Wisdomfest 2024: Rising Above Anxiety – Do Not Be Anxious About Tomorrow 7/21/24

Good morning, Church. It’s always a privilege to be able to open up the Word of God and study together with you. We’re going to be reading our passage again a little bit later on. If you want to follow along, it’ll be up on the screen or there should be Bibles in the seat backs right in front of you if you do not have a copy of God’s Word today. It will be on page 812.

Most likely, everyone in this room is familiar with the story of the Emerald City in the land of Oz. Most have probably seen the movie, but not everyone knows the secret of the Emerald City.

In Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wonderful World of Oz, we find that although the outside of the city was green, every person who enters the gates of the city is given emerald spectacles to wear. Now this is explained to them as an effort to protect their eyes from the “brightness and glory” of the city, but in effect makes everything appear green when it is, in fact, as the book states, “no more green than any other city.” The new lenses completely change the perception of the city. The emerald lenses in the Emerald City were a deception, of course. These new lenses kept people from actually seeing reality.

We find the opposite to be true throughout the Scriptures. What we see with our human eyes looks like reality, when in fact we need new lenses to see what is actually true.

A good example of this is the story of Elisha’s servant and the Syrian army in 2 Kings 6. In the story, the king of Syria keeps making plans to attack Israel, and over and over the king of Israel is told exactly what the Syrians were planning to do and were able to thwart the attacks.

Understandably, the king of Syria was concerned and tried to find out who in his camp was double-crossing him. One of his servants informed him that it was the prophet Elisha who was informing the king of Israel everything that the king of Syria said in his bedroom. So the king of Syria sent

“horses and chariots in a great army, and they came by night and surrounded Elisha’s city” (2 Kings 6:14).

In the morning Elisha’s servant walked out of the house, saw the Syrian army surrounding them. The Bible then says,

“And the servant said, ‘Alas, my master! What shall we do?’ He said, ‘Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.’ So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:15b-17).

God gave him new lenses through which to see reality. And this is exactly what we’ve found over the last several weeks as we’ve studied the topic of anxiety here in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:25-34).

Jesus has been giving truths, new kingdom lenses, if you will, to see reality. In it, he is seeking to change our perspective on life and its needs. He is calling his people to rise above anxiety. And while he uses daily needs (food, clothing, drink) to illustrate this truth, these principles cover so much more than just our daily needs.

Four weeks ago, Peter shared the first kingdom lens back in verse 25. Jesus said, do not be anxious about daily needs. Why? Because life is about more than that. As redeemed children of God, we have been given life abundantly.

God gave us the gift of life and he knows exactly what we need. Do we really think that he’s not going to sustain us in this life that he has given to us? Daily needs are important, yes, but life is about so much more.

Allan followed up three weeks ago with another kingdom lens, found in verse 27. Do not be anxious about daily needs. Why? Because you are intrinsically valuable to God. Look at the birds. They don’t sow, they don’t reap, they don’t build barns, they don’t put the food in barns, yet God takes care of the birds. Will he not take care of you? You are infinitely more valuable than they are.

We found yet another kingdom lens two weeks ago in Steve’s passage in verse 30. Do not be anxious about daily needs. Why? Because you not only have intrinsic value, you also have eternal value to God. Look at the beautiful flowers all around you. If God’s going to clothe flowers who are alive today and they’re gone tomorrow, will he not take care of you who have eternal value to God?

We find a couple more kingdom lenses in Matt’s passage from last week, verses 31-33. The first is this: do not be anxious about daily needs. Why? Because those are the things that unbelievers are anxious about. We have God as our Father. We are covenantally loved by a cosmically generous God. This world is all-important to them. This is all that they have. But that is not so for us. Which leads us to another kingdom lens…

Do not be anxious about daily needs. Why? Because we have a much better path forward. Instead of being overwhelmed by daily needs and thinking about them, we’re to seek above all things the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added to us. We’re being called to focus on that which is most important and most rewarding. Which brings us to the final verse in this section, our text for this morning, verse 34.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

In this final verse on anxiety, we see the Lord shifting a little bit, making a couple of changes. The first is this: the kingdom lenses that he is providing change from the largely theological arguments that we’ve seen so far to very logical arguments, even pragmatic. D.A. Carson wrote that he could almost imagine Jesus saying this with a wry smile on his face. These things just make simple, logical sense.

