SPEAKER_00 0:23

Welcome to the Faith Builders Broadcast. I am Pastor Phillip Steele, and I'm so glad that you have chosen to join us for this edition of the Faith Builders Broadcast. I believe that the Lord's going to speak to you and that you're going to find help and strength for what you may be dealing with or just encouragement in your walk with God. We have been dealing all of this month with this subject of winning over worry. And we're dealing with some points from my latest book, Winning Over Worry. And I've been, I've I think I first taught this series in our church, oh my goodness, 10 or 15 years ago about. And uh it's it's just something that I go back to all the time. Uh I've got several series uh in my um sermon archives that are basically the same information but with more revelation that God has given me. And um, so it's something that we go back to all the time and deal with. And uh I believe that it will help you in your walk with God. The book is available, the information is there on your screen, and I would love to get this into your hands. Uh it would be, listen, it would be great to do a Bible study with your family. Uh, it would be great to do a small group study of part of the church that you're in, whatever uh your role may be, Sunday school class. Uh the format is easy to understand and easy to follow. And uh you can uh get a hold of it there uh at the information on the screen, and I believe it'll be a great, great blessing to you in the name of Jesus. Now, I want to go back to Luke 21, and uh we're dealing with this winning over worry. The Lord said to me some number of years ago, he said, care and anxieties are one of the primary doors the enemy uses to weasel his way into people's lives. And he said, the main effort the enemy is involved in is trying to get you over into care or over into worry. And once that is accomplished, the door is open for whatever else he wants to bring into your life. And he said to me, no matter the circumstance, your job is to refuse the care. Refuse to worry. So no matter the circumstance, your job is to refuse the care. Now, when the Lord says something like that to me, of course I know the voice of the Lord, the voice of the Holy Spirit. I know when I sense him speaking in my spirit. But I also like to go to the word because that's a strong statement. No matter what situation or circumstance, your job is to refuse the care. Well, as I studied that, we're not going to go to the verses, but Jesus said over and over again, take no thought, same. Take no thought about tomorrow. Take no thought about what you'll eat, what you'll drink, what you'll put on. All right. Paul said, Do not be worried or anxious about anything. Anything. So, right there we have four witnesses. Three from Jesus and one from the Apostle Paul. All right. So, that what does that mean? I can, no matter the circumstance, refuse the care. I can refuse to worry. Hallelujah. I can refuse to do it. I'm the establishing witness, but I have to refuse it. All right? Worry starts with a thought, and we dealt with this, that you've got to deal with it on the thought level. If you don't deal with it in the thought level, the seed of that worry gets into you, and it begins to produce concern and care and anxiety and worry. You've got to deal with it on the thought level. Jesus said in Luke 21, 34, take heed to yourselves lest at any time you should, your hearts are overcharged with surfeiting, drunkenness, cares of this life. And so that day will come upon you unawares. So notice, Jesus said, in the last days, one of the things we had to be on guard against was the cares of this life. Notice, he said, you have to be on guard against that. So that means that what people call just normal worries and normal anxieties are not normal to the believer. Because the Lord head of the church, our Lord and Savior, said, be on guard against them. Be on guard. Pay attention. Don't enter into them. One translation, the Weast translation, says the anxiety pertaining to the air to the affairs of this life. The anxieties pertaining to the affairs of this life. Jesus placed a worried, full of care lifestyle in the same category as a drunken, self-indulgent lifestyle. Because he said, your heart's overcharged with surfeiting. Surfeiting has to do with an over-emphasis on self, especially as it regards over-indulgence to food or drink or alcohol or something of that nature. And he said the worrying, a worry carefield lifestyle is in the same category as an over-indulgent, drunken lifestyle. Hallelujah. One translation says that your minds would be dulled. Don't let your minds be dulled. All right. Living a worried, full of care lifestyle dulls the mind. You've seen people dealing with something, they'll say, I just can't think straight. This is all I can think about. All right? It causes you to feel like you're walking around in a fog. Have you ever been so anxious about something you lost a whole day or a whole week? Right? Or a night's sleep or several nights' sleep. And people say, I just couldn't sleep