Don’t Worry: Living in Dependence on the Father. Matthew 6:25-34

Good morning, Wheatland! It’s a privilege to be with you this morning! Today we’re continuing our journey through the Sermon on the Mount and our particular text this morning is the conclusion of a subsection of the sermon that began in verse 19 of chapter 6. When I reached out to Keith a couple of weeks ago asking if he needed any help this summer, he said this week opened up because the person they had lined up couldn’t do it in the end. Before I knew what the text was, I said yes, but now I see why the person may have dropped out. Preaching on anxiety is not the easiest or cheeriest of topics! At least on the surface. But my hope this morning is that we see Jesus’ challenge to us to not be anxious not as insensitive or impossible, but rather a counter cultural call to live in dependence on our Creator God who is the maker and sustainer of all things. Jesus is trying to show us as his disciples, as kingdom people, that this God can be trusted not only with the means of salvation, but also our most basic needs. Let me pray and then [name] will come and read our text.

When my children were little, like 2 to 3 years old, whenever they would get worried or anxious about something, my wife and I would immediately break into the Bob Marley song “3 Little Birds” which starts off with the line, “baby don’t worry about a thing, cuz every little thing is gonna be alright.” This would of course calm them down, they would take some deep regulating breaths, and they would see the error of freaking out and become calm rational creatures that we could have a reasonable discussion about whatever was causing them to have anxiety. Not really, usually breaking into the song led to an escalation of the freak out and potentially an angry outburst.

Whether your 2, 22, or 82 having someone tell you to not worry when you’re worried about something isn’t the most helpful piece of advice in the world, because the reality is we all have worried, are worrying, or will worry about something in our lives. Whether your rich or poor, young or old, we tend to be an anxious people. Even the King of England, who’s path in life was predetermined from birth deals with anxiety because you know the Queen’s corgis are still out there somewhere and they are extremely loyal to her. I know I wouldn’t want to cross them!

I joke because even the people who we look at who appear to have it all together still struggle with anxiety which begs the question, what is Jesus talking about when he tells us not to be anxious? Is he completely misreading the situation? Is he just being really insensitive and telling his disciples to get over themselves?

When you consider the historical context, it seems Jesus’ words are really off base. Jesus was speaking to an oppressed and marginalized people who were constantly beset by trouble or the threat of trouble. They were overtaxed and kept in line by a foreign occupying army. Of course, there would be anxiousness! Who wouldn’t be anxious in such a context? So, what is Jesus meaning when he tells his disciples and us not to be anxious?

Well, as I’ve studied this passage this week, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t think Jesus is talking about anxiety in general. I think, given the context of where these verses lie in the sermon, Jesus is addressing our heart. Is our heart after the things of this world or after the Kingdom of God?

If we go back a few verses and look at verse 19 we can read Jesus’ exhortation to “not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

And then a little later in verse 24, the verse preceding our text this morning, Jesus says “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

As we’ve seen through out the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uses an external example to highlight our heart posture. When we pray, do we do it to sound knowledgeable and appear pious, or is it for the Lord? When we fast, is it so others can praise our suffering, our self-discipline, or is it for the Lord? When we give, is it to show others how generous we are and earn their praise, or is it for the Lord? So, it is with the question of money. Are we anxious because we are trying to keep up with the Jones’ or are we truly dependent on the Father and trusting him for our daily bread?

Jonathan Pennington in his commentary on this passage writes, “According to Jesus’ teachings, when people seek to keep everything together and provide for themselves apart from God, the result is not the sought-after peace, but rather, anxiety… It is the non-God-directed heart that is laying up earthly treasures that ironically does not have peace.”

This is why Jesus says you can’t serve both God and money. He knows only in utter dependence on the Father will we find true contentment, and so he goes on in verses 25-34 tells us why we don’t need to be anxious and shows us how we are to live with our hearts properly aligned toward him.

The first reason Jesus gives us for why we don’t need to be anxious is the providence of God. In choosing to trust God and serve him over our own ambitions we recognize how he cares for us in our daily experience. John Stott puts it this way, “Our human experience is this: God created and now sustains our life; he also created and continues to sustain our body. This is a fact of everyday experience. We neither made ourselves, nor keep ourselves alive. Now, our ‘life’ (for which God is responsible) is obviously more important than the food and drink which nourish it. Similarly our ‘body’ (for which God is also responsible) is more important than the clothing which covers and warms it. Well then, if God already takes care of the greater (our life and our body), can we not trust him to take care of the lesser (our food and our clothing)?”

Jesus isn’t flippantly saying you don’t need worry about food or clothing like they don’t matter, but what he is saying is that if God created and sustains your life each day, don’t you think he will care about your food and clothing? He already said at the beginning of chapter 6 in the prayer that he gave us that we should pray for our daily bread. Because of who God is, we can trust him to provide for us.

