Good evening. Straighten my tie. There we go. Is it vertical? Or is it horizontal? Alright, let's open our Bibles tonight to Matthew chapter 6. We'll read verses 25 through 34. Matthew 6, verse 25-34. Alright. Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on. Is not life more than meat and a body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you? Oh, yeah, a little faith. Therefore, take no thought saying what you shall eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be closed? For after all these things, do the Gentiles seek for your heavenly father knoweth that you have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take, therefore, no thought for the moral for the moral shall take thought for the things of itself. sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank You again for this day You've given us, now for this evening, and for gathering us together to feed on Your Word. Lord, in John 15, verse 5, You said, without You, I can do nothing. And I'm constantly reminded of that, of my frailty, of my finality, Lord of my corruptness of this flesh. And yet, I know that you still choose to use me as a vessel to bring your word to your people. And you've given me messages, Lord, that you want your people to hear. Father, it is not in me that they would get hope, that they would get life everlasting. It is not in me that they would get answers for how to live their life, how to experience joy. But it is in you and working Your Holy Spirit through me with this message that is being brought tonight. Father, I pray as a messenger tonight that You would set me aside as a human being, Lord, in this flesh, and that You would just speak through me and give us what we're in need of, and that You would embed it in our hearts, You would conform us more to the image of Christ, that we would be open vessels for the use of Your Holy Spirit to work within us to conform us to His image for Your honor and glory. Be with our pastor and his wife as they're traveling. They're enjoying time together away for their anniversary. Bless them. But Father, speak to us tonight and give us what we're in need of that we might please You in a greater fashion. And Lord, most of all, we pray that if there's one here lost without Christ, that they would realize that there is no hope outside of Thy Son and His finished work on the cross. That through repentance and faith, they would accept Christ as their personal Savior. Forgive us now for our failures and use us tonight. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, Brother Ron asked me tonight if I was suited up. And so I said, yes, I'm officially suited up. And now I'm officially taking it off. Just the coat, folks. Just the coat. Because it is warm up here. And I'll be much cooler. But I titled this message tonight Don't worry. Be happy. You know, many would think that Bob Marley had cornered the market on that phrase. For some of you who know who he is, but my friends, God had cornered that market long before Bob Marley was ever thought about. And our responsibility to not worry and be happy. But that's for those who are his children. Now, on the opposite side, if you're not one of his children, then you need to worry. And that's probably why you're not happy. But in Christ, we're told, don't worry, be happy. You know, we're living in a time that seems to be unraveling out of control with no end to it. Our safety in this country is at risk. Our economy seems to, they say it's recovering, but yet you hear so many people that are still out of work A majority of people that are underemployed or some people that's just falling off the rolls because they've reached an age where America sees no value for them anymore. And so, they've gone without work and somehow learned to survive and scrape by in an existence instead of thriving in this world and so on. Our political corruption, just to name a few. It would cause anyone, if you think about it, to step back and say, is there any end to the sight in these problems of life that beset us and that come upon us? Then take these issues that affect many a people individually, and the impact seems to be exponentially greater. Some years ago, our youngest daughter, well, she worked for many years, but the occurrence was some years ago. She worked for a pretty higher end golf course up in Michigan overseeing the restaurant and things like that. And I had been up there golfing with some friends and we had went into the restaurant to eat. And they had a wake there at that restaurant earlier that day for a dad who was in his 40s that had killed himself over being unemployed and took his wife with him at the same time. leaving his children with no parents. And I thought to myself when I heard about this, what a tragic situation. Because actually at that time, I had just entered the unemployment situation for about six months or so. And the economic collapse and the media was thriving on that economic collapse. And that's all you heard day in or day out. There's nothing worse than being part of it, but then hearing it nonstop of how bad and rough it is. You know, you don't need to be reminded of it. And it becomes such an understanding thought. When their only hope is within this world that so greatly let him down, their whole life is wrapped up in this world. And they don't have anything else to look to. And from their perspective. There's no there's no life worth living. And If there's no life worth me living, maybe there's no life worth my wife living or my husband living, my spouse living. And so I'm just going to take us out and alleviate us. And anybody going through depression or known people with depression, depression isn't somebody saying, oh, poor little me, let me go dig my head