Amen. Well, it's good to be with you. If you turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6, we'll be looking at verses 24 through 32 this morning, Matthew chapter 6, verses 24 through 32, just to give a little summary since it's been four weeks. Jesus has is preaching the sermon on the Mount where about in the middle of the sermon and at the beginning of what we call chapter 6 Christ began to give his followers specific instructions on how they work to do good works and in particular what we call evangelical or even religious works, works that only believers do. Financial giving to God or alms giving prayer and fasting which we saw is also part of our service as Christians and in all of our service to God we saw that our goal is not to be focused on anything here on earth, on the things of this life, even good things, even needful things, things that we have to have that can't be our focus, our focus has to be on the things of heaven. In fact, Christians should conduct their lives with the intention of actively laying up their treasures in heaven, that's what Jesus said, lay up your treasures in heaven, don't lay them up on earth. In other words, we are supposed to look to and be motivated by the rewards, and I mean that word, the rewards that God has promised to those who love him and to keep his commandments. And if you can't see the difference between that and works righteousness then you can't see the difference between the gospel and antinomina. Jesus has told us to do these things and he's given us the key to help us to do this, that even as our eyes need the natural light to see and to be able to walk and to recognize, oh, there's really a rock there, I'm going to step around it and not fall, so also our minds and our hearts need the spiritual life of God's truth, the gospel, the word of God, in order to conduct ourselves by what is spiritually true and real, so that we do not go wander in the darkness, but that we walk in the light of life because beloved Christ warns us at this point of having our understanding shaped by the darkness that's where we left off by what this world falsely calls knowledge and light. Christ says it's darkness and if that's what guides you, if that's where your wisdom comes from, if that's where all of your instruction and how you conduct yourselves and how you believe what is right and wrong and what you do and what you don't do, if that's truly your light then your light is darkness and you will have no ability to serve God and your heart and your mind will be utterly in darkness. And so at this point, after instructing us this way, Christ I think deals with the objection that ought to be in our minds that we're really thinking about what he's saying. And that is this. If my focus is to be on the glory of God, if my treasure and my efforts are to be to lay up treasure in heaven so that my heart will then also be there, then how in the world am I going to get my earthly needs met? I live in this world, I'm a creature who has a physical body. I need things to live, to move, to have my being in this world. How can I do that? And right away we start to worry, right? We start to get anxious. We start to stress out. Well, I think in our text this morning Jesus gives us the key to not stress out. And it's not a massage which I've recently had my first one and they are very relaxing. And it's not diet and it's not exercise or drugs or vitamins or counseling or therapy or even taking a vacation, though you may need to do some of those things. And yet beloved, the real key and the only way to not simply worry. It's found in our text this morning is the Holy Spirit will empower to us for God's glory and our benefit. Let's pray as we turn to God's word. Father, we need the blessing of your spirit upon your word to our hearts, not because your word lacks something but because our hearts won't receive it unless you empower it as it were to us. Unless you give us the grace to believe and to obey your words of Father, do it. We pray. You've called us together. You've promised to bless your people. So keep your word. Remember your covenant. Lord Jesus, remember your blood that you died to save and sanctify a people for yourself. So keep your promises and let this word bless us this day for your glory. We pray in Jesus name and man. You're now the word of the Lord from Matthew chapter six beginning in verse 24. This is God's holy word. No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and man. And therefore I say to you, do not worry 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 than the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air. For they neither so nor reap nor gather into barns yet your heavenly Father feeds them. For you not of more value than that which of you by worrying can add one cubic to his stature. So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. And yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothed the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow was thrown into the oven. Well he not much more clothed you oh ye of little faith. Therefore do not worry saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear. For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. May the Lord bless and establishes word or heart this morning. A couple of qualifications as we begin this text. I love this passage. You all know it well. When Jesus says in verse 25, therefore I say take or do not worry about your life. Take heed not to worry about your life. Whereas the old King James says take no thought for your life. Because the old King James said it that way and because Jesus says don't worry about your life. Some people have criticized him. In fact there's even been some