Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Yeah, it's a privilege to be able to share the word again this morning, guys.
[00:00:03] And, yeah, I think this is a word that's close to my heart. I always find the Lord puts a word in my heart that speaks to me as well.
[00:00:12] So, yeah, I hope that you guys.
[00:00:14] Oh, volumes. Come up.
[00:00:17] I hope you guys feel the same way. I can shout this out. Don't worry.
[00:00:23] So who, like me, finds themselves awake at two in the morning wondering about things?
[00:00:32] You wake up at 2, if you're over 40, you go to the loo and then you lie there and like I said, the gyro starts spooling up.
[00:00:44] For those of you who don't know what a gyro is, a gyroscopic instrument is something that you have in planes. Well, they're basically being phased out now, but it's an instrument which, where there's a wheel inside of it that spins at a very high speed. And say one of the things is your artificial horizon. So if you turn, it stays on level so it spins at a very high rpm. You can hear it spooling up when you start up. And I just think my brain is like a gyro. Sometimes it spools up.
[00:01:14] And it's amazing how your default always goes towards things which you're anxious about. Not so.
[00:01:23] And it's also amazing how at 2 o' clock in the morning, everything is worse, isn't it?
[00:01:32] All your worries are doubled at night. Yeah, you're right.
[00:01:39] So what's wrong with us?
[00:01:46] Well, the good news is nothing.
[00:01:50] It's perfectly normal to have these thoughts. It's how we deal with them that counts.
[00:01:57] Amen.
[00:02:00] Yeah. As a farmer, we have our fair share of anxiety. Those of us who are farmers with the rain, we're either craning our necks up to the sky all the time to see when it's going to rain next, or. Or we're putting earplugs in at night so we don't hear the rain that rains all night. Especially if you've got a maratha roof. Lyn, I've always said, as a farmer, I don't know how people farm without faith. Amen. Angus Buchan. Faith like potatoes. Very good book, if those of you haven't read it.
[00:02:39] So, like I said, it's very normal to be anxious to have anxious thoughts. It's how we deal with them that really counts. So the title of the sermon today is Be Anxious for Nothing.
[00:02:50] Amen.
[00:02:52] Let's look at our first verse this morning. Matthew 26:37.
[00:03:00] He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him.
[00:03:04] And he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.
[00:03:13] Stay here and keep watch over me.
[00:03:16] So this is Jesus speaking in the garden of Gethsemane.
[00:03:21] And just to give a bit of context, this was close to his crucifixion.
[00:03:27] So you can see there that Jesus himself was very troubled.
[00:03:32] It must have been a terrible time. Can you imagine what he was going through, knowing what he was feeling at that moment, knowing what he was about to go through?
[00:03:42] And can you imagine, after saying that, what his disciples must have been feeling?
[00:03:47] It's quite something, but I think it's safe to say that Jesus was anxious. So even Jesus had times of feeling anxious.
[00:03:58] But how did we deal with it in the situation?
[00:04:02] Let's go to the Word and see what it says.
[00:04:04] So Philippians 4, verse 6, verse. That's all close to our hearts. Those of you who attended the prayer meeting on Wednesday morning, hands up the faithful.
[00:04:15] Well done, guys at the front.
[00:04:17] You would have got a taste of this because I led that as well on Wednesday morning, do not be anxious about anything. But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. I shouldn't have to read this because this is one of my favorite verses, I think as a young Christian, I think this is the first verse that I actually wrote down in my journal.
[00:04:46] Yeah. Needless to say, I was also starting out as a farmer then, so there's a correlation there.
[00:04:53] So, folks, what are we anxious about today?
[00:04:56] There's a number of things.
[00:04:58] The war in the Middle east, is it nuclear holocaust? The imminent threat?
[00:05:04] Is it inflation?
[00:05:07] Or is it something that's closer to home?
[00:05:10] Is it our families, a loved one?
[00:05:13] Is it our jobs, job security we're worried about? We're going to lose a job, we can't find a job.
[00:05:21] Worried about a family member? Or is it illness? Maybe we have an illness.
[00:05:26] There's plenty of stuff to be anxious about, and as we've seen, that's normal.
[00:05:32] And please, yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm not making light of anyone's problems. If someone does have an illness or some real problem.
