Unit 1: Jesus Teaches About Faith
Why Do You Worry? | Bible Background • MATTHEW 6:19–34 Printed Text • MATTHEW 6:25–34 | Devotional Reading • EZEKIEL 34:11–16
AIM FOR CHANGE
By the end of this lesson, we will CONTRAST Jesus’ teachings about worry with our own anxieties, APPRECIATE God’s care for everything in nature, and EMBRACE the opportunity to trust God in everyday life.
IN FOCUS
Pastor Ricky closed out his sermon about worry. “Job worries, financial problems, health concerns, family issues … each one of these problems is out of our control to some degree. The only thing that is under our control is our response to these difficult issues when they come into our lives.”
Then, he passed out blank envelopes and sheets of paper to his congregation. Each person in the church that morning was instructed to list all the things that were troubling them, no matter how big or small. They were then instructed to place the list in the envelopes and to address the envelopes to themselves.
“During the final song, I encourage each one of you to bring those worries you just wrote down to the altar and lay them down. We’ll let Jesus take care of them for a while and then we’ll see how we feel about those same issues.”
One month later, the pastor mailed the envelopes out to his congregation. With few exceptions, most of the congregation saw their month-old concerns in a whole new light. Though some troubles were ongoing in the people’s lives, the majority of the worries that seemed so enormous at the time had diminished drastically in urgency and intensity. Bills had gotten paid, arguments had been resolved, problems at work had changed, and health problems had been healed. This simple experiment taught the congregation a lesson about the nature of worry that none of them would soon forget.
What has helped you keep God’s eternal perspective on worry in mind?
FOCAL VERSES
KJV Matthew 6:25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.