Today's scripture reading is from the Gospel of Matthew. We'll be looking at chapter 6, verses 25 through 34. Brothers and sisters, hear now the word of the Lord. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 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, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these. But if God so clothed 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 these things, and your heavenly Father knows you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own troubles." The word of the Lord. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we do ask for your blessing on the reading and the preaching of your word. Father, we pray that you will be glorified in all we do and say. In your name we pray. Amen. This passage that we're looking at today in Matthew, this is a well-loved passage. Many of us, myself included, love this passage because we're anxious. We're troubled. We love to worry. We worry about the future. We worry about our health. We worry about our finances. We worry about what people will think of us. When we face difficulties, we often worry that things will never get better. When we face good times, we worry that things are gonna get worse, and we somehow wait for the other shoe to drop. And while we take comfort in this passage, do you know what else we see here in this passage? We see in this passage that worrying is sinful. Now some of you may be taken aback by this. What do you mean sinful? What I mean is it's against God's command in Scripture. It's actually the most frequently given command in the Bible. We are commanded in the Bible over 150 times to fear not, not to worry, not to be afraid. And I think this is the biggest problem that we have with respect to worry. You see, we don't see it as sinful, but instead we see ourselves as victims. It is not something that I want to do, but something rather happens to me, something that happens from the outside. Or we, we see worry is a, is a part of our identity. I'm just, I'm just an anxious Christian. It's who I am. My friends, we get in trouble. I think we get in trouble when we are identified by our sin, whatever that sin is. If we identify ourselves by our sin, we are going to be in trouble. So we're gonna look at this passage today and we're gonna see how it convicts us and how it also comforts us. And we're gonna see the ways in which our anxiety is sinful. So the first thing we see in this is that our anxiety is sinful because when we worry, we focus on the wrong things. Take a look at verse 25. Verse 25 says, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat. and what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? So Jesus is saying that we are not to worry about our physical needs. We are not to worry about food, drink, clothing. And by extension, we can include in this our finances, our health, our safety, any of the physical needs that we have in this physical world. And notice what Jesus is saying. He's saying, is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? See, Jesus is saying that your life is not just physical. The physical is not your primary concern. The physical is temporary. We see in 2 Corinthians 4.18, it says, for the things that are seen are transient. But the things that are unseen, these are eternal. So we see here that we are not to worry about the wrong things. See, we are worried about what is temporary. And while we are worrying about what is temporary, we are oblivious to what is eternal. The next thing we see here is that worry is ineffective. Look at verse 27. It says, in which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? See, all our worry will actually not help us at all. It won't add a single hour to our life. In fact, we know that when we worry, the stress of the worrying actually takes time off our lives. So the problem is we are focusing our attention and our effort on something that is completely beyond our control. And we do this, we do this at the expense of focusing on that which we actually can control. See, all our effort goes to doing that which is ineffective, and no effort goes to where it can be effective. The third thing we see here, the third thing we see is that worrying insults God. See, by trying to control all our physical needs, those needs that are actually in God's control, We're saying that I don't trust you, God. I don't trust that you will provide for what I need. See, we either think that God is unable to provide for us, or else he is unwilling to provide for us. See, we either question God's ability, his sovereignty, or we question his love, his ethics, his motives of wanting to do this. Now, Jesus answers both of these concerns in verse 26. Jesus says in verse 26, look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? You see, if God can provide for the birds, do you think that he cannot care for you? Do you think that he places more value on the birds than he does on those who actually bear his image? More than that, on those for whom his son has died. So do you see how insulting this actually is to God? It's kind of like going to a gourmet restaurant. Say you went into a gourmet restaurant, and you weren't sure that they were going to have any food that you would really like or would be good for you. So you bring your own Oreos there, and you start eating the Oreos and saying, you know, I'm not going to waste my time with this food. Or maybe even a better illustration is, maybe you're on a plane and you're flying. It ever happens to happen when you hit a little bit of turbulence, plane starts shaking. The first thing you do is take that seatbelt off, run over to the cockpit, knock on the door and say, I want pilot, get out of the seat. I'm