scholars. There was a particular historian who wrote about how the early Christians didn't care about their lives at all. And he looked at passages like this one where again the old King James take no thought for your life and he looked at Paul saying things like why to go and be with the Lord is better or to live as Christ but to die as gain and then he saw letters like Ignatius where he's pleading with the churches. Don't try to stop my martyrdom because Christ has my crown laid up for me and I want to die for him because that's where I'm going to go to Rome as he's being taken and so forth and other testimonies like that and this historian said you know the early Christians were lustful for death. They wanted to die. They all had a death wish and they despised this life and that's not at all what Christ is saying. And neither does it mean when the old King James said take no thought for your life. In fact if you study old English you'll see that the word thought actually had the connotation of anxiety and worry in it. In fact in Hamlet you can see Hamlet talking about how he doesn't want thought to get in the way of his resolution to get his revenge and by thought clearly since he's thinking so much about what he's to do thought he means anxiety he means worry and that's what the word used to mean. No this word is that Jesus is not saying don't care at all about this life he's not saying that we ought to have no responsibility no sense of duty. Don't worry about anything be like the Thessalonians those ones who stopped working right and we're just you know the super spiritual mind and people in this life doesn't matter and so forth. Remember what Paul said about those Thessalonians? If they don't work don't let them eat that'll change their minds in a hurry. That is not the way we are to be. Remember we've seen this throughout the sermon we can't hyper literalize what Jesus is talking about obviously the Bible talks about being prepared for certain things taking care of ourselves taking care of our possessions making sure that we lay up for the future lay up for our children and so forth we're supposed to look to the aunt and all that Christ who inspired those words is inspiring these words and so he's not saying this life is important or that you can't be concerned or that you shouldn't have a good kind of concern the Bible uses the same word to talk about a good kind of concern that we are to have when Paul is talking to the Corinthians remember the Corinthians had these factions he says to the Corinthian church at one point that they are to have the same care for one another using the same words you are he commands them have the same care we could say have the same worry we did it the same way in English when Paul is contemplating sending Timothy to the church in Philippi he says because I have no one like minded who will sincerely care for your state the RSV translates to that phrase who will be genuinely anxious for your welfare a good kind of anxiety that we are supposed to have right a good kind of worry if you want to say it that way or a good kind of care and we know the New Testament talks about how it is good and right for a husband to care about his wife and to consider how he can please her and how a wife is supposed to care about her husband and how she should please him and that's why Paul in that particular place commend singleness as being able to do more because you don't have these cares these legitimate cares that you need to have in that relationship and so forth and so this isn't denying those kind of things but what Christ is talking about here is to be overly concerned to be too concerned for the things of this world and so what I want to talk about is undue worry that we are not to have undue worry and so my first point this morning is undue worry is idolatrous undue worry is idolatrous so we're just going to pull our punches right out of the gate here well it is I had my original point with undue worry is distorted no it's it's idolatrous that's why it's distorted it's to create an idol verse 25 flows out of verse 24 I know the former pastor the founding pastor pastor broadwick used to point out the word therefore to you a lot from what I understand and I'm going to do that right now verse 25 therefore I say to you what does that mean that means that verse 25 is a concrete application in expansion of verse 24 and verse 24 says no one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other you cannot serve god and man therefore I say to you do you see the connection do not worry about your life what you will eat or what you will drink nor about your body what you will put on you see Jesus is saying to try to do that to try to have this undue worry it's to have two masters and guess what you don't have to you have one because when push comes to shove you're going to choose to obey one and to have two and have god as one of them it's to have an idol is to have something that gets in the way of god's lordship and of course mammoth here as we saw means any kind of wealth and wealth is important because we need wealth to do all kinds of things in life in fact book of ecclesiastical says that money answers everything and yet we saw last time if you remember a month ago that even if you had enough wealth to solve all of the wealth lack of wealth problems that are in this world what if you had enough money to feed and close and I give you the example Pittsburgh let's make it bigger let's say you had enough money to feed and close and house everybody in the world everybody in the world you could raise their socio economic status to middle class and that you could cure diseases like never before the hospitals would be pristine their medical service