Our scripture reading this morning for our time in God's Word is from Matthew chapter 6. We'll be reading verses 25 through the end of the chapter. Please give your careful attention to the reading of God's Word. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life and what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body and what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 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? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to His span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field and 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 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? Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things. And your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow. For tomorrow will be anxious for itself. sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Amen? Amen. You may be seated. Let's ask the Lord's blessing as we come to his word this morning. Father, we need you. Our hearts are deaf without your spirit opening our eyes or our ears. Our hearts are blind without your spirit opening our eyes. And so we ask that you would do that this morning, that we would hear these words, all of us, that we'd hear these words, that these would not be my words, that these would be your words. Stop my mouth, Father, and speak through me. Father, may the meditations of our hearts and the words of my mouth this morning be a pleasant aroma to you. Transform us, renew our minds. Father, we pray. Bless us in Jesus' name. Amen. If there's one theme that we hit on rather regularly here from the pulpit, it is the presence of suffering in our lives and in this world. The stray visitor to TBC on any given Sunday will likely hear someone talking to some degree about the hard providences of this life. It's a common refrain that we come back to time and again. And you may be asking yourselves, why? Why do we spend so much time talking about suffering here? Well, there are at least three reasons that I can think of. There probably are more, but these three are what came to mind. First, we have all suffered. All of us here have suffered. We all know what it is to suffer. I don't care how young or old you are. In this church, Here in this church, we have a high percentage of folks who have suffered, and often grievously so. We have all experienced hard and difficult things, hard and trying things, the hard providences that God sends us. Whatever it may be, we here in this congregation know what it means to live within a creation that groans under the weight of the curse. And so the reason we bring it up here in the pulpit is because to leave our hard and brutal experiences untouched by the Word of God is like leaving a wound unbandaged and untreated. Until we face the reality of what we have experienced with open Bibles in our hands and a prayer lifted to the Spirit, our memories will fester and grow sick. And we will end up making the problem worse, just as an open wound grows gangrenous Apart from the antiseptics and a clean cloth, so too our experiences bring about emotional decay and disease unless we take them to the Holy Word of God and there let the Spirit of Jesus cleanse us. A second reason we talk about suffering a lot is because we simply want to be realistic and honest about the world that we live in. This world is a fallen world. This world is not only broken physically, but spiritually as well. In other words, the world hates Jesus. This world hates Jesus. Jesus stands in direct opposition to the wisdom and philosophy of the unbelieving systems of this world. And that false wisdom, that every day, from every angle, commands us to trust ourselves and our own feelings. Every Disney movie, believe in yourself, right? To follow the impulses of our own heart, to believe that if it feels good, it can't be wrong. to promote the tolerance of wickedness, no matter how high the cost in human lives. And the moment we stand up and say out loud that this must not continue, the moment we stand up with open Bibles and say to the world, thou shalt not, that abortion is murder, that transgenderism is a wicked violation of nature, and that the homosexual ideology is destructive to both individuals and society, let alone an abomination in God's eyes, If we stand up publicly and say any of that, we will be scorned, mocked, fired, fined hundreds of thousands of dollars, imprisoned, and in many parts of the world, martyred. You can genuinely be the world's kindest person, but if you stand fast in calling evil evil and good good, doing so according to the ultimate sovereign authority of the Word of God, you will be labeled a hater and a bigot, if not worse. I mean, think about it. Jesus himself was casting out demons, right? Casting out demons, freeing people from literal bondage to the spiritual forces of darkness. And the advocates of his time of worldly philosophy and wisdom said that this proved that Jesus had a demon. If people felt free to call Jesus demonic, he who was perfect and without sin, how much more will they malign us? If the world hated me, it will hate you, Jesus says. And again, like reason number one, if we fail to take that slander, that hatred, the threats of this world to our open Bibles in our hands, we will feel like Christian in the pilgrim's progress, burdened and sinking in the slough of despond. Remember that scene? Without foothold, without rope or staff to pull himself free. It is only the Word of God that comes like help to offer Christian a hand to pull him free from that slough. And