FACING REALITY WITH FAITH
A
New You For A New Year - Part 5
02-09-14
Sermon
“Don’t worry about anything…” Phil 4:6 (TLB)
FACE :
The cause of your worry
“Then Jesus
got into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples. Suddenly, a terrible storm came
up, with waves breaking into the boat. But Jesus was sleeping.” Matthew 8:23-24 (NLT)
1. The
Storm: Unexpected
2. The
Waves: Overwhelming
3. The
Boat: Inadequate
4. Jesus was
sleeping:
CHOOSE :
The cure for your worry
“The disciples
went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!’ And Jesus
answered, ‘Why are you afraid? You
have so little faith!’ Then he stood up and rebuked the wind and waves, and
suddenly all was calm. The
disciples just sat there in awe. ‘Who
is this?’ they asked themselves. ‘Even
the wind and waves obey him!’” Matthew 8:25-27 (NLT)
1. Ask
for
“Don’t
worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” Philippians 4:6 (NLT)
T_____________________
T_____________________
T_____________________
2. Question
your
“Don't ever be afraid or discouraged! I am the Lord your God, and I will be there
to help you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9
(CEV)
“‘I am leaving you with a gift -
peace of mind and heart! And the
peace I give isn’t fragile like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid.’” John 14:27
(TLB)
3. Increase
your
“‘God clothes the
grass in the field, which is alive today but tomorrow is thrown into the fire. So you can be even more sure that God
will clothe you. Don’t have so
little faith!’”
Matthew 6:30 (NCV)
“‘The seed that
fell among the thorny weeds is like those who hear God’s teaching, but they let
the worries, riches, and pleasures of this life keep them from growing and
producing good fruit.’” Luke 8:14 (NCV)
4. Acknowledge
“Everything
in the heavens and earth is yours, O Lord… We adore you as being in control of
everything.” 1
Chronicles 29:11 (TLB)
“‘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?
Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?’” Matthew 6:26-27 (NIV)
“‘So
don’t be anxious about tomorrow. God
will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time.’” Matthew 6:34 (TLB)
“Give all your
worries and cares to God, for He cares about what happens to you.”
1
Peter 5:7 (NLT)
FACING REALITY WITH FAITH
A
New You For A New Year - Part 5
02-09-14
Sermon
We’re
already in the second weekend of February at the start of a new year. For many of us it’s the weekend where
reality hits. The reality is I
made all these plans and had all these goals. I was going to change my job, I was going to change my
thinking, I was going to change my family. The reality is it’s going to be a little more difficult than
I thought it was going to be. Or
it’s not happening like I wanted it to be.
What
do you do in the face of reality? What
do you do when reality hits? That’s
what we’re going to talk about together today. It is summed up in the title today – Facing Reality With Faith.
When reality sets in, what do you do?
You’ve
got one of two choices in the face of reality. You can either choose to worry or you can choose faith. The bible says: “Don’t
worry about anything.” If I
can make that choice it can change everything.
Don’t
worry about anything. Why? Because
worry is actually stealing from you the life that God wants to give to you. It’s really keeping you from the best
of what God wants to do in your life.
We’ve
heard a lot about anxiety and worry, most of us over the years. Yet we still do it from time to time. What keeps us worrying? What keeps us worrying is it sort of
works for you. It reminds you what
to do. It gets you motivated. You’re thinking, if I don’t worry, who’s going to worry? How’s it going to get done? You know what I’m talking about, you professional worriers. So it’s working for us, at least to
some degree.
The
truth of the matter is, even though you feel that way, worry really doesn’t
work for you; it works on you. It does things to you physically, it does things to you emotionally
and spiritually that really keep you from the life that God has for you, the
joy that God has for you. But if
we’re going to get past worry, past anxiety, then we’ve got to have something
better. It’s not enough just to
say not to worry. That verse we
read in Philippians earlier? In a
minute we’re going to see the answer.
There is a positive answer to this.
I
wanted to give you a picture of this today in the story of something that
really happened to Jesus and his disciples. They were in a boat on the Sea of Galilee and a storm came
up. In the midst of that you get a
clear picture of the things you and I need to do, often on a daily basis, to
face the reality of anxiety and to make a different choice, to choose faith
over worry. If I’m going to do
that, what are the simple things I’ve got to do?
The first
thing I’ve got to do is I’ve got to face reality.
That’s
where it starts. You’re not going
to get past your anxieties; you’re not going to get to faith by pretending
everything is ok, because it’s not ok all the time. You start by facing reality.
