POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Worry Has NO Power Over Faith

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During a summer-long drought, a newspaper in South Carolina carried this story: “About 100 people gathered on the Lexington County Courthouse steps, Sunday afternoon, and prayed for rain. ‘We had a very specific prayer,’ said the Reverend Henry ‘Hank’ Moody, Jr., pastor of the Pisgah Lutheran Church, who gave the prayer during the twenty-minute service. ‘We prayed for a gentle, soothing rain for the land, a rain without lightning and storm, a rain that will nourish the land and refill the ponds.'” The article continued, “That’s a tall order, and the one the National Weather Services says won’t be filled anytime soon.”

Isn’t that the way of the world? The world seems to say, pray if you want, but don’t expect anything to happen because of your prayers.

But by the next weekend, the city had gotten more rain in that one week than in the previous three months combined! The rains came, but not without storm. A neighbor lost a tree to high winds, and on Friday, there was a fierce, but brief, thunderstorm.

There are two types of thought – God-thought and worry-worldly thought.

A useless human exercise is tossing and turning in the middle of the night, instead of sleeping like a baby. You are tired, you need rest, but you are awake. You are wide awake, worrying about all the pressures you have worrying about finances, deadlines, even worrying about not sleeping. The biblical term for this is “The thief in the night.” Your own mind is robbing you of peace and rest. The harder you try to sleep, the more you toss and turn. Perhaps we are looking at this the wrong way. What we need to do is look to God, but instead we are looking to our own problems.

Dale Carnegie said, “If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It’s the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.”

Job 4:6 teaches about building your life on the rock: “Is not your fear of God your confidence … ” Fear could translate as “respect.” In the middle of the night, do you respect God? Do you respect God’s power in your life, in your problem in the challenge you are having? Do you respect that power? Do you know what that power can do?

The verse continues, ” … and the integrity of your ways your hope.” When you stick steadfastly to God, everything becomes wondrous. Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday!

In one of the glass cases of the Washington D.C. Smithsonian Exhibit is a fur coat with a story. It is the fur coat of Marian Anderson, the great singer. It was her dream to buy the fur coat and she bought it. There was another fan of hers, at the time, who never thought she could ever do what Marian Anderson did, but she looked, listened, and read articles about her and dreamed. Her name was Mahalia Jackson. In the early 1950’s, she found herself before a sell-out crowd at Carnegie Hall. She said she stood there and she recalled gazing out at the thousands of men and women. She was just standing there as a baby nurse and a washer woman. As she stood there before the crowd, she wondered if she could even utter a note. What was she, to stand before this crowd? Who was she, to stand there thinking she had the power of Marian Anderson, Lily Pons, or Caruso, all who had stood there on that stage before? After all, she was just a washer woman and a baby nurse.

Then she was reminded again. She was not standing there as a baby nurse and a washer woman, she was not just standing there as flesh and bones, but infilled with the presence of God who could bless through her. She opened her mouth and she was a little shaky at first. She opened her mouth and that first note didn’t come out, but she kept going. It would have been easy for the human in her to walk offstage and say, “Well, I tried this.” But the human would think about it for the rest of her life.

Mahalia knew God could do it through her. She opened her mouth again, and the notes came out, and soon the audience got excited. As the beat picked up, people were clapping, screaming, and out of their seats. She was, what many say, the greatest voice of all time.

Mahalia was asked, many times, throughout her career to go to Las Vegas and sing jazz. One time, she was offered what was a lot of money then, to make one appearance. She refused to do it because she said, “I am a gospel singer. I stand on stage for one reason and that is to bring God to those people.” She said, “When you sing jazz, what do you have when it is over, but the blues. When you sing gospel, you have something to take home.” She refused to sing anything but songs about God.

When Mahalia died in 1972, her funeral was attended by so many that the Greater Salem Baptist Church in Chicago had to hold the service at Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center – a huge place that frequently has international auto shows. Forty thousand people came to her funeral. On her tombstone this is written, “Apart from Christ, there is no explanation for such a life.”

It can be said of you, too – it truly can – when you are having great success and those moments that are so sweet in life. Remember why you got there: You got there because of God. God is the great abundance and prosperity for the human being; if we will follow God, be loyal to God, and respect God in the moment.

How do you rise above conditions in your life? How do you rise above lack, limitation, and worry? You do it by consistently going to God and rising above any former problems that have trapped you.

Proverbs 3:25-26 teaches about true security: “Do not be afraid of sudden panic, or of the storm that strikes the wicked; for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught.” Where is your foot caught? It is caught in the problem. You yank at it and you pull at it, but it is like a bear trap and you don’t know how to get it off of you. It is true you might have stepped there, but God knows how to get you out of the trap.

