Continuing our process of learning from the Sermon
on the Mount, we turn this morning to
the passage that is next on the agenda.
The passage beginning with verse 25 in chapter
6 and concluding to verse 34, that is
to the end of the chapter.
We have entitled our message Fearless Faith for
Faithless Fearers.
In the ongoing pursuit for what Jesus referred
to in chapter 5 and verse 20 as
a quality of righteousness that exceeds that of
the teachers of the law and of the
Pharisees, we are taught here in Matthew 6,
19 to 24, the entire passage read for
us this morning, that we must recognize the
infinite distinction of value between earthly and heavenly
treasures.
This is a basic lesson in the Christian
life and living.
There is something to be distinguished.
And having learned to distinguish between them and
their respective values, we must then learn to
seek only such treasures as, in the words
of Jesus, can be laid up for us
in heaven above.
That's his language, not mine.
The reasons given, of course, are evident.
You've only to look at the passage.
The reasons for such a choice are, one,
earthly treasures do not loss nor satisfy, verses
19 to 21.
Secondly, their pursuit all too easily distorts or
darkens our vision.
The pursuit of material things makes our spiritual
vision hazy, to say the least.
And then thirdly, the search for material treasures
can all too easily so influence us that
we allow them to occupy that place in
our hearts and in our lives that was
meant and is meant only for God.
And it is the easiest thing possible in
this materialistic age to allow material things to
occupy that central place in our thinking, in
our planning, in our motivating, in every aspect
of our inner life and of our outward
behavior.
Now it is only when we have grasped
with our minds the comparative durability of the
two treasures, corruptible and incorruptible, the comparative usefulness
of the two eyes, the eye that sees
clearly and the eye that is darkened, and
then the comparative worth and worthiness of the
two masters, money or God, it's only when
we have come to a positive conclusion and
a Christian conclusion concerning these alternatives that we
are prepared to make the choice and the
decision to which Jesus calls us here.
Having made our choice to lay up our
treasures in heaven rather than upon earth, now
the question arises, who's going to care for
me?
Who's going to look after me?
How am I going to cope if my
primary duty in life, as Jesus says it
toward the end of the passage before us
today, seek first of all, give primary a
place to the quest for the kingdom of
God and His righteousness.
If we're to do that, who's going to
look after me?
Now that's the question that each one of
us naturally asks.
I need food, I need clothing, I need
this and I need that, and who's going
to look after me?
Now in this passage Jesus tells us that
we have nothing whatsoever to worry about.
If we are among those who seek first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then,
says Jesus, with all His authority, His divine
authority, He says, look, your heavenly Father not
only knows that you have need of all
these things, but the kingdom of God and
His righteousness will be given you and all
these things that He knows you need will
be added to you as well.
I have nothing new to say to you
good people this morning.
I'm sure you know this passage as well
as I do, but perhaps we need to
listen to it.
Perhaps we need to bring our ears down
to the voice of God as it comes
over the lips of His Son and comes
down to yours by the power of the
Spirit and take this message in yet again.
For if I, if I don't misread the
situation, anxiety is not a thing of the
past.
Anxiety is a companion of all too many
of us gathered perhaps within these walls today.
We are afraid to live and if the
truth were only told, many of us are
afraid to die.
And we really do not know what it
is to live without anxiety.
Now Jesus, our Lord Jesus Christ tells us,
this is the way.
And He drives home His message in many
different ways.
Now, it is against the background of such
teaching that Jesus proceeds to address Himself to
the matter of anxiety.
He is not, of course, and we must
make this clear, He is not here saying
that there are no causes of concern in
human life.
I'm not sure whether we ought to use
the word worry there or not.
Perhaps we can use the word even worry
in a certain sense.
There are certain things that we may rightly
worry about in the sense of being very
concerned about.
And Jesus does not mean to minimize that.
If He did, He would be unrealistic and
He would be contradicting Himself.
There is unquestionably a kind of worry or
concern which, as a matter of fact, is
hardly separable from the honest pursuit of righteousness
and the kingdom of God.
If you are seeking the gift of righteousness
to be served, if you are seeking that
righteousness be applied throughout the world and no
one be denied justice, then surely you are
anxious about it, you are concerned about it.
