This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Luke chapter 12, picking up in verse 22, would you please stand for the reading of God's word? And he said to his disciples, Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens. They neither sow nor reap. They have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to a span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you? Oh, you of little faith. And we're going to stop there for today. This is the reading of God's word. Please have a seat. Let's open in prayer. Our Father, we thank you for being our prayer-hearing, perfect Heavenly Father. We thank you for your tender mercies to a people who gets anxious, for a people who fears the future, who worries about so many things that are out of our control. We pray you'd minister to us now. We pray you'd give us faith to see you truly and to see your actions and your care truly. We pray you'd give us faith to combat the unbelief that lies behind our worries. Please be gracious to us and minister to us. We pray this in Jesus's name. Amen. So this week, I'm hoping that this is part one of two on this passage about do not be anxious. Anxiety is something that I just feel like it's near and dear to many of our hearts. It's something that so many of us wrestle with. It's something that, just without doubt, a good number of you are wrestling with right now. And so I'm so glad that the Lord gave us what he gave us in this section. The passage begins, and he said to his disciples, therefore, don't miss the therefores, right? Because you know what they say about therefores? It's something like, don't worry about the therefores, they probably don't matter very much anyway, right? No, we say, what is the therefore therefore? What is the therefore therefore? Because whenever there's a therefore, the writer or the speaker in the scriptures is asking us not just to look forward, but to look back. to look back at what's been said before because it has everything to do with what we are about to say. So please don't miss the therefore. What's interesting is that this passage comes out of another passage that you might not think would bear much connection. We were just talking about the parable of the rich fool. The parable of the rich fool leads naturally, apparently, into Jesus saying, therefore do not be anxious. Well, if you recall, if we have some takeaway lessons from the parable of the rich fool, there was a man who was greedy for wealth because he thought that by his wealth he could secure his life. And we saw the way that he looked forward. Remember he's talking about, I've got too much stuff. I know I will build more barns. So bigger barns so I can hold more stuff. And so then I can just take it easy for a few years. You remember that. And we looked at that passage and we saw that God was near absent from his thinking. Absent from his planning. There was a godlessness to the parable of the rich fool because God was absent. And so, therefore, Jesus wants his disciples to consider another direction people go when God is absent from their thinking. So we pick up in the passage, let's say verse 22 and 23, it says, about your life. Do not be anxious about your life. What are we talking about when we say anxious or anxiousness? Here's a partial definition for you. To worry. To be apprehensive. To be unduly concerned. And when I preach through this, I'm gonna be shifting back and forth between what I consider synonyms. So I may call it worry, I may call it anxiety, I may call it anxiousness. I may say, do not be anxious. I'm talking about all the same concept as I use those words. And Jesus says, do not be anxious. And what he means is he's aiming at an anxiety about the basic needs of earthly life. Life as defined simply by food and clothing. See, Jesus points at the necessities of life. He turns to his disciples and he said, look at those necessities of life. He says, don't be anxious about those needs. Don't be anxious about those needs. From the start, you have to see that he's not talking about superfluous little extras in life. He is talking about the building blocks of life. And he gives a big picture reason for why not to be anxious. He says, because life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. And this I hope to come back to next week, but I want to introduce the idea for you today. Jesus is saying this, anxiety has things out of order. Anxiety has things out of order. Jesus is addressing these people who get so anxious about the very basics of life. And you can picture the person, and maybe this person is you. They fret. They fret over where the next meal is going to come from. They worry about whether they're going to have clothes on their back. And you have to grant that when someone is fretting over these things, when they are worried over these basic needs, they are convinced that these basic needs are all important. And for that person, there is no doubt that food and clothing are absolutely deserving of being worried about. And for that person, Jesus says, There is more to life than what you are worrying about. There is more to life than what you're worrying about. What you are worrying about is not as important as you think it is. And that may be jolting to hear, but take it from Jesus. Our worries are often much less important than we think they are. And so in 24, he goes deeper. He goes deeper into the specifics he wanted to unpack. 