last night. My mind was just racing all night. All I could do was think about that and worry about that. My brother, sister, let me say this compassionately. That wasn't all you could do. You could have stopped the thought. But you had to choose to do that. See, worry does not make you a more responsible individual. I've known parents that were believing for children that maybe weren't living right. Maybe they were living a lifestyle that was dangerous to their existence on this planet. And the parents would come and talk to me, and I would say, Well, the first thing you have to do is not worry. But I want to be a good parent. How does worry make you a good parent? See, that doesn't make you responsible. Actually, when you know what the word says, it makes you irresponsible because you're opening the door. What I worry about in my children's life is what I open the door to. I might be the only person in faith for them. I have to keep my faith strong. I have to keep them surrounded with faith and love. When you're worried and constantly anxious and carrying care, you're in a fog. You can't think straight. You can't think right. Carrying care causes you to be distracted. It dumbs you down spiritually. It's a distraction, and there's something that I can miss. There's something I can miss. I've known people, and I probably should say myself before I got a hold of this, thank the Lord decades ago now. But when my wife and I first got married, we loved the Lord with all of our heart. Oh, we wanted to do something for God. If it wasn't anything but go burn a barn for Jesus, we wanted to do something for God. And uh boy, we did. I mean, we had outreaches on the street corner. Uh, we got coats donated and we gave coats away. I mean, uh, not just every now and then, every week. We were we were on the street, we were ministering to people, and uh, but the biggest problem we had was we didn't have a lick of money. We didn't have anything. I mean, we were doing everything we knew to do, and we were just, I tell people we were po. We weren't poor, we were po. We couldn't afford the last O and R. We were just Po folks. And uh here's the thing: what constantly clouded my thinking was how am I gonna take care of my family? How am I gonna feed my family? How, right? And it was it was constant, it it produced disagreements. And do you know why we were disagreeing? Because we were worried. That anxiousness puts you on edge. That anxiousness puts you in a you're tense all the time. And somebody will go, it's gonna be all right. Don't tell me it's gonna be alright. Look what they're going through, look where we're at. Right? That anxiety causes you to bring the bills to your spouse and go, don't tell me it's gonna be all right. We don't have no money. And and and that's anxiety. You don't want to talk to them that way, but the care is causing you to not think right, it's causing you to think wrong. And what began to transform our thinking was we decided this. We evidently don't know enough about what the Bible says about our prosperity. Because if what we're hearing from the Word is true, and it was and it is today, God wants us to be blessed. So what do we do? And I remember the day that my wife was working nights, and I was staying at home with our kids. We had three children at the time, uh, a baby and and two uh elementary age kids. And uh she would go to work at night, and I would stay with the kids, unless it was a church night, and on those nights I would take her and go get her. But I would put the kids to bed, and then I would go back to our bedroom or sit in the little dining room that we had without a dining room table because we couldn't afford one, and and study on a desk that we had gotten out of the dumpster of the apartment complex we lived in. And uh I happened to be in the bedroom this time, and I went to Malachi chapter 3, and I opened it to verse 10, and and in all honesty and good faith, out of a heart of desiring to know, I held that up to God, to the Father, and I said these words this is not working. And then I said, I know you're not the problem, I know your word's not the problem. I need you to show me where I'm missing it. Now watch. The Lord said to me, here's where you're missing it. You're inconsistent with your tithe. He said, You tithe and you give when you think you have no, excuse me, that's not correct. That's not what he said. He said, You tithe when you think you have it, and when you think you cannot afford it, you don't. And he said, Your inconsistency is stopping me from being able to bless you. Well, see, I got the answer. Was it necessarily the answer I wanted? No. But here's the thing we started and made a decision from then on, we're going to tithe every time we get paid. Now, what began to happen? A trust began to be built in us. A trust. And that trust began to drive out anxiety. Well, you fast forward a little bit, and we're still learning. And so we decided, now we got the tithing issue settled, but now we're deciding, okay, we don't know enough about seed time and harvest. We