Q2, S09 Trusting in Need
Quarter 2, Session 9: Don’t Be Anxious
DO YOU TRUST ME IN NEED?
Passage
Luke 12:22–34
Concept
This session falls under Jesus’ sixth question: Do you trust me? As we saw in the previous session, money is an area in which our trust in God is revealed to a unique extent. After Jesus talked about the rich fool who trusted in his own abundance (last week’s passage), he continued to talk about what it looks like to trust God in the midst of need. Jesus pushes us to confront where our greatest concern lies. Are we anxious over whether or not our needs will be met? Or are we more concerned for the things of God and his kingdom?
Key Question
What do you tend to be the most concerned about? Do you spend more time considering God and what he wants to do in and through you, or worrying about what you do or don’t have? Why do you think this is?
The Journey Tool
Do you see our Journey tool being played out in Luke 12:22–34? With whom? How so?
Anxiety
Who do you trust? And how do you determine who you trust?
Saying that you trust someone is different than actually placing your trust in them. There are probably some people that you would say you trust, but when it comes right down to it, you might hold back. How do you really know you trust someone in a given area? The only way to know with any certainty is when you find yourself actually relying on them.
But it’s also about who you trust with what. Trust is categorical. You may trust someone to catch you if you’re falling, but you may not trust that same person to do your taxes for you. We really don’t trust people across the board, in every area. We trust people in certain categories.
You may trust God enough that you’ll confess your wrongdoings in a group setting. You trust that God is loving and forgiving, and that leads you into a certain type of action. You may trust God with your finances when you have very little, but when you find yourself with an abundance, you may decide not to trust God in that, choosing instead to keep what you have. Or you may function in the opposite way, trusting God when you have much, but not when you have little. You may trust God in prayer but not in proclamation. In other words, you may trust God enough to talk to him, but not enough to talk to others about him.
Trust is an ongoing reality, and it’s always categorical. We trust at times, but not others. We trust in some areas, but not in others. So when Jesus asks if we trust him, the answer won’t necessarily be a once for all response. We are continuously being drawn into increasing trust. Continuously given opportunities in which we will either place our trust in him or not.
1. Read Luke 12:22–34. Right off the bat, what strikes you about this passage? What do you find interesting or challenging or confusing?
This passage follows immediately after the passage we examined last week, where a man was called a fool for trusting in himself and his own riches. In this passage, Jesus turns to his disciples and tells them not to be worried about their lives.
What does anxiety look like? Anxiety is different than what we might call “basic concern.” When you find that your pantry has run out of food, it’s not anxiety to be concerned and to be motivated by a desire to refill that pantry. Anxiety is more about having an “undue concern” about the things of this life. Anxiety is when your concern turns into a preoccupation. Anxiety robs us of sleep. We can’t get the concern out of our mind. It begins to dominate our thoughts.
When concerns arise, we should indeed work and act to engage the situations we find ourselves in. But we should not be demonstrating our lack of trust in God by constant worry.
2. Do you suffer from undue concern? How so? What is it like to experience this?
Consider Creation
Jesus tells his followers to consider his creation. Consider, for example, how a bird gets its food. Birds aren’t anxious like people are. They work to gather their food, but as they go out to find their food, they can only find the food that God provides. And they have what they need.
Then Jesus tells us to think about the flowers. They don’t worry about how they look, but God still ensures that they are beautiful. Very few of us are worried about actually having clothes to wear. We do, however, worry about having the right styles or looking a certain way. We are concerned with our beauty. This is why we worry about losing our hair or accumulating wrinkles. Jesus pushes us to stop worrying about how we look, but to instead trust God’s standard of beauty. The idea is that we need to stop worrying about things we can’t control. God knows what we need. If we trust him, we won’t be worried about all of the things that are outside of our control.
3. How can looking at God’s provision through creation release us from our undue concern? Does doing this actually help you with anxiety? Why or why not?
Scarcity vs. Blessing
We can choose to view every breath we breathe as a blessing, as a gift from God, or we can view each breath as something we’re owed, as something we may be cheated out of. We can choose to view every dollar in our bank account as a gift from God that we get to enjoy and steward well, or we can view each dollar as something we’re owed, as something we’re constantly being deprived of. Anything we have can be a reminder of what we don’t have or a reminder of God’s grace to us.
It’s not about how much money we do or don’t have. It’s about how much we trust God. It’s about how satisfied we are in him.
Jesus asks if any of us thinks we are able to add even a single hour to our lifespans through worry. Clearly, worry is not the answer. For Jesus, the alternative to worrying about the things of this world—eating, clothing, etc.—is being concerned over the things of God’s kingdom.
Anxiety shows that our concerns are dis-ordered. If we can seek God’s kingdom first, then we are on the right path toward getting our concerns rightly ordered. This is a constant process. If our primary concern is God and his kingdom, then the other things will come and go and we won’t be nearly as concerned about them because they were never our primary pursuit.
4. Do you default toward a mentality of scarcity or of blessing? Any idea why you default to this?
5. What is one way that you either (a) are seeking or (b) could seek God and his kingdom as a primary pursuit right now? What (a) does or (b) could that look like?
Take Action
Jesus promises that if we seek the kingdom, he will give it to us. But even as he promises this to us, he calls us to put our trust in God into action. Rather than being worried about what we will wear, he calls us to sell what we have and to give to those who are currently in need.
You’ll never know whether or not you trust God if all you do is talk about trusting him. But when you find yourself taking risks for God—actually putting your trust into action—then you will know that your trust is real. We tend to weigh these types of things in theory. We think in hypotheticals and abstractions. Do we trust God enough to sell all of our possessions? What would that gain? Is that really what Jesus is asking us to do?
Instead of considering trust in theory, what would it look like if we actually sold something and watched to see how God provided? We won’t learn more about trust by talking about it more. The way to grow into trust is to actually take a step of faith, a step in which we have no choice but to trust God. And once we take a step of faith, then we will begin to see our trust increase. The only way to grow in trust is through action. The thing about watching God provide for us is that after a while, we begin to expect God to provide. This means that we’re beginning to trust him. The more we see God come through in difficult situations, the more we begin to trust that he will come through in the next situation we encounter.
We will constantly trust in ourselves and in our own riches until we begin to let go of it. We can talk about giving all we want, but until we start letting go of some of our wealth and giving it to people who have real needs, we will only be playing at trust.
6. Have you taken any steps recently in which you had to trust God? How did that increase your trust in him?
7. Are there any areas in which you’ve been sensing God calling you to trust him? What would that entail? What’s holding you back?
8. Spend some time in prayer. Ask God to increase your trust in him. Pray that whether you have abundance or find yourself in need, that he would be the answer to your prayers and the one in whom you place your trust.
Key Question
What do you tend to be the most concerned about? Do you spend more time considering God and what he wants to do in and through you, or worrying about what you do or don’t have? Why do you think this is?