Reversing Anxiety Consequences, Part 1

Most people do not look as worried as sin.

They look at it as natural. But Dr. Tony Evans says it's anything but natural, and talks about what a trap it can turn into. It is dictating who you are, where you are, how you function, whether you function.

It tells you if you can get up in the morning, it owns you. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. Even though we know worry does nothing but eat us up inside, sometimes we just can't seem to stop.

But that stronghold can be broken, and today Dr. Evans will tell us how, as he takes us to Matthew chapter 6. Let's join him. Boy, there's just so much in life to worry about. We worry about our money. We worry about our health. We worry about our relationships. We're worried about our jobs. We're worried about our careers. We worry. Well, let me ask, how many here, you worried about something?

A large part of us, because worry has become part of the human dilemma. One man said, I've got so much to worry about that I'm gonna pay somebody $100,000 to do my worrying for me. I gotta get this off my back so bad, I'm gonna pay somebody $100,000 to do my worrying for me. Of course, a man applied for the job. He says, you're hired.

He says, well, how do I get my $100,000? He said, that's the first thing you got to worry about. Because some of us, if we could, we would pay somebody to lift this thing off of our shoulder, this thing called worry. And so in my moments with you today, by the time we are finished, you won't have to worry anymore. I don't care what it's about.

I don't care what is provoking it, what is irritating, exacerbating, frustrating. We want to lift the burden based on God's Word of worry. Three times we are commanded in this passage not to worry. Verse 25 says, for this reason I say to you, do not worry. Verse 31 says, do not worry then. Verse 34 says, so do not worry.

Three times there is a command not to worry. Therefore, to worry is sin. If something is a command and you disobey it, it's called sin. Most people do not look as worry as sin. They look at it as natural.

They look at it as something that is legit given the circumstances that I am facing. Yet, the Lord in this passage gives a command and He couples the command with this statement. O ye of little faith, you believe I can take you to heaven, you just don't believe I can cover you on earth.

You believe I'm good for eternity, but I'm insufficient for time. Do not worry. The word worry, anxiety, means to be torn in two. Worry is concern on steroids. Worry is concern that's gone haywire. There is a difference between concern and worry. Concern is, I have an issue in my life that is troubling me and I am setting forth a plan as best I can to address it. That is legitimate concern. But worry is where the concern controls you. It is where because of the concern I can't sleep. Because of the concern, I can't control my temper. Because of the concern, I am losing my ability to cope. It is where concern has now become the controlling factor because of the issue, whatever it is that you face.

Now, let me give a clarification here. I am not talking about chemical imbalance where there is a physical, chemical reality that needs to be addressed because that physical is affecting that emotional and absolutely that may need medication. That is not to what I am addressing. What I am addressing is where the circumstance in and of itself is controlling you. It is dictating who you are, where you are, how you function, whether you function. It tells you if you can get up in the morning and tells you you better go to bed right now.

It owns you. Well, he says in introducing this section, for this reason, and then he tells you don't worry. For this reason. So before he tells you don't worry, he says there's a reason.

So you can't understand not to worry unless you understand the reason. So he says for this reason, which means we have to back up a few verses, and in verse 22, this is what he says. The eye is the lamp of the body, so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and wealth because one of the big worries of life has to do with resources. He says if you want to get over worry, you've got to get rid of one of your masters. Worry will track you down if you've got more than one master. He says if you've got God over here and something else in control over there, since the definition of worry is to be torn in two, and you've got two different masters going in two different directions, then they will keep you worried.

They will keep you torn. He says the light is in the eye. If the light is in the eye, then the whole body knows what to grab, where to walk.

The whole body can function because it's seeing things clearly. But if the eyes are dark, everything else is in trouble. The hands are in trouble. It doesn't know what it's grabbing.

The feet are in trouble. It doesn't know where it's going. It says everything else is in trouble if there's darkness in the eye, if there is not clear sight, because you have become divided with masters. One of the reasons why we stay worried is we stay divided between masters. He says you cannot serve two masters, and when you do, you will be worried because you will be divided. The spiritual division creates or supports the ongoing nature of worry. Let me put it another way. The more heavenly minded you become, the less earthly worry you will have.

Let me say it again. The more heavenly minded you become, the less earthly worry you will have to carry. If I hold a glass here, it's going to be full of air. I can't just shake the air out because I'm shaking it, but the air is going to stay in there. I can turn that glass on its head, and the air is still going to be in the glass. If I want to get rid of the air in the glass, I've got to fill it with water.

