Matthew 6:25-34
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Introduction
Introduction
Good morning church! What a beautiful week!
Here at FCC we just simply teach the Bible simply by going through the Bible one verse at a time, on Book at a time.
We have come as far as verse 25 in Matthew 6, so let us open our Bibles there.
Read Matthew 6:25-34
Read Matthew 6:25-34
“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? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Prayer
Prayer
Lord Heavenly Father, we thank you that we can gather together to hear your Word and that you have given us your Holy Spirit. Please Lord do a work in our hearts today, transform our lives, and make us like you! Lord we all fell short this week, some here today have come with heavy burdens, burdens that only you can bear, so we cast all our cares upon you for your yoke is easy and your burden is light. Please heal the broken hearted and teach us how to walk circumspectly redeeming the time because the days are evil. Father please touch our online listeners and us all. Fill us with your Spirit and remove all distractions that could prevent us from receiving with meekness your implanted Word that is able to save our souls.
In Jesus Name, We Love You! Amen
Review
Review
In looking back to last week, we learned three things:
That Jesus taught us to store our treasures In heaven and not on earth.
Jesus is not teaching that we cannot save, but that we need to have the right perspective which is heaven with regards to the treasures that God has given us.
Everything that God has given us should be used for his glory and service church.
Money is a wonderful servant, but a cruel master.
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
2. Where we store our treasures will determine if our eye is full of light or darkness.
A man with an evil eye hastens after riches, And does not consider that poverty will come upon him.
It’s not wrong to have things, but if you live for things, your eye is evil, and your life will be dark.
3. We cannot serve God and mammon, materialism or money.
It is not possible to serve tow masters church, for we will love the one and hate the other.
Everyone serves someone.
It either God himself, or the gods of this world that come in all shapes and sizes.
It is important for us to remember here that many of the Pharisee’s taught that devotion to God and money were perfectly compatible.
They believed that earthly riches signified Divine blessing, therefore rich people were regarded as God’s favorites.
So the bottom line is this church, is what we believe about our possessions, where we store our possessions is an indicator of our spiritual condition.
“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 think the first question we must ask ourselves is why this therefore, therefore?
It is there because of what we covered last week.
Jesus continues in his sermon discussing the impact our focus will have in our lives.
Now I think it is safe to say that we spend a tremendous amount of time worrying church and the Lord addresses it over and over in his Word.
Worry is an indication that we think God cannot look after us.
Oswald Chambers
In the Greek, the command do not worry includes the idea of stopping what is already being done.
In other words, we are to stop worrying and never start it again.
Life Psuchē (life) is a comprehensive term that encompasses all of a person’s being—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Absolutely nothing in any aspect of our lives, internal or external, justifies our being anxious when we have the Master we do.
Worry is the sin of distrusting the promise and providence of God, and yet it is a sin that Christians commit perhaps more frequently than any other.
The English term worry comes from an old German word meaning to strangle, or choke.
That is exactly what worry does; it is a kind of mental and emotional strangulation, which probably causes more mental and physical afflictions than any other single cause.
Worry- merimnaō-(mer-im-nah'-o)- to have anxiety, to be anxious, to be distracted.
Here are some synonyms for worry:
anxious or anxiety
trouble or distress
uneasiness or disquiet
discontentment
agonize or brood upon
get worked up or lose sleep
What are your worrying about today? How is that going?
Worry is an indication that we think God cannot look after us.
Oswald Chambers
Either worrying drives out prayer, or prayer drives out worrying.
D. A. Carson
“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?
Jesus is speaking to a culture that did not have refrigerators church, nor did they have an abundance or food, water, or clothing.
Many if not most did not know where their next meal was going to come from. Most only had a change of clothes and the water was often contaminated and needed to be cut with wine.
Therefore, you would think that they would worry more than us, but that is simply not true.
Think about the amount of time we spend worrying about these things. SAD...
Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
Said the robin to the sparrow:
“I should really like to know
Why these anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so.”
Said the sparrow to the robin:
“Friend, I think that it must be
That they have no heavenly Father,
Such as cares for you and me.”
Here we see Jesus point his readers to God’s second book which is creation:
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,
God uses his creation to speak to us.
Jesus is on the North Shore of the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum, on a mount, its not a big mount, but there are a lot of birds around that area.
I can see him preaching on worry and then all the sudden a bird flys by and he says this here is verse 26 -27.
Have you ever seen a bird worry? NO
But what we have seen is that birds and all of God’s creation is persistent in going after the food that God has supplied.
They are not motivated by fear, worry, or stress, they are motivated to eat what the Lord has supplied them.
Yes, this includes are bird feeders church, or the bread we give to the ducks.
Laziness casts one into a deep sleep, And an idle person will suffer hunger.
Birds are not idle, they are always on the move, for if not they will suffer hunger and die.
We are the same church!!! Not just physically, but spiritually...
We must go after the food, the Bread of Life so we can thrive spiritually.
Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
This means that no matter how much we worry, it will not make us taller church or the ESV says that worrying cannot add a single hour to our life span.
All the water in the world
However hard it tried,
Could never, never sink a ship
Unless it got inside.
