Sermon Tone Analysis

If you remember from last week...We all seek after what we thirst for.

The question is what does your soul thirst for?

Do we thirst for the less satisfying things of this world?

OR Do we thirst for the ultimate, soul-satisfying God of the universe?

Transition from .

This is an application of the message of

If you remember from last week...We all seek after what we thirst for.

The question is what does your soul thirst for?

Do we thirst for the less satisfying things of this world?

OR Do we thirst for the ultimate, soul-satisfying God of the universe?

Now today I want to address an application of to our life and talk about the topic of Anxiety and fear.

It is a universal struggle.

We all deal with it in our lives to some extent.

Some more than others.

And, just to be real, I feel like I’m on the “more-than-others” side of the spectrum.

I don’t worry about a lot of things.

It’s more of a focused anxiety that can hang around for long periods of time.

I say this so you other worry-ers don’t thing that I’m coming at this from a It’s-so-simple, I’ve-go-it-conquered,-why-can’t-you-get-over-it perspective.

I want to address Anxiety as the Bible uses it.

If you turn in your bibles to and put your finger in , Matthew’s parallel passage, we will see that in both passages Jesus starts the instruction, “Do not be anxious” with the word “therefore”.

Therefore, do not be anxious.

The word therefore is pointing us back to a previously stated reason or basis for the instruction.

Let’s read both.

is used because he is basing his words to the disciples, and to us, on a reason stated just before these words.

Let’s read both.

“So is the one who lays up treasures for himself and is not rich toward God.

Therefore do not

be anxious about your life....” And , “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and money.

Therefore do not be anxious about your life....”

Notice first that Luke speaks of “treasures” and Matthew speaks of “loves” and “devotions” and that you can only have one ultimate treasure and only one ultimate love.

You can’t have more than one.

It just doesn’t work that way.

From this observation we can see then that anxiety comes when we take our seeking eyes and thirsty soul off God as our treasure and our highest love and try to put at least one eye on what we value in the world.

From this I take it that anxiety comes when we take our seeking eyes and thirsty soul off God and try to put at least one eye on the world, or what we value in the world.

And we question, “How is this going to work?

What if they don’t like me?

What am I going to eat?

What am I going to wear?

What if this happens?

What if that doesn’t happen?”

Anxiety, as the Bible uses it here, is result of being half-hearted toward God and valuing, treasuring, loving the things of this world.

They become our “concern”.

Those things become what we “care” about.

How we get them.

OR How we keep something from happening that we don’t want.

In fact the gk word means to care about or be concerned about something.

It carries the idea of having a distracted view.

That is, trying to have one eye on one thing and the other eye on another thing.

So Jesus is instructing us with the words...

1. Do not be anxious about your life.

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.”

“do not be anxious about anything...”

And he said to his disciples, f“Therefore I tell you, gdo not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.

23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.

24 hConsider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.

iOf how much more value are you than the birds!

25 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his jspan of life?3

26 If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest?

27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,4 yet I tell you, keven Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

28 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, lO you of little faith!

29 And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor mbe worried.

30 For nall the nations of the world seek after these things, and nyour Father knows that you need them.

31 Instead, oseek phis5 kingdom, qand these things will be added to you.

32 r“Fear not, little sflock, for tit is your Father’s good pleasure to give you uthe kingdom.

33 vSell your possessions, and wgive to the needy.

xProvide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with ya treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.

34 zFor where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Do not try to have your eyes on God and on earthly things.

You can’t do it.

You will love one and hate the other.

Keep your eyes on God.

Don’t care for or be concerned about your life.

Now what exactly does that look like?

Does it mean we just give up, camp out in front of the TV, and eat ice cream?

I wish!

But no!

It means live life with both eyes on God.

Work hard with both eyes on God.

Love your wife, your husband with both eyes on God.

Go to the grocery store with both eyes on God.

The answer is simple yet it is hard to do.

Because we have good reasons to be anxious, don’t we?!

As some of you know I process things rather slowly so I started on these two messages weeks ago.

Of course last weeks message seemed to fill up those weeks leaving me this week to prepare this message.

I studied, wrote pages of notes, gathered my thoughts, then stared at a blank page with a blank mind.

How was I going to put this all together?

Cried out to God to give me his words.

And nothing.

Blank.

And I had to have certain things done by Friday so the office people could do their thing.

Everyone is challenged by fear and anxiety sometime in their life.

I attempted to outline my thoughts on Wednesday and then again on Thursday but I was totally uninspired.

Took a walk Thursday evening in desperation for something to come to me, praying the whole way that God would open the faucet and let His words flow and battling my anxiety with every step (What if Sunday comes and I have to stand up here and have nothing to say, just blank pages?!).

I was battling these thoughts by applying what God had shown me in the text, but I still felt a knot in my stomach.

A friend of mine just happened to text me as I began my walk and promised to pray for me.

God had not forgotten me.

I knew my words would not do.

I needed God’s words.

We have good reason to be anxious!