on this Lord's Day in the year that we give over to harvest Thanksgiving and allow our thoughts perhaps to dwell a little bit more upon our very earthly and very real needs. Well, the title drawing from what we have in Matthew chapter six, verse 31, what shall we eat? What shall we drink? And we could add, of course, what shall we wear? Just trying to keep the title a little shorter. What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Those were the questions and the Lord said that's what the Gentiles seek after. Does that mean that we shouldn't? Does that mean that we are to be absolutely indifferent to our own physical needs and the physical needs of others? I'm sure you can spot the answer. No, it doesn't mean that. And we'll come to that a little more in a moment. And neither in as much as we are in the time, aren't we here, of National Mourning last week. If you were here, we observed two minutes silence there in respect to the passing away. And it is a momentous happening of our sovereign queen, 70 years upon the throne, and looking on to the future. And this evening, I'm preaching the second part of a two-part series about days of mourning, days of weeping, to reflect a little more upon that event. But harvest still comes, whether a sovereign has died or not, the sun still rises, the rain still falls. Our needs remain still the same, that it's not suspended, that you can't quite happily or easily go through these 10 days without eating or drinking, I would suggest. Things still continue. and the gospel still needs to be preached. So when I heard from a friend last Lord's Day evening, they'd been preaching on that Saturday last week in a nearby town and somebody said, well, what are you doing this for? Out here, it's morning, aren't we? You shouldn't be doing preaching. I think our friends had presence of mind sufficient to say, well, this is absolutely why we should be out here. We're talking about death and eternity. then that's absolutely why we are out here preaching the gospel. So we can think appropriately, I think, about the time of the season that we are in. And always, always God is to be remembered, always, always God is to be thanked. And neither, even though our nation is in quite an extraordinary time, isn't it, at the moment? events there, which never happened before, and perhaps will never quite happen in this way again or upon us, that in Ukraine, the war has not stopped because of what is happening in our nation. There are feromits and terrible discoveries being made and mass graves and such things that fill us with grief as we pray for the people of that country. And neither, either, as we feel perhaps the implications of this war, the cost of living crisis. Has that been suspended? We may have had some relief looking at the October heating, lighting, electricity, gas bills that were threatened, that maybe we've just seen something of an easing of those. But even so, You know, I know, the cost of living has gone up. What's used to go so far doesn't go quite so far anymore. And things in the shops are more expensive indeed. There's still some shortages, aren't there? Some various things, you look for them, they're not there. And I can't always explain why that particular product isn't there, what missing ingredient was disrupted by supply chains or a lot of China still being in lockdown or the crisis in Ukraine. But it's a real issue, isn't it? What should we eat? What should we drink? What shall we wear? So I moved to my first heading. But we need to eat, don't we? We do need to eat, don't we? What's our Lord saying here? Is he giving us some sort of totally unrealistic advice? As though, well, it's all right for him to say that. He's the son of God. And as though he's just sort of passing effortlessly through this world, kind of aloof from all the day-to-day concerns of people and as if he's rebuking us for even wondering about these things or caring about them. No. His advice is not reckless, it is not careless, or quite harsh and callous, as though, doesn't he know that there are poor people? Yes, he does know that. Does he not know, probably in Israel of that time, there were people who went to bed hungry? Well, yes, he knew that too. Did he not anticipate, as he spoke those words, and would have known those words are gonna be placed in scripture, and that we're gonna be looking at those words that he spoke until he returns, and that there will be famines. Well, he said there would be. He said that would be what happens before he comes, that there's going to be floods, there's going to be famines and earthquakes and pestilences. And there sure are, aren't there? He wasn't unaware of the world that he was speaking about or speaking to. He wasn't unrealistic. or somewhere removed and even a bit heartless about us and our needs. Whatever he means by this, he doesn't mean that. He's not saying that because he just doesn't understand who we are, what flesh and blood we are. Well, it's instructive actually, perhaps in what Paul says in respect of marriage. the care that we show for one another. And in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 29 he says, For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as the Lord does the church. This husbands are to love their wives. Saying it in a sense here because you're going to be the losers. Husbands, if you don't love your wives, you're going to be the losers. Buy