Sermon: "Anxiety Over Money"

3rd in the "What Keeps You Up At Night?" series.
Delivered October 25, 2009 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Sermon Text: Matthew 6:19-34

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That sort of experience should seem familiar to many of us. Anxiety over finances is a major issue in our personal lives, and sometimes the issue of finances and the anxiety about it brings a life-changing crisis.

There was an article I read from The New York Times in 2008. It talks about a woman, Diane McLeod. The article begins where she is getting collection agencies calling her 20 times a day, and so for a little bit of quiet, she takes her phone and puts it in the dishwasher so she doesn't have to listen to it.

But until she hit the wall financially, she was a model consumer. She juggled not one, but two mortgages, both with interest rates that rose over time. She had a car loan and a high-cost credit card. She was separated and living with her 20-year-old son, working two jobs so she could afford a small home, two-bedroom ranch house, the Kia she drove to work, and handbags and knickknacks she liked to get. Last year, the year before this article was written, back-to-back medical expenses helped push her over the edge. She lost her job. She couldn't afford her payments. She goes into bankruptcy, and her credit profile is in ruins.

Now she admits that this problem is mostly of her own making. She made some bad choices. But certainly, the society around her, or around us, didn't help any because people were making big money off of her. They analyzed her expenses and realized right before her collapse, her creditors were collecting interest payments totaling more than forty percent of her pre-tax income, and she had additional fees worth thousands of dollars on top of that. And people were more than willing to take that money until it all collapsed.

Now she is extreme, but she's not alone. Generations ago, Americans were known for their thrift, living within our means, even setting aside money for unseen expenses. But by 2008, Americans were carrying 2.56 trillion dollars in consumer debt. And that was up 22 percent since 2000. The average household's credit card last year...or you know 2007-2008...was $8,565, up 15 percent from the year 2000.

College debt has more than doubled since 1995. The average student emerges from college carrying $20,000 in educational debt.

According to The New York Times, half of American families are carrying more than $25,000 in non-mortgage debt. That's $14,400 for tuition and car, $8,500 credit card debt. Numbers might be a little bit different, depending on who is quoting and from what year, but this is pretty much our situation.

And this sort of pressure becomes the focus of many of our arguments and disagreements. A lot of the pressures we have in our relationships, in our marriages. Gary Nickelson, who is the president of American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, been serving for 27 years in law in Texas, asserts this, "I don't know that I would say that finances are the number one cause of divorce, but they're right up there with the top causes."

And just in case you don't think that this societal reality affects us here at Central Presbyterian Church, we have our Financial Peace University groups (grow-groups) and as we've looked at these groups and they've, you know, shared... And I don't know about all the groups, so there might be lower groups than this, but the lowest one I've heard of had an average debt of $16,000. That's lower than the national average. But the highest was $50,000, which means this problem is our problem, too.

This is our life. That life in America is our life here at Central. And all of this causes anxiety... stomach-churning, sleep-robbing anxiety. And then Jesus comes and says we don't have to be anxious. Let's take a look at what he actually says in the book of Matthew, chapter 6. You can find a Bible in the seat in front of you. Matthew, chapter 6, we're going to begin at verse 19.

Let's pray: Lord, help us to understand, to believe and to obey. Speak through your Holy Spirit and exalt the truth of Jesus Christ. For we ask it in his name, Amen.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

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 than food, and the body more important than clothes? 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? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

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

Jesus tells us here that the way to deal with anxiety is to seek first the kingdom of God and God's righteousness. What does he mean by that? He gives us an example from nature, of birds and of flowers, and says, "If these things that we consider insignificant, are nevertheless tended to by God, how much more can we be assured that God is concerned about our situation?" God knows that we need them... is where he ends up with that illustration.

It's not an illustration that we don't work because anybody who has looked at a bird, you know that they are busy all the time trying to eat. It's not that issue of work; it's the issue of worry. That here are things that are beyond worry, that cannot worry, and yet God provides for them. Will he not, since we are even more valuable, tend to our need?

And then he gives us a way out... gives us a way out of the anxiety. "Seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness." He contrasts that life to the life of the pagans and by that, he means the people who do not know God and who are not seeking God. He says that these people run after all the material things because that's where their anxieties are. That's where their value is.

Their lives are shaped around getting material things. That's the motive for them setting a certain trajectory in life. That's their aim. If you don't think our society has that aim, just today in Parade magazine, the cover of it says, "It's Okay Now to Shop." Well praise the Lord. That's just what I've been waiting to hear because that is what defines my direction in life.

