This recording is from Christ Kingdom Church in Waterford Lakes, East Orlando. Visit us online at ChristKingdom.org for our calendar, driving directions, and more audio recordings. First reading is out of Genesis 1-1-3 in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. The Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water. I think God said, let there be light, and there was light. New Testament's reading comes from Galatians 4-1-7. Now I say, as long as the air is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave, although he is the owner of everything. But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the Father. So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world. But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his son into our hearts, trying Abba Father. Therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God, God's Word. And our last gospel lesson for this morning will be from Matthew 6, verse 25, through the end of the chapter, which says, therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. It's not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes. Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow? They do not labor or spin? Yet I tell you that not even Solomon, and all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God closed the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry saying what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the pagans run after these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. This is the Word of the Lord, and thanks be to God. I would invite the 3rd to 5th graders to be dismissed. I'm assuming that there is children's church this morning, so if I'm breaking commandments, I'm sorry for that. This morning, as we jump in, I'm aware that the time and age in which we find ourselves is one in which we daily wake to great uncertainty. It's a time in which we wake in here of wars and rumors of wars as nations rise against nation. We're regularly confronted, if not personally, at least in the news of various calamities and catastrophes, as we see the devastating effects and impact of hurricanes and typhoons, as we see the ravaging effects of earthquakes. And as we witness the incredible impact created by famine and global poverty. And though as Americans, we have often been very isolated from this due to our great resources, ever increasingly, it seems like this insulation is being removed. As our national and global economy continues to struggle, we find ourselves less insulated against these struggles. And it strikes me that in this day and our day, there's much to be anxious and worried about. What do we do with the fact that for the first time in many generations, we don't and can't just assume that the next generation will have a better, easier, more comfortable life than we do. It strikes me that there's much to be anxious and worried about. And though I may not necessarily worry about what I'm going to eat tomorrow and what I'm going to wear tomorrow, I absolutely worry about what will my life be like in a year? What will my life be like in five years and ten years? Will there be jobs? Will there be food? Will I have freedom to continue to worship the Lord in the ways that I feel led and directed? Will there be freedom in space for me to live in a relationship with those that love me well and whom I seek to love well? And so though I don't worry about the realities of tomorrow, it strikes me that there's much to be worried and anxious about. And so this morning, as we continue our God-shaped series and we find ourselves thinking about time, if I'm honest with you, this last passage, our gospel passage this morning, is a very challenging and difficult one for me to swallow. If time is truly the currency of our age, then we are a very wealthy people and anxiety. How are we to follow Christ's commands to not worry about tomorrow when all around us we are continually reminded of and given evidence for why we should be worried about tomorrow? As we consider our neediest as we examine the reality of our need created by the fall as we are no longer able to be in relationship with the Lord in the way that He intended, I think that it's good to ask questions about time. How do we experience our neediness in the reality and the context of time? How do we seek to control or avoid that neediness in the ways that we use our time? And as we seek to answer those questions in really any questions, I think that it is always very helpful to think about the meta-narrative, the big picture story that we are told in the scriptures. It's helpful to think about these questions in that big picture context. And so as we do so, I just want to think about what is the story that scriptures tell if you have ever been around when I teach. Often we go through these steps, there is creation, there is the fall, there is a redemption and a restoration process and ultimately the consummation, one of my favorite teachers says that the story of the Bible is one that we live out one time and many times in our life. And so as we live life, we experience creation one time and many times, and we experience the fall one time and many times. And so as we think about time, it's good for us to think about from the beginning, and so that's why we start this morning with Genesis 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light, God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night, and there is evening and there is morning on the first day. What an interesting picture that the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And so what God does is He creates light and he separates it from the dark. And so we see God establishing time. He's moving into what is blank and empty and chaos