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Bibleline Bibleline, they are God’s word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bible-lined website at calvaryoftampa.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Turn to the book of Philippians and chapter 4. chapter 4. The message today is a war on worry. You may not know this, but it is true that many Christians worry. Well that’s a little bit about what I want to talk about. You were not born worrying. Worrying is just like whether it’s smoking or drinking or you know it’s an acquired habit. You learned out of it. And so many people have practiced until now they are experts at worry.

You may not know that you’re worrying, and you may not even think that worrying is a bad thing, or that worrying is really a sin. Worry will reveal many things about you and I. I have worried, and therefore I am an expert on worry. I do it all the time. Despite what I know, I still worry. And I can’t figure out how to just totally stop worrying completely. I guess as long as I’ve got this old body that I’m living in, I might be doing just a little bit of it.

But I want to help us anyway with the scriptures. Philippians chapter four, Paul has wrote this while he’s in prison. So this is what we call a prison epistle. And notice how happy the guy seems to be. You might be a little bound and discouraged because of where you would be if you was in prison, but He makes a statement there in verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice. Does that sound like a testimony of a man who is having a pity party for himself?

Not exactly. And then you look there in verse 10. But I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again. So there’s things that happens in a person’s life that causes things not to flourish. Sometimes it seems like there’s droughts in your life and you wonder where the next meal is coming from or the money is going to come from the pay for this or if you’ll ever get well or you know there’s all kinds of things.

And so we have many many things in this life that we can worry about. But you know one thing I never worry about anymore. I never worry about where I’m going when I die. Now, what’s the time I worried about that? But did you know that once you have trusted Christ’s Savior and God gives you eternal life and you become His child, if you really understand it, you really don’t have to worry about it anymore, do you? Because you know you have eternal life.

You know that you’re going to heaven and you know that you can’t change it and you know that God can’t change it because eternal life was a gift. It was free. God gave it to you and you accepted it and you have eternal life. You’re God’s child, you’re going to heaven. I never worry about that anymore because I’ve got God’s word on it. Well, what if you had God’s word on other things, you know, concerning life? What you wouldn’t have to worry about that either, would you?

The trouble comes is because we don’t know what God says about many other things that pertain to life. But what if we did? What I want you to see there in verse 10, when he says, I greatly rejoice because there’s certain things that he’s learned. And one was not to worry. He learned not to worry. Look at verse 10, but I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at the last year, care of me hath flourished again, wherein you were also careful, but you lacked opportunity.

Then in verse 11, not that I speak in respect of what, for I have learned how to worry. Is that what he says? I’ve learned how to worry. No, he doesn’t say that. I have learned in whatsoever state I am, Therewith, to worry. You see, you could take the words peace and content, well, cast those out of the Bible and put the word worry in the place of it and you’ll see how ridiculous it sounds. But the reason we don’t have peace is because we don’t have peace.

And the reason we’re not content is because we are worried. We worry about a lot of things. And look what he says in verse 12, I know both how to be a based and worried, and I know how to abound and worry. Everywhere I worry and in all things I worry. I’m instructed both to worry and to be hungry, both to abound and to worry and to suffer need and to worry. Do you see anything wrong with what I said?

And yet, how many times we do worry about a lot of things that God says that we need to pray about. So as you read these scriptures, you see that that’s not what it says and it’s just the opposite. That’s a sign of growing in the Lord when you can have peace of God. You see, you have peace with God when you trust it, Christ is your Savior. But the peace of God is what God gives to you on a daily basis when you rely upon him and you trust him.

Look at verse 13. I can do all worrying through Christ. Christ is going to strengthen me to help me to worry more and more. It doesn’t say that. So there is something that’s totally opposite of all of that. But we worry about losing our health, losing our job, losing the loved one, losing, you know, somebody’s affection, not losing, you know, you name it. and we worry. But there’s some wonderful things that God has given to us. Worry is like a rocket chair.