If I fill the glass with water, it will automatically remove the air in the glass. The more of God you get filled with, the more worry has to leave the environment. But if you are divided, double-minded, if you are distracted in terms of having master, and a master is somebody who tells you what to do, a master is somebody who controls the priorities of life, he says, do not worry, all ye of little faith.

Well, if that sounds easier said than done, stay with us. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment with a piece of the puzzle that may make everything look different to you. First though, Tony has written a brand new book called U-Turns that goes hand in hand with today's lesson. There are ways to reverse the consequences of spiritual failures you may have experienced in your life in areas like anxiety, addiction, financial responsibility, and more, including problems you may have heard were irreversible. U-Turns will show you how to get your life headed in a positive new direction, and that's why we're offering the book and all 12 U-Turn lessons on both CD and digital download as a way of saying thanks for coming alongside Tony's ministry with your contribution.

We depend completely on your support to keep the alternative on this station, and this is one way we can show our appreciation. And if you want to learn even more about how God can work to redeem the negative consequences of bad choices, or if you want to help others in this area, you'll want to look into Dr. Evans' companion U-Turns Bible Study Kit and DVD. You can find out more and make all the arrangements at TonyEvans.org, or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, where one of our helpful resource team members can assist with your request.

That's 1-800-800-3222. I'll have our contact information for you again after Dr. Evans brings us part two of today's lesson right after this. Impactful, amazing, intense, thought-provoking. That's how just a few students describe their experience since enrolling in the Tony Evans Training Center. The best part is the training center is wherever you and your online connection are. Going beyond a Sunday sermon, these compelling Bible study courses take a much deeper look at Scripture, the Bible's writers, social issues of today, and so much more. Log on today to learn more at TonyEvansTraining.org.

TonyEvansTraining.org. Explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere. He now says, he goes a little deeper. He says, if you are consumed by worry, if worry is your middle name, if you weren't worrying, you wouldn't know what to do with yourself. He says, you don't understand God. You don't understand His nature, and you don't understand His providence. And you don't understand His priorities.

Notice what he says in verse 25. He says, I say to you, don't worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or as to your body as to what you will put on, is not life more than food and body more than raiment. He says, folks get worried about the wrong thing. You get worried about what you are going to eat. You ought to be worried about whether you're going to get up to eat anything. Because life is more than food. You're worried about food, but you are alive. Because if you don't have life, you don't have to worry about food.

So if you have life, you can assume food. He says, the body is more than raiment. The body is more than clothes. We worry about old clothes, new clothes, torn clothes, sewed up clothes. We worry about clothes. He says, you're worried about the wrong thing.

You need to worry about whether your body is intact to put your arms through those sleeves. We can think that order like the guy was driving his BMW. He's driving his BMW and he loses control of the car. He's getting ready to jump off the cliff. He opens the door, jumps out just in time. The car goes over the precipice. He says, oh no, my BMW, my BMW, oh no, my BMW.

A policeman drives up. He says, mister, you just lost your arm. He said, oh my Rolex, oh my Rolex, you know, we can get things out of sync.

Messed up priorities. He says in verse 26, have you ever paid attention to nature? He says, have you ever studied nature? Because he says in verse 26, look at the birds. Look at the birds. Pay attention when you leave church today and look at the birds. Because he says they don't sow nor reap or gather in the bonds, and your Heavenly Father feeds them. Not their Heavenly Father, your Heavenly Father.

Aren't you not worth much more than they? Birds don't have CDs, mutual funds, stock market investments, savings account, yet every morning they wake up singing. Every morning they wake up. And they wake up singing with no savings.

I don't have anything to draw. But he says, but the birds, in bird thought, says the father of the folk is going to feed us. They assume there will be a worm somewhere today with their name on it. They assume that. So they get up singing. We get up fussing, cussing, and complaining. The birds, he says, have you not looked at the birds? They get up singing. They out on the limb.

Come on, guys, show me where my worm is today. Because they assume something that even we don't assume. Are you not worth much more than they? He says, clothing. He says Solomon was not arrayed like the lilies of the field. With all of his billion dollars, he says the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin.

You've never seen a lily using a sewing machine, calling on Singer to keep my pedal on. You don't see that. He says, because God works it out in nature. They don't toil, they don't spin, but your Heavenly Father supplies what they need, and it's assumed that all of nature operates by God's natural supply. What I have discovered is, at the core of this thing of worry, is we really don't know who we're dealing with. We have lost the awe of God. God is a great person up in the sky somewhere.

