The "Why" of Worry

Right after Jesus tells his followers that they cannot serve both God and money, he tells them "Therefore I tell you,do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" Jesus again changes our entire thinking. As with the entire Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is concerned with the reason why we do things. The reason why we worry about provisions is because we are slaves to money. 

Money is tricky because we all need it to survive. Jesus said that the worker is due his wages (Luke 10:7) which Paul repeats in 1 Timothy 5:18. Paul says if a person does not work then he should not eat. (2 Thessalonians 3:10). However, we must be careful to keep money as a means to glorfying God instead of the end of all our pursuits. 

What does this have to do with worry? God has promised to meet our needs. We worry because we begin to doubt that God will provide. We see our circumstances and we lose faith in God because we fall into the thinking our consumer driven society produces. "I have to have it and have it now!" And if we do not have what we want, then God must be lacking somewhere so I need to supplement his work with my own. This thinking is sinfully prideful. 

What do we compare ourselves to? Others? Should we? No. Jesus compares us to birds and grass. These animals have all of their needs met. Do we really think that God is incapable of providing for our needs as well? I believe what Jesus tries to do in our lives is to teach us utter dependence on him instead of ourselves. How we spend our money and how we feel about our provisions give us a good indication of whom we serve as master. 

1. How do we avoid worrying about provisions while at the same time obeying God in our work and planning?

2. Do you have an area in your life you are still seeking to control instead of giving it over to God?

Peace, 

Jeff Moody

Comments

[Ray]

Thanks Jeff. I appreciate and need your example of looking holistically and contextually at this passage. Like you said this morning, we tend to group this passage into two independent sections: finance and worry. But I think your exposition is correct. We should think about the "two masters" and the "worry" in unison.

As to your challenging questions. Ouch. Thank you. For me (and I submit a few others as well), money means this: future freedom. And that can be good or bad depending on what it is freeing: my desires or God's calling. If I start with what I want to do, and look to money as an enabler of that desire, I'm in deep dung (Alan said this morning we could use this word because Paul does). I think I have been looking to my money-enabled future desires too much.

If however, I think of money as a tool to (in the future) serve him wherever he calls me, I'm probably in obedience. I need to move this direction.

So as I look to how the future is linked to money, I suppose I need to figure out what kind of future I'm looking to: my personal desires or the decrees of God on my life. If this sounds like I've got it figured out, well...I don't. As I right this, I realize that I may be thinking too much of the future and not my daily manna.

[Jeff]

Ray,

I think you have pinned down all of our struggles with finances with thinking about future freedom. Jesus is to be Lord of our wallet, our savings, our future, etc.

Sometimes we get bogged down in specifics when I think Jesus' message to us is: "What is the motivation behind your thought?" Do we worry because we are slaves to money? Or are we at peace because we recognize God's provision?

In the midst of these questions, God will lead us in how to submit our finances to him.

(By the way, I am no where close to actualizing this truth in my daily life. It's a constant struggle to live this truth, even when I know it is true).

[ray]

Jeff, not only have I not figured this out, I can't even right writely.