Now, the article itself might be a good article. Okay? I haven't read it yet, but the title just caught me. And yet, that's really where our values lie. We believe that the real solutions to life involve buying, owning, having a certain status, a certain protection that is built by material things. That's where our society ends up. That's what you find in the magazines, and in the advertisements on the TV.

Instead of having that to run after, to seek earnestly, Jesus then says instead we're supposed to be seeking God's kingdom. And the word he uses is a little less powerful. The pagans are earnestly seeking. They're frantically looking. They're running after. Instead, we're to seek after. There is a certain measure and peace.

It's supposed to be on God's rule in this world, what God is doing and saying, the purposes of God, personal morality, justice in the world. Our eyes are supposed to be on that. Our direction is supposed to be there. Our aim is supposed to be there.

But what does that practically mean? We get a bit of a direction in this same talk from Jesus. Let's go back to verse 25 for a moment. In verse 25, it begins with the word, "Therefore." It means that we're in the middle of a discussion here. He gives us this example of... don't be anxious. Seek the kingdom and it will all be provided. But it begins by saying, "Therefore." So that means that what is said immediately before that is part of this whole argument.

Jesus has just said something related to the issue of worry, and he has done that by giving us three pairs of contrasting realities. He gives us three sets of choices we need to make... targets we need to aim at. And each contrast... living under God's rule, to living under the lifestyle of those who do not yet know God. And so I'd like to go through each of them and take a look at it because this defines, to a certain extent, our understanding of what it means to pursue this kingdom.

The first one... invest in heaven or invest in the world's system where Jesus says to them, "Don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth, but seek treasures in heaven." The point that he makes here is that there is nothing in this life that lasts. And so we are to be investing ourselves in something more than that because we have more value than that. We will outlast that.

You build yourself a deck on the house. It's beautiful. It's fun. You use it for years, and decks are great. But they rot. And eventually you have to tear it down and replace it.

You buy a car, even a really good car, in fact, the better the car the more this happens to it. You buy it. You drive it off the lot and it immediately plummets several thousand dollars to several tens of thousands of dollars in value. And that's because eventually, no matter how well you take care of it, it gets scratched, it wear out, it rusts, and eventually every car except those few that people lovingly, you know, restore as antique cars, every car ends up being land-filled... doesn't last.

Your stocks can crash. Your dollars can devalue. The jewelry can be stolen. None of these are bad in and of themselves. It's just insufficient as a goal in life. And we're all tempted to that. We're all tempted to exalt the meaning of that beyond what it deserves. And that can set our life on a bad course.

First Timothy 6:17-19 describes, a bit, about what it means to invest in eternity. I'd like to just read to you this because this theme is picked up and carried through all of Scripture. It comes up in 1 Timothy 6, verse 17.

"Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment."

Do you see some of the themes that are here in Jesus' own words?

"Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life."

We're meant for more than just the things we own. We're meant for eternity. Are we investing in that eternity? Which are we aiming at?

The second contrast and choice that Jesus gives us... having the healthy or unhealthy eye. I'm going to call this the generous or stingy heart. Now how did I get there? This is the hardest part of this passage actually to understand for me. It seems to be just... it's just stuck in there. All the other things clearly have a money connection... has a kingdom lifestyle connection that is threaded through certain choices that have to do with our material lifestyle, and then this one here is metaphysical.

Now the words that are used here in other contexts could mean a variety of things. The words that are used for good and bad, or in this place, healthy and unhealthy, can be understood a lot of ways. Healthy, unhealthy, good and bad, but these same words in other contexts can mean generous and grudging. In fact, in other places it the New Testament, these words are used that way, particularly the word generous.

And so one way of understanding this, and believe me, you may have a deeper way of understanding it. But as I've wrestled with this and read commentaries and things like that, what I see here is that Jesus is calling us to these two choices, these two contrasting realities well... the one of generosity and the one of grudging, holding things tightly.

What helps support that is the whole "eye" thing here. Eye can be equal to heart in a passage because eye means the direction of life, the values of life, and heart means the direction of life and the values of life in Jesus' speaking. So there is a certain equivalence there. So we can see this as meaning a generous heart or a stingy heart. Jesus presents a contrasting choice... which are we aiming at? It's another aspect of kingdom reality... kingdom righteousness.

