Well, this is Pastor Doug Siggins, and just as a caveat before you listen to this message, I'm going to give you a warning that we actually gave to our congregation at the end of the service, really in regards to anxiety and anxiety medication. In the middle of this message, I do address anxiety and anxiety medication, and one response you might have in your mind is to immediately go out and throw all your medications away, and we would strongly caution you not to do that. We understand very well that there are body issues. Our bodies are broken. Our minds are broken. We have physiological needs, and sometimes medication can be very useful for that. We also find that medication can be useful, especially initially in treatment of somebody that has anxiety, where it just helps them calm their brain so they can begin sorting out what is physiological and what is spiritual. So, we would encourage you to be discerning and be thoughtful, be under the care of a medical physician, be seeking biblical counseling from your pastor as you sort out how to best honor the Lord in your struggles and live faithfully. So, with that caveat, here is the message. While I'm getting set, let's open our Bibles to Matthew 6. We are continuing really in the middle of a message that I started two weeks ago, beginning in Matthew 6. I'm going to read this morning, starting at verse 19 to verse 34. The setting for this, I really didn't talk about last time, but this is a sermon on the mount. Jesus is on a hill speaking to a group. We don't really know the size of the group. We know the disciples were there. But much of the teaching that he was giving them was revolutionary. And even as we approach this scripture, this is new teaching. This is teaching that really challenged whether people were seeking to self-righteousness, to have a right standing before God through their own works and their own self-righteousness. Jesus is introducing this whole new understanding that obedience comes from the heart and God sees the heart and evaluates the heart and there's no possible way we could have righteousness in our own works, through our own labors, but calls us to this whole new living, really this kingdom living as we'll see next week. Matthew 6, 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 your heart will be also. The eye is a lamp to the body, so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will nor about your body, 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 in barns, and yet the Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they? And which of you, 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, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in 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? But the Gentiles seek after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 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. Let's pray. Father, we come to this passage. Lord, may it be as shaking to us as it was to the initial hearers. We are to live for your kingdom. We are to live in faith. And that you are a good God, a powerful God. A God that knows us and loves us. A God that will care for us. Father, oh how we do store up treasures on this earth. How we seek after providing in our own strength. Lord, may you cause us to turn, to love, to trust you. Father, may we not be anxious for these things of the world. May our faith grow. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. So last week we covered verses, two weeks ago, 19 through 24. We talked a little bit about just the admonition to not lay up treasures in earth, for they will perish, for they will capture our affections, for they will corrupt you and affect your witness, and they will eventually own you. So there's admonition to not store up those treasures. He said, but instead lay up treasures in heaven. We were left wondering, though, what those treasures were, and I didn't deal specifically with that. And we will deal a little bit today, but next week we're really moving towards next week's teaching when we deal with chapter 6, verse 33. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. And so that's where we're moving. But Jesus didn't start with that verse. He started with some warnings. And he started with dealing with the complexity of the life that we live in. And he was teaching them. And today we are going to be taught about anxiety. And how we think about this that we have been tasked to do. And the very fabric of our being designed to provide and protect and care for ourselves and our families. and how we live in the context of that so that we are not anxious about those things, but that we're seeking after God in his truth and trusting in him. Our tendency as people is to gather the resources that God has given us, to collect them, to see the gifts and the resources and to use them for our own satisfaction. And by nature, we are self lovers and we desire our own comfort and our own protection, our own care. And so we tend to gather things to ourselves to be used for our own satisfaction. And that would be seeking treasures and storing them up on earth. And what God is calling us to is to reevaluate that, Not to reevaluate our labors for those things, but what we do with them in the context of that in our life. Today, we're going to deal with verses 25 through 32, really under two general headings. The first one is you are fearful, but you are valuable. You're fearful or anxious, but you are valuable. And the second one is you are weak, but you are loved. And so we're going to deal with those two concepts and work through this passage. Each one of those points, though, is broken to really something that we are, a brokenness, a weakness, a trial or a struggle, and something that God is, something that God, how he sees us, how he interacts with us. The first one is we are fearful or anxious, that we are valuable. And you are indeed anxious. It's part of our nature to be anxious, to be fearful, to be worried. Many of