would go out everybody would have all that they need all of the needs of money and housing and education and all of that could be met throughout the entire world and yet let's also suppose that the spiritual condition of every single person was exactly the same would you have brought any light to this world would you have caused anyone to take one step out of darkness and into the light everybody with the exact same spiritual views and not believing in Christ and not believing in the Lord and adopting a moral system that whatever the world is saying is right and wrong now all of that was the same would you have done anything peace on earth in rebellion against God a kingdom that would be rival to his no beloved we have seen in fact Jesus is going to instruct that the focus our focus the focus of the Christian should be on the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness that's verse 33 Lord will look at that more next time but at this point I want to say how do we avoid this worry about things that we really need well simply because dying for Christ is the greatest thing and simply because this world is not our home does not mean that this world is not important and it does not mean that this life is not valuable and that we have real duties in this world you know I was listening to a message this week you know it's a number one negative command that Jesus gives in the gospels or negative command you know you shall not do this or that the number one funny and close the number one negative command that Christ gives in the gospel is what you know what it is you shall not be afraid do not be afraid the old King James fear not Jesus says this over and over and over again you know worry simple worry is the kind of fear it's a kind of anxiety it's a fear of the unknown it's a fear of the future I'll expand on that in a little bit and so we're we want to be careful because we use the word worry or we use the word anxious a lot of times when we're not really meaning what the Bible means here by worry I remember when I was a kid in on the sidelines on the football team you know anxious to get in the game eager really to get into the into the game excited eager we might say anxious but you know and maybe you might say something like well you know I'm really worried about how the feelers are going to do this year right that's not this kind of a sinful worry that's not that this is a fear a sinful fear that comes about because God is not being the true Lord of our hearts it comes in I believe only as an idol because you cannot serve God and man and therefore do not worry about your life the connection Jesus and Matthew 13 is going to say about the seed among the thorns that that is the one who hears the word but the cares of this world listen and the deceitfulness of riches isn't that interesting Jesus brings worry and wealth together again and Matthew 13 in the parable the the the seed on the thorns is the cares of this world the worries of this world and the deceitfulness of riches come in and it makes the word unfruitful because you have another master you have another Lord we can say that Jesus is Lord we can say that he's our only master but we can let sin in the backdoor with legitimate concerns with real responsibilities that we really need to give some attention to and yet that can't turn into a sinful idolatrous kind of worry we need to keep things in their proper perspective human beings are image bearers of God and therefore there is more to life than our three score and ten there's more to life than the inheritance the physical inheritance of our children or the physical and material condition of this world after we leave it there is more to life than that and we need to remember that live in the light of eternity secondly I want you to notice that undue worry is unreasonable undue worry is unreasonable it goes again the knowledge given in general revelation Jesus gives several examples of this beginning in verse 26 look at the birds of the air for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barrens yet your heavenly father feeds them are you not of more value than that did a little study on birds in the Bible this week for this message you know here I am contemplating the birds of the Bible but did you know how important birds are in scripture that of the four different animal groups that God created we have the birds of the air the fishes of the sea we have the animals just sort of general land animal word and then creeping in Genesis 1 birds get a fourth of the attention as it were in Leviticus 11 there are 20 different kinds of birds mentioned in six verses 20 different kinds of birds and six or seven verses in Leviticus and there are birds that play a significant role in the life of Christ when his mother has to go up and offer the sacrifice to cause her to be ceremonially clean because when a woman gave birth the ceremonial law said she was unclean for so many days then she had to go up and offer a sacrifice though the law said either a lamb or if she couldn't afford a lamb two young pigeons and the Bible says that Mary and Mary and Joseph must have been poor if I guess one of the passages where we get that they were poor she offered the poor offering of the two young pigeons so that she could be clean again and worship God in his temple again a little bit later we saw in Matthew chapter 4 that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus as it does right Luke chapter 12 Jesus says consider the Ravens and he talks about the Ravens and of course a little bit later in Matthew Jesus is going to talk about the sparrows and how God cares even for the sparrows and so birds are very important in scripture and in this part of the world