Sermon Tone Analysis

Date: 2022-03-06

Audience: Grass Valley Corps & Online

Title: Feed the Birds

Text: Matthew 6:25-34

Proposition: God teaches us to care for others

Purpose: Go feed the birds

Grace and peace

Jesus is speaking to a crowd of people who have been following him to hear about his view of life and how to live it.

As he was teaching them about the importance of their inner motives leading to outward actions being done for the right reasons, he taught them the Lord’s Prayer as a kind of guide to examining ourselves.

To make it easier for them to understand what he meant, he went on to offer explanations for the various parts of that prayer.

We’ve seen how he emphasized the importance of seeking God’s will rather than personal enrichment or superiority.

The part of the prayer we are up to – “Give us today our daily bread” – is a check to see where we are placing our trust.

Jesus offers elaboration on this in the passage we have set aside as Matthew chapter 6, verses 25 through 34.

Grab your Bibles and look that up! We’ll start with the first thing he says there.

By the way, I’m using the Lexham English Translation today because it uses some more literal words than the NIV or NLT we usually use here.

While I obviously don’t mind getting into the nuances of translating from ancient Greek to modern English, I know that some of you find that to be more than you really want to know.

Like my youngest daughter, who likes to chant “boh-ring!” and roll her eyes when I get word geeky.

Found your way to Matthew 6:25?

Okay, if your version is different, the words may be a little different, but the meaning they come down to is going to be the same.

Jesus continues his discussion of how to live a God-centered life by saying this:

25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, what you will eat, and not for your body, what you will wear.

Is your life not more than food and your body more than clothing?[1]

Often people define this as a quantity thing – life is more than just food.

It’s food and family and friends, and cars, and chocolate ice cream, and watching TV!

But that isn’t what Jesus seems to be saying here.

Instead he’s pointing out a value inherent in life that is greater than the value of food.

And that clothes are nice and all, but isn’t the body itself really so much greater than a pair of jeans?

What’s he setting up here?

He’s making a point about our perspective being too limited.

I’ve been known to watch that American Pickers show from time to time, and they find these farms or other properties where people have got these great classic old trucks or cars or whatever and they’ve been left in a garage or a field somewhere for years and years and their rusting and falling apart.

And the Pickers are all about doing what they can to take these things that were made to be used and enjoyed and driven and fix them up at least to the point that someone will take that thing and love it instead of leaving it sit.

As much as we tend to think of manufacturers as being all about profit, the things they make are made for use.

A car designer pours her life into that vehicle design.

She sees it being manufactured, watches the pieces being assembled, sees her vision becoming a reality, and then waits to see what people do with her creation.

Will they love it?

Will they care for it?

Will they drive it and enjoy it?

Or will they ignore or leave it parked in a lot somewhere to rust?

Before it goes to market, the designer makes sure the car will have all it needs to be used the way she intended.

That means having fuel to keep it running, making sure there are roads for it to drive on, and that there are people who will buy and love and use that vehicle.

An architect, designing a building, wants to see that plan come to life and become a space that people move into and use.

A boatwright builds a vessel to be sailed.

A program director creates a program to become part of the lives of those who enter it.

In each case, they take care to be sure that what they are creating will be used, sustained, and fulfil its purpose.

God made a life for you.

He set up the environment in which you would live, chose your parents to give you the chance to be the best you could be, established genetics to aid in that process.

Just like a boatwright or an architect or a car designer, the LORD built you to succeed.

He created your life to be used, driven, as it were, for a purpose.

Your body is the same.

He created it to do so much more than just house your spirit and wear Nikes.

Food and clothing are important things.

They help preserve and improve our lives and power, grow, and protect our bodies.

But they are little things, compared to our bodies and our lives, aren’t they?

The designer who created our lives did so with a purpose in mind.

And a plan for how we would be able to meet that purpose.

That includes providing our fuel, our roads, and anything or anyone else we need to get those things done.

Because your life is so much more than food and your body is so much more than clothing.

Your designer doesn’t want you abandoned in an old barn somewhere.

He wants to see your purpose fulfilled.

Jesus doesn’t just say that this is true.

He has an example you can look at to see God’s hand in action.

26 Consider the birds of the sky, that they do not sow or reap or gather produce into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not worth more than they are?[2]

Birds are day-to-day creatures.

They haven’t developed refrigerators or fast food restaurants.

They simply go through life and look for food when they need it.

And its there.

I’m not saying that birds don’t work to eat.

They do.

I’m not saying they don’t store anything.

Some do, some don’t.

What I’m saying is that everything they need is provided.

A friend once told me the most burning question she had for God, if she ever has the chance to ask it, is why he created mosquitos.

I told her that that’s easy.

Mosquitos are there to feed the bats.

I suggested that ever time she got bitten or heard that shrill little whine in her ear in a dark place, she take a moment to thank God for his provision for all of his creatures.

While we are often encouraged in scripture to make plans and to think ahead, we are never asked to worry.

We are asked to trust.

Not to trust blindly, but to work on faith – that proven track record of provision and care God has always shown us.

Sometimes we try to ignore our blessings and just blame him for things we feel we’ve missed out on or that we wanted but never got, but when we’re honest with ourselves we will see that our lives have always had all we really needed when we have needed it.

In fact, for most of us, especially here in America, we’ve had so much more.

And I don’t just mean food and clothing, but especially those.

So what is there to worry about?

And besides, what good does it do to worry?

As Jesus went on to say:

27 And who among you, by* being anxious, is able to add one hour to his life span?[3]

Actually, it’s stranger than that.

What he said is that no one could worry to add even a CUBIT to their life.

A cubit is a measure of distance – about 18 inches, or half a meter.

Translating it to say you can’t add an hour to your life is perfectly fine.

There was one early church leader, a guy named Tertullian, who saw it differently though.

He said that, because this verse said worry couldn’t add a cubit to your life, that wearing heels – something men did at the time – or women putting on hair extensions were obviously forbidden.

It would be funny, except that people took that seriously for a long time.

Want to know why I keep warning us to be careful about translations and interpretations?

It isn’t that they are bad, but when we lose the original context, we can end up in some weird places.

And where our world is different from the Biblical world, we should tread even lighter, understanding that we need to be listening to the meaning of what Jesus told us and the reason.

Here, he’s telling us not to worry.

So, guys?

Go put those heels on.

Oh, wait, fashion has moved on, hasn’t it?