Do Not Worry! God is in Charge

Rev. Debbie Cato
Isaiah 49:8-16 and Matthew 6:25-34
Fairfield Community Church
November 17, 2024

Open us, Holy One, to your Word and your Way. Clear our minds of daily distractions. Fill our hearts with the humility we need to hear and receive the message you intend for us today. Amen.

 

Don’t Worry!  God is in Charge

 

Listen now to a reading from Isaiah 49:8-15

This is what the Lord says: “In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate
inheritances, ⁹ to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’

“They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill. ¹⁰ They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water. ¹¹ I will turn all my mountains into roads, and my highways will be raised up.

¹² See, they will come from afar - some from the north, some from the west,
some from the region of Aswan.[a]”

Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

 1⁴ But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”

¹⁵ “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! ¹⁶ See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”

 

I put a lot of prayer time and energy into deciding what to preach today.  I’ve been following the lectionary, but it wasn’t what I wanted to say.  I didn’t think it was what you needed to hear.  If I’m truthful, I worried about it – a lot.

I suspect you are all anxious about my retirement announcement.  You are afraid of the unknown future.  You might be remembering the challenge it was after Pastor Paul left and before you called me.  At that time, you may have even thought that the church was dying.  You were tired.  You were burned out.  You thought it was all on your shoulders.  You thought it was up to you.

The first few times I preached here, I could sense the low energy in the pews.  But I could also sense the presence of the Holy Spirit in this sanctuary, and in your own lives as you shared prayer concerns with me, as I got to know you and heard your stories.  God never left you during that in-between time.  The Holy Spirit was your constant companion.  God had a plan for this church.  He continues to have a plan. God has been and will continue to be, faithful.

Today our Gospel reading is from the sixth chapter of Matthew.  It’s in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount - Jesus’ “Call to Faith.”   It is in this section of his Sermon, that Jesus teaches us how to live out our faith and how to practice our faith.  We learn that not only is it important to do what is right, but we must do it in the right way for the right reasons.  And here, in the middle of Jesus’ sermon – His “Call to Faith,” Jesus teaches about worry.  Mmmmm – do you suppose worry is sign of the state of our faith?

 

Listen now for the word of the Lord, 

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, 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? ²⁶ 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? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ 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? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  The Word of the Lord.

Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us that God said to the people who were in exile in Babylon, “For surely, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.’

Friends, I could go on and on, reading the promises God made to His people over hundreds of thousands of years.  “In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances, ⁹ to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’  God spoke this into the lives of His people about 700 years before the birth of Christ. 

Around 730 years after Isaiah’s prophetic message to the Israelites, Jesus told the poor, oppressed, marginalized people listening to him teach on that mountainside, ²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, 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? ²⁶ 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?”  Friends, God created you in His own image.  He called you his beloved.  Why wouldn’t he take care of you even better than he cares for the birds?

Are you worried; discouraged; perhaps even afraid?  In times like this, we forget how God has taken care of us in the past.  We think we have to solve it, figure it out.  We think it’s all up to us.  We don’t believe He will help us?  What will I do if, we think.  What happens if?  What if?  Worry is a response to something that not only hasn’t happened – it might not happen at all!  But we worry.

Worry disturbs and interferes with our comfort and peace of mind.  How many hours of sleep have you lost because you were worried about something that might happen the next day?  How many vacations have you spent worrying about something back home rather than relaxing and enjoying your time away?  How many times has your quiet time or prayer time with God been interrupted by worry?

Every time I worry; every time you worry; we sin.  You see, worry is disbelief.  Worry is essentially a failure to trust God.  When we worry, we are saying (or thinking) that we don’t believe God will take care of us anymore.  We don’t think God will provide.  We don’t think God has a plan.

If we really trust God, if we really believe that he is our loving, sovereign God; we will give it to God and know He’s got it handled.  We will have confidence in the knowledge that God will take care of us.  That good will come out of all situations.  Jesus teaches us that we must seek God rather than worry about ourselves and our needs.  Our confidence in our Savior must overcome our inclination to worry; our faith must be stronger than our doubt. 

 

When we acknowledge God’s sovereignty, it allows us to step down off our throne as king or queen of the universe.  Recognizing God’s sovereignty allows us to give up the burden of control that so many of us think we have.  Recognizing God’s sovereignty allows us to admit that God has had control all along.  It's about reminding ourselves that God is in charge of our lives.

I’m confident that God is already preparing the heart of your next pastor.  He already has someone in mind.  God is not surprised by my retirement.  I’m confident that God will call the right person to walk with you through the next chapter of this church, and the next chapter of your lives. 

But I will also say this, it will be up to you what happens in the interim. You can’t just sit and wait.  You can’t be hopeless.   It’s up to you to determine what kind of faith community you want this to be.  Are you going to let discouragement overtake you and therefore take over this church?  Or are you going to be hopeful – knowing that God said, “I have a plan for you.  A plan to give you a future with hope.”

 

You have to decide – each one of you, not just a few - “Do you want continue to be Fairfield’s community church?  Then you will need to be involved in making that happen.  You will have to own the ministries.  You are the church.  Not the pastor. 

 

Do you want to continue to invite groups and people into our building?  Do you want to continue to have Sunday School for the children and Vacation Bible School in the summer.  Get involved.  Make it happen.

 

Do you want to continue to have Soup & Study?  There are a number of you very capable of leading it.  The DVD’s make it easy and the leader’s guide is great.  Will someone step up?  It’s up to you.

 

Do you want to continue to maintain the building; to take care of the parsonage; to keep the grounds looking nice?  Then help!  Be a part of taking care of the building and grounds.

 

The Nominating Committee is going to be looking for someone to fill a position on our council next year.  Someone has to say yes.  Yes, I will serve. Yes, I feel called to serve. If everyone says no – where does that leave us?

 

I could go on and on, but I think you get it.  There are things to do for every ability; for every limitation.  Every single one of you has skills and talents to use for God’s ministry.  That’s why you have them.

 

My message to you this morning is to be hopeful.  To know that God has cared for His people for centuries.  He is not going to stop now.  The Holy Spirit is alive and well in this church; in this community; in your lives. I feel her every time I walk into the church; every time I look at your faces.   But it’s going to take each one of you to be prayerful, to hold onto hope, and to be involved.

 

We are human and our limited understanding of God gets in our way of really, really getting it.  God knows our needs and He will provide. Jesus tells us that if we stay focused on God, if we keep our thoughts on Him, we won’t be preoccupied with worry. 

In the Gospel teaching this morning; in this call to faith, Jesus reminds us that we are precious children of God.  God loves us more than we can imagine.  He knows our needs.  Whatever the situation, God is in the midst of it – and that is what our faith is in. God already has a plan for this church. A plan “To give you a future with hope.”   Amen.