Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
Stop Worrying about anything, The Doctrine of Worry. Part 3.
Sunday, July 8, 2001
PHI 4:6 Stop worrying about anything,
1. Worry is a mental attitude sin which is self-induced and therefore soulish torture or anxiety regarding anything in life. 2. Worry is a distressing and painful state of mind involving undue concern over something in life.
3. Worry always envisions the worst, and so becomes apprehension or anticipation of danger, or misfortune, or trouble, or uncertainty.
4. Worry is a state of restlessness and agitation, producing mental disturbance, uneasiness, anxiety, and painful uncertainty.
5. Worry is a destroyer of the soul. If unchecked, it results in mental illness.
6. Worry is a satanic device to lead the believer into reversionism and the sin unto death, EZE 4:15-17; EZE 12:18-19, 1PE 5:5-9.
7. Bad news causes worry, JER 49:23ff.
9. People cause worry. People are always worried about other people. 1SA 2:34; 10:2.
We wouldnt worry about what people think of us if we could know how seldom they do.
We worry about what our children will become tomorrow, yet we dont enjoy what they are today.
Soren Kierkegaard – “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived, forwards.”
Yogi Berra – “you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
The scriptures provide us with the backwards view of life while we are living it in a forwards mode.
PSA 119:100 “I understand more than the aged, Because I have observed Thy precepts.” JOB 32:7 “I thought age should speak, And increased years should teach wisdom.”
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived, forwards” or vertical and horizontal.
In real life, God intercepts, and interjects wonderful vertical truths to guide us through our lives, especially regarding worry.
He has already begun to warn them about the leaven of the Pharisees; leaven is a symbol of sin.
The man was living in a forward manner, but he didnt take time to look backwards. He was living for now and the future, but he forgot about the vertical.
Disciples have become serious about that walk with Christ.
Disciples operate their lives in the energy of the Spirit and not in the energy of the flesh.
They want to believe in Christ so that their lives can be transformed and made into models of Christ on earth.
Only a disciple is capable of living this life, or doing these things that Jesus talks about.
Worry, fear and greed are the unholy trinity of the disciple-like life.
Merrimnas = a common word for the mind being distracted.
“Martha, Martha you are merrimnas about all these things, you have your mind distracted by so many different things. Mary has chosen the good things to focus on; you are distracted.”
Meteoriizomai = means to be up in the air, to be suspended in space.