The All-Sufficient One

But for us this morning, we're here as a people who want to know just the next phase of what does it mean to know Christ, to really know Him. And as Paul said, that the surpassing value of knowing Christ causes us to want to forsake everything else that was in our past and leave that behind, that we could just gain him and know Him. And so today we're going to be talking about what it's like to know Christ as the One who is the all sufficient one. Now, if he's all sufficient, one very important thing comes to mind. I don't have to be.

Is that a relief for you? If he's all sufficient, you don't have to be. So what is that going to look like at the start of this week? If you just look back on your calendar Monday, a significant number of people in our nation were going through a tremendous amount of worry about what was going to happen Tuesday with the elections. And then another half of the nation on the day after the elections was going through worries about what was going to happen with those who were elected.

And so worry became a dominant theme. People were thinking, politics is going to be our answer if we're the right candidates. No, Jesus is our only answer. And so we want to be able to understand, Lord, how do you. How do you still the storms of anxiety and worry that threaten to drown us?

How do you do that? And how do we get the peace which surpasses all comprehension, as it says in Philippians 4? How do we get that to replace that turmoil in our hearts that just is kind of moving around inside us and stirring us up and making us anxious all the time? Well, good news is that Christ has the answer for that, and we want to be able to look at that together. And so I invite you to look with me to Matthew, chapter six.

It's in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus knows that it's necessary for us to hear his words on all manner of subjects. But he knows the problem for all of us is that we tend to be worriers. Most of us will say, not me. Ask the people around you and find out if they think maybe you're a worrier. But we have to be aware that Jesus knows that this is a problem.

So we're going to look at verse 25 through verse 34 of chapter 6 of Matthew and hear what he has to say to us and then figure out what that meaning is for us Today, starting verse 25, just to kind of get a real clear thing. Jesus says, I Tell you, do not worry. Okay? That's all we need. Don't worry.

He says it four different times in this passage. Use the word worry here. He says, do not worry about your life, what you'll eat or drink, or about your body, what you'll wear. Is not life more important than food? The body more important than clothes?

Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life? Pause there for a second.

The payoff is not good. All the trouble we go through to worry about things and try to figure out in our minds how we can do something about. The Lord says, you're not adding anything to your life by doing that. It's not very wise to spend your time doing something that's not gonna make any difference. He says, who can add a single hour to his life?

Or why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They don't labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. That's how God clothes the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire.

Will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has trouble enough of its own. Well, Jesus, you could have left that last sentence off. Every day he's got enough trouble to mess with.

So he's saying to us, look, I know it's coming, and I know you're in the midst of it, or I know you're getting ready to go into it, or I know you just came out of it, but do not worry. So let's pray together and ask him to show us how that impacts our life and what we can do to make a difference in how we experience each day. For the praise and the glory of his name. Father, we ask you now, we who are prone to wander into fields of worry and drown in the flood of thoughts that trouble us, we need you. We need to understand that only you are all sufficient for all things.

And therefore, rather than pretending that we can fix things. And pretending that we have the answers to all these things, Lord, it makes so much more sense for us as followers of Christ to know that when we've gained Christ and knew him and have a relationship with you, the Lord God Almighty, there's nothing too difficult for us. And there's nothing that we need to try to gain victory ourselves for something that you've already gained the victory for yourself. And so, Lord, we ask you now teach us, open our eyes. Help us to not only see, but Lord, in some sense to feel the reality of what this means to us personally.

And we will give you the praise for what you're going to do to show us by the power of your spirit, how to surrender certain parts of our lives that have perhaps led us astray for times and kept us from believing and trusting and living in the reality that you are the only, all sufficient one. We pray these things for Christ's sake. Amen. Several years ago, I was in the winter months. I was up in the Asheville, North Carolina area.

And part of that time was January. And it just snowed pretty big time that week before. And several of our friends said, we want to go take and let you see a big waterfall down there. And how many of you have ever heard of Catawba Falls? Heard of it, been there, remember what it is?

Okay. Well, we went to Catawba Falls. It's about a two mile hike through the woods. And it had been snowing and so there was snow all around. It was gorgeous, gorgeous walk.

