[Machine transcription]
Jesus says, The nations of the world seek after these things.
Your Father knows that you need them.
Instead, seek His kingdom, and all these things will be added to you.
You may be seated.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Brewer, behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be
called the children of God.
Now, you were born, according to the Bible, a child of wrath, but Jesus was not content
that you should remain in darkness, but He has claimed you as His own.
He has claimed your sin and suffered for your sin on the cross.
He has claimed your death, and He was laid in a tomb, and by His cross and His resurrection,
He has redeemed you.
And Brewer, the Lord has brought all of these gifts of His mercy and His kindness and His
love to you in this gift of your baptism so that your sins are forgiven and all the treasures
of life and salvation belong to you.
You are adopted as a child of God and you will live forever.
God be praised.
Jesus loves you and he gives his love to you in this most wonderful gift of baptism as
He has given it to all of His saints, to all of us the baptized.
Now it’s good to remember this love of Jesus at the beginning because Jesus has some hard
words for us today.
It’s like, you know, when you get a thorn in your foot or a splinter or something like
that, and your mom said, hold still, and she gets out like the needle and the pliers and
and she starts digging around there to get it up.
Jesus says to you and me this morning, hold still.
Because there is a splinter in our own hearts,
an idol in our own hearts that he wants to root out.
In fact, the more we listen to this preaching of Jesus,
we had it last week already,
when Jesus was preaching about the rich fool,
and he continues that sermon,
he kind of keeps pressing us with it this morning
from Luke chapter 12,
the more we start to get the sense
that Jesus really does know us, that He knows us better than we even know ourselves.
So He comes after us because He wants our hearts and He wants no idol to be stuck there.
So He’s preached about money and now He goes underneath it to what is at the bottom
of our idolatry and worship of money.
He gets after our worry and our anxiety.
Now that’s what he’s doing in the text.
Now I think there’s three problems that we have when it comes to this business of
worry and anxiety.
The first problem is that we often don’t see our worry and our anxiety as a problem
to begin with.
In fact, in fact, and again you have to tell me if this is true for you, I’ll just preach
to myself a little bit.
I see worry as a mark of maturity.
Like, if you just are living this carefree life, it’s like, why did you grow up and
worry about things?
In fact, so I know I’m not alone because we heard about Martha a few weeks ago.
Remember how Martha was?
There she was, fretting and anxious about many things.
Jesus says to her, Martha, Martha, you’re worried about many things.
But she, not only was she worried about all this stuff, but she was proud of how much
she was worrying.
And she goes to Jesus and says, now how come Mary isn’t as worried as I am?
And look at how worried I am, that must mean that I’m doing a lot of good works, that
I’m responsible, that I’m getting after the stuff, that I’m doing good.
Now this is how we often think of worry.
In fact, I think, I think that when we hear Jesus say, you shall not worry or don’t worry,
we hear in our minds Jesus saying, don’t work, don’t be a responsible human being, don’t
take care of your family.
That’s what we, for some reason, we equate worry and responsibility to one another as
if they’re the same thing, and we cling to our worry as kind of like a badge of our
own maturity.
Now, that’s the first problem, but then there’s another problem because we also recognize
that even though we kind of are proud of how much we worry, we also recognize that at some
point, our worry and our anxiety becomes dangerous, even to our health.
I think probably twice a week, or maybe more, an article will just come across my desk or
come across my attention about the growing problems that we have with anxiety and depression,
diagnosable anxiety, especially with the youth.
That levels of depression and anxiety among the young people is just, it’s kind of skyrocketing
and people trying to sort out what the problem is.
If social media or this kind of interconnected world
we live in or if the lives that we live in online
and all that sort of stuff, it’s just kind of equating
to all this anxiety that’s there
and people worried and nervous about their life
and they oftentimes can’t even figure out
where the anxiety comes from.
I’m anxious and I’m worried and I don’t even know why.
That’s the second problem, but then there’s a third problem
And that is that we, I think, get so used to worrying,
we get so used to being anxious,
that we don’t know any other way to live.
We’re comfortable with it.
I remember visiting with someone one time
and I think they were about to start something new,
some big life change was coming up
and they were so anxious about it
that they couldn’t sleep at night,
they were having trouble eating.
