Gateway Church Sermons
Ashley Road Site | 8th September 2024 | Richard Stamp | Living Without Worry (Part 2)
(people chattering) - Good morning, gateway. Good to see you all this morning. Let me invite you to bring your conversations to a close and grab your seats. Good to be together. Well done for making it through the floods of 2024. We are, if you can catch it, actually, my name's Richard. If you're here for the first time and I'm one of the pastors here and it's my pleasure to welcome you. If you don't know, we're in a three-week preaching series, which is called "Living Without Worry", this is week two. Don't worry if you missed the first one, it's online. If you were here last week though, you will know that the big idea is that we want to take seriously the invitation of scripture and the instruction of Jesus to live without fear and worry and to not be ruled by anxiety. That's the kind of the big picture of this series, if you like. That's the invitation of Jesus. He wants us to live free from those things and in his word and through his daily presence in our lives, he has provided what we need to be able to do so. So we'll be looking at that a bit more closely today. And we've been saying this has never been a more pressing issue because we live in an age and in a culture of unprecedented anxiety and worry. Our media is full of it every day. I'm sure you'd agree, our headlines and our social commentators and our TVs and our phones, tell us what's gonna make us poorer, what's gonna ruin our health, what's gonna threaten our security. It's in our national politics. Globalization and immigration are gonna squeeze us all out of jobs and resources, it's in our geopolitics, wars that are getting increasingly out of control. The climate is changing and that's no good for the polar bears. And of course, AI is gonna take over the human race and turn us all into androids. So we've all got that to look forward to as well. I'm obviously being a little bit tongue-in-cheek about this, but I've read some headlines this year and engage with some pretty serious authors who really do think that some of these things are legitimately our future reality. And in response to all of this, the UK Mental Health Foundation reported last year that two thirds of us experienced anxiety in the past two weeks that interfered with their lives. Three quarters of us felt anxious at least at some point in the last two weeks and one third of us, one third, say that we're not coping well with our daily anxiety. Now this is now the number one cause of workplace absence in the UK to have taken any physical ailment. And conversely, the Bible tells us about 365 times, believe it or not, one for each day if you like, not to worry or to be anxious. The Bible always addresses the human condition with startling accuracy. And so we wanna take seriously and take its seriously where it invites us not to worry and then offers us wisdom on how to do that. So we've been looking last weekend today at two passages of scripture to help us with this. The first passage is Psalm 37, written by King David towards the end of his life as a sort of consolidation of all that he'd learned about the subject over the many years of his life. And so we saw this last week in Psalm 37, the first three words of this lifelong Psalm are do not fret. Good advice. And then we get 40 verses of wisdom, lifelong wisdom, and we get to the last four words which are take refuge in him. 40 verses that link the idea of not fretting, not worrying with the idea of taking refuge in God. And in between we see ideas like this. This is verse five, commit your way to the Lord, trust in him and he will do this. He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun, what a promise. And verse 12, the wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them. But the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming. In other words, don't fret, don't worry about the things of life. Instead, take refuge in God, run to God because when enemies come near, he promises to fight your battles and to vindicate you so that all might see his work and his victory in your life. For some of you that might be all you need to hear today, that God promises to fight your battles and to vindicate you. For others of you, you may be facing other circumstances that Psalm 37 invites you to remember that throughout your days, God, our Father, is alongside you every step of the way and that he is working to make your steps firm and that he upholds you with his mighty hand. That's what David learned through his walk with God and his battles over many, many enemies over his life. Don't fret, but run to God, take refuge in him. He's mighty and he's in control. And secondly, we're looking at the beatitudes of Jesus in Matthew five, written about, I don't know, thousand years after Psalm 37, but in so ways, so similar to David's instruction in Psalm 37, the beatitudes you probably know are nine sayings of Jesus that tell us that if we want to live life as it was supposed to be lived, the key to not being constrained and driven by the tyranny of our world and the voices of our culture, the way to live the blessed, flourishing, best and fullest life, then just like David instructs, we are to do that by trusting God, by living for him and by not living by