Mark Twain said, “Drag your thoughts away from your troubles … by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.”

A lot can be learned by watching a professional logger. It is fascinating how they take apart log jams in the river. It seems there are 10,000 logs in the river and they are all jammed. If we had to break the jam, we would go to the bank of the river and start removing logs. Not the professional logger: he climbs a high tree, takes his time, looks over the situation, finds the one log causing the trouble, blows it up, and then the stream takes care of the rest of the jam by flowing the logs down the river.

What do we do in the middle of the night with our “log jams?” We go to the edge of the river and we start removing logs, one by one. We start examining them and looking at them. In time, we will remove the jam, but we have worked hard and we haven’t slept, and are exhausted. In this life, are we a professional or are we an amateur? What we need to do is climb higher, look over the situation, not with our eyes, but with Divine eyes, and ask God to see what the blockage is, and ask God that it be removed. It will be removed in a miraculous way, something we couldn’t envision through a thousand nights of tossing, turning, and worrying in the middle of the night.

Will God take us up to an imaginary heaven in a chariot of fire, or do we use our mind to lift ourselves heavenward? “God helps those who help themselves” holds good in the heavens as in the earth. We begin right where we are to bring forth the kingdom of God in our lives. Every problem of life can be successfully solved if we begin with God.

BEGIN WITH GOD. Sometimes we end up with God as a last resort. That is the hard way of doing it. We don’t have to do it that way; we can begin with God. When we realize we can connect ourselves to God and prove what Jesus said – “The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.” [John 14:10] – Almightiness begins to appear.

If you are given to worry and anxiety, think about the spiritual confidence and trust of God. Think about God instead of the problem. This will at once relive your mind of the thoughts that have stirred you, and the power of God’s Spirit will begin its work of straightening out your challenges. Everything will turn out OK. We all know God is resident in our lives. God has to be more than just a resident in my life and in your life. God has to be HEAD of our lives. There is a huge difference of being there and being in control at all times.

In the middle of the night, when we are worrying about our finances and the things going on in our life, we are into detours. It boils down to living life as a professional or an amateur. It goes down to the question: Are you satisfied with the detours or do you want the direct route? The direct route is the spiritual route, the route of ease, the route where your burdens are light. Paul said in the Bible, “This one thing I do.” [Philippians 3:13] Most of us would have to alter that and confess “these 50 things I dabble in.” We don’t just do one thing. The thief that comes in the night then finds easy passage into our peace of mind.

Leo Buscaglia said, “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow; it only saps today of its joy.”

In Luke 12:22-23, Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.” What Jesus is talking about here is all outer things – all of those outer things that affect us, the bills, the pressures that worry us. Think about God instead. God says, “Instead, strive for God’s kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” [Luke 12:31-32] “Make purses for yourselves … ” [Luke 12:33] A purse is where you hold your valuables. You might not have valuables in it, today, but you would like to. You have a purse inside of your heart, too. This is what Jesus is talking about. He says, “Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” [Luke 12:33-34]

Jesus talks about this mysterious thing that few have understood about being dressed in the night. It is about those evenings you have a tough time getting through. It is about remembering God. It says, “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit.” [Luke 12:35] Does that mean I am to sleep with my clothes on? That I am to leave all the lights on? No, it means I am dressed in God awareness. How am I dressed, how am I clothed? I am clothed with what Jesus talked about a few verses earlier, ” … even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.” [Luke 12:27] I am clothed with my firm faith in God. I know in every moment of the night, in every moment of the day, I am protected and taken care of and my life is sweet. My lamps are lit; the illumination of God is on. How special my life becomes.

The key to a great life is faith; you want the key to open up new doors. The location of the key is remembered in church. Not necessarily the walls of a church, but the church inside of you. What are the four walls of the church? They are what they contain. You attend here to experience faith, but you individually received faith through your individual connection with God.

We gather together and the faith power builds, it is a collective spiritual power that takes place.

In the Bible, in Jesus’ day, the word church was taken from a word that means “called-out ones.” I like that – you have all been called out here, today. It is not by accident, whether you are here for the first time or you have been here for years, you have been called out to this place. Faith is awareness in you of the reality of the invisible.

In today’s world, we think of culture as ethnic culture, environmental culture, business culture, home culture, but the thing that really is going to make the difference in your life is your soul culture. How is your soul doing? We are all the same underneath our skin and bones. The soul within, is it happy? Is it enjoying this journey? Is it really having fun? Is life sweet? It depends on the soul culture. The thing that builds soul culture is faith in God. When we have faith in God, everything becomes sweet.