So we looked at the scriptures and we said,
okay, what does the Bible say about worry?
We looked at Philippians 4 that’s where Paul says be anxious for nothing
But in everything through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving
Make your requests be made known to God and the peace of God that passes all
Understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord
We looked at first Peter 5
Which says cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you that word cast is the same word that the Bible uses when
It says they threw their robes
over the donkey for Jesus to ride on so that we cast our cares on Jesus. In fact, what the Bible
wants us to do is to take our anxieties, the times that we’re worried, the times that we’re troubled, and to use that as an impulse
to pray, as a reminder to pray, and to ask the Lord for help and to trust that when we pray about something that He’ll
take care of it.
So I talked with this person about these scriptures and said, look, the Lord wants us to take the things that we’re worried about and
present them to Him and to let Him take care of them, to let Him carry them, to let Him
bear the burden of our worries and to trust that He’ll take care of us.
So we did that.
We prayed.
We made a list of the things that we were worried about, and we prayed, and we asked
the Lord to take care of these things.
We said, Lord, You told us not to worry, but I’m worried about these things, so You’re
going to have to take care of them so I don’t have to worry about them.
And we offered those prayers to Jesus, and then I said, now, how do you feel?
The person says, well, I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel now.
Well, obviously I can’t worry because Jesus takes care of them, but I don’t even know
what it’s like to not worry.
We don’t know any different.
Now I think the best way, the best way to, well, the best way to hear the sermon is to
just let Jesus preach to us.
So we’re going to look at the text.
It’s in your bulletin if you want to follow along, and we’re going to walk through it,
and we’re just going to let Jesus kind of run us through the ringer.
Now, I think, if you’ll let me sort of suggest what I think that Jesus is doing, I think
that He has a sermon in two parts.
And I think what our Lord is trying to do to us in the first part of the sermon is He’s
trying to kind of, I don’t know, if you picture it like this, that you’ve got this kind of
ball of worry and you’re holding onto it tight, He wants to first sort of loosen our grip
on our worry.
He’s going to kind of expose the foolishness of our worry so that we let loose of it like
this.
And then in the second part of the sermon, He’s going to take it away.
Or maybe better, He’s going to let the sort of radiant love of God the Father shine
on it so that it sort of melts away and it’s replaced, our worry is replaced by faith.
I think that’s what’s going on.
So the first part, Jesus is going to pry our hands off of our worry and He does it
in four stages.
He gives an observation, and then a meditation, and then another observation, and then another
meditation.
One after another.
Here they go.
Verse 22 is the theme of the sermon.
Jesus says to the disciples, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what
you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.
Jesus says that we are not authorized to worry.
He has not given us permission.
him.
So then he gives the first observation.
Verse 23, life is more than food and the body is more than clothing.
Jesus says that our concerns and our worries and the things that we think of that have
to do with this life is simply too small.
Life consists of more than the food that we eat and the clothes that we wear.
In fact, and Jesus is going to kind of hone in on this in the sermon, but He’s going
to say that our life has more to do with His kingdom than it does with these little kingdoms
that we live in now.
Remember how, and we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, about how when you go to biology
class and they say that your life, to stay alive you need a little food and a little
water and you need a little clothing and you need a little shelter, but that’s not
the life that Jesus wants us to have.
life.
Life consists of more than this.
Life consists of the name of Jesus and His kingdom and His Word and His will and His
care and His mercy and His forgiveness.
Life is so much more than food and the body is so much more than clothing.
And so Jesus invites us to meditate.
This is the first meditation, to meditate on the birds.
Verse 24, consider, He says, the ravens.
They neither sow nor reap.
They have no storehouses or barns, and yet God feeds them.
Of how much more value are you than the birds?”
The ravens survive without farms, without homes, without fields, without barns, and
without banks, without â in fact, they survive better than â well, I have a bird feeder
now and it has a weight setting on it, so I set it so that the ravens can’t get into
the bird feeder.”
And even still they survive.
Jesus says, look at the ravens, they don’t worry about all this stuff and they survive
and look, you are more valuable than they.
Do you think that God cares more about the birds than He does about you?