This leads into the second reason Jesus gives us for not worrying - your immense value. In verse 25 Jesus argues from the greater to the lesser. God is great, the creator, the sustainer, the king of glory, yet in his love, grace and mercy he condescends to care for us body and soul. In verses 26 and 28 through 30 Jesus does the opposite and argues from the lesser to the greater to illustrate how valuable you are to the Father. In verse 26 he uses the example of birds who “neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” And here it is, “are you not of more value than they?”

I don’t know if you’ve ever done a similar exercise that Jesus does by noticing the care of the Father in his creation. I can’t help but notice this at my house. I have so many squirrels and rabbits in my yard it’s ridiculous. I can’t shoot them because the police station is right down the road, plus I’m not a very good shot so I’d probably do more damage than good. So instead, my wife has become the crazy lady who runs around the yard trying to chase them all away. Farmer Brown from the Peter Rabbit stories has got nothing on her!

Because every couple of hours she bursts out of the house tearing across the yard after a rabbit, my eye is inevitably drawn to examine the creation around us. Even with the potential of being chased, these animals are completely unconcerned. The oak trees in my front yard provide plenty of nuts for the squirrels, its branches provide shelter for a family of cardinals, the robins dig up plenty of insects from the ground, and the rabbits have my wife’s delicious flowers to feast on.

Just in looking out of my front window I can see the care in which the Father has for these small, lesser creatures. And Jesus says if the God of heaven takes such care of them, how much more will he take care of you who are of more value than a squirrel or a rabbit or a bird?

Martin Luther creatively highlights how the birds can teach us this lesson of our value. He writes, “‘You see… he is making the birds our schoolmasters and teachers. It is a great and abiding disgrace to us that in the Gospel a helpless sparrow should become a theologian and a preacher to the wisest of men … Whenever you listen to a nightingale, therefore, you are listening to an excellent preacher … It is as if he were saying “I prefer to be in the Lord’s kitchen. He has made heaven and earth, and he himself is the cook and the host. Every day he feeds and nourishes innumerable little birds out of his hand.”

If we skip ahead to verse 28, Jesus gives us a second example from creation. “And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, o you of little faith?”

Flowers are beautiful. We have 2-3 bouquets in our house right now, but they are relatively short lived and some of them even have shorter life spans if any of you are like me and don’t have the magic touch to keep flowers and plants alive. I remember I was working with someone once and they said they didn’t like to get flowers on their birthday or anniversary because to them it seemed like a complete waste of money because they eventually die.

Flowers are also extremely vulnerable to the elements. Jesus is pointing out the wildflowers that grew on the hillsides of Galilee. The word translated lilies doesn’t refer to just one variety but was a common phrase to describe a whole variety of flowers that grew in the region. At any moment some on could come clear the field with a scythe, or they will die and just be fuel for the fire.

But even with this vulnerability we see the extravagance of God for the lessor creature. Jesus says Solomon in all his glory did not look as good as these flowers. All his wealth, all his bling, nor his enormous palace couldn’t come close to the wildflowers of Galilee. Solomon had to have all his clothes made, these flowers don’t do anything to robe themselves in such glory, and Jesus once again asks if the Creator of the Universe does this for something that is here today and gone tomorrow, won’t he care for you to?

After this example I can almost hear the gentleness in his voice as he says, “o you of little faith?” It’s like he’s saying with this one little phrase “don’t you see? Don’t you understand how valuable you are? This God who you have rejected over and over again has never stopped pursuing you! Never stopped taking care of you! He gave you a garden, a purpose, and a place to commune with him and you rejected him. He rescued you from slavery, ordered you into a people, gave you another land and a promise that if you followed him you would prosper, but you rejected him again. He gave you a king who taught you how to worship and center your life around him, and his son who showed you the way of wisdom, and yet you still chose your own way! He sent you messengers to bring you back, to declare how much he loved you and longed for you to be with him, and you still turned your back on him. O you of little faith! Don’t you see how valuable you are? How much you mean to God? Don’t you see the lengths to which he will go to take care of you?

In this simple question, Jesus is gently reminding them that if they knew God, if they really knew their own story as his people, then they would trust him and in trusting him, their anxiousness about the basic provisions of life like food, drink, and clothing would cease.

And this is the third reason Jesus gives for not worrying. Gentiles worry about these things, people who are outside the family of God and who don’t know this God that Jesus has just described worry about these things. In verse 31 he says, “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” People who don’t know God, who are outside of his family, try to figure out these things through their own strength. It is all on them. Gentiles through the right combination of words and sacrifices try to appease the right god who could, if you pray loud enough to get their attention, or work hard enough that they notice you, could bless their business, or their crop, and therefore be provided for. They earnestly seek in their own strength the provision instead of the provider.