And
they had a reality to face. The Bible
says in Matthew 8:23-24, “Then Jesus got
into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples. Suddenly, a terrible storm came up,
with waves breaking into the boat.
But Jesus was sleeping.”
So
you’ve got a little boat on a big lake, the Sea of Galilee, with a huge storm,
and Jesus is asleep. A perfect
picture of a situation that we face that causes the reality of anxiety in our
lives.
I
wanted us all to get this this week, just have it engrained in our mind for
next week. So I asked Peg to find us a picture of a small boat. Notice that it’s called the S. S. Me. This represents you, your life, all in
a boat.
If
you think of these disciples and all they went through, there are four
experiences they had. The first
thing they went through is this approaching storm.
1.
The storm is a picture of
unexpected problems.
They’re
on this lake, it’s perfectly calm; everything was ok. Then, all of a sudden, a storm comes up. That’s a picture of our lives. Everything can look fine. Everything can look calm. Then all of a sudden a circumstance
comes up and you start wondering where the next disaster is.
How
many times have we heard these things in our joys and concerns time? A sudden serious cancer diagnosis. A disastrous accident. A sudden, unexpected death. And lives are changed forever. We have no idea when sudden storms will
come.
All
of you right now are thinking, I thought
this was supposed to help me not worry.
Now I’m even more worried about all the things that could happen!
Here’s
the point: If you try to build a lessening
of anxiety, on everything going right in your life, on the sea always staying
calm, you’re never going to get there. People will sometimes say, this year is going to be better than last year. And it is. But not necessarily the circumstances. You don’t have the promise of that. You don’t know what’s going to happen
with the circumstances. But you
can find a way to have faith even in the face of that reality of the sudden
storms. That’s the secret. You don’t build some pretend life and
then think that’s going to be ok. You
find reality and watch what God can do there.
The
disciples had the storm that was on the way, then they had a second
circumstance. They’re in this boat,
and the waves start to rock the boat, and the waves actually come into the boat. They’re facing a second circumstance.
2.
The waves. They’re facing
overwhelming circumstances.
There
are some circumstances that you face that you think, “Ok, I can face that one. I’m
ok. I can face that in this boat. It’s a calm sea.” But once the waves start coming over
the edge of the boat you begin to feel like, “There’s no way I can face that one.” This world can be an overwhelming place. Overwhelming circumstances in your life. That’s the reality of life that we
sometimes face. They had the
reality of the waves that were coming in their boat.
3.
They had a third thing. The third is the boat. The boat is a
picture of inadequate resources.
They’re
in this boat. It is not big enough
to weather the storm. If they had
been on a cruise liner on the Sea of Galilee, it would have been fine. No problem. But the boat was too small to weather that storm.
You
look at your life. You and I face inadequate resources too. We face the inadequate resources of our
finances. If you had all the money
in the world you’d have nothing to worry about – but you don’t. If you had all the time in the world
you’d have nothing to worry about; but you don’t have all the time in the world. If your health was always perfect and
you always had perfect energy, no worries. But it’s not. So
because of that we have inadequate resources and we face that reality.
4.
Then there’s a fourth
reality that they faced: Jesus was
sleeping. That’s the reality of feeling alone.
Here
they are in this boat, this is a great story. His disciples are on one end of the boat and Jesus is sleeping
on the other. The storm is getting
worse and worse and worse. And
they feel like they’re going to go under.
Jesus has just ministered to thousands of people. He’s going to the other side of the Sea
of Galilee to minister to thousands more.
And he’s so tired that he’s sleeping through this storm. Think about how exhausted he must have
been. As the disciples are seeing
the storm get more and more fierce they began to think, “When is he going to wake up?
Is he ever going to wake up?”
Think of this conversation they’re having: “Maybe you should wake him up!
… I’m not waking him up, you wake him up! I’m not waking him up. The last time I woke him up he told me to go walk on water! I’m not waking him up!”
Finally
they go wake him up. In that
moment when Jesus is asleep, they had this feeling of, we’re facing this storm,
Jesus could make a difference, but he’s not awake, so I’m all alone!
That’s
the way we feel sometimes. We face
the circumstances of life and the realities of life. The worse it gets the more you wonder, where is God in all of this.
You’re facing a problem and you know that God must know what you’re going
through – he knows everything. But
the problem keeps on going on.
There’s
something in you where your constant cry becomes, “God! Why don’t you do something about this?”
The longer you’ve been in church, the harder it is to admit that. That there are times in every one of our
lives where we begin to think, “God, why
don’t you do something? Why are
you letting this just go on and on and on? Can’t you see the waves are getting higher and higher? The boat’s about to go under.” You just want to shake God awake. That’s your feeling. You know God is bigger than that, but
that’s how you feel right then. That’s
the reality.
