All right, so if you have your Bible, please turn to Matthew,
chapter 6, Matthew 6. It's good to be continuing in
the Sermon on the Mount. Amen.
We're going to be continuing with some chapter or some verses
here that many of you are likely very, very familiar with.
I'm sure a lot of this has been familiar, but these, these
verses today I think will really resonate with you.
And so I'm, I'm grateful to be in this passage this morning.
If you have a worship God, I want to encourage you to grab it
and take notes as we go this morning.
Kids, you have one for you. You can take notes there.
You can listen for there's 4 words that will be repeated kind
of through the sermon. So you can listen for those and
mark those down. But it's a way to stay engaged
for you as well. But there's going to be some
good things I think to to note this morning on particularly
just the idea of having a divided hearts and wrestling
with anxiety. All right, So how many of you
have ever wrestled with anxiety? Yeah.
The rest of you are anxious about raising your hand, right.
So that's true. All right, So as we come to the
passage, Jesus is just continuing as he's done
throughout the Sermon on the Mount.
He's exposing the hearts, right? It's he's, he's showing
throughout the section that Kingdom righteousness is not
merely about what happens outwardly, right?
So much of what the Pharisees taught and what they exemplified
and, and the things that all that they did was about their
outward showing of righteousness, far less so than
about anything inwardly being devoted to God.
And so Christ is just showing. It's not about your appearance.
Totally right. Those things will come, but
ultimately it's not about looking religious before others.
It's about your heart before God.
All right, your heart before God.
So here in this passage, Jesus turns to one of the most
practical and revealing areas. Sorry, I'll try to fix that of
our lives. He he turns to our relationship
to possessions, our relationship to security, and our
relationship to worry or to anxiety.
All right, we're in verses 19 through 34.
Sorry, I don't think I said that.
And so this passage speaks directly to the things that
occupy our minds, the things that shape our decisions.
We're going to have to ask questions like, what do we
treasure? OK, so you got to be inward
thinking here. We're going to have to ask
questions like what do we trust, right?
You're going to have to think about things like, what do we
fear, right? What, what is it that you fear,
right? And so another question that may
come is, what is it that I'm living for?
What's my purpose in life? What gets me wound up?
What's gets me excited, what drives me, all those kinds of
things, right? So in this, Jesus makes clear
that these things are not small matters, right?
We might think these are just small things, but they're deeply
spiritual. They, they reveal whether our
hearts are set on earth or on heaven, whether our allegiance
is divided or whether our allegiance is undivided.
They, they reveal whether we are living as though God is truly
our Father or not. All right, so Matthew 6, verses
19 through 34 today, if you would, would you please stand as
we read God's Word this morning. Verse 19, Jesus says 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 eye is the lamp of the body.
So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of
lights. But if your eye is bad, your
whole body will be full of darkness.
If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the
darkness? No one can serve 2 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, 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?
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?
And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour
to His span of life? And why are you anxious about
clothing? Consider the lilies of the
field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin.
Yet I tell you, even Solomon and all his glory was not arrayed
like one of these. 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? Therefore do not be anxious
saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what
shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after
these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them
all. But seek first the Kingdom of
God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added
to you. Therefore do not be anxious
about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God, let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the grace and mercy you've
shown us and giving us the written scriptures.
Your holy word. Lord, we know, we confess that
they are infallible. They are sufficient for all of
life and godliness. They're able to teach and to
train us, to instruct us, to rebuke us and correct us for a
life of godliness, that we as believers may be perfectly
equipped for every good work that you grant to us.
And so, Lord, we humble ourselves before your word
today, and we ask that you would teach and instruct, that you
would correct and rebuke, that you would train us for
godliness. We ask that you do this work
through your Spirit, which is alive in US.
Father, would you help us to understand your word today?
Help us to believe it. And Father, we pray that
ultimately we would walk away from this message trusting you
more fully, more deeply than we did before we walked in.
And it's in the name of Christ, I pray.
Amen. Amen.
You may be seated. So one of the clearest ways to
discover what rules a person's heart is really to ask a few
questions like what do you value most?
