Matthew | Treasuring the Father's Kingdom

All right, so if you have your Bible, please turn to Matthew,

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

chapter 6, Matthew 6. It's good to be continuing in

the Sermon on the Mount. Amen.

We're going to be continuing with some chapter or some verses

here that many of you are likely very, very familiar with.

I'm sure a lot of this has been familiar, but these, these

verses today I think will really resonate with you.

And so I'm, I'm grateful to be in this passage this morning.

If you have a worship God, I want to encourage you to grab it

and take notes as we go this morning.

Kids, you have one for you. You can take notes there.

You can listen for there's 4 words that will be repeated kind

of through the sermon. So you can listen for those and

mark those down. But it's a way to stay engaged

for you as well. But there's going to be some

good things I think to to note this morning on particularly

just the idea of having a divided hearts and wrestling

with anxiety. All right, So how many of you

have ever wrestled with anxiety? Yeah.

The rest of you are anxious about raising your hand, right.

So that's true. All right, So as we come to the

passage, Jesus is just continuing as he's done

throughout the Sermon on the Mount.

He's exposing the hearts, right? It's he's, he's showing

throughout the section that Kingdom righteousness is not

merely about what happens outwardly, right?

So much of what the Pharisees taught and what they exemplified

and, and the things that all that they did was about their

outward showing of righteousness, far less so than

about anything inwardly being devoted to God.

And so Christ is just showing. It's not about your appearance.

Totally right. Those things will come, but

ultimately it's not about looking religious before others.

It's about your heart before God.

All right, your heart before God.

So here in this passage, Jesus turns to one of the most

practical and revealing areas. Sorry, I'll try to fix that of

our lives. He he turns to our relationship

to possessions, our relationship to security, and our

relationship to worry or to anxiety.

All right, we're in verses 19 through 34.

Sorry, I don't think I said that.

And so this passage speaks directly to the things that

occupy our minds, the things that shape our decisions.

We're going to have to ask questions like, what do we

treasure? OK, so you got to be inward

thinking here. We're going to have to ask

questions like what do we trust, right?

You're going to have to think about things like, what do we

fear, right? What, what is it that you fear,

right? And so another question that may

come is, what is it that I'm living for?

What's my purpose in life? What gets me wound up?

What's gets me excited, what drives me, all those kinds of

things, right? So in this, Jesus makes clear

that these things are not small matters, right?

We might think these are just small things, but they're deeply

spiritual. They, they reveal whether our

hearts are set on earth or on heaven, whether our allegiance

is divided or whether our allegiance is undivided.

They, they reveal whether we are living as though God is truly

our Father or not. All right, so Matthew 6, verses

Matthew 6:19–34

19 through 34 today, if you would, would you please stand as

we read God's Word this morning. Verse 19, Jesus says 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 the lamp of the body.

So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of

lights. 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 2 masters, for

either he will hate the one and love the other, or he 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

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 and 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

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.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the grace and mercy you've

shown us and giving us the written scriptures.

Your holy word. Lord, we know, we confess that

they are infallible. They are sufficient for all of

life and godliness. They're able to teach and to

train us, to instruct us, to rebuke us and correct us for a

life of godliness, that we as believers may be perfectly

equipped for every good work that you grant to us.

And so, Lord, we humble ourselves before your word

today, and we ask that you would teach and instruct, that you

would correct and rebuke, that you would train us for

godliness. We ask that you do this work

through your Spirit, which is alive in US.

Father, would you help us to understand your word today?

Help us to believe it. And Father, we pray that

ultimately we would walk away from this message trusting you

more fully, more deeply than we did before we walked in.

And it's in the name of Christ, I pray.

Amen. Amen.

You may be seated. So one of the clearest ways to

discover what rules a person's heart is really to ask a few

questions like what do you value most?

Or if you had to make a list and you had to write down what you

value most, just think about what would be the top three or

two or one thing, right? What, what is it that you're

serving? Right?

What what is it that you're serving?

What, what are you worrying about?

Jesus addresses all three of these things in the passage.

And, and that's why this passage isn't really just about money.

It does address that. And it's not just a passage

about anxiety, though it addresses that, but it's really

at the heart of it, at the depths of it.

It's a passage about allegiance, right?

It's a passage about the desires of your heart.

Ultimately, it's a passage about worship.