And I believe it is something that ought
to be weighing on every Christian heart this
morning, that there are so many multitudes of
men and women who really have never known
a day when justice is done to them.
Not only in one part of the world,
but in many parts.
But there are other things.
How can any thinking person not worry, using
the word in one sense, the sense of
genuine concern, how can any thinking person not
worry, in one sense, about the spread of
moral pollution in our society?
Or the accepted promiscuity that has resulted in
venereal disease of epidemic proportions, not only in
North America, but in other parts of the
world, where authorities simply do not know what
to do.
Are you not concerned about that?
Or the pollution of the air?
If not for ourselves, then for our children's
sake.
Have we no concern?
Are we not worried, in that sense, about
these things?
Or then again, who can, with utter nonchalance
and unconcern, look at the manner in which
the world of today breeds thugs and murderers
and mutilators of human life, who will chase
their victims into the air, across the sea,
underground, here, there, everywhere.
Does not that concern us?
Do we not feel disturbed in our sleep
even, as well as in our waking moment?
Who can remain less than deeply anxious, particularly
in this context, when righteousness, as we've indicated,
or justice, is denied to so many people
today.
The basic things of life are denied.
Let it be clear that Jesus is not
talking about such legitimate concerns of all reasonable
creatures.
He's addressing His people.
He's addressing His followers.
He's addressing the subjects of His kingdom.
Now mark that.
He's addressing those who are members of the
kingdom of heaven, subjects of the kingdom of
heaven, who say that they are under His
authority and have received His rule and His
life and His direction.
And He says to them that there is
no need whatsoever for any crippling anxiety, any
unsettling disquietude, any fear that cripples your activity
or your clear thinking.
There is no need for these things at
all in the lives of men and women
who obey Him and who go out into
life seeking first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness.
This is a word, you see, to the
obedient, not to the disobedient.
There are many disobedient saints who are expecting
what they have no right to expect.
Now God is merciful.
He causes His Son to rise upon the
just and the unjust, but the unjust has
no right to expect that, nor even the
just.
He is merciful beyond all measure towards the
unworthy, but the unworthy have no right to
expect that.
But God has given His people certain promises
that they may expect and they may launch
out into a life of obedience, believing that
God will keep His word.
And this is the life of faith.
But it is a life with promises that
are guilt-edged only to the obedient.
Seek ye first.
Are you doing that?
The kingdom of God and His righteousness?
Then all these things that Jesus speaks about
in the context, they'll be added to you.
Go on laying up your treasures in heaven.
Seek heavenly treasures and in process you will
find that you have a heavenly Father that
cares for your need.
I don't know everybody in our service this
morning.
It's such a joy to have so many
visiting friends among us on this particular morning
when it's not a very sunny morning.
Let me welcome you as Mr. Lowe has
already done.
But of the people that I know here
this morning, I could pick out individuals in
this congregation and ask them to stand up
and say, When you gave your all to
seek first of all the kingdom of God
and His righteousness and launched out, what happened
to you?
Did not this become true?
And I look at people from the front
to the back and I see men and
women who would be ready to say that
it was only when they began to do
this that God became the grand reality that
He is.
In all His fatherhood and might and mercy.
You have not come to know God when
you only know the doctrine about Him.
You have not come to know God when
you simply believe what the Bible says that
He is the almighty, all-sufficient, all-gracious
God.
You've come to know Him when you've acted
upon His commands, expecting His promises, and you
discover that He's a covenant-keeping God.
I shall never forget, though I hadn't meant
to say this this morning, how this was
brought home to me.
For the first time in my life as
a Christian, when the Lord had saved me
and called me to follow Him into some
kind of full-time work.
And the only member of my family that
understood what had happened to me spiritually was
my grandfather on my mother's side.
I've mentioned this to one or two of
you.
And he understood it.
And when everyone else was proving a bit
difficult, he said to me, It's all right,
Glyn, he said, I'll pay your fees throughout
your college days, however long it takes you
to train for the Lord's work.
I'll pay, I'll see to that.
He wasn't rich.