in a hole and be unseen. Many people with depression don't realize that they actually are under depression and how that they reformulate what reality is and stuff. And I was just I was taken aback. I thought, what a shame. And it's not the first person that I've heard being young that has taken their own life, realizing in their mind that there wasn't anything no longer worth living for. There was no reason for existence in their life. But every time you hear it and you hear it, especially with a younger family or a younger person, it makes you take a step back and think, You know, and I don't know all the things that they were going through. But relying on the world and himself for a solution led this man to do what he did to himself and his wife. And he's not alone. As we hear of this more and more, as many people there in the world and few there be that look outside the world to where hope is eternal and solutions are real. That being Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. But be not deceived. Even those in Christ. When our hope and trust is taken off him. Who redeemed us out of this world and set our feet on solid ground. And placed within the world. Confined yourselves and ourselves with the same hopeless situation. Unfortunately, I believe the devil has taken many of God's people down that path through this very means. It seems as if it's become an epidemic lately within the Christian community. You know, I've battled with it at times myself, like I said, when I was unemployed. We all get depressed to a certain extent. We all get down in a way. But some people, it just goes to a greater degree, a longer term, should I say. But for the child of God, my friend, this should not be. And this does not have to be. God has redeemed us out of the world and placed our hope in him and our sustenance is from him. And he cannot lie. And he said he would not leave us nor forsake us. So when we go through all this experience. Why don't we naturally turn back as a child of God to the fact that he has promised you and I that he would never leave us nor forsake us, no matter what this temporary reality may appear to us right now to be real. It cannot be real, and I will not let it pull me down because God has told me he will not leave me nor forsake me. And is God true? Or is he a liar? Because if we can't trust him in that. How can we trust him for eternal destiny? How can we trust him and be confident that the salvation we possess for eternal life is really going to be followed through with when we become absent from the body. It is the hope that lies within us. But it's when we take we get sidetracked and the devil thrives on that and our flesh is susceptible to that. It's when we get that way and we lose sight of where our hope comes from. And we start dwelling on that, that the devil takes and capitalizes on that. And again, exponentially increases those feelings, those emotions within us that should not be there for us. Because God is in us and with us. And He's not giving us over to the spirit of fear, but of power and of love. The funny thing is that funny, funny, strange, not funny, haha. But the funny thing is that, you know, the people in Matthew's time had the same worries. You might say, well, they weren't to the degree that we faced and we face today. They all have heard this so many times growing up. And unfortunately, as I'm getting older, I find myself saying it myself, getting caught up. Oh, life was so much easier back in the day. My friends, when we were back in the day, that life was not easy for us. And it did not seem easy for us. And I think of raising my girls, because I've told you this before, I grew up with four older brothers. So there's five boys. My mom tried five times for a girl. Struck out all five times. It only took me three times to get girls, and I called it quits. Three is enough. But one thing I never realized is I first of all had a dad that grew up in a Great Depression. That's life, get over it, move on, you know. You got to toughen up. And brothers that I always had to defend myself with a baseball bat, a screwdriver, whatever I had in hand because they were all bigger and older than me. And it was survival of the fittest. And I wasn't the fittest out of the five. So I had to take it on. But I didn't realize what it was with raising girls and emotions and feelings and how they get wrapped up and how sometimes with little girls and stuff, you know, it's like their whole life is collapsing around them. The world is caving in because of something that you and I seem insignificant compared to the grand scheme of things. But for them, their whole life was crashing down. But for me, It was like, get over it. You need to toughen up. You know, that didn't go over well, trust me. And I had to learn to get more into the senses side. I had just broken out pink. It's taken like 50 plus years before I finally broke into getting pink, wearing pink. But think about that. Translate that to us as God's children getting caught up. into a false perception and then depression overcoming us. Or frustration and anxiety. And all that is wrapped up within the Christian community that holds us back from being able to glorify God the way He intends us to do. And to experience the joy that He intends us to have. And so when you're in that, think of that daughter of mine or think of the daughter of yours or the child of yours, that their whole life was crashing down. And you knew their life wasn't crashing down. You knew the world wasn't coming to an end. That that was a false perception that they had that had become reality for them right there in a moment. We need to break that. We need to be cognizant. We need to get up in the morning. We need to ask