The Couldbes & The Shouldabens (Conclusions)

What should we take away from a systematic study of worry?

1. We must understand that worry is idolatry.
2. We must align our theology and anthropology with that of the bible’s.
3. We must realize that God is sovereign over our trials and our suffering.
4. We must combat worry with the faithful promises of God in the gospel.
5. We must believe that God is faithful & just to forgive those who worry.
6. We must know that future hope can only be found in a promise of resurrection.
7. We must find joy in our salvation (justification, sanctification, and glorification) because it is a means in God’s plan to glorify Himself.

By the recommendation of a friend, and before I recapitulate all that we have covered so far regarding the topic of worry, I want to address several Proverbs that deal well with it:

Proverb 12:
24 The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor. 25 Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.

Though it is not a promise, it is a biblical principle which bears testimony to what we already know is the reality of our experience, that God uses our diligent work as a means to any prosperity that He sees fit to hand out. We know that God does not profit all work, yet work nonetheless is commanded. So the work of biblical prudence, the planning in which we must involve ourselves so we are able to be good stewards over the resources and relationships with which God has blessed us is not what we must avoid but rather, we must avoid the trouble caused by attempting those things in the flesh. Yes we must plan, but brothers make your plans with a mind full of God's precious Words, so as not to offend His holiness by idolatry.

Proverbs 15:
13 A joyful heart makes a cheerful face, but when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken. (NASB)

We can often tell when we encounter a person who is joyful, they just seem to wear it on their face. I pray that this would be the case in my life, and that my joy in the resurrection of Christ and my future resurrection would be contagious to others and a source of good council.

1. As I stated earlier, Matthew 6:25-34 is sufficient proof to call worry idolatry, but while it is one thing to be graced with this realization, it is yet another gracious provision to discern the difference between the temptation to worry and the act of worry from the need to plan and scheme, in other words, by God's grace we must distinguish biblical prudence (as one of my friends has put it) from worry. We must also heed the possible dangers we face if we fail to consider worry a sin. If we deny it, then when we are on the brink of it we will not attack it's closeness as a temptation to offend God by relying on our native resources as sufficient to remedy our situation. This is likely to lead us into other sins such as anger and undue frustration caused by attempting to accomplish our goals in the flesh. And if we do not attack worry as sin we may even suffer from it physically through headaches, stomach ailments and the like. Lastly, but most importantly, as with all sin that is ignored in our lives, if we do not identify worry as idolatry then we offend the holiness of God by trying to take His place. We cannot take such an offence lightly, but we must mortify the sin of worry, yes the sin of idolatry in our lives.

2. Even the children of God are still capable of sin, and the sin of worry/idolatry causes us to consider ourselves as more than we are and to consider God as less than He is. Worry is often that place to which we are taken by our residual, self reliance and self confidence; practically speaking we act as atheists; we replace the All Mighty God, Creator of heaven and earth who is capable of creating both light and calamity, with ourselves as the authority over past present and future things that concern our well-being. This is neither right nor profitable, for Proverbs 3:5-6 say, "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths."

3. Unless our point of view is skewed by some aberrant view of God’s omniscience, or His holiness or His ability to do all that His holy will pleases to do, God's children will glory in, and find hope in the fact that He does work all things together for our good, and that good spoken of here is the Christ likeness He has as a goal for our lives so that His glory is manifest through us in the world. When we are meditating on our possible pain and suffering, past offences against us, and our unknown future outside of the context of the precious truth of God’s sovereignty over those things and His intent on using those things to make us more like Christ and to cause us to hope all the more in the future resurrection that is ours, then we are worrying. Worry is that time we spend concentrating on things over which we have no control; concentrating on those couldbes or shouldabens, or things that didn’t happen as we had hoped or fear that things will not turn out as we had hoped, with the intent of changing them anyway, in spite of the plans our Heavenly Father might have to use them for our sanctification. Most of us tend to sinfully ponder these things, vainly convinced, largely due to our lack of faith, that we are far more capable of handling them than is our Heavenly Father. We fail on those occasions to know the sovereignty of God and our dependence on Him for the very air we breath, thus we forsake the promises of God for the fading promises of this world and for the lies we can sometimes tell ourselves.

