Sermon Series: Stop Chasing Waterfalls: Protecting Our Souls from Identity Theft
Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 34 viewsNotes
Transcript
And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.
For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?
Consider the lilies, 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, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!
And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried.
For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them.
Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
SERMON: Anxiety: Stop Giving Value to What Is Not Worthy
SERMON: Anxiety: Stop Giving Value to What Is Not Worthy
PRAYER
Pilot illustration
SO THE KEY TO PROTECT OUR IDENTITY FROM THE THEFT OF ANIXIETY IS TO HAVE FAITH IN WHO GOD IS AND WHAT HE SAYS ABOUT US:
I. HAVE FAITH IN THE VALUE GOD PLACES ON YOU: Learn the value of yourself
I. HAVE FAITH IN THE VALUE GOD PLACES ON YOU: Learn the value of yourself
o COSIDER (V24 – RAVENS; LILLIES – V27)
o The call not to worry is a call back to your identity: You are more valuable
§ Matthew 6:26: this birds
· They neither sow nor reap but they are provided with everything
§ This is our identity: We are in the image of God – and if God provides for things not made in His image how much more will he provide for us
· Don’t worry about what you will eat, drink etc – God owns it all
VERSE 32
“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
COMPARED WITH LUKE 11:13
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
DISTINCTION: GODLY VS WORDLY (CHRISTIAN VS NON CHRISTIAN)
For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them.
For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
Here again there is a distinction between humanity: those who belong to God and those who are of the world
Anxiety about these things is worldliness – because those outside of Christ have no hope beyond themselves and this life
Anxiety about these things is worldliness – because those outside of Christ have no hope beyond themselves and this life
· Don’t worry about how your life will fare tomorrow
o God has been there and back
o But you don’t know if you will be there – so, today is YOUR day;
II. HAVE FAITH IN THE VALUE GOD PLACES ON DAYS: Learn the value of days:
II. HAVE FAITH IN THE VALUE GOD PLACES ON DAYS: Learn the value of days:
Don’t worry about what “you will” eat…put on (preoccupation with the future)
WORRY CHOKES THE LIFE GIVING STRENGTH OF THE WORD “TODAY” OUT OF YOUR HEART
WORRY CHOKES THE LIFE GIVING STRENGTH OF THE WORD “TODAY” OUT OF YOUR HEART
As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
Anxiety about the future robs us of the joys of the present moments
Anxiety about the future robs us of the joys of the present moments
ILLUSTRATION OF THE MAN WORRIED ABOUT PROSTATE CANCER
A. Today is better than yesterday
A. Today is better than yesterday
B. Today is more important than tomorrow:
B. Today is more important than tomorrow:
Luke GIVES AN ILLUSTRATION IN VERSE 13-21 ABOUT THE RICH FOOL
· It is about the pursuit of money but something more is there
· It is about a concern for the future that dictates a pursuit and hoarding of money that is the concern
V20 – Jesus calls the man foolish: The hoarding of money because of a preoccupation on the future is foolish
- The hoarding of talents
- The hoarding of self
- Proverbs 17:12
Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs
rather than a fool in his folly.
