WORRY

INTRODUCTION:
1. Over 1400 years before the birth of Jesus Moses stood barefoot on a mountain-side.
2. Set before him was a challenge that would set fear into the heart of any man.
3. His task:
a) Parade into the land he had fled forty years before.
b) Secure an audience with the most powerful man in the world.
c) Demand the release of a race of people who had been enslaved for over 400 years.
4. Finding a sense of peace in this situation would be difficult if not impossible.
5. Over and over Moses raised sensible objections:
a) I am wanted by the law there.
b) I am slow of speech.
c) I am not respected enough to go to the King.
d) I am not the one for this job.
6. God's answer: You're right, you're not able to do this alone, but "I AM".
7. Centuries later in the Gospel of John we see the great "I AM" in the form of Jesus.
8. The fact that He lived, died and was resurrected from the dead gives us hope and peace in the face of difficult and daunting tasks.
9. In the Gospel of John Jesus describes Himself with the words "I AM".
a) I am the bread of life.
b) I am the light of the world.
c) I am the door.
d) I am the good shepherd.
e) I am the resurrection and the life.
f) I am the way, the truth and the life.
g) I am the vine.
10. Each one of these sayings gives us a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and each one grants us a deeper  feeling of peace
11. By studying the seven "I AM" sayings of Jesus this week we will hopefully help each  to gain the sense of peace that Jesus promised to leave with us.
12. Harbor is the safe place where sailors land and regain their strength, where they restock on supplies, where they get away from the sea for awhile and rest from difficult journeys.
13. Jesus is our harbor of blessings.
14. "I am the bread of life" (John 6:48).
I. WORRY:
A. Worry holds us back in nearly every aspect of our lives.
B. The news is enough to cause us to worry.
1) Stock market down.
2) Crime up.
3) Threat of war is always on the horizon.
4) Traffic to dodge
5) Deadlines to meet.
6) Friends to comfort.
7) Enemies to avoid.
8) Yard work to finish.
9) Bills to pay.
10) Meals to prepare.
11) Etc.
C. Worry and anxiety keeps us from finding peace.
D. There is a hope that replaces stress with concern, concern with caution and caution with peace.
E. To those of us who become burdened under the weight of worry, Jesus offers a message of hope.
F. "I am the Bread of life" (John 6:48).
II. THE FEEDING OF THE FIVE THOUSAND:
A. John 6:1-14 After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. Then a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His signs which He performed on those who were diseased. And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples. Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. Then Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward Him, He said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?"  But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.  Philip answered Him,"Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little."  One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to Him, "There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?"  Then Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. So when they were filled, He said to His disciples, "Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost."  Therefore they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, "This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world."
B. Don't worry about food (Matthew 6).
III. OUR HARBOR OF BLESSINGS:
A. Jesus had been teaching the people.
B. He had a huge audience and He used it as an opportunity to teach them.
C. He didn't just teach and leave.
D. He fed them also.
E. He asked Philip were they would find enough food to feed the crowd.
F. Philip replied that they couldn't buy it for they had only 200 denarii.
G. Andrew found a boy with a sack lunch of 5 loaves of bread and two fish.
H. The disciples were struggling with simething that many of us struggle with daily.
1) Enormous responsibilities and limited resources.
2) They had "too much month at the end of the money."
I. This dilemma often causes us to worry.
J. They were genuinely out of options.
1) They turned to the one source of resolution.
2) This should be our first option but it is usually our last.
3) They turned to Jesus and He took an impossible situation and turned it into an unforgettable object lesson.
4) After all had been eaten they took up 12 baskets of leftovers.
K. They were worried about a seemingly impossible situation.
L. They turned it over to Jesus and He solved it, thus relieving their worry.
IV. DISCUSSION FROM THE DEEP:
A. Why did Jesus ask the disciple for food when He knew all along where it He would get it? (John 6:6)
B. Andrew acknowledged that 5 loaves and 2 fish were hardly enough to feed so many, yet Jesus gave thanks for it (John 6:11).
C. What does this tell us about the attitude we should have, even when our problems are greater than our blessings?
D. John 6:13 tells us that were 12 baskets of leftovers. Read Malachi 3:8-10. What does this suggest about the nature of God's blessings?
V. THE BREAD OF LIFE:
A. How do the miracles of Jesus apply to our lives?
B. Most of us do not question the validity of the feeding of the 5,000.
C. However, what we must understand is that the blessings of being in Jesus are not limited to having enough to eat.
D. His blessings are not limited by time or space.
E. When Jesus called Himself" the Bread of Life" He was actually sayingthat He is all things to all the people who follow Him.
F. He tried to explain this to His disciples the day after the feeding of the 5,000 (John 6:27).
G. The ultimate treatise on worry is Matthew 6:25-34 - "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?   Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?  "So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;  and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  "Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'  For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. 
H. Worry is universal. Every generation, every culture has it.
I. The person of faith does not have to be anchored by the weight of worry.
J. We can release that anchor of worry by focusing upon that which is really important.
K. Our main concern should bbe to be pleasing to our Heavenly Father.
L. When this happens, the little things take care of themselves.
M. It is a solid psychological and biblical principle - as a man thinks so is he (Proverbs 23:7).
N. When the focus of one's life is on his worries the vessel of his life becomes anchored in that worry.
O. When the focus of one's life is on Jesus, the bread of life, then the anchor of worry is cast away.
P. The Sea of Peace is probably less of a destination than it is a journey.
Q. The further we go in our spiritual lives and the deeper our relationship with Jesus becomes, the more peace we will experience.
R. However, each of our journeys begin a common but important place, the narbor; for there it that we learn that the "bread of life" will provide us with everything we need for our journey.
CONCLUSION:
1. Worry is an often discussed subject in Bible studies and devotional gatherings.
2. Jesus spent considerable time talking about it in the Sermon on the Mount.
3. Matthew 7:7-11 How does the comparison of our Heavenly Father to our earthly help us to realize that God will give us what we need?
4. Philippians 4:10-13 According to Paul, what releases the anchor of worry?
5. James 5:13-18 What practical advice does James offer about worry?
6. QUOTES:
    "The reason why worry kills more people than work does, is that more people worry 
       than work." Robert Frost

"When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had a of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened." Sir Winston Churchill

"As a rule, men worry more about what they can't see that about what they can." Julius Caesar

"Faith can move mountains, and a lack of it can make mountains out of molehills."

"Worry is like paying interest on a debt that never comes due."