And we got there and as we come through the woods and we happened upon this waterfall, it was absolutely stunning. To this day, I can't even describe it adequately, but just picture it's been freezing cold weather. The water that had come down had formed these massive icicles. And it looked like a cathedral with this massive pipe organ there, except better. And right in the middle of it all was this massive flow of water just still pouring out out of all of that.

And all we could do was say, thank you, Lord, for the beauty of the earth. What a glorious picture it is. And then I began to think, where in the world does the water for such a powerful waterfall come from? Up in the mountains like this. And actually, oddly enough, the Catawba river starts just above there, not far at all.

But what happens is that the headwaters come into it not as some massive spring that comes out of the earth and boom, there's this river. No, it starts with a little stream from a little runoff from a little hill that started melting. It does A little stream, it comes down into another stream and that comes down to another one. And then the spring is over here and, and then there's another little rivulet over here. And pretty soon they join together and then they cut away through the forest and then they make your way together, getting larger and larger as other things feed into it.

And then boom, you have this beautiful, beautiful picture. Well, that's the beauty of that whole scenario. The lack of beauty is when those rivulets and those streams and those other small little things of water to get in there are not water, but they're worries. And our minds have a little nugget of insecurity about a concern we have. And then we have something that we really care about.

Not worried, we just care a lot. And then we're concerned even more. And then it joins with some other concerns. And next thing you were very, very concerned. And next thing you know, it's full blown worry.

And it is a river rushing through us, drowning us. And we can't figure out how we got there. Christ is saying to us today, I know how you got there and I know how you cannot get there. And I know how you can have the peace of Christ, which surpasses all comprehension. You don't have to live that way.

What happens? Our brains are uniquely designed by the Lord God that when there are patterns like that, patterns of negativity, patterns of the way we think, they kind of dig these little channels in our brain so that we go back again and again and think the same thing, the same way, because they're habitually drilled into our brains and so they accommodate that. And so if someone told you, for example, as a child, you know you're never going to mouth anything. And then you hear it again, and you hear it again, and you hear it again. By the time you're an adult, when someone suggests something to you about possibly what you can do or can't do, you hear that little echo come back from that same little channel that's been drilled into your brain.

Or you know you're not as smart as your brother or your sister, or you're not as this or not as that, or you couldn't do or you can't, or then guilt comes and then all the things we've done in the past, you could never be forgiven for that. And you get all these channels and they come together and they form this flooding, raging river of worry.

And Christ says, when you come to me, I change all of that. I will make you brand new from the inside out. And the channels which were moving toward worry, I will reroute them and I will take care of them and I will give you a heart of peace and I will take your anxiety away and replace it with the understanding that Jesus, you are the all sufficient one. Why should I worry? Isn't that awesome to think about?

Well, that's what we're going to be talking about as we walk through this and see what God has in store for us. We know him as we've already talked about in our previous weeks in the study. We've known him as the Beloved One, we've known him as the humble servant, we've known him as the richest treasure. And today we talk about him as this all sufficient One who changes everything that we perceive about what we need to and should be worrying about from our perspective. And it flips it on its ear and God says, none of that is required of you, none of that is expected of you, and none of that will do you any good.

I alone am the all sufficient One. Therefore, what he wants to help us understand is that we can take this thin stream of little concerns and cares and get that deflected by the grace of Christ so that it never becomes a full fledged worry. We do need to have concerns, right? We do need to care about things. That's a part of what we should be doing.

We're believers, we're followers of Christ. We have on our heart the thing that God has on his heart. So we are concerned about that. We do care about things. But first Peter 5, 7 says, what are you supposed to do with those cares?

You cast all your anxieties on him. Why? Because he cares for you. Cast it on him. That's where he wants it to go.

He doesn't say, deny that they're there. He said, just deal with them properly. Make sure that they come to me and they don't dig deeply into and form a trench in your brain that this is the way you think you're supposed to live your life. That's not the way it is, he says. So worry in essence, E. Stanley Jones says it this way.

Worry is the interest we pay on tomorrow's troubles. We don't need to be paying that bill. We need to let Christ do what Christ does. So here's what happens if we're not careful. We'll think of worry as something that's noble and we'll rationalize it as something that's proper and appropriate because we really are caring people and all it is is rationalization for worry.