He says, I'll see to that.
And I praised the Lord, and I went
to college.
My third day in college, I had a
telegram to say, Your grandfather has suddenly gone
to be with the Lord.
And I was left without the first check.
And you know, it's a great thing, a
simple thing maybe.
Some of you, of course, have gone much
wider than this, and you would have much
more to say.
But for a young fellow there in college,
and I knew that God had called me,
I said to myself, Now what?
Till I realized that God was inviting me
to prove his faithfulness.
And to me, it's a tremendous thrill to
be able to say that I was never
late in paying my fees.
Not a day, not an hour.
Sometimes I did not have them the night
before.
But I never had to eat humble pie,
because I trusted in the Lord.
The Lord will provide.
Now I only say that not to hold
up myself as an example, but I say
it in order to bear testimony to the
fact, from my little experience, that God is
faithful.
So then we come to the first major
statement of the passage.
It is the major statement of the passage.
It's a command.
Jesus prohibits anxiety in his people.
He 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.
The necessities of life, says our Lord Jesus,
are in the covenant promises.
You see to the things to which God
has called you and commissioned you, and God
will see to the things that you need.
Maybe, of course, you're expecting too much out
of life.
Maybe you want things from life that God
has not meant you to have.
Well, he doesn't promise those.
But the things that you need, and let
us be honest and let us be fair
and consistent and true.
God never, very rarely at any rate, gives
us bread without jam.
And sometimes the jam is as thick as
the bread.
He gives good measure, pressed down and running
over.
He does not withhold his mercies, but he
is lavish to those who trust in him.
So Jesus prohibits anxiety in his people.
Did you know that?
I was brought up with a jerk.
You know, you learn a lesson in life
and then you forget it, or it becomes
dim.
I was pulled up with an awful jerk
when one day in reading Wesley's journals, I
came across this statement from John Wesley, I
could as easily worry as I can commit
adultery, as I could commit adultery.
I said, John Wesley, what are you saying?
What he is saying is that it is
as much a sin for a believing man
and woman to live in a condition of
cocking, heart-wearying anxiety about the necessities of
life, as it is for that man to
commit adultery if he is married.
Now, some further clarification.
Actually this is a passage that really can
be misunderstood in many, many ways.
And I don't want anybody to have a
false guilt trip arising out of what I'm
saying this morning.
I believe that most of us who have
been called of the Lord may feel guilty
about certain things here.
But I don't want any false guilt to
arise out of what I'm saying.
Neither did Jesus, of course, and that's the
important thing.
Over and above what I've already said, we
need to note that this kind of worry
is to be sharply distinguished from a number
of things.
First of all, it's to be distinguished from
thoughtlessness or total lack of forethought.
You know, there is a kind of attitude,
there is a kind of person who refuses
to worry about anything because he refuses to
face the facts.
And he shuts everything out of his mind
and he says, I'm perfectly happy.
Jesus is not talking about that kind of
person.
Neither is he talking about the kind of
person who for one reason or another refuses
to make any provision for tomorrow.
It's very unfortunate that the King James translation
of the verb, as some of you will
know, you're probably reading the King James this
morning, it says, take no thought for the
morrow.
Just take no thought about it.
Don't think about it.
Now that's not, brothers and sisters, what Jesus
said.
And I'm sorry to have to say it,
but there the King James is really misleading.
A moment's reflection will suffice to correct the
false notion that Jesus discouraged prudent forethought.
He forcefully warned people to prepare for certain
things ahead, to prepare for the judgment, to
prepare for his coming, to prepare for a
myriad of things.
He told his disciples to be prepared to
go out and to prepare themselves to go
out to preach the word, to make disciples.
And you remember that in one or two
places the illustrations he used are significant.
He likened the kind of preparation that was
required to the wisdom of a builder, setting
down to work accurate estimates of his needs
before starting on a building venture.
You see, that's prudent forethought he's asking for.
Or again, to a king who carefully assessed
the opposition and counted his own resources to
make sure that he had adequate military resources
before he committed himself to war.
See what Jesus is saying.
You really need to think ahead of tomorrow
and make such provisions as you can for
the exigencies that you can foresee.