Then Jesus presents to us another set of stark choices... money and God. Now that one is one too that seems a bit harsh. You know, I like the part-time job sort of idea. You know, you serve 20 hours here and you serve 20 hours there. You know, hey, that will work out. Well the whole idea... you have a job and then you have a ministry. Now those things are true. That's part of our social reality. There is nothing wrong to have a job and have a ministry.

But Jesus is talking about a master/slave relationship. The words that are here are strong words. And so he's talking about... who do we give attention to right now? We have two absolute opposing masters, and if we make making money and getting material things our central aim, it will demand everything of us. And if we decide to follow Jesus, don't dishonor God by offering anything less than it all because we are too important for half measures. And God is too glorious for any half measures.

So you have these two contrasting realities. It's not a difference between making money and not making money. There is nothing wrong with money. But what's the heart focus? What is the anxiety behind it? What's the thing that you're trying to achieve through it? And so what he says here doesn't mean that we can't make money. It means we cannot serve it. The moment we decide to serve it, we separate ourselves from following God. Those are Jesus' words. It's not even the Apostle Paul.

So seeking first the kingdom is a matter of settling three choices, at least according to this small passage we're looking at. To serve God only, to pursue generosity, to invest in eternal things. And from that, Jesus is saying, grows a peace and a confidence in our lives, but it's for those who seek the kingdom. The word there is seek. It has to do with pursuing it, looking for it, walking into it.

One of the temptations we have in the church in the United States today, and is probably a universal temptation of every church everywhere is that what we want to do is... we want to live in the values of our society and define ourselves. "Well you know this magazine says that if I have this sort of education I should make this sort of money. And then if I have this sort of money, I should buy these sorts of things, and enjoy these sorts of vacations." And we sort of pile up these expectations, and then we try to live into that lifestyle. And we start getting anxious about that and pursuing it, and start worrying that somehow we won't get our share.

And then we want to come home and say... kneel down by the bed, and say, "God, I trust you. Please help me not be anxious about my life, and grant me all these things that I desire." That doesn't work. It's not what the passage is talking about. The promise of freedom from anxiety, the promise of this wholeness and peace, the promise of walking inside of this care of God, is for those who seek the kingdom, who make the choices, who walk the walk.

When we were dividing up these sermons on anxiety, I hesitated doing this one because I truly worry about my share of things. But money isn't one of them that I worry about a whole lot. And it's not because we've been rich because our whole marriage we've lived on one income and that has been a ministry income for our whole marriage. And generally speaking, if you're in ministry, you get about two-thirds of what other people with your education get.

And it isn't because we haven't had our share of bad choices about finances. We have our share of bad investments and some really stupid purchases... stupid purchases I'm glad you won't know about. But it's still mostly been joy. And so since that's been the case, maybe it is okay for me to share about it since we have learned a few lessons along the way.

So what's going to follow here is not gospel anymore. We've been in the gospel. What we've heard is gospel. This is life lessons from John. Okay? But I hope, in it, there is some gospel.

We haven't had that level of anxiety and worry. So what are some of the things? First of all, first life lesson... be thankful. Man, what a liberating thing to wake up and, "Thank you, God, for the gifts you've given. Thank you for the family that I have. Thank you for the house that surrounds me, the heat, the food that I've received." It is so easy to get negative, and there have been times in my life where there have been years that have been dominated by an unthankful spirit, and they were the most miserable, anxious years of my life.

Be thankful. Make it a discipline. Do not let yourself not be thankful. Sit down, whether you're feeling thankful or not, open up a journal and write the line... I thank you for... and then start writing. And then God will eventually liberate you from that anxiety, and lead you into that thankfulness. So the first one... be thankful.

Second one... this is one of my favorites. It's not the most important, but it's one of my favorites... you don't have to own it to enjoy it. One of the joys in my life is I get to walk through Stoneleigh on my way to work if I walk to work, or when I take a walk with my wife. I walk through Stoneleigh. Now I can't own any house in Stoneleigh, but it's beautiful... the trees, the houses. Every Christmas we go through Stoneleigh several times just to see the lights and the beauty there.

And you can enjoy things that you don't own. Debbie and I have been snorkeling in Belize. We have been sailing in the Bahamas. We've been on the Chesapeake. We've been in mountain cabins. We've been in houses on the beach. And we haven't owned any of it...because you have. And praise God, you made the decision to be generous. That's the way the Body is supposed to work, you know?

There are times that we've been able to be generous with others... just for honesty's sake, okay? This is part of it. You don't have to own it. God has created the world and created the Body in such a way that untold blessing can go out as we simply share with one another. So I praise God for that.