your translations use the word worry there. We'll get to the King James Translation in a minute. But Jesus knows the condition of man. When He's teaching this, He understands the heart condition. When He says, do not lay up treasures on earth, but lay up treasures in heaven," he knows the immediate response, the base, guttural response of those hearers is one of almost exasperation, one of saying, well, how could we possibly do that? And he knows that immediately there's going to be an anxiety as people begin to process that truth, that teaching, that heart teaching in our minds, because we are by nature self-lovers and we collect to satisfy ourselves. And Jesus knows the condition of man. Men will tend to miss the treasures of God and focus on the treasures of the world. We are by nature, we do not look to the giver or the creator or the sustainer of life, but what He has given us. And we collect and we gather and we store for our own good. This section begins with, therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and body more than clothing? The word therefore is the word in the Greek that can be translated into a myriad of terms. But since therefore, and in this case, therefore would be appropriate, but it doesn't really help us understand the transition Therefore, because we were told that we are not to store up treasures in earth, treasures in heaven, that we cannot love God and we cannot love money. And then he gives us the word therefore. And this is really a transition in this whole thing. And he's really saying, since by nature you're going to fight against this, since you are going to struggle against this that I've just taught you, since this is going to be difficult for you, foreign to you, to your nature and those things that you've thought about, then this. So sense those things, this. Since you're going to struggle to treasure the things of the world, since you're going to have affections for those things of the world, since you're going to be tempted by your eyes, since you will be prone to love money more than God, do not be anxious. Do not be anxious. Anxiety is a part of our nature. part of the fall? Was there anxiety in the garden? Was there worry, trepidation, concern about how I was going to be cared for, my provision, my care in the garden? Well, certainly not. But as sin came into the picture and the ramifications of sin were played out, in Genesis 3.23 we see God say, Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man. And for the first time, this paradise, this perfect setting, was broken and twisted and dissolved. And man now felt exposed. I've talked about that in relation to fear. Vulnerable, exposed, cast out, now needing to labor and toil to provide for their basic needs. Food, clothing, shelter, those types of things. But that is all part of and ramifications of the fall. We're driven out. Anxiety and worry are terms that are synonymous. They flow out of a sense of fear, though. You cannot have anxiety without fear or worry without fear. They flow out of this understanding of fear. And fear is a response to a situation where we need to protect ourselves or where we're in danger. It's a blessing that God has given us fear, but it's part of the curse. It was to protect us and care for us. It was in His kindness. We have a sense of fear. We are wired to fight or fight or hide to protect ourselves. And that is so that we could survive in the outermost when we were cast out. And this fear has allowed us to survive. But it is also broken and also a binding, and also part of our sinful nature. Fear, in a positive sense, requires that we give all of our undivided attention to something. If you can remember to a place where you have been fearful, strikingly fearful, all of your undivided attention, all of your senses, everything else is immediately shut out of our life, and all of our senses, all of our being is focused on one thing. all of our thoughts, all of our physiological responses, all the mechanisms that we have in place to provide strength and quickness and alertness in that situation. We are put on hyper alert. We're keyed up and ready for the pending engagement. We're in a state of fear. And isn't that a beautiful picture? When we are called to fear God. When the Lord says fear me," he's saying, with all your undivided attention, with all of your senses, with all of your being, with everything blocked out, have complete regard for me, all of our senses. Anxiety are the thoughts that flow out of that fear. Anxieties are the thoughts and emotions that flow out of fear, their prolonged sense, kind of the ripple effect, the effects of in our life from this fear or from a traumatic situation. We could call anxiety a prolonged or agitated fear. And it is that we find here. The sense of having a fear and then living in the effects of or the ramifications of this fear. And it impacts us. And it will control us and it will manipulate us. And it will cause us to respond in ways that don't make rational sense. Jesus says, do not be anxious about your life, what you eat or what you drink, nor about your body. What you will put on. Is there really any more basic of a fear than going hungry or being unclothed, vulnerable, naked? And we're dealing with the most rudimentary base fear that we can have, is a sense that we would be starving or our families would be without. And we are an anxious people. By nature we're anxious, but in our context, in our culture, We are a particularly anxious people. Some of the studies I read this week said that up to 13% of Americans are taking some sort of anxiety medication. Upwards of 13%. Which is a staggeringly high level compared to other cultures and other places on the globe. That doesn't account for the untold number of people that are self-medicating. through drugs and alcohol and all kinds of other things to alleviate the anxieties in their life. I talked to a doctor this week who stopped by the church to check out the church and the school and