What Are You Worried About?
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
A Danish Philosopher by the name of Soren Kierkegaar wrote,
Time goes slowly for the anxious, and for the very anxious even one moment is deadly slow, and for someone anxious unto death time finally stands still. (EUD, 345)
Soren Kierkegaar
Are you anxious this morning about anything? Do you have things that are bothering you that have you worried?
Life is hard. There are a lot of things we have to think about as adults. People use the term “adulting” to describe all of these concerns that we have. We have mortgages and bills, we have kids to raise.
If you watch the news you probably stay stressed out and now that we live in such a connected world, we are stressed out by social media and the car wreck that happened on the other side of the country.
Anxiety weighs us down, but we shouldn’t worry because we have a mighty God who is totally in control of everything.
We don’t have to be worried. Let’s take a look at what Jesus had to say about it in Matthew 6.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious 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?
26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,
29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 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?
31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Pray.
1. The Command (v. 25)
1. The Command (v. 25)
Jesus did not mince His words when He told the disciples not to be anxious.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious 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?
The things that Jesus points out that people worry about are basic necessities that we all need to survive. We could name any number of other needs that we have, but these stand in for them all.
He basically is pointing out all of the things that we need to sustain the life that God has given you.
When Jesus says, “Isn’t life more than food or clothing?” what He’s really saying is that if God can make your life, He can certainly give you the things that you need to keep it up.
Anxiety is worry. It’s worry that God can’t handle things and this kind of worry can cripple you.
25 Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.
Spurgeon said of this weight..
When a man is anxious he cannot pray with faith; when he is troubled about the world, he cannot serve his Master, his thoughts are serving himself.
Charles Spurgeon
When you think about it, worry consumes your thoughts and keeps you from being able to move forward.
2. The Examples (vv. 26-29)
2. The Examples (vv. 26-29)
Jesus turns to a couple of examples for us to consider.
26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,
29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Illustration:
My wife was in Walmart the other day and she called me to change our supper plans. You see, normally with a family as big as I have, we tend to eat cheap cuts of meat like chicken and pork. We don’t eat a lot of cow because it costs so much, but she happened to find some discounted steaks and we were able to enjoy them.
Now, do you know why cow costs so much more than chicken? Because chickens reproduce a lot quicker and are a dime a dozen.
So as we consider Jesus’ illustration, he used birds which are so common that you find them everywhere.
If you observe the birds, you see that they make nests in trees and they go out early every morning to find food. They don’t have storehouses or barns. They simply go out every day and God feeds them.
There is a devotion book called Streams in the Desert that had a little poem that goes like this:
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.”
(Elizabeth Cheney, Streams in the Desert, October 10).
God never says that He is the bird’s father. He is your Heavenly Father. He is their creator but the relationship of Heavenly Father is reserved for those who are made in His own image.
Illustration 2
The second example Jesus uses is for all of you short folks that are worried about your height. No amount of worry can change how tall or short you are.
Now, the Greek is a little tricky here because there is an idiom, or expression of speech that is used here. It basically means that no one can lengthen their life.
People worry so much about how long they will live. They get DNA tests and go on extreme diets. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t take care of our bodies or know what health conditions we might have.
But, we can over-worry. That’s not good. That shows that you don’t believe God can handle it.
Hebrews 9:27 says,
27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
Notice the wording? It is “appointed.” God is in control of the length of your life.
Illustration 3: Clothing
Finally Jesus turns to your threads. He talks about what we will wear.
He tells the disciples to look at the fields and consider the grass. The grass is the most temporal of all of these objects.
Grass was often used for fuel for the fire and it could be cut down in a matter of days and thrown into the oven.
But have you ever noticed that the weeds sometimes tend to have some of the prettiest flowers. God didn’t have to do that with something so temporal, but He did.
Jesus compares them to King Solomon who was known to have great pageantry and beauty in his court.
Jesus said Solomon couldn’t compare in all of His glory with the beauty God gives these temporary flowers.
The Point
Now, considering all of these examples, God doesn’t tell us to sit idle, but simply not to worry.
The birds go out and gather. They don’t sit in the nest with beaks open, but God feeds them. We can’t not work or blow money on ourselves and our wants rather than our needs and think that God is failing us if He doesn’t provide. But at the same time, we can only do so much and must trust God to provide for us.
And He will!
We don’t worry about our health, but we take care of our bodies. We trust that God will take us home when it’s time and yet we try to live as long and healthy of a life as possible.
We trust God to clothe the body that He made and we see that He does this.
God cares about you and all of these arguments are from the smaller thing to the larger. Jesus says if God will do this for these little things, of how much more worth are you to God than these!
That brings us to the life principle that we need to understand and live by.
3. The Life Principle (vv. 30-34)
3. The Life Principle (vv. 30-34)
30 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?
31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
You are valuable to God.
Your anxiety is a lack of faith in God and His abilities.
Your worry keeps you from being fruitful in service to the Lord.
Conclusion:
So what are we to do?
Look again at verse 33,
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
We pursue righteousness and the kingdom and we let God take care of the rest.
The famous doctor turned preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said,
If you want to seek anything, if you want to be anxious about anything, be anxious about your spiritual condition, your nearness to God and your relationship to Him. If you put that first, worry will go; that is the result.
Studies in the Sermon on Mount (2), 145
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
So what about your nearness to God?
Do you know Christ? Have you accepted that He made the greatest provision for your soul by sending Jesus to die for your sins on the cross. He buried them with Christ and He raised you with Him to a new and living hope of eternal life to come.