Don't Worry, Be Happy!

Isn't that a great song? I remember when that song first came out on that old,

and I have a confection to make. I thought it was pretty stupid.

But it has a pretty catchy tune and pretty catchy lyrics, and soon everyone

is singing it or whistling it, and you can't get it out of your mind.

And I guarantee you, as you go home from church today, because we didn't play

the whole song all the way through.

You're going to go home, well that, you're going to play it at home,

but you're also going to go through home with that song in your mind,

and you're going to be dealing with it all week long because it hasn't been resolved.

That's what happens when you have songs in your mind. They go through and they

keep going, and if you stop a song in the middle of it, your mind has to finish it.

And so that's what's going to happen this week. you're going to go through and

you're going to be in the supermarket behind somebody who has 12 items in the

10-item or less checkout aisle and you're going to be saying, don't worry,

be happy, or something like that.

I hope that's what you're saying. It's a catchy tune in the lyrics,

and it's also been used on television commercials, not so much anymore.

The song was first written and performed

by a virtually unknown artist by the

name of Bobby McFerrin almost immediately became a number one song on both the

American and the Canadian pop artist chart lists and here's the beginning lyrics

of the song as he was saying here's a little song I wrote you might want to

sing it note for note don't worry be happy don't worry be happy in every life.

We have some trouble, but when you worry, you make it double.

Don't worry, be happy. Don't worry, be happy. And so it goes on.

And then if the song wasn't enough, Bobby went on and wrote a book with another 200 verses.

It's a cute song. We're not going to sing it all.

But not a completely new concept. Paul tells the believers in the city of Philippi

the same thing 2,000 years ago.

Let's read that scripture in chapter four of Philippians, chapter four through nine.

It says this, rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice.

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition

and the emphasis is mine, not in the scriptures,

with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts

and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, this is

a scripture that I would encourage you to memorize, Philippians 4 verse 8.

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble,

whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable,

if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me,

put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you.

So did you catch the phrase in verse 6? It said, do not be anxious about anything,

but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving.

Present your request to God.

Thank you, Lord, that I got the cold and flu.

Now take it away. Something like that. Anyway, a paraphrased version would be

something like this. Don't worry about anything.

Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for all that he has done.

In that scripture, Paul is basically saying, don't worry, be happy.

But it's a lot easier said than done. And we need to remember that when Paul

was writing these things, he was oftentimes in prison.

He was being beaten and scourged and even stoned,

And here he's writing a phrase With all of this, be thankful and give your petitions

to God Even though millions of copies of Bobby McFerrin's record Were sold around

the world It didn't seem to have a major impact on how people live,

Sometimes we think, great, as if I didn't have enough to worry about,

Now I have to worry about worrying That's amazing.

The book of Philippians is the 11th book in the New Testament and was written

by Paul while he was under house arrest in Rome.

It was addressed to all God's people in Philippi who believe in Christ Jesus

and to the elders and deacons.

If we look at a map in the back of your Bible, if you have maps in the back

of your Bible, you will discover that Philippi was situated in present-day Greece,

which at that time was called Macedonia.

In fact, many people today still call that area, their home, Macedonia.

By the way, do you know that the owners of the family restaurant in Richmond

Center are Macedonians?

They don't call themselves Greeks, they call themselves Macedonians.

This church was actually started, this church in Philippi was actually started

by Paul and was the first Christian church in Europe. The letter was written around A.D.

62, and the reason it was written was to thank the Philippians for their giving

and to urge them to greater unity among the brethren.

The main theme of the letter was encouragement of peace and joy.

First thing, and I want you to note this morning, is that the word that Paul

used for worry in the Greek, in the New Testament,

is the same one that Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount, and it actually meant an anxious worry.

It conveys a sense of anxiety. When your child walks to school,

you may be concerned about his or her safety on the way there. That's not a problem.

But if you become consumed with that worry to the point of not being able to

function, then you have a problem.

My mom could not stand it while we were on the road going home.

She would call us numerous times on the way.

I mean, this is after I'm, you know, like old, like, you know, 40s and 50s.

She would still call to make sure we were okay. And we had to call her the minute

we got home to let her know we made it safe and to let her know we did have

our clean underwear on in case something happened and we had a car accident

or whatever. You know, you have to have that.

So that wasn't in my notes.

But if we're consumed by worry, it's a problem.

There's a world of difference between concern and anxious worry.

I would suspect that Paul is going back to stories that he'd heard about Jesus'

teaching on the Sermon on the Mount to rationalize this concept of not becoming

tied up in knots of worry.

So that's where we will go as well. And it's in Matthew that Jesus spent 10

verses explaining why we should not worry.

So these verses are almost accompanying what Paul wrote in Philippians,

and maybe Paul wrote in Philippians to accompany what was written In Matthew,

it says this, Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,

that you will eat or what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear,

is not life more than food.

