John Pound: Hello, and welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast.

I’m John Pound, and I’m coming to you today from Richmond, Virginia.

Today I wanted to talk about dealing with worry.

And honestly, in our society, we worry about just about everything.

We worry about finances.

We worry about people in school.

We worry about friends.

We worry about our parents.

We worry about are we going to make this sports team?

Are we going to pass this class?

I mean, honestly, in just about every way I can think of, there’s a lot of things to worry about.

There’s a lot of things that happen.

And really when you think about it, worry stems from two main sources.

Number one, a lack of control, and number two, a lack of confidence.

But what does the Bible have to say about worry?

That’s really the question here.

So I wanted to read you a passage from Philippians chapter 4 where the Bible directly goes against the idea of worry.

The Bible says in verse number 6 of Philippians 4, Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.

Let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

You know, the Bible says there in that passage, be careful for nothing.

That word careful is the idea of being full of care or being worried.

This wasn’t the first time this was addressed.

Jesus himself said, take no thought for tomorrow.

Don’t worry about tomorrow.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

And in our society where we’re so driven to try to be something great, do something great, and we have pressures coming at us from left and right, the worst thing in the world we can do is to begin to worry, to allow that burden to overtake our life.

Frankly, one of the reasons main causes of depression is worry.

It’s fear about what’s going to happen in the future.

So let’s deal with this subject of worry and see what the Bible has to say about it.

First of all, we can look at a lack of control.

The first place that worry stems from, the first source, is a lack of control.

I remember I was with another evangelist in our ministry, and we were in South Carolina at a meeting, we were talking and I saw his son come out of the area that he was playing and he had all of these kids right behind him.

I mean, just all of these younger kids were kind of in a line, just following him around.

And he was telling him what to do.

He was saying, you go here and you do this and you do this and you do this.

And you know what’s funny?

Whenever you put an older kid with younger kids, that’s just what seems to happen.

The older kid instantly becomes the boss.

He becomes the foreman of whatever project they’re going to work on.

And I remember that happening to me.

I’ve been on both sides of that, and you probably have too when you were a kid, maybe either being bossed around by your older siblings or maybe being the one who was bossing people around.

What’s funny, though, about that is when we look at a kid, we think that’s kind of funny.

We think it’s cute.

But what happens is we carry that same selfish mindset into our adulthood.

You see, we go on from being able to control our lives and being able to kind of figure out what’s going on and tell other people what to do.

And then eventually we meet people that we can’t tell what to do.

When you’re in high school, you can’t tell your teachers what to do.

When you get a job, you can’t tell your boss what to do.

You could try, but it probably wouldn’t do well for you.

You can’t tell a police officer what to do.

And so we end up coming into this place in life where we meet people and we begin to have pressures put on us and we’re no longer in control. we’re no longer the one planning everything out we’re the one kind of handling it and at this point you can have two responses you can either bide your time and wait until you get to become the boss or you can rebel and begin to do your own thing I see this a lot with teenagers you’ll talk to a teenager and you’ll say how are things going with your parents and they say I can’t wait until I get out of here I can’t wait until I graduate and I grow up well why is that well because I just want to get out of town I don’t want my parents tell me what to do anymore you know or maybe you hear somebody that says well you know man I just can’t wait to go into the military why do you want to go in the military well then when I go into the military I can live my own life and no one’s going to tell me what to do and I’ve always thought that was interesting because I feel like in the military people probably a lot of people are going to tell you what to do but we see this in our own lives in lots of different areas and so your response is either you’ll bide your time until one day you get to be the boss and you get to tell other people what to do, or you’ll just totally rebel and just try to get away, get out from underneath authority and try to bucket and do your own thing.

The problem is, both of these is wrong responses.

Both of these are wrong responses.

You see, the answer isn’t rebellion and going off and living your own life.

And the answer is also not trying to manipulate and buy your time until one day you’ll finally be the person in charge.

You see, there’s a third response that you could have.

And the third response is submission.

Submitting to whom?

Well, Jesus.

You see, overcoming worry about things that you can’t control starts with submitting to the one who can control them.

The answer to our problems when it comes to worry is not looking to ourselves to fix the issue.

When there are circumstances that are beyond our control, There are things that we can’t do.

You can’t make that college accept you.

You can’t get that promotion at work.

You can’t force your boss to give that to you.

When there are things that we begin to worry about that are out of our control, the solution in all of these problems is to stop looking to ourself to be the answer and start looking to the one who is the answer, who is Jesus.