When God's going like, want to be honest with you, you probably want to debate it. But worry is sin.

I don't know about that one. What is it saying? Worry is saying, God, I do not trust you to take care of this. I've got to care about it. I've got to be concerned.

I've got to be the one who's fretting over occupied about these things. And the Lord's going, that means you're not trusting me. Whenever worry appears, trust casting all those things upon him go out the window. And we assume the responsibility ourselves. So what is he saying in this passage?

Four different times he's saying, don't do that. Don't worry. Well, that's easy for you. You're Jesus, you know. Okay, well, in Paul's letter to the church in Philippi, he says the same thing.

Chapter four, verse six. He says, do not be anxious. About what? Anything. Well, that's Brother Broad, Paul.

He said, yeah, I'm Brother Broad. That's who I am. I speak in broad categories because I know Christ and I count it as loss. All that was seen as gain to me if I could just know him. Know him how?

He's the all sufficient one. So how do we process this? We first of all have to trace the source of that worry to the headwaters, just like you did with the Catawba River. Where did things start? How did it get there?

How did it form in such a way that by the time it gets to Catawba Falls, it's a rushing, raging water pouring over the. Over the side of the hill? How does that happen? Well, it starts with just small things. And those small things become bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

How do we catch them early? Kathy and I were on a little vacation trip this past summer. I don't know if you've seen PBS television, they have these. Come see this rivers of Europe, you know, on the Viking tours. And so we took one of those Viking tours and we went.

We were going to go from Prague up to Berlin. And if you know your geography, there's not a river by Prague that goes to Berlin. So you have to get a bus and go up to catch the Elbe river, which. Which then takes you up, you know, north. And then you get off and you take a bus on into Berlin.

There was a problem.

It had not been raining a lot in Europe last year. There was not a lot of snow in the mountains of Czech mountains that were melting and coming down to fill the Elbe River. So Kathy and I had a nice Little vacation in a little houseboat that wasn't going anywhere. We'd come back from touring around that day and we had a nice little room and a nice place to eat. That boat wasn't going anywhere.

And if you've ever been on a cruise, one of the first nights that you're there, the captain brings you on board and says, now this is how you put on your life jacket. And this is where you do when you hear this alarm. And you know, the captain comes up and says, if you hear this alarm, we'll just step out on the shore. It's a little different thing. And those things about putting your life vest on, well, if pushing up to the subject, you can stand in the water, it's about this deep, so you're gonna be okay.

But we didn't get to go anywhere because there was nothing feeding those rivers. You can see now the Rhine river, the Danube, all the. They're drying up right now. It's been a dry season. What God wants us to do is dry up the rivers by stopping the flow of stuff into the rivers of our worry.

Stop it early. Catch those little ideas that are worrisome ideas. Catch those concerns and cares before they become worried so that they don't form together into a mighty river. You say, well, that's really easy to say. But how do we stop these headwaters of worry from getting there?

We just need to know that that's where they're coming from. They don't enter into our hearts full blown floods. We give them opportunity to grow if we're not careful. And so God is saying, don't let them grow. Catch them early.

And so how do we do that? Well, it's not easy. Only Christ can do it. But what he wants to do is take the power out of worry, transfer the power out of worry and translate that into godliness. How do we see worry become godliness?

How do we see that? Translated that becomes worry becomes worship. How do we see that happen? Well, what happens when the trickles and the brooks and the streams become a river? It becomes more difficult to control the river.

Did you see the news over the past week? It was really ripping rain all through parts of the country and there were just massive floods that have a picture of a car going down the road and this is river, this wall of water flying by beside them. Once they get to that stage, you're not going to do much to stop them. So he says, get control of them early on. Get control while they're still streams.

Make sure that you're Doing what you need to do to take the power out of them by not letting them be big enough to mess with you. So you do river management, you worry, control. It's got to be done with what Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 10. He says, you are to take every thought captive to obedience to Christ. Don't let that thought run away on you.

Rein it in, take it captive to obedience to Christ and control that thought. So what does he want us to do? Three possibilities of how we could deal with that. Well, first is this. We have to recognize the damaging power of uncontrolled worries.

