Sunday 24 August 2025

Raw transcript of meeting:

Date Of Sermon: 24^th August 2025

Speaker: Jamie Boland

Sermon Title: Why Pray When You Can Worry?

Scripture Reading: Matthew 6:25-34

 Today's reading is from Matthew chapter six, verses 25 to 34.

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 who have you by worrying can add a single hour to his life. And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin yet, I tell you that not even Solomon and all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God closed the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you or he 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.

Thank you, Wendy, for that reading. So we're working our way through the Lord's Prayer, our sermon series. I should point here not there. I can see there. You can see there. Our sermon series is planting seeds, so we're bringing before the Lord, the future of the church. We wanna plant seed. For a tree in whose shade we might never bask.

We wanna pray into being the future life that God has for this church. Now, I think so far we're enjoying the series. Yeah, we're learning about prayer. For some of us, it's a reminder of the basics. It's just Christianity 1 0 1. But I know there's others here that are developing in their understanding of what it means to pray, and I'm one of them.

Okay. I'm learning as I go, and no matter which camp you fall into, at the end of the day, the goal is the same. Jesus gave his disciples this blueprint so they can pray. He didn't say, I'm gonna give you this blueprint to increase your knowledge about prayer. He gave it to them so it would give life and shape to something they were already doing.

This is all about application. The purpose of this series. It's not just to fill our heads with more knowledge about prayer, to see where it leads. The purpose is to inspire us to pray that we might be doers of the word, not just hear us. Amen. Now, the title of my message today is Why Pray When You Can Worry, and Yes, it is deliberate because it does sound absurd when you put it the wrong way around.

Yeah, I shared with the guys earlier, I was expecting a cauldron or someone say, you put it the wrong way around. And they were laughing because it does sound absurd when you put it like this, and let's commit this time to the Lord. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we just thank you that we can gather as your people, that we are holy and blameless in your sight because of Jesus.

Holy Spirit, we pray. Come now, anoint my words. Open our hearts. Plant a deep seed in our life. That would inspire in us and develop in us the capacity to pray. Father, we thank you for these things in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. The last weekend we had our movie night, we watched this film, unsung Hero Who, who liked the film.

Wow. It was a great film. So it's a wonderful film based on the true story of the Small Bone family. And as you can see on the graphic it says one family's journey from down under Australia to center stage. Now some of you may have heard of Rebecca St. James. She's a a famous Christian singer and songwriter.

This is actually the cover of her record prey. Two of her younger brothers, I think it's Joel and Luke, they formed a band called a duo. Duo called for King and Country. Now listen to this for success. Between them, they've earned five Grammy awards and performed for over 10 million people worldwide.

They're combined. Record sales are just shy of 3 million and get this for King and Country have over 150 million streams of their music. Now, do you know what streaming is? Okay. Streaming is when you, you know, one of your songs gets listened to on the internet 150 million times their songs have been listened to online.

Now they've even released a, a, a duet with Dolly Parton. So you could say they've made it, okay. You look at these guys and you can see this is what success looks like. But before they made it big, there was a time when it didn't look like they were gonna make it at all. They were only very small children When their father packed up the family and he said, we're gonna move, we're going take this big step into the unknown.

They went from Sydney to Nashville in the USA and the Father. He had this dream of making it big as a record producer in the Christian music industry. Now, however, as we. Or in the film, when they get to the US, things don't go to plan a contract that he had lined up ready to go upon, which their whole future was stake.

That contract falls through and here they are. They, they, you know, they're left alone, not only alone in a foreign country, they're separated from, you know, the support network of family and friends. They're also left without an income. Now as the father, you've got a family to feed and you've got one more mouth on the way.

If you weren't worried before, now was the time to start worrying. Yeah, it's time to panic. The film is called Unsung Hero. Sorry, skipped ahead. So they don't have an income, okay. They've got no family furniture, the support network. Okay. So they don't have a car, they don't have household furniture. And so here they are.

And so, you know, what's the future hold? And so the film is called Unsung Hero. And in that film, mom is that hero. She's the glue that holds the family together as things fall apart. Now, here's the thing. Her glue is not wisdom or courage. It's this unwavering conviction that they are where God wants them to be.

And because of that, she believes that God will make a way. Now, they could have very easily at that point, packed up, gone home, but she believed. Now there's a beautiful scene at the beginning of the film, mom and dad, they gathered the children round in a circle on the floor because they don't have furniture to sit on.