The second change is this: the first several verses seem to focus more on the present. Now Jesus shifts focus to the future.

Anxiety about the future is such a huge problem for many. Almost exclusively over the past several weeks, when people have asked what I’ll be preaching about in this series, and I told them it was on anxiety about the future, they replied that they struggle so much with that. And that’s been a huge part of my own story of depression.

I don’t know how any of you struggle with anxiety about the future, but let me share a little bit of mine. Not only did sorrow and hurt over past events and confusion about present events lead to my depression, but fear about the future did as well.

Anxiety breaks in with a thousand what-if scenarios that can be simply staggering. This dominated my thinking where I would be focused on potential things in the future for hours in a day. I imagined everything that could go wrong. Having an active imagination can be good, but in this case, it was not. I lived emotionally, spiritually, and physically as if those anxieties were realities.

It was hopeless. It was really, really dark. I was constantly trying to figure out how to deal with each of these potential problems and tragedies before they ever happened. It was overwhelming, and this is one of the passages—right here in Matthew 6:25-34—that God used in my healing. Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote,

“Here our Lord shows his final understanding of the condition. Worry, after all, is a definite entity; it is a force, a power, and we have not begun to understand it until we realize what a tremendous power it is. We so often tend to think of the condition of worry as one which is negative, a failure on our part to do certain things, and it is that. It’s a failure to apply our faith. But the thing we must emphasize is that worry is something positive that comes and grabs us, and takes control of us. It is a mighty power, an active force, and if we do not realize that, we are certain to be defeated by it. If it cannot get us to be anxious and burdened and born down by the state and condition of things that are actually confronting us [those things right in this moment today], it will take the next step, it will go into the future.”

And so in the short verse before us, Jesus gives us two more kingdom lenses through which to view life and combat anxiety. Do not be anxious about tomorrow. Why?

First of all, because it’s fruitless to do so. Look at Jesus’ words:

“Tomorrow will be anxious for itself,”

Right? Leave that in his hands, not yours. It achieves nothing at all. It’s fruitless. What does anxiety about the future actually accomplish? We can’t stop the potential trials of tomorrow by worrying about them today. We see this idea communicated about the present back in verse 27,

“And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”

The answer is no one. Worry does no good. Corrie Ten Boom wrote,

“Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength— carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”

Worrying only adds tomorrow’s burdens onto our shoulders today. We were never meant to carry all of that. Kent Hughes wrote,

“The anxious heart receives all kinds of blows through anticipatory anxiety that will never happen. Some of us have suffered so much more in this world than has ever happened to us.”

Let me read that again. This is so true.

“Some of us have suffered so much more in this [life] than has ever happened to us. We fear everything because everything is possible.”

How true that is. Many of us have not only suffered through things that have actually happened or are currently happening (which is enough), we have suffered through things that have never happened, many of which will never happen, all because we have spent so much time worrying about things that may happen in the future. There’s a reason in Philippians chapter 4 that two verses after Paul writes, “be anxious for nothing,” he adds, “whatever things are true, think on these things.”

I do want to take a moment to mention that the command to not be anxious about tomorrow, the future, does not mean that we can’t plan for the future, because these two things can be entirely different. There is a wisdom, a biblical wisdom in planning for the future. Here are some of the key differences between anxiety about tomorrow and planning for tomorrow.

First of all, anxiety about the future is often reactive, right? We are imagining all the potential problems, and we find ourselves reacting to those potential problems. Whereas wise planning is proactive. It takes carefully thought-through steps to prepare for a potential future.

Number two, anxiety about the future is unclear. It often involves illogical and inflated fears that are not grounded in reality, no matter how sane those fears may seem while we are engrossed in thinking about them. But wise planning is clear. It’s more purposeful and focuses on workable steps forward.

Anxiety about the future, number three, often has a negative outlook. It tends to focus on worst-case and troubling what-if scenarios, often leading to a cycle of worry and avoidance rather than proactive problem-solving. But wise planning usually has a positive outlook. While it acknowledges potential challenges, planning is generally forward-looking and positive, emphasizing problem-solving and solutions rather than getting all lost in the potential problems.

But I think the most profound difference is this. Anxiety about the future is often characterized by a lack of control. There’s this feeling of helplessness that leads to stress, pressure, and fear. Wise planning, though, leaves the control in the hands of the Lord. Yes, we plan, but then we hold those plans loosely, submitting all of it to the will of a very good Father. There’s a huge difference in those two things.

