Dr. Tony Evans is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, founder and president of The Urban Alternative and author of over 100 books, booklets and Bible studies. The first African American to earn a doctorate of theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, he has been named one of the 12 Most Effective Preachers in the English-Speaking World by Baylor University. Dr. Evans holds the honor of writing and publishing the first full-Bible commentary and study Bible by an African American. His radio broadcast, The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, can be heard on over 1,400 radio outlets daily and in more than 130 countries. Dr. Evans’ sermons are also streamed and downloaded over 20,000,000 times annually.
god knows what you like he knows our
propensity
and he has compassion when we come home
come back home as quickly as possible
though your sins being scarlet
they shall be white as snow though they
be red like crimson they shall be his
will
so whatever inheritance whatever god
still wants to do for you
to you through you in you don’t lose
anymore
jesus christ broke the curse so don’t
ever talk about you being cursed again
if you know jesus christ
the curse the consequence of the law is
broken
the greatest miracle of all is when you
dip yourself in the blood of jesus
christ
for the forgiveness of sins and the gift
of eternal life
but it’s just so much in life to worry
about
we worry about our money we worry about
our health worry about our relationships
we’re worried about our jobs we’re
worried about our careers
so in my moments with you today
by the time we are finished
you won’t have to worry anymore i don’t
care what it’s about
i don’t care what is provoking it what
is irritating exacerbating
frustrating we want to lift
the burden based on god’s word
of worry
three times we are commanded in this
passage not to worry
verse 25 says for this reason i say to
you do not worry
verse 31 says do not worry then
verse 34 says so do not worry
three times there is a command not to
worry
therefore to worry is sin
if something is a command and you
disobey it
it’s called sin most people
do not look as weary as sin they look at
as
natural looking as something
that is legit given the circumstances
that i am facing
yet the lord in this passage gives a
command
and he couples the command with this
statement oh ye
of little faith you believe i can take
you to heaven you just don’t believe i
can cover you on earth
you believe i’m good for eternity but
i’m insufficient for time
do not worry the word worry
anxiety means to be torn into
worry is concern on steroids
where is concern that’s gone haywire
there is a difference
between concern and worry concern
is i have an issue in my life
that is troubling me and i am setting
forth a plan
as best i can to address it that is
legitimate concern
but worry is where the concern controls
you
it is where because of the concern i
can’t sleep
because of the concern i
can’t control my temper because of the
concern
i am losing my ability to cope
it is where concern has
now become the controlling factor
because
of the issue whatever it is that you
face
now let me give a clarification here
i am not talking about uh chemical
imbalance where
there is a physical chemical reality
that needs to be addressed because that
physical is affecting that emotional
and absolutely that may need medication
that is not to what i am addressing what
i am addressing
is where the circumstance in and
of itself is controlling you
it is dictating
who you are where you are how you
function
whether you function it tells you if you
can get up in the morning
and tells you you better go to bed right
now
it owns you
well he says in introducing this section
for this reason and then he tells you
don’t worry
for this reason so before he tells you
don’t worry he says there’s a reason
so you can’t understand not to worry
unless you understand
the reason so he says for this reason
which means we have to back up a few
verses
and in verse 22 this is what he says the
eye
is the lamp of the body so then if your
eye is clear
your whole body will be full of light
but if your eye is bad
your whole body will be full of darkness
if then the light that is in you is
darkness
how great is the darkness no one can
serve two masters
for either he will hate the one and love
the other or he will
be devoted to the one and despise the
other you cannot serve god and
wealth because one of the big worries of
life has to do with
resources he says if you want to get
over
wary you got to get rid of one of your
masters
worry will track you down
if you’ve got more than one master
he says if you’ve got god over here
and something else in control over there
since the definition of worry is to be
torn into and you’ve got two different
masters
going in two different directions then
they will keep you worried
because you they will keep you torn
he says the light is in the eye if the
light is in the eye
then the whole body knows what to grab
where to walk the whole body can
function
because it’s seeing things clearly but
if the eyes are dark
everything else is in trouble the hand’s
in trouble it doesn’t know what it’s
grabbing the feet are in trouble it
doesn’t know where it’s going
it says everything else is in trouble if
there’s darkness in the
eye if there is not clear sight because
you have become
divided with masters
one of the reasons why we stay worried
is we
stay divided between masters
says you cannot serve two masters
and when you do you will be worried
because you will be divided
the spiritual division creates
or supports the ongoing nature
of worry
if you are divided double-minded
if you are distracted in terms of having
master and a master is somebody who
tells you what to do
a master’s is somebody who controls
the priorities of life he says
do not worry
o ye of little faith
