Consider Your Cares

Thanks to Jonathan Keehn for this idea. When we come to worship we often hear someone mention that we should "lay aside the cares of the world," but is that what we see in Scripture? Laying aside distractions is definitely a good idea, but what we see in Scripture is that we should bring our cares and worries to God in worship. When we feel like we have to separate our struggles from our worship, we may actually be creating something dangerous for our spiritual health.

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Consider one another as a podcast focused on each other. Thank you for tuning in to this podcast that is all about stirring up love and good works in one another. August slipped away and it is now September. Season three is flying by as well as this year. It's already September. We have lots of good episodes coming up here in season three, and we've had plenty of good episodes as well. Hopefully, this will be one of them. As we consider our year, now into the ninth month, as we consider our prayer lists currently and the prayer lists that we've seen throughout the year. Many of us have had hard years, me included, uh, truly. But I wanted to bring up this important idea today. It's been on my mind, and it's an idea that I'm stealing from one Jonathan Keane. Jonathan, thank you for the idea. If you don't like it, take it up with Jonathan. But I think it's a really good point, a really good consideration for us today as we consider our cares. We often hear or even speak the phrase, let's lay aside the cares of the world while we come into worship. Which sounds like a good thing to say. And I do think the thing is well intentioned to say. The idea is that worship is very important. So let's ignore the things that distract us from worship. Don't come into worship to just go through the motions while you are really just thinking about what you want to be doing instead. Don't come to worship and be thinking about your lunch plans or your game that you're going to be playing later that day or anything trivial like that. I think that's where the idea of the phrase lay aside the cares of the world comes from. And that's good. Let's come to focus on worshiping God. I like that idea. I'm here for that. However, the phrase I think has turned into or evolved into something much more than just distractions that are worldly and trivial. I think this has turned into something much, much bigger, laying not just aside our cares of the world, but just our cares and our struggles and our emotions. It feels perhaps more holy, perhaps more reverent to lay aside these other parts of ourselves and instead come as a sort of robot, emotionless person. You can obviously hear my slant on it already. I'm trying to be objective, but I really think the phrase that started as a good thing has turned into something much more than just distractions, but more a part of ourselves that we're laying aside. Setting aside cares for worship is not really at all what we see in Scripture. Instead, approaches to God are all about bringing cares and worries to Him, not setting them aside. Set aside or lay aside the cares of the world may have good intentions behind it. But we want to make sure that people don't think they're supposed to forget about everything going on in their lives for an hour and pretend that everything is okay. That is barely even worship in my opinion, and that is a lot more just how I would imagine robots would attempt to worship. But we are not robots. We're humans the way God made us. What we will find in this episode is that trying to or expecting to be able to set aside our cares when worshiping God is very dangerous for our spiritual lives. So let's dive into scripture instead of just taking my word for it. Instead, let's look at God's word, take his word for it. The Psalms give us a really good picture of bringing worries and cares into worship with God. Let's start here at Psalm thirteen. Psalm thirteen is famous for asking this question, how long? It starts like this for the choir director, a psalm of David. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long should I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God, enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, and my enemy will say, I have overcome him, and my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken. But I have trusted in your loving kindness, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me. Maybe this sounds like a private prayer, maybe it's something different from corporate or public worship. Perhaps, but still somehow this has made it into our hands, and it's into the choir director's hands. Perhaps this is a song for worship, and the song is all about questioning God and struggling with problems, saying, God, what are you doing about this problem that I am having? It makes me consider some of our songs that we sing in our worship. We'll sing songs like If the skies above you are gray, you are feeling so blue. If your cares and burdens, something like that, you get the idea. Well, how do I honestly sing about skies above me, metaphorically being gray? How do I sing about cares and burdens if I just set my cares and burdens aside? Worship for humans is going to involve human emotion. Hopefully, worship is going to involve in some way pouring your