It gives you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere. It never solves a problem. It’s dragging the past that you can’t do anything about into the future and ruining this perfectly good, given day that God’s given to me. Worry is the interest paid on trouble before it comes due. And so some people just worry about everything. They’re worry warts. Have you ever heard someone say, I am worried sick over and then you put the word in there?

Because we don’t know the answers of some things in life and so we worry about things. We won’t say it’s worry and worry can produce a lot of stress in a person’s life. One person says if it wasn’t for stress, I wouldn’t have any energy at all. They just work under stress all the time. That’s what keeps them going. Worry is a sin that can literally make you sick. Consider the stress-related illnesses. Heart attacks, worry can do that. Worry can produce high blood pressure, worry can produce ulcers, worry can produce insomnia, worry can produce headaches, strokes, immune system malfunction, suicide.

Stress can do all of that. And stress is because you’re worried about someone. You see, you don’t have to worry about anything you put in God’s hand, but you will not say, I’m trusting the Lord, I’m trusting the Lord. And then you worry yourself sick. You’re not trusting the Lord, you’re saying the words. And you can be, have you ever seen an alcoholic in denial? They just don’t believe that they’re an alcoholic or a drunker. They deny it. They deny all the symptoms.

And yet there’s Christians that deny the symptoms. They’re under a lot of stress and they’re worried sick, but they won’t say, no, no, no, no, I’m trusting the Lord. No, you’re not. Because worry is a sign that you’re not. Worry is a sin. And you will never have the freedom, the liberty, that you ought to have until you recognize it for what it is. If you’re sick and tired of being tired and sick, you need help, help, and healing.

Remember God is the great physician and he has just the right prescription for his children. The text in Philippians in chapter four, verse six and seven, look in verse six. Says, be careful for nothing. That word careful means be anxious for nothing. Don’t be worried about anything. He says, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God, and then he says in verse seven, and the peace of God. If you don’t do what God says to in his prescription, then you’re not going to have the results of it.

How many people are having to get prescription drugs? Don’t read him. But you know when it comes to spiritual healing, God has a prescription that he wrote out, and all you have to do is take two pills a day, or do whatever it says to, and the peace of God will be with you. It means it will annihilate worry. So there’s symptoms that we have and there’s a prescription that is a cure. Here are four steps from these verses of how to get from worry sick to worry free.

Now everybody would like to say, well, I don’t worry, I’m not worried about anything. And then, but the stress. Well, show symptoms in their life sometimes that they are. Constraint is a command. The text says, be careful for nothing. Nothing means don’t worry about anything. Not some things are justified. No, don’t worry about anything. That doesn’t mean you’re not concerned about how this comes out of that doesn’t. But I’m talking about, you know, concerned about, you know, you got to work so you can pay bills.

You got to do that. You do all the things you can. But worrying to make you sick that you can’t do anything about God’s essence. a sin. Worry is not a disease. You didn’t catch us from somebody. But if you hang around people who worry all the time, it won’t be lumped, or you might be just worried just like they are. Because a person who has a particular problem, like a person who gossip, like to hang around people who gossip, and they feed each other information to let you know, they really love gossiping.

But if you say, do you believe in gossip? Oh no, I hate gossiping. And then They just mention things to people, you know, this is just a prayer. But they gossip. Gossip is a sin. There’s a lot of things that are sinned, but we overlooking say, well, that’s not it. We deny it. We’re is not a disease unless you consider sin a disease. It is not an uncontrollable condition. I can’t help myself. How many times have I heard of you?

Well, I just can’t help myself. Well, maybe you can’t, but God can. Now will you let God help you? can help us in every area of our life. The word worry comes from two Greek words which means to divide the mind because there’s a part of your mind that says, trust the Lord. And there’s another part of the mind that says worry, worry, worry, worry. Well, a double-minded man is unstable in how many of his ways, all of his ways.

Did you know worrying about one thing can contaminate the peace of mind you had in everything else. Worry is a sin and sin is like leaven and leaven is like the Bible says a little leaven, leaven at the whole up. So a little worry can destroy a lot of peace of mind. He can keep you from sleeping at night. He can cause a lot of stress related illnesses in your life, in your physical body. All those things can happen.