different things, who's an ER doctor in Rawlins, and we were talking about the people that come in there and how many of them really don't have a physiological issue but have a spiritual issue or an anxiety issue. How they've been overrun by the complexity and the chaos of life and it's turned up in their life in some physiological form. But they're really not broken physiologically. At the center, they're broken through the stress of life. debilitating anxiety, panic attacks are pervasive in our culture. You can go to cultures where they don't even understand that concept. They don't understand what we're talking about now. Panic attacks, deep, abiding anxiety, crippling, huge impact on our culture right now. And so we are an anxious people. So when we hear a verse like, do not be anxious, it is a very counter-cultural concept to not be anxious. It seems in our pursuit of ease and comfort, to be happy, all the things that our American lifestyle promotes and offers to us, the fulfillment and the attainment of earthly possessions and modern conveniences, that it has had an opposite effect on us. It hasn't given us comfort. It has made us a stressed out, anxious people. Just as our text explains, much of our anxiety flows from a concern over our care and our future. But we also live lives so keyed up, so agitated, so engaged in the marketplace, so engaged in our lifestyles. We live such a keyed up stress life that, based on consumption and seeking after those things, that we are regularly in a state of stress. hyper vigilance which is leaving in a perpetual leaves us in a perpetual state of anxiety depression and despair so this text although it was preached on a hillside to a very simple people in a very simple time and they were dealing with anxieties of food and clothing in a much greater sense we have to take the warnings to heart because we are a people seeking after those treasures on earth We have come to a place in our culture where, partly through the last 15 years in war, where we talk a lot about PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. It's really anxiety in an exponential and magnified sense. Where there was a very traumatic event, and you're living with the ramifications and the effects of that now in your life. Could have been on a battlefield somewhere. It could have been in a childhood circumstance that you've lived through as a child. But I can't tell you the amount of times that I have PTSD conversations now in our culture as people are overwhelmed by the anxieties of life. Sometimes it comes through living in a hyper-vigilant state, keyed-up state over a prolonged period of time as a soldier might, who maybe was never engaged in direct combat, but lived in the environment or context of combat, always unsure, always fearful, always guarding themselves. Hyper-vigilant state. And then they come home after a year of that. Although they've never seen traumatic situations, they do not now know how to live in an unkeyed, unvigilant state. And we would call that post-traumatic stress disorder, which is just a hyper sense of anxiety. The wave, instead of rippling effects of anxiety from a fear event, we are dealing with tidal waves. that carry on and carry on. And so all of these things that we have this morning are for us, whatever state we're in. Whether we're living in very traumatic, difficult anxiety levels, or we're just feeling the pressures and the weight of life. So let's talk a little bit more of anxiety as we have it here. The King James, interesting enough, does not use anxiety, nor the word worry. The way that this term is phrased, rightfully so, in the King James says, take no thought for yourself. Isn't that interesting? The Greek here means take no thought for yourself. And that's translated into our modern English as anxiety and worry. So at the very foundational level of anxiety and worry is an overindulgence or an overthoughtfulness in myself. And that's what we find here. He says, don't have an overindulgence of thought in yourself. What would they be thinking? Well, what am I going to eat? What am I going to wear about my body, my security? He says, don't have an overindulging thought about that. Interesting. How is this different than just being responsible and fulfilling your duties? Well, we know we're supposed to be thoughtful and intentional and laboring to faithfully provide for ourselves, but that's not what this is talking about. This is having a fear that causes us to have an overindulged thought process about what we're going to eat, about what we're going to wear. So our thoughts are not about being faithful and seeking the Lord, and as we'll learn next week, seeking after His kingdom and His righteousness. We're not thinking of things of the Lord, we're thinking of things of ourselves. And our fear grows and our anxiety really controls our thought process. In other words, do not put your thoughts on or be consumed with what you will eat or what you will drink or what you will cover yourself with. Do not turn your eyes to yourself or your own care. Do not let your thoughts have free reign cycle in your mind as they see fit, growing in your self-focus and building on the anxiety. The anxiety and fear are the concern for self. And it's really the opposite of focusing on God or focusing on our neighbor. The term is, take no thought of your life. Do not be self-focused. So when we read this term, anxious, we need to think about it as, I am overly concerned with myself. My thoughts are controlling my feelings, and they will. And I'll have actual feelings. There'll be things that happen to me internally to the point that if they continue to grow, I could have a panic attack. I could be debilitated. I could be crushed by these things. But they really initiate from and flow out of an unhealthy thought pattern and regard for myself. We see that, and when I dealt with fear a couple months ago and I preached on fear, we see in 1 John 4, 8 where it