Good morning. By a show of hands, how many worriers do we have out there? If we are honest with ourselves, we all worry a bit, but there are some people that seem to be able to worry enough for everyone. People like me who actually have the gift of going down paths of worry thinking about things that some people don’t even think about let alone worry. Things that occupy space and time in my brain. Things that probably will not even come to fruition. Psychologists have a name for these types of people. They are called the melancholies of the world. They are people who see life as half-empty. If you are familiar with the Winnie the Pooh characters, they would be considered the Eeyores of the world. The people that walk around with a rain cloud over their head. It is my birthday party and no one is going to come to it. They are pity-party people. In defense of the melancholies, I would suggest that we are just simply realists. We view the world the way it really is. The reality is the world is a place that has a lot of trouble and gives a lot of cause for worry. As much as I would like to use the problems of the world as a defense for worry, the reality is the real problem is that sometimes we are people of little faith. People who fail to see the real reality. The reality of the kingdom of God that is currently amongst us. Today, we are going to continue in the series called Learning to Live Like Jesus. It says it is an 11-week series. I think we are on week 13 so far and probably have about 5 or 6 more weeks to go. It is a series based on the words of Jesus found in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 called the Sermon on the Mount. Last week we looked at the passage that talked about the tendency to store up treasure on earth.
Today, we are going to go into the topic of worry as you might have imagined. I would like to have somebody read out of the book of Matthew 6:25-34. (Scripture read here.) As you can see, this passage is an extended passage about the topic of worry. You might also notice that the passage starts out with the word “Therefore”. Jesus says “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life.” One of the basic rules of Bible study is that when you come across the word therefore, you are supposed to ask what is it there for. It wants you to reference what came before it. In this case, what Jesus is saying is in light of what I just told you, you really shouldn’t have to worry about anything at all in your life. That should catch the readers and the listeners’ attention and make you curious and want to look at what came in prior.
We have to briefly look at the passage last week. You may recall the passage was about storing up treasures on earth versus heaven. Jesus said “Do not store up treasures on earth, where rust and moths destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where moths and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.” The most important verse is the one that comes right before this one here that forces the listener to make a choice as far as who they are going to follow. Are they going to follow God or are they going to follow money? The passage reads “No one can serve two masters. 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 both God and money.” The assumption is that the listeners of the day and even the readers today would choose rightly to worship God over money.
Then he continues on with the opening of today’s verse where he says “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.” It is sometimes difficult to connect these two verses together that we just mentioned, so it is helpful at this time to look at a paraphrase that comes from the book The Message because I think he has a way of writing that really makes it clear exactly what Jesus is trying to say here. He says “If you decide for God, living a life of God worship (in other words if you choose God over money) it follows that you don’t fuss about what is on the table at meal times or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion.” It makes a little bit more sense. To paraphrase it even more, if you make God number one in your life, then you really have nothing to worry about because God is a provider and he has adequate provision in his kingdom to satisfy all your needs. That is the summary of what Jesus is trying to say here. But knowing that there are some melancholies in the crowd and worriers in the crowd, Jesus feels like he needs to give some illustrations to support his logic. As Jesus often does, he draws his illustrations from nature that surrounds him. Jesus has a great way of doing this. He is sitting there on the side of the hill and talking to the people and the birds start landing around him and feeding around him on worms or seeds. Then he says “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” We don’t know why he picked birds. If he was here today he might have picked rabbits or squirrels or possibly even a cat. He could have said look at the cat. He is looking at the cat while Francesca is looking at the birds outside before she pursues them. All kidding aside, he says “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” He is not saying the birds are lazy. We know that birds are very hard workers. But when they work, they don’t get stressed out. They don’t worry about whether they are going to get enough or whether there is going to be something there for tomorrow because they know that their creator provides for them every single day over and over. The point being that if God provides for the birds, he is certainly going to provide for his children as implied by the rhetorical question that Jesus gives when he says “Are you not much more valuable than they?” It is a rhetorical question because the answer is implied. The answer is yes. If they say no, then at a minimum it demonstrates ignorance and at a maximum that they have low self-worth. I think it is in Matthew 10 where Jesus says “Aren’t two sparrows sold for the equivalent of a penny?” Of course the answer is that the people are more valuable than the birds. Not simply more valuable, much more valuable than the birds.