need to understand how to work this. And so we decided we're gonna take 40 days and fast every other form of media. It wasn't like it is today. There wasn't a lot of media then, mainly TV and tapes and videotapes. And and we're gonna learn what the Bible has to say. We're gonna learn more. And folks, for 40 days we listened to nothing but what the Bible had to say about seed time and harvest, giving and receiving, sowing and reaping. I mean, I heard Ken Copeland's voice in my sleep. I heard it on my job. Hallelujah. I heard these men and women that we were listening to, their voice became so familiar to me, it was like they were living with us. They were. Through the video, through the tape, through the message. Now here's the thing. At the end of that 40 days, you could not have put a gun to our head and made us say, God will not supply your need. It was so big in us. And you know what I saw that had left worry about our finances. Why? I had taken the word, she had taken the word, and we had driven the worry out of our life. Hear me, forever. I can sit here today in all honesty before God and man and say, I do not worry about finances, I will not do it. My God supplies all of my need according to his riches and glory. I have given, therefore it is given unto me. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together. God does cause men to give into my bosom. There is no financial death in my life, only the life of God. You know how many days I lost worrying about finances, worrying about how we were gonna make it. Birthdays were not fun because I worried about how we were gonna buy a gift. Anniversaries were not fun because I worried about how I am gonna get my wife something. This is the person I love more than anybody in the world. How am I gonna be able to get them anything? Now, see, it's not just that now I have more money so I don't worry. I've got more money because I quit worrying. I've got more finances because I stopped worrying. What was happening when the worry would come in where the finances were concerned? Choking the word out of my heart. It doesn't matter how much I heard about sowing and reaping and giving and receiving. As long as I was going to worry, it would choke the word. Look at Mark chapter 4, verse 18. That's a good story, you know it. I tell the church all the time, you know, pastors have stories, and so we tell the stories to build your faith. Because listen, I've been there. I've I've I've been on the other end of bill collectors' phone calls. I've been on the listen, I've been on the other end of seeing things get repossessed. I've been there. And I'm telling you that a large part of why that happened was because I was worried about finances. And it was dulling my mind and doling the word. Mark 4, 18, and these are they sown among thorns that hear the word, the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the lust of other things, entering in, choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. See, this is a preoccupied heart. This is a preoccupied heart. This person's not necessarily malicious, they're just overly concerned about the anxieties of everyday life. They're not malicious, they're just overly concerned about it. The word for cares here is derived from a root word that means to be drawn in a different direction or to be distracted. It's a synonym, listen, for the Greek word that means worry. And so we understand that the entering in of caries of worry or cares, carry is worry and care put together. The entering in of cares or worry chokes the word. And in this case, the word took root and was bearing fruit, but care and worry choked the word and it became unfruitful. Why? Because of carrying care. The worry pulled them in a different direction. Hallelujah. The worry, notice, the worry caused them to be distracted. So you have the word, my God shall supply all of my need according to his riches in glory. This is due, this is due, this is due, this is due. Which is going to have the most pull on you? If you want to defeat this area of financial instability, you've got to have, let the word have the most pull on your life. You can't be distracted. Worry distracts. God said, I'll contend with them that contends with you, and I will save your children. That's the word. Right? When you see a child not acting right, or you see a child wanting to do something that's not right, don't get distracted by that. I can't tell you how many times over the years in pastoring I've heard people say, I'm believing for my child, but the butt is about to tell me what they're focused on. They're not focused on the believing. They're focused on what they're seeing. And what they're seeing is making them worry. If you're believing, you can't worry. If you're worrying, you can't believe. See, because it requires my focus. Faith requires your focus. Worry requires your focus. When you worry, you abandon faith. When you are in faith, you abandon worry because it requires your focus. Say it out loud. I'm focused on the answer, I'm focused on the promise, and I'm focused on