Matthew 6 25-33 2008

Pentecost 2

Matthew 6:24-34

May 25, 2008

“Consider the sparrows”

Introduction: Birds amaze me. I love to watch them. They seem to be so mobile. They can go any where they want without difficulty. At least it appears that way. I like them too because they seem to be so free and unencumbered. They float with ease upon the gentle breezes of the wind as it whispers through the trees. I notice the birds the most though, when I am sitting in my office. They gather at my bird feeder. Blue Buntings, Cardinals, Woodpeckers, and Gold finches. I especially like them because the males are all dressed up in their spring best feathers, trying to impress the girls. On the ground, below the bird feeder gather a quite, unassuming crowd, or should I say flock…a flock of sparrows. When I see them I remember the words of our gospel lesson. I consider the Sparrows and then I consider myself. This is the lesson that our Lord wants to teach us. Consider the sparrows. As we do consider also how are we like them?  How are we not like them? 

I. First, how are we unlike the Sparrows?

A. We sow and reap. We work hard almost every day of our lives. In the beginning we work hard trying to crawl, learning to walk, forming words so that we can talk. Then we are sent to school, reading writing and arithmetic. We even have to be taught about God. It is hard work. There is Preschool, Elementary school, High school, College, perhaps even graduate school. When we think that we might get a break, it just doesn’t happen. We have to get a “real job.” Day in and day out we work to put bread on our families table. We strive to cloth ourselves our families with the best that we can afford. We work hard to put and keep a roof over our heads. We work hard to buy the things we want; the things that we think will make us happy. And perhaps, if we can, we save a little money for the future. It is necessary and good that we do all of these things. Unfortunately, in the process, we start to think that we are the ones that have provided for ourselves. After all, we think we have accomplished all these things through our own blood, sweat and tears. Even as we see what we think we have done, we also realize how feeble and weak, and fragile our existence is. One moment we are healthy and well. The next moment we are sick and perhaps even on the verge of death. We could ask Ted Kennedy about this. In one moment we are employed and the next the employer moves out of town. One day we see the place where we live and in the next moment it is all gone, destroyed by flood, fire or tornado. One day, we may have lots to eat, and the next we find the cupboards bare. There are food riots going on in the world right now. I don’t know about your kitchens, but we are not filling the cupboards they way we used to do. Oil and food prices are having an effect on us. As a result of all of these things, there is, for us, the temptation to worry about how we were going to make it from day to day. The sparrows don’t do any of these things. Neither do they worry about them.

B. Unlike sparrow we worry about things that will parish. Yes we have worked hard, for many things. We spend out time sowing, reaping, and gathering in to our barns. In the end we realize that all this; all these things will eventually be taken away from us. For most of us our homesteads were somebody else’s many years ago, Our homesteads will belong to some one else in the years to come. In the end, as our lives are filled with years, as we get old, we look back and see that most of what we worked for is gone. It’s gone. We are left with very little. Still we are tempted to fear that even he little that we have will also be taken away.  

C. Unlike the sparrows we worry about today and tomorrow. We even worry about yesterday. We think how will I make? What will the future hold for my children? The world is filled with terrible uncertainties. For us tomorrow can be a fearful place. But not for the sparrows, they don’t worry about tomorrow.  

II. How then are we like the sparrows?

A. Just like he made the sparrows, God made you.  You are His creation. Your life here on earth is not an accident. Before you were born God knew you and loved you. He was their at your borning cry. He was there when you began to crawl, walk and talk. He was there through all your years of school, of work and into your retirement. He has been and is there with you every day of your life. He will be their when you die. God not only created you. He had a plan for your life.  That plan included caring for you daily and richly, meeting every one of your needs.       

B. He cares for you now and eternally. If His eye is on the sparrow, must it not also be on you? If He feeds the sparrows that neither sows nor reaps, will He not feed you? Of course Jesus is asking a rhetorical question. The obvious answer is yes, yes, yes! He has met all of your needs. He has supplied your most important one. He sent His Son Jesus to die for your sins. Through His death He not only gives you hope in this life, but the promise of eternal life. Through Jesus you are forgiven for all your doubt and worry. He has forgiven you. Now He calls you to be at peace. The Sparrows, “Are you not much more valuable than they”?  “He that did not even spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all--will He not along with Him graciously give you all things?

C. “Seek ye first”. God calls us away from our worries and concerns about today and tomorrow. Where can we go to get away from them?  Jesus tells us to “seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added”. He calls us to Himself. The kingdom of God rests upon His shoulders and we find it when we embrace Him as our Lord and Savior. He calls us to leave our worries at the foot of His cross. At His cross we are set free, as it were, to fly like the sparrows. Through Jesus’ death our load of cares has been lifted from our shoulders.

Conclusion   Engineers daughter.

I want to conclude with a short story. There was a young child that was about to take a very long train trip--alone. As the child was boarding the train a man asked “aren't you afraid to travel alone with no one to take care of you or watch over you. The child replied, “O no sir, I am not afraid. My father is the engineer and is driving the train.”  Your Heavenly Father is in control. He created you and loves you and is taking care of you one day at a time. The Sparrows, “Are you not much more valuable than they”?  “He that did not even spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all--will He not along with Him graciously give you all things?