. It's all going to be fine. Yeah, whatever. Throw money to the wind,” any of that. No, honestly, that's not wise stewardship. When we reach that place, we're running counter to what scripture says, that we are to be stewards of God's resources. God is saying here that we need not to be obsessed. We need not to be enslaved. We need to not put our fears over our faith that Jesus can provide what we need, right? Jesus says that is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life. Whether you have enough food and drink or enough clothes to wear, isn't life more than food and your body more than clothing?

Don't worry. Life is about more than these things. And so you see there, he talks about food. And again, like I said, many of these people he's speaking to are one mishap away from starvation. They're thinking to themselves, where's the food? And I understand there are people in North America today who are wondering, where's the meal coming from? But can we be honest with ourselves and understand that most North Americans and Western world people aren't thinking, where's the food coming from? They're thinking, what meals should I make or what restaurant should I eat at? In fact, for many of us and many pastors, the temptation when we're reading this passage and speaking to North American audiences is not, “Hey, you got to trust God with where your food's coming from.” It's addressing how I can eat less or be healthier. How can I not be a glutton?

We have so much excess, yet we still worry about it! Yesterday was Joshua's 15th birthday, so we were going to be just having a family party for him, and it was just going to be us, our immediate family, and he wanted some simple food. And so we were all prepped for that. And then, because of some family stuff that was going on with Embree’s family, her mom came into town and was going to be in Lethbridge. And so she's like, Hey, it's Joshua's birthday.

Why don't we take you guys out for dinner? So we're like, “Okay, there goes the plan.” Well, then we had a choice to make. See, Joshua got stuck between two options. Did he want to have Indian food at Rivaz, or did he want to go to the Japanese buffet? Let me tell you, there was some stress on his and my part because I didn't want fish! We were stressing out about food. It got to the point where he told our echo to flip a coin and assigned one to tails and one to heads. Fortunately, Indian won! Then, 10 minutes later, he decided to go with Japanese. I was stressing, but why? It all tastes good, some of it far better than others, but it all tastes good, right?

We're stressing out for no reason. We stress out about the craziest things; every time we stress or worry, it exhausts us. It takes energy away from us being able to think about things that honour and glorify God. It takes us away from being able to tackle the real issues that need to be dealt with in the day. Jesus also talked about our health, and that’s an important topic today, but can you imagine living at a time when their idea of medicine was like, oh, you're getting migraines? That's the evil spirits in your head that need to get out. So we're going to grab this auger, and we're going to drill some holes in your head to let the evil spirits out. That was Greek and Roman modern medicine. That's some good stuff right there. I had a headache. Now I have a whole skull ache. And the great thing about that kind of medicine, to be quite honest, is your patients never could complain. So listen, don't worry about your health. He's not saying don't take care of yourself, right? He's not saying do whatever you want and lay back, let your body deteriorate, and let everything fall apart because you're not doing what is good. But what he says is your body's temporary.

One of the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith is this understanding that we are spiritual beings. Now, I don't want to create a false dichotomy here. Our body and our soul are deeply and intricately connected. However, there is the essence of us that goes beyond this physical world. And so we can obsess about taking care of our body, and we can be like Elon Musk and think to ourselves, man, I just got to create a robot brain so that one day we'll be able to transfer my conscience, whatever. We can be some kind of person who wants to cheat death, but at the end of the day, should our focus be on beating or cheating death or should it just be on focusing on what lasts on the eternity that awaits us on the mission that Jesus has given us, that impacts and affects the eternity, the existence of the people around us to be selfless rather than self-centred. Don't worry about your health. Be wise, but don't worry about it.

Jesus, just before this had said, “Don't store up treasures here on earth where moths eat them in rust destroys them. And where thieves break in and steal, store your treasures in heaven where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.” Here's the thing about your health. You can do everything right, and then your genetics get you. You can follow everything modern medicine tells you is correct, and then you'll develop cancer. And it turns out that what they told you was right is the thing that was full of carcinogens that got you. I'm not wrong. We don't like to think about this stuff, but that's the thing, right? This natural world, we can focus on it, we can stress about it, and it can all turn out exactly how we hope it wouldn’t! So why do we worry about it?

Jesus also said, don't worry about your clothing. Now, here's another interesting one. Jesus is actually talking to people, not those who are like, “Oh, let me go through my closet. I got to figure out what I'm going to wear.” He was talking to people for whom clothing was actually a matter of exposure. “Am I walking outside in my underwear today? The night is cold. Am I going to be warm enough today?” That was what he was dealing with. What do most of us worry about when it comes to clothing? Does this match that? Is this in season? Is this in style? Oh my goodness, these shoes, they're not perfectly comfortable or Oh, goodness gracious. Look, I need more money. I got to rebuy my entire wardrobe. It's out of season. Oh, white pants, after, before Labor Day. That's what I mean, right? We fill things. Do you button the middle suit coat button? Do you button the top one? All of them, none of them. What do you do? Pleats? No pleats. Do you get little sock suspenders? (Hey, don't discount them until you tried them. They're great. There's nothing like it when you're wearing a suit!) We sit there, and we worry about all this stuff,

All of it. But for us, so often, it's a matter of others' opinions of us. You know what that's called? That's called pride.

