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Dr. King was depressed. That’s what those closest to him say, anyway. On Thursday, April 4 th, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr.
was in room 306 of the Lorraine Motel, worrying about a sanitation strike in Memphis and working on his sermon for Sunday, titled,
“Why America May Go to Hell.” He was depressed, they say; suffering from migraines and sleeping very little. In Washington, his
plans for a massive Poor People’s Campaign were a mess. In Memphis, his march with striking garbage men had turned into a riot;
not because of angry state troopers or white supremacists, but because young black radicals broke the nonviolent ranks. By 5pm, he
was hungry. He shaved, splashed on some cologne and stepped onto the balcony. He paused. A rifle shot slammed him to the wall.
Five years earlier, he said that all he wanted was a place where his “four little children … will not be judged by the color of their skin
but by the content of their character.” The day he died, he was worried we may never get there. Many are worried that we still aren’t.
Do you know the name of the man who shot Dr. King? James Earl Ray was convicted for killing him. Did you know that
Dr. King’s family is convinced that they got the wrong man? They believe Dr. King was murdered because he was a different man in
1968 than he was when he marched on Washington in 1963. In other words, he was more politically influential. He was trying to
build an interracial coalition to end the war in Vietnam. He was urging major economic reforms – like guaranteed incomes for
everyone. RFK was talking to Dr. King about being his running mate. Dr. King’s family believes that some in the government were
worried that nothing was going to stop Dr. King from changing their way of doing things very dramatically. And, well, what are
people capable of when they get really worried about something? The short answer is … anything.
People worry about a lot of things. 43 years after Dr. King’s assassination, folks still worry about race, responsibility and
human rights. In fact, every one of those has been brought up by someone as part of Wisconsin’s budget discussions. Those who
lived through the civil rights movement, who marched and made a difference, are worried that their work will be forgotten by the
youngest generations. People worry about the future, the past, finances and family; about sickness and health, cancer and their
children’s safety; about marriage and divorce and biological clocks; about teenagers, popularity, loneliness and suicide bombs. People
say that we worry about big things and little things, but if it’s on your mind, no matter what it is, it’s important. And, apparently, these
days, a lot of things are.
Worry, and its down-the-road cousin, depression, has increased 200% among teenagers in the last 10 years alone. A lot of
people think that it’s natural to worry more and get more depressed the older you get. Biologically, it’s not, and yet the highest
suicide rate is among males over 70 years old, most of whom had seen their doctor in the previous week. Of course, those are just
stats that have nothing to do with you until someone asks you the question, “Have you ever thought about hurting yourself?” If this
room is full of “normal” people, then over half of us have.
People worry; so much so that they’re convinced it’s normal. Some even say it’s healthy. Jesus, however, says that it’s not.
If, in your tired days and sleepless nights, in your monotonous routines, quick-tempered moments and lonely existence, you find your
thoughts mastered by worry, then there is more to be ‘worried’ about than just the latest cause of your anxiety. In the verse right
before our section, Jesus says that it’s impossible to serve two masters. You can only be devoted to one of them, which means that if
you are currently being mastered by worry, then your master is not him. And if your master is not Jesus, then you are being mastered
by what will cause your eventual destruction.
We’re in Matthew chapter 6 today, where Jesus says three times in 10 verses, “Do not worry.” And if the cripples listened to
him when he told them to start walking; if the blind listened to him when he told them to start seeing; if the dead listened to him when
he told them to start living, then why shouldn’t the living listen to him when tells us to stop worrying?
(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 important that food, and the body more important 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) Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (28) And why do you worry about clothes? See how the
lilies 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, O 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.
In a business magazine a couple years ago, after years of studying people who worry, they came to the conclusion that
roughly 40% of the things we worry about never happen. And 35% of the things we worry about can’t be changed. 15% turn out
better than expected, and 8% of the things we worry about are about useless and insignificant things. 40 + 35 + 15 + 8 = 98%, which
means that only 2% of the things we worry about are even worth thinking about. But that doesn’t stop us from worrying … a lot.
Did you know that worry and depression is the leading cause of disability? It is the number one insurance claim among
Christians. In other words, we’re paying more than twice as much as we should for our insurance premiums on account of how much
we, as Christians, worry. Have you ever heard of the book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff? Do you know how the author of that book
died? He had a heart attack … at age 45. One thing that we, as a human race, are very good at is worrying.
A psychologist named Martin Seligman wanted to find out why we worry so much. He conducted a study in which he put a
puppy in a room with an electric grid in the floor, and then he closed the door. It was a happy little puppy, and when it was placed in
the room, it wagged its tail and wiggled its nose. When the electric floor was activated, however, the dog started jumping and yelping
and frantically running from corner to corner looking for a way out. When the dog eventually realized there was no way out and
nothing it could do to make the electric current stop, it stopped trying. It lay down on the floor and just shook as it took the shock.
They took the dog out and let it recover, but later they put the same dog in the same room. When they turned the electric
current on again, this time the dog didn’t even try. It immediately lay down on the floor and started shaking again, even though this
time … they had left the door open. The dog could have run out at any time. In its mind, it had ‘learned’ the first time that it was
helpless, and it was no use trying. And so, the second time, in the same situation, it didn’t. This is called “Learned helplessness.” For
a variety of reasons, in your mind, no matter what people say, no matter what reality is, no matter what doors are really standing open,
you stop trying. You burn out. You expect that nothing good can happen. You start worrying.
