Sermon on the Mount: ‘Do Not Worry’ (Matt 6:19-34)

[00:00:00] Hey Soma Welcome to my last sermon as senior pastor. Ooh, uh, exciting. I was, uh, updating the website yesterday, and I saw the, the post where it says Senior Pastor David Miles, and bio, photograph. And should I take that down? I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. But tomorrow perhaps. Uh, yeah, we’ll see.

[00:00:32] Well, we’re looking here at Matthew 6:19-34, Do not worry. Uh, according to Isaiah 53, Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with suffering, and at the same time, He did know incredible joy. And I think Matthew 6:19-34, which we’re looking at today, gives us a window into Jesus’ essential [00:01:00] happiness, and I think what He says here reflects His own experience of life.

[00:01:06] This is part of the Sermon on the Mount, which happened in the hills by the Sea of Galilee. All 50 slides that I’ve got today, I thought I’d go big with slides- … uh, being my last sermon as senior pastor. I am preaching in two weeks, by the way. But, uh, but this is different. Um, so these are all taken in the Galilee area, 50 of these slides.

[00:01:33] Um, and this is where Jesus is living. This is where the Sermon on the Mount happened. Pretty cool slides. There’s this whole, um, Facebook where all these locals in Galilee post their photos, so that’s where I got these. Um, He mu- Jesus must have watched the birds wheeling around in the air, high up on the [00:02:00] currents of air above the hills, and He saw that they were really enjoying life.

[00:02:06] And they do not do the sort of work that human beings do, yet mostly they’re alive and healthy, and because God cares for them, and Jesus sees this. And Jesus looks at the different flowers and grasses growing all around Him in Galilee. That word flower, verse 28, uh, sometimes translated lily, is a word that refers to a whole variety of flowers, including the glau- gladioli, and here’s some pictures of Galilee gladioli.

[00:02:41] Think of the gladiolus. It must have taken Jesus’ breath away to see the beauty of this flower. And He says, Solomon, in all his splendor, has nothing compared to this beautiful flower. Where does the beauty come from [00:03:00] of this flower? It comes from the hand of God. Yeah. These are some more photos

[00:03:10] I thought I’d broaden it out from just birds and grasses Uh, it’s pretty cool stuff. Jesus has this strong, alive sense of the goodness of His Father providing for all these creatures. He is the creator of the world. And when Jesus says in verse 34, “Do not worry about tomorrow,” I think we can surmise from that, that Jesus didn’t worry about tomorrow, that He was able to live His life resting in His Father’s arms, and the care and goodness of His Father.

[00:03:57] And i- if that isn’t [00:04:00] a recipe for a basically happy life, what is? And Jesus wants us to share that same joy and that same resting in the goodness of our heavenly Father. So He says, verse 25, “Don’t worry about your life.” Verse 27, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” Verse 28, “Why do you worry about clothes?”

[00:04:25] Verse 31, “Do not worry about food and drink and clothes.” Verse 34, “Do not worry about tomorrow.” Jesus wants us to learn to live our life without worry. Living a life without worry, is that even possible? If I don’t have something to worry about I fear that I’ve forgotten something But here, Jesus says, “No, we can live a different sort of life.”

[00:04:57] So let’s look at what Jesus says. [00:05:00] There are two sections, verses 19 to 24, and verses 25 to 34. Verses 19 to 34 is about priorities, and our central priority has to be God Himself. It’s so important that we put God first in our lives and find our joy, security, and our life in Him. So verses 19 to 24 are about keeping our vision on God, as we sang earlier.

[00:05:29] And Jesus has three little sayings in verses 19 to 24 that make the same point three times. Firstly, verses 19 to 21, Jesus contrasts two sorts of treasure. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.[00:06:00] [00:06:00] For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” So Jesus contrasts storing up treasures on Earth with storing up treasures in heaven. Now, when we talk about storing up treasures in heaven, uh, Jesus is not merely saying store up treasures for the future life after we die, right? Because what is heaven?

[00:06:25] Heaven is where God is. His kingdom of heaven, the invisible world all around us, as close as our skin, where God is ruling and reigning and providing. Store up your treasures in God is his point. Treasure that you can learn to enjoy now, even in this life, as well as in the life to come. Uh, learn to love and serve God in [00:07:00] the here and now, and you will have heavenly treasure here and now, a treasure that thieves can’t steal, moth and vermin can’t destroy.