What is it? Who is it that you're

worshipping, right? What Jesus shows us here is that

earthly treasure, darkened spiritual vision, slavery to

wealth, and anxious living. All these things are connected,

right? They're all growing out of what

we might call a divided heart, right?

A heart that's serving 2 masters.

And they're all answered by the same thing.

So how do we not have a divided heart?

How do we, how do we not devote ourselves to earthly treasure?

How do we keep from having a darkened spiritual vision or

slavery to wealth, or how do we keep from living anxiously?

How do we answer that? They're answered this way.

Wholehearted trust in the Father along with wholehearted pursuit

of his Kingdom, Right. And so the main point of the

text, as I've written it down for you today, is this.

Kingdom citizens must reject divided devotion and trust their

heavenly Father wholeheartedly. Kingdom citizens must reject

divided devotion and trust their heavenly Father wholeheartedly.

Now Jesus is going to unfold this for us in in two movements.

The first, in the first movement, he's going to call us

to reject earthly minded devotion.

And then in the second, he's going to call us to rest in our

Heavenly Father's care. And so let's take a look at this

first movement #1 reject earthly minded devotion.

This covers verses 19 through 24.

Jesus begins with this command. In verses 19 through 20, He says

do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, but lay up

for yourselves treasures in heaven.

Now that's what we would call a command of contrast, right?

Do not do this, but do this, right.

So there's two kinds of treasures, Jesus saying there's

one on earth, there's one in heaven.

There's two places to invest. You can invest in heaven or you

can invest in things on earth. And ultimately what this points

to is there are two ways for you to live your life, all right?

You can live your life totally consumed by all that happens in

this world, thinking that that's the ultimate thing.

Whatever my heart desires in this life, I should pursue that.

And many a men have done it all, right, and many a men have been

left wanting at the end of their life.

But there's another, right? You can invest everything that

you are in the things that God calls great in His Kingdom,

right? You can give yourself, you can

devote yourself to the Father's Kingdom, you can devote yourself

to the things of heaven, right? So we have two ways to live

before us, and that's what Christ is showing.

He's also showing us that on earth your treasure, whatever it

may be, is vulnerable, right? You can think about it yourself,

but moths destroy. That's true.

Rust corrodes. Thieves do break in and steal.

Everything in this life is temporary.

Your clothes are going to wear out.

Your possessions are going to decay.

The market is going to fluctuate.

Everybody said Amen. All right.

Homes are going to age. Your body is going to weaken.

It's it's going to return to dust.

Even the things that you work really hard to build can be

lost. All right, the the warning and

Ecclesiastes is that the wealth of one generation will not

extend past the second generation beyond it, all right,

that it'll be consumed. Another warning there is that

your grandsons or great grandsons for sure, likely won't

even remember your name, your own family members.

All right, that that's how temporary, how fleeting life is.

I'm not saying that's the case every time.

That's just the warning in Scriptures, right?

So Jesus is not condemning planning.

Let me get that out of the way, right?

He's not saying you shouldn't plan for things, right?

Christ himself says that before the man builds the house, he

should count the cost of building the house.

He should prepare everything and be ready to build the house

before he builds, right? So there is wise planning.

Stewardship is a good thing. We believe that.

We believe the Scriptures teach that, right.

It's wise to save money. It's wise to be responsible in

how you think about providing for your family.

These are all good and right things.

Scripture commands diligence. It commands wise management.

It teaches us not to be a sluggard, but to be like the

ants who work hard, right? The the issue is not whether you

possess things right. The the issue is whether our

hearts are anchored in those things.

Another way to say it would be whether those things possess you

or not, right? We don't want to be possessed by

our things. And so the issue is where are we

storing up hope? Are we storing our hope in

heaven or are we storing our hope on earth?

And so Jesus states the principle of this in verse 21.

He says, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be

also. Where your treasure is, there

your heart will be also. So the thing that you value, the

thing that you think is a treasure, that thing has your

heart, right? It has your heart.

This is one of the most penetrating statements in the

Sermon on the Mount. I think your heart follows your

treasure, right? So what you count as most

valuable is going to draw all of your affections.

It's going to draw all your attention.

It's going to draw all your energy, your thoughts.

It's going to draw your whole life after it, right?

Whatever you prize, don't miss this.

Whatever you prize most will quietly disciple your soul.

All right. Then in verses 22 through 23,

Jesus speaks about the eye, and he says the eye is the lamp of

the body. Now, at first glance, this might

seem like some sort of disconnected statement, some

sort of proverb that Jesus just throws out.