[00:05:41] Not here to discount that at the end of the day, as Anton and I often talk about, we're here to point you towards Jesus.
[00:05:50] We're certainly not here to judge or anything.
[00:05:53] So let's unpack this verse a little bit more.
[00:05:56] And it's actually quite a special verse. So we'll break it down into its components. The first one, do not be anxious about anything.
[00:06:05] Does it say, don't be anxious about most things? But there's that word, one thing that you're allowed to be anxious about.
[00:06:12] We all have that, don't we? We tend to say, no, no, I've got faith for all of this, but this one thing I don't have faith for, so I'm allowed to worry about this.
[00:06:22] Do we have that?
[00:06:24] So Tracy and I have got that. They're different things, by the way. It's amazing. But we both have these things that we think that we justified to be anxious about.
[00:06:34] But what does the word say?
[00:06:37] Does it say, be anxious about most things? But there are a few things you can be anxious about. It says, no, do not be anxious about anything.
[00:06:48] It's amazing that with Tracy and I, like I said, we're anxious about different things, but she has faith for my things and I have faith for hers. Why is that? When I tell her what I'm anxious about, she said, no, don't worry, It'll be fine. I've got faith for that. And then she's normally worried about someone or something in the family, and I'll say, no, no, don't worry. It'll all work out. So I've looked at that and think, why is that?
[00:07:11] And I think maybe it's because I don't have the. Necessarily the emotion attached to the thing that she's anxious about. So I can look at it more and more purely from the word point of view, and I can apply God's promises to that. And the same with her. With me, I'm in the say, it's a situation on the farm. We're having a tough season, or there's this problem or that problem, and she has faith. She said, no, no, I feel the Lord will come through for us in this. I'm like, oh, what do you.
[00:07:38] But she doesn't have necessarily the emotion in the situation that I have.
[00:07:43] So that's a good thing. That's a little side note. So problem shared is a problem halved. Don't carry your burdens alone.
[00:07:50] Just carry them with your spouse or with your close friend and help them to pray for.
[00:07:58] But in every situation, by prayer and petition, we all know how important prayer is, don't we? We go on and on about how important prayer is.
[00:08:08] John, I just want to say it's so good to have you in church this morning. I'm quite intimidated. Preaching to the. To the preacher.
[00:08:16] My nervous level just went up. A couple of clicks when Anton announced you. But it's a privilege to have you here this morning.
[00:08:25] So we hear often about how important prayer is and how much prayer are we giving to our. How much time.
[00:08:32] You see, I just mentioned John and I'm starting to get my words mixed up. How much. Don't be anxious. Okay, Let me just. Okay.
[00:08:41] How much time are we giving to our prayer life?
[00:08:45] That's something we've spoken about a lot. But I'm reading a book at the moment by John Mark Comer called the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.
[00:08:56] So it's a book that my daughter Ali read first. She loved it. She gave it to Trace, who loved it. And I'm now reading it.
[00:09:04] And it's an amazing book. And it talks about our prayer life and it talks about our quiet time. And it's something that in our comm group we've spoken a lot about is our quiet time and getting into good habits with your quiet time. But what it also touches on, and it's something that I think is largely not forgotten but overlooked in the church today, is observing the Sabbath.
[00:09:29] How many of us observe the Sabbath?
[00:09:32] It's such an important thing. So God instituted the Sabbath when?
[00:09:38] Right at the beginning in Genesis. He created everything.
[00:09:45] And then on the seventh day, he rested.
[00:09:49] So God instituted then a six to one ratio of six days working and one day resting, one day resting and spending time with Him. And how many of us do that? Or how many of us get into the excuse of not doing it? But it's there, it hasn't left. And it's mentioned in the Bible all the way through. There's a 6 to 1 ratio. Isn't it interesting? In his book, he says that after the French Revolution, the French always approached things a little bit differently. So they thought that they had up productivity a little bit.
[00:10:22] So they instituted a 10 to 1 ratio. They said, no, you work for 10 days, then you get one day off. Then we'll up productivity.
[00:10:29] Good idea. Hey, not a good idea. It's not a God idea. So what do you think happened? Their productivity crashed, suicide rates went up, and the economy crashed.
[00:10:42] Don't mess with God's rhythm. It's a 6 to 1 ratio. So I think it's important. And the point I'm getting to in that is that if we observe our quiet times, we get into a good routine. And the Sabbath.
