MVPC Candidating Sermon, November 20, 2022

Introduction

What an incredible feeling it is to be with all of you this morning! My wife Erica and I have been praying for you, waiting to meet so many of you, and now I’m here and you’re here — and there’s a part of this that hardly feels real.

I’ve had the chance to meet so many of you and for those that I haven’t met yet, I am so looking forward to the chance of getting to know you better, and building so many relationships in the Lord. On behalf of my family, we just want to say thank you for your generosity and such a warm welcome!

And speaking of my family, my wife Erica is here with me today, and we’ve been towing around our three sons with us all weekend. They are Liam, age 9; Elijah, age 7; and Graham, age 3. They are chatty, adventurous, and the epitome of Sour Patch Kids, at first they’re sour and then they turn sweet! If you see them around after the service this morning please have them introduce themselves to you — and for the record, what they say to you in return, does not reflect our parenting!

It would be a joy this morning to keep talking about my family, instead we have the opportunity of opening up the Scriptures this morning, what the Bible itself calls the “living and active Word of God.” So if you have a Bible with you this morning, please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 6:33, and this morning we’ll be spending our time in the New International Version of the Greek New Testament.

For those of you that might be a little more acquainted with the scriptures, you might think, okay, Brandon… Interesting choice for you to spend your candidating sermon on a weird scripture in a section of the Bible that is addressing worry and wealth. Bear with me this morning and we’ll see how the Lord might bless us.

I want to invite you to stand to your feet this morning to hear the public reading of scripture. To help give us some better context, I’ll be reading Matthew 6: 25-34 This is the Reading of the Word of God:

Matthew 6:25–34 (NIV)

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Congregational Response

Whenenver the church has read the scriptures, it is customary for the reader to announce: This is the Word of the Lord, to which the congregation responds: Thanks be to God.

Reader: This is the Word of the Lord.

MVPC: Thanks be to God.

Time of Prayer

Let’s bow before the Lord and pray together.

Body of Sermon

I don’t quite remember how old I was, maybe somewhere between 8 and 10, and I’m not so sure what I was upset about, but I can remember very clearly in my mind a moment in our kitchen growing up where I laid my hand down on the island and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. I had, had a moment of uncontrollable anxiety and I was having a full-blown panic attack. I’ll never forget that moment, my dad came into the room and asked me what was going on, and in between sobbing breaths, I just said, “I’m worried!” And my father, in all of his earthly wisdom, said, “Worried?! What do you have to be worried about! Stop your worrying!”

I’m sure, much to my surprise, and his, I did not stop worrying and his statement did not help. It was the 8-year old equivalent of telling your spouse to “calm down” — it did the opposite.

Christians are not immune to the occasional bout of worry, panic attacks, or anything in between… In fact, I’m sure it’s a VERY common thing. Long before Jesus talked about this subject in Matthew’s Gospel, the scriptures had been attempting to answer some of the core issues at stake in our worrisomeness.

This is a question that the Psalms, Proverbs, the Book of Ecclesiastes, and many other places in scripture are trying to answer, “what does it mean to live well in the world,” or maybe a different way to put it would be, “what’s the good life that we know we should be living?”

Jesus, in Matthew 6, is at the scene of the most famous sermon ever given: the Sermon on the Mount. This is where Jesus identifies the ethics of the Kingdom of God — how the Kingdom carries itself out there in the world… and every bit of Matthew 6:25-34 should make us feel slightly uncomfortable. It challenges our presuppositions on what it means to live well in the world.

Jesus’ audience has very different definitions on what it means to live well in the world, on what the good life is. Likely those in attendance range from very wealthy and highly educated to a people that have been systemically spat upon, with no education and no way out. To both, Jesus is able to speak to.

Look with me at verse 25, Matthew 6:25

Matthew 6:25 (NIV)

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?

“Isn’t life more than food and clothes?” To one end, a group will say, this is the expression of my identity, this is a form of security; and to another end, a group says, this is the desire of my heart, to have some form of security.” In verse 26, Jesus squashes any notion of accumulation and any notion of desperation… He raises His audience to the level of unsurpassable worth and dignity. He says, “look around… you see that bird over there? That bird contributes nothing! And yet God feeds it anyway. But aren’t you more valuable than that bird?” And then He says, “You see that flower over there? What a thing of unimagineable beauty, not even the wisest in the world could dream that up? If He cares for flowers, won’t He care for you?”

In verse 32, Jesus just kind of sums up the foolishness of these things we’re looking for, that we add, piecemeal, to try and make sense of the lives we know we should be living. He says in Matthew 6:32

Matthew 6:32 (NIV)

For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

Essentially, Jesus says, unbelievers live their lives this way… but not followers of Jesus. We know that God both knows what we need and God will provide what we need.

He’s about to provide the next step for the good life, what life under the umbrella of the Kingdom of God actually means. Look with me at verse 33, and we’ll spend the rest of our time here this morning.

Matthew 6:33 (NIV)

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

The unbelief of what God has promised His children ends up looking like: accumulation and desperation. We live between the extremes of hoarding our resources, probably indicating that we’ve substituted the Lord as Provider with ourselves; and the other extreme of not believing the goodness of God, who gives graciously and freely to His children.

But the good life, life in the Kingdom of God, is first met by pursuing two things:

God’s Kingdom

His righteousness

If the extremes of frivolity and frugality weren’t working, then God Himself has provided another alternative for His people to thrive. This is the place absent of worry. This is the space of abundance, where we have exactly what we need, and always more than enough. This is really opposed to the way of the world which lives in the realm of “got too much” and “never have enough.”

