James Meehan - Does God Care About My Worries?
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I believe that the words of Jesus that we are going to study today will absolutely transform many of you in ways that maybe you don't quite expect, and in ways that for some of you, you honestly don't want, because you have been living a certain way of life that you're really comfortable with, and I believe that Jesus wants to push you out of your comfort zone, so that you can actually experience the change and the growth that He wants for you.
One of the things that most frustrates, and one of the things that most breaks my heart, is how much we as a society and a culture have failed you and your generation when it comes to the world of mental health. Because truth be told, we have known for decades that your mental health struggles are real, and that they are a big deal. But for decades, the ideas and the solutions that you have been told, and the ideas and the solutions that you have been sold have not been actually working. They haven't been making things better. And you all know this, whether it's because you suffer from some sort of mental health challenge yourself, or because there's somebody that you love and you know who does.
The problems oftentimes aren't getting better. They're actually getting worse. And that's why I think the words of Jesus that we're gonna study today are so important for you. Because I believe, if you're taking notes, write this down, that Jesus can and He will help you replace your worry with trust and your anxiety with peace. Jesus can and will help you replace your worry with trust and your anxiety with peace. Now, I know that there's probably some of you who as you heard that and as you've read that, you're like "Okay, sure, I've prayed, and my problems didn't go away," or "I know lots of church people like you who say stuff like that, but I've just never actually seen it be true," and this is why I think it's important for us to go all the way back to the foundation. Because the stuff that Jesus says wasn't just said by some random Bible teacher 2,000 years ago.
We believe it was spoken by the Son of God, by God himself in human form. He wasn't an ordinary man or just a super spiritual dude. He is literally the Son of God, who died and rose again to rescue us from sin, and to bring us into a right relationship with Him. That means what He says doesn't just sound nice. It actually works in the real world. And you don't just have to take my word for it. Actually, there's an incredible organization that did a bunch of studies about young people, like you, and what was going on in their lives, the struggles that they were dealing with, and how faith in Jesus made a difference.
So I wanna show you this first graph right here. Talks about church attendance and personal struggles. So when you look at this graph, you've got US teens, that's the blue bar, you've got Christian teens, that's the yellow bar, and then you have churchgoing Christian teens, that's the red bar. The difference between churchgoing Christian teens and Christian teens are that churchgoing Christian teens said that they went to church at least once a month, at least once a month, and if you just look at that, there's a pretty big difference. Depression is down 17%, high anxiety down 17%, suicidal thoughts down 14%, and I wanna make it clear that that is for people that just go to church at least one time a month.
If you're a part of our church, we have church every weekend, we have Switch on Wednesday nights, which means you've got, on average, eight chances a month to be in church. And if you make it one out of eight, the difference in your mental health is measurable. Next graph. This one I think is more interesting because this is talking about, once again, US teens, that's blue. Nominal Christians is yellow. Nominal is a word that means in name only. So these are the people who say they're Christians, but when asked like what they believe or how they live, none of that actually lined up with what Jesus said or did.
But they call themselves Christians, and then the red bar are those that would be called committed Christians, and those committed Christians are the people who say they believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that they believe the Bible is the Word of God. They're the people who go to church at least once a month, and they read their Bible at least one time a week, and they pray at least one time a week outside of church. Do you see the difference? It is measurable. That when you don't just go to church, but you actually begin to dip your toes into the things that Jesus said and did, how much better your mental health will become, and, like, I wanna make it really clear here that the bar that this organization set for these surveys is kind of low.
Go to church once a month, read your Bible, and pray once a week, and that's what it takes to be a committed Christian, according to this organization. That's kind of like if you're on a sports team, and you have practice six days a week, and you show up to practice one day a week, and everybody calls you committed to your sports team. Right, like, that's a pretty low bar.
Now, there are some of you who, like, you're excited because you just became a follower of Jesus, or you just started investigating all things Christianity, and you're new to all of it, and so for you, going to church once a month, or you reading your Bible once a week is a big deal. If that is the case for you, then keep going. Don't stop at once a month. Don't stop at once a week. Because that's really good, but Jesus has so much more in store for you. And imagine what the data would look like if they weren't just asking for the people who went to church once a month, but those that were there all the time, if they weren't just asking the people who read the Bible once a week or pray once a week, but the people who actually do it every single day.
We believe because we've experienced it, and because the data supports it, that Jesus can and He will help you replace your worry with trust and your anxiety with peace, because Jesus is the Son of God who died and rose again, and through His life, death, and resurrection, He made it possible for us to experience forgiveness of sins and newness of life. And for some of you, what He's asking you to do is to step out of your comfort zone, to step into a relationship with Him, so that you can experience the life and life to the full that He wants for you.