The opposite of worry is confidence. And when you worry, you’re not confident of a whole lot. When you worry, you’re
also far more likely to get a cold, and develop heart trouble, high blood pressure, asthma, rheumatism, ulcers, thyroid malfunction,
arthritis, migraines, blindness and stomach problems. Does that sound like anyone you know?
Did you know that more people die in America as a result of suicide than who die from the five most common contagious
diseases combined? Twice as many people die by suicide as die by homicide. Fifty percent more people die because of ulcers than
because of murder. Whatever you’re worried about, folks who worry actually put themselves in more danger. You’re just like the
little puppy on the electric grid and also, according to Jesus, just like a pagan … who doesn’t believe in God.
The pagan is someone who runs around life with a lot of anxiety wondering if they’re really going to be ok; unlike the birds
of the air, who “do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet somehow your heavenly Father feeds them.” That doesn’t mean
they just sit on their butts and wait for a handout from their Father in heaven. They work hard with what God gives them. They fly
for miles to find food for their children. But the one thing they don’t do is worry that there won’t be enough for all of them. That’s
not their job. It’s God’s. If he loved them enough to give them life, he’s going to make sure they have all the need to live that life.
Your God loves you. How else do you explain the fact that “He carefully knit [you] together in [your] mother’s womb,” it
says in Psalm 139. “All the days ordained for [you] were written in [his] book before one of them came to be,” which means that for
each of “the days he ordained for you” he has already planned out how he is going to give you everything you need. Maybe you get
frustrated and worried because you don’t know that plan. But that’s not your job. It’s his.
Our job, no matter the situation, no matter what we think reality is, no matter how bleak the odds, is to confidently seek first
the kingdom of God – like Gideon, when he took down 135,000 Midianites with 300 men; like Joshua, when he took down Jericho’s
walls with some shouts and a trumpet in his hand; like Moses, when God split the Red Sea for him; like the widow, who, in a famine,
gave her last morsel of food to the prophet instead of her son; like Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman; like Frederick
Douglass, Thurgood Marshall and Dr. Martin Luther King, all of whom sought first God’s kingdom.
And if that’s what God did for them, then what do you expect him to do for those who seek his kingdom second; whose
minds are mastered by worry instead of him; whose slumped shoulders and discouraged faces convey to their kids and their friends a
whole lot of doubt and a whole lot of worry that the God who, in the middle of a famine, produced food out of nothing for a widow,
her son, and later on for 5000 men plus women and children somehow is unable come through in your situation? Every day, the door
is wide open for us to see how clearly God provides for the birds of the air and the grass of the field. Worry is believing that God is
lying when he says you’re much more valuable than them.
What would you give those who have such little faith in his promises? O you of little faith - would you give them your only
Son? On a cross. Stained with his own blood. On the one day when our Hope really was dead; when Jesus’ disciples believed in their
hearts that, now, God could never come through for them; even then, your Father was confident that all the days ordained for you
would turn out just as he planned. That’s the day you got a Promised Land. That’s the day you were forgiven and your home became
heaven. And if, to give you that, “he did not spare his own Son,” it says in the book of Romans, then do you really believe he won’t
“graciously give us all things?”
“So, do not worry,” Jesus says, if you lose your job, if your salary is less or your benefits get cut. Do not worry that your life
has taken a turn that you weren’t planning. Do not worry if you have no idea where you’re going. Do not worry if life today is harder
than yesterday, or if tomorrow looks more difficult than you have ever imagined. Do not worry if our nation is not yet where it needs
to be in 2011. Do not worry if you don’t agree with the man in the White House, or if you didn’t vote for the guy in the governor’s
mansion. “Do not worry … about your life,” or the lives of your children. That’s not your job. It’s his. And how worried do you
think your heavenly Father is?
I remember when I was a father for the first time. Kaylee was born a whopping 5 pounds 12 ounces. Babies are born with a
much faster heartbeat than you or I, up to 160 beats per minute. That wouldn’t be healthy for us, and it’s not healthy for them to stay
that way. Their heart rate needs to come down soon after they’re born, and our pediatrician told us how to make that happen much
quicker if we wanted. She told me to lie down on my back with Kaylee lying face-down on my chest, skin-to-skin was best. Kaylee
could then feel my slower heartbeat, and she would start to copy that. Of course, the doctor said, your heart has to be calm when you
do that. If your heart is racing (like it sometimes is when you get up in the middle of the night with them, on too little sleep, when
you’re really frustrated), instead of copying your calm confidence, they’ll copy your anxiety and frustration (and they’ll never go back
to sleep). Newborns, who come into this world knowing absolutely nothing about yesterday, today or tomorrow, decide how to feel
based on the heartbeat of their parents.
There’s a reason Jesus taught us to start his prayer with the words “our Father.” It’s because we worry. We go through our
yesterdays, todays and tomorrows with a lot of anxiety; so much more than our Father in heaven who, according to Isaiah chapter 40,
already knows to “gather his lambs in his arms and carry them close to his heart.” What do you think his heart beat feels like? “Do
not be afraid,” it says in the book of Proverbs, “the Lord is always confident.”
And if your Father is confident that everything’s going to be ok, then so are his children.