he now says he goes a little deeper
he says if you are consumed by worry
if worry is your middle name
if you weren’t worrying you wouldn’t
know what to do with yourself
he says you don’t understand
god you don’t understand his nature and
you don’t understand his providence
and you don’t understand his priorities
notice what he says in verse 25
he says
i say to you don’t worry about your life
what you will eat or drink
oils to your body as to what you will
put on is not
life more than food and body more than
raymond
he says foe get worried about the wrong
thing
you get worried about what you are going
to eat
you ought to be worried about whether
you’re going to get up to eat anything
cause life is more than food
you worried about food but you are alive
because if you don’t have life you don’t
have to worry about food
so if you have life you can assume food
he says the body is more than raiment
the body is more than clothes we worry
about old clothes new clothes torn
clothes
sewed up clothes we worry about clothes
he says
you’re worried about the wrong thing you
need to worry about whether your body’s
intact
to put your arms through those sleeves
messed up priorities he says
he says in verse 26 have you ever paid
attention to nature
he says have you ever have you ever have
you ever studied
nature because he says
in verse 26 look at the birds
look at the birds because he says they
don’t
sow nor reap or gather in the bonds
and your heavenly father feeds them not
their heavenly father your heavenly
father
are you not worth much more than they
they assume
there will be a worm somewhere today
with their name on it
they assume that so they get up singing
we get up fussing cussing and
complaining
the birds he says have you not looked at
the birds
they get up singing they out on the limb
come on god show me where my worm is
today
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how do you share the gospel with
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because they assumed something that even
we don’t assume
are you not worth much more than they
he says clothing he said solomon was not
a raid like the lilies of the field
the the lilies of the field they neither
toil nor spin you you’ve never seen a
a lily using a sewing machine
calling on singer
to keep my pedal on
see you don’t see that he says because
god
works it out in nature
see the thing is we don’t know who we’re
dealing with
and so we find ourselves under the
stronghold of weary
and yet he says
don’t do it it’s a sin
and when you do it you elevate the
natural over the supernatural
man over god and you’re telling me
you are your god
and you live divided and torn
so it shouldn’t surprise us that isaiah
26
verses three and four i will keep him in
perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me
it shouldn’t surprise us that second
thessalonians
3 verses 6 to 8 says god gives peace in
every circumstance now don’t get me
wrong
i am not suggesting
that life does not get hard
i am not suggesting that we all know
better than that
jesus said in john 16 33 in this world
you will have
tribulation but then he gonna bounce
right off of that and say be of good
cheer
say what you just told me
i’m going i can expect trouble and then
you’re going to tell me
cheer up and sing
when we understand
when god allows trouble in our lives i’m
not talking about trouble we create now
i’m talking about
trouble that he allows that would create
the
insecurity that drives us from concern
to worry
that what he is creating in your
situation
is an opportunity to see that he’s god
okay okay so the next time you are
tempted to worry
beyond concern concern is where you
have a real issue and you are seeking a
way
to resolve it where he is where it has
taken over the concern
and it is a controlling you the next
time you are tempted to
worry you must now look at that
as an opportunity for god to let you see
how much god he is
paul put it this way in second
corinthians chapter one
he said god gave us a great ordeal of
affliction
so we were down to the point where we
didn’t even know whether we were going
to live
it got that bad but then he adds a
phrase
and he did it so that we could see he
is the one who raises the dead
he did it so he can let us see he’s god
when weary is seeping in that is a
call to faith
in the midst of the legitimacy of the
concern
so what do you do what do you do
verse 32 for the gentiles eagerly seek
all these things
for your heavenly father knows that you
need all these things
okay this is a little embarrassing
because what he says is
when you worry you have now joined the
ranks of pagans
the gentiles the non-believers the
pagans
he says they break their necks
mismanage their priorities
because they got to make it happen
themselves they seek
they seek to control it why because they
are their own
gods but you got a daddy
your heavenly father god gets insulted
when we question his capacity his
ability
and his intentionality to cover
the needs of his people
now i’m not talking about everyone i’m
not talking about every desire
he’s talking about he knows you need
these things he’s talking about
the needs of life he says stop being
pagans because he says i’m talking about
your daddy
but your daddy has also got to be your
master
i love jeremiah 17 7 8 because he says
god will
keep you from worrying in a drought
a drought is when there’s no rain so
there’s no growth
a drought is when the work stops when
the pink slips are being handed out
he says he will keep you from worrying
in a drought he says
no your daddy knows where you are
how you got there and what you need he
knows how to arrange things
rearrange things flip things tweak
things trip things he knows how to do it
he says stop acting like the heathen
so what do i have to do verse 33 but
seek first
his kingdom and his righteousness and
all these things will be added to you
