LIFE IN GOD’S KINGDOM
IS A LIFE OF PEACEFUL DEPENDENCE
MATTHEW 6:25-34
INTRODUCTION
It’s easy to laugh at Walrus because his fears are so blown out of proportion.
Our fears, on the other hand, seem so reasonable. "Fear," Lewis Timberlake
says, "is a dark room where negatives are developed." Isn’t that exactly
what worry is? Like Walrus, we walk down a dark, imaginary path full of
danger and destruction lurking at every bend. The imagined harm creates
in us a real emotional response. We get a knot in our stomach, we’re irritable
with others, we can’t concentrate, we can’t sleep. Worry really does affect
us. I doubt there is anyone in here that would say they enjoy worry and
the emotions worry evokes. Yet, everyone in here, at different times,
over different things and to different degrees, worries.
Jesus knows that worry is a common, human malady. However, Jesus doesn’t
see worry as simply a harmful emotion but as an indication of a bigger
problem, a symptom of a worse disease. Look at the end of v. 30 and the
beginning of v. 32. To be a person who worries about money and possessions
is to be a person who has little faith and who acts like a non-believer.
Three times in these verses He commands us not to worry about how we are
going to survive. In other words Jesus views worry as a sin, as an indication
that there is something wrong with us. So, it’s very important that we
learn how to overcome worry and that’s what Jesus sets out to show us
in this passage. He shows us how to get at the root of worry and so cause
it to wither up in our life.
Before we begin to look at his instructions on how to overcome worry
I need you to see how this passage is connected to vv. 19-24. V. 25 begins
with a "therefore". As you have heard me say before and will hear me say
again, when you see a therefore in the Bible you have to stop and ask,
"what’s it there for?" What Jesus is saying is this: because heaven is
far better than hell, because a life full of light is far better than
a life full of darkness, because God is a far better master than money,
don’t waste your time and energy worrying about whether you are going
to have enough food to eat or nice clothes to wear. If you are a Christian,
you have chosen heaven and light and God so don’t worry about money and
what money can provide. Then he goes on in the rest of the passage to
show us how to overcome worry. He tells us…
MAIN POINT
Worry withers when we…
I. Perceive God’s purpose(v. 25)
God has given you life and given you your body. You did not give these
things to yourself. You did not create yourself, not your life or your
body. Every sane person knows this but hardly anyone ever thinks about
it. Most everyone goes through life simply assuming that it is his or
her right to exist. You and I had absolutely nothing to do with our own
creation. God, before time began, decided that you would exist at this
time and in this place with these parents and this life situation. Then
God created you through your parents at exactly the precise moment he
intended to do so. Existence is a gift. There is a powerful scene in Dostoyevski’s
book, "The Brother’s Karamozov", where the hero of the story experiences
a conversion upon realizing this exact thing. After attending the funeral
of a godly priest he is overwhelmed by the beauty of creation and the
knowledge that his existence is a free gift. He falls to the ground in
joyful weeping as he is overcome by the love which created him and enables
him to enjoy the beauty of it all. "All is gift" is the refrain he hears
in his mind and his whole perception of reality and his relationships
with others is transformed.
When God gave you life and when God gave you a body, why did he do it?
Did he give you life so you could spend all your time trying to gratify
the sensual pleasures that you have? If you eat the best food, sleep in
the softest beds, drink the finest wines, will you have fulfilled the
purpose for which God gave you life? If you wear the most fashionable
clothes, the most stunning jewelry, will you have used your body for the
purposes for which God gave it to you? If you drive the best car, live
in the nicest home will you have accomplished what God gave you life to
do?
Look at this stack of catalogs I brought from home. (Show a few of them.)
Every single one of these catalogs is appealing to you and I to act as
though if we eat well and dress well and live comfortably, then we have
fulfilled what it means to be human. Every person in here knows, intellectually,
that having all this stuff is not what life is about. But every person
in here worries about whether or not he or she is going to be able to
live at the level to which they’ve become accustomed. In other words,
our worry about the amount & quality of the food we eat, the style
of the clothes we wear, the kind of furniture we have in our homes, the
kinds of cars we drive shows that we believe the reason God gave us life
and bodies was to have these things.
Tell story of taking Jared to sign up for a class and standing in line
with a group of pre-teen boys and listening to them describe the various
styles of shoes and clothes they were wearing. The boasting and the pressure
to have the "cool" styles.
