Matthew 6:25-34 (ESV)

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?²⁷ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?^[a] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. ³⁴ “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Introduction

This is Pastor Chris and we've come to the last recording of our series. I've enjoyed my time with you the last 15 weeks and thank you for the privilege and honor of doing this. Today, we will listen to Jesus speaks about ‘Worries’. Allow me to read from Matthew chapter 6 verse 25 to the end of the chapter.

Excessive concern and distracting thoughts

The first thing we need to understand is what Jesus means by “Worry”. Let us explain what Worry is not. By Worry, Jesus doesn't mean our concerns, our thoughts, our anxieties; these are what we called normal worries or good worries. For exmaple, when you have exam tomorrow, it's normal to have some butterflies in your stomach. Or, if you have an interview tomorrow, going for your first date, running in a race or taking part in a sports or performance, although you have prepared, have planned and have prayed, yet there will be still a certain amount of those butterflies in your tummies. I don’t think Jesus is teaching us to have no thought about life, no concerns, or that a believer or Christian should never have butterflies in the stomach, or at those moments we have butterflies in our stomach, we are dishonouring God, we are sinning.

The worry that Jesus talks about is the excessive concern and distracting thoughts; the excessive concern, excessive worries, distracting thoughts to the point of destruction where our minds are on the thing the moment we wake up, the first thought in the morning, the continuing thought through the day, and the last thought at night.

A wife was complaining about her husband. The first thing in the morning, he thinks about share prices. Continuing thought through the day is share prices. He never talks to her about anything else, never calls her about anything else. The last thought in the day is how much he made and how much he lost in the stock market. You could say that this man is worried; that’s what Jesus means - Excessive, obsessive, destructive concern; really single-minded about one thing, one area of life, instead of being single-minded about God and His gift of life.

I remembered once in a major exam, either ‘O’ or ‘A’ levels, in my life. I was preparing last minute and just trying to remember, study and understand many things. I had studied late into the wee hours of the morning. And as I brushed my teeth, I found that the toothpaste tasted really strange. I looked at it and it wasn’t toothpaste! I was brushing my teeth with my pimple cream because I was so distracted by my exams. When we worry, sometimes it is so funnily distracting but if we carry on with that, it will be destructive. That is what Jesus means: Do not worry.

Proceeding from the lesser to the greater

Now, He gives examples of birds and flowers in the field and what does He mean by this? His argument is proceeding from the lesser to the greater. If God can feed birds which are less valuable than us who are made in God’s image, specifically disciples saved in the blood of Jesus, and dress flowers which are less lasting than us, will He not feed and clothe us?

Worry reveals the lack of faith and trust in God

Worry, as Jesus says, will always reveal a lack of faith. Verse 30 says: Oh you of little faith. Jesus is not saying this to the crowds; He is saying this to the disciples. Oh you of little faith is actually a rebuke by Jesus. Worry will always reveal a lack of faith or lack in trust in the person of God, in the purposes of God and in the provision of God.

In that sense, whenever we worry or are tempted to worry as God's people, we are returning to our pagan roots. The pagan means unbelieving world. Worry is part of the old world, the old regime where we run our own personal and global lives without God.

If you look into your handbags as women, into your purses as women or look into your wallets as men, what kind of currency do you carry? Whatever currency you carry, the logic of Jesus’ thinking is this: Worry is the currency of our world. It is not acceptable, and not fashionable not to worry. To be in this pagan world means that you are a worrier.

A story about a well-known chaplain of Harvard University Peter Gomez in his book and he was preaching at the top school on this passage. The majority of girls who went to this top boarding school in Boston would end up in the Ivy League universities of America. This chaplain was saying this to the girls: “Don't worry so much yourself to death; don't worry yourself to eating disorders.” A father came up to him after the sermon and said to him: “Can you stop preaching such uninspiring messages to my daughter and to our children?” The father said in a nutshell that because it was worry that got his daughter into this school; it will be worry that gets her into an Ivy League university and it will be worry that lands her in a top job in the top firms.

Can we confess that this is the way we think and live? We worry ourselves into the next step of life, and we call that success. Jesus calls that failure. Worry is the currency of a Godless atheistic world where our whole life gets reduced to what we shall eat, what we shall drink and what we shall wear. When our lives are reduced to a series of appetites, you and I are pitiful, you and I are miserable, where we are living for the next moment of what we eat, what we eat drink and what we wear.

Worry is part of an anti-God way of living

Jesus’ corrective to this is: Do not worry because worry does not add a single hour or a single inch to our lives. There are two different interpretations to what this verse means. Whatever we cannot agree upon is worry; it is futile and is useless; it doesn't value-add to your life. So, why do you and I insist on something that doesn't value-add but something that takes away, because we think that by worrying, we are in control, and we are the masters of our lives.

Have you ever noticed this of the world, ever noticed this of your friends, of your parents, or even yourself? We prayed a lot about exams, about boyfriend and girlfriend, about an increment, about business and then once we get the answer, we move on to our next worry: my daughter has gotten into that school; my son has started on his work... When are we going to stop worrying? That is us! And we think that's normal. We have normalised worry as part of our life. Worry is part of an anti-God way of living. Believing Jesus as king – this is a radically different way of living. Seek first His Kingdom and seek first His righteousness and all these things shall be given unto us.

Not to waste today by worrying about tomorrow

Simple way to rephrase this, Jesus is telling us, His kingdom people, not to waste today by worrying about tomorrow. That is what a lot of us do, onto our next worry. How on earth do you know that you're going to wake up tomorrow? Is there a guarantee from someone that you’re surely going to wake up? You have just wasted most of the day by being anxious and obsessively worried about tomorrow.

I met a man when I was overseas, and I asked him his happiest or saddest moments of his life. The saddest moment of his life was when he got news from his eldest daughter-in-law that his son had died in his sleep. And, it was a whole shock to the entire family, beginning with the wife and now him as a father, because his son was a policeman; he was healthy, he ran, he jogged and he kept himself fit, yet he died in his sleep unexpectedly. What guarantee do you have that you are going to wake up tomorrow? And here is the futility of anxiety and worry.

All we have is today; all we have is this moment

All we have is today. All we have is this moment. You can live this moment humbly as a gift from God and live it's moment in love for God and love for others. We need to repent from the vice of instant gratifications where we want money to be in control and to enjoy what money gives us. We have to learn to live with the virtue of delayed gratification.

Here is Jesus speaking to us. I prayed that from the very first message that you heard to this final message on Worry, that you’ll know that the Jesus’ way of living is the best way of living. May you always listen to Jesus speaking into your life.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your great and greatest gift of giving us Yourself, by giving us Jesus as our Saviour and our Lord. And thank you that Jesus has come to fulfil the law and the prophets. Thank you that Jesus comes to offer us a radically different way of living, a way of living by Grace, a way of living by His finished work on the cross, a way of living by His resurrection power, a way of living by the Holy Spirit. In all these different areas, from the way we handle our anger, to the way we handle our lust, to the way we take revenge in our life, to the way we handle our money and our worries, help us not to listen to the world, not to listen to others, but to listen to You and Your Word, and especially Your Son. In Jesus mighty name we pray, Amen.