so we open our Bibles here on Sunday mornings in order to receive the help we need to live faithfully in this world, to live boldly and confidently in the face of persecution and scorn. The third reason we talk about suffering a lot here in this pulpit is because the Bible talks so much about it. To avoid reading about suffering in the Bible, and in the New Testament especially, you have to be extremely vigilant and walk gingerly as if you were trying to cross a lawn and not step on any of the blades of grass. It is simply all over the place. Every book of the Bible gives us direction on how to live in the midst of a fallen world, in the midst of the fallen nations, in the midst of our own fallen flesh, all of which will inevitably bring suffering into our lives. You cannot read five minutes in any book of the Bible without coming across some encouragement from the Sovereign Lord of Creation that He would give to you to meditate on as you struggle and suffer under the weight of the curse in this world, whether it be through physical hardships or spiritual oppression or what. If you are going to commit to being a whole council Christian, A Christian who accepts as inspired, instructive, and edifying every single word written in your Bibles. Genesis to Revelation. If you are resolved to take the whole word of God's, the whole counsel of God's word as a necessary daily diet to be equipped for life in this world. If you are committed to the mindset that God said it, that settles it. then you will encounter on a daily basis what God has to say about the nature and purpose of suffering in this world, in your life. But the Bible is no way morose or morbid, is it? It doesn't present us with a doom and gloom, woe is me, run for the hills kind of approach to suffering. Not at all. Rather, it simply assumes the reality of suffering. Again, whether because of the fallen nature of our creation or the weakness of our unbelief, it assumes the reality of suffering and offers us hope. It comes like help to the sloughed spawn, reaching out his strong hand and lifting us free of the muck. And what is that help? What is the encouragement that our Father gives us regarding our suffering? We've seen it clearly in these past two weeks in Revelation 6 so far. That encouragement is that 2,000 years ago, Jesus ascended on the clouds of heaven, took the throne offered him at the right hand of the ancient of days, came into possession of his inheritance, and began to rule all the nations which he had been given. The encouragement is that Jesus is now King of kings and Lord of lords. Amen? This is not just some spiritual mantra we Christians like to repeat, is it? There is a real throne in heaven, as real as the White House, where Jesus sits with real and practical authority over the White House, real and practical authority over the Kremlin, real and practical authority over every human institution and form of government. That means no president, no king, no state official or county judge can do anything, can do anything apart from the sovereign administrations of our King Jesus. And not only have human rulers and governors been subjected to his authority, but all the cosmic forces of darkness, the rulers of the air, the powers and authorities in Satan's camp as well. They too have been forced into submission beneath the feet of Jesus. The four horsemen, like their master Satan, are on a leash and given only limited, provisional, moderated power. Jesus reigns supreme. He has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, and that is encouraging, is it not? That's comfort. Christian to know that nothing in this world can get to me except through the loving hand of my father under the watchful and sovereign eye of King Jesus. That means everything I experience is a gift. Everything I experience is a gift from the hand of the one who loved me and gave up his life for me. the one who took my sin upon himself, took my place on that cross, died the death that I deserved, was buried in my tomb, and there abandoned all the guilt that my sin incurs. In Jesus I am free. And now he sits enthroned in the heavenly places, ruling over every nanosecond and every square inch of this created world. even now beginning to make all things new. And my suffering, the discipline that I experience, the difficulties that I encounter because they force my eyes off of self and onto Jesus, though unpleasant at first, afterward yield the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it. Hebrews 12. That means even my suffering, even my hardships, even the trials in my life, are now a part of that great work of the redemption of my whole person that begins on the inside and works itself out. As a new creation, one that has been crucified with Christ and made alive in Him, everything I am about now is oriented around the person and work of Jesus. The undercurrent of each of my actions in this world is obedience to Jesus. Salvation is not simply me 2.0, my old self just cleaned up a bit, my old priorities with church ranking somewhere near the top of that list. No, it is an entirely new me, an entirely different me. In fact, it is no longer me at all, but Christ in me, made alive in me. This means my will, my desires, my interests must now be aligned with His. My purpose is now defined by His will and His desire. So what is the will and desire and the pleasure of God that we now align our wills with? Simply put, to save the world through Jesus. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him, John 3, 17. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 2 Peter 3, 9. This is His will. This is His pleasure. And what's more, it is the very mission that He has given us to do, right? This is what He's called us for. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5, 20. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, Matthew 28, 18 through 20, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places, Ephesians 3, 10. This means that every experience, every trial, every point of discipline and refinement that comes to us from the hand of our loving Father is not simply for our own sakes alone. When we suffer, it's not just for us. Rather, it is meant to strengthen us and equip us for the task ahead, for the purpose of our mission. I'm being refined and sanctified in order to be trained and equipped to destroy strongholds. to tear down arguments and lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God. I am given difficult Red Sea moments to strengthen my faith in order to declare out loud what God has done for me. I am led through dark valleys so that the hope of Christ within me might shine the brighter, leading me into opportunities to defend the hope that is in me with gentleness and respect. I am picking up my cross, in other words, not just to pick up a cross, not because I enjoy the weight and rough texture of the beams. No, I pick up my cross that I might follow after Jesus, so that I might walk next to him, doing what he has called me to do, what he has given me life to do, what he has brought me out of the grave to do. We are to be kingdom seekers, in other words. Going after the lost and broken in this world and bringing them the hope of the gospel. Just as someone went after you and brought you the hope of the gospel. So now we go out bringing that hope to others. We take the place of help in Pilgrim's Progress. Searching out fellow sinners stuck in their own sloughs of despond and offering them the true help of the gospel in Jesus Christ. With all of that framing our thoughts, with all of that in the back of our minds as we've been looking at these things for many, many weeks now, in fact years, this relationship between suffering on the one hand and our purpose, our mission in this world on the other, let's take a look at this passage here in Matthew 6 that we know well. We've heard it read before, we've studied it, we've looked at it many, many times. It's a comforting, comforting passage. But I want to look at it again this morning and maybe with some fresh eyes given where we've been. So just to give some context, Jesus is in the middle of giving his Sermon on the Mount, pointing his listeners toward holiness, right? Exposing within them the insidious and inward nature of sin, not just outside of the cup stuff, not just external religiosity is required, but inside of the cup. It's not enough not just to kill someone, you have to also not call them a fool in your heart. Not content with outward righteousness, Jesus is driving home the point that to be holy as God is holy is to be holy all the way down, inside as well as outside. And to that end, just before the portion that Steve just read, Jesus warns his listeners that you cannot serve two masters. It's either God or money. It's either God or mammon. It's either God or stuff. He says in verse 24, you will either hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot have two ruling authorities. We've talked about lodestars before, right? That star at night that provides direction to a sailor who's sailing his boat and navigating by the stars without instruments, without panels. There's a lodestar that they point toward, and as long as they keep their ship pointed to that star, they know that they'll get to where they're heading. But you can't have two lodestars, or else you won't get anywhere, right? You can't have two masters, you can't have two governing principles. You must either serve God to the exclusion of all else, or you must serve what is essentially your own lusts. Those are the only two options. Every question of authority and obedience comes down to this. Every action proceeds from one of these two postures. Either we are obeying God or we are obeying our own passions. We cannot have it both ways and there is no middle road. which is why Jesus said up in verse 19, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there is your heart, there your heart will be also. In other words, if your treasure is here on earth, If what gives you a sense of identity and worth, if what defines you as a person, if what gives you utter fulfillment and satisfaction, if what makes you say, ah, now I am safe, if whatever that is is found here on this earth, in yourself, in your friend, in your job, in your hobbies, in your bank account, then Jesus would liken you to the foolish man who built his house on sand. You're trying to set sail in a boat made of paper and cardboard, putting your faith in its ability to carry you across the sea. Not that there's anything wrong with paper and cardboard, right? Nothing wrong with wealth, nothing wrong with hobbies, nothing wrong with the things God made in this world. Obviously not, because he looked at them and said, behold, they are very good. They just make lousy saviors, that's all. The things of this world cannot last, and so it is foolish to put our hope in them. It is like trying to hang up a jacket on itself, right? It will only actually stay hung if you use a hook fixed to the wall. So too with our hope, in order to be hope at all, it needs to be fastened onto something that will last, something eternal, something that transcends the limits of this created universe. That something is God himself, isn't it? He alone transcends the limits of this created universe. Our treasure must be laid up where He is, where Christ sits at the right hand of the Father. And if our treasure is there, then nothing in this world can shake it loose. If our identity, if what defines us, if what gives us fulfillment and satisfaction, if what makes us say, now I am safe, is Jesus, then our hope of salvation, our hope of eternal life, our hope of meaning and purpose in the midst of the trials here and now, that hope cannot be destroyed. Though we are afflicted in every way, we are not crushed. Though we are perplexed, we are not driven to despair. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. And where our treasure is, Jesus says, there our hearts are also. And by heart, he means the desires of our heart that control our actions. The desires of our heart act as a rudder steering us in a particular direction, toward the achievement of a particular end. And if our desires are defined by Jesus, by his word, by his person, and the life that he has given us in himself, then our rudder will steer us toward him, toward what he has set us apart to do. And this is important to understand coming to verse 25, coming to our text. Jesus himself says, therefore. He always asks, what's the therefore therefore? And that means everything he just said naturally and necessarily leads up to what he is about to say in verse 25. Where your heart is, where your treasure is, where your loyalty is, where your obedience is, that is the foundation of what he says in verse 25. Therefore, because your treasure is in heaven and cannot be destroyed, because you serve God to the exclusion of serving money and your own lusts, therefore 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. I had this memory of sometime, probably seven or eight in grade school, and some teacher writing on the blackboard, the three basic essentials of life. Without these three things, they were saying I would probably die. Figured this is a good time to start taking notes. And those three things, you all know, are food, shelter, and clothing, right? If you never eat food, you will eventually starve. If you go around naked all the time, sooner or later the elements will have their way with you. And if you live without some kind of shelter from those same elements, the same thing will eventually happen. And the less hardy and resourceful you are, the sooner that eventual end will come. We all need food. We all need clothing. We all need shelter. And shelter really is just essentially the same thing as clothing, but just on a larger scale. A coat and a house do the same thing. They're effectively the same thing and it's precisely these two categories then, if we put clothing and shelter together, it's these two categories that Jesus talks about here, food and shelter, food and clothing. And what does he tell us to do with regard to these things? Do not be anxious about them. Why? Because your treasures are in heaven where hope cannot be destroyed and you serve God and not money. That's why. Well, how does that follow, we might ask? Why would Jesus connect these two sections with a therefore? Why is that word there? Because serving God and not money means trusting that he is sovereign over everything that money can buy. Specifically, as Jesus goes on to describe, the essentials of food and clothing, or food and shelter. Do we trust our God to that level of detail, Jesus is asking. Do we trust him for that warmer jacket that we truly need? Do we trust him for tomorrow's lunch? I pray that you are still all in the habit of giving thanks before sitting down to eat a meal, whether you're by yourself or with others. But when was the last time that we thought about why we thanked God for our food? Do we sit down and thank the Lord for the food? Because, well, that's just what we do as Christians, right? Or are we in that moment recognizing that we have this food in front of us because God put it there? Is that what motivates our hearts to say grace? That this meal is itself a grace? A gift? Something given to us by our Father? Because that is where every meal you eat comes from. Look at what Jesus says in verse 26. Are you not of more value than they? Fun fact for the morning. It's estimated that there are about 250 billion birds alive in the world right now. Go impress your neighbors with that one. But do you realize that God knows each one, cares for each one, and makes sure each one has something to eat? Just think about that. Your Heavenly Father is feeding a quarter of a trillion birds right now. How much more will He not also make sure you have food to eat? If He cares for and feeds the birds, which are far less valuable to Him than you are, according to Jesus, He will care for you and feed you also. Verse 27, and which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? When is it that we start growing anxious about our life? When things are going really well? Or when things aren't going that well? When things are hard and we are on the cliffs of the Red Sea? Obviously, it's when we are in a difficult place, when we are experiencing hardships, when there aren't actually any groceries in the fridge. And either by a lack of strength or by a lack of money, we are not able to fill our pantries with food. In that moment, not when you have full cupboards, but when you have empty cupboards, in that moment, Jesus is saying, anxiety accomplishes absolutely nothing. In fact, anxiety in the sense of fear simply puts on display where our