He's not telling us you don't need to
do anything.
That would be contrary to the Old Testament
teaching, contrary to what the epistles tell us.
In the Old Testament, in the book of
Proverbs, for example, the aunt, the little aunt
of all creatures, is held up and we're
told, go to the ant, you sluggard.
Look at the way the ant gathers its
food together during harvest time and during summertime
so that when the day of need comes,
it's got its stock ready enough for one
season.
And yet the ant doesn't stock ahead for
two or three years.
But it stocks ahead for as long as
the little creature can foresee.
Now, I don't know the way the ant
reasons, but at least I know that the
Old Testament holds up this principle.
So prudent forethought is not forbidden.
Moreover, that same kind of forethought is encouraged
in the epistles of Paul and elsewhere in
the New Testament.
Scripture not only stresses that work is a
divine institution, Genesis 3, 17 to 19, but
also the human responsibility to work in order
to provide for the needs of others.
Today and tomorrow and as far as we
can foresee.
Let me give you one or two illustrations.
In writing to the Thessalonian church in the
second letter, chapter 3, Paul says this.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
he writes, We command you, brothers, to keep
away from every brother who is idle.
Idle, of course.
Idle by choice, not by necessity.
When there are people who are forced to
be idle because of unemployment, that's a different
cup of tea.
We are to get near to them and
help bear their burdens and so fulfill the
law of Christ.
But when men are idle, out of choice,
and they disdain the divine ordinance of work,
says Paul, keep away from them.
And then later on again in the same
chapter, he says, we hear that some among
you are idle.
They're not busy, they are busy bodies.
Such people we command and urge in the
Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn
the bread they eat.
And he puts it even more forcefully, I
think in 1 Timothy 5.8. He says,
if anyone does not provide for his own
relatives and especially for his immediate family, he
has denied the faith and is worse than
an unbeliever.
Now, I am quoting these passages in order
that no one should have a false guilt.
Work is an ordinance of God.
We are responsible to use the energy and
the gifts that God has given us in
so far as we can to make provision
for ourselves.
And the apostle Paul, so often, paid his
own way as he preached the gospel by
making tents.
He used the gifts that God had given
him.
He foresaw that he would need bread and
a little bit of butter and some clothes
and a few parchments every now and again,
though he lived on such a meager subsistence.
But he made provision for it.
The passage before us, therefore, needs to be
carefully and sensitively handled.
Some have made our Lord's words appear as
if his followers are here commanded to be
careless and thoughtless of their own and of
others' needs.
Brothers and sisters, that is not so.
That is a travesty of the truth.
That is a basic contradiction of the attitude,
actions and teaching of our Lord.
He says that you and I will be
judged by God at last according to whether
or not we fed the hungry.
And you can't feed the hungry out of
nothing.
Whether we clothed the naked.
And you can't clothe the naked if you
are not doing something to make such provision.
Whether we gave drink to the thirsty.
Whether we visited the sick and the imprisoned
in His name.
We will be judged by this kind of
thing.
So, you see, it's not just a matter
of forget all the needs of your own
self and your family and everybody.
Just go on looking to the Lord.
No, no.
The Lord expects us to work.
He expects us to labor.
He expects us to plan.
He expects us to do what we can.
He expects reasonable forethought.
Nevertheless, as you go out into a hostile
world to give priority to the search for
God's kingdom and righteousness, you don't need to
worry about food and drink and what you
have to eat.
The God of the covenant, says the Lord
Jesus Christ, has all this in mind.
He knows all your needs and He will
make provision for you.
Now, what are our Lord's reasons for saying
this?
How does He drive it home?
And of course, you must read more of
this passage on your own than I can
possibly expand now.
But it's rather wonderful really.
It is a marvelous passage of Scripture.
Why shouldn't I worry?
Why shouldn't you believer worry?
Why shouldn't we worry?
It's so natural.
Everybody worries.
Why shouldn't I worry?
Why can't I enjoy the luxury of worrying
every now and again?
Well now, I want to mention three things
and I can't deal with them at any
length at all.
But I want to mention three things.
First of all, anxiety is sheer folly for
subjects of God's kingdom.