We don't know who we're dealing with. And because our view of Him is so small, we worry when there are things in our lives that are out of our control. I found out the other day—watch this, man. I want to help all of us to go, huh, about God. See, when you go, huh, about God, when's the last time the thought of God made you go, wow?

When's the last time the thought of God overwhelmed you? I found out the other day, in one drop of water, in one drop of water, there are six sectarian atoms. Six sectarian atoms in one drop of water. Now, we're not talking about the dams. We're not talking about the ocean. We're not talking about the seas. We're not talking about the rivers. We're not talking about the lakes. We're not talking about the streams, which make all that water, makes up more than two-thirds of the Earth's space on Earth, on earth, and in one drop of water, there is six sixillion atoms. If God lost track of one atom in all the water in the world, He would no longer be God, because He would no longer be omniscient. On every head of hair, the average is 100,000 strands of hair on the average head.

The older you get, the shorter it gets, the lower it gets, but average. There are 100,000 strands of hair on the average full-headed people. Let's multiply that by seven billion people. You're now beyond a tillion. You're beyond numbers. You can count. You can't put enough zeros in this room to count that many strands of hair, yet the Bible says God knows every strand of hair on everybody's head that has ever lived.

And if He missed one strand of hair, He would no longer be God. What did you tell me you were worried about? See, the thing is, we don't know who we're dealing with. And so we find ourselves under the stranglehold of worry, and yet He says, don't do it. It's a sin. And when you do it, you elevate the natural over the supernatural, man over God, and you're telling me you are your God. And you live divided and torn. So it shouldn't surprise us that Isaiah 26 verses 3 and 4, I will keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me.

It shouldn't surprise us that 2 Thessalonians 3 verses 6 to 8 says God gets peace in every circumstance. Now don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting that life does not get hard.

I am not suggesting that. We all know better than that. Jesus said in John 16 33, in this world you will have tribulation. But then He gonna bounce right off of that and say, be of good cheer.

Say, what? You just told me I'm gonna—I can expect trouble, and then you're gonna tell me, cheer up and sing. When we understand, when God allows trouble in our lives—I'm not talking about trouble we create now. I'm talking about trouble that He allows that would create the insecurity that drives us from concern to worry, that what He is creating in your situation is an opportunity to see that He's God. So the next time you are tempted to worry beyond concern—concern is where you have a real issue and you are seeking a way to resolve it. Worry is where it has taken over the concern and it is controlling you.

The next time you are tempted to worry, you must now look at that as an opportunity for God to let you see how much God He is. Paul put it this way in 2nd Corinthians chapter 1. He said, God gave us a great ordeal of affliction, so we were down to the point where we didn't even know whether we were going to live.

It got that bad. But then he adds a phrase, and he did it so that we could see He is the one who raises the dead. He did it so He can let us see He's God. You ever notice in the Bible all the time Jesus would lead His disciples into a storm and they said, carest thou not that we perish? Don't you care?

You sleeping and we're struggling out here? Oh ye of little faith. When worry is seeping in, that is a call to faith in the midst of the legitimacy of the concern. So what do you do?

What do you do? Verse 32, for the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, for your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. When you worry, you have now joined the ranks of pagans. The Gentiles, the non-believers, the pagans, mismanage their priorities, because they got to make it happen themselves. They seek to control it.

Why? Because they are their own gods. But you got a daddy, your Heavenly Father. He says stop being pagans, because he says I'm talking about your daddy, but your daddy has also got to be your master.

You can't have divided loyalties. Dr. Tony Evans, wrapping up part one of a message on reversing the consequences of anxiety. Now if you can't be around tomorrow for part two, or if you'd like to get the complete version of this lesson to review on your own or share with someone else, just visit tonyevans.org for information on getting a copy. Better yet, you can get it as a part of that powerful resource package I mentioned earlier. It includes Tony's brand new book, U-Turns, Reversing the Consequences in Your Life, the companion study guide and resource DVD, and all 12 messages from the U-Turn series on CD and digital download. The entire package is yours when you make a contribution to help keep this broadcast coming your way each day. This offer is only available for a few more days, so don't put it off. Visit us right away at tonyevans.org to get all the details and make your contribution, or call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members assist you. That's 1-800-800-3222.

People passing the scene of an accident often can't resist the urge to stare. Tomorrow Dr. Evans will explain why we often do the same thing with our problems, and he'll reveal how to shift our focus to something healthier. Be sure to join us. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.