Be Satisfied

Matthew 6:25-34

Introduction

In the article, “Guilt and Anxiety,” Time Magazine states, The breakdown of faith in God coupled with the accelerated pace and high tension of modern life have produced intense anxiety in many millions of people. Worry is one of the most widespread and debilitating ailments of our time.” This was written in 1961.

An anxious people in an anxious time.

Since 2020, with the Covid shutdowns, the race riots, the record high inflation, and the escalation of wars around the world, is it any wonder that there is a rise in the diagnosis of General Anxiety Disorders?

In 2024, nearly 1 in 3 teen are struggle with anxiety disorder.

Our Lord’s Teaching - Do not be anxious…

He knows our heart, and he knows our tendency toward anxiety, and He speaks to us that our anxious hearts would be settled.

This sermon: help to understand anxiety and its source, to know how Jesus’ teaching calls us out of anxiety, and, finally, to show how your heart can find genuine satisfaction.

Understanding Anxiety

What Anxiety Means

Ways to describe Anxiety (from the word used to indicate something that divides or separates or distracts)

Anxiety is a feeling of fear, dread, or uneasiness that can be normal in response to stress. It can be a helpful reaction that helps you focus or gives you a boost of energy. However, when anxiety becomes persistent and interferes with daily life, it can be a sign of an anxiety disorder.

For several years a woman had been having trouble getting to sleep at night because she was afraid of burglars. One night her husband heard a noise in the house, so he went downstairs to investigate. When he got there, he did find a burglar. “Good evening,” he said. “Come meet my wife. She has been waiting years to meet you.”

“Anxiety is mortgaging the future by worrying about it in the present.”

Good and Bad Cares

Good cares - it is right to be concerned for your family, to provide for them, to invest wisely, to watch your steps in life that you would do all things to the glory of God --

Caring for the body is good, and planning for your future is good.

Proverbs 6 tells the sluggard to go learn from the ant, who stores up food for winter.

Paul tells men and women that they need to provide for their families (1 Tim. 5:8). and parents that they should save up for their children (2 Cor. 12:14).

Those who have no care, no concern, are presuming on the provision of God:

The farmer who prays that God give him a good harvest but doesn’t plow or sown his is delusional.

The able bodied person who is out of employment, and lazily sits down asking God to supply his need instead of looking for work has a false hope.

The student who refuses to study but prays that God will help him pass a test has set himself up for failure.

Disordered cares - to become so obsessed with our worries that we are paralyzed by them.

Worrying about your children so much that you watch and track their every move, and cannot rest when they are away.

Stressing over your retirement fund, so that every adjustment in the market overwhelms you.

Ulcers aren’t about what you eat, but what is eating you.

What Causes Our Anxiety

Misplaced Faith

Satan wants you to find treasures on earth, and not in God. A. W. Pink - “To be worried that we may yet be left to suffer the lack of temporal necessities, is to be guilty of wicked unbelief. It calls into question the goodness and care of our Creator. It manifests a lack of faith in His wise and gracious providence. And if we be Christians, it betrays doubt of our Father’s love.”

Anxiety comes when we look so much at the things of earth that we don’t look to God. The less we trust God to provide our daily needs, the less we really believe in His eternal mercies. Faith lays hold on both.

Our needs can become a source of worry that removes God from us, leading to distrust.

“O You of Little Faith” - Remember, Jesus is speaking to those who belong to the kingdom, to those who believe, but who’s faith is small

Little faith is concerned only with salvation. It is a saving faith because it looks to Jesus. As small as an anxious faith may be, it is still looking to the One who is mighty to save.

We believe in Jesus, but we don’t believe Jesus. We fail to apply the promises of God, to even know the promises of God, to our daily lives.

Do Not Be Anxious

Therefore…

This comes in context of Jesus’ teaching on the righteousness of the kingdom. Looking back to 6:19-24, when you see that the treasures of earth are at risk, but your heavenly treasure is secure; when your eye is healthy and undivided; when you have laid aside the idol of wealthy and seek the Lord, then you have no reason to be anxious. Therefore… do not be anxious!

Anxiety is Futile

You cannot add one span to your life.

Literally, adding one cubit to your measurement - Can worrying make you taller, make your life longer? No.

God has measured out our days, and we cannot add to or take from that measurement - no matter how much we worry.

Tomorrow will be anxious for itself, sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

When we live in “tomorrow land,” we fret over our woes, or dream about our triumphs. Both distract us from the goal of living for the kingdom in the present.

God Provides

The Birds and the Grass

The birds don’t sow, reap, or gather into barns - but your Father feeds them.

How much more…

If God provides for the birds of the air, and gives beauty to the grass of the field, will He allow His own children to starve and go without glory?

God Cares/Knows

Your Father knows you need these things

As our Father he desires to help, as our God is able to help

Peter knew what it meant to worry

1 Pet 5:7 - cast all your anxieties on him for he cares for you

Be Satisfied

Repent and Believe in Christ

The promise is for those who call God Father

You cannot call Him Father unless you are in the Son

He gives us the right to be called the children of God.

The Gentiles - the nations, the heathens - worry about these things. They don’t believe in God’s promises, so their lives are consumed with providing for themselves

A.W. Pink, “Sons of the King of Heaven should not conduct themselves like the Devil’s beggars.”

Grow in Faith in Christ

Saving faith may be weak - but a saving faith seeks to grow, learning to rely upon Christ more and more

Seek first the kingdom and His righteousness - what does this look like?

Seeking the Kingdom means setting your eyes on the King.

Looking to Christ before the things of the world.

Seeking the Kingdom first means prioritizing the Kingdom of God

The needs of the body are subordinated to the need of the soul

Seeking the Kingdom means submitting to God in righteous obedience

Seeking the Kingdom means pursuing righteousness - not just in society, but in your own life - in what you say, how you think…

Be Satisfied in Christ

What more can Heaven give?

Eph 1 blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.

1 Cor 3all things are yours in Christ

Food that does not leave us hungry

Jo 6:35 - whoever comes to him will not hunger or thirst

Clothed in glory greater than Solomon

Solomon’s glory was external, the glory of the flower comes from within, it is an essential part, what they really are. So it is with the Christian. The life and light which God pours into your heart brings forth the fruits of righteousness.