Because Jesus can control those things.

The Bible says the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, and as rivers of water he turneth it withers whoever he would.

You see, Jesus can control the hearts of men.

Jesus can control the course of our life.

Jesus is the one that can create opportunities.

The Bible says that God is the one who puts people up in authority and puts them down.

He’s the one who exalts, and he’s the one who abases.

That’s God.

God has the ability to control things that we can’t.

So our passage here in Philippians 4 talks about not being careful.

Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication.

Then catch this phrase, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.

You see, overcoming worry can happen when you begin to start by thanking God for the trials and different circumstances he’s put you in instead of asking God to give you your own way.

When I was a little kid and I would go to my father and I would ask for something almost all the time, it was completely selfish.

You know, you go for Christmas and you say, Dad, this is what I want for Christmas, and you tell your parents about it. and you begin to tell them about all the different toys that you want and why you want it.

Hardly ever do you ever ask for something so you can give it to someone else.

No, you’re concerned about yourself.

So often our prayer lives can become just like this.

We go to God, and we have a problem, and we have a struggle, we have a trial.

We don’t like it.

So what do we do?

We go to him, and the first thing is, Lord, would you take this away?

Lord, would you fix my issue?

Lord, would you give me another option, a different route?

But we don’t stop to thank God for what he has given us.

In fact, the Bible says that we’re to thank God in everything.

In everything we’re to give thanks.

Everything.

So the truth is that even the trials and troubles and circumstances in our lives, we need to begin, instead of like a little kid asking God, Lord, get me out of here, we need to go and say, Lord, thank you. because I don’t fully understand this trial.

I don’t understand this circumstance that I can’t control.

I don’t understand why it’s happening this way.

But you do.

You have a master plan, and I can thank you that I’m in this trial right now because I know that your word says you’re going to work it together for good.

So that’s the first part, dealing with circumstances we can’t control.

But there’s another source that worry stems from, and that’s a source that comes from a lack of confidence in ourselves. oftentimes worry also comes by doubting that we can do whatever it is that we’re supposed to so here it comes you have you want to join the football team and there’s tryouts and you go to tryouts and what do you do the whole day before tryouts you start stressing about whether or not you’re going to be able to make the team whether or not you’re going to be able to run all the plays whether or not you’re going to be able to make the right tackles whether or not you’re going to be able to throw the football the right way whatever and you build up all this stress maybe it’s a test you walk into the classroom you’ve studied but you just feel like there’s no way I’m going to make this I’m totally going to fail this I’m so worried about this when we begin to worry about something and that worry is stemming from a lack of confidence in ourself really what it’s coming from it’s coming from a source of unbelief.

Let me be very clear.

Anything that God has called you to do, he can enable you to do.

Let me say that again.

Anything that God has called you to do, he can enable you to do.

If God wants you to be in school and he made you to take that class, he can help you to pass the test.

If God wants you to be on the football team, he can help you to be on the football team.

If God wants you to preach his word and travel the country, be an evangelist, or go across the sea and be a missionary.

He can do that.

You say, well, I can’t preach.

Listen, that’s unbelief.

What happened when Moses came to God and God said, go speak to the people of Israel?

And Moses said, well, God, I can’t.

God looked at him and he said, who has made man’s mouth?

The Lord did.

He did.

He was the one who made Moses’ mouth.

And he was basically saying, look, I’m the one who made your mouth.

I’m the one who can enable you to speak to these people.

I’m the one who’s calling you to do it in the first place.

There’s that good old quote that we hear often, which is, God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called.

And that’s so true.

I found that over and over and over again in my own life.

You see, God allows things in our life that stretch us beyond our capacity.

They stretch us beyond what we’re able to do.

Why?

Because he wants us to learn to rely on him.

He wants us to learn to look to him.

You see, trials are supposed to bring you to the end of yourself.

Because, I believe it’s George Mueller who said this, because the end of yourself is the beginning of God.

Where you end, where your strength ends, where your intellect ends, where your understanding ends, is where God’s wisdom, strength, intellect, power all begin.

Proverbs 3.5 says, Trust the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.

You see, God allows us to go in circumstances beyond ourselves so that we can trust him.

When I was in high school, I did taekwondo.

And I would spend hours and hours and hours every day exercising, working out, practicing.

And I loved martial arts.

It was probably one of my favorite things that I got to do in life.

But there’s one thing about it I absolutely hated, and that was stretching.