Am I saying that if you care about the kind of clothes you wear or the
style of car you drive that you are in sin? Maybe you are, maybe you’re
not. I can’t tell you what you can and cannot possess. Whether wearing
only the "in" clothes is a violation of this command of Jesus is not for
me to say. What I can tell you with absolute certainty is if it bothers
you to not have a certain style of whatever or if you worry about not
being able to keep up the lifestyle you’ve become accustomed to, then
just maybe you believe having these things is what life is about. And
if you believe that, you are very sadly mistaken.
Life is about so much more than what you eat and what you wear and what
you drive and where you live and where you vacation. Now Jesus doesn’t
tell us what life is about or why God gave us a body in this verse. That’s
still coming. He does tell us here that fine dining and dressing in style
is not why God made us and so if that’s what you’re concerned about, you
are definitely not concerned about God’s purposes for life.
Worry withers when we…
- Perceive God’s purpose
- And when we…
II. Ponder God’s providence (vv. 26-30)
In verses 26-30 Jesus doesn’t command us not to worry, but he commands
us to intently watch the birds and to pay careful attention to the flowers
(read the verses). What Jesus is asking us to do is to pay attention to
God’s providential care of his creation. "God’s providence" is a phrase
that has little meaning to most modern Christians. It was, however, a
phrase that formed the center of most Christian’s lives for most of Christian
history. Modern Christians, due to the influence of the naturalistic world-view
of our modern culture have largely forgotten it. We think that because
we can explain something of how the natural world functions, that we have
understood what is going on. All of us have been heavily influenced by
the notion that because we can explain how various chemicals in animals
brains are released we have explained how it is they live and reproduce.
In adopting such a mechanistic view of reality we are not closer to what
is really going on, but further away from it.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism, which is a summary of Christian teaching
in the form of questions and answers, asks this question: "What are God’s
works of providence?" Then gives this answer: "God’s works of providence
are the holy, wise and powerful acts by which he preserves and governs
all his creatures and all their actions." The Bible is full of statements
about God’s providential care of his creation. Psalm 135: 6-7 says, "The
Lord does whatever he pleases in the heavens and on the earth, in the
seas and all their depths. He makes the clouds rise from the ends of the
earth, he sends lightening with the rain and brings out the wind from
his storehouses." Paul in Acts 17: 25 says that "God…gives all men life
and breath and everything else." In Acts 14: 17 he says, "He has shown
kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their season. He
provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy." It is
this foundational doctrine to which Jesus is pointing us in vv. 25-30.
He tells us to look at the birds and the flowers and to think about what
we see.
When we look at birds what do we discover? Well, birds don’t till the
ground or plant seeds or harvest grain or store their grain in barns,
yet they never go hungry. God always makes sure they have enough to eat.
But how does God do this? Birds do not simply sit still and open their
beaks and food pours in, with no effort on their part. I love chickadees.
There is no greater experience in life than to be standing in the woods
on a frosty morning in November and to have a flock of 4 or 5 chickadees
land on the trees around you. They hop from branch to branch, making their
song, cocking their heads from side to side, pecking at the bark on the
twigs and branches to shake loose sleeping insects. They are very methodical
about it, going up one side of the tree and down the other. It’s what
they do throughout the day. What they don’t do is sit still on a branch
immobilized by the fear that when they hop from twig to twig, they won’t
find any food. What Jesus is telling me is that when I see these chickadees
flitting from branch to branch eating insects, God is feeding them. God
is providing for them. Some of the birds I observe don’t stay here in
the north during the winter but migrate south. When you see those great
flocks of geese and other waterfowl heading south in the fall, God is
doing that. He preserves and governs all his creatures and all their actions.
Even though we moderns may be able to explain some of the chemical and
behavioral processes by which these things happen, it does not change
the fact that God is the one who wills these processes into existence
and causes them to work in this way.
At the end of v. 26 he asks a rhetorical question, "Are you not much
more valuable than they?" The answer to that question is obvious if you
believe the account of creation as told in the book of Genesis. If you
believe that the personal, creator God made all that exists and made man
in his image to represent him and to rule over and care for creation,
then yes we are far more valuable than the birds. But, if you are an adherent
to any of the various pantheistic or animistic or naturalistic conceptions
of reality, then you don’t automatically answer the question in the affirmative.