And all absorbing anxiety of the type we
are here considering, that Jesus here had in
mind, is utterly foolish.
Now that's where He starts.
It is totally unnecessary and it is inconsistent,
both with our present position in His kingdom
and in His care, and with our ultimate
prospect at the consummation of His kingdom.
It is unworthy.
It is unnecessary.
It is sheer folly.
It is totally unnecessary and it is inconsistent,
both with our present position in His kingdom
and in His care, and with our ultimate
prospect at the consummation of His kingdom.
It is unworthy.
It is unnecessary.
It is sheer folly.
Now Jesus appears to stress two aspects of
this folly.
One, perhaps I can put it like this,
such anxiety is unreasonable.
A second part of verse 25.
Is not life more important or of more
value than food?
And is not the body more important than
clothes?
You say, how does that relate to the
subject?
Well, the point is this.
Who gave you life?
Who gave me life?
Of course, we believe that life came from
God.
God gave us life.
And life is greater than the maintenance of
life, than the provisions for living.
Now what our Lord is saying is this.
It is utterly unreasonable to believe that God,
who made all things and sustains all things,
in whose hands and under whose control the
breath of every man and woman remains, it
is inconsistent to believe that He gave us
the larger gift of life and will not
give us adequate food and enough to clothe
ourselves and to drink.
Whilst we are involved in His business.
You see, it doesn't make sense.
It makes God an awful being.
It reflects upon the very character and nature
of God.
It undermines the whole teaching of Jesus about
God.
The God whom I represent, says Jesus in
other words, couldn't act like that.
He's given you the greater.
There is no reason whatsoever why He will
not give you the lesser.
Clothes on your back, food for your stomach
and drink.
He's given you life.
This is something that those committed to the
obedience of His word need to be assured
of.
Now this applies to everybody.
But I'm quite sure it has a special
application to those among us this morning that
are contemplating moving into a country to serve
the Lord where normal provisions that we would
have here are not always available.
But here is a gilt-edged promise of
our almighty and omnipotent God given through His
co-equal Son, written into His word by
the Spirit.
God knows that He will care for the
necessities of life.
Moreover, such anxiety is as thoughtless as it
is unreasonable.
It shows that we're not thinking.
Jesus puts it like this.
The beginning of verse 26.
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.
Such anxiety is thoughtless, says Jesus, in that
it does not learn from God's faithfulness to
His subhuman creatures.
The birds of the air, for example.
Jesus bids His followers take a good look
at the birds and consider something that perhaps
they're quite familiar with but it just hasn't
come home yet.
It just hasn't hit them between the eyes.
Intellectually they know about it, but as a
principle of living, it's not gone through yet.
What is that?
Observe intently, is one translation of the verb
used here.
Look into this matter.
God feeds the birds of the air.
Are you of not much more value than
many birds?
Now the significant fact is that He who
is the Christian's heavenly Father, and that's the
thing I want to come to stress.
He who is the Christian's heavenly Father, the
Bible never says that God is the Father
of the birds.
He's their creator.
The Bible never says that God is the
Father of the creatures He has made.
He's their creator and He's their preserver.
But believer, you men and women that have
come into the kingdom through the throes of
the Beatitudes, humbled in spirit, confessing your sins,
learning something of purity of heart and a
search after righteousness, with you it is different.
You're His children.
He cares for the sparrows as their creator.
But He's your Father.
He's your Father, Christian.
He's your Father by night.
When you wake up in the middle of
the night and you don't know what to
think about and something's haunting you about tomorrow
or yesterday or a year ago or a
year ends, He's your Father, man.
He's your Father, sister.
He's your Father if you're a Christian.
And your Heavenly Father cares for His humblest
creatures, a bird flittering in the air, a
little sparrow worth only less than a farthing
on the market.
He cares for them.
It is unreasonable to think that He will
not care for you, whom He has bought
with the blood of His Son, whom He
indwells by His co-equal Holy Spirit.
It's thoughtless.
And it's an indictment of His character and
of His goodness, you see.
It's thoughtless.
And it's reckless thoughtlessness.