He doesn’t.
Then the second observation, verse 25 and 26, Jesus says, which of you by being anxious
can add a single hour to a span of life?
Which of you, by worrying, can make things better?
How often has your staying up all through the night
worrying about this or that actually fixed the problem?
We know it doesn’t.
Not only does worrying not add a stature,
an hour to our life or an inch to our height,
but that worry actually diminishes us.
If then you are not able to do a small thing as that,
then why are you anxious about everything else?
We know that worry doesn’t fix the problem and still we act like it does and so Jesus gives us the second meditation
Verses 27 and 28. He says consider the lilies
Look at how they grow
They neither toil nor spin and yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these
But if God so clothes the grass which is alive in the field today and tomorrow’s thrown in the oven
And how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith?”
Look at the birds.
They eat.
Look at the grass.
It’s clothed.
Look at your own worry.
It doesn’t help.
Look at your own life.
It’s so much more than you think.
And by these four things, these two observations and these two meditations, Jesus is sort of
prying our greedy hands off of our worry so that He can get to it.
And then comes part two where Jesus is going to melt the worry away.
He repeats the theme in verse 29, do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink
or be worried because all the nations of the world seek after these things.
Jesus says, you want to know what people think about who don’t know God?
They think about food and clothes.
Do you want to know what the pagans think about who don’t know about heaven?
They think about food and clothing.
Do you want to know how it is with the unbeliever?
They live a life of worry, but Jesus says it ought to be different for you because you
know better.
You know that you have a Father in heaven and He takes care of you.
And now, Jesus begins to melt away our worry and replace it with faith, with confidence
in our Heavenly Father, who is good and who is gracious and who takes care of us.
In fact, Jesus is going to give us an alternative to worry, to seeking after the things of this
life, to always hunting, fretting and striving after food and clothing.
Jesus says in verse 31, instead you seek His kingdom and all of these things will be added
to you.
We are Christians, we’re baptized, we have the forgiveness of our sins and God has given
you His Holy Spirit who lives in your heart so that you are to live a different life.
You don’t live like the unbelievers live, as if there is no Father in heaven looking
out for you.
You don’t live like the unbeliever lives who thinks that to die is to end it all and nothing
comes after death.
You know better.
You know that there is a God in heaven and that He is your Father, that He is our Deliverer,
the one who loves us and looks after us and so you live not according to worry but rather according
to faith and Jesus goes even further he says verse 32 fear not little foe fear fear not little flock
it’s your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom this these words of Jesus are absolutely
wonderful. If you’ll let me, this is one of my favorite passages for a particular reason.
I think that for a lot of my Christian life, especially in high school and in college when
I was a young man, it always seemed to me like I wanted to be a Christian and I wanted
to be part of God’s kingdom, part of God’s family, but God wasn’t quite sure.
It seemed to me like God was sort of an aloof, in some ways it was almost like God was like
a football coach and it was time for cutting.
And I was always trying to make the team, and I was never sure if I was going to be
good enough.
I was trying, I wanted to be good enough, I wanted to make the team, but always it seemed
to me like heaven was kind of like frowning and looking down and in some ways putting
obstacles in front of me so that it was harder and harder to get in.
It seemed to me, really, it seemed to me like I wanted to be a Christian more than God wanted
me to be a Christian.
And that was wrong.
It was utterly wrong.
And this verse, this beautiful text from Jesus was a wonderful correction for me, because
look at what it says.
Look at what Jesus says about God the Father in heaven.
He says, “‘Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you
the kingdom.'”
God, you do not have to pry salvation out of the hands of God.
He wants to give it to you.
You do not have to somehow strive to make the team.
He wants you and me to be saved even more than we want to be saved.
He loves us far more than we could even imagine loving Him.
He really does love you, and He wants to be with you forever.
He, Jesus, I don’t know if, Jesus likes saving you.
Jesus likes being your Savior.
God the Father likes being your Father.
It makes Him happy.
It makes Him happy to look down at you and to see you rejoicing in His Word.
It makes Him smile to see you rejoicing in His wisdom.
It gives Him pleasure when He watches you come up here to eat the body and blood of
His Son.
