We are, of course, in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6, and our scripture verse begins with verse 25. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, or what you will drink, in order about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air, they neither so nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they, and which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you even solemn and in all his glory was not a raid like one of these. But if God so close the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? Oh, you have a little faith. Therefore, do not be anxious saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear. For the Gentile seek after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble, the word of the Lord. The thou shalt knots of Sinai have been moved forward beautifully and brilliantly to the do-nots of the mountain where Jesus spoke to his disciples with a great throng listening in. The sermon on the mount that we have been looking at since back in the early fall, tell us the behaviors, the attitudes, the mindset of the kingdom of God. Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God. He talked about the kingdom of God coming and being near and how we were to enter into it and to receive it. Then he has been describing kingdom attitudes, kingdom behaviors, and here in chapter 6 we have a long list, and we're in the middle of that list, we're not done with it yet, a long list of do-not sayings. This particular saying, do not be anxious, is quite lengthy. Last week we saw where Jesus said, do not treasure up for yourselves, treasures on earth, but treasure up for yourself, treasures in heaven. Then he went to speak of the eye, the single eye, the devoted eye, the eye that sees the important thing, the one thing, the one needful thing, the one necessary thing, and then he spoke of the heart where the treasure is, that's where the heart will be. That's why we have here, beginning in this particular do-not saying, do not be anxious, we have the little, it's actually the Greek, it's a tiny, tiny little words that is translated therefore. I know you've heard all your life Bible teachers say that when the scripture when you see it, therefore need to know what it's there for. Three times in this text, the Lord says, therefore do not be anxious. Why? Why? What's the reasoning behind this do-not saying about anxiety? Well, I think it is, Jesus is speaking of matters of commitment and matters of trust. He has told us over and over about commitment. He has just said no one can serve two masters. He talks about the devotedness to the one master and the abandonment of the other. He said we cannot serve God and money. Material things, that's the subject, that's what he's dealing with, that's what's always in the background of this section of the sermon on the mount. The living of the daily life of the mundane things, nothing wrong with any of those. They're all necessities of life obviously but he's driving to the heart to the deepest attitudes and mindsets that we have. Our Lord is trying as He teaches and preaches, trying to get us focused, getting our eyes off of that which we naturally turn to
and moving us to where our eyes are focused of that which really matters. It's a matter of faith. In fact in the passage he kind of stops in the middle of it and seems to make a commentary upon his audience and say oh ye, little faith. That's the plural. You all, the group of little faith. You see the issue is faith and a component of faith, real faith is trust. Trust in God. Trust that God is good, that God is purposeful, that God is going to give us what we need. He is going to supply everything that we need. And so the focus in the passage here are on three things. Food, drink and clothing, necessities of life. How long would we survive without food, few weeks? How long would we survive without drink, especially water, a few days? How long would we even want to think about no clothing? We just must have it. There's just no doubt about it. So any interpretation or observation of this particular text that says that Jesus is minimalizing any of those important things, it's just simply myopic. Jesus knows the necessity of food. Some of our greatest temptations come around food. Jesus certainly was tempted with respect to food and the temptation and the wilderness. And drink the absolute necessity of water. In fact, Jesus uses that thirst within our bodies as the supreme metaphor for the hunger and the thirst within our souls. And He Himself even offers Himself as the water of life. Come and drink freely He offers. And clothing. We understand the physical aspects of our clothing with the wool and the cotton and the flax, the linen and all the things that we have when we make our garments. The garment industry is one of the largest industries in human history. But that too is just a way of teaching us larger truths. How many times does the Apostle Paul, for example, talk about putting off and putting on, putting off the rags of our own righteousness and putting on the garments of salvation, putting on the new man, putting on the robe of righteousness.
