One of my earliest childhood memories is waking up one morning, and coming downstairs, only to discover that two of my cousins were sitting at the breakfast table. They weren’t there when I went to bed the night before, so I asked my mom, “Why are my cousins here?“ She told me “Well, their dad had to go to the hospital during the night.“
“So, why are they here, not home with their mom?“ “Well, he had to go to a hospital a long way away—— a hospital named Pine Rest Psychiatric Hospital.“ “Why did he have to go so far away?“ I asked, knowing, of course that we had a hospital right in our town.
“Well, your uncle had a nervous breakdown.“ And then the tough question: “Mom, what’s a nervous breakdown?“
Looking back, I think my mom gave a good answer to that question (especially considering that I was only five and Pine Rest Psychiatric Hospital and places like that were still kind of shrouded in mystery). She said, “Well, that’s what happens when you worry too much.“ Believe me, from that day forward, I constantly worried about worrying too much. Aside from the question of how clinically accurate my mom was, she certainly put her finger on one of the biggest destroyers of the human spirit——worry, anxiety.
For our purpose today, I think it’s helpful to see worry as the opposite of hope. Worry and hope are both dispositions of mind that have to do with how we look into the future. Hope focuses upon what is certain in the future, things like God’s rule and God’s love; the byproduct of hope is peace. Worry focuses upon the uncertainties of the future. Life is filled with uncertainty: our jobs, our financial futures, our health, our children, our grandchildren. Who knows what will happen in our future? Worry as a disposition of mind is to so focus upon what is uncertain and unseen in our future that to some degree we are paralyzed and immobilized for living in the present.
Jesus says today, “Do not worry.“ It’s a command. “Do not worry.“ He gives three reasons why children of the kingdom should not and need not worry.
First, it doesn’t do any good. Verse 27 “And who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life?“ Jesus’ first reason for not worrying about the future is not some complicated psychological mystery or some deep spiritual truth. He says it doesn’t do any good! Worry never changed a thing. It never added an hour to a person’s life. (In fact, it subtracts hours from people’s lives in terms of the physical toll worry takes on us.)
The first time it really came home to me that worry doesn’t do any good was about 30 years ago in my relationship with my brother, Leon. My brother was (and is) totally disabled, physically. After 4 surgeries in the 70’s for a back injury he suffered in the army, he lives every day, every minute of his life in constant, intractable pain. I love my brother very much. I care deeply about him. I pray for him regularly. We talk regularly on the phone. But that’s where I draw the line (now)—at the point of positive caring and prayer and actions. It was not always so. Jannette, my wife, could tell you of times years ago when I used to wallow in worry about my brother. Phone calls to Leon were the sure bet for a gloomy evening. I’d stew and brood over what was going to happen to him and what was going to happen to his family. But that doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t do any good. If worry would heal my brother, I’d worry day and night. But it doesn’t help at all. “Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life?“
I think we can turn this first insight of Jesus into a positive guide: namely, in a given situation, focus your mental spiritual energy on what you can change, or can do in a given situation; make responsible decisions where there is a decision to make, and beyond that, let it go, forget it.
Now, this is one of those sermons I’m glad to not preach in front of my wife because she has too good a memory. Jeannette and I can laugh now about what happened to us the first two months we were married. At least, she can. When we got married, we still had 10 years of school left between us, and we had a savings account with $2,000 which (you can imagine) was earmarked about 7 times over for various expenses we knew we would be incurring. Six weeks after we were married, our car decided to start drinking about 4 quarts of oil, per day. I had no idea one little ‘65 Mustang could pour out so much smoke. The prognosis was grim: a major overhaul or trade—in for another car. Either way it would cost us about $1,000. I was beside myself with worry: What are we going to do with half of that money gone already? I was a mess.
My behavior made no sense to my new wife of 6 weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if, sometime during those two days when we were in the middle of this crisis, Jeannette went into the back bedroom of our mobile home and checked out the wording of our wedding vows for a possible loophole. By the same token, though, little did I know what I had gotten into: I had married someone who hadn’t even cultivated the fine art of worrying. For starters, she said, “Duane, I think we should be thankful that we have the money to fix the car or buy another one.“ Can you imagine being thankful at a time like this? She concluded, with brutal simplicity, “Duane, you’ve got a choice: fix the car (pay the bill) or trade the car off (pay the bill). What’s the best option? I don’t know. That’s your department. Do it.“ Jeannette was really saying just what Jesus is saying in this first reason for not worrying: it doesn’t do any good; or put positively, make responsible decisions on what you can change in your life, and then, let it go.