WHY IS IT FOLLY? ANXIETY PRODUCES COVETOUSNESS AND VICE VERSA
THE CURE FOR COVETOUSNESS – V23
For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
A WORD ABOUT SAVINGS: NOT AN ANTI-SAVINGS – IT IS AN ANTI-TRUST IN SAVINGS
TAKE CARE OF THE ESSENTIALS
ILLUSTRATION:
Young Man worried about dying from prostate cancer – for 30 years
Dies of a heart attack
JESUS FURTHER ELABORATES ON THIS FOLLY IN VERSE 20 SAYING
But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’
THIS DAY = THE DAY YOU SPENT FOCUSING ON TOMORROW HAS TAKEN TOMORROW OUT OF THE EQUATION
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—
yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
III. HAVE FAITH IN THE VALUE GOD PLACES ON PRAYER
III. HAVE FAITH IN THE VALUE GOD PLACES ON PRAYER
do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
IV. HAVE FAITH IN THE VALUE GOD PLACES ON THE KINGDOM
IV. HAVE FAITH IN THE VALUE GOD PLACES ON THE KINGDOM
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.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
ANZIETY AND FEAR GO TOGETHER BECAUSE WE FEAR THAT WHICH WE ARE ANXIOUS ABOUT
VI. V4
The exhortations not to worry16 presuppose that every man naturally cares for himself and his life, that he is concerned about himself, that he is always intent on something and concerned about something. This is by no means ruled out as illegitimate. Indeed, it is accepted that man is concerned about himself and that he strives after things. But the why and wherefore of his concern and striving are given a new orientation, and so, too, is his understanding of himself and his life.[4]
PRAYER IS OUR IDENTITY
Phil. 4:6 shows, however, that in petitionary prayer, which is based on anxiety, the man who prays attains a certain aloofness from his wishes when he puts them before God μετὰ εὐχαριστίας, and he thus finds liberation from care. 1 Pt. 5:7 (cf. v. 6) also shows that to cast one’s care on God does not mean to think of Him as the One who guarantees one’s wishes, but to see in Him the One who knows what we need better than we do ourselves. These exhortations to prayer are thus designed to give absolute freedom from care as anxiety.[5]
WORRY CHOKES THE LIFE GIVING STRENGHT OF THE WORD OUT OF YOUR HEART – MATT 13:22
This concern for or about something may have a future orientation, and it can thus mean either c. “to be intent on something,” e.g., of a hound in Aesch. Eum., 132: μέριμναν οὔποτʼ ἐκλείπων πόνου, “to strive after something,” Pind. Olymp., 1, 109; 2, 60, even to the point of “ambition,”[6]
· Anxiety is this focus not simply on the future, but a desire to bring about that future
Cp verse 32: the kingdom with 11:13 (this means in this life too!)
[1] Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Gospel According to Luke (Vol. 11, p. 668). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.
[2] Butler, T. C. (2000). Luke (Vol. 3, p. 205). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
BECNT Bock, Darrell L. Luke. 2 vols. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1994 and 1996.
Lns Lenski, R. C. H. The Interpretation of St. Luke’s Gospel. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1946.
[3] Blight, R. C. (2008). An Exegetical Summary of Luke 12–24 (2nd ed., p. 35). Dallas, TX: SIL International.
16 Mt. 6:25–34; Phil. 4:6; 1 Pt. 5:7; Herm. v., 4, 2, 4; Dg., 9, 6; Just. Apol., 15, 14–16.
[4] Bultmann, R. (1964–). μεριμνάω, προμεριμνάω, μέριμνα, ἀμέριμνος. G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley, & G. Friedrich (Eds.), Theological dictionary of the New Testament (electronic ed., Vol. 4, p. 591). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
v. verse.
[5] Bultmann, R. (1964–). μεριμνάω, προμεριμνάω, μέριμνα, ἀμέριμνος. G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley, & G. Friedrich (Eds.), Theological dictionary of the New Testament (electronic ed., Vol. 4, p. 591). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Aesch. Aeschylus, of Eleusis near Athens (525–456 b.c.), the first of the three great Attic dramatists, ed. U. v. Wilamowitz, 1915; Fragments, ed. A. Nauck in Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 1889.
Eum. Eumenides.
Pind. Pindar, of Cynoscephalae, near Thebes (518–446 b.c.), the most important author of Greek odes, and preacher of the ideal of nobility still held at the beginning of the 5th century. His most important surviving poems are the Epinicia, in praise of victors in the national games, ed. O. Schroeder, 1930
Olymp. Olympia.
[6] Bultmann, R. (1964–). μεριμνάω, προμεριμνάω, μέριμνα, ἀμέριμνος. G. Kittel, G. W. Bromiley, & G. Friedrich (Eds.), Theological dictionary of the New Testament (electronic ed., Vol. 4, p. 589). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.