going to fly this plane now. Even if you've never flown a plane before, you've never even played a video game, a simulator to know about the plane. So that's what we're doing. when we say, God, we want to be in control. Now you might say, well, yes, God can help me. And I know God wants to help me. But he does want me to play a part, right? Right? He wants me to be involved. He wants me to have some skin in the game, right? And this might even be the time we might quote that great prophet, Benjamin Franklin, who many people think this is actually in the Bible. It's, the Lord helps those who help themselves. Right? Shouldn't we do that? Wrong. Because look at verse 31. Look at verse 31 and verse 32. It says, 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 these things. And your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. See, what Jesus is saying here is that the Gentiles, the pagans, the unbelievers seek after these things. And when we focus undue attention on these things, we are acting no different than the unbeliever. Again, do you see how this insults God? See, we as Christians are called to be different. We are called to live in a way that brings glory to God, that shows that God is real, that he makes a difference in our lives. He makes a difference in our thinking. He makes a difference in our priorities. And when we act like everyone else, We're doing the exact opposite of making him known, the exact opposite of glorifying him. We're actually profaning him. We're making God look bad. I could just see Satan, Satan taunting God. He's saying, your people are no different than my people. God, you're a failure. You're all hype. Being a Christian makes actually no difference, no real difference in life. So you see that when we worry, We are focusing on the wrong things. We are ineffective. We insult God, and we act no different than unbelievers. So you can see that this type of behavior is in fact sinful. It is a big deal. It's something that we should repent of, and we should seek to be more trusting. Well, thankfully, this passage doesn't just tell us what we shouldn't do. It doesn't just show us that we blow it. No, it tells us what we should do, and it gives us a promise of what God will do. Take a look at verses 32 and 33. For the Gentiles seek after these things. This is what you will eat or what you will drink. 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. See, this is the key. We are called to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Now, what does this mean? Well, it means we are to focus not on our physical needs. The focus is not on what God promises to provide us, but rather our focus is to be shifted. It is to be shifted on to what is eternal. So your focus is on trusting that God will provide for our physical needs while obeying what God has actually told us to do in his word. Basically, our job is to trust and obey. And as the song says, trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. But there's no other way to not be anxious to trust and obey. but what we see here is really the gospel. See, the gospel requires a shift, a shift from our natural hardwired religion of works, trust in ourselves, trust in our ability, trust in our ability to earn our standing with God, trust in our ability to earn our salvation, and a shift to a religion of grace, a religion where it's all of Christ, As the song says, nothing in my hand I bring, simply to your cross I cling. This framework of grace that we see here is only found in biblical Christianity. See, God in his sovereign mercy, what he has done is he has worked this principle of grace into the very fabric of his creation. And this is why when we are worried and when we are anxious, why we are worried and why we anxious, because it's our natural, it's a battle of our natural works righteousness nature that seeks to control God's creation. It's a battle with the reality of the world that we live in, that he created. And our only hope is grace. And at its root, at its root, this sinful anxiety, that we are commanded to reject is really a spiritual reaction to the conflict that is within our nature, this desire that we have for our works, righteousness based on our own works in the actual world that God has created. And the anxiety and the worry that results is really what happens when our desire to be God is frustrated. See, the fact is we are not God. We are not in control. We cannot earn our salvation. And when we think we can, and when we try, it will be frustrating. We will be frustrated. And when we are seeing that we cannot do it, we will worry. When we see things are outside of our control, we will worry. That's all worry is. We are wanting to be God, and we are not God. He will not allow us to have that. So brothers and sisters, when we are tempted to fear, When we are tempted to worry, we need to remember that this fear is the product of the remnant of this old worldview, the old man that still exists even in believers. This works righteousness that is so much embedded in us and it is throughout us and we need to root it out and we need to repent of it. We need to cling to the gospel. We need to look to Christ, the author and the finisher of our salvation. Look to his love, look to his perfect love. And remember that perfect love casts out fear. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we do confess that we are worrying people, that we are fearful people. Father, we pray for your grace, your grace to open our eyes, open our hearts to you. to what is true, what is real, and the trust of what your word promises that you will provide for us. Father, we ask this all in the name of our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.