the daily headlines and the values of our world, but to surrender ourselves every day to the values and the standards of God's kingdom. And so we'll look at these passages of scripture and then my prayer is that we'll let King Jesus speak to us and pastor us today through his word as we consider how to live free of worry by turning down the volume on the voices of our anxious culture and turning up the volume on the voice that really matters, the voice that spoke creation into being and that upholds and rules over all things, the voice of God. Lord Jesus, I pray this morning that as we look at these words, these eternal words of truth that you have known from the dawn of time and even before that, Lord that this morning we would receive your word with fertile hearts, fertile ears, fertile minds, Lord of pray that you do a work in us, shift around the furniture in our lives that we might see you more clearly, strip out the weeds I pray, break the chains if there's anxiety and worry in this room, God set us free, I pray, for your glory. Amen. I was reading the news headlines this week 'cause I was preparing this and thinking about how the temperature has really risen on the kind of a disaster and anxiety narrative in our culture in the past few decades. I used to live in the States, in the USA, in the '90s, admittedly in a quite small town by American standards, it was probably about the same size as pool. And one night, this guy came on the screen, a very serious looking guy, he had beautiful hair and lovely teeth, and he leaned into the camera and he said, "Tonight's top story in Hamilton County, "a cat is fat and overweight cat was the biggest thing "on the news that night." And it kind of got itself stuck up a tree or something. That was 30 years ago, that had specialists from the Animal Welfare Society, a fireman was interviewed, a teary resident was pleading for help, a cat was fat on the news that night. That was a particularly slow news day, but by contrast, I was thinking about that when I was reading our headlines just this week. I don't know if you've seen any of them, but just in the past few days, I've read stories from serious journalists telling us that one way or another, annihilation and certain chaos is just around the corner for us. Either the population is out of control and the police can't control it, like we saw in the riots up north a few weeks ago, or the NHS is about to implode and none of us will get medical help, or Russia or the USA are gonna blow us all up. On Thursday, I read a report that climate change means that we're on the brink of not being able to grow wheat anymore apparently, which is disaster for anyone who likes a sandwich. The news isn't meant to be fun, but our telling of these things just seems to be getting more and more frantic and anxious. In the background to all of this, we've got over 100 armed conflicts around the world. That's the highest number since World War II. There's an estimated 365 million Christians around the world. It's very morning, facing high levels of persecution. That's something we should be praying about. Over 700 million people are living on less than $2 a day. It goes on and on, we're running out of food, we're running out of healthcare, nuclear war is imminent. And that's if the polar caps don't melt and drown us all first. Merry Christmas. And into the midst of all of this mess, King Jesus says, do not worry. Be not anxious. The conditions are stormy, the wind is up, but don't forget I'm in the boat with you. You don't need to fear. I'm in complete control and I'm with you every day. I've seen the end. I know how it all ends. I made the end. It's gonna be okay. Come to me. Do not fret. Take refuge in God. Let me tell you how to live this life. It's not what you think. It's not trying harder to build up stuff and earn more and look after number one. All of that stuff is just temporary and passing. It's actually the opposite. If you wanna live the good life, the blessed life, the life that you were made for, if you wanna know peace in your heart in an anxious time, you've gotta let go. You've got to let go of all that stuff that is causing you worry. You can't control any of it anyway. He says that only I can control the future and good news. I've seen it. I'm working all things together. Every evil action of mankind, I'm redeeming it and working through it all to bring about a glory so rich and so magnificent for the sake of the glory of God for your eternal good that if you could only glimpse things as I seen them, you'd never worry again. I'm the God of time and eternity, he says. And I can tell you that in this life, you will face many troubles, but take heart. I've overcome them all and the future is ever so bright for you. In fact, the future's eternal and it's perfect and it's with me. And so he says, in light of all this, don't worry. Here's the worry-free good life. Here's how to make sense of things when stuff rises up in you and causes you to want to worry when you feel like things in your life and in the world out of control. Here's how to make sense of it. And so he gives us these nine statements, the beatitudes. Number one, we looked at last week. Blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. In other words, don't worry if you have nothing and if you bring nothing because I bring everything. Number two, we looked at last week as well. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. In other words, don't worry. All of this stuff is temporary and passing anyway. And today we're going to be looking at the attitudes number three and four. Let's read them. This is Matthew 5, verse 5 and 6. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. For they will be filled. I mentioned last week that these beatitudes are Jesus' opening statements at the start of one of his most famous sermons, the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is on a mountainside and he's surrounded by followers and they all want to hear him and hear what he's got to say. And he sits them down and he begins to teach them. You can kind of just imagine the tension. What will the rabbi say first? This is how you defeat the Romans maybe. This is how you secure a prosperous future maybe. This is how you rise up and become successful. No. Blessed are the poor in spirits. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the peacemakers. He's calling them and he's calling us to a higher and very different standard of living. Don't be like the world. Don't hunger after the things of the world, after riches. Don't plot the downfall of your enemies. Don't be consumed with the worries of this world and the activities of the wicked. I've got all that in hand. Instead, blessed are you when you're meek for you will inherit the earth. Blessed are you when you hunger and thirst for righteousness because you'll be filled. Let's look at what is meant by this and how these two beatitudes should shape our attitude towards the world. Firstly, blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. To understand what it means to be meek, it might actually be more helpful to consider what it isn't. According to the dictionary that the opposite of meek is arrogant, haughty, superior, conceited, egotistical, pompous, not nice words. You don't want to be like that. Some of these words are taken straight from the playbook of how to get ahead in the world. If you want to be noticed, you've got to be superior. If you want to be taken seriously in the business world, you've got to be confident, almost to the point of arrogance. If you want to be important or famous, you've got to have an incredibly high view of yourself. Inflated ego is critical. Apply here for details of salary and working hours. Now, by contrast, to be meek is not any of those things. But nor is it to be a doormat. Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is gentleness. Meekness is humility. Meekness is having a right view of yourself. Meekness is having the ability to admit fault. Meekness is knowing that you are not the centre of the universe. And importantly, meekness recognises that you are not enough to save yourself and that you are not enough by yourself, that you need others and that you need God. That's incredibly hard to be meek in this day and age. The meek tends not to be lauded on social media or profiled in the Forbes Rich List. We all know that. Success in the world isn't naturally predicated on meekness. It's usually, although not always, predicated on strength and overcoming others. Very seldom on laying down your rights for others. It's all about how you look and what you've got and how you perform and how many other people are ahead of you. These are the things that cause us stress and anxiety and worry. If you fall behind the others, if you look different from the others, if your opinion is different from the others, if others start to talk about you as different or weak or weird or ugly or unsuccessful, these are the things that trouble us and keep us up at night. And this is why we're facing an epidemic of insecurity among young people and adults as well. The UK Mental Health Foundation again reports one-third of teenagers felt ashamed in regard to their body image. Four in ten said images on social media had caused them to worry about their body image. And it's not just teenagers, we all know this. It's human nature to want to be loved and accepted and fit the norm and in the most curated image conscious generation in human history. This issue has become one of the loudest voices in our culture and we need to fight it. We've never been more obsessed and concerned about how we look and about what others say or think about us. Our self-perception, how we present to the world, has become one of the loudest voices in our culture and it is killing us. It's feeding anxiety and worry and insecurity, trying to conform us to an ever-increasing standard of success and beauty. It's actually like feeding drops of cyanide into the city water supply with every tweet, every insta-post, every article that tells you how to be rich or powerful or beautiful or successful. It's like drops of cyanide, slowly poisoning everyone. No one feels better about it. But Jesus says, in the grand scheme, that stuff is not important. You don't need to be consumed by your self-image and how you project into the world. It's a mental health trap and it's a prison for your soul. Let me tell you something. Do you know who you are with a larger bank balance and more wonderful biceps? You. You. Nothing changes. You still need saving and meekness recognizes this. So blessed are the meek. Be meek. Be gentle of spirit. Know that you need a savior and know that you're enough in him. You don't need to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated or Time magazine. When you come to him and recognize your need for him in meekness and humility, you are safe. You are bulletproof and you are enough. Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is a strength that recognizes that power and success by this world's standards are not weapons to wield over others but gifts to be used in service of others. Like Jesus. Think about Jesus as he was being arrested in the garden the night before the resurrection of the crucifixion. Reading this story with the benefit of history, it seems a little bit absurd. An attachment of Roman soldiers march into the garden to arrest God. Peter launches forward and chops off one of their ears. Jesus replies, "Put your sword back in its place. Do you think I cannot call on my father and he will put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels?" If you wanted to, he could have called down thousands of angels, wiped out the detachment of soldiers in the garden, wiped out the entire Roman Empire, marched up the stairs of the Senate, shifted Caesar off his throne and sat down as emperor any time he wanted. He had all the strength and power in his right hand at his every disposal. "Put your sword away, Peter. Do you not think I can't call on my father and he will at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels? But how then," he says, "would the scriptures be fulfilled that say that it must happen in this way that I must go to the cross and give up my life as a ransom for many so that you and everyone who comes after you can live in peace and eternal relationship with God." Matthew 11, 28 and 29, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy burdened." Did you feel like that today? "And I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. Why? For I am gentle. I am meek." That's what he says. That's his heart. "And I'm humble in heart. Come to me. I am the gentle one, the meek one. Come to me and you will find rest for your souls." He could have called down the angels. He could have had the highest earthly throne. He was strong enough to do it all. Do you know what else he was strong enough to do? Be meek. Meek enough to endure the lashing tongues and the persecutions and the insults of the world in order to go to the cross and to win the greatest victory for all of us. That's what the meek and gentle Savior did. Meekness is not weakness. It's a superpower because it allows you to walk through the fire and the storm. It allows you to face your enemies and the insults and know that the greatest victory of them all was one for you not through power and might or success of an earthly sort but that there is a higher reality in which your loss is met with his victory. And in his victory, you and I will inherit the earth for all eternity. So no need to worry and stress and strive. Blessed are the meek that I inherit the earth. What others think of you, what you amassed in this life, it will mean nothing when you inherit the earth with Christ one day. Meekness is reliance not on yourself. It's not reliance on the expectations or the opinions of others. It's reliance on him. You want to walk free of worry? Be meek. Practice meekness. Recognize that your greatest peace and power comes in surrender to his much greater peace and power. Blessed are the meek for far greater than the approval of others or the attainment of any earthly favor when Christ returns in glory. It's the meek who inherit the earth. Today's second beatitude. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. What a powerful image. Jesus doesn't say blessed are those who quite like righteousness. He says blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. I imagine hunger and thirst were pretty commonly felt in the culture of the poor back streets of the towns and villages where Jesus travelled and taught. Think about someone who's hungry. Think about someone who's desperately hungry. Think about when you've seen that on the face of a rough sleeper or one of those haunting images that you sometimes see on telly of people in famine struck areas. There's an intensity, there's a deep longing, there's a desperation for food. To keep them alive. I think it's that type of hunger that Jesus is talking about. A straining, gnawing, deep, desperate hunger for rightness and justice in a broken world. My grandmother used to tell me when she was alive about her experiences during the Second World War. She grew up in Athens and Greece and the Nazis invaded and occupied Greece when she was a teenager and she would tell me because there was no food, no food for the locals whatsoever during the Nazi occupation of Athens. Her best hope of food as a teenage girl was to steal from them. Now, can you imagine being an orphaned teenage girl in the war? In her telling of the story, she'd have to kind of pen herself up against the wall of the German barracks by night and as the sentry light was sweeping back and forth, she'd have to kind of avoid it, to avoid being seen as she kind of crept towards the kitchen. So I imagine she would have been killed if she was caught and she'd kind of make it to this barrel of potatoes outside the