They gather around, they hold hands, and Mom says this, we need to be honest because we need your help. Kids, we need your help. And they come. They come clean. They tell the kids the whole truth. And the mom says this, we need to pray every day for everything we need, every single one of our needs. We need to pray every day.

Give us this day our daily bread. And this is basically the, the heart of their needs, the need for rent, for bills, for groceries. And then one of the little boys, he prays and he couldn't be more than 10 years old. He says this, God, I pray that you will give us everything we need a job's. A dad, if it a help, I wouldn't mind having one too, to which two of the older children pray.

You know me as well. Me as well. We'll take jobs too. And then the rest of the children seated around in that circle, they chime in, they pray, and we need food and a car and furniture so we don't have to sleep on the floor. Lastly, dad prays very simply, God, I don't even know where to start. But I ask that you would show mom and me, all of us, show us the way.

Amen. Keep it simple. Keep it real. Keep it up. And they do. What they do is they create this prayer wall. They write down their needs on a bit of paper, and then they just stick them up on the wall, and as the prayer is answered, they move it from one side of the wall that says, please, to the side that says, thank you.

Now at one point they're buying groceries. They're at the store, they're at the checkout, and they don't have enough money to pay for what they've got. So. Gotta put things back. And this poor little boy, he's looking disheartened when they get home, when you know, he asks. He asks, mom, how do you spell cheap?

And dad overhears this and he wants to know why. And the boy says, I want to ask God to make things more cheap. Okay? It's a beautiful childlike faith. A few days later, they're cleaning someone's yard and one of them finds a stack of food coupons in a bin. Next scene, they're at the shop. This little boy's eyes are lighting up as he sees the total of their bill going down, down, down.

And as soon as, as. Soon as he gets home, guess what he does? He takes this piece of paper with the word cheap on it and he moves it to the thank you side of the prayer wall. We heard these words in our reading today. Words straight from the lips of Jesus. He says, 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 than food and the body more than clothes. Look at the birds of the air. They don't sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. You not much more valuable than nay can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? Now those final words are profound.

Worry doesn't add a single hour to anyone's life, and yet it's something that all of us do. Yeah, anyone here, not worry. We all do. Now, there's a famous quote. It says, worrying doesn't take away tomorrow's troubles. It takes away today's peace. Worrying doesn't give, it only takes away. Listen to these words from Cory 10.

Boom. She says, worry is a cycle of, in inefficient thoughts, whirling around a center of fear. Fear. Jesus tells us in these words, your Heavenly Father cares for you, so don't worry about what you're gonna eat or drink. You are worth much more to God than the birds of the air. He then goes on to describe how God, you know, closed the flowers of the field, even though they don't labor or spin.

And he says, God is so majestic in it that not even Solomon in all of his splendor looked as finely dressed as they do, and Jesus concludes. If that is how God closed 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?

What shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the pagans, those who don't know God, they're chasing after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need him. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, he concludes do not worry about tomorrow.

For, for tomorrow is gonna worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. The profound, simple words. And I love the simplicity of what Jesus says. You know, Jesus is the master teacher. He doesn't, you know, talk abstractly about the, you know, the sovereign, you know, providential goodness of God in your life.

Uses real practical examples and uses these simple illustrations from nature to show just how much God cares for his creation. It's a beautiful way of teaching, connecting common everyday people to the reality of God's goodness in his provision in our life. Now, I want us to note something here. God feeds the birds of the air and he closed the flowers of the field.

He also gives to us, but not in exactly the same way. You see, there's something different about us over and above all other creatures. We alone were made for relationship with God, and even though God knows what we need, part of that relationship is coming before him and petitioning him to supply our needs.

Charles Spurgeon said this, whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the kingdom. Jesus. Put it like this. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks, receives the one who seeks. Finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will open.

See the words I've highlighted? Ask, seek, knock. These are all verbs. Verbs are what they're doing. Words, things you need to do. And the Greek here is the present. Continuous tense. Keep on asking, keep on seeking. Keep on knocking. It's what I've been saying every week. Keep it simple. Keep it real. Keep it up.

That's what it's saying here. Keep it up. Jesus then closes this out by telling us something about God's character, his nature. He says this, which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Anyone here gonna do that? Or if he asks for a fish, we'll give him a snake. Definitely not if you then though you are evil.

Here's the comparison. Know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him? He's understating the reality that God, by nature is a good God. Amen. God is good. He provides for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. But for us, he desires that we come to him and ask, that's what he wants.