it's it's reasonable that that would be the case in a work called all the birds of the Bible written a number of decades ago the author says that the region where Jesus preached this sermon northern Israel he calls it quote the crossroads of bird migration because all different manner and kinds and species of birds pass through that area all year long and the point when Jesus says consider the birds again is not to say that birds are lazy not to say that birds don't do anything you don't see birds just in the morning opening their mouths waiting for God to feed them from heaven right birds are some of the most energetic some of the most diligent creatures what do we say we have that saying the early bird gets the worm because birds are up at the crack of dawn I know I hate it in the summer when Robin opens the windows because I have to wake up with like six because all the birds are singing and tweeting five you know so early in the morning birds are energetic creatures they migrate there's a bird that migrates from Alaska to somewhere in New Zealand and the Philippines it's a seven thousand mile journey they can't land in the ocean they're in the air for over three days a bird can do that there's another kind of bird I actually had a guest on my show last week who talked about the swift and he said that the swift loves to fly so much that it spends 75% of its life flying it sleeps while it's flying I don't recommend that while you're driving or anything like that I don't know how good the robotic cars get these this is these are the kind of things that birds do right and and yet the bird which is so diligent so energetic you'll never see a bird worry you'll never see birds out there losing their feathers because worm futures might take a dive with the Fed cuts its rates next month right I mean that kind of thing doesn't come into that to mine the birds at all they don't think about that sort of thing could you imagine going to bed at night with no food in your house none and waking up in the morning singing and yet that's what the birds do every single day they don't store they don't gather into their barns but they they trust in God they sing and Jesus says here and I want you to notice this your heavenly father feeds them oh we think that this just happens you know by by itself that nature and the creation itself and the laws of nature are just these sort of self autonomous things and the creatures and the insects and the worms are just there in the ground because that's the way the ground is and the bird just goes and gets them because that's just way birds are and yet the bible says that your heavenly father feeds them there are no natural laws that are not the ordinary way that God governs his creation that's the word that we give to the ordinary way that God exercises his power in creation that's what natural laws are all of them Psalm 147 9 says he gives to the beast their food and to the young ravens that cry the Psalm says that God gives to the ravens when they cry yes how by the raven going out and getting the food but it's God and puts that in the birds to go out and do that and to have that what we call instinct and so forth in fact Psalm 50 verse 11 says this God says I know all the birds in the mountains now the mountains would be the place where nobody goes where nobody sees there are birds that live and die that none of us ever see right and yet God knows every single one of them he knows the birds we know a little bit later in Matthew Jesus is going to say in Matthew 1029 not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from your father's will I love that bird not a single bird can die without God's knowledge and even permission that okay yes it's time for that bird to die love it it's irrational to sinfully and unduly worry it goes against reason we see the examples in creation all around us Jesus gives another one in verse 28 so why do you worry about clothing consider the lilies of the field how they grow they neither toil nor spin now once again Jesus is not giving a scientific dissertation on plants or on the vegetation of this world as if there isn't anything complicated happening there with the soil and photosynthesis and the way in which the roots feed the stem and the flower and all that he's not denying that there are significant things that are happening within that flower in fact did you know here's another little little blurb that the one of the I think it's the tallest tree in the world the coastal redwood or the Sequoia tree can grow over 379 feet tall almost 400 feet tall that's 35 stories and did you know that the root system of that tree moves 160 gallons of water a day from the bottom of the tree to the top in fact the water molecules moving through those microscopic fibers that we call solid wood the water molecules on a hot day can reach 25 miles an hour going up that tree put your ear to the redwood and you'll hear all the pumps and all the motors you won't hear a thing because we can't even fathom making something like that and some poet said only God can make a tree he was right and only God can make a flower and a lily of the field first 29 yet I say to you that even Solomon and all of his glory was not a raid like one of these like a lily of the field there's debates over what Jesus is talking about it may just be the common wildflower in the field could be a certain kind of lily we're not exactly sure what the 2000 year old Greek word meant for this kind of flower but the point is think about it Jesus was there he saw Solomon he saw the gold he saw the jewels and the precious stones that Solomon brought in he saw all the luxuries and all of the shipments that came in the peacocks and the apes and everything that