How
do we keep from worrying when it seems to us that God is slow in answering? When it seems to us that life is overwhelming? Clichés don’t work to keep you from worrying. We could all sing, The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow a thousand times, but it’s not going
to help.
Statistics
don’t work. I could tell you, and
it is a huge statistic, that ninety-two percent of what you worry about is not going
to happen anyway. But you’re
thinking, yeah, but what about the other eight percent that is going to happen. I’m going to face that. That doesn’t work.
We
could talk about all those things, but in the face of the reality of life, if
I’m going to stop having anxiety and worry, I’ve got to have a better answer. Just saying, this is not a good idea, is not enough.
What’s
the positive alternative? That is
the question. You’ll never get rid
of your anxiety by telling yourself not to be anxious. That just makes you more anxious because
you’re focused on your anxiety. The
only way to get rid of it is to find a positive alternative. We need an answer. What’s the answer? First you face reality.
And second
you choose faith. In the full face
of reality, you choose faith, the
cure for your worry.
You
do what these first followers of Jesus did. In fact, they sort of give us a template of how to choose
faith. Matthew 8:25-27, “The disciples went to him and woke him up,
shouting, ‘Lord save us! We’re going
to drown!’ And Jesus answered,
‘Why are you afraid? You have so
little faith.’ Then he stood up
and rebuked the wind and waves, and suddenly all was calm. The disciples just sat there in awe. ‘Who is this?’ they asked themselves. ‘Even the wind and the waves obey him!’”
Four
things you do to choose faith in the midst of the reality of life.
1. Ask for help.
Finally,
they got to the point where the danger was so great they had to wake Jesus up
and they had to ask him for help. I
don’t know why it is that we wait until we think we’re almost going to drown
until we ask for help. These were
fishermen. They thought they could
handle it. We go through this
experience, all of us, where we say to ourselves “I can handle it! I can handle it… I’m going to die!” It’s
at that last point that we finally ask for help!
The
earlier you ask for help, the less worry you’ll have in life.
Here’s
a thought: Worriers, that remain
worriers, are reluctant to ask for help. When you ask for help it lessens the worry in your life. Even when you ask for help from other
people. It may be that you’re too
embarrassed to say you need help. It
may be that you think you know better than everybody else. But I think most people, they don’t ask
for help just because they don’t want to bother people … “I’ll handle it myself.”
Ask for help! God made you to be connected to other
people and God made you to be connected to him. That’s where you begin. It does not bother God, ever, for you to ask for his help. In fact, he asks us to ask for his
help.
Let
me finish the verse that we started with.
Philippians 4:6 starts, “Don’t
worry about anything;” but then it ends “Instead,
pray about everything. Tell God
what you need, and thank him for all that he has done.”
When
you ask God to help you, there’s more power in that simple request than
anything else to deal with worry in our life. This is God’s prescription. The single most effective cure for anxiety and worry is
prayer.
What
I love about this verse is it gives us directions for the kind of prayer that
defeats worry. What kind of prayer
deals with the anxiety in my life?
The kind of prayer that includes three things.
First,
you talk. You talk to God.
What do you talk to God about?
You talk to him about everything.
Pray about everything. When
you talk to him about everything, that has the power to defeat worry in your
life. Ask for help – that’s where
it starts. You’ve got to start by
talking to God about everything.
Then,
you tell. You tell God what you need. Pray about everything and tell him what you need when you’re
praying about everything. So you tell
him what you’re worried about. You’re
just honest about it. You might
want to do that in your mind right now as we’re talking… “God, here it is. This is
what I’m worried about.” You
tell God what you need.
Then
don’t forget this third one… You thank. You thank God for what he’s already
done. “Thank you, God. Even
though I’m facing this circumstance I do not want to be facing, thank you for
what you’ve already done in my life.
Thank you for your love. Thank
you for this gift.” There’s
something about gratitude that has great power to defeat anxiety in our lives. So you talk, you tell and you thank.
The
second thing that happened in this story and Jesus encourages this one…
2. You question your fears.
The
first thing Jesus did when he woke up, as he looked at the disciples, he said, “Why are you so afraid?” You can almost imagine the
disciples are… “Duh! Look around Jesus! The wind and the waves. We’re about ready to go under here. That’s why we’re so afraid.” So why did Jesus ask this question?
Because
Jesus knows that our worries always grow out of our fears. They had Jesus in the boat. God was obviously going to take care of
Jesus. But they didn’t see that. They missed it so they were afraid.