The next one... buy modestly. Bigger and better doesn't mean you are more worthwhile as a person or that you're even happier. Now there is a certain level of quality and all that's good to buy, and to invest into that quality in the long run is the better purchase. I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about the excessiveness that can hit us.

You know, we send people on mission trips and all, and people come back and they always say, "Man, I cannot believe... those people have nothing, and yet they're so happy." And we're surprised. Why are we surprised? Jesus said it. Our life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions.

And research has been done. Now with the exception of extreme poverty where you can't even provide for the basics, once you get out of that extreme case, there is generally very little correlation between happiness and direct income. But there are a lot of other factors that affect that. Jesus told us that. And it's true.

Okay, next one... give and get the joy. Man, it's one of the biggest joys in life to be able to get involved in something and be part of something that God is doing... see a need met, all because you've been able to design a lifestyle that has a little bit of buffer so that you can give to others.

Next one... trust God because a carefully discerned, God-centered risk is worth it. God really does provide. But when have we gotten ourselves into a position in life that we've taken a risk big enough or the right shape so that God can show us that he provides? Sometimes we back off from those things, and so we never get to see that God really can be trusted even in the practical things.

And that's related to the last one. They go hand in hand. Always push toward the thing God is stirring you to do. Listen for the voice of God. Don't just go with life as usual or the safest option. That's one of our life lessons. We have been blessed by that.

So, for example, at the end of our time in Japan, the issue was... do I go for the safest career option, or do I listen to the very clear voice of God? Safest career option is get out as fast as you can so you can get rooted in what you want to do so that your life can go on the right direction. We felt that God kept us there two more years, and then God... I can't tell you how close we came to not obeying God there. I mean, it was razor thin. But by God's grace, we made the right choice. I can't tell you the blessing that God has brought since.

Do you go for the biggest house, or do you serve the right church? We bought our first house in 1998. I was 43 years old because we were missionaries, and before that we were Intervarsity staff members, and it goes on back. And man, you can't find money in there to buy a house. We come to this choice to come to Maryland. We bought the smallest house that we've ever lived in since the first apartments that we were part of... when we came here.

Should I have gone to Arkansas so I could buy a bigger house, serve the wrong church? Now in this case, it's on my list, but there was no contest for me. I wanted to come here so badly I would have slept in the street. Don't tell any of the trustees that or anything. But those things shouldn't be the final court of appeal.

Another one... hospitality over what's obviously easier for the family. Debbie and I have talked about the fact that in our marriage, we have had about six people live with us for over a month... some of them close to a year. And if you knew some of these people, you'd realize that that wasn't easy... some of the folks. And it wasn't easy maybe for them to live with us. But it was the right choice because in it we heard the voice of God.

So I'm sure you have your own things. You could make your own list and you could make this list longer because we are all walking with God and we're all experiencing this. So look at it. Understand it. Enjoy it. Learn from it. The point is Jesus says if we seek his kingdom and righteousness, we can lay aside that anxiety. In the middle of a world that is anxiously running after all kinds of material things, who are worried about every setback in turn, we can have peace... shalom, wholeness, health, a sense of harmony and security... nothing broken, nothing missing.

And then we'll find that we still have everything we need even though we're not focusing on it. And for me that's not something I read and believe; it's something that I believe and have experienced. And that's true for many, many of you as well.

The theme verse for this series comes from Psalm 4:7-8. I don't particularly like the Today's New International Version translation of it. I'll give you the one I memorized. It's probably kind of close to the RSV, but I've probably also changed it over the years.

"Thou hast put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. Therefore, in peace will I both lie down and sleep, for thou alone, O Lord, makest me to dwell in safety."

Do you know how valuable that peace is? Do you know how valuable that sleep is? In peace...shalom, wholeness, fullness, I will lie down and sleep. I can't tell you how many times I've laid down in bed and have that fullness and peace fill my heart. It is worth every choice, every step we make to get there. Nothing on God's side is going to hold us back from experiencing this. But what are we aiming at? What are the choices we still need to make?

Now we're going to have some music in just a moment where we can kind of reflect on those things, and think about it. Then we'll just pray for a moment before we end the service to hold before God some of the choices we might need to make. So I'd like to just pray that God would help prepare our hearts even while the worship teams comes forward.

Lord, help us now. Help us to step into the fullness of what you want to give us, to step away from the anxiety. And so prepare our hearts now. Give us insight. Give us wisdom about what our path should be. For we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.

© 2009, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org