Or if you had to make a list and you had to write down what you
value most, just think about what would be the top three or
two or one thing, right? What, what is it that you're
serving? Right?
What what is it that you're serving?
What, what are you worrying about?
Jesus addresses all three of these things in the passage.
And, and that's why this passage isn't really just about money.
It does address that. And it's not just a passage
about anxiety, though it addresses that, but it's really
at the heart of it, at the depths of it.
It's a passage about allegiance, right?
It's a passage about the desires of your heart.
Ultimately, it's a passage about worship.
What is it? Who is it that you're
worshipping, right? What Jesus shows us here is that
earthly treasure, darkened spiritual vision, slavery to
wealth, and anxious living. All these things are connected,
right? They're all growing out of what
we might call a divided heart, right?
A heart that's serving 2 masters.
And they're all answered by the same thing.
So how do we not have a divided heart?
How do we, how do we not devote ourselves to earthly treasure?
How do we keep from having a darkened spiritual vision or
slavery to wealth, or how do we keep from living anxiously?
How do we answer that? They're answered this way.
Wholehearted trust in the Father along with wholehearted pursuit
of his Kingdom, Right. And so the main point of the
text, as I've written it down for you today, is this.
Kingdom citizens must reject divided devotion and trust their
heavenly Father wholeheartedly. Kingdom citizens must reject
divided devotion and trust their heavenly Father wholeheartedly.
Now Jesus is going to unfold this for us in in two movements.
The first, in the first movement, he's going to call us
to reject earthly minded devotion.
And then in the second, he's going to call us to rest in our
Heavenly Father's care. And so let's take a look at this
first movement #1 reject earthly minded devotion.
This covers verses 19 through 24.
Jesus begins with this command. In verses 19 through 20, He says
do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, but lay up
for yourselves treasures in heaven.
Now that's what we would call a command of contrast, right?
Do not do this, but do this, right.
So there's two kinds of treasures, Jesus saying there's
one on earth, there's one in heaven.
There's two places to invest. You can invest in heaven or you
can invest in things on earth. And ultimately what this points
to is there are two ways for you to live your life, all right?
You can live your life totally consumed by all that happens in
this world, thinking that that's the ultimate thing.
Whatever my heart desires in this life, I should pursue that.
And many a men have done it all, right, and many a men have been
left wanting at the end of their life.
But there's another, right? You can invest everything that
you are in the things that God calls great in His Kingdom,
right? You can give yourself, you can
devote yourself to the Father's Kingdom, you can devote yourself
to the things of heaven, right? So we have two ways to live
before us, and that's what Christ is showing.
He's also showing us that on earth your treasure, whatever it
may be, is vulnerable, right? You can think about it yourself,
but moths destroy. That's true.
Rust corrodes. Thieves do break in and steal.
Everything in this life is temporary.
Your clothes are going to wear out.
Your possessions are going to decay.
The market is going to fluctuate.
Everybody said Amen. All right.
Homes are going to age. Your body is going to weaken.
It's it's going to return to dust.
Even the things that you work really hard to build can be
lost. All right, the the warning and
Ecclesiastes is that the wealth of one generation will not
extend past the second generation beyond it, all right,
that it'll be consumed. Another warning there is that
your grandsons or great grandsons for sure, likely won't
even remember your name, your own family members.
All right, that that's how temporary, how fleeting life is.
I'm not saying that's the case every time.
That's just the warning in Scriptures, right?
So Jesus is not condemning planning.
Let me get that out of the way, right?
He's not saying you shouldn't plan for things, right?
Christ himself says that before the man builds the house, he
should count the cost of building the house.
He should prepare everything and be ready to build the house
before he builds, right? So there is wise planning.
Stewardship is a good thing. We believe that.
We believe the Scriptures teach that, right.
It's wise to save money. It's wise to be responsible in
how you think about providing for your family.
These are all good and right things.
Scripture commands diligence. It commands wise management.
It teaches us not to be a sluggard, but to be like the
ants who work hard, right? The the issue is not whether you
possess things right. The the issue is whether our
hearts are anchored in those things.