But Jesus reminds his disciples of who they are and who’s they are by reminding them that their heavenly Father knows all their needs. He’s not some distant god like the Romans and Greeks serve, but he’s proximate and present and alive and even more keenly aware than they are about their needs, and so instead of spending all their time worrying and striving after the material things, Jesus gives them a different way to live.

In fact, earlier in verse 27, Jesus shows them the fallacy of spending their time being anxious by asking, “and which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” The word translated hour is the word cubit which is a measurement of size not just time. So, this could also read “which of you by being anxious can add to his stature?” Who can make themselves taller with worry? It’s not possible. It is a waste of your time and energy, instead Jesus tells us in verse 33 to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Jesus wants us to focus our heart on this God who cares so deeply for us. If we focus on his kingdom and his righteousness, we know the rest will be taken care of. Pennington writes that, “in the context of 6:19-34, this macro-level statement about seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness serves as a concluding encouragement on the issue of one’s goods and possessions regarding the matter of money. The final solution, then, to the anxiety-about-money problem is to set one’s heart and mind to seeking God’s way of being in the world and his coming reign, which promises to result in all of one’s needs being truly met. Thus, the solution to anxiety is not a simplistic ‘Stop worrying,’ but a redirecting of the disciples’ vision to the proper heart orientation, accompanied by a promise of provision.”

This is the new way Jesus shows us how to live. It is a life that is focused and seeks after the God who redeems his creation. It is a life that is defined and shaped by him, not the things and the cares of this world. It is a life that is passionate it about joining in with Christ’s mission to make all things new, not whether our house is Instagram worthy or the charcuterie board we served looked like it came out of a magazine. Throughout this whole sermon, not just this little subsection, but the whole thing, Jesus has been redirecting our focus from the external things to our hearts and verse 33 serves as a big application point of his sermon, “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” Submit your life to his rule and reign, fix your eyes on the greater things, and he promises to take care of the rest.

You might be thinking, “how do I seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness?” By doing what Pennington says and redirecting our vision. This happens through developing those spiritual disciplines in our lives that constantly re-center us on the Lord. Regular scripture reading, time in prayer, hearing the word proclaimed, and regular feasting at his table.[1]All of these and more will help us lift our eyes from the things of the world and fix them on the God who even cares for birds with extravagance, and how much more has he done for us? They will remind us daily and weekly of the story that finds its inauguration and fulfillment in the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and return of Jesus Christ.

And as we seek first the kingdom, we find that we care about living rightly in this kingdom. We start to care for the things that he cares for and despise the things that he despises. We learn what it means to love our neighbor well. We grow in humility, and long for justice and mercy. We are reshaped and reformed into his image.

And as we seek these things first and reorient our heart to the kingdom and living in that kingdom, we will find that “all these things will be added.” Or as NT Wright puts it, when we “Put God first… you’ll get the world thrown in.”[2]

This would be a fitting conclusion to this subsection of Jesus’ sermon, but he gives us one more “therefore.” In verse 34 Jesus says, “therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

It feels like Jesus is ending on a bit of a downer, but I think he’s giving us one last piece of wisdom before moving onto the next section of his sermon. At the beginning of the message, I said that I don’t think Jesus was talking about anxiety in general but specific worries regarding our basic sustenance that reveal where our heart is at. In this verse Jesus confirms that we will face troubles and trouble isn’t completely anxiety free. Jesus himself wrestled with anxiety and fear in the garden of Gethsemane, so much so that he sweat drops of blood, but Jesus also modeled what it is to seek God’s kingdom first and his righteousness. His prayer was to not to have to go through the horrific death and to bear the past, present, and future sin of the entire world on his shoulders, but he was fully submitted to the will of his father and prayed that the Father’s will would be done and not his.

This sermon is preached at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and he knew the garden and the cross lay ahead, but Jesus modeled staying present. He didn’t fixate on that day 3 years in the future but spent each day doing what the Father gave him to do.

We also don’t need to be anxious for tomorrow and thereby adding to what we’re already walking through today. As we daily seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness we will be daily reminded of the God who cares for us body and soul, the God who cares extravagantly for his creation, the God who values us so much that he sent his son to establish his kingdom through his life, death, and resurrection, and by that grace and through faith he made a way for us to be with him in this kingdom, and one day he will come again to make all things new thereby removing all of our anxieties forever.

Throughout this little subsection of the sermon on the mount, Jesus constantly shows that we can trust the Father, and throughout his ministry Jesus models what anxious free living looks like even in the midst of troubles because he knows who the Father is, and so he encourages us to get to know this Father who cares for the least to the greatest and will do whatever it takes to rescue his creation. Seek his kingdom, orient your heart and life to him and his way and he will take care of the rest.

Let’s pray.