and He creates order. In the midst of what is chaotic and unsettled, He creates order. And so from this, we can see if we are to enter and engage with time in the way that God does, we see that we are to enter intentionally into creating order in what is often chaotic and unsettled. We are to step in and to separate and shape our time. Any dealer that says, essentially, how we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. My tendency often is just to kind of go with the flow of life and sit back passively and take things as they come. And if that's how I spend my days, that is how I will spend my life. So what would it mean for you to intentionally engage with creating shape and order in the chaos that often is life? I think that would be a good question to ponder as we think about time. And so of course after creation happens, after God separates life from the day and creates order, He blesses it and He says, this is good. And then after He finishes creation, of course there's the fall. The fall is the reason that we experience this great need of anxiety and worry. There's much unsettled and much brokenness and much depravity in our world. There is much to be worried about seemingly. And that's because of the fall. And then the next thing that we see in time is that God enters it. This would be redemption. The Galatians 4 passages talks about in the fullness of time God chose to send his son so that we could no longer be slaves but become adopted sons and daughters of God. God who created time, who established time, who creates order, separates what is chaotic and creates order and blesses it and says that it's good is not the God who sits back and says, I'll leave you to yourself to sit in your brokenness and your mess. But God chooses to enter time. And so what this passage is saying is that God changes our identity from slaves to sons and daughters. And just a really simple thought about that is this. If you are a slave, you must do what is required of you to be right before the one that you serve. To be a son or daughter, you are right with the one whom you serve and so you serve them. There is a subtle but very big difference in that. If I am a slave to someone in order to stay in a right relationship with them to not be penalized and punished, I have to do what is required of me. As a son, my father delights in me and rejoices in me and hopefully as he loves me well, that will lead to me wanting to live in a way that pleases him. So we see that God is a God who enters time. And so then for us to live beyond Christ, there is this restoration process as we live life as we seek to move towards a life that God has called us to as we seek to live faithfully as we work out our salvation and fear and trembling. And then we are told in a revelation that one day all things will be made new as the new heavens and new earth are brought into reality and we no longer have to suffer the brokenness of living in a fallen world. But I am aware that there is a great deal of time that happens between creation and the day in which all things are made new. There is a great deal of life that happens between the fall and the day that all things are made new. There is a great deal of time that happens between Christ entering time and the day that all things are made new and even for us to live in between Christ and that day, there is a lot of life. And famously Solomon says that there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war in a time for peace. I don't know about you, but I know that even in my own life this week, I experienced this. There's a time for great polarity of experience. This may sound silly, but even as I think about this, I have a feeling in my stomach that just feels sick. I got an email from my older brother this week on Tuesday. My older brother is a tractor-trailer driver who kind of his main companion on all these journeys has been his dog, Jasper, who he got a year and a half ago. Jasper has covered many miles as my brother drives throughout the country, but it's not just miles that he's ridden with him, but it's miles of life that have been shared. My brother wrote to me and the rest of my family this week to say that Jasper one morning had gotten out and he'd gotten run over by a car, and he just said, I don't want to make a big deal of this because I'm already really torn up about it, so I just wanted to email it to let you know. And as I think about my own dog, Bigsby, and think about one day that I will say goodbye to him, I feel just a pit in my stomach of, that's not what I was created for. I wasn't created to establish connection and to have to say goodbye. Yes, it's a dog, but it's a dog that has loved him well. That's worth grieving. There is a time in which we die. There's a time to weep into mourn. And yet on the very other side of that Saturday I got a call from a dear friend who's wedding I was in to tell me that he and his wife were pregnant, and then the very next night's son I got a call from a dear friend who's wedding I was in to say that he and his wife were pregnant. And then Monday I got a call from a former student asking me if I would officiate his wedding. And so in the midst of having a brother call and saying that he is grieving and mourning the loss of his dog, I have friends saying, there's a time for life. There's a time to celebrate new life, both in terms of children being born and new marriages as to become one. There's a time for everything under this sun. That seems really confusing to me sometimes. There's a lot of life that happens in between the day in which we were spoken into being in the day in which God would call us home. Which always makes me think of 1 Corinthians 13 which is often known as the love passage, but there's this really interesting thing that Paul does at the end of this where he says, but where there are prophecies they will cease, where there are tongues they will be stilled, where there is knowledge it will pass away. He's talking about this one day when what we wait for comes into fruition, when all things are made in you. He's talking about that. For we know in part, we taste it. We taste the four tastes of God's coming returning and restoring. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I am fully known. And now these three remain face, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. When I think about this passage, I think about when I wake up in the morning as I'm getting out of the shower and getting ready for the day, there's the fog on the mirror. And I can kind of make out what's what's staring back at me in the mirror and that you don't have to kind of like put myself together somewhat. I know that it's not the process that women have to go through putting themselves together, but I have to shave and I have to at least kind of make my hair look presentable because I've got to look professional as I'm counseling people. And that's a difficult thing to do as it's covered with fog. And it's kind of unclear. I can see somewhat. And so as Paul talks about this, as we wait for the day in which God brings restoration and returns all things as they were intended to be, we see dimly, we see hints of it, but we don't see fully and we wait to the day and we see fully. And so in the meantime, God has given us these three things, faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these Paul says is love. And thinking about time, thinking about the way that we spend our lives, I think that each of these has great implication for the way that we engage time. I really like Paul's phrasing relations of in the fullness of time, Christ entered the world. And so what does it mean for us who are not God who don't exist outside of time, but who do exist in time? Yet have had eternity setting our hearts. What does it mean to live in the fullness of time? There's a quote that I find really helpful with this. And Sharon Hersch, who is one of the professors that I've had, says that living in the fullness of time includes the ability to redemptively remember your past, which is faith, to dream about the future, which is hope, and to remain rooted in the present, which is love. Let me say that again, living in the fullness of time includes the ability to redemptively remember your past, faith, to dream about the future, hope, and to remain rooted in the present, love. And so what is the nature of each of these things? Just really simple, a couple thoughts about each faith. Faith in a way provides the foundation upon which we currently walk as we sink back on our lives and the ways that our stories have played out. That's the foundation upon which we walk into what is current and in the future. And ultimately faith is about trusting God, trusting that God truly is a God who will work out for our good for those that he loves. What is hope? Hope casts a vision for where we are going. Ultimately, what I hope for shapes the way that I live now. I remember a few years ago, I started making a list of dreams that I had for my life. Some of them were significant, serious. I want to have wife kids kind of normal things. Some of them were kind of goofy things like it'd be cool to have a pond in my backyard. It would be cool to build a field of dreams. I don't know how I'll do that, but I'll put it on my list because it sounds cool. But one of the things that really struck me was one of my 100 dreams would be to go to World Series game. And as I began thinking about it, I realized if I ever want to go to the World Series, that's not just going to fall into my lap and just go, oh, World Series, here we go. That's something I will have to prepare for. I'll have to set aside money from each paycheck so that I can afford what is a pretty expensive ticket. I'll have to save up vacation time so that I can travel and go to the game. What I hope for shapes the way that I live right now. If I hope one day to go to the World Series, that will change the way that I spend my time in money right now. So what we hope for shapes the way that we live right now. Love. Love is something that moves us into our present moment with intentionality. Love is not a static thing, but love is something that creates movement. In and of itself, love connotes in and of itself movement towards. If you love someone, think about your first high school crush. Guys, there is something about that that just makes you go a little bit crazy. Or if you're an adult watching your adolescent go through this, you would say that makes them go a lot bit crazy. It creates a great deal of anxiety and a great deal of excitement and a great deal of movement. A high school or middle school boy in love is one with a lot of energy that is moving outward. Love moves us into our present reality. And so if living in the fullness of time includes the ability to look back on our lives redemptively and to dream about our future and to remain rooted in the present. The opposite of living in the fullness of time might be being bound in the past because of sin and shame.
It might be being caught up in the future because of despair. And it might be avoiding the gift of now because of fear. Maybe we don't ever exist in the past, present, or future because we are so caught up in all of it that we aren't able to engage with any of it. What if we are so full of shame about our past that we run from it? What if we are so afraid of what's happening right now that we run from it? What if we have so much despair about what is in the future that we run from it?