Our
fears always result in our worries in life. If you’ve got a worry, there’s a fear behind it. There’s some fear that’s creating that
constant anxiety. That’s true in
your job, that’s true in your school, that’s true in the way you think other
people are thinking of you. There’s
a constant anxiety in your life, you look for the fear behind it. That’s what Jesus encourages here – Why are you so afraid? Question your fears.
One
of the most common phrases in the Bible is– “Do
not be afraid.” I listed one
of them there from Joshua 1:9. God
said to Joshua, “Don’t ever be afraid or
discouraged! I am the Lord your
God, and I will be there to help you wherever you go.”
This
command is repeated so often to so many people. God told them all, Don’t be afraid. Why does God tell them all not to be
afraid? Because they were afraid.
That’s why God tells you don’t be afraid.
The
only way to never face fear in your life is to try to bail out on life. Anybody who is really living life –
growing and facing problems, doing new things, willing to take a challenge, you’re
going to face some fears when you do that. When you do that, you question those fears. That’s what Jesus encourages – don’t be afraid.
God
also says this to you, Don’t be afraid.
Jesus said to us, “I am leaving
you with a gift, [John 14:27] peace
of mind and heart. And the peace I
give isn’t fragile like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid.”
A
very simple exercise you might do this week: when you know there’s something
you’re afraid of that’s creating this anxiety, just get a piece of paper and
write it down. Write it. Face reality. There it is. That’s
what I’m afraid of. Then write the
words of this verse underneath that fear, “I’m
leaving you with a gift – peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is not fragile like the peace the world
gives. So don’t be troubled. Don’t be afraid.”
Question
your fears. Then Jesus encourages us
to do a third thing.
3. You Increase your faith.
If
you’re going to have faith you’ve got to increase your faith. Jesus says to these disciples when
they’re worried in this storm “You of little
faith.” Increase your faith in
the midst of this storm.
It’s
important to remember that these disciples had a good reason to worry. They were fishermen. They knew what was going on. They knew the danger. But Jesus said you need to increase your faith.
So
that’s a reminder that there are no circumstances good enough to worry about. None. Any circumstance that I worry about is going to take me in
the wrong direction – a self-centered direction, an anxiety direction. Any circumstance that I worry about is going
to keep me from faith. So how do I
face the circumstances, the real circumstances in this life with faith?
Jesus
encouraged us the way you face reality with faith is by understanding the
reality of who God is. That is
more real than anything else you’re facing. He told us this in real simple pictures.
First
he says, look at the flowers. The Bible
says in Matthew 6:30, Jesus taught, “God
clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today but tomorrow is thrown into
the fire. So you can be even more
sure that God will clothe you. Don’t
have so little faith!” Jesus
is saying here you trust in the care of God and who he is. Flowers don’t worry and yet they’re
cared for.
The
real question to me is, how do you increase your faith when you’re faced with
so many circumstances that cause you to worry? The answer is--
By realizing that the very same
circumstances that cause you to worry can be circumstances where you can put
your faith in God.
Some
of you, you are great worriers. There’s
no doubt about it. You can see it
coming down the road. You know
it’s coming. And you’ve been right
most of the time, by the way. But Great worriers can also be great people of
faith. Some people, they don’t
worry much because honestly, they’re clueless. So they don’t worry at all. They don’t have any idea what’s coming down the road, what’s
going to happen to them. They’ve
just got this mentality, life is fine.
So they have no worries. But
not you! You know what’s headed
this way.
So
what are you going to do about it, that’s the question. You know it’s coming down the road. So, Are you going to worry about it in advance, Or are you going to put
faith in God in advance? Great
worriers can be great people of faith.
How do you find the power to have faith in the midst of real
circumstances? You put your faith
in God.
The
Bible talks about what Jesus taught in Luke 8:14, about a situation that a lot of
us face. He talks about a seed as
a picture. He says, “The seed that fell among the thorny weeds
is like those who hear God’s teaching, but they let the worries, riches and pleasures
of this life keep them from growing and producing good fruit.”
For
some of you that’s a picture of your life. You’ve been right on the edge so many times. On the edge of something great. On the edge of really seeing some
change in your character, on the edge of letting go of that habit that’s been holding
on to you for so long, on the edge of starting out in that new ministry, of
beginning that new vision of a new job that you’ve had, of really making a
difference in the way that you love your family. You want to do it.
And you almost get there but then the worry comes in, the anxiety comes,
or the desire for riches or other things that Jesus says, and it pulls you back
down. You live just short of where
you know you could be living.
