Last week I was talking to a man who was really stressed out. He was concerned about his past and worried about his future. Every word out of his mouth was negative. Everything in his life worried him. The bad things worried him because they were bad. And the good things worried him because they might get bad. With him, everything was a “no win” situation.

Worry is a sin. It is not of God and we should not do it. Let me explain.

In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus preached His famous “Sermon on the Mount.” This sermon has a tremendous amount of teaching in it, but one thing is often overlooked and that is this: Jesus commanded us, over and over again, to not worry.

Jesus said in verse 25, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” I can guarantee you that you will not see this verse on a plaque in the clothing stores in the shopping malls.

Then in verse 27, Jesus said, “Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” And in verse 28 He says, “So why do you worry…?” In verse 31 He says it again, “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?'”

Then we come to the verse we all know so well, Matthew 6:33, where Jesus said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Usually when we read this verse we stop there, but we shouldn’t.

In the original Greek language, there is no punctuation. The periods, commas and other punctuation marks were added by the translators. With that in mind, let’s not quit reading with verse 33. Jesus said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you, therefore do not worry.”

Here in Matthew 6, Jesus said over and over again, “Do not worry.” Was Jesus trying to make a point? I think so.

Some people feel that they have no control over worry. I have actually had people tell me that the only way that they could quit worrying would be if God would just take it away. Well, don’t expect God to do it. It’s your responsibility.

Some things are spiritual and some things are the flesh. And, of course, they must be dealt with accordingly. However, let me say this. Worry is almost always the flesh. What I mean is, Jesus did not tell us to cast out worry. He said, don’t do it. He said to quit worrying. He told us to take care of it.

Let me ask you something. Would Jesus command us to do something that we had no control over? Would He tell us to do something that was impossible for us to do? No! Of course not. That would be cruel and is not the nature of our Lord.

So, if Jesus told us to quit worrying, then we must be able to stop. And if He told us to quit worrying and we continue, that must be sin. Anytime we are commanded to do something and we do not do it, or we are commanded to quit doing something and we continue, that’s disobedience and disobedience is sin.

So, today, remember, don’t worry!