it. If you hate your own flesh, well then, you withdraw your love from your wife. That's how to do that. Who hates their own flesh? Who so neglects their own physical needs, starves themselves to death? Well, hunger strikers and a few exceptions to the rule. But we understand what the apostle is saying here. People in their right minds, don't totally neglect the flesh. And he even makes illustration work there. That's just as the Lord cares and loves for the church, cherishes, cares for her, nourishes her. And in this, we must think that he does this across a whole range of issues, not simply spiritual. Well, yes, there's a time for fasting. Surely it's, and our Lord spoke about that. A friend was preaching a few months back and mentioning the subject too. Yes, there's a place for that. Take care if you're on a special diet or whatever else there, or you need medications, or you need regular intakes of certain things. Well, take care. We're only creatures and frail creatures at that, and do it for the right reason. You really want to give yourself to prayer. You're seeking the face of God, that there is an urgency about the whole thing. But he's not saying, well, just starve. You know, that you're not to worry about these things, that you just go home. Well, maybe not tomorrow. The day after it, there, a delivery van will mysteriously turn up, and the chap will take your baskets full of food. Where did this come from, you'll say? Well, it just came. I just got this order. Well, strange things have happened, for sure. But don't count on it, is what I'm saying then, I'm sure. You wouldn't be kind of naive enough to think that's how it works out there. But somehow we don't have to give attention to it. Don't bother with the shopping this week or any week. Something will just happen. Don't bother with the cooking. It'll just happen. Well, dream on, dream on. And some of you can talk more about what the kitchen's about and the work that you have to do in there than I can. So it's not saying that. Because our Lord showed very, very clearly that he knows all about us, and he knows about our needs. Let me just pick a point or two to illustrate that, and in the resurrection. And when our Lord was back from the dead, had gone ahead of his disciples, as he'd said, he'd gone to Galilee, and there we find some of the disciples have been fishy, and not with great result. So in John chapter 21, let me just read the passage there, and in verse five, They didn't know at that time it was the Lord, but he's there on the shore there in the boat, unsuccessful fishing. Then Jesus said to them, children, have you any food? They answered him, no. And he said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you'll find some. So they cast, and now they're not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish. Therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, it is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he'd removed it, and plunged into the sea. The other disciples came in the little boat, for they were not far from land, but about 200 cubits, dragging the net with fish. Then as soon as they'd come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it and bred. Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish which you have just caught. Simon Peter went up dragged the net to land full of large fish, 153. And although there were so many, the net was not broken. Jesus said to them, come and eat breakfast. Come and eat breakfast." Well, there was some miraculous power at work in this. 153, I love the precision, don't you? 153 large fish, although the net didn't break. And they caught nothing, all the rest of it, and they weren't fools when it came to fishing. They knew about the water and where to put your net down, found nothing. And then just by casting it on the right hand side of the boat, suddenly this catch of fish. And then, come, come, and eat breakfast. Children, have you any food? No? Then I will do something about that for you. And there's instruction in that, isn't there? That our Lord is not aloof in his resurrection state. He's risen from the dead. He has gone ahead of them to Galilee. There he is fulfilling that promise and aware of them that they still need to have breakfast. They still need to eat. You still need to eat. that I need to eat, and the bread that we eat as well. And well, some of us have to take a bit of extra care with the kind of bread that we eat, but that provision is there in all of that variety. And the Lord knows what we need. Well, that's in our passage. It's there in verse 32. After all these things, the Gentiles seek for your heavenly Father, knows that you need all these things. He knows that. He's not so ethereal, spiritual. He is not so glorious that these things are as nothing to him, and weary him to have to think about it. But no, he knows what we need, and he repeats that, that's in Matthew chapter six, and in verse eight, therefore do not be like them, Gentiles repeating themselves again and again. For your father knows the things you have need of before you ask him, before you ask him. that we don't have to acquaint him with hunger and what it's like. We don't have to acquaint him with the weaknesses of our body. He knows that. And he knows before we ask him what we need. In fact, he knows better than we know what we need. And he's saying to us that he's there, he's on the case. Or in Matthew