Yeah, I’m worried sick and many times that relates into physical problems. In the Bible it makes this statement. Let me read this to you first of all. The word it says here, you will be dominated between positive or negative thoughts. Success starts in the mind but so does worry. All your success and failures begin right up there. As a man think of so easy so you have to learn how to think. You can think positive or you can be negative.

Some people it doesn’t matter you know isn’t the sunshine and beautiful today. Well you could have seen it this morning there was clouds everywhere and I know but it’s a sunshine and right now it’ll be raining in a minute they have something negative to say I don’t care what it is and then there’s some who are just positive and this daddy had a little boy and a little boy was just so positive about everything it was just positive He said, I’ll knock some of that positive out of you, but he was always negative.

He took him out there and he says, now, bring that manure out of this barn. And so the little boy got out there and he started and his daddy checked down in about 15 minutes and the little boy’s a humming and a whistling and a singing and throwing manure everywhere. He says, what are you doing? What are you so happy about showing manure? He said, with this much manure, there’s got to be a pony around here somewhere. all depends on how you look at life.

You can be negative all your life or you can be a little on the positive side. John chapter 14 verse 1 says, let not your heart be troubled. Says you believe in God, believe also in me. God’s it let not your heart as your mind. Don’t let it be troubled. Don’t worry. And the answer was you believe in God, you believe in me. Trust me. Trust me. I know we’ve had president said, look, just trust me. That’s enough to cause everybody to worry.

Just trust me. You can trust the Lord. The Lord will never fail. The Lord won’t let you down. You can be as happy as you want to be. Without changing circumstances or anything. You see, happiness is a state of being. It’s the way you are. You can choose to be happy or you can choose to be sad. And every one of us do. You are as happy as you really want to be. Because nobody can make you happy and nobody can steal it from you if you don’t want them to.

You can be mad, angry, bitter, happy, joyful if you want to be. Whatever, take, take your pick. It’s your choice. And worry. Where is the shan? There are 400 references to peace in the Bible with 100 in the New Testament. Most of Paul’s letters start and end with a reference to peace. God wants his people to have peace, peace of mind. And if you’re peaceful in your mind and your spirit, you can be so happy, you can be joyful, you can be so rejoicing all the time about everything like that.

like that. Rejoice always and again I say rejoice. Confess, worry as a sin. First John one I said if we can sess our sins, his faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and the cleansers from all unrighteousness. Ain’t that what it says? Alright, that’s to the Christian, not to the lost person. That’s to the person who knows they have eternal life. They’re going to heaven when they die and they’re a Christian. Is worry a sin? If worrying is a sin, then should you confess your sins to God.

You should confess you’re a worry to God and there’s a reason. And you need to understand it from God’s point of view. Don’t say, well, I just can’t confess the way that I am. Stop all that. Listen to what God says. Don’t excuse yourself. Don’t make allowances for yourself. Always be seeking to be what God wants you to be, in your attitude. Worry shows a lack of trust in the Lord. Yes or no. It shows a lack of trust in the Lord when you worry.

If you are dominated by sinful, worry, fear, anxiety, you are thinking too much about yourself. One of the biggest things that helped me to be a soul winner, to talk to people about where they’re going to spend eternity, is when I I stopped thinking about me and started thinking about them. You think about yourself and you’ll be scared to death. What are you scared of? Them? Or what it does to you? Or how are they gonna respond? Or are you gonna be rejected?

Or were they gonna think about you? It’s all about you. It’s all the reason we wind up being afraid. Our fear is what causes us not to do the thing that we should. But that means you’re not trusting the Lord. We think about ourselves. we become intimidated. And it can keep you and rob you of the greatest things in life. The first step toward victory is to recognize and confess worry as sin. Worry is emotional atheism. You heard me say many times, many Christians live their lives as though God fell off his throne and he can’t get back up.