Another way to say it would be whether those things possess you
or not, right? We don't want to be possessed by
our things. And so the issue is where are we
storing up hope? Are we storing our hope in
heaven or are we storing our hope on earth?
And so Jesus states the principle of this in verse 21.
He says, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be
also. Where your treasure is, there
your heart will be also. So the thing that you value, the
thing that you think is a treasure, that thing has your
heart, right? It has your heart.
This is one of the most penetrating statements in the
Sermon on the Mount. I think your heart follows your
treasure, right? So what you count as most
valuable is going to draw all of your affections.
It's going to draw all your attention.
It's going to draw all your energy, your thoughts.
It's going to draw your whole life after it, right?
Whatever you prize, don't miss this.
Whatever you prize most will quietly disciple your soul.
All right. Then in verses 22 through 23,
Jesus speaks about the eye, and he says the eye is the lamp of
the body. Now, at first glance, this might
seem like some sort of disconnected statement, some
sort of proverb that Jesus just throws out.
And, and maybe as Matthew's writing this down, he's just
kind of remembering some statements that were made.
But how many of you believe the Scriptures are far more
intentional than that? Amen.
Glad we can agree.
All right, This is not disconnected, right?
Jesus is still talking about the person's inner, we might call it
the inner orientation. And what I mean by that is the
desires of the heart. What is it that my heart is
oriented towards? What is true north for me?
You might think of it that way, right?
And So what Christ is teaching is that a, a healthy eye is
clear. It's it's single in its
devotion, it's undivided in its devotion, but a bad eye, right?
It's darkened, it's distorted, it's selfish, it's corrupt,
right? So he, he's speaking here about
spiritual perception, not just the ability to see, right?
He, he's saying that what fills our heart shapes how the whole
person sees life right now. You can see how it's connected,
right? So in this context, a healthy
eye is not only a clear and undivided eye, but it's a
generous Kingdom shaped eye, right?
It's got its eye on the things that Christ that God would say
are good, right? While a bad eye is not.
It's devoted to itself, it's selfish, it's greedy, it's
darkened and all that it sees. And so that's why Christ says if
your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light.
But if your eye is bad, your whole body is full of darkness.
Now, if the light in you is darkness, right, how many of you
have thought at times in your life where you thought you had
some light in you, only to realize that's actually
darkness? And Christ says, how great then
is the darkness right? How great then is it?
In other words, when the heart is gripped by greed, when the
heart is gripped by covetousness, when the heart is
gripped by an earthly mindedness, it, it doesn't just
affect one corner of your life, it affects the whole man, right?
It, it, it strives after all the desires, it takes all the
affections, it takes all the energy, right?
It's not just one part of you, right?
It, it darkens all of you. You no longer see clearly.
You might think you're seeing clearly, but you're darkened in
your sight. So how could you know, right?
You don't evaluate money clearly.
You don't evaluate relationships clearly.
You don't evaluate your Christian life clearly.
You don't evaluate the priorities that God has set
before you. Clearly you're not evaluating
anything about life. Clearly you're darkened in your
sight. And so Jesus then brings the
first half of the passage to its climax in verse 24 where he says
no one can serve 2 masters, you cannot serve God and money.
He says, Now that's a controlling statement, right?
Treasure, vision, service, all those things converge on this
point. A man, what Christ is saying is
that a man cannot give ultimate allegiance to both God and
wealth. Just can't.
He cannot have two Thrones that rule the same heart.
He may try. God knows I have tried, right?
He? He may speak as though he is
doing both, but eventually, eventually, his choices in life
reveal who his Master is, right? And Jesus does not say it's hard
to serve both, does he? And he says it's impossible to
serve both. So we can be fooled into
thinking we can do this right? I'll be the first man in human
history to serve 2 masters. You won't, You won't.
You'll only be fooled right? Jesus is exposing something
deeper here. He's exposing the reality of
idolatry. This is the reality of what
happens when we become idolaters.
All right, so here he's using money, but you could insert
anything into this. We'll we'll stick with the theme
of money here, but just know you can insert whatever it is your
heart desires the most. Maybe it's autonomy, maybe it's
doing your own thing, building your own Kingdom, doing what
makes you happy, what you think is best right?