says, there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. And there we see the antithesis. There we see a perfect love for God or a perfect love for another casts out fear because I'm not regarding myself to the level I once was. I'm not as fearful because my thoughts are on God and my thoughts are on another. Anxiety creates oftentimes a growing self-love. Every time our thoughts cycle through, they pick up more momentum and more power, and there's greater things I could be anxious about, and they become larger and larger. So out of our basic sinful brokenness, we naturally turn our thoughts to our own needs and realizing our own weaknesses. And we will become anxious about life, starting with the most basic needs of food and clothing. And that's what we see here. If our attention is not redirected to God and redirected to our neighbor, The world and Satan and our flesh will provide ample opportunities for us to seek after things, be discontent, to think that we are lacking, be self-consumed. It's an interesting study that's going on right now and an interesting program right now for veterans that are struggling from PTSD. And we have a gentleman in the community that's very involved in this program of providing dogs for soldiers with PTSD. So what could a dog do for a soldier? What is it that a dog would provide for a soldier that would help them with their post-traumatic stress disorder? other than taking their thought cycle from free-flowing cycle in their head to being applied to another thing. I now have to care for, I'm loved by, I get to love, I get to train, I get to nurture, I get to be with this dog. And my thoughts now are not about myself all the time. I have regard for another. And it begins this cycle of relaxing this whole anxiety that's been built up. And it's the care of another. And so we see that. And of course, we would expect that to happen. And if I could find a way to take my thoughts off myself, even in a secular sense, and apply them to a dog, I will be less anxious. And that supports our very foundational presupposition this morning, that anxiety is thought for ourselves. So you are fearful, but remember, you are valued. Life is more than food and clothing. He starts out, he says, is not life more than food and body, more than clothing? This is really an argument from the greater. Is not life more than food or body more than clothing? An argument from greater to lesser. If God can create a life and a body and breathe life into something and bring this life forth, if he can create that and sustain that, This life, can't He provide for it? If He can create this body, with all the complexity and all the amazingness of this body, can't He close it? And that's his fundamental argument as he begins. You are fearing with a rational mind what God gave you, which is within the infinitely complex body which God has given you. And you are worried about something as small as, will you have food? You've used this mind for anxiety about your food? He presents for us over and over this morning a ridiculous notion, ridiculousness of this body and this mind that would be anxious about how it was going to be fed. And we have several arguments that follow from this in the kind of the opposite sense, from a lesser to a larger sense. And in verse 26, he begins laying out the ridiculousness of this, this anxiety that they are experiencing. Verse 26 says, look at the birds in the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them. The birds have been given the general means to survive. Instinctual means to survive. They're not as complex as you. They don't have a rational mind. They don't store up. They don't sow the seeds. But yet somehow the Lord provides for them. And you, oh man, is worried about how you're going to be fed. One of my favorite things to do is to sit on my porch in the mornings as the sun comes up over the trees and enjoy my coffee and read and watch the robins come on my lawn and find worms. And isn't that in and of itself a demonstration of an amazingly complex God where a bird can land on my lawn? And I did a bunch of reading trying to figure out. I always thought it was through their legs or something. We don't know, honestly. Nobody knows. There's all kinds of theories out there. The best theory is they have an ability to hear and see something going on there, to find a worm. But in that complexity, oh man, you're going to have anxiety and be controlled about what you eat? Verse 28 says, 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. The flowers cannot create a garment. They cannot purchase a blouse or a shirt. They cannot dye the material any vibrant color. They cannot weave or are knit, yet they are dressed in a splendor that Solomon can't even compare in all of his magnitude, all of his riches, all of his ability to hire craftsmen, and yet the flowers have more beauty, more complexity than all of that. And you, O man, are anxious about what you will wear. In verse 30, But if God clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? The grass of the field grows beautiful quickly and then vanishes, and it really is of very little significance. But you, old man, living the span of years that God has created and ordained for you, are you not more valuable? And that's what we see. Oh, man, we see that we see that we are not to be anxious, not to be fearful. And one of the reasons that he gives us for that, after showing us the real ridiculousness of it, it begins at the end of verse 26, where he says, and you and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more? value than they? Isn't that really the question this morning, or the pressing thing in our anxiety this morning? What is our value compared to the bird? What is our value compared to the flower? What is our value compared to the grass? Are you not made in the likeness of the Father, uniquely crafted by the Father? Are you not created to have dominion over the Father's creation? Hasn't God demonstrated His faithfulness to you