And, and maybe as Matthew's writing this down, he's just

kind of remembering some statements that were made.

But how many of you believe the Scriptures are far more

intentional than that? Amen.

Amen. Glad we can agree.

All right, This is not disconnected, right?

Jesus is still talking about the person's inner, we might call it

the inner orientation. And what I mean by that is the

desires of the heart. What is it that my heart is

oriented towards? What is true north for me?

You might think of it that way, right?

And So what Christ is teaching is that a, a healthy eye is

clear. It's it's single in its

devotion, it's undivided in its devotion, but a bad eye, right?

It's darkened, it's distorted, it's selfish, it's corrupt,

right? So he, he's speaking here about

spiritual perception, not just the ability to see, right?

He, he's saying that what fills our heart shapes how the whole

person sees life right now. You can see how it's connected,

right? So in this context, a healthy

eye is not only a clear and undivided eye, but it's a

generous Kingdom shaped eye, right?

It's got its eye on the things that Christ that God would say

are good, right? While a bad eye is not.

It's devoted to itself, it's selfish, it's greedy, it's

darkened and all that it sees. And so that's why Christ says if

your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light.

But if your eye is bad, your whole body is full of darkness.

Now, if the light in you is darkness, right, how many of you

have thought at times in your life where you thought you had

some light in you, only to realize that's actually

darkness? And Christ says, how great then

is the darkness right? How great then is it?

In other words, when the heart is gripped by greed, when the

heart is gripped by covetousness, when the heart is

gripped by an earthly mindedness, it, it doesn't just

affect one corner of your life, it affects the whole man, right?

It, it, it strives after all the desires, it takes all the

affections, it takes all the energy, right?

It's not just one part of you, right?

It, it darkens all of you. You no longer see clearly.

You might think you're seeing clearly, but you're darkened in

your sight. So how could you know, right?

You don't evaluate money clearly.

You don't evaluate relationships clearly.

You don't evaluate your Christian life clearly.

You don't evaluate the priorities that God has set

before you. Clearly you're not evaluating

anything about life. Clearly you're darkened in your

sight. And so Jesus then brings the

first half of the passage to its climax in verse 24 where he says

no one can serve 2 masters, you cannot serve God and money.

He says, Now that's a controlling statement, right?

Treasure, vision, service, all those things converge on this

point. A man, what Christ is saying is

that a man cannot give ultimate allegiance to both God and

wealth. Just can't.

He cannot have two Thrones that rule the same heart.

He may try. God knows I have tried, right?

He? He may speak as though he is

doing both, but eventually, eventually, his choices in life

reveal who his Master is, right? And Jesus does not say it's hard

to serve both, does he? And he says it's impossible to

serve both. So we can be fooled into

thinking we can do this right? I'll be the first man in human

history to serve 2 masters. You won't, You won't.

You'll only be fooled right? Jesus is exposing something

deeper here. He's exposing the reality of

idolatry. This is the reality of what

happens when we become idolaters.

All right, so here he's using money, but you could insert

anything into this. We'll we'll stick with the theme

of money here, but just know you can insert whatever it is your

heart desires the most. Maybe it's autonomy, maybe it's

doing your own thing, building your own Kingdom, doing what

makes you happy, what you think is best right?

Maybe that's making a lot of money.

Maybe that's. Whatever, right here money is

not merely currency. Here, money has become a false

God when the man looks to it for what only God can give.

Now here's the thing about money that makes it God like and why

we end up looking to it so fervently.

Money promises security. It promises significance, It'll

promise you comfort, it'll promise you control right?

It'll promise you peace. If I just had X amount more

dollars, then my life would be so much better.

You see, money whispers to us. If you have enough of me, you

will be safe. And that's why it's so

dangerous. I don't want you to miss what's

happening here, right? Money competes with God not only

at the level of possession, right?

Am I going to possess God or am I going to possess money, but it

also competes with God at the level of trust in the heart.

Am I going to trust wealth or am I going to trust God?

John Calvin famously said that the human heart is a perpetual

factory of idols. Perpetual factory vinyls.

What a great statement. Let me just think about for a

moment. You just run the thought for a

moment. What is a factory, right?

It's a place where they make things.

They build things with their hands.

They work hard. It's the blue collarist of Jobs

and, and you think about what my heart does daily.

It's perpetually seeking something else to worship.

And so it'll contrive, it'll create, it'll run after all

sorts of idols, things that I think promise what only God has

promised and what only God can deliver on.