Maybe that's making a lot of money.
Maybe that's. Whatever, right here money is
not merely currency. Here, money has become a false
God when the man looks to it for what only God can give.
Now here's the thing about money that makes it God like and why
we end up looking to it so fervently.
Money promises security. It promises significance, It'll
promise you comfort, it'll promise you control right?
It'll promise you peace. If I just had X amount more
dollars, then my life would be so much better.
You see, money whispers to us. If you have enough of me, you
will be safe. And that's why it's so
dangerous. I don't want you to miss what's
happening here, right? Money competes with God not only
at the level of possession, right?
Am I going to possess God or am I going to possess money, but it
also competes with God at the level of trust in the heart.
Am I going to trust wealth or am I going to trust God?
John Calvin famously said that the human heart is a perpetual
factory of idols. Perpetual factory vinyls.
What a great statement. Let me just think about for a
moment. You just run the thought for a
moment. What is a factory, right?
It's a place where they make things.
They build things with their hands.
They work hard. It's the blue collarist of Jobs
and, and you think about what my heart does daily.
It's perpetually seeking something else to worship.
And so it'll contrive, it'll create, it'll run after all
sorts of idols, things that I think promise what only God has
promised and what only God can deliver on.
All right, So this passage proves that.
I think this passage proves that our heart is a perpetual factory
of idols. All right, because it's not just
going to be money. It's going to be the things
we're worrying about, the things we're giving ourselves to here
in the moments, right? The issue becomes we can take
created things, those things that God has granted and his
great mercy and grace to us as good gifts.
We can take those things and we can turn them on their head and
we can ask them to bear the weight of our eternal, of our
eternal hope, but ultimate hope. And Jesus is saying very
frankly, to do that is darkness, that to do that is to be a slave
is to be a slave that that's divided devotion.
Now, it's possible to hold something in your hand without
it being in your heart. That's possible, right?
Sawyer talked about that earlier, right?
But but once it gets into the heart, that's when it begins to
steer our lives, right? And that that's how treasure
works, right? It's like a a compass hidden
within our soul. Whatever you treasure most will
keep pulling you in its direction.
Now, it might be obvious at first, but over time, well, let
me say it this way, it might not be obvious at first, right?
But over time what happens is it shows up in your calendar.
What is it that you're devoted to?
What would your calendar say about the things you're most
devoted to? It shows up in your prayers.
All right. Do you pray?
If you're not praying, that's, that's check, check engine light
#1 right? When you pray, what are you
praying for? It'll show up in your spending.
It'll show up in your ambitions in life.
What is it that you're striving so hard after shows up in our
disappointments? It's not one we often think
about, but it's it's one I've become keenly aware of that like
when I get disappointed, what am I disappointed over?
Why am I disappointed? It shows up in your fears.
Now, what are those things that scare you?
What are the things that you're running from?
So this first section of the passage that we're looking at
calls us to honest self examination, which is a lot of
fun, right? You all guys look like you're
having fun today, but you really do have to start asking
questions about your own heart. What is it that I'm truly
treasuring? What occupies my thoughts most
often? What loss?
If I were to undergo a loss, what loss feels unthinkable to
me? What do I Daydream about?
Heaven, what makes me feel secure?
What makes you feel significant? You see all the different
questions you can ask of your heart as you read a text like
this. And again, I want, I want to be
careful. This, this text isn't only for
the rich, right? You might be reading this like,
well, I'm not wealthy. This isn't a problem for me.
Well, a poor man can worship money just as much as a rich man
can, right? A man can idolize what he has,
but a man can also idolize what he wishes he had.
That the issue is not how much is in your bank account.
The the issue is what sits on the throne of your heart.
And then Jesus, he just presses the issue further.
Jesus says you're not uncomfortable enough yet.
All right, let me help you. So he begins to ask,
essentially, how are you seeing? How is it that you see things?
Are you evaluate evaluating life through the lens of the Kingdom,
or are you evaluating your life through the lens of earthly
gain? So back to the idea of money.