Rule number one, God is changeless. If God gives in one moment, God will give in every moment, eternally. When we worry talk to ourselves, in the middle of the night, whether it is verbally or silently, we talk about lack, hard times, or famine. We have to remember to tell ourselves, “There is no place for these things in the Mind of God.” Remember when Jesus stood before 5,000 people and he had five loaves and two fish? What does that mean? He had His five senses. That is what we usually attack a monumental problem with. He ALSO had two fish. The two fish are the yeast, the multiplying power and the source of increase. Jesus entered into the silence of prayer and He prayed.

Then what did He do? He blessed what He had. Bless what little you have even as your only asset in the middle of the night, you bless it. Then you enter into the silence of prayer. Here is the key. You begin to speak words with power and authority – the two fishes, power and authority, also meaning Spirit and life.

When you begin to feel your connectedness with God and know you are a co-creator with God, you are speaking the Truth. You are talking about your situation in a positive, appreciative way. You are going to be prospered. You are sending forth a spiritual vibratory power that breaks down the inertia of the jam caused by thoughts of fear and lack.

Say in prayer: “I am God’s offspring and I must think as God thinks. Therefore, I cannot think of any lack or limitation.”

You are NOW thinking, “Wait a minute, there is no lack in God. There might be lack in my life, temporarily, but there is no lack in God. The only lack is my fear of lack as I lay here, tonight. I know I can have more in my life.”

Decree it so and the Lord will bring it to pass. If any thought of limitation appears, decree this in prayer: “I shall not want; I am a child of God.” I am laying here and I am wide awake anyway, so it is time for me to prove my Christianity. I am connected with God and I am going to see a marvelous manifestation from this evening. I’m going to realize this is the time.

President Truman said, “The buck stops here.” Stop passing the buck of worry say with high confidence, connected with God – the worry stops here with God!

I will close with 2 Corinthians 5:6-8, “So we are always confident … we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes we do have confidence … “

Join me in a closing prayer.

I am, dear God, always provided for. I will know this now, and I will know this at all times. I pray that I am reminded of this the next time I need to know, even in the middle of the night. I have faith in You, God, as my omnipresent help in every need. I have faith in You, God as my almighty resource. I trust You, God to preserve me in abundance. I trust You, God, in every part of my life. I turn to You, God, because I believe You are a rewarder of them who seek after You. I give thanks, this sweet spiritual day, to You, God.

In Jesus Christ’s name, I give thanks. Amen.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION____________________

As we pray today, we join with others around the world who are praying. As we pray, we enter into a private, sacred time of communion. We give thanks first for God and for the blessings that come through knowing God – peace, wisdom, health, understanding, guidance, prosperity. All these are evidence of the presence of God within us.

As we quiet our minds and hearts in communion with God, we are at peace. The business of this day, the concerns of our lives, can wait just a little while. God is in charge. We surrender ourselves completely to God in the silence of prayer.

(Silence)

The presence of God strengthens and nurtures you. We are a community; we sense each other’s feelings. We help one another through life’s challenges. Just as the presence of other people often give us a sense of comfort and unity, the presence of God assures us that the challenges are temporary and that they will pass.

(Silence)

In sweet soul communion with God, you allow the cares of the day to slip away. There is only the sacred presence. You are at peace because you know God is working inside of you and working through all those we love. In the fellowship of humanity, we help one another most by relying on our communion with God.

We trust God’s radiant light to guide, illuminate, and inspire us. We make decisions and we grow in understanding. The light of God leads us along paths that are best for us. We are protected and blessed. We follow the gentle nudging of the most radiant light.

(Silence)

This day, you are guided by infinite Divine wisdom. You are blessed with intelligence, with intuition, with understanding.

You are strengthened by your communion with God. You are comforted by your community with one another. You are tuned to God’s healing life in this quiet moment.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

The healing, invigorating life of God as it moves through the cells of your physical body, strengthening and renewing. You enfold everyone who seeks greater strength and health through God life within. The one life of God, the love of God flows as abundance to fill every need. Blessings, all kinds, some seemingly insignificant and some very great, come to you through God’s love. They flow from one person to another, increasing and enhancing all our lives. In communion with God, we give our attention wholly to God. We become more aware of the wonderful blessings of the Divine. We are immersed in God. Our lives are enriched. We are grateful and we say, “Thank You, God.”

The presence of God lives with you;
The presence of God is in you as peace;
The presence of God is in you as wisdom;
The presence of God is in you as health and abundance.
With every breath, you have a renewed sense of oneness with God.
The light of God surrounds you;
The love of God enfolds you;
The power of God protects you;
The presence of God watches over you.
Wherever you are, God is!

We pray this morning, in the name and through the power of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

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