But Jesus knows that God made the world and everything in it and that
he made mankind as his representative and steward over his creation and
so he argues, if he takes such good care of birds, which you rarely think
about, won’t he take care of you?
How does v. 27 relate to what he has just said? It is anther rhetorical
question with an obvious answer. "Who can add length to his life by worrying?"
The answer is, "no one." Why does he ask this question? How does this
relate to what I learn when I watch the birds? What Jesus is pointing
to here is that just as you have no control over the time of your birth
so you have no control over the time of your death. God controls both.
Worry and anxiously striving to eliminate all risk from your life will
not add a single moment to the length of life that God has ordained for
you. One of the things you discover from watching birds is that they die.
Birds have flown into our picture window and died. We’ve all found baby
birds that have fallen from nests and died. Adult birds die of disease
and accident and by the hands of hunters and other predators. So we too
will one day die and our anxious striving will not alter that fact. Now,
Jesus is not teaching a passive fatalism here. Birds seek food and find
safe nesting places and fly south for the winter and roost in good cover.
But they don’t add to the life God has given to them by worrying.
There are two errors that American’s make in this regard. On one hand,
some of us ignore the obvious connections between lifestyle choices and
physical health. Some, believing that life is made for the indulgence
of bodily appetites and the fulfilling of physical pleasures eat and drink
and live in a way that will shorten life. I remember talking with a friend
many years ago about his smoking and trying to reason with him to stop.
His answer to me was, "We all die some day so I’m going to enjoy smoking
while I live." This is not the attitude Jesus wants us to adopt because
that is not how the birds live in his providential care. However, the
modern obsession with diet and vitamins and exercise and minimizing risk
at all cost is not what Jesus is teaching either. We have an unhealthy
preoccupation with living safe lives. If you listen to how we talk and
watch the horror that grips people when a child doesn’t wear a helmet
when bike riding, it is apparent we believe that if we’ll just worry a
little more we can keep disease and accident and death at bay. I coach
soccer and I was teaching the kids how to head the ball. The next practice
I had several kids tell me their mom didn’t want them to head the ball
because it hurts your brain. I’m not saying that was right or wrong, I’m
simply trying to make the point that when we become obsessed with safety,
we are acting like we can lengthen our lives by worrying. We are to live
prudent lives, but not deluded into believing that there is some way to
eliminate all risk. God has an appointed time for your death and your
children’s death and you cannot alter it by anxious risk management. We
are way more valuable than birds for whom God provides and over whose
life and death he rules, so relax in his care.
Jesus makes a similar argument in vv. 28-30 (read them). Jesus begins
with a question that I’d like us to answer. He asks, "Why do you worry
about clothes?" We are obsessed with being "in style". Jesus isn’t condemning
worry about having clothes, but about having the "right" clothes. He is
condemning our obsession with having the latest style, driving the coolest
car, living in the most fashionable home. Jesus commands us to observe
and think about flowers. What do we discover when we look at flowers?
We discover that with no effort on their part they are more attractive
and beautiful then the most well-dressed people in the world. Solomon,
to a Jewish person, was the height of wealth, fashion and style. To live
like Solomon was the Jewish daydream, just like to live like Michael Jordan
or Tiger Wood is the day dream of millions of people in the world. Yet,
for all their style and "coolness", they cannot compare to the beauty
of a simple flower. And the flower put forth no effort to get such beauty.
God merely clothed it with beauty as an expression of his grace and creativity.
The other thing you discover when looking at flowers is that they are
very temporary. The people who lived in our home before us planted 4 or
5 varieties of Tiger Lilies along the fence. There are orange, yellow,
pink and purple flowers. They are absolutely stunning in their beauty.
I’m up with Jaimee early most mornings and during the summer we would
go out an look at them almost every morning. Here’s what’s left of those
beautiful flowers (show a stem from a Tiger Lily). Jesus’ argument is
pretty straight forward, if God clothes flowers, which are so temporary,
with such beauty, won’t he make sure that you have enough clothing? If
he takes such good care of such insignificant things as flowers, most
of which are never seen, won’t he take good care of you?
All of this worry about food and risk and style shows a heart that doesn’t
trust God. All of our anxiety shows that we believe we are on our own,
that it is up to us to provide and protect. Really, our anxiety is a form
of pride. We believe that our work creates wealth and minimizes risk.