Do you see money as a tool for stewardship and generosity, or
do you see money as a tool or as a savior to cling to?
And finally, he just gets to the real question, right when he
says you cannot serve both, you cannot have two masters.
The question has to come, who am I serving?
And then I must recognize that what he's saying is that
eventually my life will reveal my Master.
The decisions I make, the way that I live, the relationships I
tend to or don't tend to, the way I spend my money, the way I
plan my calendar, the way I pray, all these things will
reveal the Master of your heart. So this first movement that
Christ is showing us, I think calls us to repentance.
It calls us primarily to repentance.
It's calling you and I to reject worldly treasure as ultimate.
It's calling us to reject a darkened vision.
And it's calling us to reject money as a rival Lord.
Now here's why that matters so much.
Because when money becomes your master, you have a darkened eye
and you're living for yourself. Anxiety becomes your companion,
all right? So if your treasure is here,
then your heart is always going to fear losing what is here.
If your security is earthly, then your peace is always going
to be fragile because the things of this earth are transient, as
Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 4.
So that's why Jesus moves directly from the mastery of
wealth to the burden of worry. Point #2 rest in your Heavenly
Father's care. I'm going to read this passage
again because I just think you need to hear all of this yet
again. 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 in the body, more than clothing?
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?
And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour
to His span of life? And why are you anxious about
clothing? Consider the lilies of the
field. How they grow, they neither toil
nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon and
all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is
alive, and tomorrow was thrown into the oven, will he not much
more clothe you, O you of little face?
Therefore do not be anxious saying, What shall we eat, or
what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?
For the Gentiles, those unbelievers, seek after all
these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them
all. But seek first the Kingdom of
God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added
to you. Therefore do not be anxious
about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
Sufficient for the day. It's its own trouble.
Amen. So verse 25 just begins,
therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, right?
Jesus is linking anxiety to everything he has just said when
he says. Therefore, what he's saying is,
worry doesn't come from nowhere, right?
Worry grows naturally from divided devotion.
If I'm living for earthly security, I will be anxious
about earthly security, right? If money becomes my master, then
provision is always going to feel uncertain and threatening.
And I love that. Jesus just names very ordinary
concerns, life, food, drink, clothing, right?
These these are not imaginary needs.
Jesus is acknowledging these are real needs.
He's, he's not mocking you. He's not dismissing you, right?
He, he knows that people need food.
He, he knows our bodies need clothing.
He he knows daily life brings real pressures, but he ask I
love the questions that he asked throughout that passage.
He he asked this is not life more than food and the body more
than clothing and you and I are left to go.
Yeah, we know that it is in other words, and and don't miss
what he's the point he's making. If God has already given you the
life itself, if breath in your lungs, can he not also sustain
the life that he has given you? Of course he can.
And so to prove the point, Jesus standing there, sitting there
teaching crowd gathered around he, he points to the birds of
the air that are flying by. This is look at them.
They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your
heavenly Father feeds them. Now the point that he's making
is not that the birds do nothing.
They do, they do a lot, right? The birds do gather.
They they do search, they act, they feed their young, they
build nest, right? The the point, though, is that
they're not anxiously running around the world trying to do
those things. God cares for them, and the
birds are worshipping God by acting according to how he's
created them to act. And in their worship of God, in
their obedience to God and doing what birds do, God is caring for
them. If you ever wonder if God cares
for you, step outside, Look at the birds as they fly by.
And then Jesus asks this question that's meant to land on
the conscience. Are you not of more value than
they are? Now, some of us might be
feeling, yeah, we might have some feeling of humility where
we would say, well, you know, I don't know.
The birds are pretty cool, all right.
I'm not a bald eagle. That's that's pretty cool bird.
But think about it. Think about what the Scriptures
say. Genesis 127.
You're created in the image of God.
You're created in the likeness of God.
You're created as male and female to reflect God and the
ways that He's designed you. You're created with great care,
great purpose. In Psalm 8, we see something
like we are the crown jewel of God's creation.
Who is man that you are mindful of Him?