over and over again? In Psalm 139, we're reminded of the complexity and the detail that God has considered us individually, uniquely. It says, For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are all your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame is not hidden from you. When I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, yet as yet there was none of them." God knows us intimately. Particularly, we are valued that flows out of His creation of us. And even more for us here today. Even more for us. What value do we have? What value has been placed on us? See, Jesus was sitting on a hill, talking to His disciples in a crowd. They had not seen Jesus go to the cross yet. They hadn't even heard some of these things yet. They had not seen the resurrected Lord. They don't have the Holy Spirit indwelled in them. Even more for us today. What value has God placed on us, particularly today? How do we, who have the fullness of revelation, the fullness of the end of the story, the risen Christ, the sympathetic high priest. How do we live lives of anxiety? How is it that we turn our thoughts inward and in the value that God has placed on us, worry and live out lives of anxiety for the things of our provision, how we will be fed and clothed? How do we calculate the value of our heavenly father? He who purchased back from the pit by the blood of Jesus, He has demonstrated the vast value the Father has for His people, that He would have His perfect Son come to earth so that those whom He loved would kill His Son and in that act find the perfect justice being satisfied, the perfect fitting punishment that a rebellious people deserve, put on Jesus. But you, my friends, How can we believe such a lofty truth, such weighty truths, such supernatural truths, if we will not believe the Heavenly Father for the smallest needs we have? How can we possibly trust God for salvation, for eternity, and doubt Him for the simplest care? How could we live lives filled with anxiety about our provision, our future, our care in light of the value the Father has for us? The next point is that we are weak. We are powerless over much of life. Verse 27 says, and which of you being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? There's a little discussion about this verse. King James says, by taking thought, can add a cubit onto his stature. And this term, cubit, is a measurement. And typically it's about 18 inches. It's from the point of your elbow to the tip of your middle finger. So your cubit would be a little shorter than my cubit. But about 18 inches. And that's the term here. The complexity is this word stature. This word stature can be used to refer to age or height. or stature, as in what kind of character you are. And in the context, though, we know that this cubit would represent a small amount to emphasize this point. Who can add a cubit to his stature? So I don't think we're talking about height. Can we add 18 inches to your height? Because that's a fairly significant measurement in the entirety of our height. But most of the translations say it is a distance, a small distance, on a large span, and typically it's thought of it would be time. How can you add a minute, an hour, a very small span of time onto your life? You are powerless. You human, you are powerless. Jesus said, how can you add one minute to your life? You have no power, capacity, ability, yet you're gonna worry about these things as if you had control, as if you could influence it. Luke 12, 26, which is a parallel passage in Luke, says, if when you are not able to do a small thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? And that's the sense. If you can't even do this thing, Why would you be worried about this? You have no control and no power over it. Are you really so deceived to think that all the worrying in the world will amount to you being able to add even a tiny span to the end of your life? What is the value in it? It distracts you. It takes your focus from the Lord. Only God is sovereign. He alone is the one that can control. Have we determined any part of our being, our height, our eye color, our gender? Did you decide in the womb to have four fingers instead of five, or one thumb instead of two, thinking it's better? How do we possibly come to the understanding that we would have an ability, through worry of all things, to add to or control anything? We are powerless over these things, and your weakness is evident in so many areas of our life. Jesus lovingly mocks us in our arrogance. And which of you, being anxious, control all you are afraid of? And then in verse 30, he says, Oh, you have little faith. And he ties these things together. Oh, you have little faith. And I'm so thankful he put it like that instead of rebuking. This is not a rebuking term. This is a pleading. Oh, you have little faith. Don't you see the foolishness of this? Don't you see the frivolity of this that you're expending your energies and your thoughts and your life on this anxiety? Oh, you have little faith. Anxiety and faith cannot exist together. We cannot have an anxiety and a mind filled with faith at the same time. They will crowd each other out. We are anxious because we don't see how it will all work out. We don't see how the food will be provided. We don't see in our minds how things will work out, the future, all those things we want to control, other people's lives, situations, circumstances. So in our mind, we've become self-focused, thinking we have to work it out. Oh, you who look to yourself in your weakness, of course you are anxious. for these things are out of your control. But God is powerful and able. Do not be anxious, but filled with faith, looking to God, raising your eyes to the heavens, filled with faith that God is working these things out, that God is able, that God is in control. And you are loved. Verses 31 and 32 say, therefore, do not be anxious saying, what shall we eat or what should we drink or what should we wear? For