What If

Introduction

Good morning, everyone. It’s good to see you. It’s good to be here with you. I’m filling in for Brent, as Craig said, so if this is your first time visiting us, please don’t judge the group as a whole by me alone. But it’s an honor and a privilege to have you here, and we look forward to getting to know you a little bit. In our slow but steady effort to make it up closer this way geographically, my wife and I recently sold our house. The moving process was made a little bit easier by several really great men from the congregation and Jonas. But during the process of selling our house, there were a lot of what if questions for me anyway. What if it sells too quickly and we have to figure out somewhere else to live temporarily?

What if it takes too long and we end up missing out on the new house that we’ve been waiting for a year for? What if we don’t get enough for it? And then we don’t have the money to be able to afford the new one. And these kind of questions just swirl in my head. And Amanda was kind enough at one point to remind me that we’ve been through life events that were much more difficult in our lives already. And when she said this to me, I couldn’t help but remember a time when Abigail was just a few days old, and maybe I’ve told this story before, and if so, I apologize. But we were told effectively when she was born that we would have maybe a couple of weeks with her, and that was about it.

And we were faced with the assumed reality that her life was just going to be a couple of weeks, and there was no plan for her. It was simply a waiting game. And then when she was 10 days old, we were able to have her transferred from San Antonio, where she was born to Texas Children’s here in Houston. And those what if questions swirled in my mind once again. What if she doesn’t live long enough for the transport team to get here? What if the hospital in Houston can’t do anything for her? What if we hope and we pray and we trust and we do all the things that we can do and the inevitable happens anyway.

1. What If Questions Come From Worry and Fear

What if this? What if that? But there’s a hard truth that comes with asking what if. And that hard truth is that these kinds of questions don’t come from courage or faith. Questioning what if this or what if that does not come from a place of strength, does not come from faith. Those questions come from worry. Those questions come from fear. They come from the uneasy feeling of unknown outcomes. They come from a mind and a heart that isn’t focused where it should be. And as I stand before you this morning and talk about how these what if questions swirl in my mind, I am in effect admitting that there have been times where my faith has struggled. Maybe there have been times where your faith has struggled too.

The fact is, fear and worry do not come from God. If you consider your job, your career, what if my employer has layoffs? What if it takes me a long time to find a new job? What if we burn through our savings? Consider family. What if my kids are influenced by the wrong people? What if my kids make bad decisions? What if my parents resent me for the decisions I make? Or health. What if this pain is something more serious? What if the tests come back positive? What if it’s terminal? Or questions about the future? What if the cost of living continues to go up? What if I can never retire? What if my parents get sick and can’t take care of themselves? These questions, and questions like them, questions that you have probably asked yourself at some point, come from worry or fear.

The unknown can be a difficult thing for us because by nature, I think we tend to be planners and preparers. We want to know the future because we want to be able to be ready for it. We want to be prepared for it. We want to be able to tackle it and handle it and deal with whatever comes our way. And not knowing what may come, and living life waiting for the other metaphorical shoe to drop tends to sometimes overtake our thoughts, our minds, and ultimately our hearts. The core of who we are as a people.

2. Jesus Says, Do Not Be Anxious

And we can spend our lives wasting our minds and our hearts and our thoughts and our emotions on things that feel so important, but in reality might not be so important. Maybe you’re saying, well, I think having a job and being able to pay my bills is pretty important. Or I think my relationships with my family are kind of an important thing that I should consider that I should prioritize in my life. Or you might be saying, how am I supposed to not care about my health and test results and potential problems in the future? How am I supposed to not think about those things? Of course, those things are important. But are they important enough to worry about? Jesus seemed to be pretty clear in Matthew chapter 6.

If you’ve turned there, I want to begin reading in verse 25. Jesus seemed to be pretty clear when he said, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. What you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body what you will put on. Is not life worth more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns. And yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin.

Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? Oh, you of little faith. Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. Jesus says here, and just a couple minutes worth of speaking for us reading, three times if you go down and you include verse 34, do not be anxious. That doesn’t sound like a suggestion. It doesn’t sound like Jesus is saying, Hey, trust me, you’m here to tell you, if you can get the anxiety a little bit under check, that’s probably a good idea.

Jesus says, Don’t be anxious. Don’t worry. And the things he says to not be anxious about, not worry about, are what we might consider the necessities of life. The things that on our list of priorities are perhaps near the top. He says, Don’t worry about what you’re going to eat. Don’t worry about food. What happens if we don’t have enough food? What happens if we go too long without eating? He says, Don’t worry about what you’re going to drink. Don’t worry about what you’re going to wear. Don’t worry about your body. But he starts off by saying, do not be anxious about your life. Don’t be anxious about the physical material world that you exist in. These all seem to be incredibly important things that would be on the top of our list to worry about.