chapter 15 and what we read there in verse 32, 33, feeding of the 4,000. That says something, doesn't it? And how do we get to that place? Because of this. Now, Jesus called his disciples to himself and said, I have compassion on the multitude because they've now continued with me three days and have nothing to eat. And I do not want to send them away hungry lest they faint on the way. And he knew their need. Right, that was a miracle that was just about to unfold before their eyes, sure enough. But he knows us and he doesn't want us to faint on the way. He cares for us that we have perhaps little food or that people elsewhere in the world have little by way of provision. He's not unrealistic. He does know that we need to eat. He does know that we need to drink. He does know that we need clothing. I'm feeling the nip in the air these days and autumn well and truly here. Yes, we need the heat on in the church. You probably need on the heat there at home. He needs these things. And he says to us, doesn't he, in this passage here, verse 26, look at the birds of the air, neither sowing nor reaping, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. I, not you, are more value than they. We may love the birds, and I suspect quite a few of us. They're our bird feeders and feed them this, that, and the other. and all the choice things that they enjoy. Well, actually, from all of that, we are of more value, that we are placed in a different category to them by God. And if he cares for them, then by extension of that, well, how much more he cares for you and for me. And again there, the grass of the field, well, if he, in verse 30, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, It's the nature of it. It's there one moment and gone the next. It wasn't something that you so precious and valuable, you just have to preserve every stalk of it, every blade of it. It's practical. It's got to be burned in the fire. Well, if he does that and actually gives it a beauty, it gives it its own quality. Well then, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith? He knows about us and he shows from nature, he cares for nature that much. If his eye is upon that with such detail, then his eye is upon you and me with even more detail and concern and care. Second heading, but we don't need to worry. And this is what this is about actually, not worrying. And he says it a few times, doesn't he there? We will see it's there in verse 31, therefore do not worry. saying the very things that I've got in my title, what should we eat or what should we drink or what shall we wear? Or again in verse 34, therefore do not worry, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things, sufficient for the day is its own trouble. He's not saying it's a trouble-free world, he's saying no, it's full of trouble actually, but do not worry. So what's he saying to us in this? Well, he's saying that this is what the Gentiles do, because that's what he says, doesn't he? This is what a world without God does, that they're just consumed with this, actually. That they are always, it's on their minds, they can't get away from this, and they're locked into it. They've got no greater, sort of grander perspective in which to place their troubles, and their cares, and their real needs, which God knows about. They have no God in their thinking. Who knows about these things? He is not there. And so the level of anxiety and the level of worry is excessive. It's inordinate. It is just all consuming and weighing upon them. And there's nowhere for this worry to go. There's nowhere for this anxiety to be unburdened because they have no God upon whom they can rest all their care and place their burden. It's as though they're saying, I'm on my own. I'm on my own. I've got to sort this out. There's no help I can find anywhere. It's me on my own or family on my own. And we're going to fight our own way through this. And so they conclude, got to do whatever it needs. And we saw perhaps that rather unedifying spectacle as we approached the first lockdown back in March, 2020 of people in supermarket car parks fighting over tins of beans. We still smile, don't we? And toilet rolls. And this was it. This was, what should we eat? What should we drink? It's all going to end. We've got to fight for ourselves here. Barge that old lady out the way. Grab this, grab that. And it was distinctly unedifying to see that. What should we eat? What should we drink? Just there. I'm on my own. Got to sort it. And I was just saying, the world is an inhospitable place. The world's dangerous. The world is cruel. There's nothing there. It's all against me. I've got to fight, I've got to look after myself, any means I've got to use. I've always got to be thinking, I've always got to be using my wit, my ingenuity, get ahead of others, keep a step ahead of them, because the world's out of control. It's a law unto itself, and you can't trust it, you can't rely upon it, and it'll play tricks on us in that way. And the people, they're all merciless, and if you don't do it, they'll grab it. There's no charity out there, you're on your own. And that's what happens, that's how people panic. And they go into themselves with that, and it is very unedifying to watch. And for Christians to succumb to it, well, it would be sad indeed, because that's not the world that we live in. Actually, there's a lot of goodwill in this world. One of