Don't be anxious

“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. “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. “Therefore I say to you, do not worry 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? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Here we read just a small piece from the the greatest sermon ever preached, The Sermon on the Mount. Jesus preached about many things but fundamentally at it’s heart was about how God wants all of us to focus on what is in our heart rather than mere outward observance.

One of the many beauties of the scriptures is that it does not merely roll off a list of commands for us but the scripture reasons with us and this is particularly evident as Jesus teaches the Sermon on the Mount as He shows us the futility of sinful living and how to live rightly for the Lord is not only pleasing in the eyes of God but is reasonable, practical and all together better for us also.

But speci

It is fascinating as we read through the bible as a whole and see how people really have changed a whole lot over the years and that the same issues in living today were also issues at the forefront of peoples minds two thousand years ago. Jesus teaches in the Sermon about being free from anxiety which is interesting because this is a very ‘current’ topic at the moment throughout the national media.

I was watching on the news just this week about how this very subject featured in a major story-line in the soap ‘Coronation Street’. I am not familiar with the show so I can’t really comment much on it except that my understanding is, is that the story-line was about a young successful man who nevertheless suffered with depression and and takes his own life. The producers of the show have said that they have been quite overwhelmed by the response from people across the country.

It is a massive issue in this country and back in 2013 a study showed that something like 8.4 million people suffered from deep anxiety.

It is not the will of God for us to suffer in this way and as we go out into our workplaces and we get caught up at home in the cares of daily living we can find ourselves even as believers getting ensnared in the same worries that the rest of the world has but Jesus tells us that this ought not to be so.

So if we now look back over the passage of scripture we have just read and look into it with a little more depth Jesus gives us a very reasoned argument of how the life of the believer should look differently.

In verses 19-24 Jesus is addressing covetousness and not laying up for ourselves treasures on earth which is all just temporary but focus on laying up eternal wealth. Then from verse 25 Jesus begins to talk about worrying.

It is important to see these two passages together because the one follows on quite naturally from the other since Jesus appreciates that for many people stress and anxiety are born out of money worries. Of course this is not always the case but frequently it is the case.

Matthew 6:25 NKJV

“Therefore I say to you, do not worry 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?

Matthew 6:19–25 NKJV

So if we pick up from verse 25 Jesus says “Therefore I say to you...”

In other words Jesus is saying ‘In light of what I have just told you about the futility of loving money, consider this...’

“....do not worry 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?”

So Jesus is addressing some of the primary needs that a person has and therefore what they are likely to most need money for, food, drink and clothing. He is saying...

“is not your life more important than the things you buy?”

This being a rhetorical question since the answer is obvious to us, in that of course our life is more important than the things we might need to purchase or acquire.

Matthew 6:26 NKJV

Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

There is a common saying that says “Seeing is believing”, not a phrase that I think has much biblical merit but is quite appropriate here.

Charles Spurgeon once made comment on this verse and said that if you were to see a farmer, his barns are full of grain and every day without fail he would be there , barn doors open throwing plenty of food out for the birds. If a slanderer then came along and tried to make out that he starved his own children, would you believe them? No! of course not because you have seen with your own eyes how the farmer has plenty of food and even gives it to the birds.

Jesus is not advocating laziness here, I have never seen a bird lie back with its beak open while all the worms just leap out of the ground and into into it’s beak. The birds have to go and get the food but nevertheless the food is there for them to get .

You don’t see birds hoarding food in case they cannot find any tomorrow, Jesus says they do not gather into barns and yet the Father feeds them.

When Israel wandered in the wilderness God fed them Manna from heaven, but they had to trust God each day for their provision. The scripture tells us that if anyone tried to gather more than what they could consume that same day then it went rotten. The only exception was the day before the Sabbath where Israel was instructed to gather enough for both that day and the Sabbath, and the manna would not go bad.

Some of you here may be familiar with George Muller who in the 19th Century famously set up an orphanage in Bristol as the Lord gave him compassion for the many homeless children that were around at the time. It took a lot to establish an orphanage and even more to maintain it but Muller trusted God for the daily provision. Sometimes God blessed Muller with a lump sum that would keep them all going for several months and at other times he had to trust God for the needs of that day on the day.

Muller Testimony:

One morning, all the plates and cups and bowls on the table were empty. There was no food in the larder and no money to buy food. The children were standing, waiting for their morning meal, when Müller said, “Children, you know we must be in time for school.” Then lifting up his hands he prayed, “Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat.”

There was a knock at the door. The baker stood there, and said, “Mr. Müller, I couldn’t sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn’t have bread for breakfast, and the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at 2 a.m. and baked some fresh bread, and have brought it.”

Mr. Müller thanked the baker, and no sooner had he left, when there was a second knock at the door. It was the milkman. He announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage, and he would like to give the children his cans of fresh milk so he could empty his wagon and repair it.

David says in Psalm 37

Psalm 37:25 NKJV

I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread.

Matthew

Matthew 6:27–29 NKJV

Matthew 6:27–30 NKJV

Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Matthew 6

Jesus is making clear to us here the futility or worrying. That in worrying nothing actually changes

Jesus is making clear to us here the futility or worrying. That in worrying does not change the situation, it only robs us of peace.