Every single day, I would walk into the dojo, I would go to the mat, and I would get down and I would start to stretch.

And it was awful.

I wasn’t really flexible to begin with, and it seemed like no matter what I do, it never got that much better.

In fact, honestly, even today, I struggle with flexibility.

But at that time, I remember so many times getting down, especially if I was sore, and stretching my legs.

And just my muscles would almost scream at me to stop.

I hated it.

Stretching was always so difficult.

What I found, though, was over time, I was able to stretch farther.

I was able to do more.

Frankly, I was able to kick higher.

I was able to do more in my martial art.

Why?

Because stretching helped.

Even though it was uncomfortable, even though it wasn’t enjoyable, even though, frankly, I didn’t feel like I was very good at it, overall, it brought me to a higher level of being able to perform in that sport.

What’s the point?

God wants us to learn how to depend on Him more so that we can accomplish more for Him, so that we can do more for Him.

You see, God tells us to tithe.

He tells us to give 10%.

Well, why is that?

It’s because his goal isn’t that we would stop at giving 10%, but that doing that, we would learn to trust him.

And with that trust, with that answered prayer, would come blessing.

And that blessing would then enable us to, by faith, give more.

Our faith would be stretched.

It would grow.

And as our faith grows and our confidence, not in ourselves, but in the Lord grow, we’re then able to do more.

I was reading a story recently in the Bible in 2 Chronicles, and it’s the story of Asa.

And the Bible says that Basha, king of Israel, came to Judah, and he surrounded the city.

Asa was there.

He was building a city.

His goal was that nobody would be able to get in or get out.

And that was their desire.

Their desire was that Asa would be trapped, all the people of Judah would be trapped, and there would be no way for them to escape.

The Bible says that then Asa, in response to this, he takes gold and silver out of his house and out of the Lord’s house, the temple, and he runs to the king of Syria.

And he asks for the king of Syria to come and help him and attack the king of Israel so that eventually he’ll pull back his forces and Asa won’t have this problem anymore.

And the Bible says that after Asa does this, the Bible says in 2 Chronicles 16, 7, And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa, king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand.

Were not the Ethiopians and the Labims a huge host with very many chariots and horsemen?

Yet because thou didst rely on the Lord, he delivered them into thy hand.

For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.

You know, what’s interesting about that passage is the fact that the Bible says God’s eyes run to and fro throughout the entire earth looking for somebody that he can show himself strong on their behalf.

You know, young person, you might be here today and you might be listening to this podcast, and there may be some circumstances in your life that you’re really worried about.

There may be some things that you feel like because of past failures or because of just, honestly, you knowing yourself, you say, there’s no way I can do that.

But understand, if you’ll get your eyes off yourself, and instead of running to a way out or a way of escape, you’ll run to the Lord and ask him to bear your burden.

And ask him to enable you and ask him to help you.

You know what you’ll find? you’ll find every time that God’s eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth.

That’s why in Philippians chapter 4 in our passage here, the Bible says be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.

You see, it doesn’t start with worry when you have a circumstance you can’t control or a trial you don’t understand.

It starts with going to God.

And by prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving, letting God know, God, I need your help.

And what does the Bible promise?

Well, in verse number 7 it says, And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

You know what’s amazing?

You can see somebody in a circumstance beyond anything they could ever understand.

Maybe a Christian has cancer.

They’ve just been given a terminal illness with only months to live. and yet the peace of God falls on that person in such a great and mighty way.

Why is that?

Because they’re simply resting totally and completely in Jesus.

You see, the reason why our world struggles so much with worry is because we haven’t learned how to rest.

We spend most of our time running around trying to put out all the fires of life ourself and we find that we have a really small water hose.

There’s nothing we can really do to put out all these fires.

But when we learn to rest in Jesus, we find that he’s a lot better at putting out fires than we are.

And frankly, he’s really good at using those fires to create something for his glory, to stretch our faith, to build us up, to grow us, to begin to trust him more.

Well, I don’t know where you are today, and I don’t know what it is you’re struggling with, but if worry is something that you’re battling, understand today, the secret to overcoming worry is not found in you, your circumstances, or somebody else.

It’s found in Jesus Christ, in looking to Him, in totally surrendering and submitting yourself to Him, and then totally depending on Him to enable you to do whatever it is He’s called you to do.

Hope this was a help and a blessing and encouragement.

Remember, this week, the only way you can come over a worry, the only way you can live the Christian life, is by total surrender to God and total dependence on Him.