the upsides of perhaps what we saw in the pandemic was the care that many neighbours showed for their neighbours, and a willingness actually not to take the last tin of beans from the shelf, but to leave it perhaps for the older person for whom couldn't go to any other shop and were more dependent upon it. What's such a merciless world of dog-eat-dog out there? Because there's common grace, friends, isn't there? Because even though people may be atheists, they can still show kindness because they're made in the image of God. They'd like to hear that, mind you, but they are. They're made in the image of God. And there is kindness and there is charity. Why, look, those people here, we're not fools, are we? We know the world. huge needs and famines and such things and hard to comprehend why those people are suffering as they do. And yet here we are as God's people, we're not thousands of us are we? We're not kind of billionaires each of us there, but I trust we're giving according to what we have to help those people in Ukraine as we help other people at other times when other crises have presented themselves. And the world actually does that too, and there's a lot of concern and a lot of care. And we can feel perhaps somewhat comforted in our country that there's been a stepping forward, a willingness indeed to bear perhaps some of the cost of living crisis because we want to help the people in Ukraine. There's more out there than we might suppose. And this panic, this obsessive, the world's a hard place and the merciless people and the laws of nature are out of control. We've got to sort of But is this not God's world? And is it not under His charge? And indeed, though we might have smiled at the thought of the Mazda or Tesco or whatever delivery man just sort of turning up unannounced Tuesday morning on your doorstep with a whole tray of goodies there for you is perhaps far-fetched, but maybe not so far-fetched because I'm sure each of us can actually give testimony of unexpected grace, of unexpected kindness, of friends who did something that they couldn't have known at the time meant so, so much. It made a huge difference. Small thing, but it made a huge difference. This world is not out of control, it's all in God's hands, and God can put in the minds of people, to show charity, to show care, that he can put in the minds of people we don't even know, who might do more than they could have realized in doing what they do. And perhaps here, I don't want to be too controversial in this, but the talk of climate change, I understand a lot of young people are very, very tearful, very, very afraid. of the future, what it might hold. I'm not going to pronounce on that or tell you, don't worry about anything. Sure, there may be economies that we're going to have to make, and we may have to make a few more than we at the moment realize. But to make it sound as if climate is just out of control out there, that it's got a mind of its own. It's one of the very unwise things, amongst many unwise things that popes say, but when we had a pandemic in its early stages, and perhaps the The thought of it maybe emerging man-made out of a laboratory was not in common currency. And the Pope reckoned it was nature fighting back at us. It was nature fighting back at us. Well, nature's in God's control. It's not a force out on its own. And so we have to think carefully about the world that we're in, that it is still God's world. Maybe climates are changing, but it is still God's world. And there are still lessons that he may have us to learn, economies we've got to make. We may end up working harder and longer, retirements getting deferred and such things as that. Yeah, maybe. And there is such a thing as famine. And we are going to have to be showing care that we are part of the help that stops other people having to worry because they know that actually there are friends. There are people in distant places. We're never going to perhaps meet the people for whom we're providing food in Ukraine. We're never going to meet the people whose perhaps heating bills we're going to pay or just pay for there to be some heating to have in the first place. No, we may never meet them. Some of the friends in Ukraine tell us that they pray for us and they're thankful for that compassion, minute though we might say it is, it's but a cup of water that we feel we're given, given the amount of need and given the horrors that those people face. But our Lord is showing to us that this world is God's world. and we are under his care. And that's so to disintegrate into some sort of panicked, obsessive, all we're thinking about, a kind of God-free context to what we're going to eat and what we're going to drink and what we're going to wear is wrong. That those people, and is it us at times, God is not meaningfully in their thoughts. He's absent. He's not there. The world is out of control. We are on our own. It's not a world where God is in their thoughts. And so that background, we should have firmly in place. I'm not going to minimize what this cost of living crisis might mean. I'm not going to minimize what this winter might be like for some of us there. And, you know, friends, we mustn't sort of think, well, I've got to suffer it on my own. If there's a problem, if the heating bills are a problem or something, do make it known to us in the church here. We're not indifferent to each other's needs