kitchen and should steal a few small potatoes and should just eat them raw because she was starving. Her hunger made her desperate and it made her do something so risky and so bold in order to satisfy her hunger. Now, imagine if Jesus was referring to our hunger, our righteousness, for righteousness and justice in the same way. What might that look like? What would that do to our sense of worry in the world? And I think at least two things are possible. I think the first thing this type of hunger does is it takes our eyes off ourselves, ironically. If you are looking out to the world and your heart is desperately set on righteousness and justice, then naturally your focus of attention shifts away from your own worries and your own condition to the plight of others. Now, this is actually both a psychological and a biblical reality. The more you dwell on your worries, the more worried you become. Psychologists talk about rumination. Those repetitive thoughts about a worry that you can't seem to break out of which is often highly self-focused. Now, before I go any further, I want to be sensitive and responsible about this. If you are experiencing debilitating anxiety and rumination, seek help. We would love to pray for you, and we really believe that you experience the grace and the healing of God through prayer, through his direct intervention in your life, and his healing through community, through his word, and sometimes also through the gift of professional mental health support. And if that's you, then let us walk alongside you and tend to your soul health as you seek professional help for your mental health as well. We want to see you free from this stuff, it's serious and it's epidemic. But this is important for you to hear and deal with, because according to so much scientific research, rumination, overly dwelling on your worries and your problems, is psychologically problematic as well because it actually sustains uncomfortable emotions. In fact, rumination actually stokes and primes dysfunctional thought patterns by training your mind to always scan for negative stimuli. In other words, dwelling on your worries makes you worry. It actually makes it worse. There was a fascinating book a few years back by a war journalist called Sebastian Junger. The book was called "Tribe." It's not without its controversies, but one of the things that Junger notes is that in the days just after the 9/11 attacks on New York, the suicide rate went right down. Violent crimes went right down, murder went down. And he argues that often in affluent societies, like ours, I guess, where there's no lack of resource, mental health conditions tend to worsen. But in those places and those moments of crisis, there's an inherent sense of bonding together. Everyone needs each other and in being called to look outwards and serve one another in some way you naturally think less on your own problems. So it turns out that considering others as the Bible instructs, in having a missional outward-looking purpose as the Bible instructs is actually quite good for us. Now, biblically, a key theme is to look out on the needs of others in the world and to rectify injustice and to reach others with the missional purposes of God. In other words, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, it's good for the world, it glorifies God and it turns out that it's good for you as well. Not thinking too much of yourself, not overly and unhealthily dwelling on your problems. Looking outward and upwards is a key biblical instruction. And let's think again about Jesus, our model for all of this stuff. He hungered and thirsted for righteousness. He hungered and thirsted literally on the cross. His actual recorded words on the cross, John 19, 28, I thirst. And even as he hung there, if anybody ever had a right to dwell on their own dire situation, it was Jesus on the cross. What was he doing? He was making sure that his mother was cared for. John says, "Now your mother, mother, this is now your son." He was asking God to forgive those who put him there in the first place. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. He went to the cross with our peace set firmly in mind by making us righteous before God. That was a key function of the crucifixion. He hungered and thirsted literally and he hungered and thirsted for our righteousness. That's why, out of meekness and love for us, the gentle Savior went to the cross. Don't you think I could have called down 12 legions of angels? He wasn't thinking about his preservation or safety. He wasn't thinking about the insults or the beatings. He was focused outwards on the salvation of mankind and the glory of the Father. And in so doing, he achieved the second thing that hunger and thirst caused you to do. He acted. He saw the injustices and oppressions caused by sin. He saw injustice against God caused by our sin and he saw injustice in the world through our sin and he determined to do something about it. He acted by going to the cross for us. Why do we not act when we see the unrighteousness and injustices in the world? Could it be that we don't hunger and thirst for righteousness in the way that we should? Maybe our hunger and thirst to self-protect and self-promote suppresses our ability to hunger and thirst outwards for righteousness. And in