When we worry we treat God with contempt and put him on the margins of
our lives and act as if he has nothing to do with what we have or don’t
have. So Jesus commands us to look at God’s creation and think about how
God takes care of it. The creation is preaching to us that God is an excellent
provider and in absolute control of everything. So we should relax and
trust him and quit living in such anxiety and stress.
Worry withers when we…
- Perceive God’s purpose
- Ponder God’s providence
- And when we…
III. Pursue God’s promise (vv. 31-34)
In verses 31-32 Jesus pulls the curtain all the way back and shows us
why he is so opposed to worry. In verse 31 he forbids worry again and
shows it for what it is. Worry is frantic about life on this planet. Worry
is panic and fear that I won’t be able to live a happy life here. Do you
here the "frantic-ness" in the three questions? "What shall we eat? What
shall we drink? What shall we wear?" What is going to happen to us? How
will we ever be able to make it? We’re going to lose everything! Have
you ever felt that panic? I have. As many of you know we were on staff
with Campus Crusade for Christ for 20 years. We were responsible for raising
all the finances to pay our salary, benefits and ministry expenses during
all those years. Each month we would get a report at the end of the month
recording who had sent money into our account with CCC and telling us
our end of the month balance. Getting our printout was often a time of
great anxiety. We only got paid if there was money in our account. Panic
would often rise up in me as I saw that a particular investor hadn’t sent
money for 2 or 3 months. Or if our account balance was close to zero or
in the negative. Guess what, even though I often was in panic, we never
went hungry, we always had clothes to wear and a place to live. God always
took care of us, but that didn’t always stop me from being frantic at
the end of the month.
Now in v. 32 Jesus says that this kind of frantic worry is wrong for
two reasons. First, when you worry, you are acting like a non-Christian
who is living only for what he can get out of this life. When we worry
we are acting as though the only thing that matters is what we eat and
what we wear. The non-believer lives for life in this world and when we
worry we are declaring that the only life that matters is the one right
here. Worry proves that what we are running after is money and the life
that money can give us. Second, when you worry you are treating your heavenly
Father with contempt. Parents, how would you feel if you discovered in
your child’s room a box full of food that your child was hoarding. When
you asked them why, they said, "I just know you’re going to quit feeding
me and so I’m storing up food to eat when you quit fixing meals for me."
Or how would you feel if your child complained non-stop about the food
you gave her and the clothes you provided and the home she lived in? When
children worry about their next meal or complain about the quality of
your provision does it not call into question your character and your
love. That ‘s exactly what we do when we worry and complain.
Verse 33 is the climax of this whole passage and the main point to which
Jesus is driving. What you worry about shows what you are seeking. The
main reason worry is wrong is that it shows a heart that is not seeking
after God and his ways but is seeking after something else and you and
I were made to seek God.
There are 4 questions we need to consider if we are going to be impacted
by what Jesus is commanding here.
What does it mean to seek something? (Why do you seek what you seek?
What does seeking look like?)
Seeking is part of being a human. Everyone is seeking all the time. There
is nothing wrong with being a seeker, the issue Jesus puts in front of
us is the object of our pursuit. Students normally seek to get the best
grades they can, homeowners seek to have the best looking lawn they can
get, hunters seek the best hunting experience possible, shoppers seek
the best deals, car buyers seek the nicest car that will fit in their
budget, workers seek the most fulfilling job and/or the best pay they
can get, athletes seek to win, parents seek to raise responsible kids,
fans of Seinfeld seek to watch as many reruns as possible and the list
goes on. Why do people seek what they seek? All of us seek what we seek
because we believe that to obtain what we seek will make us happy, will
increase our pleasure. You only seek what you love, what you believe will
make you happy. Why don’t I seek to be a good golfer? Because being good
at golf is not necessary to my happiness. Why do I seek to spend time
with my children? Because I believe it is necessary to my happiness to
have a good relationship with my kids. One other thing to observe about
seeking. When you are seeking one thing, you are necessarily not seeking
other things. If you go out with Larry Juhl seeking geese he will not
be pleased if you bring along your trumpet to seek to be a better trumpet
player. In fact, if you do bring it, you may get to find better trumpet
playing but you will not find geese. When you seek one thing you gladly
give up other things because you know that to find what you are seeking
will make you happy.
What does it mean to seek God’s kingdom?