in that respect. So we may have to make economies as a church, and we're going to be switching the lights off a bit more there. We've got the heating on today. You're very glad to hear that. And all right, we're now shutting the windows there rather than following sort of COVID protocols. So a few improvements that we can note. But nobody's going to say that it may not be a hard time ahead. My final heading, let's move to that. Seeking God first. seeking God first. That's what he's saying, isn't it? That's where the weight of this is coming to. There's that all-important but in verse 33. They're the Gentiles just absorbed in this and living without God in their thoughts. They're on their own, they're panicked, they're in all kinds of distresses. Now the Lord says, not that God is unmindful of your need of eating and drinking, nor that you should be unmindful that you do need to eat and you do need to drink, but that actually in it all, and it is the wider context, isn't it, there should firstly, firstly be the seeking of the kingdom of God and his righteousness. That is faith. You're hungry, you're needy, yeah, but you seek first the kingdom of God. You're worried about the future, the heating bills, yeah, But you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And there seems to be a promise, doesn't there? And all these things should be added to you. That God has help to give, whatever kind of help that might be. That there is wisdom in God as to how he might come and enter into your very real circumstances and help you or help me. That's what he says there. And the rebuke is there, isn't it? You of little faith. Because if we lack faith, well, then we're not going to seek God first. We're just going to panic, if you like, or just sort of go down with the ship in that way, or we're doing this. Our minds are there. Not thinking of God first. It's God's world, isn't it? Yes. And he's all powerful. Yes, he's sovereign. Yes. He knows our bodily needs. Yes. Come and have breakfast. Yes. He knows that. And so we seek him first. First protocol, not the last one. First thought, not the last thought. We go to him, and we are desiring in that to understand better him and our own context. It's an acknowledgement of his sovereignty. Psalm 147, verses 7-8. Tonight, sing to the Lord with thanksgiving, sing praises on the harp to our God, who covers the heavens with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the mountains, he gives to the beast its food, and to the young ravens that cry. It's beautiful, isn't it, how our Lord homes in on details, the thirst of the wild donkeys, or those rotten badgers up in the hills there, or hits the young ravens that cry. And he knows about them and their sovereignty, isn't there? That it doesn't just happen. It's under God's superintending hand, all of it. Or we could read on in that psalm. We could have read this as well as Psalm 104, couldn't we? Verse 15, he sends out his command to the earth. His word runs very swiftly. He gives snow like wool. He scatters the frost like ashes. He casts out his hail like morsels. Who can stand before his cold? He sends out his word and melts them. He causes his wind to blow and the waters flow. Well, they blanch a little bit there with winter coming on, snow like wool and frost like ashes and hail like morsels, and who can stand before his colt? Well, that's a fallen world indeed, but he still owns it, though we may have to suspect within it the judgments that he's just indicating to us that this is part of our lot as human beings to have to suffer his cold. There's the fall there. but he owns it, he gives, he scatters, he casts out, he sends, he causes, and we acknowledge his sovereignty in that he makes the sun to shine, he makes the rain to fall, establishes laws, varies them at will, suspends them if he will, and that is his sovereign prerogative. Next though, seeking God first, so we're seeking that God, that's whom we're seeking, that's whom we confess and give thanks to and worship in our prayers, but he's our Heavenly Father. That's repeated in this passage that we've got before us this morning, isn't it? Here at Harvest. He's our Heavenly Father. You'll find him saying that in verse 26, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them, the birds of the air, that is. And you find it again in verse 32. After all these things the Gentiles seek, for your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Very deliberate. Our Lord, very deliberate. Directing our thoughts to our Heavenly Father. Heavenly, yes, well, there's sovereignty in that. There's the one who commands the rain. There's the one who causes the vegetation to grow. There's the one who feeds the young ravens when they cry. And he's our Father, with all of the richness of that. And we may have to transfer from earthly fathers and their very palpable defects and failures and come to the ideal. our heavenly Father. But there it is, Father, who knows, who cares, who provides, who protects. who keeps careful eye on the world at large, what's happening, anticipating the future perhaps, trying to best prepare and guard for that, that's him. And the one to whom, as Christians, with the Holy Spirit within us, we go to him. We had this in a sermon the other week, the Abba Father. That's the cry of a true believer, recognizing where their needs can be met, the one to whom we turn. He cares. He cares, friends. Do