Or the other side of that, what if we romanticize our past so much, the glory day syndrome of man, if life could just be what it was in high school, then life would be great. Or if one day when I retire and I have my 401k and I'm able to just play golf all day, then life would be great. What if we miss now because of romanticizing the past and the future and because we're afraid of now? And what I would say is our foundation for faith, hope, and love for existing with faith where we can engage our past and say, yes, there is great brokenness. Yes, there is great joy that thrust me into living now, fully present in the present transcendence of what is now, of God engaging my life, the transcendent God coming and living in me, I can engage with that. And our foundation for having a hope for the future which lets us and informs the way that we live now. Our foundation for living in that, our foundation for faith, hope, and love is that we follow and that we know and love the God who was, who is and is to come. The reason that we can walk by faith is that we follow the God who was. The reason we can live by love is that we are invited to abide in the God who is. The reason we can hold on to hope is that we believe in the God who is to come.
And so out of that, let's return to our gospel passage this morning where we are invited to not worry. Jesus says therefore to not worry about tomorrow. For tomorrow, worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Let me just say this. I'll preface this. Y'all know this. I am a counseling student. I am biased. If you are so caught in shame over your past that you can't live in the now, why wouldn't you process and work through that with someone whether it's a counselor or a dear friend that loves you well? Or if your current and future is so full of despair that you only ever live in your past, why wouldn't you engage with someone and process and work through that? God's invitation is to live now. And that's what he's saying here. Do not worry about tomorrow. For tomorrow, we'll worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. If you're like me, you've probably, at least for me, someone who's grown up in the church, you've probably experienced moments where you have felt a lot of worry and anxiety about what is in the future, whether it's what's tomorrow or in a week or in a year or in 10 years. And you've probably been told by someone, don't be anxious about anything, but in all things, submit them to the Lord. And maybe even this passage would be shared with you. Don't worry about tomorrow. For tomorrow has enough worries of its own. And if you're like me, there may be part of you that goes, yes, I know that that's true. But there's a big difference between what I know is true and what I feel is true. I think one of the implications of the fall is that even within ourselves, there is brokenness and there's separation. We're initially and intended to be created as holistic beings as people whose thoughts and head, whose emotions and feelings and heart, and whose actions, what we do, all lined up and flowed out of the same place. But because of the fall, those all get shattered and broken up. And so that's why Paul could say, well, I know what I want to do, but I don't do it, and the very thing that I do want to do, I don't do. What's up with that? I know in my mind what I want to do, and then I see what I do, and it doesn't line up. Or thinking about worrying, I know in my mind that I shouldn't worry, but that doesn't change the fact that I feel really worried about feeling the blank. And so I think that it's really helpful to think about this. Truth, as you just says, the truth will set you free. I think a lot of times we use truth to try to address our fears. The only thing that touches our fears is perfect love. In first John, he would say, perfect love casts out fear. And so no wonder on one level when someone would say to me, don't be anxious about anything, but with all things in submission, et cetera, then in my mind I can go, yeah, thanks for that truth. But in my heart I would go, but that doesn't change what I feel. And so how do I change that fear? So maybe we'll just even pause there for a second, anxiety, worry. What is that about? Really simply, anxiety and worry is about control. Because we live in a fallen world, we learn early and throughout our lives. We are reminded that ultimately what is most important to me, I cannot control.
A really simple way of thinking about this, one of my professors talks about obsessive compulsive disorder, which on some level might seem, well, that's weird that you turn the lights on and off a lot of times. That's weird that you need to wash your hands a million times. What is that about?