So what we're gonna do is we're going to look at a passage of scripture found in Matthew 6, found in the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon ever preached, where Jesus commands us not to worry, and He teaches us the path out of worry and into peace. So we're gonna start in Matthew 6:25, where Jesus says, "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes"?
If you're taking notes, Jesus raises the bar and He gets to the heart. Jesus raises the bar and He gets to the heart. All throughout this sermon, that's what Jesus has been doing. He has been raising the standard for how we are meant to live as human beings, for what it looks like to live in a way that is actually right in the eyes of God, and it is good for the people around us, and He's getting to the heart of what it means for us to trust God with all of our heart. He's getting to the heart of the issues that hold us back from becoming the people that God has created us to be. And in this section, He's getting to the heart of this thing called worry that wants to rob us of our peace and our joy.
It wants to convince us that God is not good, and He does not have your best interest in mind, that, in fact, you have to be the one that makes sure your needs are taken care of. But Jesus has something so much better to say. He's raising the bar and He's getting to the heart because He wants us to experience life and life to the full. He continues to say in the next verse, "Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life"?
Jesus wants us to recognize that worry does not add anything. It only takes from us. It doesn't make us better at life. It robs us peace and joy and confidence, so that our everyday is less than what it could be. If you're taking notes, the lesson that Jesus wants to instill in us is this. He wants us to not let worry drive our life, but instead to trust that God cares about you. Because if your Heavenly Father cares enough about the birds to provide for them, then how much more will he care for you, his son and his daughter? That's how God sees you.
When you step into a relationship with Jesus, you are not some ordinary person. You are His child, so loved by Him that He wants to open up the floodgates of Heaven, so that blessing would be true in your life. He wants you to understand that if He cares enough about little flying animals, how much more, then, does He care about you? How much more does He want to meet your needs? Because God is a good and loving Father who wants what's best for His kids. And when you step into a relationship with Jesus, you become a son and a daughter of the King. So don't let worry drive your life. Instead, trust that God cares about you. Jesus goes on, and He basically says the same thing that He just said with a little bit of a different example. He says, "Why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They don't labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all of his splendor was dressed like one of these".
For those of you who don't know, Solomon was a king in Israel, and during his reign, he was the richest, the most powerful, and it seems like maybe the most fashionable of all of the Jewish kings, and Jesus is comparing him to flowers, to show that it doesn't matter how much you pretty yourself up, at the end of the day, you are still just playing pretend because God is a master artist, and what He has painted on the canvas of creation is so much more beautiful than what we can imitate in our own efforts. And so He is basically saying, "Hey, like, I'm telling you that not even the most fashionable person you can think of was dressed like one of these flowers". "If that is 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, you of little faith"?
Don't let worry drive your life. Instead, trust that God cares about you. If He cares about birds and He cares about flowers, we can be confident that He cares about us, because we are more than birds and we are more than flowers. We're sons and daughters. We're made in the image of God. We are so loved by God that He sent Jesus to die for us, so that we could know Him, that we could experience His love, and that we could grow to become more like Him. So it's time to take worry out of the driver's seat, and instead build your life on the goodness and the kindness of God. We keep reading, and Jesus goes on to tell us, "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 of these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them".
Now, the pagans, those were people who did not worship God. And what Jesus is saying is that, hey, like, when you don't have a right relationship with God, then what you're going to chase after are the things that you can see, like food, like clothes, like money, like popularity, like fame, and this is the thing that is so important, is that when our relationship with God is off, then we are only seeing what's in front of us, temporary and material things that will eventually fade away, things that look good and pretty and shiny, but don't actually meet the deepest needs of our soul. But when we choose to trust in God, to believe that He is real, that He is good, that He loves us and cares about the details of our lives, it's almost like a whole new dimension of reality opens up.
It's almost like we can see the world in a brand new way. It's like if you don't have glasses, but you need them, what you see is just blurry. Like, without my glasses, anything that is more than this far from my face is completely blurry. And I remember in the fourth grade, when I took my eye test at school and I was told I need glasses, and I went to the eye doctor and I got my glasses, I remember as I'm driving home from the eye doctor just doing this. And literally right now as I'm doing this to you all, you look really blurry. I can see no faces. But when I do this, I see clearly. Before I got my glasses, I didn't know that trees had leaves. I thought they were just big green blobs. Before I met Jesus, I didn't know that there was so much more to life than just the stuff that I could see with my eyes.
I didn't realize that there is a God in Heaven who loves me, and who wants what's best for me. I didn't know that there was a purpose for my life that was bigger than me, and there are some of you who do not understand how much God loves you, and how much more in store there is for you because you're walking around with blurry vision. And until you take worry out of the driver's seat, until you recognize that you are loved by your creator, until you see Jesus for who He is, you will never see the world for all that it is. And so, like the pagans, you're gonna run after all these things, assuming that they will give you what you want, but even if you find them, you will still be lacking.