Then he makes a shift from talking about birds and food to talking about clothes and flowers. He goes on to say “And why do you worry about clothes?” In this case, we really don’t know if the people are worried about whether they are going to have clothes on their back or whether they are concerned about the right kind of clothes, fashion. We know that in today’s world, people are concerned with both. We know there are people that are concerned with fashion. In fact, it reminds me of a joke that I have told before. The story goes that a woman was obsessed with buying a lot of clothes. Loves buying expensive dresses. She could not resist the temptation. Every time she went in a store, she came home with a new dress. Her husband says this has to stop. You are killing our budget. She says okay. I promise I will stop. The next day she went into a dress store and saw this beautiful dress and felt tempted to purchase it. Sure enough, she bought it for $200. She brought it home and confessed to her husband. She says I don’t know what happened. I just felt tempted beyond control. Her husband says you are a weak-willed woman. When you were getting tempted to buy that dress, you should have said “Get behind me Satan.” And she said I did, and he said it looked pretty good from that angle too! The point being is that we don’t know if they are worried about the clothes on their back or the fashion, but he draws from nature and makes a good illustration. He says “See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.” I know we have some people in this congregation that have a green thumb. They have the ability to work the soil and put in plants and put seeds in the right place so that in the spring the flowers begin to bloom. So much so that when they are in full bloom they really display the glory of God’s creation. A glory that cannot be matched by any fashion in the world. Given all that, Jesus goes on and asks another rhetorical question. He says “If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you – o you of little faith?” The logical answer is of course he will clothe us. In a spiritual sense, I think it is in Galatians where Paul talks about those who have been baptized and accepted Jesus as Lord have been clothed in Christ in a phenomenal glory. He adds a little bit of a tagline to all of this where he says “O you of little faith.” This is an interesting phrase because Jesus is the only one who uses this phrase in pretty much the whole Bible, especially the New Testament. He uses it over ten times. A better translation is little faith. “Will he not much more clothe you, little faith?” It is almost like a made-up phrase by Jesus. It is basically meant to be spoken to his followers who he can give a big fat F for failure in the realm of faith. He uses it over ten times in the New Testament, including when he was on the Sea of Galilea with his disciples in the boat and a big storm comes up and the disciples get nervous because the ship was starting to sink. Jesus was below deck sleeping. So the disciples get all panicky so they go down and get him and wake him up and say Jesus wake up. Don’t you care if we drown? Jesus just kind of looks at them and says “You of little faith. Why are you so afraid?” Also in the story that talks about the feeding of the 5,000 when it was later in the day and the disciples were concerned whether they were going to get enough food to feed the people. They started talking amongst themselves. Jesus looked at them and said “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about bread?” Just trust me.
Jesus summarizes the first part of this section by saying “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” We don’t use the word pagan today. If we were to use it, it would probably be politically incorrect because it is not a very positive-sounding word. In that context, it simply meant somebody who didn’t know God or were ignorant of God and his ways. Because they were ignorant of God and his ways, they didn’t understand that they could be under God’s unique provision and care. He ends this section of talking about birds and flowers and clothes and food and concludes by saying, so in summary, don’t worry about things.
Although back then, the people might have been satisfied with Jesus’ explanation because probably their primary concern was clothes and food, I suspect that most people here don’t really get that much application out of it. The reality is that, at least in America, very few people starve to death. We know that some do, but really we have a lot of resources if people are starving or hungry to give them food even right here in Bellevue. There are all sorts of resources for people to get food. That is probably not a big priority for most people especially people here today. And really clothes. I don’t think people are in want of more clothes. We just had a flea market yesterday. Some of you know the last thing to sell are clothes. You can’t even give clothes away nowadays. The passage doesn’t do a lot for most of us because we don’t have to worry about things like are we going to get food or are we going to get clothing. But as implied earlier, we do have to worry about other things and we do often worry about other things, starting with our children. We worry about what is going on in their life. We worry when they are teenagers. Where are they? Who are they hanging out with? What are they watching on TV? What are they watching on the internet? We worry about those types of things. We worry about our house and being able to make a house or rent payment. To pay the utilities, the gas, the electric. To pay for gas for our car. We worry about those types of things. We worry about our future. We worry about whether or job is going to be secure or whether our stock portfolio is going to be secure or whether we are going to continue to have Social Security when we get older. We worry about those things. We worry about health. We worry about the health of ourselves. We worry about the health of our loved ones. We worry about some of the things that are going on in the world. Especially the terrorist activity. What would Jesus say if he were here today? I suspect that although we are in a different time and a different context, Jesus would pretty much say the same thing; do not worry. I don’t think anything would change. He might use different, more relevant illustrations, but I think he would still say do not worry.