So Jesus addresses these things and uses a couple of visuals. He tells them to look to the birds and the fals of the air He speaks of how the Lord provides for them their food. Oh, some of the birds still dig around in the soil. They have to seek it. There's a natural instinct that they have to put out their own effort. The hawks, the condors, the vultures and the eagles soar looking for their food. There's an effort on their part. They put forth the natural created instincts in seeking their food. But in the final analysis, where does that food come from? It is the provision of the Lord. Birds, in scripture, the bird is an interesting image. One of the things the birds symbolize is filth, especially the scavenger and the birds of prey. The birds also symbolize weakness and helplessness, but the Lord takes care of them. And also the birds symbolize kind of a worthlessness. And Jesus even alludes to that. Here he says, are you not more valuable than they? And yet the Lord takes care of them. God takes care of the birds. If you've ever seen a good migration of birds coming from north to south or south to north, there's no shortage of birds. They can literally black out the sky with their patterns of flight, a visual of the abundant provision of the Lord, and the flowers of the field. The grass and the flower in the Bible is symbolized often as that which is temporary and fleeting and passing. I know we've been cerebral times down to central Texas just in the last few weeks and there's the blue bonnets everywhere. All of the beautiful wild flowers of various colors, different shades of purple and all the red and blue and all the flowers. I'll tell you right now, if you've ever seen a sight of blue bonnets with all the other wild flowers mixed into it, rolling over the plains of the hill country and all of the hills with the cactus and the cedars and the ski trees all mixed in there. I'll just tell you Solomon and his finest tailors could not array him in a garment that beautiful. And the blue bonnets are about gone. They were withering this week already starting to shriek back. The Lord takes care of his. Aren't you plugged into that? Don't you know that? Is it that one of the hardest lessons that we have to learn is the Lord will take care of us? That we are more valuable than the files of the air and the flowers of the field, that he will provide, that he has ordered our steps, that he knows our days, he knows our frame, he knows everything about us and we are in the middle of his carrying hands. But we don't trust him. We have little faith, little faith. And so we take upon ourselves the anxieties and the fears. The word that's used here for to be anxious is a word that means to be concerned, an anxious expectation to be intent, to strive after, to brood, to speculate, to inquire, to fret, to ponder. In fact, the very text here says, I tell you do not be anxious about your life. The word translated life in our text is the word suitcase, which we all know. We get our English word, psycho, and psychology, and all the rest. And that lets us know that the Lord now having dealt with things such as harm's giving and prayer and fasting and some of the outward things having dealt with the way the scribes interpreted the scripture with respect to murder and adultery and all these things that Jesus has been talking about. Now he comes to talk about something that is in the recesses of our soul. He comes to talk about our psychology, our psyche, our frame of mind. He has now entered into this area where we live daily and personally. His address is to that part of us that we are concerned with from the moment we wake up till the time we doze off at night ourselves. What are we going to eat? What are we going to wear? What are we going to drink? What are we going to do? How are we going to pay the bills? How are we going to do this? How are we going to do that? It's a fretting. I'm reasonably convinced in the sermon on the mount. The Bible says that Jesus was addressing his disciples principally. And I think that as we read the sermon on the mountain as we try to ponder it, we'll find that it has to do with the life of the believer. I think there's a built-in assumption that someone who is ordered to do these things and not do these things is someone who's already come to understand their sinfulness, their inadequacy, their need for grace and for forgiveness, someone who's already received the spiritual life who's already been born from above, who's already been regenerated. I think these instructions are given to regenerate believers. And so there is a presumption in all of this that this is working out of the spiritual life. But Jesus gave a parable on one occasion where he talked about multiple soils. Remember there was the stony ground and the thorny ground, the different kinds of soils. You remember there was a kind of soil that was called thorny soil. And what happened there was when the soil sowed the seed, the seed was choked by the cares, the pleasures, and the riches of this world. In other words, it was choked out. That word, the cares is the same word that's in our text. Words not used too many times in Scripture, but that's what it is. Those anxieties, those cares can choke out the Word of God, the genuine spiritual life. Life is filled with cares and anxious concerns. There's always something to worry about. My mother calls herself a warrior. My brother was a warrior. I'm a little bit of a warrior myself. I'm only concerned really about three days yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The guilt of yesterday, the indolence of today, and the uncertainties of tomorrow. But the psalmist told us to cast our burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain you. He will never permit the righteous to be moved. I heard recently from a psychologist that said the average healthy person, emotionally healthy person, can really only deal with three to seven issues at a time. If you get over about seven issues that you're starting to worry and fret, it takes its toll upon you. The high cost of anxiety is written in our culture in bold letters. Anxiety affects our health, anxiety affects decisions that we make. What we need is we need peace. Jesus said that these things like food and clothing, drink are the things that the Gentiles seek. The Gentiles in Scripture are the nations. The peoples, literally the people groups. This is what humanity seems to go for. This seems to be the level of their concern, and the area of their concern, the depth of their concern, is these matters. The Lord wants His people to understand that these matters are in the Lord's hands, and He wants us to focus on a higher horizon. That's been the theme of every message nearly that we've had, and the sermon on the Mount is our eye, our mindset, our view. To see first, it says in the text, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom? How do you enter the kingdom? What's life like in the kingdom? The kingdom of God and the righteousness of God, and says all these things, these things, the Gentile Seek, that's the level and the depth and the breadth of their concerns, all of these things will be added to you. He said earlier, don't be like the Pharisees when they practice almsgiving and fasting and praying and so forth. He says don't be like the scribes when they misinterpret the Old Testament commandments. Now He's saying don't be like the peoples, the nations, the peoples round about. God is calling His people to a different level, to a different dimension, to a different outlook, to a different world view, a different way of thinking about things, and Jesus is pushing it forward. Don't worry about these survival issues of food and water and clothing and these are survival issues and did you know you're not going to survive one hour beyond the time that God is appointed for you? Did you catch that? These are survival issues and that's where most people live their lives is at the survival level. God wants us to move it, move it to the spiritual level and oh, is that hard to do? Oh, is that difficult? Even for the believer, oh ye of little faith, Father help us in this to cast our burden upon you. Help us Lord to seek your kingdom and not to be anxious about all of these things that naturally seem to just consume all of our time. Help us Lord to deal within the deepest parts of our soul with our anxieties and our fears, our worrying and our fretting. Lord we live our lives from one fretful moment to another without trusting you, without calling upon you, without depending upon you. Lord forgive us for such strain in our souls and help us Lord to be drawn to you, to serve you the master and watch you take care of us all the days of our lives, all the appointed days of our lives. We pray this in Christ's name, Amen. Hear the words of the Apostle Paul, very familiar words but hear them in this context. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. We need peace. We need relief. The peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Lord grant it for Christ's sake.