How to Trust

Good morning church! I am excited to get to open God’s Word with you again today. I pray it’s a fruitful time together! Go on and open in your Bibles to Matthew 6.

If this is your first time worshiping with us at East, you are our special guest today. We really are pumped that you are here. All we ask of you today is to fill out the connect card you were given when you came in. If you will drop that by to Mrs. Cheryl on your way out in front of the Next Steps banner, we have a gift for you today!

If you are worshiping online with us for the first time, we ask that you fill out our online connect card. You can find that easily by grabbing your phone and texting the words East Connect to 31996. You will get a response from us with a link. Click that and you can then fill out the connect card right from your phone.

Doesn’t get any easier than that, right?

We are covering 16 verses today. It’s going to feel a lot like last week. There is a whole lot being said, but Jesus seems to be driving home one MAJOR POINT through three examples. Let me read Matthew 6:19-34, I’ll pray, and then we will come back and start looking at it, alright?

Matthew 6:19–34 CSB

“Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness! “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. “Therefore I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? Can any of you add one moment to his life span by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Observe how the wildflowers of the field grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t he do much more for you—you of little faith? So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

PRAY

Some pastors choose to preach what we would call topical series. They would preach four weeks on this idea and then four weeks on another idea. It really allows them to tailor the message content for exactly what the church needs at the time, right?

This is a method of preaching that many pastors choose for this very reason. They will use multiple passages of Scripture from the whole Bible to drive home one singular point.

This is just now how I want to preach for a number of reasons. I like to settle into a certain part of the Bible, whether a book or part of a book and move through it and let the text itself drive the point we are trying to make that day. This can be strange sometimes because you wind up having to preach on stuff that topical preachers may never preach on because it’s just in the text! It’s in the next set of verses! You can’t avoid it!

And it can feel that you aren’t contextualizing your content for exactly what is going on in the lives of your people. Especially when you lay out a 12 weeks mega series like we’ve been in this fall!

But then God does what he did this week...

I laid out the passages of Scripture for this series back in the summer and thought absolutely nothing about the election or the uncertainty that might exist at this time. All I knew was, God wants me to preach through the sermon on the mount.

And here we are, speaking about worry in the midst of a crazy election result fiasco that will probably include lawsuits and investigations for weeks.

God is big enough, amen?

In this text, Jesus focuses his teaching onto three parts of the body and shows his disciples how these three parts impact their faith.

1. The HEART: What we VALUE (v. 19-21)

Matthew 6:19–21 CSB

“Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Jesus begins this look at trust and faith by beginning in a familiar place thus far in the sermon on the mount, right? Last month, we spent every single week talking about The Theme of the Kingdom being “the heart.” All sin originates there before it finds its way into our actions, right?

For all three of these examples, Jesus uses a “this or that” style teaching to drive home his point. Here he says to stop storing up one type of treasure. What type of treasure is that? (of earth, and temporary)

He says to instead go for what type of treasure? (heavenly and not temporary).

Let’s talk about what these are...

Earthly treasures could be summarized as “stuff.” All the things you will either put in the attic or sell in a yard sale. But also house, cars, boats, etc.

What is meant by heavenly treasure? Well, he doesn’t tell his listeners. However, because we are reading these verses in context right after the first part of chapter 6, we know that Jesus just talked about How to Worship, right?

As part of that discussion, he challenged his disciples to worship humbly and only for the glory of God and not so that others might think them to be holy. And what happens when disciples do that? (we didn’t get to talk much about it…) Their heavenly father REWARDS THEM in secret.

It cannot be a coincidence that Jesus just finished talking about heavenly rewards directly into a discussion of heavenly treasure, right? Doesn’t that seem on purpose?

So, Jesus is most definitely speaking of heavenly treasure as the spiritual benefits that are received when one worships and honors God’s name as holy above all else, namely a close and personal relationship with the God of all creation and the opportunity to see others come to trust him as well. That’s heavenly treasure.

Jesus says, Stop hoarding the earthly things, start hoarding the heavenly ones!

But why is this important? Is it really that big of a deal?

Jesus says these all famous words...

Matthew 6:21 CSB

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

This statement scares me to death! Jesus says that what we value affects us greatly!