[00:10:56] The Sabbath is a day of spending time with the Lord.
[00:11:02] They don't have to be. It's not a religious thing.
[00:11:05] Jesus himself said, what did he Say, let me just go to the verse Mark 2:27, when he was walking with his disciples on the Sabbath and sorry, this is not a verse I gave you, but he was walking with his disciples on the Sabbath and some of them started picking ears of corn in a field. And the Pharisees jumped on that and said, that is forbidden in the Sabbath.
[00:11:28] And Jesus was about breaking religion.
[00:11:32] And he said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So it's not about a whole lot of religious rules, okay?
[00:11:41] I mean, the Orthodox Jews have taken this to the nth degree.
[00:11:46] So my in laws have been to Israel.
[00:11:52] And unbelievably, on the Sabbath there, the place shuts down. There is work is forbidden. And what they classify as work, they've taken it to the nth degree. So in Israel you get Sabbath friendly lifts.
[00:12:09] Believe it or not, on the Sabbath they stop at every floor because to touch the button is work.
[00:12:17] Okay?
[00:12:19] So that's exactly in my opinion what Jesus is speaking about when he's saying the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. But the principle here is that the Sabbath was made for a day of rest and a day of honoring the Lord and spending time with the Lord. And if we do that, then we can bring our problems before him, every situation through prayer and petition.
[00:12:40] If we're observing our quiet times, and if we're observing the Sabbath, then there's plenty of time to do that. Not so.
[00:12:47] And petition.
[00:12:49] So what does petition mean?
[00:12:52] So I first learned about the word petition. You know, when you go to university, now you've got rights, okay? When you're at school, sorry, for those who are still at school, you've got no rights. If you petition your housemaster for wearing civvies after 7 o' clock or whatever, he'll tell you, get out of here, you've got no rights. Don't come in. But when you go to varsity now, now if you feel like wearing slops to your lectures and they're not allowed, what do you do? You petition. Okay? So everyone writes a big petition and everyone signs it.
[00:13:26] And now, you know, that's you start exercising your rights. What is the definition of petition?
[00:13:34] Petition is a formal request made to someone in authority asking for a specific action or decision.
[00:13:45] Is God someone in authority?
[00:13:49] And his word says we are allowed to petition him. Isn't that awesome?
[00:13:54] Through prayer and petition, we can petition the Lord with thanksgiving.
[00:14:05] So thanksgiving, often when we stressed thanksgiving is the last thing we feel like doing, don't you find it's A bit of a kingdom tension. It's like faith and fear. The two don't operate together.
[00:14:16] Thanksgiving and anxiousness.
[00:14:19] But how amazing that it's there and it's there for a reason. When we start giving thanks in the situation, a lot of those anxieties disappear.
[00:14:28] I know in my times, at 2 o' clock in the morning when the gyro is spooling up, I start by giving thanks for everything that I can think of, all the blessings of the Lord that I can think of. And you know what happens.
[00:14:42] Before long, I'm back to sleep.
[00:14:44] It's amazing.
[00:14:49] So, yeah, I just want to tell you a story in that regard about being thankful in every situation.
[00:14:55] So Gordon and Ange Smith, who are elders in the McKinney Church in Lusaka, they spent the night with us a few months ago. I think it was November or December. They were going through to Nyanga to spend some time there with their family. And they've got a daughter there. One of their daughters, Amy, is severely disabled.
[00:15:19] She cannot walk by herself. She. They. They carried her out of the car when they arrived and put her on one of those little walking machines that elderly people use. You know when you go around a shopping mall and you see those old ducks fumbling on those things? That's what she uses, okay? She cannot breathe unassisted. She needs a machine to breathe. And they place her on that. They basically have to strap her into this thing.
[00:15:48] But what an amazing young girl. She does not let her handicaps hold her back. She is thankful in every situation. She goes to Stellenbosch University and lives a full life, you know, that she's in a special place where there's three of them who are handicapped and then one carer looking after all three. She goes to lectures by herself.
[00:16:10] She is unbelievably full of joy. It was un.
[00:16:14] It was amazingly humbling to see her and she didn't want to be left out of anything.