receiving. Hallelujah. And when worry tries to come up, just simply say, I'm not going to focus on you. You're there, you exist, but I'm not going to focus on you. My focus is on what God and His Word said. And so when someone says to me, I've been believing, but they're about to tell me what they've abandoned believing to look at. Hallelujah. Luke 8 14 says that when the word is choked, this person Brings forth no fruit to perfection, is what the King James says. The Mount's translation says they bring forth no fruit to maturity. The fruit never matures. So allowing care does what? Produces a lack of maturity. I never grow to where I could grow. I never get to where I could be because the care is constantly choking the word. I like to cook. I do a majority of cooking in our home. And uh I I saw something one day that that it it may sound funny, but uh I I watch cooking videos to get ideas and things for the family. And a man was was cooking something and he was smoking ribs, I think it was. We don't eat a lot of ribs, but he was smoking ribs, and he said, the key to this is if you're looking, you ain't cooking. All right? So if you're constantly opening the grill or the oven, if you're looking, you ain't cooking. All right, why? You're letting the heat out, right? You're letting the heat out. If you're looking at worry, your faith ain't cooking. You can't be looking at the worry because then my faith's not working. Something has to have my focus. That's why James said it this way: double-mindedness makes you unstable in all of your ways. What brings stability? Isaiah said wisdom and knowledge would be the stability of your days. What does the book of Proverbs call wisdom and knowledge the word of God? So the word of God is what brings stability. I've got to stay focused on the word of God. Because looking at the worry, looking at the care, looking at the thing that's trying to produce anxiety will produce a choking of the word. And I've only got a couple minutes, but I want you to see this. People will say, but I can't just not think about it. I mean, I don't want to be irresponsible. The most irresponsible thing you can do is worry. Because it opens the door up to the real problem, the devil. See that situation? It'll probably go away. God will give you the wisdom to deal with it. God will give you the answer. But if you get focused on the worry, you open the door to everything else the devil wants you to bring. And you'll be so clouded in your thinking that you're gonna have a hard time hearing from God, you're gonna have a hard time hearing his voice, you're gonna have a hard time hearing the instruction. And so we have to stay focused on what the word of God says. Amen. Hallelujah. The word says we cast our care on him because he cares for us. I want to pray with you today. I want you to say this with me. Say, Father, in the name of Jesus, I choose right now to cast all of my care, all of my anxieties, all of my concerns, once and for all on you because you care for me. I've heard today that I do not have to worry, and I do not have to care, and I refuse to do it in the name of Jesus. Amen. I believe that God heard that prayer, and I believe He's helping you right now to eradicate worry and care out of your life once and for all. So glad you joined me today. The information to order the book, Winning Over Worry, is at the bottom of your screen. You can certainly order it, and I believe that it'll bless you and help you win over worry in your life. So glad you joined me today. Till we see you next time. Please remember to build your faith and frame your world by the Word of God. God bless you.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

You can win over work. While the world says a life filled with stress and anxiety is normal, the word of God says, let not your heart be troubled. Be anxious for nothing. Jesus Christ gave you access to his victory and peace. He's equipped you to resist worry and cast your cares on God. In the book Winning Over Worry, a guide to continual peace, Pastor Philip Steele teaches you how to live carefree by putting God's word to work. This book will show you how to overcome anxiety and enforce God's peace in every area of your life. It's time for you to win over worry. Get your copy today by calling 501-4008797 or visit lifeoffaith.net. Winning Over Worry is also available on Kindle and Apple iBooks. Visit lifeoffaith.net or call 501-48797 for more information.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

You are invited to Life of Faith Church in Little Rock, where we are building people's faith, producing life, city, state, nation, and world. Our address is 116-20 Rainwood Road, just one block off Rodney Park, near Green Mountain Drive. Our Sunday service begins at 10 a.m. and offers classes for children and youth, in addition to the adult service in the main sanctuary. On Wednesdays, we have an hour of power as we dive into Bible study. We have a place reserved for you and your family at Life of Faith Church. For more information, visit lifeoffith.net