the key word is first
all that no you seek you first the
kingdom the kingdom is divine rule
that i’m in charge here righteousness is
divine standard
that you’re living to please me based on
the standards is revealed in my word
so my rule my standard that’s first
now you got my attention and one of the
reasons
why we’re not seeing more of god is he’s
somewhere down the line
when we get to him
seek ye first primacy priority
the rule and the standards of god
as your priority
and then he closes with this singer
and it is a zinger because it’s it’s so
hard to do
he says in verse 34 so do not worry
about tomorrow
for tomorrow will take care of itself
each day has enough trouble of its own
well yeah god you can say all that you
god
okay we are troubled
by the problems of the past
we are troubled by the
struggles of the present and we are
troubled by the uncertainty
of the future all those and sometimes we
trouble about all three at the same time
he says i need to teach you
the lord says how to manage time
most of us are crucified between two
thieves yesterday and tomorrow
today is the tomorrow
you worried about yesterday
you ever notice when you’re worried
about tomorrow when you get to tomorrow
then you’re worried about the next
tomorrow
he says when it comes to living
you have to learn to do it one day at a
time
lamentations 3 22 and 23
his mercies are new every day
let me put it this way he’s not going to
give you tomorrow’s mercy
today today he’s going to give you
for today
and you know one of the worst phrases in
the world is you worrying and somebody
coming to you tell you stop worrying
well if i could do that we wouldn’t even
be having this conversation right
you need somebody who will take you
higher so that you can see
that when you have one master and one
father
and he’s first
that worry does not have to be the
controlling element in your life
whenever you are tempted to worry that
is an
automatic immediate invitation to pray
on the spot when where he shows up
you have then got a formal invitation
in writing to pray if you don’t believe
me
all you need to read is philippians 4
6-7
be anxious for nothing but with prayer
supplication
with thanksgiving let your requests be
made known
unto god this is not a prayer in the
morning
only this is a prayer whenever worry
shows up its ugly head god has just said
you and i need to have a conversation
right now whenever
the temptation is to worry that
is the invitation to pray and guess what
he says
and when you come to me come with
thanksgiving
come with thanksgiving i want you to
give thanks
in the midst of your request
and then he says and the god of peace
we’ll meet you in that space
psalm 55 22 says cast your cares on the
lord and he will sustain you
he will meet you in that place
so here’s what i want you to do all of
us me you
us
we need to change the place we put b-u-t
b-u-t because here’s what we normally do
i trust god but but you don’t know what
i’m going through girl
i love the lord but i don’t know i’ma
pay these bills
i know he’s able but
but you know i’m gonna throw in the
towel
i know that’s wrong no let’s start let’s
try this again
i don’t know how i’m gonna make it but
my god said he would meet all my needs
according to his riches in glory
i’m so struggling but
he’s able to do exceedingly abundantly
more than i can ask or think
i am so frustrated but i’ve never seen
the righteous oh that’s he begging brad
you got to put god in his rightful place
not reacting to you but you reacting to
him and when you start reacting to him
then you’ll see heaven visit earth
eternity visit time
you’ll see god visit you and you can
toss
worry aside while you deal with your
concern somebody ought to pray them up
in here
up in here
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one of the greatest sins in our world
today is the sin of
worry and anxiety where
something is controlling you so much
that it is dictating your well-being
you can’t sleep you can’t relax you
can’t rest
you can’t control your temper you can’t
control
your outburst because
you have been consumed with a situation
and a problem
that you don’t think can be resolved
and when that concern dominates you
it’s now no longer concerned it’s
worried
and we are commanded we’re not requested
we are commanded
to not worry that means it’s a sin
because you’re
disobeying god now i know that’s easier
said than done isn’t it
because you often can’t tell things not
to come into your mind not to come into
your thinking
not to make you sweat sometimes you have
no control over
what comes in but i like the adage that
says
while you can’t stop a bird from flying
over your head you can certainly stop it
from making a nest
on top of it so even though
these problems are real and they come at
us
unrequested and undesired god
offers everyone the capacity who is
committed to him and who prioritizes him
the means by which
the birds of worry don’t get to make a
nest
on our heads on our souls and our
emotions
he will intervene and give us what the
bible calls the peace of god
the peace of god which will trump
the anxiety of circumstances don’t get
me wrong
doesn’t mean the problem will dissipate
disappear overnight
it may hang around for a while but
that’s exactly what it will do
hang around it will not
hang on you and control you any longer
one of the consequences of worry
is that we no longer are able to keep
control of ourselves one of the
blessings
of god is when he trumps
worry and you know he’s trumped it
when he gives you a peace that passes
understanding
what does that mean you don’t understand
why you have peace right now
in light of what you’re going through
that means god the holy spirit
is at work in your soul controlling your
emotions
while you wait for him to change your
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circumstances
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you