Work Out Your Worries

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                10,000 letters every week all begin the exact same way:  “Dear Abby…”  Ever read one?  “Dear Abby, I’m afraid my husband doesn’t love me anymore.  Should I leave him?”  “Dear Abby, I’m concerned about my daughter’s first sleepover.  Should I let her go?”  “Dear Abby, I got two toasters for my wedding and I don’t want to hurt either person’s feelings.  Should I just keep them both?” 10,000 “what should I do’s?” every week!  When Abby’s sister, advice columnist Ann Landers, was asked if a theme united the flood of questions they received, she was quick to answer—“The one problem above all the others is…fear.”

                Even if you’ve never written Dear Abby, you could have.  Because there are plenty of things to fear.  We live in a world of worries, from global tragedies to local catastrophes to personal anxieties.  Soldiers shot down in Afghanistan.  Children massacred in Norway.  Politicians recalled in Wisconsin.  The country reels.  The Dow plunges.  Bumper stickers scream for the governor’s head.  Church issues.  Pastoral calls.  Empty pews.  Debt reconsolidation.  Upside down mortgages.  Making minimum payments.  The first day of class.  Catty classmates.  Bullying boys.  LDL, HDL, and other evil acronymns.  Eating disorders.  Miscarriages.  MRI’s.  Mom’s expectations.  Dad’s dementia.  The teenage years.  The fear of being alone.  The fear of failure.  The fear of not having enough.  Worried yet?  No wonder Abby’s job is so secure…

                The sheer quantity of our concerns is what makes today’s Bible passages so improbable.  “Don’t worry about your life (Jesus taught)…Don’t worry about tomorrow…Rejoice always (Paul commanded)…Don’t be anxious about anything.”  If anyone else but God said that about your heart-breaking headlines, you’d be insulted!  People are dying.  Friends are leaving.  Kids are straying.  Bodies are breaking.  “Don’t worry about it?!”  Worry seems like the only reasonable reaction.  What does God honestly want us to do with passages like this?  Is this just one of those verses to prove how broken we are and how badly we need Jesus?  Or is it actually possible not to worry when worry seems like the only legitimate response?

                Whatever the answer is, we all realize this much—worry and joy just don’t get along.  You can’t jump up for joy when you’re weighed down by worry.  Maybe that’s why this whole summer in Philippians has seemed a bit…impractical.  We ache for this constant joy, but how can we have it when there’s so much to worry about?

                That’s what God wants to answer for us today.  Because he truly wants you to have the kind of peace that goes beyond understanding.  So let’s let him explain in Philippians 4—“⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything.”

                Maybe our first step should be to define what the Bible means with the phrase “don’t be anxious”.  Does God want us to go through life shrugging our shoulders—“Don’t worry about it.”  Should we never be concerned about the problems we see?  That was Bobby McFerrin’s advice.  In 1988, the whole country was humming his hit song.  McFerrin sang, “Ain’t got no place to lay your head/Somebody came and took your bed/Don’t worry; be happy/The landlord say your rent is late/He may have to litigate/Don’t worry; be happy/Ain’t got no cash, ain’t got no style/Ain’t got no girl to make you smile/Don’t worry; be happy.”  So if you’re broke, homeless, lonely, and getting sued, don’t worry.  That’s Bobby’s theology. 

                But that’s not God’s theology.  The Bible never advocates a fatalistic approach to life as if we should just sit around and let God do whatever God is going to do.  The Apostle Paul never wrote, “You’re broke?  Don’t worry.  Your marriage is a wreck.  Don’t lose any sleep.  Your daughter is going to college where every semester thousands lose their faith?  She’ll probably be fine.”  No, being concerned is not sinful.  There is a godly type of worry.  That’s why Jesus wept as he thought about the religious leaders who rejected him.  He was concerned about their souls.  That’s why Paul wrote about his “concern for all the churches”.  Galatians and 1^st Corinthians and the letters to the churches in Revelation are all proof that there is such a thing as godly anxiety.

                So what’s the distinction?  What’s good, godly concern and what’s faithless, sinful concern?  What does Paul mean in v.6—“Don’t be anxious about anything”?  It essentially boils down to one word—“work”.  If worry leads to nothing but more worry, if you stress about it, but do nothing, then it’s worthless and sinful.  But if worry leads to work, to effort, to change, then it’s worthwhile.  Anxiety that leads to action is okay.

                Do you remember Daniel?  2600 years ago, a Jewish man in the Bible was taken captive and dragged to a distant country.  But God blessed him and enabled him to rise to a position of power.  Unfortunately, dirty politics existed back then, too, so a few jealous rivals hatched a plot to take Daniel down.  They pushed a law through the system and flattered the king into making it official.  The law said:  “Anyone who prays to any god except the king will be thrown into a pit of lions.”  (And you thought state cuts were rough…)  The law was problematic for Daniel.  He was a believer.  He loved to pray.  And he knew laws in his land couldn’t be repealed.  So what did Daniel do?  Did he shrug it off?  “I won’t worry about it.”  Listen to the Scriptures—“Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room…He got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.  Then these men [the jealous rivals] went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help.”  Daniel didn’t pace.  He prayed.  He didn’t wear out the carpet with worry.  He worked.  His anxiety led him to ask God for help.

                That sounds exactly like Philippians, doesn’t it?  “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  Paul doesn’t say, “Don’t worry.  Be happy.”  He says, “Don’t worry.  Get praying.”  “Present your requests to God.”  Prayer is the most important way we work out our worries.  We turn that long list into our list of prayers.   Our anxiety leads us to action.  So, if you’re worried about it, pray about it.  And if you prayed about it, don’t worry about it.