There is an interactive part on your outline. There’s a line on one side that says earthly. The other side says heavenly. Stare at that line for a second and think about where you are honestly. What do you value most? Do you value stuff? Do you value things that can be purchased? Are you valuing things that have no eternal significance? Where your treasure is, there is where your heart is.

Let me get real for a second...

Parents, what do you show your kids that you value? What do they hear you talk about most? What do you talk to them about the most?

Is it grades? Is it friends and popularity? Is it fitting in? Is it sports and athletic ability? Is it “Going to college?”

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Now, none of these things are bad, but when they are valued over the heavenly things, they reveal a truth about our heart that affects our kingdom usefulness on the earth.

Be honest and put you a dot on that line. Are you valuing the things of the earth over the things of heaven? If so, do what Jesus said, “STOP!”

Jesus talks about the heart, and then he talks about

2. The EYES: How we VIEW MONEY (v. 22-24)

How we view money reveals our spirituality!

Let’s read it again...

Matthew 6:22–24 CSB

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness! “No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Jesus begins talking about the eyes here in a weird, first century kind of way. We know now how eyes work a lot better than they did in the first century. But here, Jesus is trying to speak in terms they can understand. He is not trying to give them an anatomy lesson, right?

Jesus presents two scenarios again...

A “healthy” eye that allows light into the body.

A “bad” eye that doesn’t allow light in, only darkness.

This can seem a little bit out of place. Is this about the things we look at? Movies and TV shows that are unfruitful? Probably not, because that would seem to be really random, no? When I did some studying, (that you could do very easily too!) I found that Jesus is doing a little play on words here that we can miss because we don’t speak Greek.

The words that get translated “bad eye” could more be thought of as EVIL eye. Not bad in effectiveness but bad in morality. This is a phrase used to describe someone who is stingy in other places in the Bible. We see it in Matthew 20:15.

Matthew 20:15 CSB

Don’t I have the right to do what I want with what is mine? Are you jealous because I’m generous?’

It gets translated “jealous” here but it’s really “evil or bad eye.”

So, Jesus is saying here, that when a person is stingy it reveals something about their inside, right? When a person is stingy their heart is darkness.

Before you think I am just making this stuff up, there is more evidence that this is what Jesus is really saying. The word “healthy” in the first part can also mean “generous.” To have a “generous” eye reveals that their is light inside!

Do you see the connection here!? Jesus is calling his disciples to lay aside the natural tendency towards stinginess and take on generosity!

Matthew 6:24 CSB

“No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

You cannot seek to be generous like God has called you to if you are caught up in stinginess! You can either work for the Lord or you can work for money. You can either value earthly or heavenly treasure!

You getting it?

There’s another line on your handout. Put you a dot where you think you are between stinginess and generosity!

Jesus then gives one more example here of what he is trying to communicate...

3. The MIND: Why we WORRY (v. 25-32)

Matthew 6:25 CSB

“Therefore I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing?

THEREFORE! That’s an important word, right? Because you can’t serve God and money… Stop worrying!

He talks about two specific things that are common worry points: the life and the body.

The life represents survival. It’s about making sure we have food and drink.

The Body represents clothing. Still a necessity though.

Jesus uses two animal stories to teach through this. He takes the life question of survival and asks rhetorically, “Does God love the the birds more than you? because they don’t have fridges or cabinets yet still have food.” God feeds them.

Jesus is saying, “Stop worrying about your own survival! God is in control!”

Then he uses the wildflowers to address the worry about the arguably more frivolous worry of the body, specifically clothing. The flowers don’t work hard to look so beautiful, God just does it for them! If God would make small wildflowers so beautiful, do you think he doesn’t care for you?

Jesus is saying, “Stop worrying about your looks and clothing. God is in control!” AMEN?

In these two cases, Jesus is saying that instead of worrying so many things in our life, let’s place our faith in God to take care of us! Let’s trust HIM! Right?

I will speak for a moment to something I didn’t know was a thing until my wife experienced it. Kelly had thyroid cancer a while back. In the procedure to remove it, her parathyroids were damaged. This had a few somewhat manageable negative effects on her body. She has some levels that can get off at times. When they do, one of the symptoms is anxiety.