The psalmist asked. You've created him a little
lower than the angels. Of course you're of more value
than the birds. He then asked in verse 27, In
case you're not struck yet, which of you by being anxious,
can add a single hour to your span of life?
Our kids will tell you they hear this somewhat frequently around
the house. Son, can you add time to your
life by worrying about that thing?
No, that I can't. Then let's not worry about it,
all right? In fact, the opposite seems true
from the studies we have around these days.
You can actually shorten your life by being full of anxiety.
So, brothers and sisters, I know all too well I I'm with you in
this foxhole. I know all too well that worry
feels useful. Preoccupying my mind with worry
feels like a good thing. It feels like the best way to
plan, the best way to be ready, the best way to whatever, right?
It can even feel active, like I can convince myself that if I'm
worrying about something, I'm being active, I'm being
proactive and how I'm dealing with it.
It could even feel responsible. All right, I have a wife and
three sons to care for. I'm going to worry about them.
I'm going to worry about my care for them.
I'm going to worry about provision.
I'm going to worry. It feels responsible.
But Jesus clearly says it has no power to lengthen my life.
He clearly says it has no power to secure tomorrow for me, and
it has no power to control the outcomes of what's going to
happen. So though I think it's useful,
Christ makes it clear it's useless.
And so then yet again, he standing there, sitting there
teaching, he points to the lilies of the field around them,
and he says they do not toil or spin.
Look at their beauty. They do not toil or spin.
Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
And then he asked a question. If God closed the grass which is
here today and thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much
more clothe you, O you of little faith.
Now that phrase does sting a little, but it is important.
O you of little faith. Jesus is saying that anxiety is
not merely a personality trait as we might think.
He he traces it to weak trust. Then verses 31 to 32 he returns
to this command. Do not be anxious saying, what
shall we eat, What shall we will drink?
What shall we wear? And then he says, for the
Gentiles, seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father
knows that you need them all. We've had some of the most
direct statements from Christ, and now we have one of the
sweetest statements from Christ. He wants to solve your anxiety
by pointing your eyes upward to your heavenly Father.
Your heavenly Father knows. Praise God, he He knows every
need, He knows every bill, He knows every burden, He knows
every uncertainty that you brought into church this
morning. And Christ says, yes, I know,
yes, the Father knows. But look upward to the one who
provides. You see that you see.
He knows what you need before you and your anxiety can even
name it. And then Jesus gives us positive
commands in verse 33. But seek first the Kingdom of
God and his righteousness. And all these things, your food,
your clothing, what you'll eat and drink, all these things will
be added to you. So that's the answer to divided
devotion. That's the answer to anxious
living. The disciple of Christ, the
believer is to place the Kingdom 1st and to seek it diligently.
But what does that mean? It means we're that that God's
reign, God's rule, God's righteousness, God's priorities,
those things are to become the controlling concern of our
lives. And when that happens,
everything else is put into its proper place.
Just think back a few verses to the Lord's Prayer.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your
Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day Our Daily Bread.
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive others their trespasses
against us and deliver us from the evil. 1 You see how the
prayer is orchestrated to solve your worries, to get your mind,
your heart, your gaze fixed upward on God and His purposes,
His Kingdom, His will, His provision of food, His provision
of your needs, His provision of forgiveness, His provision of a
heart toward others, His provision of defense against the
enemy. You see, we must learn to say
with the apostle Paul in Galatians 220, I have been
crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but
Christ who lives in me in the life I now live in the flesh.
I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave
himself for me. It's total heart and life
devotion to Christ alone. And then finally in verse 34,
Jesus says, therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for
tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Now Jesus is not naive. The one speaking here is the one
who knows that in a short time he'll be headed to the cross.
And yet he says, worry only about today.
Tomorrow's troubles are sufficient in their own right.
Today's troubles are sufficient in their own right.
Worry only about today. You see, he's not denying
trouble. He acknowledges it plainly.
Each day has enough trouble of its own, he says.
And yet what Christ is forbidding here?
He's forbidding us from going into tomorrow with our thoughts
and with our anxieties and with the pressures and with our cares
and our worries and concerns and all those things.