So do not be anxious about tomorrow because, number one, it’s fruitless to do so, but also it is forgetful to do so. Jesus says this: “sufficient for the day [for today] are its own troubles.” John Stott wrote,

“Each day has enough trouble of its own. So why anticipate them? If we do, we double them. For if our fear does not materialize, we have worried once for nothing; if it does materialize, we have worried twice instead of once. In both cases, it is foolish; worry doubles trouble.”

Anxiety about tomorrow takes our focus off of the very important things that are happening today. Instead of focusing on the troubles of today (which are sufficient, by the way, he says), we try to focus on the troubles of tomorrow that may never happen. When we do that, we are forgetting what God is accomplishing through today’s troubles, the character that he is developing in us through our trials, the dependence on him that he is teaching us. Or, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians,

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction [our troubles] is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

God is doing important things in our struggles today. Do not be so distracted by the potential struggles of tomorrow that we miss what he is accomplishing through our troubles today. And it’s a lot.

But perhaps even more tragically, we forget what is also absolutely sufficient for today. And that’s God’s grace. He gives his mercies new every morning. It’s the manna principle.

During their time in the wilderness, God provided the Israelites food for that day. They were not to hoard any food for the future. God would deliver it faithfully on a daily basis, and the people of Israel were to trust him to do so.

That’s what he does with his grace. Being anxious about the future is trying to cope with future troubles without his abundant grace. We haven’t been given the grace yet to deal with future trials. We don’t have it. I’m trying to deal with future problems when I don’t yet have his grace. He will give it to us in just the time that we need it. We were never meant to live that way. God said to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12,

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

To which Paul replies, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses [I’m going to rejoice in my weaknesses], so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

I’m going to rejoice in my weaknesses and my troubles. I’m going to be content in my weaknesses and troubles because God’s grace is sufficient. But we could never say those words ever with Paul unless we were absolutely convinced that God’s grace was sufficient for any of our troubles.

This anxiety about God taking care of us in the future keeps us from living today full of gratitude and full of generosity. How could we spend time meditating on the provisions that God is giving us today, on his goodness to us today, when our minds are so focused on what may happen tomorrow? How can we truly be generous today when we are concerned about whether or not we’ll have enough tomorrow? So do not be anxious about tomorrow. In an article by Steven Altrogge entitled “3 Words Which Absolutely Destroy Worry” (love the title), he writes,

“Worry is the act of imagining a future without God. When you strip it down to its bones that’s what it really is. I worry when I imagine a future devoid of God. I worry when I project my current feelings and discouragements and struggles into the future. I worry when I take God’s love and faithfulness out of the equation. When I imagine a stark and bleak future, a screaming void in which my faithful and loving Father does not exist or act on my behalf. Underneath all the anxiety and fear and confusing emotions worry is actually a form of atheism. It’s acting as if God does not exist.”

Psalm 18:46 provides three words which destroy worry and fuel faith:

“The Lord lives…”

Don’t pass over these words too quickly. The Lord lives. And he is absolutely faithful to his promises. So don’t worry about tomorrow. It’s fruitless to do that, doesn’t accomplish anything. And it’s forgetful to do that. We’re not paying attention to the incredible provisions that God has made for us today. We’re not paying attention. We’re forgetting about what God is doing in the midst of our troubles, and we’re forgetting about the fact that his grace is sufficient for today. I don’t have it yet in the future.

But in closing today, I want to draw your attention to another kingdom lens provided by Jesus to combat our anxiety. It’s found in Luke 12. This is Luke’s abbreviated version of the Sermon on the Mount, or a sermon very similar to the Sermon on the Mount. Luke has just recorded Christ’s words about anxiety, and they are almost word for word what we find here in Matthew 6. Right after commanding them to seek first the kingdom, he replaces our text for this morning with some different words, and he says this,

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

Seek first the kingdom, because it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. That is his plan for all who belong to him. He’s going to give us the kingdom and we’re going to rule and reign with Christ. The ultimate kingdom of Christ, the one that will be filled with absolute peace, joy, love, and righteousness, is going to be handed over to us.

I read several people’s statements on that verse, and I came away with the conclusion that none of us really know how to communicate the wonder of that statement. And apparently we were not really meant to do so. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians,

“But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.’”