this scenario, what are we left with when we turn our attention repeatedly back onto ourselves and our own condition and our own lack and our own need? We're left with worry. We worry. One of the best things Vic says to me if I start worrying about something is to change my focus of attention. She often asks me, "Is this a problem for now?" And if so, maybe you should attend to it. But if not, then park it and change your focus of attention. It's great advice because it takes my mind off me. When I think about other things, when I think about other people, it really helps. It's not a bad thing for you to focus on your condition of heart before the Lord and to be diligent in your dealings. But if our consumption with ourselves blots out the outsider, well, we're heading for a ruminative mess in our minds and it kind of misses the point that as we live the good and the blessed life, the good news of Jesus is meant to be shared with others as well. I've often asked myself why I don't spend every waking moment telling everyone I meet about Jesus. Why don't we all? If we really believe that the gospel is the best news in the world, why are we not out there all day long telling everyone? Could it be that we don't hunger and thirst in the way that we should? Could it be because we've become a tad too self-focused? The great missionaries of previous centuries would go to people groups around the world and they would carry their coffins already made. They would travel with their coffins. They knew that 80% of them would die within the first two years of their missionary endeavors and they'd often burn their boats when they arrived knowing that the gospel calls us to go, to tell others about Christ and to trust Him fully even to the point of death. That's hungering and thirsting for righteousness if ever I've heard it. It's not self-protecting or self-promoting, it's entirely other focused. What causes to hunger and thirst for righteousness, please keep us focused less on ourselves and more on your glory and purposes in the earth. How do we land all of this? The big idea, as I said, is to live free of worry and the biblical instruction seems to be to shrug off the temporal passing attitudes and opinions of this world, the values of our culture, the standards of success that these things cause us to look inward, always striving, always insecure, always worrying about whether we are matching up to the world, keeping up with others, worrying about how we are perceived. Jesus says, "Lay it down, be meek and gentle by laying that stuff down and coming to me." Maybe you need to do that again today. Exhale as you lay down that stuff and know that as you come to Him, you are safe and you're accepted and that you're enough. Jesus says, "Hunga and thirst for righteousness. Take your eyes off your anxious situation and think about others. Think about me. Think about my kingdom and my glory." That's where the true treasure is and it's eternal. Hunger and thirst, less for your own glory. Hunger and thirst for the righteousness and the glory of God to be manifest in all the earth. Maybe that's you this morning. Maybe in a moment when we come to the table when a Daniel leads us in that and partake of Jesus, you need to come and ask King Jesus to do a reboot in your heart and to decrease you and to increase him in your life in some way. He's kind. He's gentle. He's meek of heart towards you. He hungers and thirsts for righteousness in your life. He did it on the cross and gateway He's doing it today and His grace is big enough for you to come to Him in exactly this way today. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for these profound words, these profound words that speak to our psychology and our human condition and the state of the world as it was in the first century and the state of the world is in the 21st century, Lord, I thank you that you just take the wisdom of man, the wisdom of the world and you turn it on its head and it's in that you say we find the good life, the blessed life, closeness with you, freedom from fear and anxiety and worry, eternity in our hearts expressed as we live out these things to look outwards, to be less self-focused, less self-promoting, less constrained by the values and the cultures of our world and more adherent to all the things that you call us into. So Lord, I pray in this room this morning, I pray for our brothers and sisters up at all the road as well as this message is preached up there, Lord, that you would literally break chains in people's lives this morning of fear and anxiety and that you would do a paradigm shift, a heart reboot for us, Lord God, help us to look to you first, to seek first the kingdom and that all these things you promise will be added to us as we do that. Lord, I pray this morning, cause our eyes to look upwards, Lord, I pray that we're rumination rules, we're anxiety rules in the heart, we're the peace of Christ ruling hearts this morning and I pray, Lord, as we come to you now and surrender again, as we offer a sacrifice of worship by singing these songs, as we come to the table and sacrifice our lives again by saying, Jesus is my Lord, that you would work ever so powerfully in our life, to bring glory to yourself and freedom to us, we ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen. [MUSIC]