Well did John Newton sing, The birds without
barn and storehouse are fed.
From them let us learn to trust for
our bread.
His saints, what is fitting, shall ne'er
be denied, so long as it is written,
The Lord will provide.
Or that little bit of doggerel that puts
it better, I believe, shows my simplicity of
taste, may not be as, it may not
be quite as accurate theologically on every point,
nor indeed poetry.
But oh, it puts it beautifully.
You know it, said the sparrow to the
robin.
I would dearly like to know how these
thoughtless human beings rush about and worry so,
said the robin to the sparrow.
I think surely it must be that they
have no Heavenly Father such as cares for
you and me.
Now I believe, as I've indicated, that it
is theologically incorrect to say that God is
father to the sparrows, or the robin for
that matter.
But he's their creator and he has a
creative interest in them.
But the thrust of that little bit of
doggerel is true.
He's your father and mine in Christ.
Are you not much more valuable than they?
626, and we must reply, yes, according to
both revelation and redemption.
Yes, we don't understand it.
When we look at our own hearts and
we look at our own lives, we don't
understand it.
But it is true we were made after
His image and we were redeemed for that
image to be renewed in us.
And He's promised us that we shall live
with Him forever.
We mean something to God and we are
redeemed with His blood and indwelt by His
Spirit and the recipients of His Word.
Very, very well then.
Makes nonsense to doubt Him.
The second thing, anxiety is an exercise in
sheer futility anyway.
I believe Jesus had a sense of humor
too.
Though He could have been speaking these words
very soberly to proud people, I don't know.
But He says, who of you by worrying
can add, and the translation here is uncertain,
a single hour to your life or a
single inch to your height, never mind which
it means, who of you can add anything
to your life?
Was that what He said?
No.
Can I repeat it?
What did Jesus say?
Well, let me put it in a negative
and a positive.
Jesus did not say that you cannot add
a little under any circumstances to the length
of your life.
Had He said that, medical science would have
contradicted Him.
Because we know that over the past 100
years the expectation of life has expanded.
The expectation of life, especially in some parts
of the world, is far greater today than
it was 10, 20 years ago.
But Jesus didn't say that.
What did He say?
Well, listen to His words.
Which of you, by worrying, by worrying, can
add a single hour to your life?
That's what He said.
Go on and worry.
But what's the good of it?
It'll not add an hour to your life.
It'll not add a moment to your life.
Not worrying per se.
If worrying will do anything, it'll take away
from your life.
It may give you an ulcer, an extra
one.
It may be partially responsible for a heart
attack.
It may add to this or add to
that.
But it certainly won't add to your life.
It's more likely to take away from it
than to add to it.
That's what Jesus said.
In other words, worry anyway, whether it be
for a Christian or a non-Christian, is
sheer futility.
This is most challenging when you realize how
much time, energy, thought and emotion is devoured
by anxious care.
It can nevertheless do nothing to prolong anyone's
life at any time.
It can only shorten it.
It cannot sweeten it, in the least, but
only sour it.
Worry is as fruitless and futile as it
is foolish.
It cannot undo your yesterdays, nor help your
todays or your tomorrows.
Its sole and unvarying contribution is that it
mars our todays and casts a deadly shadow
over our tomorrows before tomorrow is born.
Lastly, anxiety is not only foolish and futile,
but it is faithless.
Now to an unbeliever, I was preaching this
morning to professing unbelievers.
Well now, of course, this wouldn't mean very
much.
But if, as I believe most of the
people here this morning, trust Jesus Christ as
personal Savior and Lord, if you acknowledge Him
as your own personal Savior, and you're a
committed Christian, and you want to seek first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then
the last thing in the world you really
want is to be faithless with regard to
your Heavenly Father.
And to maintain this condition of anxiety about
basic things whilst you are involved in the
Lord's work is a matter of faithlessness.
And Jesus says so later on, Oh you,
He says, of little, of minutest faith.
You're doing something that dilutes your faith even
if it does not slay it.
To worry about clothing is as thoughtless as
was the anxiety about food already mentioned.
Who clothed the lilies of the field, says
Jesus.
Possibly He was talking about the ordinary flowers
of the field.