I have a pretty good imagination. Sometimes it’s great. When it comes to worrying about the future, it’s not great. But I have a pretty good imagination. What Paul is saying here is that I can use all of my imaginative capabilities to come up with the most glorious reality I can think of, and I will not touch what God has in store for his children. I’m not even sure folks, that we have the categories to do so.

In his book Knowing God, J.I. Packer writes that one day we shall see that nothing, literally nothing which could have increased our eternal happiness has been denied us. And that nothing, literally nothing that could have reduced that happiness has been left with us.

I think that what Jesus is saying is, why would we be anxious about this life — past, present, future — if that is what God has planned for us in eternity? We know the end of the story. It’s that lens through which we look at this life.

In his book Making Sense of God, Tim Keller shares the following illustration:

Imagine you have two women of the same age, the same socioeconomic status, the same educational level, and even the same temperament. You hire both of them and say to each, “You are part of an assembly line, and I want you to put part A into slot B, and then hand what you have assembled to someone else. I want you to do that over and over for eight hours a day.” You put them in identical rooms with identical lighting, temperature, and ventilation. You give them the very same number of breaks in a day. It is very boring work. Their conditions are the same in every way. Except for one difference: you tell the first woman that at the end of the year, you will pay her $30 thousand. And you tell the second woman that at the end of the year, you will pay her $30 million. After a couple of weeks, the first woman will be saying, “Isn’t this tedious? Isn’t it driving you insane? Aren’t you thinking about quitting?” And the second one will say, “No. This is perfectly acceptable. In fact, I whistle while I work.”

What is going on? You have two human beings who are experiencing identical circumstances in radically different ways. What makes the difference? It is their expectation of the future.

This illustration is not intended to say that all we need is a good income. It does, however, show that what we believe about our future completely controls how we are experiencing the present. We are irreducibly hope-based creatures.

Another way to look at it is this: I am a lifelong college football fan. I can’t wait for the fall every year. And when I’m watching my team, I like to describe myself as slightly animated. I think my wife Melinda may have some different terms for it, but I get pretty into it.

A few years ago my team was playing an 8:00 game. It was late and we were getting slaughtered on the scoreboard, on the stat sheet. It was just hard to watch. I noticed that midway through the third quarter—a little bit later, maybe—almost the fourth quarter, we had a 5% chance of winning. In other words, we had a 95% chance of losing. And I’m like, you know what? It’s late. I’m tired. I’m going to go to bed. So I did.

The next morning I woke up and I had all these text messages. I started to read them and they were all from friends, and they’re like, “I can’t believe you guys won that game last night. You guys are so lucky.” There’s absolutely no way. So I looked at the score and we had won by one point and two overtimes. And so I’m like, “I’ve got to watch this game.” So I watched the replay the next day.

I started from the very beginning and I watched the entire game. And you know what was interesting? I wasn’t slightly animated. I wasn’t frustrated with the bad plays, the bad calls by the ref. It really did not impact me. Watching the full replay was completely different because I already knew who was going to win. I was in constant awe that we actually won.

That’s what took the place of my frustration. I was just looking forward to finding out how in the world we did so. I was watching that replay through the lens of knowing the final score, and that completely changed the way I watched that game. Knowing the end of the story is a valuable lens through which we view the troubles of this life.

In his very helpful book, A Bright Tomorrow: Facing the Future Without Fear, Jared Mellinger begins the introduction of the book with these words:

“The future of every Christian is incredibly bright, and the way to live a fruitful life in the present is to embrace all that God has spoken about that bright future. We are like travelers, whose view of the path ahead profoundly shapes our experience of life’s journey. When our thoughts of the future are ill-informed or full of doubt, it drains our joy and peace. But when our thoughts are biblically informed and full of faith, we flourish.”

Friends, we cannot flourish today if we’re filled with anxiety about tomorrow. It’s Christ’s will and wish that all of his followers flourish in this life and the next. It’s through that lens that we view this life.

In just a moment, the praise team is going to come. They’re going to sing a song over us, so I can encourage you to meditate upon the words of that song. We’ll also have a prayer team up here ready. If any of you want to come down and pray with somebody, they will be ready and willing, and desirous to do so. Can we close in a quick word of prayer?

Father, help us to fully believe and humbly submit to your Word. In Jesus’ name, amen.