He's forbidding us from going over into tomorrow, picking
those things up and dragging them back into today.
He's forbidding us from dragging tomorrow's imagined burdens into
today's grace. Right.
The great doctrine beneath this paragraph that the thing we have
to come to know and to believe in this passage is the fatherly
Providence of God. The same God who cares for the
birds, the same God who clothes the lilies, is not distant from
his children. He he is not indifferent to
their needs. He's not indifferent to their
worries and concerns. He is not an absentee father.
He is not forgetful. He's not take a break from his
throne or from his sovereignty. He is your Heavenly Father.
He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
He is unchangeable. He does not lie.
He's always loving and He's always doing that which is good
for His people. And that means that you,
Christian, that means that you do not live in a random
universe. You, you don't live under blind
faith. You, you don't live at the mercy
of chance or luck or whatever you might call it.
You, you live under the wise, holy, sovereign, and fatherly
care of the God who created the heavens and the earth.
Now if I ask you, does that remove hardship?
You would say no, wisely. No, it doesn't.
It doesn't promise ease. But it does mean that hardship
never comes outside the Father's hand.
It means that hardship and our needs, they they never escape
the Father's eye. We can believe Romans 828 that
He works all things, all things. Not some of the things, not
partial things, not, not a limited amount of things.
He works all things together for the good of those who love him.
They're called according to His purposes.
So anxiety then is like trying to carry tomorrow's load before
God has given tomorrow's mercy, before he's given tomorrow's
grace, before he's given tomorrow's strength.
Jesus is saying here that each day has its own trouble, yet
each day also brings its own mercies.
Limitations is clear that God's mercies are new every morning.
God gives daily bread, He gives daily grace, He gives daily help
to his people. You see, worry tries to seize
tomorrow in advance, but in doing so it rejects the grace
that is only given for today. And so this spec, this section
speaks directly to us about, because worry is one of the most
respectable sins in the church. We'll solve worry in all kinds
of ways. We'll solve worry by worrying
more. We'll solve worry by seeking
medication. We'll solve worry by eating
more. We'll solve worry about talking,
gossiping about it, telling others.
We'll solve worry in all sorts of ways, except the ways which
God has prescribed for us to solve worry.
We, we excuse worry in the church as concerned.
We'll dress up worry as responsibility.
We'll we'll even treat worry as maturity at times.
But Jesus here addresses it as a matter of trust.
And so again, I don't want you to misunderstand the principle
here. He's not forbidding planning.
He's not preventing preventing work.
He's not preventing you from preparation against.
Scripture teaches prudence and diligence and responsibility.
So the issue is not faithful action.
The issue here is anxious unbelief.
So where? Where are you carrying burdens
today that belong to the Father? What fears about money?
What what fears about your family, your marriage, your
children? What were fears about your
health? What fears about the future?
What fears about ministry? Or what fears about provision
are you rehearsing again and again in your heart and mind?
And then you have to ask, what does my worry reveal?
What? What does it reveal?
What might reveal that you're trying to be your own provider,
protector, and sovereign? But I'm here to tell you
lovingly, you are not your own provider, protector, or
sovereign, and you were never meant to be.
You were created in the image of God.
You were not created to be God. So Jesus calls you to live
differently today, doesn't He? He tells you to seek first the
Kingdom. And when he says that, he's
saying put obedience, righteousness, God's honor, the
Father's concerns, put all those things above your own comforts,
and trust that the Father knows what you need and that He will
provide it. Now, this is not a call to
passivity. This is not a call to become the
sluggard of Proverbs and to turn and toil in your bed, to let
your hand drop down to the bowl, and to be so tired and so
miserable that you can't even lift it to your mouth.
Again. You're not to be a sluggard.
Brothers and sisters, this is a call to priority.
It's a call to seek first His Kingdom.
It's a call to Live Today in obedience, to Live Today in
humility, to Live Today with right labor, right hard work,
diligence. It's called to Live Today
prayerfully, dependently trusting your Father in heaven.
So in our passage today, Jesus has put his finger on two of the
deepest struggles of the human hearts.
One, what we treasure and two, what we fear.