Oh, let me think about that. Yeah, I guess so. And the body more than clothes.

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?

Can any of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the clothes of the field grow?

They do not labor or spin, yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor

was dressed like one of these.

If this 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, you of little faith?

So do not worry, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?

For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own.

So the first lesson we are going to see in all of this is worry is needless, useless and useless,

dangerous. Jesus starts by talking about the most basic concern of mankind,

and we talked a week or so ago about the wants that people have,

the different wants that people have and needs in people's lives.

Jesus starts about talking the basic concerns of mankind, the need for food, clothing, and shelter.

Now, these aren't frivolous concerns. You might be able to run around naked

and live under a tree in the outbacks of Australia, but in our part of the world,

that just isn't a good option.

Notice it's an option, just not a good one.

And so Jesus starts by getting right down to where the rubber meets the road.

He doesn't start by saying, don't worry about where your next car is going to come from.

He says, don't worry about where your next meal is going to come from.

He doesn't say, don't worry about whether you have Air Jordans to wear.

He says, don't worry if you don't have anything to wear.

Now, that's not to say that we shouldn't be concerned with the material things

of life or with providing for our families, because Scripture also says that

he who does not provide for his family is an infidel,

an unbeliever, or somebody who's falling short of all things.

But let me ask you this, will worry provide those things that we need?

Not at all. A wise man once said, worry is like a rocking chair.

It gives you something to do, but you ain't going anywhere.

Worry is essentially wasted energy, energy which could be used a lot more productively somewhere else.

Years ago, I worked for a short time as a self-employed sales representative

for advertising specialties.

Now, if I'd been paid a salary for my sales, it wouldn't have been so bad because

I could have taken the time and safety with the safety net of salary to build

up a clientele and build repeat sales over time.

But since I was totally commissioned, if I didn't sell anything now, Nancy and I didn't eat.

Worry and anxiety caused me

to drive hundreds of miles in search of that hint of a promise of a sale.

In a few months and hundreds of dollars of debt later,

I had to hang that venture up, discovering that it would take three years or

more to build up a clientele large enough to have a successful living.

Successful enough business to live on for the two of us.

Years later, when I was an insurance and investment sales representative,

I was given a book of business and a draw of a salary to start out with to build

my book of business over time.

In that, I had the comfort of being able to build a business while still being

able to eat, which was nice.

By that time, we had two daughters, and they liked to eat too.

But anxiety can drive us to do things we wouldn't normally do.

And so Jesus begins by drawing a couple of examples from nature to illustrate his point.

Matthew 6, verse 26, in which we read earlier, look at the birds.

Matthew 6:26

They don't need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because your heavenly father feeds them.

And you are far more valuable to him than they are.

Now, the problem here is the person who looks at this and stands back and says,

great, I don't have to do anything but wait for God to provide me with all my needs and all my wants.

I can sit here and God's going to bring the food to me.

Well, let's recognize that Christ wasn't talking about working.

He was talking about worrying.

You don't have to watch a bird very long to realize that theirs is not a life

of ease with building nests, hunting for food, and avoiding cats.

But I would suspect that your average bird doesn't agonize over whether or not

there will be another worm to catch tomorrow or whether he'll be able to find

enough twigs and such to build a nest.

Or whether he or she will be able to find whatever seeds are on the ground.

They just go and look and get what they need.

In the same vein, Jesus tells us in Matthew 6, verses 28 and 29,

Matthew 6:28

and why worry about your clothes?

Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don't work or make their clothing.

Yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are.

So driving along the intercoastal highway in Florida and along the southern

interstates in Louisiana and Alabama, if you've ever driven along those,

you will see miles and miles of azalea bushes growing 8 to 10 feet high in the

medians of the interstate. Has anybody ever been down there, seen those?

It's really amazing to see all these things. Beautiful red blossoms bursting

everywhere on those bushes provided accent to the Spanish moss that is just

dripping from the cedar trees.

One is truly amazed at the beauty that God has created, and yet this is not

what Jesus is referring to in this passage.

The lilies would not have been cultivated types of hybrids that we raise now

in our nurseries and greenhouses.

They were simply wildflowers that grew among the many types of colored wildflowers

that grew in the wilderness of Israel.

You mean the wilderness of Israel that's like a gravel parking lot?

Yeah, the wilderness of Israel that's like a gravel parking lot.

A wilderness where just enough grass and wildflowers and stuff peaks up at just

the right time for the shepherd to lead his sheep to to be able to feed.

Drive through the plains of our Midwest, especially out into Kansas and Oklahoma

and some of those, and you will see many colors of wildflowers similar to what

Jesus would have seen as he taught from the hillsides in Israel,

growing along the sides of the roads and in the medians, wildflowers,

just all kinds of different colors.