heart out to God. Look at Psalm 62 and verse 8 with me. Psalm 62 verse eight. Trust in him at all times, O people, pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. One more we'll look at Psalm 55. Pouring your heart out before God certainly seems like emotion to me. And this certainly seems like the context is worship. Let's pour our hearts out before God. It's hard to do if you just set aside all of your cares and worries. Consider one more with me. Psalm 55, 22. The context clearly here, King David is writing the Psalm during a time of deep personal anguish. Listen to what he says in verse 22, Psalm 55. Cast your burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain you. Seems pretty clear we're supposed to cast our burdens upon God. There are many ways that we can do that, but I think worship certainly is one of them. Psalms and many other places in Scripture are full of this idea of bringing our cares, our worries, our doubts to God. And in our New Testament culture, where we come together on the first day of the week to worship, this certainly seems like the time and the place to do what we see throughout Scripture, which is bring cares and struggles to God. One more psalm to consider this time by looking into our bulletin this week, or reach out to me if you want this article on Psalm 73. Psalm 73 is a lot of people's favorite psalm as it deals with starting in fearful confusion, but then as the psalmist enters God's presence throughout the psalm, the worry and the confusion go away because of a change in perspective that happened when those cares and worries were brought to God. Check out the Bulletin article. It's a short one, but it dives into Psalm 73, a really important psalm for this whole discussion of what happens when we take our struggles, our confusion, our worry, our doubts to God. Don't keep them from God, don't lay them aside, bring them to God. Which leads us to the main point of this podcast. I want to talk about the dangers of setting aside the cares and worries of the world, of our world when we come into worship. The idea is well intentioned, but when we follow it through, I believe it to be very dangerous to our spiritual lives. One quick analogy, if I can give it carefully. Because I do not endorse the show, nor did I watch the show because I do not endorse it, but I saw some clips as it was all that everyone was talking about, I guess just a couple of years ago, maybe less. I understand why people were talking so much about it, because the concept for the show was very intriguing. The show was called Severance. And if I can oversimplify it, the show on Apple TV with Adam Scott, question mark? Yeah. Adam Scott, uh, if I can oversimplify the idea, the idea behind the show is this office workers at a mysterious biotech firm undergo a brain procedure to surgically split their memories between their jobs and personal lives. That's the premise for the show. And again, I did not watch the show. But you can understand the implications and ethical problems that that show pursued from there, from that idea that there's gonna be a severing of yourself, your personal self and your work self. That concept to me is pretty interesting. The show I did not want to watch all of it was way too long and pursued things I didn't care about. But the concept is interesting. What if I really could just sever my conscious self when I walk into my workplace? They kind of go up this little elevator, they become their work self, and then essentially they wake up when it's quitting time, and then you get to go have your personal life. That's the idea. Maybe that sounds good to some of you, depending on what your work is, but the severance experiment, I'm sure, was full of dangerous problems that leads to all sorts of issues that takes seasons worth of episodes to fix. But if you were able to sever your work and personal self, I hope you wouldn't do that. I hope you'd want to remain you, bringing your personal self to work and your work self to your personal life. We don't want to sever ourselves, we want to be ourselves all the time. I think that was the conclusion of the show. I don't know. But the idea is, it may seem like the right thing to do or the better thing to do if you could separate yourself. But don't. Don't do that. Don't do that. We want to be us all the time. For better or for worse. If you were told to sever your worship self and your personal self, I hope you wouldn't do that either. If we're truly asking ourselves to set aside the worries of the world when we enter our worship in the assembly, that is like trying to sever ourselves into different versions of ourselves. In no way, in my opinion, is that what God intended us to do when we approach Him in worship. So let's talk about three dangers of laying aside the cares of the world. They're not quippy or an acronym or short in any way, but more of three categories, three implications, three ways that it's just really dangerous if we are trying to follow through on this laying aside of cares. Consider your cares in this way. Danger number one. If we think we can turn off our cares and worries to God, then we might just turn God off to our cares and worries. Again, I'm not trying to dunk on this phrase or anyone who has said it. I'm sure I've said it before too. It's well intentioned, the basic