I know some of you are thinking you have to worry. You have to be concerned about things. I would say right now there is a difference between being concerned and being worried. Concern has to do more with responsible planning for unseen events in the future. We have to have a little concern there. It is the idea of taking the right steps to help secure the safety, security, and general well-being of ourselves and our family. Concern is okay. But worry is not. Worry is a disproportionate amount, an excessive concern that usually is accompanied by fear. Excessive concern that is usually accompanied by fear. When you begin to cross the line from responsible concern to fear and worry, you have stepped out of the providence of God and stepped into the domain of Satan. When you are in the domain of Satan, he is going to have a field day in your head, which he does for many of you people. That is why Jesus continues here. He doesn’t leave us hanging. He gives us an antidote to not only fear but all sorts of maladies in life. He says “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” This is almost a cliché because we say it so much, but I don’t think we really think about what he is saying here. What he is saying is this is the antidote for not only worry but all the problems. Everything that he has dealt with up to this point in the Sermon on the Mount, this is the answer. When we started a few months ago, he was addressing the issues of hatred, anger, lying, retaliation, lust, and the need to have excessive attention towards yourself. And now, today, worry. Seeking the kingdom of God is the antidote, the solution to all those particular problems. That is what Jesus has been telling us all along. It doesn’t just come to us. The kingdom doesn’t just come to us. We have to seek it out. We have to make some sort of an effort. This word is a commandment. It means that we have to make an effort. We have to do something. Keep in mind that when I say effort, some people get nervous. Especially people that have been Christians for a long time. It is the idea that I need to work to earn my salvation to earn my place in heaven. He is not saying that at all and I am not saying that at all. God is opposed to human earning, thinking people are going to earn salvation, but he is not opposed to effort. He is opposed to earning some sort of salvation, but he is not opposed to you doing something, to effort. In this case, the effort is to seek first the kingdom of God.
You may say what does that look like? At a minimum, it involves faith. You can’t seek a kingdom that you don’t believe in. If you don’t believe that the kingdom of God is now, then you kind of stop dead in your tracks. What we have been preaching all along here when Jesus says when I cast out demons by the finger of God that means the kingdom of God is here right now. Although you can’t see it because it is in the spiritual realm, it is more real than anything you can see. More abundant, more spacious, more glorious than anything you can see. You have to believe that the kingdom exists. You also have to believe that, if you are a Christian, you are part of that kingdom. Not just down the road but right now. There is a passage that I like to use. I used it a lot in the fall. It comes out of the book of Colossians. It says “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” When we were saved it was almost like he was on a rescue mission. He rescued us from the dominion of darkness and put us into the kingdom of his son, Jesus Christ. You have to believe in the kingdom, believe you are part of it, but also realize that you are not fully a part of it. In other words, you have one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God. You won’t be fully into the kingdom of God until you pass onto the other side. Until you die. Another passage that speaks of that comes out of 1 John 3:2 where he says “Dear friends, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known.” In theology, it is considered the theology of the now and not yet. There are aspects of the kingdom of God that are very pertinent right now but will not be fully revealed until someday down the road. You have to believe that. The kingdom of God is real, you are part of it, but you are not fully a part of it until you die. The most important is an awareness when you are not living in that kingdom. An awareness when you have both feet in the world and not a foot in the kingdom. An awareness that you are not operating as a kingdom citizen. Although it is difficult to visualize the kingdom, it is really not that difficult to understand when you are not in it. It is really pretty easy. It is some of those things we have already mentioned. If you are feeling hatred, jealousy, bitter, gossipy, lustful, doing a little bit of lying, doing a lot of worrying, then you can pretty much bet that you are no longer operating in the kingdom of God. You have entered into the dominion of darkness. You are in Satan’s realm. When you are in Satan’s realm, he is going to keep you there as long as he can. He will make a nice little bed for you. He says I enjoy you being here because you are ineffective when you are in my kingdom. I want you to stay here. Some of you are living in the dominion of darkness for way too long. You wonder why you are not growing in your faith. You are just sitting in Satan’s dominion. What you have to do to seek the kingdom is believe there is a kingdom and be aware when you are not operating in it, but then you have to have the means to get back into the kingdom. It is really not that difficult.
I hate to be redundant, but it comes back to what we call the spiritual practices, the spiritual exercises. Whatever you want to call those things, they are tools that God has given you. Obviously things like prayer, like Bible study, like praise, what we are doing this morning, like service, like fasting, like silence, like solitude, like Sabbath. Like all these things there is nothing magical or mystical about them. They are nothing by themselves. When you practice them, they create space for God in your brain, in your life, in your spirit, so that God can come in and reestablish his kingdom within you. Does that make sense at all? I really believe this and I wish you would too. It is not God doing everything or you doing everything. It is a cooperative effort that is clearly spelled out in Philippians 2:12-13 where Paul says “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his purpose.” Do you see two workings going on? God doing something and you are doing something. God does not drive a parked car. We think if we just sit still, God is going to come in and magically transform us. He is not going to do that. He wants us to make a little bit of an effort.