                I get a lot of emails as a pastor.  That’s bad because I have a self-diagnosed case of organizational OCD.  I hate opening my email and seeing anything in the inbox.  It stresses me out.  Some of you have like 728 emails in your inbox—it worries me just to see what you have to worry about!  So do you know what I do?  Well, I can’t “Bobby McFerrin it” and delete them before I see them—“Don’t worry.  ‘Delete all’ and be happy!”  But I also can’t sit and stare at a pile of concerns that I can’t deal with myself.  I don’t have the expertise, the knowledge, and the wisdom to help everyone who needs help.  So here’s my system--I forward them.  Not all of them, but a bunch of them.  I click that little arrow and write, “Dear so-and-so, I got this email and thought you’d have a good answer for it.  Could you please follow up?  Thanks!”  And then, here’s the key, I find the original email and I delete it.  I don’t let it stare at me from my inbox every day.  I don’t wonder if it’s taken care of.  I refuse to worry about it.  I trust the people I’m forwarding them to and know I don’t have to worry about it.  But what if I didn’t do that?  What if I tried to take care of all of it myself?  Or what if I forwarded it on, but kept it around and worried if they had followed up?  Well, that would say I don’t trust them.  I don’t believe they’re qualified to help or I don’t believe they’re faithful enough to follow up.

                Now do you understand why God is so insulted by worry?  To worry about things instead of forwarding them to God in prayer essentially says, “God, you’re not qualified to take care of this.”  And to worry about things after praying about them says, “God, you’re not trustworthy enough to follow through on this.”  That’s why sinful worry is always found with “what if’s”.  What if God won’t answer?  What if God isn’t listening?  What if this won’t work out?  What if God can’t handle it?  What if God doesn’t keep his promise?  Worry without prayer or worry after prayer have the same source—a doubt in God’s ability to “take care of it”.

                So, what’s the answer for anxious hearts?  Well, it’s not a simple “stop worrying!”  Listen to Paul, “Don’t be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  Did you catch that?  “With thanksgiving.”  One of the keys to wiping out worry is to thank God.  Thank him for what?  For everything!

                That’s why, before we request, we remember.  We remember what God has done and we thank him.  Remember Jesus.  Jesus Christ was worried about you and that worry led him to work.  He worked by coming near to humanity at his birth.  He worked by obeying his mother and pounding nails for his step-dad.  Jesus worked by praying before decisions, loving the unlovable, and serving those who should have been serving him.  And Jesus did his greatest work on one single weekend.  It was work to take a single breath on the cross.  It was work to find the strength to cry, “Father, forgive them.”  It was work to die.  And it was work to stand back up on Easter morning.  But Jesus Christ went to work.  Why?  So you wouldn’t have to worry.  So you could forward your guilt and your shame and your regrets to the cross and delete them so you never have to worry about them again.  So, before you worry about the future, remember God’s faithfulness in the past.  Thank God for time after time after time keeping his promises again and again and again.  As you remember the past, your trust in his future ability to provide will grow.  If you’re a worrier, remember whom you are forwarding your worries to.

                Just before his death, Johann Sebastian Bach left us a hidden reminder of this worry-free life.  The German composer began, but never finished, The Art of Fugue, a masterpiece that has inspired music-lovers for more than 250 years.  But the most intriguing message of the piece is missed by the untrained ear.  Bach’s work moves from the key of Bb to the key of A to the key of C to the key of B natural.  Bb-A-C-B natural.  Nothing special, right?  Wrong.  Here’s the secret:  In many northern European countries like Bach’s German home, Bb is simply written as “B” and B natural is written as “H”.  That means Bach’s famous fugue is based on this structure:  B-A-C-H.  The composer’s name is embedded in the musical score itself.  No matter how dissonant the notes sound or how quickly they fly, the composer’s name reminds us who is in control of the piece.

                And God’s name is all over the score of this life.  In every flower dressed by the Divine Designer himself.  In every bird’s tune written by the Creator of both birds and songs.  In every hair on your head, numbered and known by your Father in heaven.  Paul reminds us, “God placed all things under Jesus’ feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the Church.”  In other words, the song of your life has God’s name all over it.  And as dissonant as the days can be and as fast as they fly by, the composer is in control of the piece.  Thank God for that…and you might just wonder where your worries went.

                So, maybe our prayers should sound something like this:  “Dear God, thank you for your love for me.  Thank you for not running away when I ran away from you.  Thank you for promising me things I don’t deserve.  I couldn’t pray to you if you weren’t that kind of God…But Father, I’m worried about so many things right now.  I’m scared I’ll not the father my kids need me to be.  I’m nervous as I watch the market drop.  I’m afraid for mom’s surgery.  So whatever I can do to fix it, help me to do it.  And all the things I can’t fix, I’m forwarding to you today.  I believe you can take of it and I believe you will take care of it and do whatever is best for your Church.  I can’t say I understand how you will do all that, but you’ve promised to and I trust you.  So I’m going to try to let this one go, Father.  That hasn’t ever been easy for me, but your Word keeps reminding me you are both willing and able.  So I’m not going to worry about it anymore.  Thanks for listening.  And thanks for letting me rejoice always.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.”

                Paul would say, not just to our sermon, but to our prayer, “And the peace which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  Amen.