thought is good. But if we follow it through, it's very dangerous. If we show up here to 500 pleasant have, the Bremerton Church of Christ, wanting to turn off our worries and cares to God, then when we do that, what do we expect to find when we leave worship and get back into our cars? If we laid aside our grief and our worries and left them in the car, maybe we perfectly sideline those parts of our everyday lives, which is hard to do. But imagine you you did do that, or you expected yourself to be able to do that. You do that as you walk into the church building, but then as you walk out of the church building, you're gonna leave with those same issues waiting for you. I know there are times where maybe there's a really good sermon or your favorite song was sung, and maybe you had a really good conversation with someone, maybe you were just really moved that day, and that allows you to come back into your regular life with this new perspective that allows you to re-enter your problems with a change of heart and ability to face those problems differently. I suppose that that can happen and is possible. You really check your problems at the door, and then when you come back to them, you're different, you're changed in your perspective because of worship. I suppose that's possible and probably has happened, but I still believe there's a real danger in teaching our minds to dissociate God and our problems. If I come into a time of worship and I'm thinking that I am supposed to turn off or sever my cares of the world, then when I get back to my cares, I may be able to turn off God to those problems, leading me to independently handle my problems without God. Perhaps this seems like a leap to you, but I think the logic is sound, and I certainly know the experience in my own life is verifiable. As I look back into my life, into this year specifically, I can see how this danger has been present before, and I certainly do not want it to be how I handle my problems in the future. Obviously, we do not want to turn God off to our problems, so let's not turn our problems off when we come to God. That's danger number one. We'll probably talk more about this idea at danger number three. But look at this problem too. If we are setting the cares of the world aside, danger number two, we are setting the cares aside when we enter the assembly, we are going to be less likely to open up to each other and more likely to have surface level conversations, pretending we are fine. If we set aside the cares of the world when we come through the door to the church building, then when services end and someone asks you, hey, how's it going? You might truly be able to say, Great, because you're dealing with this alternative consciousness that is only present during worship. So maybe your worship self really is great. And then when you ask the other person how they are doing, they will probably come back with the same thing, since they have also set aside their cares. Now we are not explicitly lying when we say we are fine, we really mean it. In that moment, we are fine. But if instead of setting them aside, we bring our cares to God, now our answer will be much different. They say, Hey, how are you doing? You might respond with, I am excited to hit my week. I have brought a lot of stress in with me today, but worshiping God and being in his word has made me ready for my week. I probably talk too much about interpersonal conversations that we have at the building, so I let this one stop early. However, it is a consider one another podcast, so it's worth talking about. But allow yourself in these conversations to not be okay. Allow yourself to struggle. Don't expect yourself to turn off certain parts of your brain during worship or while you're in this building. If you do, you will expect yourself to appear without cares or worries of the world to the other people who you worship with. That's bad for you, and it's bad for them too. If you are scared of being guilty of not laying aside your cares, then you're gonna have to play a part and act like everything is fine. And acting or pretending is gonna get old eventually. You're gonna want to stop interacting with these people who you think expect you to be fine. That's not the expectation we see in scripture, and it certainly isn't my expectation when I see you on Sunday. Allow yourself to struggle, allow yourself to cry, allow yourself to be emotional, and struggle and wrestle with worries and cares. I often wonder why we just end up talking about the weather or the football game after services. Well, maybe it is because we really did just check our emotions at the door, our cares and our worries are behind us, and so then if you walk into a building where there is no emotions allowed, then you are likely going to leave yours behind too. And so that's left us with nothing to talk about except things that don't matter. Weather, the trees, the building, the carpet, all these incidental, trivial things are all that we are left with if we think we're supposed to lay aside everything as we come into worship. Who wants to be emotional then in worship when everyone else around you seems unaffected by worship? Laying aside the cares of our lives is certainly contagious. But I believe that bringing those cares and struggles with you will be contagious as well. When