Seeking God’s kingdom means that I believe that to experience Christ’s
rule in my life in greater ways is a good thing. It means that I am concerned
that more and more people come under his rule. It makes me happy to see
others living in submission to Christ and so I use my time and resources
to help others understand who king Jesus is and why it is a good thing
to submit to him. To seek God’s kingdom is to care about missions and
about missionaries. It is to care about whether my children and my family
and my neighbors are living in the kingdom of God. I yearn for Jesus to
receive all the honor due to him and so I spend myself in giving him honor
and in seeking to help others honor him as he deserves. What do you think
about more, planning your next vacation or planning how you are going
to help your neighbors come to know King Jesus? What do you worry about
more, the direction the stock market is going or the progress of the gospel
among the Moslem people?
What does it mean to seek God’s righteousness?
To seek God’s righteousness is to get up every day and say to yourself,
"Self, today you are in a war. Either you will seek to find your happiness
in God today or in the things this world provides. So self, today we will
begin by seeking God in his word and seeking to live in that righteousness
that Christ has given." To seek God’s righteousness is to make it your
ambition today to live the life Jesus described in Matthew 5. To seek
to not be angry when others offend and to quickly be reconciled to those
you offend. To seek to be sexually pure no matter what it costs. To seek
to hold marriage in honor and to maintain pure relationships with those
of the opposite sex. To seek to tell the truth, always. To seek to bless
those who curse me. To be a person who gives, prays and fasts in order
to know God not in order to show off for others. What troubles you more
that your house needs to be painted again or that you still get so angry
with others? What keeps you awake at night, figuring out how you’re going
to make the car payments or praying that God would overcome your lust?
Does this verse mean that if I seek God’s kingdom he will provide a middle-class
American lifestyle for me? No, because of v. 34. What I want you to notice
about v. 34 is the last phrase, "each day has enough trouble of its own."
Wait just one minute. I thought Jesus just said that if we seek first
his kingdom he will provide all we need for life. What does he mean each
day has its own trouble? If I live seeking his kingdom doesn’t he promise
to eliminate the trouble? The answer is absolutely not. The promise Jesus
makes is that he will provide us all that we need to seek his kingdom
and his righteousness for as long as he gives us life on this earth and
in whatever his providential care for us determines we need. If your ambition
in life is the kingdom of God and the righteousness of God, then whether
you eat steak or rice is of little consequence. Whether you drive a 1999
Suburban or a 1985 Ford Escort matters little to you. Things are tools
to be used in service to Christ, they are not what life is about.
To seek God’s kingdom and righteousness is to believe and then act as
though possessing Christ and all that God is for me in Christ and to have
nothing in the world is a far better thing than to live in the most ideal
conditions on the face of planet earth.
In closing I want you to turn over to II Cor. 11: 23-29 (page ). I know
you’ve been sitting there a long time and you’re anxious for me to be
done and I almost am. But I beg you to listen to what I am going to say
right now because one of the main reasons that you and I are such weak
and joyless and powerless Christians is because we have abused and misunderstood
God’s promise in v. 33. We have been told and we tell ourselves that if
we seek God we can be assured of at least a middle-class lifestyle and
the Bible does not promise this. Read with me as Paul describes his life
as a Christian. (read it) If anyone has sought God’s kingdom and righteousness
it is the apostle Paul. Look just at v. 27. How could it be that a person
who sought God like Paul could have often gone without food and been cold
and naked when Jesus says that everyone who seeks God’s kingdom will not
fail to have all these things added to them? I want to take the whole
bible serious and so I have to put these verses together. So what does
it mean that God will add all these things to me? It means that as I pour
myself out in seeking his kingdom and his righteousness he will give me
all that I need in order to find his kingdom and his righteousness and
sometimes what I need is nakedness and hunger and sickness and persecution—in
a word, trouble.
At various times in our lives God brings to us circumstances to help
us figure out what we’re really seeking. One of those times in our lives
was the decision we made to come to Janesville to plant this church. There
was a moment when I was thinking through our financial support…
Worry withers when we…
- Perceive God’s purpose
- Ponder God’s providence
- Pursue God’s promise
© Copyright 2000 John Swanson.
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If you would like to post this material to the web or if your intended
use is other than outlined above, please contact River Hills Community
Church, 2843 West Court Street, Janesville, WI 53545. (608) 758-0943.
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