you believe that? He cares. He cares for your soul. Mine cares for your body. And mine, he does. That is his name. We take something away from his glory. We detract from it. If we don't call him our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. We hold that. We believe that. We hallow that you are our father, our heavenly father. And so he knows future needs. He can sway us in our judgments, help us make better decisions now than we could ever realize. We look back retrospectively and we think, I didn't know then what I now know, but that decision was better than I could have realized at the time. Seek God, you see. Seek him first and his his righteousness. And so there we are, he connects with our lives, with kindness, with thoughtfulness, with generosity. Yes, we're to pray, ask him, seek him, give us this day our daily bread. It's right to ask, and it's right to ask for practical things, eating bulls or whatever else may lie ahead for us. Ask him, seek him. And remember though, always to be asking for the greater things first, and it's about his kingdom, and it's about his righteousness. Ask about those things. If we should die, die in a ditch, well, God forbid we should, but that we would bring glory to God, bring glory to God in our famines, in our approaches towards death, that we would be known as those who prioritize the kingdom of God, eternal things, deeper things, richer things, more than ever can be kind of subsumed under what we eat, what we drink, what we wear, however important those things are, greater things. That what we eat and what we drink will be to the glory of God and will be with thanksgiving. And what we wear will not be for ostentatious show or something like that. health and wealth preachers, I mean, rolling back to show the Rolex here or something. Nothing, nothing like that. But they will be happy with the raiment we have and be content, the scripture tells us, and show that contentment. But maybe the world will look and think, well, we're running around. What should we wear? And, oh, taken up with it. You're not. Why is that? What's different about you? And it would be good, wouldn't it, if the world sees that, because we're seeking actually first the kingdom of God. We're gripped by something bigger. We are mastered by the things of eternity more than this world. Oh, we'll pray for our daily bread, but not until we've given glory to God and allowed Him in His excellence to fill our horizon and realize there what we realize at the communion table, that He is the greatest thing of all. that we have a saviour who died for us and shed his blood for us. And the greatest matter to do with the kingdom of God and his righteousness is that we are a forgiven people and pardoned. Come what may, come rain, come shine, come what may, come all the things that the newspapers worry you about and talked about, the nuclear bombs and the rest of it, they're sure. Well, as I may yet be, I'm a prophet on that. but that we are looking beyond this world, secure in the knowledge that we have a good reception in the next. Because in this life, you and I have trusted in Christ and help us to Him. We're going to show that we're holding fast to Him by taking in good conscience. I trust the communion, the bread, the wine, Him. It's about Him. We're telling Chris, won't we? It's about Him. Everything's all about Him. And so we seek Him. It is righteousness that we We want to be known as citizens of his kingdom. We want to look like citizens of his kingdom, talk like citizens of his kingdom. What he's like, what we want to be. like that, his righteousness, uprightness and his ways of justice and equity, fairness and purity. Well, we're seeking that. We know that we can't achieve the perfection, though the righteousness that clothes us is the righteousness of Christ, his good works and his good deeds. But we want to be known as those who are trying to imitate that. We are seeking after that. We want to, whatever our circumstances, to conform ourselves to that. That is an act of faith. That is prioritising unseen dimensions compared to earthly ones. That is to show that we value this unseen God that's spoken of, isn't it, in the earlier chapter or the earlier parts of Matthew 6, our Father who sees in secret there. He's unseen but actually sees everything we are. We prioritise Him. And we believe that while he's there and that and holy and exalted, that he actually remembers our daily needs and our daily bread. And as we are looking to be conformed to him, yes, he knows about these other things. And yes, we'll pray about these things, these practical things. Oh, that expression of faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. and his good pleasure might just make all the difference with those daily needs, might make all the difference to coming through more comfortably, less panicked, less anxious, whatever the days are that lie ahead. So may God bless and help each of us there. I hope nothing that I've said, and I hope I'm not misrepresenting what our Lord says, it's just sort of, oh, careless of your bodily needs and mine, is indifferent to them. I think far from it. I think indeed the opposite. Let's trust him, have faith in him. Let's speak to each other, because he would have us know if there are needs, make them know. Amen. Well, we sing together. Come ye thankful people, come. That's hymn number 826 in our hymn books.