Think of about think. Think about it like this. If God just gave us everything we needed without us ever asking, what would God become to us? If God just gave it unlimited supply of everything we needed, without us needing to come to him and ask, what would God become to us? At a minimum, we would forget the one from whom or blessings flow.

I mean, how many daily provisions does he already give, which we rarely say thanks from the air we breathe to the sun coming up in the morning. At a minimum, we would take God for granted. I think Thanksgiving would cease, faith would be non-existent, and we'd ex, you know, we'd simply expect and demand. I think we'd become entitled Little brats.

Think of a parent approached by a toddler. They know the child wants a hug, but they want the child to ask, even if it's just the child coming up to ask for, uh, you know, some affection like this. Why do we want the child to ask? Because there's something in the act of the child communicating that desire for affection that delights the heart of the parent.

I want your love. Can I tell you, God's no different. It delights his heart when he trusts, when we trust in his goodness. And come to him and ask. Now we've been looking at the Lord's Prayer. The entire prayer consists of six petitions. The first three have to do with God's glory and a distinguished by the word Your our Father in heaven.

Hello, be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done. Done. The second set of three petitions are focused on our wellbeing and dis. English by the word us. Give us our daily bread. Forgive us our sins lead us not into temptation. Now, it's interesting when you think about this prayer that Jesus gave us, we go from asking that the universal reign of God be seen on earth as it's seen in heaven to give us this day our daily bread.

It's one almighty step down. You know, think about this. We go from praying for global concerns to, you know, focusing on me and my own little needs. Now because of this, some of the church fathers spiritualized this to make it refer to the bread of communion. 'cause you know, in their mind they're thinking, how can we go for praying for God's glory to be seen throughout the world to something as mundane as asking God for groceries.

Can I tell you we don't need to oversize this? Jesus teaches us to ask God to give. Don't ever think that asking God to meet the everyday needs of your life is some lesser form of prayer. It's not some lesser form of prayer. See it as a childlike expression of faith that delights the heart of God.

Something that draws us into a relationship of dependence and trust. One in which we can say, God, I am not a self-made person. Everything, every good thing I have comes from you. And when I lack, I don't need to worry because God, I can trust you. Do. I remember when I was laid off from my last ministry position, I was released quite unceremoniously.

I won't go into the details, but Clara and I, we had some very pressing needs on our horizon. We just come home from Africa. We're in mission housing. That's soon to expire. We needed a rental. To get a rental. You need jobs. We're walking along the river. And despite the very real fear of these things on our immediate horizon, we just had this faith that said, we trust God.

We, we held hands and we said, God's got this. Within a week, we had a rental just around the corner in Westminster. I hadn't put in an application. The estate lady called me and said, I want your application. They don't need to do that. They've got enough already. She wanted our application. Within a week, we had the home Westminster's just around the corner.

A few months later, I got this job. My wife now works around the corner, a pregnancy problem house. We stood on the river that day and we said, despite the very real fear we could have, we trust in God and God provided you don't have to worry. God's got this. The question is, are you trusting him? When we pray, give us this day our daily bread.

What we're saying is there's nothing too small or too trivial to bring before God. I believe we do God great honor when we come to him with our little things. Don't ever feel that something's too small to bring before the almighty creator of the universe. I believe in bringing that small thing to him.

We do Him great honor. We say, father I, I, I, I can take this out of my own hands and trust that you've got this. Don't ever think that God's too busy to deal with the petty details of your life. You know, some people might think, I'm not gonna pray for daily bread 'cause you know, surely there's issues of far greater consequence in the world than me and my little needs.

I mean, God's got bigger fish to fry air. He's probably too busy, you know, listening to Prayers for Peace in the Middle East. And besides, who am I anyway? I'm no one. God doesn't really want to hear from me. Can I refute that in the strongest possible terms? I love what we see in the story of Blind Bar Maus.

You know the story. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, Palm Sundays just around the corner. And the crowds, they're ready to proclaim and install him as King. And Mark tells us that Jesus and his disciples. Together with a large crowd came to Jericho. Now I want us to picture the scene. It would've been chaos.

Absolute chaos. All this momentum is building up around Jesus and the crowds. They would've been pressing in just to get a piece of him. He's passing through town, they're believing this guy's the Messiah, and they want to see him enthroned as king. Next, stop Jerusalem. So step aside, get out of the way the king is coming through.

