[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Saints, Jesus continues to get after us today in the sermon, which is a continuation
of the preaching from last week, where Jesus is assaulting the idol of Mammon and our tendency
to worship our possessions and live only for this life.
There’s a connection between the two texts actually last week and this week that’s hard
to see in the English, but I want to⦠I want to bring it out for you to show how these
two are married together. Remember last week Jesus was telling us the story of the man
who had a huge harvest, so much that he didn’t know what to do with it all, and so he said,
I’m going to⦠I know what to do. I’ll tear down my barns. I’ll build bigger barns,
and I’ll fill those big huge barns with all the stuff, and then I’ll sit back and
say to myself, soul or self, take it easy. Eat, drink, be merry. You have all that you
need.
That word self or soul, the Greek word psuche, which is the same word that Jesus uses in
this text when He says, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, your psuche.
What you’ll eat or about your body, what you’ll put on for life, psuche, is more than food
and the body more than clothing.
So Jesus is calling us beyond this materialistic life that concerns itself only with the things
of this life, with food and clothing and other things that have to do with this life.
He’s calling us past it to something more, to live for a different kingdom, to have different
goals, to seek different things.
It’s quite amazing, in fact, remember last week we talked about how that it’s not the
amount of money that you have, but the direction of your money and that your money is either
going to be directed to serve yourself or it’s going to be directed to serve God.
And ironically, when we try to take anything in this life and use it to serve ourselves,
not only does it not serve us, but we become its servants.
It becomes our God.
God, and we begin to worship it.
It’s only when the things of this life are ordered rightly toward God that they in
fact can benefit us.
So Jesus sets us to seek not the things that are below, but are the things that are above.
And He does so by calling us to repentance.
Do not be anxious about your life.
Now this is hard.
In fact, it’s not getting any easier.
I saw the statistics this last week.
I was reading a journal came across my desk that said that in the United States, both
depression and anxiety were ramping up before COVID, and COVID accelerated it.
The statistics are something like this.
It was interesting on depression that 32.8% of all Americans are diagnosable with depression.
One in three.
That’s an amazing thing.
And anxiety is even worse.
That anxiety, which is also already on the rise, has quadrupled through COVID.
good, so that this is now the regular state of things, that we’re marked by worry and
anxiety.
And, and here’s the real trouble, we think that worry and anxiety are a good work.
Now maybe we know better because Jesus says not to worry, but we equate, we equate a serious
approach to life with worry.
If someone’s serious about what they’re doing, then they’re going to worry about it.
If they’re serious about their work, then they’re going to be anxious about their work.
If they’re serious about their politics, then they’re going to be worried about their politics.
If they’re serious about their faith and the condition of the world, then they’re going
to be anxious about these things.
So that we connect wrongly, we connect anxiety and worry with a serious approach to life.
So, that when Jesus tells us not to worry, we don’t even know what the alternative is.
What are we supposed to be?
Just kind of happy-go-lucky?
Live and let live?
Don’t fuss about things?
Don’t take things seriously?
Don’t work hard?
We think that if we’re not worrying about things, then we’re just lazy, sitting back
and letting things come to us.
So that we even, not only are we anxious and worried, but we’ve even built a defense around
our worry, like a castle or a moat around our anxiety, so that even Jesus preaching
here and the Holy Spirit bringing this word to us can’t get to it.
But listen to what Jesus says, do not be anxious about your life.
Do not worry about what you will eat, or what you will drink, or the clothes that you will
wear.
Let go of that anxiety, repent of that anxiety, and Jesus gives us really a kind of a diagnosis.
He gives us three things that we’re to do, two things to meditate on, and one thing to
laugh at.
Let’s take the laugh at first.
He says, which of you by worrying about your life can add an hour to it?
We know, well, we know now, right, that worry actually shortens our lifespan, that it makes
our lives shorter, but Jesus is here making the point, look, if you’re going to worry
about it, is it going to fix the problem?
I have said, you can imagine that this did not go really well, but I was talking to someone
who was pretty worried about a particular problem and I said, I’m glad you’re so worried
about it because that’s what fixes it.
Now you might imagine that that didn’t go so well, but that’s what Jesus is saying to
us right now.
He says, oh, you’re worried about that?
That’s nice.
That’s what’s going to fix it.
No, we know that worry doesn’t fix things.
And then Jesus gives us two things to meditate on, to consider.
It’s a really unique word.
It means like to hold in and above our minds.
He says consider first the ravens.
Think about the birds.
They don’t have sewing machines.
They don’t have barns.
They don’t have farms.
They don’t have credit cards.
They don’t have anything like that.
And you know what?
But they have food because their heavenly Father and your heavenly Father loves them.
And Jesus says, do you think that you’re less value than the birds?
And then He says, consider the lilies of the field, the grass.
They don’t have shopping malls.
They don’t have people making clothes for them.
And yet Jesus says, Solomon in all of his glory, in all of his riches, was never adorned
as beautifully as the lilies of the field.
And then look what he says, the lilies of the field tomorrow is thrown into the oven.
How much more will he, your Heavenly Father, clothe you, O you of little faith?
Do not seek what you’re to eat, what you’re to drink.