was brought in all of the honor and all the fame the queen of Shiba all of the different people coming to hear Solomon the throne that he built the Bible says that silver was like stones in his where nobody cared about silver when Solomon was king Jesus saw it he was there and he said you know Solomon and all of his glory was not like a single flower and I can see them in the windows there's yellow flowers not a single one could Solomon surpass you know it's interesting we could probably Solomon may have been the most glorious the most wealthy king that ever lived but we could we could reproduce that we could have somebody in this world everybody could honor him and shower him with wealth and praise and adoration and fame and we could we could sort of create another Solomon but you know what we can't do with all of our technology and all of our knowledge and all of our hubris we can't make a single plant we can't make a blade of grass let alone a flower we can't make one right now across over really around the globe there are thousands of laboratories trying to create life the most simplest kind of life the experiment is going on for decades now they're trying to just create a living thing and they can't do it they can't even come close the left-handed protein amino acids rather than they make aren't even the basic building blocks of life they can't do it we had a family member for a while in the artificial flower business and you would not believe the amount of money that goes into it the amount of effort and time and and just normal business operations that go into artificial flowers and the distributing and in the manufacturing and the creating and designing up them and you know it's a goal it to come as close as possible to the real thing and they can make flowers look like real ones they can make them smell like real ones but if you go out and you touch it you know it's not a real flower could you imagine if somebody came up with the idea and somehow the plan and the ability to synthetically create an exact duplicate of a flower in substance in color in fragrance that would grow this man would be able to write his own ticket you would have all the money and fame that he ever wanted we can't even make a flower and here's the that's just the birds and the flowers you can multiply examples from general revelation from creation and you can see even in this fallen world where God's wrath really is revealed you can see that God cares for everything that nothing escapes his attention that he cares for every living thing that he has made even the non-living thing like the natural order of the planetary motions and so forth God keeps all of that happening just the way it was this is why it's just irrational for us to worry we who are the children of God thirdly I want you to notice undue worry is infotent undue worry is impotent even if you could get everything that you wanted and thought you needed in this world as we saw before you can't make it work right I could fill my barns with food but I can't make my body benefit from the food unless my body is working well and there are people right now you can go visit them in the hospital whose bodies can't digest and get nutrition from food they could have storehouses filled with food and it won't help them at all and all of our technology can't cure their bodies and make that food benefit this is what Jesus meant in verses 19 and 20 of our texts that if you lay up your treasures on earth mosque can come rust can come now rust just means any kind of corruption or mildew like the rot in wood or so forth that fabrics decay and and fray and come apart metal rusts the things in this world don't say they break down and that's the point of verse 27 which of you by worrying can add one qubit to its satcher in other words satcher here if you another translation is lifespan it's the same word satcher or lifespan the reason why new King James goes with satcher is because the qubit is a measurement of distance and so they think oh it must mean height distance and yet oftentimes in the bible life is described as a journey right life is a journey that you're walking on in fact there are certain milestones that you hit in fact you know the milestone originally was just a stone in the ground and it said you know 10 miles the salt first or whatever and we turned them into in the mile post after a while but we still use that kind of language we still still say oh he he leaps an important milestone in his life he graduated from college or did you did you hear what a what a rare milestone she reached she celebrated her 90th birthday right we still think of life in terms of breath and clearly the context here is about life but you know you're don't you know consider you don't worry about your life Jesus says verse 25 food drink so this is as the NIV translates it which of you by worrying can add one hour to his lifespan that's actually the the the meaning who can do that now again Jesus is not saying that it's a that there aren't real benefits from taking care of your body right and being healthy and so forth that we can you know all things being equal have a healthier even longer lifespan but what Jesus is reminding his disciples and all of them would have by default gone there is that God has for every one of us every person that's ever existed everything he has our life already written in his book Psalm 139 all the days were written for me before there were yet one of them God has your life in his book and there is nothing you can do no amount of worry can add a single day to your life span so Christ isn't saying you don't shouldn't care for your body or anything like that Paul says physical exercise you know belt is a little bit valuable