The floods that come when we just let it go. There's a power there that's damaging and it will hurt us. The first realization is what Jesus was talking about in verse 27. He said, can you add anything to your life? An hour even by worrying about it?

No. So worry. Bottom line does no good.

What's the definition of lunacy? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Well, we keep trying to think that if we keep doing this, we'll eventually get something out of it. We keep worrying eventually it's going to help some way. And the Lord says, no, you can't add an hour to your life by worrying.

So stop it. There's no reason to do it. It does no good. Second thing that we realize is that not only does it do no good, it actually does positive harm. If you want to be honest about actually is a hurtful kind of thing.

It does several different things. First of all, it generates stress, it generates anxiety. And those stresses and those anxieties actually have not just intellectual and emotional, but they also have physical results. Several years back, back when I even had darker hair, I remember a time when I started shortness of breath. You know, man, some man.

It must be pollen season around here. Well, that's enough of that. But there wasn't going on then. So I finally went to the doctor and was going like, I'm not sure what's going on, but you know, little chest pains and shortness of breath. Surely this can't be a heart related thing.

And in essence he said, yeah, it is. But he didn't say it that way. He asked a question. Are you undergoing any particular stresses in your life right now?

I'm a pastor of a church.

Anything else you need to know that's stressing up? I got three teenage sons. Anything else you need to know? I mean, you start asking, what are the stresses? Well, those are responsibilities that are wonderful being a pastor that's great.

Being a dad is awesome. But I was letting it begin to stress me out and it was beginning to impact me physically.

We have to understand that sometimes these stresses and these worries actually get in the way of physical health. If we're not careful, we're not thinking about it. Years later after that, I thought kind of got through that place and then came to a period of time where it's like, you know that pain in the neck? I'm not talking about the person you're thinking about, but the one that's actually a pain in your neck. And it's like, it's so tight and just like tense.

It's like, oh, I just wish somebody would give me a massage back there. And it's just tight as it could be. Go to the doctors or pull muscle or what's going on. And he says, oh, this is a different doctor. I think they have a book.

It's stress related. Anxiety is causing this. See, don't understand. I'm a follower of Jesus. I don't have that kind of problem.

Never have had a stressful day in my life due to worry that just not what I do. He's going like, yeah, you can keep telling yourself, but you're going to keep hurting. So we have to understand that worrying does have the negative impact. It will have physical impact on you. It will keep you up at night.

And the people said, amen. It will stress you out if you're not careful. So don't do that. Second thing it does is it drains energy and attention away from profitable things invested on worthless stuff.

You don't have time to do what you need to do because you're busy doing what you shouldn't be doing. And that's worrying about something that's really not relevant to the circumstances that you're facing. Great picture in the scriptures is when Jesus went to visit a guy named Nicodemus and his two sisters, Martha and Mary. And as he's there, you got two sisters who are handling his visit very differently. This is in Luke chapter 10 if you want to read it sometime.

Martha is busy, if you've heard the story. She's busy trying to get everything ready because Jesus is in their house, He's a guest in their home. She's all over the place. And finally she gets frustrated, worried that she's having to do all the work. And she comes to Jesus and says, would you tell Mary to come help me?

Can you imagine that going to your guest and saying, would you tell my sister to get in here? She needs to help me out here. So Jesus looks at her and says, martha, Martha. Which is. I love that.

Why would you say her name twice? Just sort of like, oh, you dear dim wit. You know what he's saying, but he's saying it in a loving way. Martha, Martha, you're worried about so many things.

Mary has chosen the better part, and that's not going to be taken away from her. She chose to sit down with me, her master and king, and you're busy making sure the placemats are all in the right place and that all the silverware is cleaned and put in the proper order and that all the sills over the doors have been dusted and all the food is just. You're worried about all that stuff. I don't care about that stuff. Mary chose the better part.

Now, does that mean that the other stuff is not important at all, though? That's not what Jesus says because he uses the comparative. He says what she has chosen is better, doesn't mean the other stuff is not something you should be doing, but she chose something that is better than that. Well, does that insinuate that what she was doing was okay? It was good, yeah, up to a point.