Okay, and this guy's a man on a mission. And Mark tells us there's a blind man standing by the side of the road and he's begging. He's just some little insignificant, nobody, he's blind. He can't see what's happening. All he knows is there's this huge commotion going on all around him, this wave of noise and energy.

And then he hears it's Jesus of Nazareth. And then he begins to shout Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Now there's an irony here. He's blind, but he recognizes that this man is king. He's the son of David, promised to the people of Israel and Marxists, the crowds are listening to this guy and they're, they're rebuking him.

It's like they're saying, man, shut up. Can't you see? He's got more important things to deal with than some insignificant blind man. You know, sit down, step aside, get out of his way. Now, for some of us, that would be the end. We'd be discouraged, we'd give up, we'd walk away. You know, I cried out to God, but you know, God didn't hear me.

I guess God doesn't care about a little old man who can blame him. After all, he's far too busy taking care of the rest of the universe. I love what we see here. God is drawn near and there is no way Blind Bar Maeu is gonna miss out. He's desperate. He's told to be quiet. But Mark writes, he shouted, all the more son of David, have mercy on me.

You can't stop this guy. Now I wonder, do we have the same sort of desperation, this desperation to take hold of God and have him move in our midst? And understand the volume of noise, there would've been this cacophony of sound. There's this massive crowd. They're crushing in and pressing in around Jesus, and yet Jesus hears and Jesus stops and Jesus calls.

And he says to blind butter, maus, what is it that you want me to do for you? It's like, hello, I'm blind. Isn't it Quite obvious what I want? I wanna see now Jesus knows what he wants, but there's something about being specific in articulating our needs to God. Yes, God knows what we need before we ask. But here's the thing.

When we're specific in prayer, God has his way of helping us better understand our desires and to see where they may need to be tweaked to be more fully aligned with His to get that. I like what Pete Greg says in the 24 7 prayer course. It's completely right to ask God, not just for our necessities, but sometimes for our luxuries.

Just don't expect God to always provide them. This is daily bread we're asking for, and you, you can't necessarily expect Nutella on it every time. Listen to how the brother of James, uh, sorry, James, the brother of Jesus puts it, he says. When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

God invites us to ask, but he calls us to ask with kingdom motives and when we're specific in prayer, God has his way of sifting our desires and aligning them with his. Now, in saying all of this, it is absolutely okay to ask God for a job that allows us to buy daily bread. And it's okay to ask God for a job that is meaning meaningful and fulfilling.

We can do this because God cares for us and he asks us to ask. And here's the thing. When we pray specific prayers and God answers like God, you know, please make things more cheap. When God answers those prayers as childlike as they are, it inspires faith and it produces in us something that we can then give back to God.

Thanksgiving and praise. If you just pray, God bless me, God bless me, God bless me, you're not gonna see a specific answer to a specific prayer. But when you pray specifically for a certain need in God answers, it will produce in you this desire to give it back to him and in praise and thanksgiving, and it will inspire further faith for God to do more.

Asking for daily bread is an anti, is the antidote to worry. I find when I don't pray, I end up worrying and boy can it consume me. Do you ever do that? You get to the other side and you think, why didn't I pray? All this mental energy anxiety wasted, frustrated because I, I was consumed by worry. What I find when I bring it to God in prayer, I end up magnifying my Heavenly Father rather than magnifying something trivial, I wanna close with a story and a challenge.

Now, a few weeks ago, I shared about a church I was connected to during my time in Northern Sudan. When I first went to speak there, I drowned in sweat. You know, it would've been 45 degrees indoors. They had no electricity. Someone once said to me, you know, when we were in South Sudan, this was Northern Sudan, this was less developed in South.

Do you have air conditioning? I said, have you no idea where we are. So here we were. We've got no air con, no fans. Northern Sudan. I was the sultan of sweat. I remember our wedding day, Claudia's father brought her up to me, our hands joined. There was just this of sweat. This is a. Hot place to live. Okay, I'm painting the picture, so here I am.

I'm part of this church. I'm preaching, and whenever I'm preaching, I am just dripping. A little while later, I sent a newsletter to my supporters in that I wrote about this amazing little church. Now, every single person in that church was by Western standards, desperately poor. I've got actually a picture of the area, and most of them, they're internally displaced refugees.

They're people who have fled war to start life again. They've had to leave where they were, where they're set up, where they're settled. Family life, they've had to move. You don't bring much with you. They're starting life again, and here they are. They're living in this shanty town on the fringe of the Sahara Desert.