hope and treasures actually are. If there's nothing in our fridge and we do not have the means to fill it, and we freak out to the point of fear and anxiety, we are revealing that our hope has actually been in self, in our own ability to remain self-sufficient and self-reliant. But if our treasure is in heaven, if our hearts are in heaven, if our hope is seated at the right hand of the Father, then we can be confident that that is where our next meal will come from. Our anxiety does nothing to add to our span of life. Psalm 127, it is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest eating the bread of anxious toil. Why? Because it is God that builds the house or else it don't get built. It is God that gives you food or else you don't eat. He puts food on the table. And if in the good times, instead of fear and anxiety, we are tempted to think, well, my high-paying job put this food on the table, ha, ha, ha. Not God. Well, that's just another form of Nebuchadnezzar's, is not this great Babylon which I have built by my mighty power. And look what, you don't want to do what Nebuchadnezzar did. Instead of eating steak, he became a cow that day. If you are tempted to trust to your job, to your own employment, to your superior business acumen, stop. That's a directive from God's Word. Do not lay up treasures here where moth and rust destroy. Job here today, gone tomorrow. It is God who raises up kingdoms and takes them down. It is He who gives us gainful employment and takes it away. And blessed be the name of the Lord. And why does He do this? so that we might trust that He is God and we are not. That we are dependent on Him for everything. And that means that we trust Him to be faithful to meet our needs, no matter how dire our situation may look, to our limited, finite vantage point. He fights our battles. Remember Exodus 14? He fights our battles and asks that we only be silent. and trust with thanksgiving and faith. To be clear before we move on, this of course doesn't mean that we just sit on the couch waiting for food to magically descend from heaven, right? Of course we are to be out walking in faithfulness and obedience following the course of wisdom. What Jesus is saying is not to do nothing, but rather to not grow anxious about it, as if there is no one in control higher than yourself. There is, and He cares for you far more than He cares for the birds. Trust and obedience go hand in hand. Waiting for the Lord is not loitering before the gates of heaven, but rather an active and faithful pursuit of wisdom. But in hitting the pavement and being diligent with what He has given us to pursue, we do so trusting that God will meet our needs and fill our stores, and in His good time and in His good way, in order to make manifest His faithfulness to us. And not just to us, but through us to those watching, to those around us. I don't want to belabor the point, but the same could be said about clothing and by implication shelter as well, as Jesus himself goes on to say in verses 28 through 30, And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, 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 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? It doesn't say, O you of great faith. O you of little faith he's going to clothe. When that impulse to grab the reins and to take control of our lives starts creeping up, it is because to some degree we do not trust God to care for us. We do not trust him to provide the essentials we need to live. But here's the point of all this. Your father has to provide you with life's essentials for as long as he wants you here. Because you have a job to do. Back up in verse 25, Jesus says, is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? There is a greater purpose to our life, a greater purpose for our body than simply eating and being clothed. Those seem like incredibly important things that we surely need to worry about, but Jesus is saying, don't. Your Heavenly Father will feed you. He's got it. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. He will make sure you have something to eat. He will make sure you have clothes to wear and a place to live. He will do it. Though they seem like massively important things to us, they are small potatoes to God, Jesus is saying. And he is saying here, because of that, stop anxiously fretting about those things. I will take care of you. Imagine a young student sitting in school who has just been given the assignment of writing a summary of a book that they have just read in class. And she is freaking out because she didn't bring any paper or pencils. In my imagination, this is a young girl because I don't think a young boy would even care that he didn't have paper or pencils to do the assignment. But this young girl is freaking out because she doesn't have any of the tools to do this assignment. And the teacher tries to calm her down, saying, don't worry about the paper and the pencils. I have plenty. I will provide you with those things, as much as you need. What I want you to think about now is the assignment. Don't be anxious for the tools you need to do the assignment. Leave those up to me. That's what Jesus is telling us here. Food, clothing, shelter, those are merely the tools that you need to go out and do what I have called you, Jesus says. Don't worry about them. Your Father in Heaven will make sure you have enough. Instead, I want you focused on something much, much greater. He'll add them. Your mission, Christian, your vocation in this world as an ambassador of the gospel and as a child of God is to seek the