All right, So this passage proves that.

I think this passage proves that our heart is a perpetual factory

of idols. All right, because it's not just

going to be money. It's going to be the things

we're worrying about, the things we're giving ourselves to here

in the moments, right? The issue becomes we can take

created things, those things that God has granted and his

great mercy and grace to us as good gifts.

We can take those things and we can turn them on their head and

we can ask them to bear the weight of our eternal, of our

eternal hope, but ultimate hope. And Jesus is saying very

frankly, to do that is darkness, that to do that is to be a slave

is to be a slave that that's divided devotion.

Now, it's possible to hold something in your hand without

it being in your heart. That's possible, right?

Sawyer talked about that earlier, right?

But but once it gets into the heart, that's when it begins to

steer our lives, right? And that that's how treasure

works, right? It's like a a compass hidden

within our soul. Whatever you treasure most will

keep pulling you in its direction.

Now, it might be obvious at first, but over time, well, let

me say it this way, it might not be obvious at first, right?

But over time what happens is it shows up in your calendar.

What is it that you're devoted to?

What would your calendar say about the things you're most

devoted to? It shows up in your prayers.

All right. Do you pray?

If you're not praying, that's, that's check, check engine light

#1 right? When you pray, what are you

praying for? It'll show up in your spending.

It'll show up in your ambitions in life.

What is it that you're striving so hard after shows up in our

disappointments? It's not one we often think

about, but it's it's one I've become keenly aware of that like

when I get disappointed, what am I disappointed over?

Why am I disappointed? It shows up in your fears.

Now, what are those things that scare you?

What are the things that you're running from?

So this first section of the passage that we're looking at

calls us to honest self examination, which is a lot of

fun, right? You all guys look like you're

having fun today, but you really do have to start asking

questions about your own heart. What is it that I'm truly

treasuring? What occupies my thoughts most

often? What loss?

If I were to undergo a loss, what loss feels unthinkable to

me? What do I Daydream about?

Heaven, what makes me feel secure?

What makes you feel significant? You see all the different

questions you can ask of your heart as you read a text like

this. And again, I want, I want to be

careful. This, this text isn't only for

the rich, right? You might be reading this like,

well, I'm not wealthy. This isn't a problem for me.

Well, a poor man can worship money just as much as a rich man

can, right? A man can idolize what he has,

but a man can also idolize what he wishes he had.

That the issue is not how much is in your bank account.

The the issue is what sits on the throne of your heart.

And then Jesus, he just presses the issue further.

Jesus says you're not uncomfortable enough yet.

All right, let me help you. So he begins to ask,

essentially, how are you seeing? How is it that you see things?

Are you evaluate evaluating life through the lens of the Kingdom,

or are you evaluating your life through the lens of earthly

gain? So back to the idea of money.

Do you see money as a tool for stewardship and generosity, or

do you see money as a tool or as a savior to cling to?

And finally, he just gets to the real question, right when he

says you cannot serve both, you cannot have two masters.

The question has to come, who am I serving?

And then I must recognize that what he's saying is that

eventually my life will reveal my Master.

The decisions I make, the way that I live, the relationships I

tend to or don't tend to, the way I spend my money, the way I

plan my calendar, the way I pray, all these things will

reveal the Master of your heart. So this first movement that

Christ is showing us, I think calls us to repentance.

It calls us primarily to repentance.

It's calling you and I to reject worldly treasure as ultimate.

It's calling us to reject a darkened vision.

And it's calling us to reject money as a rival Lord.

Now here's why that matters so much.

Because when money becomes your master, you have a darkened eye

and you're living for yourself. Anxiety becomes your companion,

all right? So if your treasure is here,

then your heart is always going to fear losing what is here.

If your security is earthly, then your peace is always going

to be fragile because the things of this earth are transient, as

Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 4.

So that's why Jesus moves directly from the mastery of

wealth to the burden of worry. Point #2 rest in your Heavenly

Father's care. I'm going to read this passage

again because I just think you need to hear all of this yet

again. 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 in 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 and

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 was thrown into the oven, will he not much

more clothe you, O you of little face?

Therefore do not be anxious saying, What shall we eat, or

what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?

For the Gentiles, those unbelievers, 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. It's its own trouble.

Amen. So verse 25 just begins,

therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, right?

Jesus is linking anxiety to everything he has just said when

he says. Therefore, what he's saying is,

worry doesn't come from nowhere, right?

