Do not be Anxious

Take a few minutes with your head bowed and your eyes closed to consider what you’re anxious about today. Just make a mental inventory in your mind and hold onto that list as we move through today’s sermon. Our passage today will be Matthew 6:25-34, so if you would, turn in your Bible’s to Matthew chapter 6 verses 25 through 34. Life, as all of us are aware, is full of times of uncertainty and anxiety. Now, I’m not a gambling man, but if were, I’d be willing to bet everything I own that many of us here today are experiencing anxiety or worry of some sort or another. For one there might be job insecurity, for another health might be concern. For some just making ends meet and putting food on the table could be enough to keep you up at night. No matter where you find yourself or what problem might hold a lot of real estate in your head, we can all agree that anxiety is a part of everyday life.

For me personally, my transition into pursuing my master practical theology degree is a distressing and anxiety inducing time. Just one month ago to the day I got married, and even back in December of 2020 I was worried about what pursuing my master’s degree would look like in the new context of being a newlywed. I was worried about making enough money to pay my portion of the bills. I was worried about work and homework time cutting into precious time I wanted to spend nurturing and growing this new relationship with my wife. I was worried that because I would spend so much time working on homework, or reading, or working that my wife would get upset with me and that it stick my marriage between a rock and a hard place from the get-go. Regardless, I have had my fair share of anxiety.

See, for many of us, the issue of anxiety is one of security. We want to make sure that we’re comfortable, that we’re making enough money at our jobs to live in a nice house, to drive a nice car, to go on nice vacations and wear nice clothes. But when all we worry about is the luxuries, it takes our mind away from the one who provides the necessities. Anxiety is not a ‘security’ or ‘comfort’ issue, but a faith issue. When we worry about where our next meal will come from, or about what clothes to wear or even if you’ll have clothing in the first place, it shows a profound lack of trust in the promises and character of God the Father.

If you haven’t already done so, please open your bibles to Matthew 6:25-34 and listen as I read the word,

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. [1]

The passage opens with the statement, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life,”, and that word, “Therefore,” is indicating a connection to whatever biblical material came before, in this case, it is referring back to Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,”. Where is your treasure? What keeps you up at night?

Looking at our main passage for today, Matt. 6:25-34, Jesus is setting up a new normal for the Christian. Throughout these 10 verses, Jesus is asking a bunch of rhetorical questions and in a way, this is done to expose the ‘thought life’ of those who were listening to him. We know the answers to these questions, “Is not life more than food? Is not the body more than clothing? Are you not more valuable than the birds you hear outside your window? Will God not clothe you as he clothes the grass? Will worrying add any time to your life?”. Even though we know the answers to these questions, we still buy in to the lies of this fast-paced world we’re living in that if we don’t worry about these things we’ll fall behind in the rat race of our culture.

Take a second and picture something for me. Picture a grassy field with rolling hills all around. Picture a large stone set halfway up one of these hills and picture Jesus sitting on top of this rock. Picture flowers blooming, birds singing as they fly through the air around him. Jesus was probably looking at birds and flowers when he was preaching this sermon! Jesus says, “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 more valuable than they?”. Bird’s don’t work like humans do. They don’t strive and have ambitions like us, they don’t have the mental capacity for it, but God still makes sure they get fed every day! This is not an excuse to not work, the birds still have to hunt and work for their food just as we do, but the point is that the food is there. Do you believe that God loves you more than he loves those flitting little birds? In the same way, do you not trust that the God who clothes the flowers and grasses of the plains, who have such short insignificant lifespans, will not clothe you, the apple of his eye?

What does worry gain us? I personally think Jesus was cracking a Joke when he asks, “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?”. A study published in a 2015 JAMA Psychology journal states that those who struggle with anxiety and depression are twice as likely to die within the next 10 years than those who do not struggle with the same issues. Worrying won’t add any time to your life, in fact it’s more likely to shorten it!

God’s meticulous action even in the lives of the many birds and plants of the ground show his ultimate sovereignty. God is so utterly involved with the goings-on of the universe that even the feeding of each and every little bird falls under his control. Do we not trust that he too will care for us? Just before Jesus recites the Lord’s prayer, he says, “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him,”. The same idea is repeated in 6:32! God knows what you need, and he is a good Father, so why do we doubt that he will not provide? We may not always get what we want in life, but we can rest assured that God will always provide us with the necessities.

Jesus presents us with a sharp contrast between those without God, those without hope and trust, and the Christian. The godless worry about the luxuries of life. They get so caught up in their own selfish ambition that the only thing they can think about is getting more. The Christian is instead called to a better way: Seek first the Kingdom. If your treasure is in the things you have or the things you hope to have, you’ll only be concerned with getting more. I tell you the truth: when you die you can’t take any of that with you. Where is your treasure? In Psalm 1, the righteous man is the one who, “delights in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night,”. Those without God delight in the ‘stuff’ they can get, the righteous man, the Christ follower delights instead in the will and word of the Father and on enacting that will and word to make this world look more like heaven day by day. If you’re too caught up in your own anxieties, you won’t see the man beside you who needs prayer, who needs to be fed, or maybe who just needs a kind word. I ask again, where is your treasure?

What weighs heavy on your heart? What keeps you up at night? When you’re faced with anxiety or worry about your life, remember in whose hands you rest. Remember that God is sovereign and loves you dearly enough to send his one and only Son to die on the cross so that we might have a relationship with him. If you think you might be too preoccupied by the ‘stuff’ of this world, then it’s time that you reorient your treasure. Treasure God’s word. Treasure the gospel, the good news that Jesus loves you, died for you, and rose again so that death might have no victory over you, but that you might live a life free from the stresses, worries, and anxieties of life because we know that our lives are not found in this world, in our ‘stuff’ or even in our life itself. Our life rests in the hands of the one who holds the keys to death and hades and who prepares a place for you even now. Trust in the faithfulness and promises of God, so that you might be able to see where that next brick of the Kingdom of God might be laid.

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 6:25–34.