Christ is drawing a lesson from nature. Christ is saying, look around you.

Look at the beauty God has created, and yet those plants and animals don't worry about a thing.

If we can conceive that and concede that God created everything around us,

and if we can concede that God created us,

then we should also be able to concede that the same God who created them created

us, and he can take care of us like he takes care of them. You think?

Christ came to the point in Matthew 6, verse 27, can all your worries add a

Matthew 6:27

single hour to your life?

My wife read somewhere that if a man takes a 20-minute nap every day,

he will live like 10 or 15 years longer.

And she says, man, Tim, you're going to be immortal.

Anyway, you see, worry is not only needless for a believer, it's also useless.

Worry doesn't change anything, does it? everything that

you worry about will fail and it'll

fall into two categories it is either something you

can do something about or something you can't

do something about right so what

is it if that's the case does it make

any sense to worry about something

that we can do something about no like

the Nike commercial says just do it on the

converse does it make any sense to worry

about something that we can't do anything about the thing that you're worrying

about won't go away if you worry and your worry isn't going to change it and

because you can't do anything about it anyway why worry now don't ask me to

repeat that because I don't think I can but anyway that's the thought.

I mean, if our worrying is not going to change anything, why are we worrying?

I've heard it said that worrying is like getting tangled up with a piece of

steak that was so tough, the longer you chewed it, the bigger it got.

It swelled up in your mouth until it was too big to swallow,

too big to spit out, and you gag on it.

Kind of like that guy who had a flat tire in a back road late at night and then

discovered that his jack was missing from his car.

And as he started down the long, dark road to a farmhouse that he saw in the

distance, he got to thinking, what happens if there's been a lot of break-ins around here lately?

And what if that farmer hears me and thinks I'm a burglar?

And what if he's bought himself a couple of pit bulls for protection?

And what if when I arrive, he doesn't give me a chance to explain who I am.

And when I knock on the door, he turns the dogs loose on me.

Well, he got closer and the closer he got to the farm, the more he had convinced

himself that the very worst thing that he was thinking about was going to happen.

So when he finally got to the house, he beat on the door. And when the farmer

answered, the guy shouted, didn't want your stupid old Jack anyway.

And he stormed back to his car.

Didn't help him at all to worry, did it? Not only is worry needless and useless,

but it's also dangerous.

Worrying is detrimental to your health. The two illnesses that most typify our

American society today are ulcers and coronary disease,

both of which have stress at their root.

There are Christians who shun alcohol and tobacco because they're harmful to

their bodies, and yet the very same people worry themselves into an early grave.

Worry is not a harmless pastime. It will make you old before your time,

and it'll kill you before your time.

The second lesson we learn is that worry is blind.

Those who teach history are fond of telling us that the one thing we learn from

history is we don't learn anything from history.

And that applies equally to our worries as well.

If we don't learn anything from history, then we're doomed to repeat that same history.

If we were to chart the various things that we worry about, we would discover

that most of them are repeats.

That's to say that we've already worried about them once or twice or three times.

And if the truths were known, the things we worried about happening never happened

in then, and they probably won't happen now.

God didn't forsake us yesterday, and he won't forsake us today.

God is faithful, and we only need to look at him at how he fulfilled our needs

in the past and believe that he will fulfill our needs in the future.

If we see what God has done, we can trust him for what he will do.

That's just as simple as that.

So I suppose that what we need to do is to look at all the things that we've

worried about in the past and say, well, I've already worried over those things,

so it's useless to spend any more time on them now. Forget it.

God has been good, and there's no reason for us to suspect that he's going to change, right?

He's the same today, tomorrow, yesterday, today, and forever.

Jesus said, look around you and see how God takes care of the flowers and the

birds, and then reflect on how much more important you are to him than they are.

Realize that God loves you so much that he sent his only begotten son,

Jesus, to die on the cross for you and for me and for us. And if he loved us

that much, then he's not going to let us down now.

And then the third thing we see is that worry, and this is a really tough one,

worry is actually blasphemous.

Now, we've heard that big word, blasphemous, and a lot of people say,

what is that and all that? Well, let's go.

So, worry is blasphemous. What is blasphemy? It is when we deny that God is

who he says he is and say that he can't do what he says he can't do. It's as simple as that.

If we deny who God says he is and say that he can't do what he says he can do.

In other words, if we refute him in who he is, that's pretty blasphemous, don't you think?

Christ says that it's the heathens who worry, and that's true,

because to say that we need to worry is to say that we can't trust God to take

care of his own children.

And we've got the best father there is. And to say that God can't take care

of his children is to commit blasphemy.

Has God ever let you down?

No. Has God ever failed you? No.

And to begin to doubt him now is to ignore all that he's done for you and for me and for us in our past.

Our friends, our family, even our earthly parents may disappoint us and let

us down, but God never fails.

