Jump Start # 1456

Matthew 6:34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

  Worry—it’s a real killer that is so hard to overcome and put in it’s place. Here in the sermon on the mount, Jesus gives one of the longest discourses about worry. Multiple times the Lord says, “do not be anxious.” Don’t worry. Don’t worry about food, clothing or shelter. And in our verse today, do not worry about tomorrow.

Worry doesn’t do anything productive. Worry doesn’t give you a good night’s sleep. Worry isn’t good for your health. And what we find in this section is that worry is an indicator of low or weak faith. The greater the faith, the less the worry.

Our verse today finds the Lord saying, Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Now a person has to understand some things about that statement. How easy it is to walk away from that verse and live carefree, which is actually carelessly. There are some things that we need to give some thought into tomorrow. For instance:

• Giving no thought about tomorrow will lead someone to live paycheck to paycheck. Without any planning about retirement, investments and thought about tomorrow, a person will one day be too old to work and too broke not to work. He then becomes a burden upon family, church or society. Jesus would not be in favor of that at all. Carelessly spending all you have each month is a sure sign of coming disaster. We need to give some thought about tomorrow and finances.

• Giving no thought about tomorrow would eliminate a congregation having plans, goals and dreams. They would not give thought to who the next shepherds would be. They would not develop future preachers. No thought about future growth. No thought about how to do things better next year. This would be a foolish way of conducting the Lord’s work. Some  seem to be conducting business that way. They seem to be stuck hopelessly in the 1970’s. Time to move forward, but that takes planning, effort and goals. We need to give some thought about tomorrow’s church.

• Giving no thought about tomorrow would take away the reason for some to obey the Gospel. The coming judgment, the certainty of death, and the thought of where will you spend eternity has led many of us to bow our knees to Jesus Christ. If we gave no thought to those future things, just thought about today and only today, many of us would still be living without Christ.

The worry that our passage mentions is connected to “trouble.” Don’t worry about tomorrow…each day has enough trouble of it’s own. The passage is emphasizing worrying about trouble. Don’t deal with tomorrow’s trouble. Deal with today’s trouble. Each day has enough trouble.

Now, that’s an interesting thought. We do well to do what Jesus says.

We can be guilty of worrying about yesterday’s trouble. Monday morning quarterback—a great expression for looking over Sunday’s games and second guessing what should have been done. But guess what? The game is over. One can learn from certain mistakes but the game is over. No going back. No changing things in that game. The Monday morning quarterback is never wrong. However, the game is played on Sunday, not Monday morning. We can worry about how we raised the kids, what we did with the kids and just  heap all kinds of guilt upon us. If wrongs were done, seek forgiveness. Other than that, let the past stay in the past. Don’t worry about what HAS happened.

We can, as our verse warns, worry about trouble tomorrow. The problem with tomorrow’s trouble is that tomorrow hasn’t happened yet. Things can change. We can waste a lot of time fearing this and that only to see that those things never happened. Tomorrow’s trouble will take care of itself. In other words, when we arrive at that point, then we can deal with it.

Today has it’s own troubles. There are physical and emotional troubles just for today. There are kids who don’t want to go to school. There are teenagers who have broken hearts. There are high school students who are trying to decide whether or not they want to go to college. There are co-workers who are living broken lives and are an emotional mess.

Today brings all kinds of physical troubles. The car won’t start. The furnace is making a funny noise. The dog is sick. There is nothing to eat in the frig. A bill is due today. You have a mountain of work to get through today.

However, I expect Jesus has spiritual things in mind when He said that. He usually did. I don’t think broken cars, furnaces, or teenager’s hearts is what Jesus had in mind. The trouble today comes from temptation. The trouble from today is taking care of God’s family when I’m so busy. There are folks to see after. The trouble from today is pushing the spiritual matters into tomorrow and not dealing with them and using them today. No time to pray. No time to read the word. All of which means, no time to feed my soul. There are opportunities that are unique to just today. They may not be around tomorrow. The visitor who needs some attention. The brother who has a question. The disciple who is not sure anymore. Spiritual troubles. Spiritual needs. Trouble in paradise. There is enough just for today that we don’t need to borrow tomorrow’s. You have enough to fill your plate with today.

Jesus is not giving us permission to worry about today’s troubles. Worry is never ok in Jesus’ book. Don’t worry is the theme of this section of Scripture. The trouble for today shouldn’t be worried about. It needs to be dealt with. Work on those troubles. Give those troubles to the Lord. Don’t let those troubles weigh you down.

Now, what so often happens, a guy is still worrying about troubles in the past. He has troubles today. And he is over loaded with worrying about tomorrow’s trouble. He’s in a real mess. Everywhere he turns there is troubles. He feels overwhelmed and overloaded. He hears the preacher saying that God never gives you more than you can handle, but he’s beginning to doubt that. He wonders if he will ever see the sunshine of life again. He’s not happy. He’s stretched, strained and stressed. Poor guy. He doesn’t have to be this way. Let go of the past. He’s still dragging the past around like a child drags his blanket. Let it go. And then, don’t be reaching into tomorrow’s world. Look at the present. Look at today. Now, there isn’t so much to work with. Now, using the spiritual tools God gives you, start working on Today’s troubles.

There is enough in today to keep you busy. But don’t worry. God is with you and will help you.

Past, present and future—those things can use get us dizzy and mixed up, especially when we are worrying about them, which we shouldn’t be doing in the first place!

Roger