Maybe underneath it is, I can't control whether my parents stay married or not. I can't control whether this relationship will continue or not. I can't control whether I'm going to be loved and cared for by others, but I definitely can control how many times I turn on and off the lights. I definitely can control how clean or not clean my hands are. Anxiety and worry are about control. As we think about the ways that we worry about the future and the ways that we are anxious about the future, underneath that is control. We realize that life in the nature of it is something that we are not in control of. That is very scary because we learned that the things most important to me, I'm not in control of, which means that I could be greatly hurt and broken. And so to say to someone else or even to yourself when you feel anxious and worried, don't be anxious. You're essentially saying to yourself, don't feel what you're feeling. That's stupid. And what I would invite us to is, as opposed to cutting something off, what if we went one level further down? What if instead of saying, I'm going to use truth to cast out fear, what if we invited ourselves to move to the source of which can cast out our fear, which is perfect love? What if every time that we realized that we were worried and anxious about tomorrow we paused and paid attention to the fact that I'm worried about this because it's something important to me. I'm worried about what will happen to my family in five years and in 10 years. I worry about whether there will be food. I worry about what it will be like for my children and my grandchildren one day. That's worth caring about. And it is scary to not being control of that. And so ultimately as I engage with that and realize I'm not in control of it, that makes me upset and I'm worried about it. At some level, that is me saying, God, I don't trust that your heart for me is good. For me to be anxious and worried is to say, God, I know that you tell me that your heart for me is good and that you will work all things for my good. And I don't buy it. What if instead of running from that, we ran towards that. I think about the song, comey sinners that says, comey sinners, poor needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love and power. Comey thirsty, come and welcome, God's free bounty glorify. True belief and true repentance every grace that brings you nigh. Come you weary heavy laden, loss and ruin by the fall. If you tarry until you're better, you will never come at all. Let not conscience make you linger nor a fitness fondly dream. All the fitness he requires is to feel your need of him. So I will arise and go to Jesus, he will embrace me in his arms. In the arms of my dear Savior, oh, there are 10,000 charms. How much do we miss out on God's heart for us that invites us to him again and again and again when we just say, stop it. Stop being anxious about tomorrow. We miss out on repentance is what we miss out on. We miss out on confessing God. This scares me to death that I don't control this and me being scared to death is a confession that I don't trust you. God, I believe, help my unbelief. And as sons and daughters that have been adopted by God, his heart for us is good. His invitation is to come to him and humble repentance and say, God, this is wrong. This is sin. I don't trust you. Change me. And as we do that, as he leads us in the path of repentance, it doesn't mean that I will never worry about tomorrow. There will always be things to worry about tomorrow. But his invitation is to bring your fears to me and cast them upon me. Come to me all you hear weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. So to repent, repent of our anxiety and our worry is to confess it. To confess it for what it is and to move to the heart of the Father who has adopted and said, you are my beloved child with whom I am well pleased. And so if we continue living like slaves who must change before we can move towards God, we will linger. This is the last verse said, let not conscience make you linger nor a fitness finely dream. All the fitness he requires is to feel your need of him. What a sweet, gentle reminder and invitation. And so as we wrap up this morning, one final confession would be that last weekend I sat with friends and was just talking about life and was just saying, will there ever be time when I'm not weary? Will I ever not be weary of this life? And I'm not just talking tired of being busy and not having enough sleep. I'm talking about weary of living in a life worth grieving, weary of living in a life where my brother's dog dies, where we experience death, yet right next to that we experience a life, will there ever be a point in my life where I'm not weary? And part of me would say no. But as my friend wisely pointed out to me, what if that's the purpose of Sabbath? What if the purpose of one day out of every seven intentionally moving into and separating busyness and work and having to do and creating a day to just be and to rest and to delight and enjoy? Is a day where we can set aside our wearyness and to rest in the fullness of God's invitation to come to him all who are weary? What if one day of seven is a four taste of the day in which all things will be made new? If that's a new concept to you, Sabbath, we're not a Sabbath culture, we're not a Sabbath generation and we don't rest well. That's not something that's part of your life, I would ask, why not? If you need resources on the Sabbath, I would recommend a book by a guy named Dan Allander called Sabbath. I think that that would give some help and direction and insight on to what doesn't mean to intentionally engage in setting aside time as we see God doing in Genesis 1. Faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. The invitation is to live fully present to the present transcendence of God dwelling in you. Let's pray.
God even now we would just take a minute to quietly and silently respond to the things that your spirit might be stirring in us. God is we engage in a difficult life and feel anxiety and worry. Would you convict us of our sin? Would you convict us of the ways that we don't trust you? And would we confess that in repentance? God that we would taste your heart of a father for us that calls us to yourself. God, how much we miss out on you? God, I picture the story of the prodigal son that you told of the son who ran far away, declaring independence from his father and who returns in the heart of the father as one that runs to meet his son. God, would we regularly be convicted of the ways that we have declared our independence and said, I trust me, not God. And God, as we return in repentance, would you let us experience your delight in this?
God, thank you that you have changed our identity from slaves to sons and daughters. God, would we celebrate that this morning? In Jesus' name, amen.