[00:16:19] I mean, our house is not wheelchair friendly, let me tell you. We looked at this lot and we thought, gee, you know, there's stairs in, stairs out, stairs up, stairs down, everything like that. No, no. We said, we're going to have tea on the veranda. She said, I'm getting there.
[00:16:34] So she went around with her buggy right around the Guyard. We put in a ramp on the one place where there were stairs. She got there and she enjoyed the sunset with us and was taking photographs of it.
[00:16:46] Folks, if she can be thankful in every situation, then so can we. Amen.
[00:16:51] Yeah.
[00:16:54] With Thanksgiving, present your request to God.
[00:16:59] To who?
[00:17:01] To God.
[00:17:02] Guys, don't we realize who we have on our side?
[00:17:06] We have God in our corner.
[00:17:09] Amen.
[00:17:11] I remember when I was young, probably about Marcus's age, I think I was 7. And I used to have trouble sleeping at night.
[00:17:18] And I'd be lying awake there in my little room. And after about an hour of lying there, now I'm starting to get stressed because now you think you're going to be tired the next day. You know, as a kid, you start worrying about all kinds of things. Well, maybe nothing's changed.
[00:17:34] And then I'd go through to my parents. There was no TV in those days, so they'd both be reading in the lounge, and they'd look at me. And my dad would say, go back to your room. I'm coming.
[00:17:46] And he would come and he would lie with me and he would say, what is troubling you? Why are you anxious? And I would say, because I didn't really know what the answer was, but I'd say, oh, because there's noises outside.
[00:18:01] And he'd say to me, and he'd sit. He'd lie there and explain it to me and say, do you know that the night is exactly the same as the day? The only difference is that it's dark, but there's no funny animals out there or things waiting to pounce on you. It's exactly the same.
[00:18:17] And then he'd lie with me, and that feeling of protection and comfort, having your father close by was an amazing comfort. And he would lie with me until I fell asleep because I felt that protection. I felt his covering.
[00:18:44] And straight away I was no longer anxious.
[00:18:49] So how much more?
[00:18:51] Our Father in heaven.
[00:18:54] Not so.
[00:18:58] Present your requests to God. God is in our corner, folks.
[00:19:07] We're going to go to Psalm 55, 22. Now.
[00:19:16] Cast your cares same as worries or anxiety on the Lord, and he will sustain you.
[00:19:24] He will never let the righteous be shaken.
[00:19:29] Awesome.
[00:19:30] We need to hand it over to God.
[00:19:33] Say, lord, I'm worrying about this or that, but I hand it over to you.
[00:19:38] There's a number of times in the past six months I've said to the Lord, lord, I can't do this without you.
[00:19:45] And I think God's pleased with that because it shows your faith. You're handing it over, but with you, I can do it.
[00:19:52] God wants us to hand the situation over to him and to have faith in him that he can deal with it. It may not always be the outcome that we want, folks. Okay, that's not what I'm saying here, but God's got this, as the bumper sticker says.
[00:20:11] There's a doctor friend of mine who told me once that 50% of his patients are on pills for anxiety.
[00:20:24] Yes, that's Marindera.
[00:20:27] Not some doctor in the first world that's here.
[00:20:31] Half of his patients are on pills for anxiety.
[00:20:35] Let's not be on pills for anxiety, folks. Let's hand it over to God.
[00:20:40] God is a much better physician, much better than any medication that we can take. Hand it over to God.
[00:20:53] Let's go to Matthew 6 now and starting from verse 25.
[00:21:05] Therefore, I tell you, do not worry.
[00:21:09] So just as I said earlier, worry in the original Greek is the same as anxiety.
[00:21:13] Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink or about your body or what you will wear.
[00:21:24] Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes?
[00:21:29] Look at the birds of the air.
[00:21:31] Do they not sow or reap?
[00:21:34] They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
[00:21:41] Are you not much more valuable than they?
[00:21:44] Can any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life?
[00:21:49] This is Jesus himself speaking.
[00:21:52] Do not worry.
[00:21:55] It's interesting, and not by mistake, that Jesus uses birds as an analogy.
[00:22:02] So often I sit on my veranda at home and there's lots of bird life around us. And you often watch the birds, and what an amazing example they are.
[00:22:12] First of all, they glorify God through their colors.
[00:22:15] They're always happy. They've got most beautiful calls and sounds. They're busy jumping from this tree to that tree, looking for insects, picking fruit. We've got a fig tree right near our veranda. They're always picking fruit from that.