All the hardships of this world,
Might wear you pretty thin,
But they won’t hurt you, one least bit
Unless you let them in.
Worrying causes us to kick God out of our thinking church...
And the root cause of worry is unbelief.
It is a trust issue!!!
The answer to Jesus’s question is we cannot add to our life church anything by worrying, but we can certainly take away from it.
Anxiety is a normal reaction to stress.
Anxiety disorders are commonplace in the U.S., affecting nearly 40 million adults.
Anxiety manifests itself in multiple ways and does not discriminate by age, gender, or race.
Chronic worry and emotional stress can trigger a host of health problems.
The problem occurs when fight or flight is triggered daily by excessive worrying and anxiety.
The fight or flight response causes the body’s sympathetic nervous system to release stress hormones such as cortisol.
These hormones can boost blood sugar levels and triglycerides (blood fats) that can be used by the body for fuel.
The hormones also cause physical reactions such as:
Difficulty swallowing
DizzinessDry mouth
Fast heartbeat
Fatigue
Headaches
Inability to concentrate
Irritability
Muscle aches
Muscle tension
Nausea
Nervous energy
Rapid breathing
Shortness of breathSweatingTrembling and twitching
When the excessive fuel in the blood isn’t used for physical activities, the chronic anxiety and outpouring of stress hormones can have serious physical consequences, including:
Suppression of the immune system
Digestive disorders
Muscle tension
Short-term memory loss
Premature coronary artery disease
Heart attack
If excessive worrying and high anxiety is not dealt with, they can lead to depression and even suicidal thoughts.
Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, But a good word makes it glad.
“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
Here we see Jesus giving us another example from the Creation story church, I am guessing that why he was preaching he not only saw a bird fly over, but he probably saw the lilies of the field.
In light of Solomon’s great glory, some might think this illustration is overstated.
Far from it! “Lilies of the field” are the wildflowers of Galilee, and a microscope applied to any of them reveals a magnificence that makes Solomon’s robes look like rags!
The grass and the flowers of the field dried up and these were used for fuel in the bread ovens of Jewish homes. These forms of vegetation are transient and passing, just like us.
Life is but a vapor, let us not cut our lives short be living in worry church
“O you of little faith?” --
The Lord does not admonish his disciples for no faith but for little faith.
Our Lord is warning against Christians who have saving faith and stop at that, having no great desire to push deeper into a faith-relationship with their Lord.
Without daily sanctifying faith, Christians will be defeated and more prone to worry.
God is waiting to bless any Christian who chooses to step out in faith and do God’s will.
Faith trusts the God who controls circumstances.
The person who walks by faith masters the circumstances and does not let the circumstances master him.
This is the Christian who believes God is in charge of his or her life.
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Here we see the word Gentiles used, it means Non-Jews, pagans, or the heathen.
These are the people whose god is their belly as Paul writes and who have golden calfs that are absolutely meaningless.
Those who have no hope in God naturally put their hope and expectations in things they can enjoy now. They have nothing to live for but the present, and their materialism is perfectly consistent with their religion. They have no God to supply their physical or their spiritual needs, their present or their eternal needs, so anything they get they must get for themselves.
Church, our approach to life must be different than someone who does not know God.
We have seen three things in our text today:
We have a Father in heaven that loves us and will supply all of our need according to his riches and glory.
If God cares for the birds, the grass, and the flowers of the field, will he not much more take care of us who were created in his image???
We have learned that worry is useless and that we will not help ourself at all by worrying, in fact, we will make things worse. So let’s give it up!!! Let’s stop it! Let’s trust God with every area of our lives...
The word worry is mentioned 6 times here and it is clear that Jesus desires our focus to be on him and not on the cares of this life church, not on materialism, not on our circumstances, but on him the living God.
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Jesus here gives us the remedy church for worry..
Seek first, keep on seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.
Jesus is saying the more time we spend in the Word, the more time we spend in fellowship with his people, the more we trust him...
But the opposite is true, the less time we spend we the Word and God’s people the more we will worry!!!
Worry is unbelief, worry is a lack of trust, worry will strangle us and choke out the word of God:
Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”
The cares of this world is the Greek word merimna, that means worry church.
So guess what? The cares of this world, or the worries of this world choke the word, strangle the word, and it becomes unfruitful. So does the deceitfulness of riches and desires for other things other than God!!
How is your worry meter? Where is you focus?
If God feeds the birds of the air, and clothes the grass of the field with splendor, what makes us think he will not take care of us?
Prayer
Prayer
Lord Jesus, we praise you for this teaching about worry and that the remedy for worry is you! Lord personally I am cut the heart as I struggle at times thinking of the future as I age. But God I know that I am not the only one. Some sitting here today and listening online are struggling as well. Please Lord, please help us to head your call when you knock on the doors of our heart and help us to focus on you. Help us to never forget that our trust in you is directly proportional to us spending time with you in prayer, word, and fellowship. Show us the anxieties of our heart this week and help us run to you!
In Jesus Name! We Love you ! Amen!
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Guess what? The word anxious here is worry..
Here we see the remedy!
The Lord Bless You!
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