And yet Jesus says specifically to not be anxious about them, not worry about them. Even more than that, even more than simply saying, do not be anxious, he equates being anxious about these things to someone who lacks faith. That’s a tough pill to swallow.

Or what if this scenario comes to pass? That I am not exhibiting a fullness of faith, but according to Jesus, I am exhibiting a lack of faith. He goes on to equate people who have such mindset as the Gentiles. And what Jesus means here by the idea of the Gentiles is people who don’t have God. When you worry about the cares of the world, when you ask yourself, what if about the future? And you have anxiety about things that you cannot control, you are acting as someone who does not have God. That should be a wallop upside the head if you belong to Christ. These are some pretty serious accusations. To lack faith and to act as one who does not have a relationship with God is certainly not a camp that we want to be part of at best, and one we don’t want God to accuse us of at worst.

3. We Are Called to Be People of Self-Control

We can’t let Satan control our heart. We can’t let Satan control our mind, our thoughts, our emotions. For those of us this morning who are Christians, we are called to be people of self-control. When we worry about the things of this world, the things of this life, the what ifs that may happen, we are not exhibiting self-control. And yet, as I prepared for this lesson, the idea of self-control is all throughout the New Testament. I’m going to go through a few verses fairly quickly to make this point. 1 Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 25, Paul writes to the Christians in Corinth, he says, in his example of athletes, every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

1 Timothy 2, verse 9. Paul says, likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control. Going to chapter 3 of verse Timothy, verse 2, and talking about elders, Paul says, therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled. A similar passage in Titus 2, verse 2. Paul says, older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled. Skipping down to verse 6 of Titus chapter 2, Paul says, likewise urge the younger men to be self-controlled. One of the more well-known passages regarding self-control is Galatians 5, where Paul is writing to the Christians in Galatia about the fruits of the Spirit, and he starts out by talking about the fruits of the flesh. And in verse 23, he says, one of the fruits of the Spirit is gentleness, self-control.

One of the things that we produce through having a relationship with God ought to be control over who we are. And that includes control over how we feel, control over how we react, control over how we think. James chapter 4, beginning in verse 4. James doesn’t explicitly mention self control, but he says, submit yourselves to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. It takes control, it takes thought, it takes intention, it takes work to resist the devil, to resist those worrisome thoughts, to resist those things that creep in at night when you’re trying desperately to go to sleep, and you can’t, you can’t stop thinking about all those things on your mind.

4. Even If: Faith Before the Fiery Furnace

What if this happens tomorrow? What if that doesn’t work out the way that I think it will? What if this doesn’t happen the way that I hope it does? We cannot let Satan control who we are, our hearts, the core of our being, with our own thoughts, with our own worry, with our own feeling. So, what do we do with this mentality? I want to turn your attention in the Old Testament to Daniel chapter 3. And I want to start reading in verse 1. Jacob texted me this morning and sent me his list of songs and asked me, is there anything I should change? And I noticed that before the lesson he had light the fire, which was not part of the plan. And yet we’re going to talk a little bit about the fiery furnace this morning.

Begin reading with me in Daniel chapter 3 and verse 1. King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, whose height was 60 cubits and its breadth six cubits. He set it up on the plain in Dura in the province of Babylon. The king Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather the satraps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then the satraps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasures, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And the herald proclaimed aloud, You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning, fiery furnace. Therefore, as soon as all the people heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, all the people’s nations and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Therefore, at that time, certain Chaldeans came forward and maliciously accused the Jews. They declared to King Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever. You, O king, have made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music shall fall down and worship your golden image. And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into a burning fiery furnace.

There are certain Jews you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, pay no attention to you. They do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar, in furious rage, commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. So they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you had you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up. What a question to be asked by the king. Now, if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music to fall down and worship the image that I have made well and good.

The king is going to give them one final chance. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into the fiery furnace. And who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands? I don’t know about you, but when I get to this point in the story, there seems to be a lot that you could worry about at this point. In those days and times, the king was not like what we experience here in relation to our government. You did not have the right to free speech, you did not have the right to protest, you did not have the right to do as you please.

And if you did not, there will be consequences.

That doesn’t sound like a way that I want to go.