kingdom and his righteousness, trusting that as you do so, the means and tools needed, such as food, clothing, shelter, and all these things, they will be added unto you. That means everything you are about, everything you do, everything you say, everything you set out to accomplish needs to be riding on the back of this all-encompassing mission, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Thy Kingdom come, we pray. Thy will be done, we pray. Here and now, in this life, during the span of these years, these short years that we have on this planet, seek the Kingdom. That means if you are prizing anything in this world above the kingdom of God, you are doing it wrong. Money, food, shelter, clothing, they cannot be the primary goal of our lives. The cisterns that hold no water, as we were reading earlier in Jeremiah 2. For they are merely tools that enable us to accomplish the greater task that we were set apart to do. Imagine being a carpenter. If you are hired to build a house, how useful is it to go out and just start collecting hammers? Every kind of hammer you can think of. You have a garage full of them. In fact, you have so many that you are now an expert in hammers. If anyone had a question about hammers, you could answer it for sure. But what about the project you were hired to do? What about what a hammer is actually for? And all your excitement over hammers you neglected to actually build the house. Are we so enamored of the tools of this life, so anxious about the things of this world, that we neglect the purpose for which they are all given to us? Are we neglecting to build the house? For that is what it means to go out and seek the kingdom. That word seek, it means to strive after, to pursue, to endeavor to obtain. And what is the kingdom? That great and growing body of sinners made alive by the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, with all the money, food, clothes, and shelter that we have in our own tool belts, we are to be out there seeking, pursuing, endeavoring to obtain the Kingdom of God, which is the continually growing and expanding body of men, women, and children from all tribes, all tongues, all nations, all families of the earth, discipled, baptized, and taught to obey everything that Jesus said. We are to be out there building a house through us, through the preached Word of God, through the Word of God lived out in our lives, through our love for one another. The Father is building us up as a spiritual house brick by brick. 1 Peter 2, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. That is seeking the kingdom. It is Ephesians 4 where Paul says that we have been given apostles, prophets, evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. It is the lump of leaven working through the whole loaf. It is the mustard seed that grows into a tree. It is running the race that is set before us. It is not growing weary. It is forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, pressing on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. It is striving for the sake of the gospel until the earth is as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. We have work to do, my friends. Money and everything money can buy are simply tools to accomplish that far greater project. And our Father has promised to provide all the tools that we need. This means, by the way, that if we don't have it, it is not necessary at this particular moment to our larger purpose. which is to glorify God and lead others to do the same. Is that our hope? Is that our chief concern? Do our prayers reflect this? Father, provide what I need so that I can glorify your name with my life, that your grace might shine through me, that through my testimony of your faithfulness others may hear the call of Christ. Is that what we're praying? This is another reason why we talk about suffering as much as we do here at Trinity. Suffering faithfully, suffering with our eyes fixed on Jesus, orients us around what it is that he is accomplishing in this world and in us and through us. As he refines us, as he disciplines us, as he trains us, as he equips us through the unpleasant hardships he lovingly and graciously sends us, Jesus is making us whole. He is making us more like Himself. He is growing us up into holiness. Back to Ephesians 4, He is building up His own body until we all attained the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. I look at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ and then I look at my own life and there's a long way to go. Huge discrepancy. That's what this life is for. That's what God's doing now through trials, through hardships, through suffering, tearing my eyes off of the things of this world and placing them on Christ. Placing them in heaven where moth and rust cannot destroy. That is what we are being provided and equipped for, to be kingdom-seekers, kingdom-builders, kingdom-heralds, kingdom-warriors, kingdom-disciplers, kingdom-preachers, kingdom-teachers, kingdom-nurturers, kingdom-servants, kingdom-givers, kingdom-comforters. Some will become preachers behind the pulpit. Some will be teachers in the home. Some will be auto mechanics that fix cars for the glory of God. Some will be accountants and dentists and artists and doctors. all doing their job for the purpose of magnifying the name of Jesus, letting their light shine in the darkness, being a witness to the mercy and grace of the gospel, living out a visible and tangible hope that stops others in their tracks. To be a kingdom seeker doesn't mean being a full-time church employee. It's a