But when it started getting in the way of the better thing, you choose the better part. Mary has chosen the better part. And so Jesus is saying to us, if you're worried about something, you're taking away time and energy and emotions to do with stuff, that there's something better than that.

She chose the better part. She's hanging out with me. Don't let worry get in the way with Jesus and learning who he is. Third thing it does is it reinforces this false sense of being in control. Remember us talking about that a couple of weeks ago?

I've got this under control mentality, and the Lord is going like, no, you don't. You don't now have it ever, and you never will. But I do. I'm the blessed controller, the sovereign God, the leader and the Lord of all things. So.

So if you are worried about something, what you're suggesting is that somehow or another you're gonna be able to come up with a solution and fix it, and it's under your control to take care of it. And that's not true. So don't fool yourself and don't deceive yourself and don't lose what I'm offering you here.

Stop worrying about those things. Fourth thing that happens, it expresses, and this is of a scary thing, it expresses a personal irritation toward God that he hasn't let us in on his plans. We would never express irritation with God, right?

Yeah, we do. Maybe it's passive aggressive, but we do express our irritation when he doesn't let us in on what he's doing. Remember the song a while ago? It says, we don't know what you're doing, but we know what you've done with just that first line. We don't know what you're doing exasperates some people.

I have a right to know everything you're doing. God and why. And castle oil. No, you don't. You don't have that right.

I can show you, and I'll give you opportunity to learn. But what you really need to do right now is trust me and stop worrying about all the stuff you don't know and focus in on the things that you do know. And that's what I have done and what I'm capable of doing and what I promised to do.

Relax. Let me be God and you be one who follows me. You don't have to worry, because what happens is that when we get irritated about God not doing what we want him to do, what we're doing is implicitly accusing him of things. You're not concerned enough about my problem, so I've got to worry about it so that somebody cares if he can take care of the lily in the field and the bird in the sky. He's got you.

Jesus says, don't think you can worry about it. Stop accusing him, implicitly or otherwise. And somehow we explicitly insult him by saying, God, I'm worrying about this because, frankly, I'm not sure you're capable or sufficient to handle this. In other words, we don't see a human solution. Therefore, we figure there's not one.

And so we explicitly are saying, God, I've got to do this, because you're not going to. And I'm not sure you could if you would.

That's not a healthy relationship with him at all. Worry produces that kind of thing in our lives. It also fosters a kind of lazy faith which says, frankly, it's easier for me to worry about something than it is to pray about it. Prayer is hard, and prayer is admitting that you don't know something. And you want to give the impression to yourself and to everybody else, including the Lord, that you got it.

So it's easier to just worry about it rather than pray about it. And so the problem emerges, and we let it take control. We let it absorb us. We let it take over. We don't take every Thought captive for obedience to Christ.

We let the thought take us captive to obedience to worry, not God's design. He said, that's not what I want you to do. He says, what it does is it just creates in you this fretting and this worrying that you've got to do something. And what I've given you to do is pray. Try that the next time you're tempted to worry.

Instead of worrying, pray. Remember we're talking about Jehoshaphat. When you don't know what to do, you know what to do. Pray then. The last thing.

It stifles our ability and inclination to walk by faith rather than by sight. If we figure we can worry about it, we can see a solution formulating in our minds. We can figure out something and we worry about how we're going to get to that place. And God is going, like, how about if you just let me be the one who's able and you can just be the one who is blessed by my ability. I am the all sufficient one.

You do not have to be, because I am Lord. You don't have to be.

Stop walking by sight as to what you can see as a solution that you can kind of produce yourself. Stop worrying about how you're going to get there and just release that into my. Casting all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Let him do what he does. Well, what happens if the headwaters have already started forming?

What if we're already even in our own minds, we're already kind of worry warts. We already have patterns sort of built in. We're already kind of worrying. He said, well, here's what you need to do. You got to figure out how do we manage those concerns so that they don't become floodwaters.

How do we divert the power of those things to move into a mighty river of worry and concern and anxiety? How do we manage that properly? Well, the starting point is to recognize that when that Catawba river was starting, trickles don't frighten anybody. Little babbling brooks. Nobody's concerned about that.