4. Christ Jesus has been raised from the dead so that our faith and hope are in God and not in ourselves, for who can raise themselves from the dead? Our hope certainly is in what we do not yet see, for it is an eschatological hope—a hope that is yet future. But it is not an irrational hope that is void of substance, no, it is a hope founded on the events of the past—the work of God in time to redeem creatures and creation. The aim of God the Father in Christ the Son was not merely to absolve our sins, but more so to adopt us as sons, and as which we are counted when we are placed "in Christ". And if in Christ, then heirs of the promise, and if heirs of the promise, then heirs of the hope and glory of resurrection! How is that for quenching the thirst of worry?

5. 1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Just as with all sins, God if faithful and just to forgive His children of their idolatry even when it manifests itself in the form of worry, but we must identify it as such. We must train ourselves to recognize the times: when we are focusing on what might happen and instead of trusting God to glorify Himself through enacting His perfect plan in our lives so we can find our joy in His sovereign control and provision, or when we are focusing on what did happen and wishing in vain that we could change the past; go back and do or say something different. In these cases we either think we are better than God at planning our future or think that we could have planned it better than He did. Either way, we are idolaters trying to usurp the All Mighty God. When we see these sins in our lives by God's sanctifying grace, we need to confess them to our Father, He will forgive us--He promised that He would! At that point we need to meditate on the gospel, that Christ is The Righteous One--Mediator between God and man, the High Priest of our atonement, The Sacrificial Lamb; He lived a life without sinful worry because I couldn't, and He paid for my worry on Calvary's bloody tree.

I believe that as we practice seeking out these temptations to sin in this way, and as we confess the times that we actually do sin this way, that we will by God's grace become more aware of the temptations and we will eventualy be more able to distinguish them from the biblical prudence we are commanded to have, thus we will be mortifying the flesh, and finding our joy in God and not in our ability to plan and to scheme, because we will be trusting the Sovereign as He rules His universe as its King.

6. Don’t look to Abraham to see how to live a faithful life, but look to Abraham to see how God was faithful to him. As I quoted Bunyan earlier, he wrote, “Through His sorrow I have rest, and through His death I have life.” The truths of imputation and substitution in the gospel are both, used to justify and to sanctify. Faith of course is the means by which the foundation of our justification, which is Christ’s merit, is applied, and the words of God are the instruments of Faith. These truths are instruments in the hands of All Mighty God which He uses to draw His children closer to Himself when we face times of worry; we must fight our temptation by building up the defenses of our minds with such truths so to protect against the fire of the Devil’s trebuchet during trials which lay siege to our faith. These defences are found in the truths of the gospel itself, that we are justified by grace alone, through faith in Christ alone, and that our hope in the resurrection is paramount!

7. God surely does glorify Himself as He imputes Christ's righteousness to the account of a dead sinner, and as He separates that sinner out to holiness, and even in His eventual glorification of that sinner because in doing those things He has done what no one can do: He has obeyed the law as our sacrifice, He has applied the blood to the unworthy as their priest, and He presently lives in glory, ruling as our King of Heaven and Earth doing all that He is pleased to do. But He is doubly glorified in our salvation because those He has saved will find joy in their justification, and in their sanctification, expressing that joy in the world and eventual they will find ultimate and everlasting joy, having all their desires perfectly filled in the glory of resurrection...we truly need nothing more than the gospel to absolve us of our worry, yet we will sometimes find ourselves trusting in the false faithfulness of lesser things, and even then, we can find the absolution of that sin in the gospel as well.

The Couldbes & The Shouldabens (part 7)

...continued

Promises from God:

1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

If we fail to consider worry a sin, then when we are on the brink of it, we will not attack its closeness as a temptation to offend God by relying on our native resources as sufficient to remedy our situation.

