How to Not Worry About Money

**SPEAKER_1** (0:04)
Welcome to the City Lights Church Podcast. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing today, we hope this message inspires you to follow Jesus. You can find out more about City Lights Church at city-lights.church.

**Andrew Scott** (0:23)
Good morning, everyone, you can have your seats.
If we haven't met before, my name is Andrew. And just so delighted that you would spend your Sunday morning with us at City Lights Church. We love this community, we love what God's doing, and we love the journey that we're on together. Today, I'm continuing our How To Series. And I want to tell you a little bit of a story. When I was 17 years old, I was on my red pea plates, and I was driving a white Mitsubishi Sigma manual. Okay, that all it will kind of all make sense as to why. And at that time, we were living in Sydney. My dad was pastoring in a church there. And for whatever reason, I had left church late, and there was no one else around. The car park of the church was freshly surfaced with gravel. And so there I was on my red pea plates with my manual Mitsubishi Sigma, and I thought, this is an incredible opportunity to demonstrate a different type of driving, which is much more exciting. And so what I did, no one around, I just got in that manual and I dropped the clutch, and we were kind of spinning the wheels, and we were going sideways in and out of the car park. And there was no one there, I thought. There was another pastor, a great man of God, Pastor Graham Charlesworth, Charlie, as we called him. And he managed to make a call to my dad, and said, John, I'm not sure if you're aware, but Andrew was doing burnouts in the car park, and we've just recently resurfaced that car park. And so now it's got some particular marks in there.
This morning, I'm talking about two things, and one of them is worry. And this idea, I don't know if you've ever done a burnout, or have been seen one, this idea of when you're in a car, you drop the clutch and you're spinning the wheels. This is, in one of the respects, what I consider the cycle of worry. It's where you're spinning, you're going very fast, but there's no traction. When you're doing a burnout, even though it is fun, and there are some times and places that are appropriate, and some that are inappropriate to do that, you are running risk of damaging the engine, damaging the tires, and even damaging the road. And occasionally, if you get things wrong, crashing and hurting someone or something, even yourself. And the cycle of worry is this, where problems meet inadequate solutions. This is a cycle of worry. Who's ever been in a cycle of worry? I think most people have. You've got your problem, your inadequate solution. It doesn't work. What do we do? We go back, and what we do is we try to think our way out of our problems. What happens within us, within our hearts and within our heads, is that just like a burnout of a car, there's lots of energy but no traction. An unaddressed worry will drain our physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual energy. Think about this as well. Worry makes it difficult for us to give and receive love. Have you ever been worried and then at the same time go, wow, I've just got so much peace, I'm so easy to be around, so light, not snappy? This is what worry does to us. Worry doesn't always mean that you're debilitated, doesn't always mean you're sitting in a corner feeling sorry for yourself. You can have very powerful expressions of worry. Worry can make you powerfully anxious and try to do things that are out of character. So this morning, I'm talking about two things. One of them is worry and the other is money. Now, talking about money as a pastor is dangerous business. A few years ago, I was talking about money in our previous location, and there was a gentleman there that obviously upset him, and he thought that the church just wanted all his money. And so he got up and left and we've never seen him again. Sad. So, if that's the case, why would we talk about money? Now, the reason that we talk about money in church and worry is because it's important to you. It's on your mind, and on paper, for many people, there's a lot of financial money related things to worry about. What have we got? We've got high inflation, we've got high energy costs, we've got high fuel prices, we've got high rent, high interest rates, high grocery costs, high building costs. Our government thinks the solution to that is high taxes. And you're saying, I wasn't worried until you just read out that whole list. I'm really worried now. Here's what the research says. It says financial stress has a big impact in our life. One in four people in financial stress said that it impacted their emotional health. A different one in four people said that at times it impacted their physical health. And one in three couples said that financial stress caused their relationship to break down. Research also says that talking about money, how to organize and prioritize money, actually de-stresses you. So that's interesting as well. So today, we're talking about money and worry. And when we're talking about money and worry, we're not really worrying about money. We're worrying about what money provides. So here, when we talk about money, we talk, what are we really worried about? We're really worried about four things. Here they come. We're worried about losing status, security, enjoyment, or control, because these are the things psychologically that money means to us. Status, for some people, the quality and quantity of things they have are markers of achievement, and a standing is to lose money, is to lose status. Others, money offers protection and a level of peace of mind. These things are not all bad, but they can be. Enjoyment, if I don't have money, I won't be able to enjoy my life, holidays, experiences, control. We choose our path if we have money, and if we don't, we're subject to others. So money is important to us, and money is also important to God. Two reasons. One, the way that we live matters to God, and money is a huge part of that. And also, as we'll understand, the things that are important to us are important to God. So this morning, we're looking at the teachings of Jesus in Matthew chapter 6, and part of the iconic sermon on the Mount. Now, Jesus is talking about money, and the context in which He's talking about money and the culture is that most of the people that He's talking to is in a society with vast economic equality, where many people are living day to day. So, they don't have cash reserves, there's no social net, there's no Medicare. People are literally going, if I don't work today, I may not be able to feed my family tomorrow. Now, in the midst of that, Jesus has the audacity to say this, Matthew chapter 6, 25, He says this, that's why I tell you not to worry about everyday life. Whether you have enough food and drink or enough clothes to wear.