It's when they join forces and become a mighty river rushing and coming over the edge of the falls. I. I would not want to be standing beneath those falls when that water was hitting you. We had that happen one time. We were in a mission trip down in Jamaica, and we went to Ocho Rios in the falls there, and you could climb up the falls. And I got myself in an awkward spot where I had stepped out onto a rock and the pressure of the water on me Was.

I mean, I was getting ready to get knocked off down into the rocks below. And there was a guy who was a guide there, and he pointed and I looked. And by shifting my weight from one rock to the next, the pressure of the water was released and I was able to get back over the side safely. But that pressure was so hard, it was just driving on me, and I needed to divert myself away from that. And so when we're looking at that pressure coming, how do we divert it?

Well, God has his own ways with rivers, right? You don't see many rivers in the world that just are like, you know, Creedmoor Road, straight. You don't see much of that. Rivers do this. Excuse me.

They go round and round. Why? Because if they went straight, they would gain power and power and power. But God lets them go around the mountains and over the rivers and vales, and he controls them that way. If you've ever skied, you don't point the tips.

You skis straight down the hill and let's go. Because you will go. What do you do? You. You traverse?

No, I'm not going to do that very often, but you'll see it. You traverse and you go back and forth across the slope. And only if you're a professional or an Olympic do you point them downhill and go. And even then they're sweeping them down. Why?

Because you will get killed that way. And so what do we do to recognize that, yes, these rivers are gathering potential and we need to divert these headwaters before they become a river. What has to happen? Well, the first is that we recognize what they are. What are the triggers for us?

And the first thing we can recognize is that when we see what the trigger is, that trigger can become an alarm that goes off to warn us. You're heading towards sin. You're heading toward worry. You need to stop now and pray. You need to yield this to the Lord.

You need to cast all your anxiety on him. You need to stop where you are. And the little rivulet that starts dripping concern, thoughts that are starting to move toward caring, thoughts that are starting to move toward anxiety and worship, worry and all that stuff. You catch it early enough. And so when that alarm goes off, you know it's time to do something.

Waking up to what that possibility could be should be sufficient for us to do something. Then back when our church spot, the hotel over on Glenwood Avenue here in Raleigh, when we first moved over there, it was kind of a scary place to be at night. You know, it was in a. In a big Old place that had been vacant for a while. And I'd go up there at night sometimes to work.

And we had alarm systems in the building and it was graded and I was protected in there and behind the locked door. And I'd be sitting there working and all of a sudden the lights would start flashing and the alarms start going off, which made me think, cool coffee break. No, that's not what it made me think. It scared me to death. And I'm over there in this dark building and this alarm's going off.

I am not the person who's going to walk out of my office and think, wonder what criminal element has come in to help, you know, not me. I'm staying inside and. And I'm waiting for someone to give me the all clear sign. We were laughing early with Kevin and Jennifer. Her dad was the one that had a special phone lined up with the security people that if the alarm went off at the church building, it went off at his house.

And two in the morning or whatever it was, he had to go in and find out what's going on. Not me. The alarm went off. I'm standing there going like, come get me. I need some help.

And so in our spiritual lives, God gives us these alarms. When we see these concerns moving beyond concern toward becoming a river of worry, we take action. We do something. We make sure that that alarm awakens something, that this is not right, this cannot continue the way it's going. Something has to stop.

And so that's one of the purposes that we get in terms of being able to recognize God. This is an alarm for me. I'm starting to dwell on this issue. I'm starting to be preoccupied with it. I'm going to bed at night thinking about it, waking up in the morning thinking about it, and during the day having it consume my thoughts.

I've got to. And the Lord says, are you hearing the alarms?

Floodwaters are starting to flow. Second thing it can do is it can become a gauge to measure our faith. How much trouble has to happen in our lives before we start worrying about it? Little things. I'm not going to worry about that.

I'm not going to worry about that. And at a certain point, it clicks in. We're going like, okay, I'm going to worry about that one. Those rivers we were talking about, they have gauges and bridges and things. Because the water came this high in 1963 when the floods reached this place and all the people drowned and were dead, nobody can tell the story about it.