No, God is alive, God is real. He is on the throne and he does work and he is powerful and he can do what he promised he will do. Worry is emotional atheism. It means, to some extent, I don’t believe God. I don’t trust God. God’s gonna fail me. He’s gonna not gonna come through. So we worry, because now if that’s all truth, that it’s all depends on me and I can’t handle it. And it’s just too much pressure and that’s the last straw.

And I can’t handle anymore. I’ve had so many people say, you know, I can’t handle it. Shut up. You can too. You and the Lord by yourself know God says he will not put upon you anything greater than you can bear. Yes or no. Then he won’t. You don’t have any problem big enough to break you. But many people are broken. Not because of the problem but because of their weakness to trust the Lord. Worry is an indication that we think God cannot look after us.

Perpetual uneasiness is symptomatic of prayerlessness. No one can pray and worry at the same time. Now which one are you doing? You can’t worry and pray at the same time. Well I prayed about it and then you worried? No you didn’t pray about it. You’ve said the word but you didn’t pray. Pray me I’m testing all my cares about them before. Well if you did that, then what are you worried about? Let’s see, we say the words where our Christianity becomes mechanical.

It’s not really alive. It’s not a personal God that I really believe in, but we have so much to learn from the Lord’s Word. Look at this. And this is so important. last part of this statement, unbelief is a what? Sin and a sin is to be confessed. So if worrying is a sin, it has to be confessed, but you have to see it as that. The next statement, worry actually vandalizes the body. What does that mean? Sometimes somebody might vandalize your home or your car, but isn’t it a shame when a Christian vandalizes their own body?

words you are destroying yourself, hurting yourself. And that’s why you will not be a happy Christian, you will not be a joyous Christian, you will not be a victorious Christian because you’re mutilated and vandalizing yourself. Just stop the world that’s doing it to you, you do it to yourself on how you accept things. Now get this statement. Worry actually vandalizes the body. You’re emotional and spiritual well-being has an effect on the physical body. Have you ever had doctors tell you that?

Has doctors ever told you that worrying is not good for you? Stress is not good for you? You never had a doctor tell you that? They will? Just ask them. And that’s why sometimes there’s nothing they can do, no medicine they can give, that can cure it. Because the problem is not the normal thing because it’s a synduce, because it’s a spiritual problem. Things that happen because of the mind. That controls the brain that works the parts of our body.

Three keys for lasting change. The renewing of your mind. Any visions in chapter four talks about put off the old man, put off the old behavior. There’s something to put off. That’s repent. Change your mind. Reconsider. You don’t want to be the way you were your Christian now. But you have to renew your mind. In verse 23. And that is be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Appear to how you think. doesn’t want you to think like a normal individual who lives in the flesh in the world because that’s not you.

You are a child of God. You’re a citizen from heaven and your destiny is fixed. You’re going to heaven whenever you die and you’re here temporarily as long as God has a ministry for you and you’re accomplished that which God intended and until then let God have his way with you. Don’t challenge God. Don’t rebuke God. Trust Him. Believe it. And let God do whatever God wants to do. He can be free to bring into your life or out of your life whatever He wants.

And it won’t bother you. You can accept that. And then you’ll begin to grow as a Christian. If not, it’ll make you bitter because you’ll get hurt. You didn’t get what you wanted. Your expectations were not met. You’re not all that you thought you ought to be. We’re not interested in what you want. We’re interested in what God wants. You see, there’s a conflict of the wheels. There’s a lot of things you want out of life. Maybe you want to do or be or go or whatever it is.

Yeah, but then there’s something over here. What does God want? And these two make the trash. And that’s why you can have peace of mind if you’ll just say, Lord, whatever you want, let’s find with me. And you can have peace. But if you don’t, you’re going to be totally disarray and despair because it may never work your way. Learn to trust the Lord. And the third thing is replace. You’ve got to put on the new man, which was created in righteousness and true holiness.