So what does the third option of God’s Kingdom and His Righteousness include?

The Kingdom is the reality that is always set before us. We have gained entrance into the Kingdom of God by faith, because of what Christ has done in His death, burial, and resurrection. The Kingdom of God is the fullest expression of the good life on this side of heaven. This is every ounce of authority and power that we need to live redemptively as we wait for the end of the story, in which Jesus returns to make all things new. We live in the coming of the Kingdom, waiting for the King himself, which is Jesus, to make all wrongs right.

And His Righteousness, this is His pledge of affection for His people. We might have been trained to read “righteousness” as a set of right-and-wrong behaviors, but this is more than that. Righteousness is less about our ability to “be right” as it God’s ability to “make all things right.” The pledge of affection of Jesus is that those who have been rescued and brought into His Kingdom will have all of their needs met in Christ Jesus.

Scholar Scot McKnight says that, “for Kingdom and Righteousness, the disciple is to ‘seek’ or ‘pursue.’ The idea is to focus on, to want, to plot, and to act in a way that keeps one aimed at the goal… This is a confrontation with Jesus, who offers citizens of the Kingdom the way to live the gospel-drenched life of the Kingdom.”

The invitation isn’t to worry endlessly, it’s to pursue the good life in Jesus Christ where He always knows what we need, and always gives us what we need.

I would contend today… that Lamorinda, the East Bay, and Northern California, must be saturated in this truth.

Moraga Valley Presbyterian Church has been endowed with the purpose of knowing Christ and making Him known. The invitation of Lamorinda, the East Bay, and Northern California is to meet this Jesus, who knows our every need and graciously supplies all that we require.

This church has been heralded as a Beacon of Hope over the valley to point others towards the good life in Christ. We find that our audience is very similar...

We have the ultra-wealthy, the overly-educated — who wring the hands in worry about their financial portfolios, the educational futures of their children and grandchildren, and a lot of us are putting to good use our water polo experiences — doing what we can to keep our heads above the surface. And we also have needy, broken — and some of that is more visible than others, and some it is deeply hidden, we’ve been taught to bandage it up…

Matthew 6:33 is not vague in language.. it does not say:

seek first my success

seek first my image

seek first my health

seek first my job path

seek first my Kid's well being

seek first my financial stability

seek first my relationships

seek first my peace

Jesus says, seek first His Kingdom

To seek and pursue is to have the confrontation where we’re met with the endless provision and grace of Jesus — and very quickly, we realize that nothing stands in comparison, there is nothing left to want, in His presence. — Verse 33 says (Matthew 6:33)

Matthew 6:33 (NIV)

and all these things will be given to you as well.

We’re nearing the winter time where the Bay and the Hills that surround us will be covered in green, and I can’t help but think about the language that’s so present in Psalm 23. Psalm 23 shows us the rugged nature of our lives, life being led by the loving hand of the Lord — it’s absolutely terrifying, the Rod and Staff of the Shepherd that comfort us in Psalm 23 — those are meant to rip us back when we’re straying and to beat away the things that want to assault us in the darkness. Just by that definition alone, it seems like anything but the Good life… but the 23rd Psalm has already been saying what Jesus was getting at...

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…

In the Kingdom, there is nothing lacking.

The overwhelming majority of the 7.5 million people who live in the greater Bay Area… they’ve never heard that.

In verse 33, it says, “all these things” — this everything that is necessary for life. We are not called to broker a deal in the Bay, that if you take Jesus then He’ll give you a set of provisions, but this is a promise from the Lord, Jesus, Himself.

The Lord relieves us from the tireless, worrisome search of finding life in somewhere other than Himself. — Another way you could think about this is: the Bay is lost, and Jesus alone is the Way to life.

One of the great lines of a dead scholar of the church is an invitation for MVPC this morning… Scholar Jim Slack said, “When God’s people own the lostness of their place, God moves.”

The place that you love, the places you live, work, and play — the place our family is already falling in love with — is lost, is lacking, is consumed by worry, is still searching for the good life, and they have not yet been confronted by the person of Jesus.

We obviously want to see credibility in the future of the church, and the world is waiting to see that, too.

To own that lostness, to confront the world with the good life, we’ll need to seek the Kingdom first. I don’t mean this is a value system, this isn’t a check list for Christian do’s and don’ts, it is to be regularly confronted by the person and work of Jesus, to see the transforming grace of His death, burial, and resurrection always before us. I hold up in front of me the fact that I am a sinner that Jesus thought worthy enough to save, my hope and future is secure in His finished work (not what I do, or don’t do), and all that I am, all that I hope to be, and everything in between is subject to what He wants. I regularly pray, “Do what you want, Lord.”

Prayers like that coincide with the words of Jesus in verse 34 (Matthew 6:34) “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Of course at this point there’s no benefit in worrying, but there will always be a great benefit in entrusting ourselves to Jesus.

We are slowly learning, with the Spirit’s help, to do what Scottish Missionary, David Livingstone, said, “I will place no value on anything I have or possess unless it is in relationship to the Kingdom of God.”

There are untold implications of this, “Do what you want, Lord” kind of life — but all around us is a lost and worry-ridden people who are searching for whether or not they’re really worth more than the birds and the flowers — and if there is someone who can supply their every need.

There is much work to be done to declare and demonstrate that every person is, as our passage today said, “of greater value than the birds,” and “their Heavenly Father knows what they need.”

And we can’t wait to get to work with you.