So then what do we do, right? If we're not supposed to chase after all of these other things that will just leave us lacking, then what is the solution? How do we practically get worry out of the driver's seat of our lives, and choose to live by faith? Well, the next verse gives us the answer. "We seek first His kingdom and His righteousness," and listen, "All these things, all these things will be given to you as well".
Now, what does that mean? Because it sounds good. Many people would say this is one of their favorite Bible verses, and I love this Bible verse, but often people think it's just like, you know, like pray or worship or think about God, and all of that is super duper good, and that's part of it, but there's more to it than that. And so I wanna throw up some definitions on the screen for you. Jesus said, "Seek first His kingdom". What is a kingdom? It is a group of people ruled by a king, and to seek his righteousness. What is righteousness? It is doing what's right. So if we are to seek God's kingdom, then it means there's a king and a people. If we are to seek His righteousness, it means we've gotta do what's right according to God.
So three steps. Step number one, if you want to seek His kingdom, then go to God first. Go to God first. And this is often what people think of when they see this verse. Like, pray to God. This portion of the Sermon on the Mount comes right after Jesus teaches us how to pray to God. So prayer is a beautiful thing. Attending church, like being at Switch, what you're doing right now is immensely important because it is here that we worship God together. Opening up your Bible and reading the inspired Word of God, so that you can know what it is that He has spoken to people in the past, what it is that He wants to say to you today, all of that is immensely important.
But don't just be reactive. Be proactive. Don't just do it when you feel worried, but create a rhythm in your life of seeking God first. And the way you know if God is first or not is whether or not you show up to Switch or church, or you practice your spiritual disciplines, because something else interesting comes up. Like, if you miss Switch because you've got something exciting happening in your city, then it seems like that other thing is first. If you don't read your Bible because there's a brand new YouTube video from your favorite influencer, then maybe God's not first.
If you don't go to church on Sunday because you were out late partying on Saturday, then maybe God's not first. Go to God first. That means your time with Jesus is the highest priority. Everything else moves to the side. Step two, you gotta stay close to community. You gotta seek the King and His people. Stay close to community. You may not know this, but actually one of the top focuses of the US Health Department is actually helping people develop what they call social connection. It's helping people find friends and find community. Because even the United States government recognizes how bad it is for you when you are isolated, when you're on your own, and digital community can be good sometimes, but it is not enough.
We need real people, real relationships, real friendships, where we can be honest about our struggles, and we can encourage those who are hurting, and the good news is if you are here at Switch regularly, then you've got a community that we have given to you, your Switch group. Stay close to them. And then step number three is to do the next right thing. Do the next right thing. Seek His righteousness. When I was in high school, one of the things I most vividly remember hearing my dad say over and over again when I did not want to do something was, "Bring your body and your mind will follow. Bring your body and your mind will follow". Because my dad understood that it is very difficult to think your way into a better way of living, but it's actually pretty easy to act your way into a better way of thinking.
So when I was feeling lazy and did not want to go to jiu-jitsu practice, he would say "Bring your body and your mind will follow". And when I got to practice, all of a sudden, I was glad to be there. I was focused on what was in front of me. And by the end of practice, I was so glad I showed up, because I knew it was better for me, and there are some of you who are so worried about the next 10 things that you're not doing the next right thing. And so maybe for you, your action step is to figure out what the next right step is, and then to take it.
Instead of worrying about what might happen if your conversation with your friend doesn't go well, do the next right thing, and ask God to help you tell that friend the hard truth that you know they don't want to hear, but they need to. Instead of worrying about what might happen in the health of your loved ones six months from now, do the next right thing. Pray for them today. Invest time with them today because tomorrow is not promised. Instead of worrying about what you're gonna do after you graduate high school, do the next right thing. That means actually pay attention in class and get good grades, so that you'll graduate high school. Instead of worrying about if you will find that special someone in the future, start making choices today that make you the right person, so that somebody will want to date you in the future.
Do the next right thing. And then after you do that, do the next right thing, and then the next one, and then the next one, because Jesus can and He will help you replace your worry with trust and your anxiety with peace. When you seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, all these things will be given to you as well. So therefore, verse 34, "Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow's gonna worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own". So today, go to God first. Today, stay close to community. Today, do the next right thing. Today, take worry out of the driver's seat, and trust that God cares about you, because Jesus can and He will. He will help you replace your worry with trust and your anxiety with peace.
So Lord Jesus, we come before You right now, so grateful for Your love for us, so grateful for all that You have done to show us Your love. So grateful for all the ways that You want to help us move out of worry and anxiety and into freedom and into peace. So be with us today. Help us to feel Your love in a new way. Give us the confidence and the wisdom to choose today to seek You with all that we are. We love You, we worship You, and it's in Your name we pray, amen and amen and amen.