The second reason Jesus says we should not worry is because it violates the timeframe in which we were made to live our lives: one day at a time. Verse 34, “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself; each day has enough trouble of its own.“ How much of our worry, do you suppose, comes from just trying to live life in too big of chunks, instead of dividing it up into manageable portions, which Jesus says is one day at a time. It is amazing how often we spoil our today(s) because we are preoccupied and paralyzed with worry about tomorrow. Jesus says live one day at a time: deal with today’s problems today, and tomorrow’s problems tomorrow.
Back when I was a student, the first week of a semester was always the hardest. Every semester I was ready to quit at the end of the first week. That’s because in the first week I got all the assignments, in all of the courses, for the whole semester. And I was overwhelmed. I’ll never be able to do it all! But I forgot I had the whole semester to do it—one day at a time.
Jesus says, I made you. And I happen to know that I did not design you to deal with your whole life all at once; I made you to deal with life’s troubles one day at a time.
No one likes to suffer, but one of the unexpected gifts that suffering often gives is the discovery that you really have no choice but to live your life one day at a time. The alcoholic stays sober one day at a time; the cancer patient gets through his treatments one day at a time; the widow carries the burden of her grief one day at a time. Sufferers know what Jesus knows, each day has enough trouble of its own. We must live one day at a time.
Both of these first two reasons to not worry are really common sense advice that would help anyone——Christian or non—Christian. Jesus gives a third reason, though, that goes deeper than common sense advice; it goes to the heart of God.
Do not worry because God values you and knows what you need. Jesus says in verse 26, “Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?“ And then later, in verse 28, “See how the lilies of the field grow?“ They’re beautiful——more beautiful than Solomon in all his splendor. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
Jesus says, you’re not a lily or a bird; you’re a human being, an image bearer of God, a child of God. How much more valuable are you than a bird or a lily? What’s more, God knows exactly what you need. (Notice, Jesus says, he knows what you need, not what you want. Satan is great at blurring the line between these two things.) Jesus says God knows what you need. God loves you. He values you. So, do not worry. It doesn’t do any good; it runs up against the way God made us to live: one day at a time. And it misses the fact that God is our father—he loves us, he values us, a love proven once and for all in the gift of his Son Jesus Christ.
Finally, Jesus in this passage not only gives us three reasons not to worry; he also gives us a positive command, which, when we obey it, will do more than all three of these things to wipe out worry: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.“ Jesus says you can’t just put worry out of your life without replacing it with something else. To just try to stop worrying without starting to do something else is to try to leave yourself empty, in a vacuum. But nature abhors a vacuum. Worry will just come pouring back in if you don’t fill that vacuum with something else.
There’s only one way to really win over worry—and that is to replace it with this positive passion: seek the kingdom. Pour yourself into God’s cause. Hunger and thirst after righteousness. Live your life for someone else, for something bigger than yourself.
Jesus says, when you do that, all these other things work out. “They’ll be given to you as well.“ The ultimate resolution of worry is: Change the whole orientation of your life from surviving to serving, lose yourself in something so much bigger, grander than the anxieties of life. To worry or not to worry is a decision we make. Worry is not something inevitably forced upon us by the circumstances of our lives. We decide where we will focus our mind, our heart, our energies. Jesus says, Seek me. Seek the kingdom. Live for what will never die. And always, remember the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. Remember how precious you are to God. Remember that he loves you infinitely more.
I don’t know what you are facing today. But I know that Jesus cares about you. And Jesus says to you today, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you, not as the world gives do I give to you; let not your hearts be troubled. Neither let them be afraid.“
Duane Kelderman
Rev. Duane Kelderman is the Vice President for Administration and an Associate Professor of Preaching at Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids. Before his current position he served as pastor in Christian Reformed congregations in Toledo, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Rev. Kelderman is married to Jeannette and has three children and two grandchildren. He was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa and attended Calvin College and Calvin Seminary. He enjoys reading and carpentry.
More >>