Worry grows naturally from divided devotion.

If I'm living for earthly security, I will be anxious

about earthly security, right? If money becomes my master, then

provision is always going to feel uncertain and threatening.

And I love that. Jesus just names very ordinary

concerns, life, food, drink, clothing, right?

These these are not imaginary needs.

Jesus is acknowledging these are real needs.

He's, he's not mocking you. He's not dismissing you, right?

He, he knows that people need food.

He, he knows our bodies need clothing.

He he knows daily life brings real pressures, but he ask I

love the questions that he asked throughout that passage.

He he asked this is not life more than food and the body more

than clothing and you and I are left to go.

Yeah, we know that it is in other words, and and don't miss

what he's the point he's making. If God has already given you the

life itself, if breath in your lungs, can he not also sustain

the life that he has given you? Of course he can.

And so to prove the point, Jesus standing there, sitting there

teaching crowd gathered around he, he points to the birds of

the air that are flying by. This is look at them.

They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your

heavenly Father feeds them. Now the point that he's making

is not that the birds do nothing.

They do, they do a lot, right? The birds do gather.

They they do search, they act, they feed their young, they

build nest, right? The the point, though, is that

they're not anxiously running around the world trying to do

those things. God cares for them, and the

birds are worshipping God by acting according to how he's

created them to act. And in their worship of God, in

their obedience to God and doing what birds do, God is caring for

them. If you ever wonder if God cares

for you, step outside, Look at the birds as they fly by.

And then Jesus asks this question that's meant to land on

the conscience. Are you not of more value than

they are? Now, some of us might be

feeling, yeah, we might have some feeling of humility where

we would say, well, you know, I don't know.

The birds are pretty cool, all right.

I'm not a bald eagle. That's that's pretty cool bird.

But think about it. Think about what the Scriptures

say. Genesis 127.

You're created in the image of God.

You're created in the likeness of God.

You're created as male and female to reflect God and the

ways that He's designed you. You're created with great care,

great purpose. In Psalm 8, we see something

like we are the crown jewel of God's creation.

Who is man that you are mindful of Him?

The psalmist asked. You've created him a little

lower than the angels. Of course you're of more value

than the birds. He then asked in verse 27, In

case you're not struck yet, which of you by being anxious,

can add a single hour to your span of life?

Our kids will tell you they hear this somewhat frequently around

the house. Son, can you add time to your

life by worrying about that thing?

No, that I can't. Then let's not worry about it,

all right? In fact, the opposite seems true

from the studies we have around these days.

You can actually shorten your life by being full of anxiety.

So, brothers and sisters, I know all too well I I'm with you in

this foxhole. I know all too well that worry

feels useful. Preoccupying my mind with worry

feels like a good thing. It feels like the best way to

plan, the best way to be ready, the best way to whatever, right?

It can even feel active, like I can convince myself that if I'm

worrying about something, I'm being active, I'm being

proactive and how I'm dealing with it.

It could even feel responsible. All right, I have a wife and

three sons to care for. I'm going to worry about them.

I'm going to worry about my care for them.

I'm going to worry about provision.

I'm going to worry. It feels responsible.

But Jesus clearly says it has no power to lengthen my life.

He clearly says it has no power to secure tomorrow for me, and

it has no power to control the outcomes of what's going to

happen. So though I think it's useful,

Christ makes it clear it's useless.

And so then yet again, he standing there, sitting there

teaching, he points to the lilies of the field around them,

and he says they do not toil or spin.

Look at their beauty. They do not toil or spin.

Yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

And then he asked a question. If God closed the grass which is

here today and thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much

more clothe you, O you of little faith.

Now that phrase does sting a little, but it is important.

O you of little faith. Jesus is saying that anxiety is

not merely a personality trait as we might think.

He he traces it to weak trust. Then verses 31 to 32 he returns

to this command. Do not be anxious saying, what

shall we eat, What shall we will drink?

What shall we wear? And then he says, for the

Gentiles, seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father

knows that you need them all. We've had some of the most

direct statements from Christ, and now we have one of the

sweetest statements from Christ. He wants to solve your anxiety

by pointing your eyes upward to your heavenly Father.

Your heavenly Father knows. Praise God, he He knows every

need, He knows every bill, He knows every burden, He knows

every uncertainty that you brought into church this

morning. And Christ says, yes, I know,

yes, the Father knows. But look upward to the one who

provides. You see that you see.