[00:22:30] They don't look anxious for anything.
[00:22:33] And yet look at how the Lord looks after them. How much more us we are so much more precious to the Father than birds. Amen.
[00:22:47] Just as a side note here, so Penn State University did a study on anxiety.
[00:22:54] They found that 85% of the things that we worry about never actually happen.
[00:23:04] Interesting. Hey.
[00:23:07] So you may say, okay, Jesus says, therefore I tell you, don't be worried. And I tell you not to worry. And that's, you may say, well, that's easy for Jesus to say.
[00:23:20] But, yeah, I'm here in the trenches and I've got, you know, I've got real issues. I've got rent to pay. I've got family to feed. I've got school fees to pay for.
[00:23:32] But the answer, the key to this lies in verse 33.
[00:23:37] So let's look at verse 33.
[00:23:42] But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.
[00:23:51] Seek first.
[00:23:54] What does that mean, folks?
[00:23:56] What is seek first? We know what seek first means. But what is his kingdom and his righteousness? What does that mean?
[00:24:07] It means living a God centered life, A God centered life according to his will.
[00:24:15] So often we want to live Christianity according to our own rules. Not so so many times we'll be discussing Anton and I and people will come to us with problems, problems, issues in their life. But they.
[00:24:36] Living in such obvious sin in some instances where they might be living with their partner or something like that, and yet they have all these problems.
[00:24:51] But the Word says seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and then all these things will be added to you as well.
[00:25:04] Folks. That's what we need to focus on, seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness.
[00:25:10] So yeah, that might seem harsh. Like I was saying, I'm not here to judge. But the Word is the Word.
[00:25:17] And the Lord says in His Word he will look after us much more than the birds and the sparrows. But we need to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.
[00:25:27] We cannot expect all those things to follow if we're not seeking that.
[00:25:32] So what does that mean? What are these things? These things will be given to you as well as it says in the second half of that verse.
[00:25:43] So the answer to that is in verse 31.
[00:25:46] And all these things will be added to you as well. Verse 33.
[00:25:50] The things that the pagans run after, which is in verse 31.
[00:25:56] So don't worry saying what shall we eat, what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear?
[00:26:04] For the pagans run after all these things and, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them.
[00:26:10] So God will give you those things. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things he says will be added to you. In fact, God is such a good God, he will give you those things. Those sound like things that we need. God will also give you things.
[00:26:25] On top of that, He's a good father, you know, like I always said, you know, Mercedes wasn't made just for pagans. You know, I'm not teaching prosperity, don't get me wrong. But it's not that the good things are not only for the pagans. God will give us all our needs and he will give us an excess of that as well. But seek first, not second his kingdom.
[00:26:53] Amen folks.
[00:26:56] So guys, in conclusion, I'm not known for long sermons. This is no exception.
[00:27:06] Be anxious for nothing.
[00:27:11] Let's go back to that verse, Philippians 4. 6. Be anxious for nothing.
[00:27:30] But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
[00:27:38] Let's hold on to that today, folks. Let's follow that.
[00:27:45] And God says in his word, he will look after us so much more than the birds we see happily flying around us.
[00:27:55] Amen.
[00:27:56] So I just like to end by praying for us all, if we can. All bow our heads and I'll lead us in prayer.
[00:28:07] Father. God, we just thank you for your word this morning. Lord, we know that it is normal to be anxious to have anxious thoughts, but it's how we process them that counts. Father.
[00:28:17] So we pray, Father, that we would be doers of the Word. And through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, that we would bring our request to you, Lord. Thank you, Father.
[00:28:29] Thank you, Lord, for your word. We just pray that any of us is anxious that we would bring that to you in prayer. Lord, we thank you for what a good, good God we have. We thank you, Lord, that you are in our corner, that you are fighting for us.
[00:28:45] What a comfort, what a protection that is to know, Lord, that you are with us and you are on our sides.
[00:28:55] I pray, Lord, that also we would be able to seek first your kingdom and your righteousness, Lord, and that you would add all these things to us after that. But that first, Lord, first we would seek your kingdom, your righteousness.
[00:29:09] Thank you, Lord. We just pray your blessing on the rest of this day and on the week ahead.
[00:29:13] In Jesus name, amen.