I see someone worshiping with emotion, it makes me want to tap into my emotions. When I see people embrace each other, it makes me want to embrace someone. When I see people praying together in the pews, I've seen that. I realize there's probably someone I could be praying with right now. Bring cares and struggles with you to worship. Let's share them with each other and consider one another as we see the day approaching. Allow yourselves to struggle. You'll find other people who are struggling with you. Allow yourselves to weep, you'll find others to weep with. That's God's intention for us as a community of believers that we see in Scripture. We'll see just a couple more verses as we get to danger number three. If we believe that we are supposed to lay everything about our lives aside and be fine when we come into worship, then when there is inevitably a time that we simply cannot sever those cares, whether it's grief or stress or anything else, when we're feeling those cares in our lives that we cannot put out, then we will feel unqualified for worship. Here is why that is so dangerous, you probably already know, but here's why it's so dangerous. If we think that we have to sever our cares, our grief, our stress, to be able to come into worship. There's going to come a day, probably many days, where you simply cannot do that. Someone dies, something really hard happens, there's stress, money problems, marriage problems, any other relationship issues that you simply cannot turn off. If your expectation up to that point has been that you can turn off the cares of the world, then you're gonna think this is not time for worship. I'm unqualified to go into worship. There's gonna be a time when these cares, legitimate worries and fears are consuming you. And that is gonna be the time where you need to be going to God the most. But like what we saw from the psalmists, what we want to do instead is take those problems right to God. Don't leave them outside the door, bring them in with you. Take those problems to God. Again, this happens in many other ways than just coming to the church building. But coming to the church building is one of our most explicit times of worship in our weeks. This is not a time for laying aside those consuming problems. Bring them with you to God. I heard it put this way, that the difference between complaint and lament is our audience and our intention. Complaint is bad. We know that. There's a lot in the Bible about stop your grumbling and complaining. Old Testament, Israelites, New Testament Christians, stop, don't grumble against one another. Because of that warning, we understand complaining is bad, but because of that warning, it can lead into us thinking all emotion is bad, all struggle is bad, even lament is bad. But we get the opposite picture in scripture. Lament is very good. There's a whole book of the Bible called Lamentations. That's good. Lamenting to God is good, but that's exactly the difference, is our audience. If your audience is yourself and your intention is to just be upset about life, then that is complaining, and that is not a good thing. However, if your audience is God and your intent is to understand His will, then that is lament, and that is a very good thing. For me, not speaking for anyone else, but for for me, when I am laying aside my cares at the door of worship, which I have done plenty of times, those issues and problems and stresses are dealt with later by these means of complaining or doubting, ways that are handled without God. And that's really not good. But when I am able to bring my doubts and fears and worries to God, then that is worship. And my cares are dealt with the right way by taking them to God. Don't leave them at the door to handle by yourself, take them with you to God. Like the psalmist, when we ask God how long, or any other question that we're struggling with in our daily lives, when we take those questions to God, we are showing that we believe God is in control of everything. Not just the Bremerton Church of Christ, not just inherently spiritual things that happen while we're in our suits and ties, but we realize God is in control of everything. When we take those hard questions to Him that we are struggling with. With. We might not understand why he is doing what he is doing, but when we take our problems and cares to him, we show our belief, our dependence, and our reliance on him. Consider these benefits of lament. Lament as a form of worship, taking these problems to God as opposed to laying them aside. Here are some benefits that I heard at a conference early at the beginning of this year that was all about lamentations. It was really good. I wish you all could have been there. Let me summarize some of the key takeaways. Here are one, two, three, four, five benefits of lament. First, emotional honesty with God and ourselves. Lament inherently is honest. To lay our cares and burdens aside at the door is dishonest to ourselves, to everyone we talk to, and to God. But a benefit of lament is emotional honesty. It gives us permission to express emotions without fear. We saw that in Psalm 13. We also see it in places like Psalm 42. Psalm 42, of course, is famous for verse 1, as the deer pants for the water, so my soul pants for you. O God. We remember that verse, but we forget verse 9. Psalm 