He knows what you need before you and your anxiety can even

name it. And then Jesus gives us positive

commands in verse 33. But seek first the Kingdom of

God and his righteousness. And all these things, your food,

your clothing, what you'll eat and drink, all these things will

be added to you. So that's the answer to divided

devotion. That's the answer to anxious

living. The disciple of Christ, the

believer is to place the Kingdom 1st and to seek it diligently.

But what does that mean? It means we're that that God's

reign, God's rule, God's righteousness, God's priorities,

those things are to become the controlling concern of our

lives. And when that happens,

everything else is put into its proper place.

Just think back a few verses to the Lord's Prayer.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name, your

Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day Our Daily Bread.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive others their trespasses

against us and deliver us from the evil. 1 You see how the

prayer is orchestrated to solve your worries, to get your mind,

your heart, your gaze fixed upward on God and His purposes,

His Kingdom, His will, His provision of food, His provision

of your needs, His provision of forgiveness, His provision of a

heart toward others, His provision of defense against the

enemy. You see, we must learn to say

with the apostle Paul in Galatians 220, I have been

crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but

Christ who lives in me in the life I now live in the flesh.

I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave

himself for me. It's total heart and life

devotion to Christ alone. And then finally in verse 34,

Jesus says, therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for

tomorrow will be anxious for itself.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Now Jesus is not naive. The one speaking here is the one

who knows that in a short time he'll be headed to the cross.

And yet he says, worry only about today.

Tomorrow's troubles are sufficient in their own right.

Today's troubles are sufficient in their own right.

Worry only about today. You see, he's not denying

trouble. He acknowledges it plainly.

Each day has enough trouble of its own, he says.

And yet what Christ is forbidding here?

He's forbidding us from going into tomorrow with our thoughts

and with our anxieties and with the pressures and with our cares

and our worries and concerns and all those things.

He's forbidding us from going over into tomorrow, picking

those things up and dragging them back into today.

He's forbidding us from dragging tomorrow's imagined burdens into

today's grace. Right.

The great doctrine beneath this paragraph that the thing we have

to come to know and to believe in this passage is the fatherly

Providence of God. The same God who cares for the

birds, the same God who clothes the lilies, is not distant from

his children. He he is not indifferent to

their needs. He's not indifferent to their

worries and concerns. He is not an absentee father.

He is not forgetful. He's not take a break from his

throne or from his sovereignty. He is your Heavenly Father.

He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He is unchangeable. He does not lie.

He's always loving and He's always doing that which is good

for His people. And that means that you,

Christian, that means that you do not live in a random

universe. You, you don't live under blind

faith. You, you don't live at the mercy

of chance or luck or whatever you might call it.

You, you live under the wise, holy, sovereign, and fatherly

care of the God who created the heavens and the earth.

Now if I ask you, does that remove hardship?

You would say no, wisely. No, it doesn't.

It doesn't promise ease. But it does mean that hardship

never comes outside the Father's hand.

It means that hardship and our needs, they they never escape

the Father's eye. We can believe Romans 828 that

He works all things, all things. Not some of the things, not

partial things, not, not a limited amount of things.

He works all things together for the good of those who love him.

They're called according to His purposes.

So anxiety then is like trying to carry tomorrow's load before

God has given tomorrow's mercy, before he's given tomorrow's

grace, before he's given tomorrow's strength.

Jesus is saying here that each day has its own trouble, yet

each day also brings its own mercies.

Limitations is clear that God's mercies are new every morning.

God gives daily bread, He gives daily grace, He gives daily help

to his people. You see, worry tries to seize

tomorrow in advance, but in doing so it rejects the grace

that is only given for today. And so this spec, this section

speaks directly to us about, because worry is one of the most

respectable sins in the church. We'll solve worry in all kinds

of ways. We'll solve worry by worrying

more. We'll solve worry by seeking

medication. We'll solve worry by eating

more. We'll solve worry about talking,

gossiping about it, telling others.

We'll solve worry in all sorts of ways, except the ways which

God has prescribed for us to solve worry.

We, we excuse worry in the church as concerned.

We'll dress up worry as responsibility.

We'll we'll even treat worry as maturity at times.

But Jesus here addresses it as a matter of trust.

And so again, I don't want you to misunderstand the principle

here. He's not forbidding planning.

He's not preventing preventing work.

He's not preventing you from preparation against.