And and he tells us that both reveal whether our devotion is
divided or not. If if we treasure earth, you're
going to be chained to it. Just know that you're going to
be a slave to it. If we serve money, you'll never
know what it means to rest. If we live for material
security, anxiety will always be close at hand.
But if God is our Father and His Kingdom is our first concern, we
are free to live with undivided hearts.
So the call of the passage is clear.
Do not lay up your hopes where moth and rust destroy.
Do not let your vision be darkened by greed and worldly
mindedness. Do not bow to the Master called
money. Do not live as though your
Father has forgotten you and that he's unconcerned about your
life. And do not drag tomorrow's
troubles into today's obedience. Instead, we are called the
treasure of the Father's Kingdom.
We're called to trust the Father's care.
We're called to seek the Father's righteousness.
We are called to rest in the knowledge that your heavenly
Father knows what you need. Why?
Because Kingdom citizens must reject divided devotion and
trust their heavenly Father wholeheartedly.
Now for the believer, for those of you who are believers in
here, this text is a call to repentance and renew trust.
The text is calling you to loosen your grip on this world
and to tighten your grip on the promises of your Father.
If you're an unbeliever in here, then this text is exposing
something you need to pay very close attention to.
It's exposing the emptiness of life without God.
You may spend your whole life chasing security.
You may gain possessions yet lose your soul.
You may run after tomorrow yet never find peace.
The answer is not more control. The answer is not more money.
The answer is not a better plan. The answer is Christ.
Turn from your sin. Stop serving false masters.
What that means is that you repent.
You confess your sins and you repent of those.
You turn from those, and you come in faith to the King of
kings, who brings sinners into the family of God.
He'll save your soul of the day. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your love.
We thank you for your kindness. We thank you for your
compassion. We thank you, Lord, that you are
all knowing that there is not a need of our lives that escapes
your sight. God, would you help us to see
the areas of our heart where we are building up a treasure of
this world and not a treasure of heaven?
Would you help us see where we have become so consumed with the
things of this world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, the pride of life and its achievements, that we have
forgotten our God. Or maybe we've not forgotten.
Maybe we've simply tried to serve 2 Masters.
We think that there is room enough in our life for two
Thrones. And so, God, would you rebuke us
by your word today? Would you correct us?
Would you teach us and train us for godliness this day?
Would you deepen our affections for Christ?
Would you deepen our trust in your promises?
Father, would you help us to trust your kind Providence above
anything else in this world? God, I also ask that you would
save anyone here today who is simply pursuing their own
Kingdom, seeking to build their own, their own Kingdom in which
they can rule and reign over their own life.
God, would you help them to see the vanity, as we read in
Ecclesiastes, would you help them see the the vanity of that,
that they're only going to be left wanting more and more and
more. They'll never arrive.
They'll always strive. And God, would you help them to
see the burden of their heart, the burden of their sin, and
would you help them today to carry it to the cross of Christ,
that Christ might relieve that burden and grant them new life.
Today, God, may all of us live with a good eye, an eye toward
the light of Christ, an eye toward the heavenly provision of
our Father, an eye toward your Kingdom, your will.
And may we strive for that, build our lives upon it.
I'm going to give you a moment now there in your seat to
reflect on God's words, to reflect on the sermon, to
consider your heart, your life. Repent where you must prevent or
must repent today. Confess those things you need to
confess to the Lord. Know that He hears you, that
he's able to save to the uttermost all those who draw
near to him today. Heavenly Father, we exalt you as
the God of heaven and earth today, and we thank You that you
bid us to come boldly before your throne of grace that we
might find mercy and grace in our time of need.
We thank You that Christ has bore the penalty for our sins,
that we have been made righteous in Him, that we've been made Co
heirs with Christ of heaven and all that it possesses.
We thank you, Lord, that you call us sons and daughters, that
you've granted us life where we knew only death before.
And we recognize that our hearts do become wayward, that we do
become distracted. We have divided devotion at
times it's the Lord. Would you rescue us from this?
Also? Would you set our feet upon a
rock today? It's in the name of Christ to
pray. Amen.