the Gentiles seek after these things and your heavenly father knows that you need them all. You are not a Gentile. He makes a very important distinction between those there that he's communicating with, who understand, who are hearing these things, and the Gentiles. And that distinction is important for us this morning. That we are not Gentiles. If you have trusted in Christ, if you've repented of your sins, if you're living for the Lord, if you're seeking after Him, you are not a Gentile. You are part of His family. Your heavenly Father. That's the one that's caring for you. That's the context that you live your life. You live your life in the context of a heavenly Father. You have been loved. You have been adopted. You who once were aliens, outcasts, strangers to the Father have been rescued. The Father's Son, your brother, gave His life for you. And in contrast, the Gentiles. The Gentiles seek after these things. The Gentiles are focused on these things. The Gentiles are seeking to store these things up. They labor and toil to obtain. They must find some meaning in life. The Gentiles who must depend on their own strength, their own labors, their own provision, they gather and store. They must get what they can for themselves and their families, their self-love, expands to the degree of their power and resources that enable it. They store up their treasures. Their heart is wholly given over to the things of this life and this place. Their eye enables and breeds contempt and covetousness. They love all that they have gained and have no regard for God. But you are not a Gentile. Do not live like the Gentiles live. You are loved. by the Heavenly Father. Your life is oriented towards Him and for Him. You long to please Him and live for Him. And your Heavenly Father knows. Your Heavenly Father knows. He is hearing and seeing. He knows. He is near. He not only knows your needs in a general sense, but He knows your particular needs. Your heavenly Father knows. The birds, the lilies, the grass, the Gentiles are all cared for, but how much more are you as one loved by God? Remember, while you were a sinner, God loved you and sent His Son to die for you. He knows your greatest need is forgiveness, and He made a way at the cost of His Son. How much more does He know your day-to-day needs of sustenance? the day-to-day needs of your family? Would He provide His Son for your salvation and not bread for your stomach? Do we really need to live in a life of anxiety and stress when we've been given Christ? Oh, you of little faith. How can we trust in this truth with eternal ramifications, so astounding, so amazing, and not trust in the simplest parts of our lives for the care from our Heavenly Father? We are so blinded by our affluence and our materialism, so drunk with the bounty and the display around us, so consumed with the glitter and promises of our culture and our economy, We drink until we can drink no more, and our appetite grows, and it grows, and it grows, always one step ahead of our ability to provide. And we become anxious. We live lives of stress and worry. Our anxiety becomes rooted, and we must seek to appease it, like a dog returning to its vomit. live lives of anxiety and stress. But we're called to trust in God. Next week we'll see we're called to seek after. So far we've had two weeks of don't lay up treasures. Don't be anxious. And we really haven't been provided with what then are we called to, and next week we'll get into that, because it's significant. But to seek His kingdom and His righteousness, trusting that He will provide all these things to us. The question for us this morning to consider, especially as we come to the Lord's table is, how is my anxiety impacting my life? My decisions, my motives, my priorities? How am I living out these things, this anxiety? What am I seeking after? How have I ordered my family? What do I do with my time and my resources that's driven by anxiety? Could we stand up and open up our bank accounts and our schedules before one another and say, I am seeking after storing up treasures in heaven. Or would we be guilty one to another of storing up treasure on earth because we're fearful? Now, there's a difference, as I mentioned, between fearful and faithful. And we're called to be faithful, to be caring for our families, laboring diligently, but that can never be the focus. The focus has to be on the Lord, on serving Him, on living lives that please Him. Anxious to labor with Him, for Him. Anxious for the souls of our neighbors. Anxious for the souls of our family. If you want to be anxious about something, be anxious about storing up treasures in heaven. But yet our eyes turn to ourselves. And we worry and we fret. We're anxious. And we medicate. And we seek after the world. We try to satisfy. God says this to me. Do not be anxious. Oh, you have little faith. Oh, you have little faith. Turn to Christ. Would God lift our eyes to the heavens? Would we be reminded of his storehouses? Would we be reminded of his strength? Would we be reminded of the value he's placed on us? Would we be reminded of the love he has for us? And if he can provide his son, can he not provide all that we need for this life? And would we be trusting in that? Would we be trusting in that? Father, we do come. Lord, this is such a foreign message in our culture. Lord, I even in my own heart tend to write it off, to move it aside. Lord, to think of and to twist what it means to be faithful and responsible and diligent. Lord, much of that is self-consuming. Much of my life is filled with anxiety. We as a people are an anxious people. Lord, would you free us from that? Would you free us from the toils of this world, the affections of this world? Lord, may we seek to love you, to live lives that please you, trusting that in all of these things you will provide for us and meet all of our needs. Father, we do love you. May our love grow for you and live out practically before you. We pray in Christ's name, amen.