Jesus then tells us how even Solomon who had immense riches was not as finely clothed as the flowers which God made. And Jesus is pointing out the limitations that exist in human provision even though they may seem great, but that actually trust in Gods provision is a trust much better placed.

Jesus then mentions the grass of the field and says how God even looks after this, will He not much more look after you?

The point here being is that the plants are just around for their very brief existence, but you and I are eternal creations. While we have a beginning, we have no end, our soul will live forever. So if God will look after the creations of His that only last for a day or two, will He not much more care for His creations which are going to last forever?

Matthew 6:31–32 NKJV

“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

Those who don’t know the Lord , don’t know any better. But, you who know that the Lord is God can see with your own eyes how He takes care of that which is His. And we are not to be pursuing the things which the unbelievers seek and long for since we have been called to be citizens of God’s country and this world is just the ‘airport terminal’, its the place we are passing through but not our home or destination. So Jesus wants our lives and emotions to reflect the fact that this is just a temporary passing through.

Jesus is just pointing out that these are not the things that we need to be focusing on.

My wife loves to go shopping for new clothes (particularly shoes), and if she has been out shopping she will often come home and show me what clothes it is that she has bought. But never has come back and said “look at these lovely carrier bags that I got” the bags are just something that come with the intended purchase purely for practicality sake. It is what is inside the bags that was the reason for the journey. We so often focus and put our care into the ‘carrier bags and wrappings’ Jesus is telling us to focus on the real reason for our journey and not the things that surround us purely for practicality.

He says here in verse 32 “For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things”.

There is much comfort for us in this verse, firstly that ‘HE KNOWS’, it is not much good to me if the god I serve has power but no knowledge. From what Jesus has already told me in this passage I can see that God has the ability to sustain me, which is important to know because what good is it if I serve a god that knows my situation but cannot change it. And thirdly we see Jesus says “YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER knows...” so god knows my situation, he has the ability to change my situation but why should he be willing to intervene? Because He is my Father! By that relationship I can trust Him protect me.

Okay, okay! So I am convinced that I need to stop worrying and not be anxious over the cares of life but now what?? Surely its easy enough to say this but I need to know how I do it.

Yet again the beauty of scripture for it now only tells me what I ought to be doing, it not only reasons with me as to why that is the case. But it then shows me how I am achieve.

Matthew 6:

Matthew 6:33 NKJV

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

So we are told that we need to seek out two things and it would seem that there is an equal priority on both, that is the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Jesus makes mention first though of the kingdom, this is important because the second point He makes, namely ‘His righteousness’ would be unattainable for me if I were not first of all a citizen of His kingdom.

So priority No1 is to be born again. We submit our lives to God, acknowledge Him as our Lord and Saviour. If you are not sure if you are a born again Christian then come and see us at the end of the service and we can pray with you.

The second point Jesus makes is “His Righteousness”. Now… Whose Righteousness???

HIS Righteousness!

This means that we cannot attain that by working things out ourselves but by relationship with God.

Speaking of Abraham the scripture says:

Genesis 15:6 NKJV

And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.

Galatians 3:6 NKJV

just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

Galations

So Abraham’s faith in God was credited to him as righteousness.

You may say “Ah yes but when I am facing difficulties I struggle with faith”

Romans 10:17 NKJV

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

We ‘boost our faith’ when we spend time with the Lord and particularly in His word.

Relationship with God is central to this whole issue, the more time we spend with God and prioritising time in prayer and in the scripture the more we will find ourselves able to trust Him.

You would not trust your life in the hands of a stranger, but you probably would trust a very close and dear friend. Many people struggle to trust the Lord because they have neglected a relationship and He is still a stranger to them.

Subsequently those people feel the burdens of daily living because they are fearful to hand them over. The answer is to get close to the one who can take those worries.

Jesus said “SEEK FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness”

He did not say “at a last resort”, “seek after you have consulted your friends”, NO! He says Seek FIRST!

There are a great many things that we may have need of in daily life and the Lord does not tell us to ignore these things but simply in everything to seek Him first.

We may be in poor health and I believe that the medical profession is a gift and blessing from the Lord, if we need to go to them then go to them. BUT! Seek the Lord first.

We may be in need of a new home, subsequently we will likely be looking to estate agents, mortgage advisers and solicitors for counsel. That is fine, but seek the Lord first.

We may be establishing a business an we need to consult with many people, that is fine. But seek the Lord first!

What ever it may be we can seek the Lord in the matter.

Paul said in

Philippians 4:6–8 NKJV

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.

Philippians 4:6–7 NKJV

Philippians 4:

We can come to the Lord with anything, we should not think that by bringing a concern to God that we are then lacking faith because in actual fact by bringing it to the Lord in prayer you are actually exercising your faith. We do not bother to ask someone for help when we not believe that it is in their ability to do so.

But Paul says here that we should bring it with thanksgiving which is important for us to bear in mind. We could be reminding ourselves every time that we have sufficient food and clothing “This is the fulfilment of God’s promise in scripture”.

Matthew 6:36

Matthew 6:34 NKJV

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Jesus does not say that we will not have troubles, what He is saying is that He will give us the grace to overcome at the time we need it. He does not give me tomorrows grace today, but neither is He late, I never receive today’s grace tomorrow. He sends His grace and provision at the time that time that it is needed.

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