One of your previous pastors here at the church back in 1980s was David Clarity. Was that 80s?

70s and 80s? David Clarity was a pastor here years ago, and I knew him very well.

He's passed away now, but David Clarity had an alcoholic father.

And so when he became a Christian, it became very hard for him to say our Father,

which art in heaven. He had a hard time.

But David got to the point when he would pray he would start it out Father Dearest.

He would call Father in heaven his dearest father, and it became such a thing

to him, he meant what he said.

He knew what it meant to have a real father, a father who had the best looking out for him.

So Jesus gives us two solutions to worry. The first, he says,

is to seek after the kingdom of God.

It's funny how that keeps coming up. Jesus keeps coming back to this principle

of putting God's kingdom first, and it works.

Have you ever noticed that when you're busy, you're too busy to worry?

Have you ever noticed that that same thing about keeping God's kingdom first

is kind of referred to in Philippians 4, verse 8?

Philippians 4:8

Do you remember that verse, the verse we said we were going to memorize?

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble,

whatever is right, whatever is pure,

whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy,

think about such things.

You know, if we are following Christ, and if we are in the midst of seeking

God's kingdom first, all of these things are going to be added to us.

He keeps coming back to that phrase of putting God's kingdom first.

As followers of Jesus Christ, our main objective is to be the kingdom of God here on earth.

Did you know that? We are the kingdom of God.

We're his princes and his princesses. We are God's kingdom here.

And our main objective is to be that kingdom and to build that kingdom.

No matter how noble the other pursuits of our life may seem,

the major pursuit of our lives needs to be the building of the kingdom of God.

The great thing is that when we make that a priority, we can be sure that God

will be taking care of the details. The second thing that Christ tells us to

do is to take life one day at a time.

The rest of our life is enormous, but today has only 24 hours.

And if we try to map out what's going to happen over the next 40 years,

the next 480 months, the next 2,080 weeks,

the next 14,560 days,

the next 349,440 hours the next 20,966,400 minutes the next 1,257,984,000 seconds.

Then you're going to get a little worried and you're going to go certifiably

insane trying to map all of that out right so I know you've heard this saying before it goes like this,

Yard by yard, life is hard, but inch by inch, it's a cinch.

And that's the truth, because in Matthew 6, verse 34, Jesus said,

Matthew 6:34

So don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow is going to bring its own worries.

Today is trouble enough for today.

Deal with it one day at a time.

Paraphrased, it means quit paying for something that hasn't happened yet.

In the Talmud, the Jewish book of wisdom, it says, Do not worry over tomorrow's

evils, for you know not what today will bring forth.

Perhaps tomorrow you will not

be alive, and you will have worried for a world that will not be yours.

A guy by the name of Mark Lowry, I mean, some of you probably know who Mark

Lowry is, a Christian musician or comedian and part of the Talmud.

Catherband, said this, I don't worry because whether I worry or not,

everything is either going to get better, worse, or stay just about the same, so why worry?

The question that it all boils down to is this, does God care?

In that passage, there's a phrase, the Lord is near.

I don't know about you, but I know he cares for me. The past week in my private

worship time, I've once again become overwhelmed with the amazing realization

that even though God has millions of people to listen to at the same time,

he is making note of each one's requests and acting on them.

And even more, in the midst of all

of those questions, he has the time to listen to me and to talk with me.

The scripture says, cast your cares on him, for he cares for you.

When we come to the realization that God cares for us, and while we may not

be able to quit our worrying immediately, some of us worry about worrying,

maybe we can at least limit our worrying.

Maybe when worry and anxiety begins to creep in, we can think about what Paul

wrote in Philippians chapter 4, do not be anxious about anything,

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving presents your requests

to God, and the peace of God with transcends all understanding will guard your

hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Do you know why I think God didn't, or Paul didn't worry? It's because of what he knew.

He had gone through so much of life, and he'd gone through so much turmoil that

he knew that God was taking him through all that, and God could take him the rest of the way.

He wrote in the second half of verse 5, as I repeated, earlier,

he said, the Lord is near.

Know, that's also in Psalm 23. Did you know that? The Lord is near. He is with me.

Friends, despite what we think may be happening, despite the fact that you don't

know what the future holds,

despite the fact that the Packers lost last night and are out of the playoffs,

that really doesn't make a whit in what this world is going to be.

And I'm a Packer fan, but it isn't going to make a difference.

What's going to make a difference is what are we doing for the kingdom of God. The Lord is near.

I'm okay with that. How about you? Can you trust him?

Heavenly Father, as we close this time in prayer, we ask that you would help

us to put our trust and our faith in you.

Help us to be on mission with you, building your kingdom.

And now we ask that the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

and the fellowship of his Holy Spirit be with us now and forevermore as we go

and serve a world that desperately needs Jesus.