What if this is all for nothing? What if what if they have their faith in God and God doesn’t come through? What if they do all the right things? What if they set themselves up as an example of faith and trust and endurance in the face of the king? And God lets them down. What if God doesn’t spare them? And yet, if we continue on in verse 16, we don’t see this faith-lacking mentality. A mentality that I would probably tend to have in this scenario. Continuing on in verse 16, it says, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. This is an insulting beginning to their reply. Because if you remember when the Chaldeans came to the king, they said, Oh, king, live forever.

You are to bow down before the king. You are to kiss the king’s feet. You are to treat the king as if he was God. And in their reply, they don’t even refer to him as the king. They just simply say, Oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O King. But even if he doesn’t, be it known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. This is what faith looks like. This is what trust in God and confidence in the Father looks like.

This is how we should approach the trials and the tribulations and the worries of life. Because they admit that God is able. And when we ask, what if this or what if that, we are not trusting that God is able. We are instead relying on our own abilities, on our own strength, on our own ability to navigate whatever comes next. They believe that God is able, and they had faith to the point where they told the king, He will, I believe He will deliver us. That seems like maybe a little too much optimism. And yet they believed that He would deliver them, and yet they understand that God is ultimately in charge, and ultimately He is the one who’s going to make the choice. Because it could have been that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego dying in the fiery furnace at the hands of the king was God’s will for his purpose to further whatever agenda God has next.

And I believe they were prepared to be that sacrifice. And instead of saying, what if this or that, they say, even if, even if you do what you will, King, even if you throw us into this furnace, even if we die by your hands, even if God does not save us, even if we are wrong about our expertise, about our expectation of God saving us from this, none of that matters. We will not bow down and worship the golden image. That is the faith that I ought to have when it comes to selling a house. They confidently believe that God has the ability to save them, and their faith causes them to declare that even if any outcome occurs, they will obey and honor God. Because even if comes from faith and courage.

5. Be Strong and Courageous

Even if comes from the right place in our relationship with God. And we see this in a couple of places in the Old Testament and the New Testament. One I want to highlight in the Old Testament is Joshua chapter one. Shortly after Joshua becomes in charge of God’s people to lead them into the promised land. I have a feeling if I was in Joshua’s shoes, I might feel a little trepidation. That suddenly I’m in charge, and I’m supposed to lead God’s people into a land that, yes, it was promised, but it is full of giants. And it’s full of mighty people. And I can’t imagine as somebody who’s five foot four, an actual giant.

It surely must have been an intimidating challenge. And so God says to Joshua in verse 6 of chapter 1, be strong and courageous. For you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant commanded. You do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous, do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. This is a very strong echo to what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6. When Jesus said, Do not be anxious. And God here tells Joshua, be strong and courageous. And then he echoes that only the only thing you need to do is be strong and courageous. How do we navigate? How do we defeat those thoughts of worry and those what if questions that might bombard us in our times of trouble? It is by being strong and courageous. He tells Joshua, be careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left that you may have good success wherever you go.

Do you want to be successful in defeating worry and anxious thoughts? And the fear of the unknown, the worry about the future. Be careful to do according to what God has commanded you. God has commanded you to not be anxious and instead be strong and courageous. Echoing this in the New Testament in 2 Timothy chapter 1, beginning in verse 6, Paul tells Timothy, for this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. There’s the self-control that we read so much about earlier. When you fear, when you worry, when you’re up at night wondering about what if this or what if that, what if I never get better?

What if this thing happens at work? What if I stand up for my beliefs and I lose my job?

Conclusion

That is a spirit of fear, and that does not come from God. If it doesn’t come from God, there’s only one place that it comes from. The reality is worry and fear and anxious thoughts make us captives of Satan. We allow him to control our thoughts, our minds, our focus, our hearts, instead of allowing God to control those aspects of who we are as people. It’s a very sobering thought to me to think that I’m a baptized child of God, and there are times in my life where I let the evil one control me. Brothers and sisters, that should never be for me or for you, regardless of whether it is about money or food or drink or clothing or your body or your life. So with courage, strength, and faith, we should change our words and our hearts from what if to even if.

Even if we burn through our savings, even if my kids are influenced by the wrong people, even if my kids make bad decisions, even if my parents resent me for the decisions I make, even if this pain is something serious, even if the tests come back positive, even if it’s terminal, even if the cost of living continues to go up, even if I can never retire, even if my parents get sick and can’t take care of themselves, even if this thing or that thing happens, I will be faithful. I will be strong, and I will be courageous.

Fear asks, what if faith says, even if.

However, we can help you this morning. We invite you to come to the front and make it known as we stand and sing.