and so forth and we should take care of our lives in this world but worrying I'm do worry can't change any of it when I was a kid we we used to see this phenomenon maybe some of you remember this in fact it's in the news more often today but where there would be some great athlete in college or high school who would suddenly drop death I just remember first hearing that when I was a teenager and they started to see this in fact you can do sudden death athletes you assert on that you'll see all sorts of articles and websites and theories what is going on because it happens a lot here's here's just from one website quote it remains a difficult medical challenge to prevent the sudden cardiac death of athletes listen typically to find as natural unexpected death from cardiac arrest listen to this within one hour of the onset of symptoms and the reason why I bring that up is here's somebody these are people who are they are in the pristine condition of human physical life top notch athletes best diet best health nobody fat you know good heart rate all that stuff no prior conditions no diagnoses of anything no symptoms suddenly something happens and they're dead in an hour natural causes nobody knows by the same token you can to search on the internet and you can find it there are plenty of these where you get somebody smoke two-and-a-half packs today heavily drunk their whole life miserable carers themselves didn't care what they ate or whatever and celebrated their hundredth birthday and never been to the doctor right you just can't control these things no amount of worry is going to do it if we're building our treasure in this world it's just not going to work if this is where our hope is and so fourthly and lastly I want you to notice undo worry is unbelief undo worry you can say it this way flows from unbelief now it's true for every sin I think every sin starts with unbelief Satan said to Eve half God said question God's word think maybe God's word isn't true and then you'll sin and of course that is what happened and that's what happens with worry we begin to doubt God's word we begin to doubt God we begin to think that maybe he's not powerful enough maybe he doesn't know everything maybe he's not good maybe he doesn't care about me maybe I'm too small for his plans and he doesn't care so I have to worry my mum needs to say this when I was a kid oh I have to worry about you all the time now maybe I gave her reasons to do that and sometimes we think that we have to worry about this but I want to challenge you again I'm not saying as Jesus is not saying don't be concerned don't take real precautions he's not saying don't act he's talking about the attitude of our hearts and our minds that go to sinful worry when we forget who God is and we forget what he has promised to us look at these passages in our text and I'm just going to point them out without telling you the verse but where Jesus says is not life more than food and the body more than clothing you know when you live for the things of this world that qualifies you to be an animal that's what animals do is not life more than the food food is not the body more than clothing what's a rhetorical question of course it is we all know that do you believe that Christ is saying you know it but do you live that way and then when he says are you not of more value than they or as he says and Luke are you not of more value than many sparrows many of them you're made in his image God has made you if God even clothes the grass of the field the grass you want to talk about insignificant stuff tiny little things that a lot of people would overlook not my neighbor by the way or he keeps his lawn nice but God cares about that he takes care to clothes the grass with more glory and more magnificence than all human ability and power and knowledge and technology can even begin to reproduce if God has made you this is the point and he has given you life and you are his image there do you think he's going to keep food for you you think he's going to not clothing now that doesn't mean that you're not going to know times of want Paul talks about being without food and water for a day you know on the open sea and and so forth and we know that's the case and yet Psalm 37 25 David says I have been young and am now old yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor his descendants begging bread it God puts you through a time of difficulty he will give you the grace to get through that time of difficulty as you trust in him and as you walk before him and as you continue to put him first that's the key here it really is verse 30 if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow thrown into the oven will he not much more clothes you and I love the old king James oh ye yes ye of little faith the first time Jesus uses that title for his disciples it's not a disparaging day we are a little faith how quickly we are taken away with worry we worry about the dumbest things let me give you an example I worry about dumb things as a pastor I worry about how people will perceive what I'm doing and I never want to give the connotation that I'm being unfair that to me is the thing that I can't do that's like the unpardonable sin to be unfair and so when I started to preach on a regular basis I started to think about things about like when I would leave the sanctuary walk up and I decided early on that when I leave the sanctuary I want to walk through and I don't want to distract people because they're worshiping because the tendency isn't people are looking at you to make eye contact you know then oh high and high and but if I say hi to this person and I don't say hi to the person behind them and lock eyes with them and say hi you