Proverbs 3:5 & 6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Matthew 6:25-34 is sufficient proof to call worry a sin, but we may have more trouble distinguishing between the temptation and behavior of worry from needful strategizing. We all come across times when we must meditate on a relationship, a decision, past events, possible future events and the sort so we can make informed decisions or give good council. So the question is, when does this meditation become a temptation to sin or sin itself? In all of the situations described above we can look at them, analyze them, and bring God’s Word to bear in order to solve the problem, but all of us at one time or another are tempted to worry when we either, do not attempt to apply The Word or even in the midst of doing so, we still lean on our own understanding or actually try to accomplish godly goals in the flesh. What I mean is that we can identify a problem, find portions and principles of The Word that pertain to it, but then implement the solution in the flesh. Here is an example;

I recently found a small lump on my oldest son, Jeffrey’s, neck late one evening. I know that the Word and sense would tell me to prayerfully seek the proper amount of medical attention to assess and hopefully alleviate the problem, so this is what Melissa (my wife) and I decide to do. I told her to call his doctor in the morning so they could see him as soon as possible. When she called the next morning, the nurse said that they could see him at 10:30. When I heard, there was an immediate temptation to worry about Jeffrey’s health and to be angry at the doctor’s office for not trying to see him sooner, after all his ailment was very serious, or so we thought. But hearing God’s Word speak of His sovereign care and control over Jeffrey’s neck, the doctors and nurses at that office, the persons and illnesses involved in the appointments made previous to ours, my meditation on these truths combated my temptation to worry that the doctor’s were not doing all they could to see him in a timely manner, and they also combated the anger that I would otherwise have given in to because I didn’t think that they were handling our situation to my approval. I had done what was humanly possible to take care of my son, yet if I had gotten angry at the doctor’s office or worried over the amount of time it was going to take for them to see him, then I would have implemented the solution in the flesh. Now, the place where I was most vehemently tempted was while waiting to find out what was actually wrong with our son. The evening before we were able to contact the doctor, and the next morning until I heard the news from Melissa about Jeffrey’s condition were a crucible which God used to burn away the extraneous thoughts of worry in my life. In that period of time I constantly found myself either being tempted to sinfully meditate on what might be or giving into that temptation because my mind was at times void of meditations on God: that void was easily filled by sinful thoughts.

Ultimately, the root of my temptation to worry is my idolatry…yes, my idolatry. Because, at least at moments of time during this trial, I desired my relationship with our son greater than I desired my relationship with my God. I put Jeffrey and our relationship above God and my adoption by Him and the future grace He will employ to raise by dead body to reunite it with my spirit, which He most mercifully redeemed. Because I still struggle with the flesh, I am often tempted to consider myself as more than I am and to consider God as less than He is; in this way, I am at times a practical atheist; I try to do the best I can in a given situation and I leave God and His sovereign hand out of it all together. When I do this, I inescapably end up in a pattern of sinful worry, where I contemplate the couldbes and when that rumination does not solve the problem I then reflect on what shouldaben and when that doesn’t work I again meditate on the couldbes…I think you get the point. But God, in His mercy, saw to it that nothing at all was wrong with Jeffrey, but that his skinny neck allows us to see his lymph nodes very easily...and sometimes they appear as small lumps. The tenderness Jeffrey was experiencing in that area was a result of an infection he had the previous week, which was now gone, Praise God!

So we see that worry is sin and is often associated with other sins: anger, bitterness, and idolatry, so hopefully you can see how 1 Corinthians 10:13 dovetails into this discussion. Paul assures us that the children of God, a God who has proven His faithfulness in Christ, can count on a way of escape because as new creatures graciously adopted into His family, God has given us the ability to resist the temptation to worry, also by His grace, and in this resistance we endure the temptation side by side with Christ our mediator, faithful High Priest, who is King over all His creation yet who also humbled Himself as the atoning sacrifice for our sin.

Because we are metaphysical creations (our spirits and bodies are now linked) we probably experience more difficulty fighting temptation when we are sick, fatigued, or even frightened, and the window for the temptation to worry can be flung wide open when we find ourselves in one or more of these conditions. A good friend of mine has posted two blog articles recently to illustrate the battle which the Christian engages as he faces temptation and I expect it would be edifying for all who take the time to read it.

Lastly, I would like to close this study with the straight forward teachings of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians; very little commentary is needed to apply this passage to our study, so I will try to refrain; what words can I possibly add to the servant of God who was lead by His Spirit to write these?

Ephesians 1:3-14

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Amen, and Amen!

The Couldbes & the Shouldabens (part 6)

...continued Promises from God:

2 Corinthians 1:20
For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

And now finally, promises made to the promise breakers by The Promise Keeper. I do not here desire to discuss the issue of covenantalism verses dispensationalism with regard to a list of those that promises are attributed to the believers after the resurrection, but only to say that, regardless of ones stance on that issue, no one can ignore the statement made here by Paul. Whatever promises are made by God, they find there creation, substance, and completion in the Son of Man. Because that is true, His children are to agree with God because Christ came, died, rose, ascended, and presently intercedes for the saints as was prophesied, we therefore must trust the One who sent Him—He is the Trustworthy One!