So there’s something to put off, change your mind, something to put on. And God says, if you learn this, it can truly help in your Christian life. You can’t change the past, but you can ruin a perfectly good day by worrying about it. Have you ever had a wonderful day that God gave to you and then you ruined it by bringing up the past that you can’t do anything about it? And you can be just, listen, you can rehash things that happened a long time ago and did you know you dwell on it long enough and it’ll make you insight just as mean and bitter and hateful as it did 20 years ago?

ruin this moment. Now you think that’s what God’s will is for you? This is why you’ve got to forgive, forget that it go dwell upon that which God wants you to have. There’s problems in life, but the problems are not supposed to make us totally filled with despair and stress and worry and to were sick and we can’t move and operate because of it. Cast your cares on Christ. 1 Peter 5 seven when he says cast all your cares upon him for he cares for you.

Do you believe that? You believe that then you can trust on. If you take everything and put it in God’s hands you’ll see him see God’s hands and everything that you put in his hands. Ask God to lift the weights off your soul. Have you done that? And you don’t think he will? See many people figure this way. Why pray when I can worry. Is there anything wrong with that? It’s supposed to be why worry when I can pray.

The second thing, if it’s too small a matter to pray about, it’s too small a matter to become a burden. You should never think that your problems are too big, God can’t do anything about it, or too small that God’s not going to be concerned. Both are an insult to God. God says pray about how many things. All things. Play all the time. I don’t have time to read that. I was going to read the words of that song.

What a friend we have in Jesus. You ought to just read the words of that song. We sing it, but you ought to just hear the words. What a friend we have in Jesus. All our grief and so forth to bear and then talking about casting our cares upon the Lord and all the word that we do because we do not take it to him in prayer. So awesome song. Carry confidence in your countenance. Give God thanks for what you do.

you pray for in advance over you receiving it. Gratitude and praise confirmed that you are trusting in the Lord. Thanksgiving and praise are in a note to worry. If you look at that verse when he makes the statement verse 6, be careful for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. When you pray to God and you’re asking God for something, then it says give thanks before you get the answer. Give God thanks for what you prayed before you ever get it.

Because don’t you thank you well? But rejoice not so much in what God is going to do or what God is going to answer. But rejoice in the fact that I have a God who heard my case and I’m gonna leave the righteous judge the options are open they’re all his he can do anything he wants. He can say yes he can say no he can say wait a while and his answer is sufficient for me that’s That’s all I wanted was to hear it with a God who could do something about it and I’m going to trust Him with a result.

Tell me if that won’t give you a peace of mind. It lies beyond the power of an individual to make things work because you’re limited. You don’t have all the answers. You can’t do everything. But there’s a God who does. He does know and he cares. Chronic warriors make the mistake of waiting for their circumstances to change before rejoicing. You take a piece of paper right down all the blessings you can think of as a tonic for your soul and see if you can think of anything that God has done for you that you can rejoice about and be thankful for.

Learn to be thankful. It’s hard to be a worrier when you’re thankful and you’re praising the Lord for what He’s done and you’re rejoicing in the right thing. What are you going to worry about? It will give you a peace of mind that your husband can’t give it to you, the wife can’t give it to you, the kids can’t give it to you. Nobody can give it to you. is between you and God because it’s the peace of God.

It’s a personal thing. Otherwise the Bible is just a book, it’s a mechanical thing, and it’s not a living, vivacious personal book that gives your relationship with Christ that nobody else can. In the Christian life you live by faith or you don’t live at all. When you cease to live by faith, you cease to live. You know God says a child of God God is not only saved by grace, He is to live by faith. And if He lives by faith, and that’s the only way you can live as a Christian.

For God is to live by faith. Well if you’re not living by faith, you’re not living. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bibleline and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll free 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. If you wish to hear today’s program again or would like to download a free MP3 of today’s or any previous Bibleline program, go to BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the spinning globe in the upper right corner of our home page.

If you’re in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10.30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. Live broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryoftampa.org. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline, and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold.

friend one day it will happen the trumpet will sound we will be changed caught up to meet the lord in the air so live today and every day believe in that the lord is coming soon and just keep looking up