24 is basically, don't be anxious about food. Look at the text again. Consider the ravens. They neither sow nor reap. They have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? Jesus told them not to be anxious about what they eat, right? That's how he starts the whole passage, and here he's going to explain that. And he says, look at the ravens. Consider the ravens. They are far more vulnerable than any human. They don't sow. They don't reap. They can't store away their food for safekeeping. And yet, God still feeds them. Notice what Jesus does not say. He doesn't say, and look, the ravens take care of themselves. No, he says, look, God feeds them. And just as a matter of detail, it's interesting. Ravens are actually considered an unclean, detestable animal according to the law. And yet even the lowliest, unclean creatures, are cared for by God. And so Jesus makes his point like this. How much more valuable are people than birds? How much more valuable? And the implied answer is supposed to be something like more valuable by far. Incomparably more valuable than birds. And so if God cares for his lesser creations, won't he care for you? Yes, he will. Jesus says, don't be anxious about your daily bread because God will care for his children. Verses 25 and 26, Jesus makes something of an in-between point about being anxious. Look at the text with me one more time. And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, Why are you anxious about the rest? His point here is that being anxious is fruitless. Being anxious does not help. Being anxious is not productive. He uses this illustration. He says, how can being anxious add even an hour to your span of life? How can it even do that? And the answer is that anxiety can't do that at all. Anxiety cannot help at all. You can get this picture, and again, maybe this is you, of the person who's just really anxious about when they are going to die. And so they sit around and they think about it. They stew over it. They obsess and stress about it. And for all their worry, Do they gain even an hour more of life? Not even one. Not even one. Jesus is trying to make a point that is obvious. Your anxiety and your worry can't add even an hour to your life. And see, most people aren't actually concerned with adding one more hour to their lives. Tombstones generally don't reflect how many hours someone lived. And so, if your anxiety and your worry can't even do this small thing that actually most people don't even care about, Why bother with worry and anxiety? Your anxiety can't deliver a thing. Your anxiety can't deliver food, health, peace, love, nothing. Your anxiety cannot accomplish anything. And so Jesus asks this question that's just so practical. Why bother with it then? Why bother with your worry if it won't do anything? Your worry and your anxiety are fruitless, pointless, unproductive. And now this is again the opposite of how we feel about it. If we're worried about something, and put this in your own shoes, if you are worried about something, we're likely to justify it. And we say something like, well, somebody has to worry about this. If I don't do it, who will? How is anything going to get taken care of if I'm not worrying about it? And so what we've done there is we start to believe that being productive goes hand in hand with being worried. And that's the argument that Jesus just rips away. He says your worry is not even productive. So why bother with it? Verses 27 and 28, his last illustration, he comes back to this idea of clothing. Picking up in the text again. Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, and yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass which is alive in the field today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you? Oh, you of little faith. Jesus says, consider the lilies. He says, look at them. Look at how gloriously God clothes them. And again, just like the ravens, they can't do what humans do. They can't work like people do. They can't spin yarn like people do. And yet God clothes them in more glory than even famous King Solomon was ever arrayed. And so what's Jesus's point? The grass and the flowers, they're only temporary. They're gone in a day. If God so clothes his fleeting creation, won't he even more so clothe his people? He will certainly clothe you. And Jesus then, he chides his worrying disciples. He says, oh, you of little faith. We began the passage with what I said was a partial definition of anxiety. We said to worry, to be apprehensive, to be unduly concerned. Here, Jesus is going to help us round out our definition. Because Jesus takes the staples of life, food, clothing. There's no doubting how important food and clothing are to just living. And he says that God's people should not be anxious about them. There is no one in this world who can do without food or clothing, and yet Jesus says not to be anxious about either. We think of worry and we think of anxiety as something that we do when a situation is really important. But Jesus takes two things of the highest importance, and he says that being anxious is the wrong response to both. Importance is not justification for anxiety. Jesus says, oh, you of little faith, because worry and anxiety flow from unbelief. Worry and anxiety flow from unbelief. The reason we are anxious about something is not because it is important. It is because we lack faith. Being concerned about something is not the problem. Unbelieving concern is the problem. And so here you see this problem is not too different after all from the rich fool of last week's passage. The root problem is that God is absent from our thinking. Jesus wants you to see that unbelief is at the heart of worry. When Jesus had his disciples consider the ravens and the lilies, what did the point end up being? His point was that God took care of them. His point was that they needed to turn their eyes from their circumstances and set them instead on their God. The remedy for anxiety and for worry is trusting God. Jesus wants every single child of God to be able to find the comfort that he's talking about here. He wants every single child of God to have faith's antidote to the poison of worry. So take this home, make this personal. When you are tempted to anxiety, when you are tempted to worry, just start with something simple. Do you know who your God is? Do you know who your God is? Jesus reminded his disciples that their God is the one who cares for all creation. He reminded them that every day all of creation is depending on their God and their God is rising faithfully to the challenge every day. Their all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful God is caring for even the least parts of his creation. You ask who your God is, but then you don't stop there. You also