know you're gonna think that I like the other person better so I don't know it's how I made out I might you know what I'm not gonna look at anybody in the face I do this if you sat in the out you know it's not that I get in the very end sometimes I'll make eye contact with Jesse or Megan in the back that's about it but I won't do it I will I will feel sometimes people looking at me an easy thing would be to look down but I said no I don't want to look down because then people think I'm ashamed of what I just said in the pulpit so I'm gonna look up and I'm gonna look straight ahead and I'm going to smile when I leave I went through this whole preparation and planning so that nobody would think again that I've somehow discounted them or and I don't want to distract people from worshipping and I need I need to get out to the back and take somebody really doesn't need to talk to me for prayer and so forth but I went through that whole planning and I try to faithfully do that I try not to look at anybody even when I feel people really looking at me not to do that because I worry about that I hope not to the point of sinful worry but the point here of the text is and this is the thing Calvin says this quote we do God no small dishonor when we fail to trust that he will give us necessary food or clothing as if he had thrown us on the earth at random know that he is the God well these natural laws just happen and God will forget about us the natural things are God when I'm able to work and I work and I'm able to provide for my family that's God giving me things when the bird goes out and gets the worm and gets back to the nest and feeds the young that's God feeding them God works through the natural including our efforts secondary causes but it's God who does it God gives you the ability to make bread and to eat it and to be able to be nourished by it in fact when we undo worry before the Lord here's what we do we either doubt God's right for God's authority well God wants to help us but for some reason he's locked out of the process he doesn't have the authority right or we doubt his goodness oh God maybe wants me to suffer or we doubt his power well he has the authority he's trying he's good but he's just not able to keep track of everybody you know that as if he doesn't know all things or and this is the last one and maybe the worst one we doubt his love yeah I know God's all powerful and all good but he doesn't care about me I have to worry and make sure that I'm provided for and Jesus was ready to leave his disciples in the upper room and John 14 he said to them let not your heart be troubled you believe in God believe also in me in my father's house there are many mansions if it were not so I want to told you I go I'm leaving you don't worry I'm going to prepare a place for you I'm going not because I've forgotten you but because I'm thinking about you I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again do you believe that and I will receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also father this is the God who feeds the birds he knows every one of them he closed the grass and glory do you think that he doesn't care about you who are so much more valuable in his snake than that don't live like an atheist first 31 and 32 the final two verses of our text therefore do not worry saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear for after all these things the Gentile seek that's not an ethnic distinction there the unbelievers seek Jesus's side Gentile oh so don't believe in God this is what they are about you are heavenly father knows you need all these things you know we worry about the future we never worry about the past the past is done it's over past can't hurt me I worry about the consequences of the things I did in the past but future consequences right we only worry about the future why because the past is done the past can't hurt me it's complete do you think that's a future in the plan of God is less done do you think the future in the plan of God has more power to hurt you then the past which is over beloved if we know God if we know Christ is our Savior we should think about the future exactly the way we think about the past that it's our God our father who loves us it's his plan for us he's bringing it to past there may be hard times but the hard times will be for our good this is why Jesus said he's leaving us the Holy Spirit and then he says this piece I leave with you the opposite of worry my piece I give to you not as the world gives not by having the stuff of this world the well the security that isn't security do not let your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid I think ultimately we think God doesn't know but our text says the last sentence your heavenly father knows he knows all the things you need if something bad was going to happen to one of my kids and if I could be there if I would know I tell you what it would not happen if your heavenly father knows and he is with you know why in the world would we worry let's pray our father and our God how we do confess to you that every one of us in this room simply worries at times and by doing so we insult you we insult your goodness we insult your power we question whether you really know or whether you care oh God forgive help us first and foremost to see that we need you to forgive us for our simple worry we are not simply pitiful broken vessels we are rebels and we simply worry and we ask you to forgive us and that you would help us we who are of little faith you know it's true to help us to believe help us to rejoice and grant our God that we would not worry because we would know that our heavenly father sees and cares for us we pray this in Jesus name you