Now, despite being poor by Western standards, one of their main ministries was providing food and clothes to orphans and widows in the area. Even Muslim widows, they would even care for the Muslim widows in their area. So this is a church with no electricity, and yet they believe the money they had was better spent on, you know, providing daily bread to those in need.

Now when we think about electricity, what we consider a need, they considered it to be a luxury. And so I share about this with my supporters in this newsletter. I'm not trying to elicit support. I'm simply highlighting the joy of working with such kingdom minded people. I also wrote about how this church didn't have a pit larine.

They had no electricity, they had no toilet. Now, here's where the story gets interesting. I was due to preach at the church on one Sunday. On the Wednesday before I get an email from a friend here in Perth, he said, look, I'm gonna pay for the pit larine. Get me the costs. I'll send the money. So this is great news.

Yeah. Now, this is about three months after I've sent my newsletter on the Friday. I am scheduled to go to a baby dedication. I wasn't feeling well, and so last minute I decided not to go. Claudia, she went, when she came home, she said, ah, you'd never guess that the pastor of this church was actually the person who presided over the the baby dedication.

I had no idea he'd been there. Now, here's the thing. If I had gone, I would've said to him, Hey brother, good news. Someone's offered to pay for the toilet, but. My not going was providential on the Saturday morning. Again, unbeknownst to me, the people of this church gathered around a spot where they said, this is gonna be a good place to to dig this LER train, and for one whole hour they prayed for God's provision.

Then for the next two hours, they praised God for his provision. So I get to church on Sunday morning. I tell one of the elders about this email, and he's smiled. Nothing like an African smile. It's just beautiful. He smiled, just lit up the room. He then tells me what happened the day before. Now here's the thing.

For four days I've been sitting on the answer to the prayer that they prayed the day before. If I'd gone to this baby dedication on the Friday, I would've told the pastor. The pastor would've told the people and the people wouldn't have prayed. Can you see how my not going to this baby dedication was providential.

Now here's the good, good, good part. I got to stand in front of these people in the church and, and I got to tell them that God had answered the prayer that they had prayed less than 24 hours earlier. Q, chaos Q pandemonium. There was this eruption of spontaneous joy and can I tell you, Africans know how to celebrate.

Amen. When you are with Africans and they're celebrating. Man, it is powerful thing. I was floating. I was literally felt like I was floating. I discovered that day the meaning of the words. Blessed are the feet of those who bring good news. A few days later I heard that a man from Texas paid to have the electricity put on here was a church that could have taken what they had, you know, to provide for their own needs, but instead they used it to minister to the daily needs of those around them.

Orphans, widows, even Muslim widows. So words we heard today in our reading, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So that's the story now for the challenge. We as a church have needs. Think of this story that I used to introduce this sermon, the Small Bone Family.

Without prayer, they would not have made it. The lack of provision of Daily Bread would've seen them go home to Australia and we wouldn't be talking about them here today. Like them. We need to come together as a family and pray. We have needs. We have many needs, and we can say, yes, God knows what our needs are, but there's no good acknowledging that and not praying.

God invites us to ask, and that's what this whole entire season is about. It's about us rallying together as a family to pray. The question is, are we desperate, like blind Bartimaeus? Are we willing to shout out to Jesus and ask him to move? If you've got a copy of the friendly Messenger, what I've done is I've put three major priority prayer needs.

I've got a copy here. You can see them on the screen. Guys. We need gifted people. We need a next generation. We ain't getting any younger. And we also want to think about hiring for growth. And you can see I filled out alongside those. Prayer needs a little brief explanation of what it is specifically that we can pray for.

Can I ask you to please pray? I think what the mom said to the children, she gathered them around. She said, we need to pray and we need to pray every day. Can I ask you to keep the needs of the church in prayer? Can I also ask you to join with us when we, when we do pray, we'd love to have more people come and pray.

I really believe God wants to move, and I believe God moves in response to his children coming and pouring out their hearts in supplication to him. Do you believe that? Yeah. We don't waste time on a Wednesday morning when we pray. We don't waste time on a Saturday. Every second fortnight one, we meet every second week one, we pray.

What I wanna do, I wanna close, not with prayer, but with these words from Paul's letter to the church in Philippine. Let me read. Paul says, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, every single situation, by prayer and petition. With Thanksgiving present your requests to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Amen.