God, Lord, Open my eyes to be sensitive to when I'm being pulled under by this world. Let me not get sucked in to the stresses and the things of the world, but let me become victorious through these strings, through these situations, and I might glorify you. It's all starting our day right. I don't want to get too far ahead. I digress as I grab that rabbit and tend to chase thing. But again, You may be right. Maybe their life wasn't as rough as it was for ours now. I personally don't believe. For the circumstances and everything that was going on, for them, it was chaos. There was anxiety. There was depression. There was worriness. We think of Egypt. We think of Moses leading the Israelites through the wilderness and the ups and downs, the peaks and the valleys that they were constantly on. You know, I'll tell you, And then we see our lives and they're not really much different. The situations and stuff might be a little bit different, but the reality of of us dealing with them still are struggling and stuff. And it's all about men and women's reliance on themselves. To overcome and cope with the situation and come up with a solution to overcoming that situation or surviving through them. And how many times has that worked for you? That has been in those situations? It has never worked for me when I've tried that. It just compounds it. The only thing that got them through these times, and will get you and us through these times individually, is a right mindset. A right mindset. Jesus' desire was that your joy might be full in John 16, 24. I've said this. so many times. And you said, well, geez, it seems like we've heard a lot of messages lately. Pastors have been preaching through psalms. You get a lot of that through psalms of David struggling and stuff. But my friend, I've been burdened with this and the Lord laid this message upon my heart because I see it running rampant within my own brothers and sisters in Christ here up in Michigan, everywhere I see in the Christian community of the struggle that God's people have with overcoming or dealing with anxiety and depression that it crushes their life and makes them not effective for glorifying God. And is it not our responsibility to glorify God? And so if that's our responsibility, then I need to do all I can to bring us back to his word that will give us a right mindset. Reset us, per se. So our joy might be full. That, I believe, was desired and intended for good times and in tough times. For this to take place, though, we must have the right mindset. So let's look at our text for the mindset Christ desires for us to have. First of all, He said in verse 25, Therefore, I say to you, take no thought for your life. Don't worry. That's the first right mindset to have from verse 25. Don't worry. God created it. He sustains it. He provides for it and he provides for his children. He sustains his children. He will care for his children. Take no thought. You say, James, that's a lot easier said than done. I don't deny that. I've experienced that and I will continue as long as I'm in this flesh. But that doesn't mean we should succumb to that as God's children, because we don't have to stay in that mindset. We need to get back to the right mindset that God desires so that we'll have more times in joy and peace and more times being used to the Lord and experiencing what He has for us than times that we're being overwhelmed and taken down by the darts of the world and the devil. and all that it brings upon us. Secondly, in verse 25, it says, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, what you shall drink, nor yet for your body. What you shall put on is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment. Secondly, from verse 25, first, don't worry. Second, do consider your worth. You know, us Baptists, have a habit of always being preached to and taught that we're unworthy. And in Christ, we are unworthy. We are our best. Ten seconds of our life is as filthy rags in the sight of God. But in Christ. We are God's pleasure. We are worth something. We are his children. He desires to take care of his children. He desires fellowship with his children. That's you and I in Christ. So consider our worth when you're struggling like that. Realize who you're connected to. Who you belong to, the God of God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the one who created the heavens and the earth and the hills and the mountains and the cattle on the hills. And all that is within. In fact, nothing was created that God did not create. And then also do consider these things as we get a right mind. Verse 26. Fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Barnless birds. Now you would think if anybody has stresses, It's this poor bird who don't even have a barn to lay his head in. He can't even rest. He's like, that's why we have so many up on lines. I don't know if that's why. But I think of barnless birds and I come here sometimes. It's pretty scary. It's like the movie The Birds when you see like a thousand birds lined up on the lines behind your home or something. And they're like just perched looking over you. And it's like, oh, let's just go in and see what's on TV tonight. Ignore those birds looking down. But barnless birds. They don't even have a place to live in. They don't have a birdhouse that somebody has built for them. They don't have a house that they built for themselves. But yet, God takes care of them. God provides for them. They're meaningless in a sense, you would think. Though they're God's creation, He takes care of them. Will he not take care of us, his children? Also do consider verse 27, which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto a stature, our insufficient stature. Having a right mindset