42, verse 9, I will say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go into mourning because of the oppression of my enemy? We don't include that part in our song. It doesn't rhyme as well. But this is what Psalm 42 is about. It's about emotional honesty and taking these questions to God. This is not complaining. This is honesty. Take your struggles and bring them to God and experience that benefit of lament and emotional honesty. There's also spiritual formation that happens when we lament to God. That's a benefit. It teaches dependence on God in difficult seasons. The psalm that the speaker brought out for this point was Psalm 73. Again, there's a bulletin article out there about this, and Psalm 73 is just right there in your Bible. Go read it. It teaches dependence on God in difficult seasons. Another benefit of lament is hope in darkness, because lamenting is meant to move us toward healing and toward hope. We see this in Psalms 13 and 42, like we've talked about. We see it in Psalm 22 as well, which we have referenced before on that Psalm Sunday a couple weeks ago. Psalm 22 starts with, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But it ends with hope. And that's what lament moves us toward. Moves us toward healing and moves us toward hope. And then benefit four of lament is that lamenting prevents cynicism. Instead of bottling it up or turning it away, we should share it. Share the struggles that you're having. Because doubting, if kept to yourself, can grow. And you think you've got this really big problem on your hands, this unanswerable question, and then it encourages cynicism and doubting and struggling. Don't bottle it up or turn it away. Instead, share it with someone else. Go read Psalm 56, as David writes about his foes trampling him all day long, how mean they are to him. But he says, When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you, in God whose word I praise, in God I have put my trust. I shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me? Lamenting, taking these problems to God, prevents cynicism. Don't keep it to yourself. Give it to God. That's lament. And when we do that, our final benefit of lament is community healing. Those who grieve together, believe together. That's what we see in Romans 12 15. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. If you are not bringing those weeping Sundays with you to church, then we're missing out on a chance to weep with someone who's weeping. Go be honest. Go struggle with each other and go be part of that community healing. Because I truly do believe those who grieve together will also believe together. There's a reason that there's a whole book of the Bible called Lamentations. Lamenting to God is good. And when we avoid that good thing, it usually leads to more hurt and more cynicism. God made us to be humans, not robots. Looking at your own life, I'm sure you know that to be very true. If you try to be a robot, it will not end well. God wants us to bring our emotions to Him as a form of worship, and looking at Scripture makes that clear. Leave the distractions of games and weakened plans behind you when you come into God's presence. That's good. I'm on board for that. But don't sever yourself into one version that can come into God's presence and one that can't. If we teach ourselves to do that, then sinning will feel easier and easier as we feel further and further from God's presence, depending on where we are, what building we're in, or which version of ourselves we are allowing ourselves to be. And when that happens, it will be easier and easier to justify not coming to worship services. You might say, I had a long day at work, or my marriage is really struggling right now, or I am dealing with too much grief, or perhaps I'm gonna be distracted anyway. These are all legitimate reasons that I've heard from people. And they really are all valid excuses if we think that we have to lay aside our cares to worship God. But when we understand God wants those cares brought to him, he wants us to be truly human, just humans who rely on him. Now when those previous excuses come up, those are gonna be reasons that I just have to be there. I have to be with other believers, I have to worship God tonight. I have to cite the story from Josh Ralston. Earlier, probably season one, Josh talked about his mom in the morning when a family member died. She started getting ready for church after things had been dealt with. They were like, Mom, what are you doing? And she said, Where else would I go? If we train ourselves to separate our cares from God, then our cares will be dealt with independently from him. That is not what we want. That's certainly not what God wants. But when we honestly can say that God is our refuge, God is our rock, God is where we take our problems, then when the marriage is struggling, when the finances are tight, when you are dealing with grief, the loss of a loved one, or just having stressful work days, there's going to be nowhere for you to turn except to God and worship Him. Throughout your week, especially when you come to this building to worship, consider your cares. The Bible tells us to consider one another in order to stir up love and good works in each other. So thank you for stirring up love and good works in me just by listening to this episode.