It is.

We stress out because we can't deal with the thought that somebody wouldn't think about us as we want them to. We look at fashion, not function. For some of us, if we swapped the time we spent thinking about what we would wear that morning with time spent with God, I genuinely believe it would change our lives.

Jesus also says, don't worry about the future. Why are you dealing with things that haven’t even happened yet today? Jesus says it this way, “So don't worry about tomorrow. For tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today.” Yet, how many of you actually worry about today versus tomorrow? The majority of the stuff that sits there buzzing around in my brain isn't right now in this moment; it’s stuff like, “Man, I still have another inspection I have to go through. What's going to happen there? Oh man, I haven't even scheduled it yet!”

Tomorrow's problem. Don't worry about what may happen in the future. It may happen, but Jesus helps us move beyond worry towards trusting him. Jesus says, “Look at the birds. They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your Heavenly Father feeds them. And aren't you far more valuable to him than they are?” God loves you. He cares about you. And the great thing is that no matter what happens in this physical world, if we get called from this place, that's great, right? No more worry. Now, in this, God loves the birds. He cares for the birds. But when a bird gets up in the morning, it doesn't sit in its nest and go, where's my food? Right? It doesn't wait for a worm to drop out of the sky unless it's a baby bird.

It gets up, and it goes, and it finds some food. It doesn't just sit and starve and go, okay, God. There is a difference between concern and worry. Concern looks at a hurdle that must be overcome and seeks to surmount it. Worry looks at things beyond your control that may not even happen. And more often than not, as you worry about that thing because there's nothing you can do about it, it paralyzes you. So the concern is like, I should do something. There's a real thing I need to deal with. Worry is, oh my goodness, Jesus says, can all your worries add a single moment to your life? Modern science says it steals time from our lives. Stress is a killer. But do you and I trust God? See where you worry most may be, where you trust God the least. What stresses you out the most may be where you are not giving into God's hands and saying, you know what? Whatever you want to happen in this situation, I know you love me. I know you've got a plan for me. This is yours.

Jesus continues. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that they are here today and thrown into the fire that is here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith? So don't worry about these things saying, what will we eat or what will we drink or what will we wear? These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows your needs. Seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously; he will give you everything you need. Is God really first? Seek the kingdom of God above all else. Many of us know this passage as seek you first, the kingdom of God. Are you seeking it first? Why do we worry? I've pointed out a little bit before. Have you ever noticed that most of what we worry about doesn't happen? And when it does, it's generally not so bad, like taking my kids to get a shot or something like that, right? You're sitting there squeezing them, they're yelling, they're screaming, they're squirming, they're freaking out, and then they get the shot, and they're still squirming and screaming and freaking out, and you're like, we're done, right? Oh,

Parents, you've been there when the worst happens. Here's the thing: sometimes it does, but when the worst happens, you're not alone. And because of Christ, we can reframe our perspective on life to understand that at this moment, our very existence, the entirety of our time on earth, is one single dot from a ballpoint pin on an eternal line infinity; that's spiritual existence. And this life here, while it significantly impacts how we spend that eternity and how others do, is but a prick in that infinite scope. And yet, how many of us spend more time thinking about that eternity than we do the moment that is but a fraction of that? Imagine how different your life would be if, instead of worrying about today, tomorrow, or all the things to come, you gave your worries to God and trusted him. Imagine how different your life would be if you didn't think to yourself, God's a big meanie, and if I trust him in this, he will take it all away from me. And so I need to onto it all forever. And we just said, God, what's best?

It could result in more blessings. Perhaps it results in eternal blessings. But imagine how much freer we could live. Imagine the difference in our interaction with people around the world. If all of a sudden they looked at us and they said, why aren't you worried about the global whatever? Why aren't you concerned about who's in office? Why aren't you concerned about the impending global doom crash of all financial things in the world? Why aren't you worried? And you could say, because I know, my God, he's got me. So today, I want to encourage you to bring your biggest worry to God and focus on faith, not fear, because Jesus has already surmounted the impossible.

Humanity had rejected God. We've thrown him to the side. He created us, and we went, “Nope.” And it was entirely within God's purview to start over. But he said I love you. I care about you, and I'm going to do what seems impossible, what is impossible for each of us. And I'm going to come to earth and live amongst you. I'm going to accrue credit for the debt of all humanity. I will die on that cross, even though I don't deserve it, and I will overcome the grave. Then, he reaches out his hand with those holes and scars and says, come to me. Come to me. Let me give you life to the fullest.