Romans 8:18
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

I feel that it is necessary to provide a little context for this verse, not that it really needs it in order for us to rightly apply its meaning, but just to get the full thrust of it:

Romans 8
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. 12 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. 24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

Here again were have the apostle affirming that because God raised Christ from the dead, so also will he raise us—the sons and daughters of glory. And as the previous several chapters have argued, because we are sons we are no longer slaves to sin—obligated to its duties; in fact, those who are slaves to that master shall surely die. The hopeful flip side of that coin is that those who “are putting to death the deeds of the body” (struggling against the old man, desiring to love Christ and make much of Him, and generally bearing the fruit of the spirit), you shall surely live because the sons of God are those who are being lead by the Spirit to do these things and thus we are found: walking in the light, and walking in the spirit. Yet another indicator of having been adopted is that we share in the sufferings of Christ so that we will also share in the glory of His resurrection, and these present sufferings cannot possibly be compared to that glory, for just as Christ who, “…for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”, we too must hope in the future in order to withstand our present trials. Christ set forth a pattern, one which begin in and continued in humiliation, and in His High Priestly work He suffered also as the sacrifice, yet at its consummation, His work was crowned with glory in His resurrection.


As Paul states, our hope certainly is in what we do not yet see, for it is an eschatological hope—a hope that is yet future. But it is not an irrational hope that is void of substance, no, it is a hope founded on the events of the past—the work of God in time to redeem creatures and creation. Have you ever asked, why is the God-head considered in this Father/Son relationship; why is Christ considered a "Son"? I submit one answer, that the aim of God the Father in Christ the Son was not merely to absolve our sins, but more so to adopt us as sons, and as which we are counted when we are placed "in Christ". And if in Christ, then heirs of the promise, and if heirs of the promise, then heirs of the hope and glory of resurrection! How is that for quenching the thirst of worry?

Romans 8:28-30
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Quite possibly the most quoted passage when we think of battling worry, I know I come back to this passage often. I know that it doesn’t say promise in the text but the elements of a promise are there—Paul, through the Spirit, told us of the sure work of God in us. First, he defined Christians as those who love God, and that they are also the ones who are called, which is His purpose (God intended and affected their calling and their love for Him). Paul goes on to state that the ones who love God were also those whom He knew beforehand and would eventually call to Himself. And lastly, regarding the description of believers, Paul tells us that God’s ultimate intention is to conform us to the image of His Son. He then he goes on to inform us that everything in the life of the believer, those of us who love God, is being worked together (or caused in the NASB) for our good.

There is no contextual or grammatical basis to think that the word all in verse 28 is limited in scope as it elsewhere can be, so we comfort in that fact that all the events and circumstances of our lives are here included: our birth, our happiness and sorrows, our triumphs and defeats, and even our death. The next thing to note is that it is obvious, based solely on the fact that even one believer has ever been martyred, that protecting us from physical death, illness, calamities, sufferings, bondage, hunger, poverty, discomfort and the like was not what Paul meant here by that which God intends as good. The good spoken of here is that ultimate goal Paul brought out in verse 28, that God intends to conform us to the image of His Son; this is good, and He intends to use, yes He has even ordained, all that occurs in our lives to bring about this end, finally culminating His purpose in the resurrection of our bodies to the unification of our spirits and bodies, where in heaven we will see Christ as He is and worship Him forever without the possibility of sin, for His glory through our greater joy!

Paul continues this chain in verse 30 where he exhorts us by stating the fact that the one God has predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ, that one He most certainly will call to Himself, and the one called is the one who will be justified by the merciful grace of God, and the one whom God has justified, He will also glorify in His glorious return!

Unless our point of view is skewed by some aberrant view of God’s omniscience, or His holiness or His ability to do all that His holy will pleases to do in His creation and in the lives of those He has created, then we will affirm the truths stated in this passage and we will actually be able to take comfort in them. Here again we see that our hope and our joy are to be found in a resurrection; the future glorification of our bodies.

...to be continued.