Commentators differ.
Or was it the lily of, one of
the lilies?
Doesn't matter.
But there was beauty.
A little flower blossoming in all its glory,
whatever the flower was.
Who clothed it, says Jesus?
Your Heavenly Father, Christian.
Such beauty as they had was not produced
by worrying or by fretting, by running around
in circles.
Jesus uses the word spinning here.
I rather like that as a comment upon
many lives.
You know, we go around in circles, spinning,
heedlessly, aimlessly, thoughtlessly.
We're just running around in circles hoping for
the best.
It's the manifestation of a heart that knows
not rest in God.
So what?
Verse 30, If that is how God clothed
the grass of the field which is here
today and tomorrow dies, no, no, no, no,
no, that's not what He said.
And tomorrow is thrown into the oven, into
the fire.
Will He not much more clothe you who
are seeking first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness?
Will He not much more clothe you, O
you of little faith?
Failure to see this and then to act
upon it is simply to be faithless.
And faithlessness is characteristic of the pagan world.
And this, of course, I believe, is one
of the last knocks that Jesus gives with
His hammer on the nail as He hammers
the truth home.
Look, He says, that's the characteristic of the
pagan world.
What is the characteristic of the pagan world?
You and I worship the triune God of
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The pagan world, generally speaking, says, Jesus worships
at the shrine of a trinity too.
But the trinity is this, eating what they
eat, what they drink, what they wear.
And that is the characteristic of the pagan
world around, eating, drinking and wearing.
It's the life of the body of the
carcass.
None of the soul.
Now, says Jesus, when you cease to have
faith in God, you know what you've done?
Do you know what you've done, child of
God?
You come right down to the level of
the pagan that knows not God.
You are living as one that knows nothing
of God, nothing of His fatherhood, nothing of
His tenderness, nothing of His greatness, nothing of
His immutability, nothing of His covenant.
You're living in ignorance of God.
Far from being a witness for Him, you're
a witness against Him.
Brother and sister in Christ, fellow citizens of
the heavenly kingdom, subjects of the rule of
God, we should not be anxious about anything.
In so far as we should be anxious,
it should be a concern to seek first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and
all that that implies for ourselves and others.
We should cast all our anxieties upon Him,
because as Peter says, He cares for us.
Can we not do that today?
Can we not start afresh a life like
that?
Will you not, will you not in the
quietness of your heart, will you not make
a covenant with God this morning to aim
more honestly and consistently at this?
Shall we not do that?
Can we not do it?
Ought we not?
Of course we should.
Then let's do it.
As a hymn that we don't often sing,
and one of its stanzas goes like this,
We have not known Thee as we ought,
Nor learned Thy wisdom, grace, and power.
The things of earth have filled our thought
And trifles of the passing hour.
Lord, give us light, Thy truth to see,
And make us wise in knowing Thee.
God wants us to know Him, and to
know Him we must be a trusting, believing
people, resting in Himself and His promises.
Let us pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, Honesty requires of us to
confess in response to your word that we
have not lived on this plane very much.
It may be that some of us have
never come, never begun, and we've never seen
the need to trust in you because we've
got so many material things, and we've never
risked the loss of them for the sake
of your kingdom.
And we've never seen that in the midst
of our material things our life is altogether
in your hands.
Draw us into a relationship of faith with
yourself.
Now.
Then, our Father, some of us have missed
the glory of that.
Perhaps we once experienced it, and we've not
consistently enjoyed it and lived up to it.
We acknowledge our faults, our sins.
Forgive us, Lord, and forgive us especially that
we have descended to live on the level
of the pagan unbelievers of this twentieth century
in thinking of the body as the end
of everything and of material things as the
be-all, end-all of life.
God, forgive us.
By your Holy Spirit and your word, come
with us as we go out from here
today, and do not allow us to shrug
this word of the Savior's, to shrug it
off and run away from it.
Follow us, we pray, into this afternoon.
Let no drowsiness of body or of mind
permit us to evade the challenge of your
word.
Rather, make us men and women of faith
for the glory of your name, for the
extension of your kingdom of righteousness and peace,
through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord.
Amen.