We are getting close to closing here, and I didn’t know how to best explain it other than to just give you a recent example from my own life. I find myself prone to worry. I find myself getting in a pity party. I found myself last week for some reason I was just in a lousy mood. When I started pinpointing what I was feeling I was feeling self-pity, I was feeling a little bit of pride, a little bit of wounded pride, I was feeling anger, I was feeling bitterness, I was feeling a lack of self-esteem. I was a wreck. Being someone who believes that actually I should practice what I preach, I thought maybe I will just draw on my repertoire of spiritual disciplines to get me out of it. Nothing magical about it. For me, one of the key ones is confession. When I say confession, I don’t want to speak the former Catholics. I am not talking about talking to the priest. I am talking about talking to a good friend that you trust. I think it is in the book of James. Doesn’t it say you are supposed to confess your sins to one another? Some of you say well I confess to God. So what. That is easy. Confess to somebody who knows you. Confess to somebody close to you. Starts getting it out in the open. I am in a lousy, crappy mood today. I want to confess that to you. I don’t want you to judge me or anything. I am just telling you I am doing this. Then listening to what they have to say, which a lot of times they are just listening and I am doing most of the talking, but hearing what they have to say. Taking advice if they give you any or the advice you give yourself or the advice the Holy Spirit gives you. For me, it is a combination of things. Given the day, it might be I am just going to put on my earbuds and praise God. Or I am going to listen to scripture and meditate on that scripture. Lately I have been meditating on Psalm 103, which is a praise psalm. Or I am going to perform some kind act of service. Or I am going to go into praise time or just sit and listen to God. Then when I did that, I find that by the end of the day, I was back to, I hate to say normal, but I was back to the place where I was feeling things like joy and peace. I was becoming more patient. You would recognize those words as fruit of the spirit. If you are experiencing fruit of the spirit, you can guarantee you are pretty much back into the kingdom. But you have to do it every day.
Some of you are saying that just sounds too spiritual, mystical, it sounds too easy because, after all, you don’t know my problems. I have real problems. I have a list this long of all the things that I can worry about and I keep adding to them every day. Not only do I have problems I have to worry about. I have to worry about the problems of the world. The world is in trouble. The world is a wreck. But what I said at the very beginning. The problem is not the problems of the world. The problem is that you are a person of little faith. You are exactly what Jesus said you were. A person of little faith. A person who does not have faith in the enormous provision of God. Enough provision that he not only can overcome all of your little bitty problems. He can deal with the problems of the entire world. In fact, that is exactly what Jesus said. He said it in John 16:33. He says “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” If you are a Christ follower, you are an overcomer. You are an overcomer because of the cross. You are an overcomer because of what happened on the cross and how God used the cross, the most terrible thing that could have happened in the world, and it turned around to be the best thing that could have happened for all mankind to overcome Satan and his dominion and his darkness. To be part of that you have to seek out the kingdom of God. It is not a one-time seeking. You have to seek it out every day. Because every day is different. What do we say in the Lord’s Prayer? Give us today our Daily bread. Not tomorrow’s bread. Give us today our Daily bread. That is why Jesus goes on and ends this whole section by using the word therefore again. He says “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” There is that word therefore. He is saying in light of what I just said, stop it. Stop worrying about tomorrow. Just stop it. You don’t need to worry about tomorrow. The reason he says that is because the kingdom is always in the present. We live in the concept of time. The kingdom of God is outside of time. Time is an invention of man. The kingdom of God is ever-present reality. We don’t have to worry about tomorrow until tomorrow becomes today. That is basically what Jesus is saying. Don’t worry about tomorrow until tomorrow is today and then you will be in God’s presence and that provision will still be there. The provision will be there today, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and on and on and on. All the way down the line.
That is why as we transition to the communion table, the table of remembrance, it is really a table that reminds us of God’s presence but really a table that reminds us of God’s provision for us. Some people say why do you take communion every week? The answer is because we are so forgetful. As soon as you leave here, you will forget about God’s provision. Something will come along and that worry will kick in and you will totally forget it. That is why you come back here week after week. That is why we take communion. Because we have very short memories. It is a table of provision. It is a table that reminds us that through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ the kingdom has now become part of our reality. It is a reminder that, if you have accepted Christ as Lord, you have been transferred from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of the Son. It is a reminder. It is a reminder of Paul’s words in Corinthians when he says on the night Jesus was betrayed, he gave thanks, then he broke bread, and he said take and eat this. This is my body that has been broken for you. That has been given as a provision for you. Eat it. This is your provision. He took a glass of wine and said this is wine that represents my blood that has been shed for you. It is a provision for you. Take it and drink it. It is not just a ritual. It is symbolic of provision. He closes off by saying for whenever you eat this bread, drink this cup, you proclaim not only my death but my death, burial, and resurrection, and my provision until I come again. Let us pray.