is when we start getting overwhelmed and we start thinking and our anxiety starts building up and we're not understanding how we're going to get through this. Just keyword how we're going to get through this. Remind yourself. You're not. You can't. Our stature is insufficient. We do not have the capabilities of getting through it, but my friend, God, who redeemed you and who created everything and within does. and can and will if we just trust in Him. But if we have the right mindset, our insufficient stature, right away we need to remind ourselves, why am I doing this to myself? I can't do anything about it. And then go to God. Forget yourself. Go to God. Lastly, on considering things, In verse 28-30, we need to consider the temporary lilies. Verses 28-30, it said, And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field with which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, Shall he not much more clothe you, O ye little faith? The next time you go out of your closet and you say, what am I going to wear? I don't know what I'm going to wear. How many people have done that? I say, same jeans I wore yesterday. I'll flip on a different shirt. Us guys have it a lot easier, I guess, than ladies. We recycle jeans a lot and pants and just flip a shirt or next time we'll wear the shirt and flip the pants. It's amazing what you can do as a guy. You just make sure. But temporary lilies, how beautiful and how gorgeous lilies are. And God clothed that field with lilies. If you ever saw a field full of wild lilies, it is just magnificent. It is gorgeous. And the majesty of God, as a child of God, when you look upon that kind of beauty, it's just awesome. It cannot but make you think of how great God is. How beautiful God is. Of how He's clothed the fields. Will He not clothe us also? Those things are just there for... Lilies don't last very long. They last about a week and then they're gone. But while they're there, they are arrayed in beauty. And everybody's eyes are upon them. Let's not worry about if we're going to have clothes for our body. God will provide us clothes for our body. That's in general specific, but even on a bigger picture, how God is going to take care of us, how He's going to provide for us. Providence. Am I going to be able to keep the lights on? Am I going to be able to pay the water bill? All those type of things. Be faithful and keep busy and do what you can do and God will take care of you. whether he brings somebody into your life. I've told this many times. I remember when Joyce and I were first married. One time we were sitting at a dinner table and I'm telling you, I had three girls and a wife and we had no toilet paper in the house. Toilet tissue, I guess that's more politically. I'm thinking, what am I going to do? And right in the middle of our dinner, our phone rings, I answer it and it's my mom on the phone and she's like, How you doing, James? Like fine. It's like your grandmas and grandpas stopped by and dropped off some toilet paper for your folks if you want to come by. That's the only thing they dropped off. But that's what I needed. And God will take care of us, even in the toilet tissue area. Don't worry. And then also do seek God. Verse 33, 34 says, But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for tomorrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Do seek God. Don't worry. Do seek God. Don't worry. Say it with me. Do seek God. Don't worry. We need to be reminded of that. Because we are common flesh and bone, and we will struggle, and the battles will come upon us. And we need to embed that in our head of what to do. The pastor talked about how Psalm 27 was embedded in his head about being scared, about the Lord protecting him, and all that kind of stuff. It is true that if we hide God's Word within our heart, We will be able to thrive, not survive in this world that we live in. Until one day we'll be absent from the body and present with the Lord. And the question is though, is this mindset really possible? You think, James, I've heard it over and over. And I'm telling you, you're not experiencing my life. If you just walked a mile in my shoes, as the old adage goes, you'd understand what it's like. But you've always had it easy. You've always had this or things have never happened to you. I hear that from my children. I've heard that from my children and come to think about probably years ago, I probably said it once or twice myself to other people. You don't experience every person that's going through something thinks that theirs is the worst situation and nobody's ever experienced everything. And for the world, it's devastating. It's heart-wrenching. And it's fearful. But for us in God, we know better. We know different. We need to have the right mindset. It is possible. Yes, it is possible. For even the chronic worrier and the individual with great stress upon their shoulders right now within this body, and it's here tonight in your life, It is possible. Remember this. I serve a God. Who can not lie. And if it were not true. What did he say earlier about going to build a mansion? I would have told you so. If it was true that you could not handle it and that I could not handle handling you and allowing you to handle it. I would have told you so. But we serve a God that is greater than everything and anything there ever was. He was and is and is to be. He forever will be, forever was. He's the Alpha and the Omega. He's the Prince of the Power of the Air. He will, you know, one day set this world right. And he'll put down who's the current Prince of the Power of the Air, which is Satan. and put him down. But I serve a God, and He would have told us, who cannot lie if it were different. For these possibilities, though, to become real for not only us, but also all those who desire, we need to put feet to these promises by implementing practices in our life that will help us succeed. So, I've went through some things on what not to do and what to do. But we need to know what we need to take after we don't do that or we do do that. First of all, I told you, don't worry. So your question, rhetorical question to me is, then what do I do? Pray instead. Turn over to Philippians 4, chapter 4, verses 6 and 7. If I look at that clock back there, I don't know how it gets exactly an hour different when the battery slows down or something. But I've got plenty of time. It's quarter to six. Philippians 4, verse 6 and 7 says this. Paul reminding the Philippians again that Christ reminded us always. Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, Let your request be made known unto God, and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." It seems easy. You read God's Word, it's like, that seems pretty easy. I think I can do that. I don't know why I can't. And frankly, it is. if we just take God's Word at face value. Remember, our God cannot lie. If it were not so, He wouldn't have told us. But He told us not to worry. And He also said that we ought to always pray. Taking God's Word at face value will so often Instead of trying to read in, well, maybe God didn't mean it for me. Maybe he meant that for Brother Danny. What happens if he meant that for only Brother Danny? And now I'm going to start worrying. Oh, no. I can't believe what's so good about Brother Danny now that he meant that for Brother Danny and he didn't mean it to me. I'm worth something. So now we're not only stressing over that, our anxiety is building because we think Brother Danny is better than I am. Just take God's Word of face value and trust it for what it is. It is God's Word. Prayer, my friend, is the most powerful weapon we have against the world and the devil's attacks. The most powerful. The most powerful. Next, don't keep it, cast it. Don't keep it, cast it. 1 Peter, turn over there, chapter 5. 1 Peter, chapter 5, verse 7. Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you. Have you ever asked yourself when all said and done, you finally come through whatever trial you're going through, whatever state of depression or anxiety and stuff and things have sort of mellowed out and you've sort of regained your composure and stuff. Have you ever wondered What did I attain by holding on to this? What benefit did I get from hanging on to all this that I had no control over? That I had no ability to get myself under? But by gone, I'm going to hang on to it because it's mine and nobody else is going to have it. And why do I feel this way? Don't keep it. Cast it. Cast your cares upon Jesus. For He cares for you. That's what we need to do more often. When we get in struggles, when we start getting overwhelmed, I get anxiety. Sometimes you don't even know where that anxiety happens. How many of you have had that? You just be sitting there and everything's going fine. And all of a sudden you get overwhelmed. Anybody have that? Overwhelming with anxiety. All of a sudden your chest starts tightening off. It's like where in the world did that come from? And it's like all this stress is coming on and it's like where in the world is this anxiety? I wasn't even thinking anything. Maybe that's what happened is I had a mental space that opened up and that anxiety flew in. I need to keep my mind active on the Lord. Not allow any of those gaps. And that anxiety won't sneak in and overwhelm me. I don't know. I hope you got a joke out of that. But realizing our framework. Remember earlier I talked about our insufficient stature? Realizing our insufficient stature should cause us to not keep hold of these things, but cast it onto Him who can control them and get rid of them and bring us through them. Make us more than conquerors through Christ Jesus. Isn't that what He's promised us? We can be more than conquerors through Christ Jesus who loved us. And He loves us. Our problem is that as men, we don't want to admit our weaknesses. I'm speaking man and woman. Not just men, but man and woman. We hate to admit our weaknesses. We hate to think, especially the mom's intuition, the mother intuition of wanting to take care of everything, wanting to handle everything. And that doesn't just shut off like a light switch once your children are grown. You know, it carries on. And you want to have that control and guys have that that innate desire and the responsibility that society has always put on men in general to be the sole provider of the household. It's not always possible, but it's still by far the main mentality. And God, you know, tells us that men should be the main provider of the household. And when you're struggling to do that and you're a child of God, it can easily start getting you thinking You know, what a failure I am. I don't understand it, Lord. You know, why would you allow me to be in this way? If you teach in your Scripture that I need to be the provider of my household, why would you put me in this situation? Again, not everything is for us to understand, but let's not keep it and keep trying to rabble it in our head and get an answer to it when we don't have an answer. But let us cast it. Because with our insufficient stature, we sure can't solve it. So cast it on the Lord. Admit it. Admit our situation and then cast it. I'm not saying to deny it. I'm not saying to ignore it. Things that we find ourselves in. But realize it. Acknowledge it and cast it. Once cast. Don't be a fisherman like Brother Ron and try and reel it back in either. How many times have we done that? We cast those cares and five minutes later we're trying to