misconception, misunderstanding. We are all of us already full-time ambassadors. There are no part-time Christians, in other words. And the Father has given each of us a unique set of passions and desires so as to take the Gospel with us into those arenas and reach the loss that we encounter there with the hope that is in us. This is what Peter is getting at in 1 Peter 4 when he says, As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever speaks as one who speaks oracles of God. Whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies. in order that, in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. Each of us has been given a gift, something unique to us, to our personality, to our temperament and talents. Seeking the kingdom first means understanding what that gift is and then using it as a good steward of God's very grace so that, in everything, the Father might be glorified through Christ. Take some personal inventory this afternoon. Do you know what your gift is? If so, how are you using it to glorify the Father through Jesus Christ? In what ways are you seeking the Kingdom through the ministry of your talents and abilities, recognizing that your talents and abilities were given to you by God Himself for that very purpose? If you don't know what your gift is, go and ask some of your close brothers and sisters. Ask what they see God has set you apart to do. Where in the body of Christ do you fit? Are you an eye? A mouth? An ear? What particular ministry have you been equipped for? Where have you been placed in this world and what might that say about what God wants you to do with the time and energy and resources given to you? Your gifting cannot serve two masters. Your gifting must either serve self or serve God. And if it serves only your own passions, your own hobbies, your own desires, it will lead to fear, anxiety, and eventual despair. For the person who serves self has put their hope and treasure in something transient and fleeting that cannot last. Setting sail in a boat made of paper and cardboard. But if your gifting is submitted to the authority of the Father, It will serve to grow the kingdom of heaven here on earth. It will lead to righteousness and holiness and faith and life and peace. Is this what we pray for as a church? We sit here at the gateway of the San Lorenzo Valley and hundreds, if not thousands, of people drive by us every day. What is our testimony to them? What do people out there think of us in here? Do they think of us as kingdom seekers? Do they see us as a body of folks who are all about Jesus? Or are we indistinguishable? Do we blend in with the world to the point of erasing any differences? We as a church have a job to do, and that job doesn't end until we each of us draw our final breath. we must be seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And that means praying, thy kingdom come here in Felton. Thy kingdom come here in Santa Cruz. Praying for opportunities to share our testimonies with others. Opportunities to encourage friends and neighbors with the gospel. Opportunities to put the glory of Jesus Christ on display. Do we pray as we are about to sing to be filled with dauntless love It's a great phrase. Dauntless, as in a love that is fearless, that is free of anxious toil and anxious thought. Do we pray for that kind of love for Jesus so that our hearts and wills might be set on the things above, testifying to the fact that we conquer both fear and death through the triumph of Christ over the grave? Do we pray for what is sufficient for the day so that by our life we would ever say, Christ hath triumphed, and he liveth. Let that be the prayer of our heart, trusting him with everything so that we might be equipped in all things to strive after the kingdom of God and his righteousness, believing that his promise that all things will follow afterwards, all things will be added unto us. Father, we want our eyes fixed on Jesus. We want our eyes glued to Jesus. We want our hearts so filled with confidence that the things of this world, the money that's needed to buy food, clothing, and shelter, the things that are tools that you promised to give us, we want to be filled with the confidence that you indeed will do it. That in fact, you have promised to do it, and your promises are faithful and true. And that we can trust you. That we do not need to go after things with clenched fists taking hold of the reins, trying to make things happen in our own strength. But we can trust you as we go out, as we're diligent to pursue in wisdom and obedience, can trust that you will bring in your time, in your way, so that you might get the glory. Father, fill us with such a confidence. Fill us with such a dauntless love for Jesus, that our whole life would be defined by seeking the Kingdom. Father, that might be the one lodestar that directs everything that we do. Father, it doesn't mean that we need to sell everything and go be missionaries somewhere else. We are missionaries here in this world. And the things that we have, our possessions, they are merely tools that you give us to pursue that end. Father, our ordinary lives are useful to you for the increase and expansion of your kingdom. Let us give them up to you. Let us render them to you for service. Father, do this in us. We need your Spirit. We need your help. We trust in you alone. And in your name we pray. Amen. Amen. In response, let's stand this morning and sing, Now Let the Vault of Heaven Resound. It's a song that we often only sing at Easter, but hey, we need to sing it all the time. So let's sing it together.