[00:07:11] It’s secure because it’s in God. So how do we do this? How do we store up treasure in God? Jesus says, “Learn to live in the presence of your heavenly Father and rest in Him.” That’s the first saying. Um, the second little saying about priorities is verses twenty-three and twenty-four, “The eye is the lamp of the body.

[00:07:38] If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.” What does Jesus mean? He means that if we keep our eyes focused on God and God’s kingdom, if we have a healthy focus on Him, if [00:08:00] God and the life God calls us to in the here and now, if that’s our real treasure, then that’s a healthy vision which will fill our whole bodies and lives with light.

[00:08:16] So Jesus is saying, “Focus on God. Uh, let Him be your vision.” Or as Jenny in her new song, uh, Oh God Of Greatness, she says, “Oh God of goodness, hold my gaze.” That’s what Jesus is saying. And then Jesus gives his third little saying, verse twenty-four, “You cannot serve both God and money.” Actually, the word Jesus uses for money is the Aramaic word mammon.

[00:08:48] Mammon means not just money, but wealth and possessions more generally, and mammon is often used as the title for a god, and that’s his point. We have that [00:09:00] saying, the almighty dollar, and that’s the same kind of idea. Money, uh, can have a godlike power over us and seduce and deceive us, but there’s only one true God.

[00:09:14] Make sure that you serve only Him and not money. Get your priorities right And this then brings us to the next section, verses twenty-five to thirty-four, where Jesus says, “Don’t worry.” And it starts with therefore, because Jesus is not now moving on to a new topic. He’s now gonna spell out the implications of what He’s just said.

[00:09:40] This is how we store up treasures in heaven, not on earth, and keep our vision on God. Verse twenty-five: Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, [00:10:00] and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air.

[00:10:05] They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they are?

[00:10:19] Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin, and yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes 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?

[00:10:51] So do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Or what shall we wear?” For the pagans run after all these things, [00:11:00] 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

[00:11:16] When he says, “Seek first God’s kingdom,” it’s important to realize what God we’re talking about. We’re not talking about a God who doesn’t care about us, who doesn’t care about beauty and life and food and clothes. He does. He’s our creator. He loves to give, give good gifts to his children. He’s our father.

[00:11:45] He’s filled the world with all these things, these wonderful, wonderful, wonderful provisions that he showers upon us every day, every minute [00:12:00] Um, so this doesn’t mean we don’t care about what we wear and what we eat or that we should wear the shoddiest clothes. No way. The point Jesus is making again is about priorities, that if we put the world first all we’ll get is moth-eaten in our hands but if we put God first, we’ll get all these things thrown in as well

[00:12:30] And what Jesus says about the birds and the flowers and the fields, he doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plant seeds and reap harvests or that we shouldn’t work at weaving and spinning to make clothes. Jesus’ point is that we should do those things with joy

[00:12:51] Aware that He loves us and is providing for us. We’re not to do these things out of a [00:13:00] sense that God is a tyrant and we have to slave and slave in order to eke out a living, but rather to realize that He is here blessing us

[00:13:18] This verse is so challenging and exhilarating, isn’t it? Verse thirty-three, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” the way of life that Jesus has been talking about.

[00:13:34] It’s His kingdom that we ought to seek, and if we do that, food and clothing will take care of themselves. So a couple of, uh, points. Firstly, we’re being encouraged to store up treasure in God. We can’t follow Jesus very long without getting rich, true? And I’m not talking about money There’s just so much [00:14:00] grace, so much love that we experience from the hand of God.

[00:14:04] Rich in that sense. The further we go into loving and serving God, the richer we get, the more of His grace we experience, His provision we experience. We grow in Him. We go deep into who He is, and we adore Him, and we have lives full of praise, and we know each other so deeply because of Him and our faith in Him.

[00:14:37] Our lives become richer and richer the further we go with putting God’s kingdom first. And we may support many charities, we’ll still get rich in God. We may s- give all of our money away to the poor, whatever. We will just keep getting wealthier and wealthier in [00:15:00] the things of God. Just overwhelmed by His goodness to us.

[00:15:07] Our Father is lavish. Our cup runs over, doesn’t it?

[00:15:16] We are called to share our riches with those in need, but in the process of sharing those riches, we are the ones who become so rich

[00:15:29] At, uh, DNA Group, our little discipleship triads that we have. We’ve– I’ve got one on a Sunday night, 7:30 at Lawson Pub, and a bunch of us guys get there. And on last Sunday night, this guy Alf turned up. Is he here today? No. Uh, and he… We just started talking to him, and he ended up joining our little study for a half an hour or so.