You don't want to hear that story. But it does show where the river has been, where its normal stages are, where it's been down here before. It's up here, it's flood zone. We have the little elements of our awareness of our little rivulets and streams that will show us at this point, if I allow the rivers to get this high, if I start worrying about something at this level in my life, then I need to use that gauge as a recommendation from the Lord to say, you need to go beyond recommendation to edict from God on high. Don't worry beyond this point because I don't want to have you worrying about any point.

I've got it all. I own the whole river.

Let the measure show you whether or not your faith is prepared to be able to deal with what he has for you. And then the thing that can happen next is that when that worry then begins to be identified, the alarm wakes us up. The measure says, thus far and no more. Then we begin to see and hear the voice of the worry coming into our ears in a different way. It begins to come to us not as an alert that we should start worrying about something.

It becomes a call to worship. Lord, rather than worry, I will worship. Rather than fear, I will have faith. Rather than losing my peace, I'll pray. It's a call to worship.

When worry begins to start moving in a way that it manifests itself in our lives, whether it's through stress or anxiety or whatever else, Jesus just says, don't do it. Trust in Me, the all sufficient one, to do what needs to be done. Why? Because the last piece of this is simple. There's a dynamic power of grateful trust that comes out of these things once we've learned that we can trust him with them.

There's this power that comes first when he says in verse 33 of Matthew 6, Seek first his kingdom. Seek that first. Start there. Seek. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.

And then all these other things. Your Father knows you need these things. Don't worry about whether you're gonna get them or not. Your Father knows. He knows how to feed you.

He knows how to clothe you. He knows how to house you. He knows how to take care of that financial problem. He knows how to handle that relationship issue. He knows how to do that health issue.

He knows he's the all sufficient Lord God. Know him as that and seek him first. Rather than when things are out of control completely, don't wait till it's a complete mess and it's all I got Left now to do is pray. Well, you didn't have anything to do but pray to begin with. Go ahead and start there.

Seek that first. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. And then all these other things, they'll be added to you. Second thing is he says, now pray. Just stand fast in prayer.

Be a man or a woman or a child in prayer. So that passage in Philippians 4 that we've referred to a few times says this. Be anxious for nothing. Do not worry about anything he says. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

What happens if I do that? The peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and mind. Minds in Christ Jesus, the Lord says, I will put up sentries who will guard your mind and your heart from the intrusion of that kind of stuff. If you will pray, if you will seek me, if you will give thanks in and for all things, watch what I'll do. I will guard your heart.

The peace, the peace which surpasses all comprehension. You can't even begin to understand it or describe it. That peace will guard you and the worries can't touch you, because the centuries that he puts over your heart will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. And then lastly, he just says here, then you can step forward with confidence every day. You're not hiding out of fear.

You're not scrambling to figure out what you're going to do with the things that you're worried about. You're not dealt with. You're just walking by faith confidently, seeing what God has in store for you. That's what he wants us to do. And so when I invite more brooks and more streams and more rivulets into my life and let them start gathering momentum, I'm doomed to be a worrywart.

I'm doomed to be someone who worries instead of worships. And that, my friend, is sin. So he says, don't do it. Trust the all sufficient one and know that when you do, that sweet peace which surpasses all comprehension, all understanding is gonna guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. And he will be praised.

And man, won't your life be better free from worry? Not because you're not engaged, not because you don't care, not because you have no concerns, but because those have all been placed in the hands of the Master, who does have all things in his control. And he is the all sufficient Savior. Let's pray. Father, thank you.

We could not do this. Apart from you. We depend upon you. We need you. We give you thanks for whatever we're going through.

We give whatever those circumstances are because in them we will see the evidence of your hand working stuff out that we didn't even know you were doing. And yet, Father, you are preparing a way. And Lord, even as I say that I know that there are concerns and issues in my life that I keep wondering, Lord, where's the escape? Where's the way out? How do I get through this?

And Lord, you just remind each of us I am the Lord. Nothing is too difficult for me. And so Lord, we come to you, the all sufficient Lord God Almighty, and say thank you for not just having our back, but Lord for having our way laid out before us to follow Christ and in him be content in all things. It's for his sake that we live and in his name that we find peace.

Thank you Father for taking our worries and giving us that peace. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.