Jesus
says, “If you would just let me increase
faith in your life by trusting me with that problem you’re facing right now, I
can do that. Don’t wait until your
life gets perfect to have faith in me.
Trust me with what you’re facing right now. And watch how I work.”
Does
God always work like I want him to work?
Absolutely not. Do I always
understand how God works in the midst of my problems and why he didn’t do that and did do that and he did
that for that person and he didn’t do
that for that person? I have no idea. I’m not God. But I do know, when we trust him with problems, we see him at
work in us and through us and even in the midst of the problem. I ask him to increase my faith even in
the midst of the problem.
Then
you do a fourth thing.
4. You acknowledge God’s control.
What
happens is almost funny if it weren’t so serious. Here are these disciples. They are hoping something is going to happen when Jesus
wakes up. Finally, he wakes up and
they’re thinking they’re about to die.
Jesus just simply looks around and says, “Oh, ye of little faith… you shouldn’t be so afraid.” Then he looked at the wind and the
waves and says, “Shhhhh. Be still.” And it’s all. These disciples are standing there literally with their
mouths wide open. Who is
this? He tells the wind and the
waves what to do.
Here
are these disciples. They are
worried about what’s going to happen to them and they’ve got God in their boat. Here you are; your life, you’re worried
about what’s going to happen to you.
You’ve got God in your boat! He is the one who created the galaxies
with a word. He is the one who holds
molecules together by his power.
So
what are you going to depend on? Is your life focused on the circumstances, or
on who is in your boat? In that moment Jesus showed us who God
really is. He’s in control even
when I don’t think he is. He’s in
charge of everything. There is no
situation that can happen in your life for which God does not ultimately have
control.
The
Bible says in 1 Chronicles 29:11, “Everything
in the heavens and earth is yours, O Lord. We adore you as being in control of everything.” Not just, I recognize God’s in control. But I’ve got a relationship with the
God who is in control of everything.
I love you, God, as the one who is in control of everything. That’s what you build on. You acknowledge God’s control.
Why
do we worry? Because we try to do
what only God can do. We try to
control the uncontrollable and fix the unfixable and do the undoable and change
the unchangeable and make the unmakeable and then we get all undone ourselves and
wonder why. Because we cannot do
what God can do.
The
problem with worry is we’re trying to control it all. And when we try to control it all, what happens is you begin
to shrink life down to what you can control. And that’s not the life that God wants for you. The biggest problem with worry is it’s
keeping you in this little box. It’s
keeping you from the more that God wants to do in your life. When you let the worry go and choose
faith instead and you acknowledge God’s control, you begin to live out the
greatness of what he wants to do in your life, in your character, in your circumstances,
in your family, at your school. Acknowledge
God’s control.
Jesus
talked about flowers earlier. He
also talks about the birds. He says
in Matthew 6:26-27, “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? Who of you by
worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Jesus says, look at the birds. Look at the robins.
Robins don’t work. They don’t
get ulcers. Have you ever seen a
robin in line at CVS buying Tums? Have
you ever seen that? No. They don’t get ulcers. They don’t worry. Why? Because robins – birds – are depending on the generosity of
God, the creator who has made things so they will have the food that they need.
Jesus
is saying, when you understand that God values a little bird, don’t you think
he values you even more? Of course
he does.
When
it comes to the struggles and problems we have with anxiety, Jesus gives us
some very practical advice on how to deal with this. The Bible says in Matthew 6:34, here’s how you handle it, “So Jesus said, don’t be anxious about
tomorrow. God will take care of your
tomorrow too. Live one day at a
time.” Circle “live one day at a time.” That’s how you do it.
You don’t try to live tomorrow today. Just live one day at a time. You should plan for the future and make great goals. But then you take those great goals and
you live them out one day at a time.
One
day at a time. That’s how you do
your goals. You start with this last
verse in your outline. 1 Peter 5:7,
“Give all your worries and cares to God for
he cares about what happens to you.” You start by realizing that God cares about what you’re going
through right now. He cares about
the hurt that you’re facing. He
cares about the details that are concerning you. He cares. He
knows. Then you give those cares to
him.
Prayer:
I want to invite
you to pray a prayer just like that.
Just say, God, all my worries and cares I give them to you right now. I realize you care about me. So here it is. There’s the thing I’m anxious about. Lord, I ask for your help. Lord, I ask you to calm my fears and to
increase my faith. I know you’re
in control. Although I may not
understand it all, may not ever understand it at all, I know I can trust you
with this. So right now I trust
you with this situation, with this relationship, with this anxiety. I trust you because I know you are a good
and generous God. In your name,
Jesus, I trust you. Amen.
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