[00:15:54] Turns out he’s Romanian, and he’s from an Orthodox background, and it [00:16:00] was just delightful talking to him. And we said, “We meet here.” And he said, “Oh, my kids go to that school.” And he said he might actually come. But it’s just struck me in talking to him how rich it is to be involved in God’s kingdom, to meet someone like him.

[00:16:20] This celebration today, how rich are we to be able to be in such a community? I was reflecting on Toby and Annie coming to us eight years ago, yes? And coming as interns, and look at today, you’re going to be taking over. Isn’t that amazing? Why is that so rich? That whole journey with you guys, why is it so rich?

[00:16:46] They lived with us for five years or so in our front room and then, uh, in the flat next door. Why, why are these things that we experience from God’s hand so [00:17:00] rich? It’s because God is in them. God is in them. His spirit, his presence in and through them, his blessing. And as we follow him, he gives us more, he gives us more, and we become like him, which is the ultimate, ultimate richness Secondly, look to God and don’t worry.

[00:17:31] Just relax, Jesus is saying, into what is going on, what God is doing all around you. Everything is provided for. Uh, we live in a well-provided for world, don’t we? Just look around. And what Jesus says here about the birds in the air and grasses and flowers in the field is so vivid, so [00:18:00] convincing, so freeing This is one of the passages we never forget.

[00:18:08] Don’t be anxious about your insides, what you eat. Don’t be anxious about your outsides, what you wear. God has filled the world with provisions. He provides for the lily and the gladioli. He cares for them. He cares for the birds, and the foxes, and the lizards, and the moths, and the, and the plants of every description.

[00:18:35] Um, look around you. See what God is doing at every moment Relax He’s providing all that we need, and aren’t we worth so much more than these things? [00:19:00] Look at what you have and not what you don’t have. We’re given what we need, and we’re given even more. I was reflecting, God doesn’t just give us a few trees to shade us from the sun.

[00:19:14] He gives us whole forests of trees Wow. He doesn’t just give us a few stars to help us find out where north is. He gives us stories in the sky It’s overwhelming the number of stars that, that just lighten our life And he doesn’t just give us a few birds to keep the insects under control. He gives us thousands and thousands of birds and their colors and their songs doing arcs through the air and just breathtakingly intriguing and wonderful and incredible[00:20:00] [00:20:02] God is rich in His blessing. It’s right under our noses. There is so much going on under the hand of God. We cannot take it in, the beauty, the energy, the purpose We’ve got a whole lifetime of provisions right now

[00:20:30] He’s just so amazing

[00:20:36] And so we adore him ‘Cause as we begin to see the world and ourselves this way, one of the things that happens is a new surge of freedom. The meaning of our lives is no longer determined by what we own or what we can control, and the meaning of our lives is so much greater [00:21:00] So if we pay attention to the birds, it frees us.

[00:21:04] It expands us. We’re free to give. We’re free to radically love even our enemies. We can be generous. We can be merciful. We can be vulnerable with each other and commit ourselves to give costly to one another in a costly way. Walls come down. Jesus basically tells us, “Relax. Put your attention onto this wonderful world, your Father, your Creator.

[00:21:40] It’s all there. Everything you need, He can provide.” And as we do that, as we cultivate this way of living, we lose our anxiety, our fear of missing out or of not having enough or whatever. We realize our [00:22:00] lives are just brimming with God’s good gifts And this is not an easy transition but it’s possible

[00:22:13] We have to make this transition again and again, in fact, each day to put our attention back onto Him and His goodness. It’s hard. We get pulled back into fear habits. The world has so much of that And when we get insecure we batten down the hatches, we close in on ourselves, we restrict our lives and it’s so easy for us to start storing up treasures on Earth again But we can’t go very long as Christians before again we are stopped in awe by what God has done as we see again His grace, [00:23:00] His mercy, His love every new day This is so freeing.

[00:23:08] I love these words of Jesus. It’s like Jesus kind of casts a spell on me with these words, “Do not worry. Look at the birds. Look at the grasses.” It’s like those words just soothe and soften my heart, and it’s like God’s arms come around me as I hear those words, and I feel safe and comforted. These words just get into our souls.

[00:23:36] Do not worry what you will wear, what you will eat. Does not your Father in heaven know what you need?

[00:23:50] God again and again being God, being our Father provides and provides and provides and [00:24:00] provides. With anxiety, we’re trying to take care of what God has told us He’s taking care of

[00:24:10] But with adoration, we are taking care to not miss anything that God is doing. Amen