I used to loop all anxiety in one camp together, but I saw a very laid back wife begin to struggle with anxiety in ways she had never experienced. There is a thing that is clinical anxiety that occurs as a side effect of imbalance levels.

So, I won’t say to my wife when she can’t sleep because her levels are off, “Just trust the Lord, baby!” I’ll get slapped! I know she trusts the Lord! In that moment, she physically cannot shut her mind off!

If that’s you, I encourage you to talk to your doctor about options, but I’m not a doctor!

What Jesus is referring to here are the things that we choose to think about and worry about...

Let me see… What is an example of something people worry about? I can’t think of anything lately that I’ve heard anybody freaking out about.............

Sarcasm!

The type of worry that Jesus is addressing is perfectly characterized by the craziness that some find their minds in because a democratic president seems to have been elected. There are two types of responses I’ve seen: the physical and the spiritualish.

I literally heard of a guy saying, “You better get you a gun. Because people will be ransacking your house and stealing everything you have.”

It’s hard for me to believe that all of society will just melt in an instance because of a new president. Hey, Jesus says, “But even if it does, TRUST ME! Do you really think I care more about birds and flowers than I do you? Have faith that God is in control!”

The other response is the eschatological one. Jesus must be coming back soon because of what we are seeing now. Listen, I don’t have time to do this here, but America is not the center of God’s world. That may be hard to hear, but we are not the apply of God’s eye as a nation. THE CHURCH IS! And y’all, there are Christians in China who have been living in persecution and seeing terrible things happen for like 100 years. Christians in the Middle East and Southeast Asia can’t even let their neighbor know that they are a Christian for fear of being killed in their sleep. But yeah, a Democrat in the White House is the last straw for God…

If you are either one of these people, let me encourage and challenge you, “STOP WORRYING! TRUST GOD!” To worry about these things is not holy! To be broken over sin you see, good. To pray for the leaders of your country, good. To stress out and fear your freedoms being taken away, BAD. Your marching orders have not changed as a believer. No matter what political party is in charge, your God-given task is to MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL NATIONS. That’s it!

Jesus wraps up this teaching with this statement...

Matthew 6:33–34 CSB

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Seek first the Kingdom of God AND THEN all the things that you worry about will be taken care of. What is Jesus saying?

4. KINGSHIP is the answer for worry (v. 33-34)

Jesus says to seek God’s kingdom above all else. One commentator translated verse 33 this way...

Rather make it your priority to find God’s kingship and his righteousness; then all these other things will be given you as well.

Find God’s KINGSHIP. Live your life as if JESUS is on the throne. Not you. Not a politician. Live your life like the God of all creation and the Savior of the world is on the throne! Won’t that look different?

“resolving to live under God’s direction and control, God’s kingship means God’s people living under God’s rule.”

Jesus says that instead of worrying, Seek God’s kingship! And what will happen?

All these things (what things?) will be provided for you. You will have all you ever dreamed of? NO! Your worry will be taken care of. You will see God’s provision in the midst of what you used to perceive as lacking.

Church, we have an opportunity to stand as a beacon of hope and steadiness. We can show the world right now that we believe God really is bigger than whatever is going on in the world. While some of our coworkers and neighbors may be worried about politics, we can be confident! Amen?

KINGSHIP is the answer for this kind of worry.

Let’s take Jesus’ last words to heart, “Let tomorrow’s uncertainties stay in tomorrow.” What a better way to end this convo!

In what ways has this passage pointed out problems in your spiritual life? What issues have you had to face this morning? And what next steps do you need to take? That’s what we are here for! We are going to sing a song in response to the message of God’s Word. It’s a song that provides you an opportunity to worship God for his goodness, spend time in prayers of repentance or thankfulness, chew on next steps, or talk to one of our decision counselors about what God is doing in your life. You can speak with us about church membership, being baptized, or any other decision.

Let me ask you one more question, “Are you living under the kingship of Jesus?” To do this, you must first come to believe that Jesus is the only answer to your sin problem. You can’t overcome your sin, you need it to be taken away. That’s what Jesus did in his death on the cross and his resurrection. But in that decision is surrendering to the Kingship of Jesus. If you would like to talk with someone about beginning this journey of following Jesus, slip back to the back to our counselors or come talk to me during the first part of this next song.

I’m gonna pray and we will sing and respond