reel that back in. I don't like feeling this good. I like feeling rotten like I was five minutes ago. Let me get that back. Oh, now I feel rough. I feel horrible. I'm anxiety. My head's about to explode. Now I know how it feels. Now I feel right again. That's not how God wants us to feel. So if we're going to cast it, also make sure you don't reel it back in. Let it go. And then also, don't fret. Keep perspective. Turn over to Romans 8. Romans 8.18 Paul says this, For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Looking to that which lies ahead will keep us with the right perspective. That being that this time here is but a vapor compared to eternity with the Lord in heaven. and a ray of beauty in His majesty and His throne and being in the very presence of the Lord of lords, the King of kings, the One who redeemed us out of the pits of the miry clay and set our feet on solid ground and to no longer be burdened down with the corruption of this flesh and the corruption of this world. Everything will be set right. There will be no more tears. There will be no more sorrows. That's something to get excited about, isn't it? So when we start to get overwhelmed as well, realize that one day, and it could be soon, this is but temporary. Eternity is so much longer and so much greater. And God has so much more for us. Helping us to keep perspective and not fretting. Martha, Martha. We have a lot of Marthas. I've been a Martha many times in my life. Fretting over stuff we have no control over. Losing perspective on the situation at hand. But all these sufferings that we go under and we're experiencing right now, Paul said, are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us once we are absent from the body and transformed. into the image of Christ truly. The sufferings that we bear in this present time, again, are not even to be compared of. Not worthy. In other words, don't give it a moment of your time. I'm not saying it's easy to do. I'm not saying that you won't have to battle at it. But it's possible because God is in you. And He's there to help you. Hakuna Matata. Don't worry. Be happy. You know, Proverbs 17, verse 22, it says, A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. Always being happy. You know, you see people that are happy. That doesn't mean that everything is going right in their life. But they just have a spirit of peace. They have a spirit of happiness. And inside, if you were to know behind closed doors, what they could be going through would turn your head upside down. And sometimes you learn of these things that happen. I would have never known that. Because they didn't share it or something. They kept it to themselves. But yet they seem to be always joyful and stuff. That doesn't mean that we don't experience those type of frustrations. We don't experience anxiety from the pressures that the world puts on us. We don't experience frustration and hurt and pain and suffering and worry from everything that takes place while we live through this world. But if we keep the right mind, if we keep the right perspective, and we realize who's on our side and who's in control of everything, and what is waiting before us, and we always ask God in the morning to keep us right-minded, it'll be so much easier. And our life will be so much more full of joy. You know, when I thought of that Hakuna Matata, the kids know that from the Lion King. And I think of the song part of it, and I'm always reminded by it. And it says, Hakuna Matata. What a wonderful phrase. Hakuna Matata. Ain't no passing craze. It means no worries for the rest of your day. It's our problem-free philosophy. Hakuna Matata. Of course, it talked about a warthog, how he found his aroma lacked a certain appeal. He could clear the savanna after every meal. It said how he was a sensitive soul, though he seemed thick-skinned. It hurt that his friends never stood downwind. Talk about a person who had it rough. That poor war dog just didn't. My friend, realizing who we are and what we are. Common flesh and bone. As well as where our abilities and our capabilities lie. Leaving all that We are unable to take care of in the lap of Jesus will help us thrive in times of stress and uncertainty. Spurgeon said this about it. Cast foreboding cares away. God provided for today. Oh, my heart, what rest there is for thee if thou will give thyself up to the Lord. and leave all thine own concerns with Him. Mind thou thy Lord's business, and He will see to thy business." Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank You for this evening You've given us now. What truth You have within Your Word that brings encouragement, gives us strength, gives us hope, gives us guidance to shed the struggles that the world has upon them and tries to put upon us, and gives us the ability to set an example to the world of how despite all that comes upon us, we have You within us. You are our God, our Father. Lord, there is probably someone in this audience tonight that does not know this personally, has not realized Christ in whom He is, the Savior for all those who would repent and believe. Father, I pray that they will realize that if they're looking for hope, there is no hope outside of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, and His finished work on Calvary. Father, I pray that You save their souls this very night and for us in Christ. Give us a right mind. Keep us focused on Your Word. Lord, help us to always go back to Your Word when the world the devil beats upon us and tries to hinder us from being the child of God that you've redeemed us to be. Forgive us for our failures, comfort us in all that you are, and help us never to forsake your hand upon us as you reach out to us daily. In Jesus' name, amen.