So it is His good pleasure, it is fun for God to save you and rescue you and deliver
you.
Now this doesn’t take away from the suffering of Jesus on the cross, we know that.
He says He despised the cross, the shame of the cross, it was difficult and He truly suffered,
but it is His good pleasure, it is what makes God happy to give to you His kingdom.
He loves it that you are a Christian.
He is proud that you bear His name.
He is pleased with you because of the death of His Son Jesus on the cross.
And this, knowing this, that God actually likes us and He likes to take care of us, now this
starts to melt away all our worry because what is there to worry about?
If God the Father sits in heaven taking care of us, watching over us, giving us all that
we need, even delivering His Son to the cross to live and to die for us, then what do we
have to worry about?
Paul says that He did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, so how will He
not also together with Him give us all things?
All things.
And the confidence that this gives to us, dear saints, the confidence of knowing that
God the Father loves us and delights in us, this gives us confidence to live an incredibly
free life.
A life free of worry, a life free from care, a life free from anxiety, a life free to live
and to serve and to bless and to die, a life that is free from all these constraints.
In fact, listen to what Jesus says in verse 33, sell your possessions, give them to the
needy, and provide for yourself a money bag that doesn’t grow old because you have treasures
that do not fail in the heavens, where no thief can break in and no moth can destroy,
and where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Now we know this, we know that we could gain the whole world, we could have, we could just
empty out all the money from all the banks and we could put them in some sort of huge
big money bag, but eventually that money bag wears out.
Eventually that money grows old and on the last day that will burn, it will all be lost.
You could have the whole world, Jesus says, what benefit do you gain the whole world but
lose your own soul?
If you do not have Jesus, everything you gather up is lost.
But when you have Jesus, or maybe better, when Jesus has you, you have everything.
You have the love of God and the smile of God, you are God’s joy and you have this confidence
that He delights in you and He takes care of you and He gives you everything.
He knows already what you need, food, clothing, He knows it.
And He knows how to take care of you and He will.
He’ll take care of you in this life and He’ll take care of you into the life to come.
You know it.
And when we know this, we know that there’s nothing to worry about.
If you’ll let me, I’ll just end with just a personal reflection.
This sermon of Jesus was my grandfather’s favorite, Papa Wolfmuller.
He was a World War II fighter pilot.
He flew P-38s and most of the guys that he flew with didn’t make it back from the war.
They died in the Pacific.
He went to, he was stationed in North Africa and he was in a lot of really dangerous spots.
Most of the guys he was with were shot down and died.
And he was also shot one particular time.
He told my dad the story.
He was shot.
One of the engines was out.
He was hit in the arm with shrapnel.
The plane was kind of limping back and the German pilot
who was attacking him ran out of bullets
but had thought he had done enough damage
that he actually flew beside him waiting for him to crash
so he could tally the kill until he crossed over the ocean
and he was kind of crash-landed in their base in Africa and he knew, from that point on,
he knew that he should have died.
And he considered every day after that a borrowed day, a bonus day.
And every year a bonus year.
And so if you’re in the bonus, what is there to worry about?
You should have been gone a long time ago.
Everything is a gift.
gift. Every moment is a gift. Every bite, every breath, every blessing, every opportunity
to hear the Lord’s Word, everything is a gift. Now look, when we understand the preaching
of law and gospel, we realize this about our entire lives. When we know our sin and what
we deserve, that we should just be cast into hell, the moment that we’re conceived and
we see that God in His mercy has looked on us, not according to our sin, but according
to His Son Jesus, then we recognize that every single thing that we have is a gift, that
you’re living in the bonus.
The bonus days, the bonus years, all of it is a gift of God.
So what is there to worry about?
Everything is a gift from Jesus.
Everything is an extension of His love.
Every moment, every breath, every little piece of life, every prayer is all because of the
love and kindness of Jesus.
And that is good news.
You see, Jesus is not just taking out our worry, but He’s putting in its place this
marvelous gift of faith to trust in God our Father, to have confidence that He loves us,
and to live and die in this peace.
May God grant it for Christ’s sake.
Amen.
Please stand.
May God the Father who brought our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead give us the confidence
to live and die in the faith that knows that God knows all the things we need.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