have to ask, do you trust in how he feels about you? Do you trust in how your God feels about you? Jesus doesn't give abstract theology lessons. He wanted to make sure that their theology, what they thought about God, what they knew about God, he wanted to make sure that it was very practical. Jesus wants their theology to make a difference to their hearts. If you are a redeemed child of God, then this all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful God is intensely concerned with your well-being. He counts you as precious. Jesus would say, how much more valuable are you than the birds? He would compare it to the grass. How much more will God clothe you? And implied in both of these illustrations is that God's people are precious to him. The conviction that Jesus wants every child of God to have is, of course God cares for me. Of course he cares more for me. The child of God should have no doubts about how their father loves his children. And they should know it because they are image bearers of God. They should know it because of his lifelong history, long patience and mercy for his rebellious creations. They should know it above all because Jesus came for them. He lived for them. He died for them. He rose from the dead for them. If the child of God is not convinced that he or she is precious to God, Oh, they are robbing themselves. And they're dishonoring their Heavenly Father. Child of God, hear it. You are precious to God. You are treasured by God. You are valued by God. You are loved by God. And then Jesus wants us to go one last step further. Since God is the all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful God that we know he is, and since we are his precious children, then how should that affect our outlook on life? How should that affect our outlook on life? Some of us are pessimists. We got any pessimists here today? Glass half empty types here today? We often slip into thinking that life is against us. We say things, we think things, we believe things like everything that can go wrong will go wrong. We say things like, of course that would happen to me. We say things like, I never get a break. We have this sense sometimes that all of life is against us. Where did we get this pessimism from? Where does a beloved child of the all wise, all knowing, all powerful God get the idea that all of life is against them? How does that creep into the equation? Come back to Jesus' examples. Where does a beloved child of the Almighty King get the idea that God doesn't care about them eating? Or doesn't care about them having clothing? Where does a beloved child of God get the idea that God is not passionately concerned with every single thing that his children need? Think of parents. Are we not passionately concerned with anything we think our child needs? Don't you think our Heavenly Father outdoes us in that way? If you know your God, if you know that you are precious to Him, then you should have every confidence that He cares about providing for you. And the more you know your God, the more comfort you will have. And the more you look at your salvation, the more precious you will realize you are. And a mighty God is not going to abandon his precious children. Jesus calls us to repent of the unbelief that undergirds our worries. He calls us to repent of the unbelief that no longer believes in God's goodness and God's power. He calls us to repent of the unbelief that no longer believes that God treasures his people despite all he has done for them. He calls us to repent of the unbelief that refuses to be comforted by having a mighty God who loves his people. When you are anxious, ask yourself some questions. Ask yourself, am I trusting in who my God is. If you're feeling alone, if you are feeling overwhelmed, it might be because you have forgotten how good and powerful and loving and wise your God is. Ask yourself, am I trusting in how my God feels about me? Because if you feel insignificant, if you feel worthless, it might be because you've forgotten that you have a perfect and faithful heavenly father who loves you. You are his beloved child. He can show you no greater proof than he has already shown you of how deeply he loves you. Ask yourself, when you are feeling worried and anxious, am I looking to God Or is God absent from my thinking? Jesus wants us to come back to the truth. And he wants us to let the truth push back on the unbelief and on the worry and on the fear. Jesus wants us to come back to the truth because it turns out the truth has some very good news for us. Our worries have everything to do with God being absent in our thinking, but the beautiful truth is that God is always present with his people. We worry about food, we worry about clothing, we worry about all the rest, but the beautiful truth is that Jesus Christ was broken to feed our souls. Jesus Christ died and was crucified to clothe us in righteousness, and we are the eternal beneficiaries of his immeasurable grace. We worry that things in our situation can't possibly work out, but the beautiful truth is that not only can they work out, our God is working them out. He is working all things together for good, for those who love him, for those who are called according to his purpose. Child of God, do not be anxious. Trust God and have peace. Let's pray. Our Father, we pray that you would forgive us for our unbelief. Why it is that we doubt you, we can't give a good answer. Father, forgive us and help us to have the faith to trust. The worries of our life are many. The problems of our life are many. There are so many things we can't work out, so many things we don't know how they will possibly end well. So much about this world tempts us to look away from you. Father, please help us to look to you. Help us to trust you. And we pray that you would be glorified as your people. gives you the credit you deserve for your love, for your fatherly goodness, for your wise providence over all our lives. Help us. We pray this in Jesus's name. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. 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