Do not be worried.
For the pagans, the nations, worry and seek after these things.
And here’s where Jesus gets to the point that your life is not to be seeking after things below
But to be seeking after things above the direction of your life is not to be toward itself and the needs and wants of this
Particular body, but you are to be directed towards the Lord and his kingdom
his righteousness
his name
his
spirit
Spirit, His wisdom, His goodness, His promises.
This is what our life seeks after.
Now this, what Jesus is proposing to us this morning, is frightful.
Maybe I’ll just speak for myself.
It’s scary.
I think if I don’t seek after food and clothing, what am I going to do?
I’m going to be hungry.
I’m not going to have a place to live.
I’m not going to be able to take care of my family, I’m not going to be able to do all
these things.
If I don’t think and seek and strive after these things, then what will we have?
Jesus anticipates our fear.
Verse 32, well, verse 31, seek his kingdom and these things will be added to you.
Fear not, little flock.
Do not be afraid of hunger, thirst, heat or cold, of poverty, of sickness, of death, of
loss, loneliness.
Do not be afraid.
It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
Now, Jesus is going to tell us a little bit about what it means to seek His kingdom.
I’m going to come back to this in verse 32, but let’s finish up that text real quick.
Jesus says, sell your possessions, give them to the needy, provide yourself with money
bags that do not grow old.
Jesus is calling us to be a sort of a heavenly investors, that we’re not investing in the
things of this life, but we’re investing in the things that are to come.
Come on, provide for yourselves money bags that don’t grow old, treasure in heaven
that doesn’t fail, no thief approaches and no moth destroys.
The interest rate is wonderful in the heavenly kingdom.
There’s no inflation there.
And then Jesus reminds us, where your treasure is, your heart will be also.
So that our treasure is not on earth, it’s not in our wallet or our bank account or our
home or our closet or our garage or wherever else, our treasures are in heaven.
Our treasures are seated at the right hand of God.
Our treasures are the things that belong to His kingdom and we’re investing in these.
We’re directed towards these.
Our life is shaped towards these and now our heart starts to long for these things as well.
One of the ways to test this, I think, is to ask yourself what you desire, to stay here
or to go to heaven.
You know, this changes throughout your life, at least I’ve noticed this in my own life.
Some days I think, boy, I’m not ready to die and to go to heaven, I just want to stay here.
There’s so much to do, so many things to accomplish, so many different things to see.
And then other days, if you’re like me or like this, I can’t wait to get there because
the things I love and the people I love and the freedom that the Lord gives is there,
it’s waiting for us.
This is the thing that we’re doing in this life, is we’re investing in these heavenly
treasures so that our heart and our longing is for that place where true joys are to be
found.
Now, Jesus loves us and He forgives even our anxieties, even our worries, even our greed,
even our fussing about the things of this life, even our seeking after food and clothing
instead of seeking after His kingdom, Jesus forgives all of these sins and He loves you
through the midst of it.
And this is the point that I want to circle back to verse 32, because, and maybe this
is a little bit personal for me, because I think that most of my life, and maybe even
most of my Christian life, and even as a pastor, this wrong idea comes back to me.
And it kind of sits there in the back of my mind, and I wonder if it might sit there for
you as well.
The idea is this, I would really like to go to heaven, and I would really like to have
eternal life, and I would really like to be saved, and I would really like to die and
see the face of Jesus.
I would really like for those things to happen, but I become convinced that maybe that’s not
what God wants.
There’s been desperate times of thinking this, and then more subtle times of thinking this.
It’s almost like I want to get into heaven and the Lord is the one who’s standing in
the way.
Like, he’s there at the door, and he’s kind of looking me up and down, and he’s saying,
Brian, I’m not sure I want you in here with me.
That is wrong.
It’s precisely wrong.
It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
God, the Father, wants you to be with Him in eternal life.
He desires it more than anything else.
He desires it more than you desire it.
He wants your salvation more than you want to be saved.
He wants you to be in heaven with Himself more than you even want to be there, more
than you could want to be there, so much so that He spared nothing, not even His own Son,
but gave Him up for us all so that we might have life in Him.
God is not the one blocking the way to heaven.
The world and the devil and your own sinful flesh all might be trying to drag you down,
but the Lord is pulling you there.
He is giving you the kingdom.
He is forgiving your sins.
He is saving you and opening to you the door to eternal life.
Listen to these words that Jesus says again, “‘Fear not, little flock, it is your Father’s
good pleasure to give you the kingdom.'”
The thing that He wants more than anything else is for you to have eternal life with
Him.
He desires it.
He longs for it.
He thirsts for it.
And He has, in the death and resurrection of Jesus, He’s accomplished it.
So we drag in before the Lord’s face all our sins and all our failures and all our greed
and all our anxieties and all our worries, and we come before His kingdom even ashamed
of our sinfulness.
And you know what the Lord does?
Because He smiles, and He forgives, and He welcomes you, and He feeds you with the body
and blood of His Son, and He gives you the kingdom today and always.
So fear not, little flock, the Father loves you, and He loves blessing you, and He loves
saving you.
God be praised, amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ
our Lord.
Amen.