Scripture teaches prudence and diligence and responsibility.

So the issue is not faithful action.

The issue here is anxious unbelief.

So where? Where are you carrying burdens

today that belong to the Father? What fears about money?

What what fears about your family, your marriage, your

children? What were fears about your

health? What fears about the future?

What fears about ministry? Or what fears about provision

are you rehearsing again and again in your heart and mind?

And then you have to ask, what does my worry reveal?

What? What does it reveal?

What might reveal that you're trying to be your own provider,

protector, and sovereign? But I'm here to tell you

lovingly, you are not your own provider, protector, or

sovereign, and you were never meant to be.

You were created in the image of God.

You were not created to be God. So Jesus calls you to live

differently today, doesn't He? He tells you to seek first the

Kingdom. And when he says that, he's

saying put obedience, righteousness, God's honor, the

Father's concerns, put all those things above your own comforts,

and trust that the Father knows what you need and that He will

provide it. Now, this is not a call to

passivity. This is not a call to become the

sluggard of Proverbs and to turn and toil in your bed, to let

your hand drop down to the bowl, and to be so tired and so

miserable that you can't even lift it to your mouth.

Again. You're not to be a sluggard.

Brothers and sisters, this is a call to priority.

It's a call to seek first His Kingdom.

It's a call to Live Today in obedience, to Live Today in

humility, to Live Today with right labor, right hard work,

diligence. It's called to Live Today

prayerfully, dependently trusting your Father in heaven.

So in our passage today, Jesus has put his finger on two of the

deepest struggles of the human hearts.

One, what we treasure and two, what we fear.

And and he tells us that both reveal whether our devotion is

divided or not. If if we treasure earth, you're

going to be chained to it. Just know that you're going to

be a slave to it. If we serve money, you'll never

know what it means to rest. If we live for material

security, anxiety will always be close at hand.

But if God is our Father and His Kingdom is our first concern, we

are free to live with undivided hearts.

So the call of the passage is clear.

Do not lay up your hopes where moth and rust destroy.

Do not let your vision be darkened by greed and worldly

mindedness. Do not bow to the Master called

money. Do not live as though your

Father has forgotten you and that he's unconcerned about your

life. And do not drag tomorrow's

troubles into today's obedience. Instead, we are called the

treasure of the Father's Kingdom.

We're called to trust the Father's care.

We're called to seek the Father's righteousness.

We are called to rest in the knowledge that your heavenly

Father knows what you need. Why?

Because Kingdom citizens must reject divided devotion and

trust their heavenly Father wholeheartedly.

Now for the believer, for those of you who are believers in

here, this text is a call to repentance and renew trust.

The text is calling you to loosen your grip on this world

and to tighten your grip on the promises of your Father.

If you're an unbeliever in here, then this text is exposing

something you need to pay very close attention to.

It's exposing the emptiness of life without God.

You may spend your whole life chasing security.

You may gain possessions yet lose your soul.

You may run after tomorrow yet never find peace.

The answer is not more control. The answer is not more money.

The answer is not a better plan. The answer is Christ.

Turn from your sin. Stop serving false masters.

What that means is that you repent.

You confess your sins and you repent of those.

You turn from those, and you come in faith to the King of

kings, who brings sinners into the family of God.

He'll save your soul of the day. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your love.

We thank you for your kindness. We thank you for your

compassion. We thank you, Lord, that you are

all knowing that there is not a need of our lives that escapes

your sight. God, would you help us to see

the areas of our heart where we are building up a treasure of

this world and not a treasure of heaven?

Would you help us see where we have become so consumed with the

things of this world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the

eyes, the pride of life and its achievements, that we have

forgotten our God. Or maybe we've not forgotten.

Maybe we've simply tried to serve 2 Masters.

We think that there is room enough in our life for two

Thrones. And so, God, would you rebuke us

by your word today? Would you correct us?

Would you teach us and train us for godliness this day?

Would you deepen our affections for Christ?

Would you deepen our trust in your promises?

Father, would you help us to trust your kind Providence above

anything else in this world? God, I also ask that you would

save anyone here today who is simply pursuing their own

Kingdom, seeking to build their own, their own Kingdom in which

they can rule and reign over their own life.

God, would you help them to see the vanity, as we read in

Ecclesiastes, would you help them see the the vanity of that,

that they're only going to be left wanting more and more and

more. They'll never arrive.

They'll always strive. And God, would you help them to

see the burden of their heart, the burden of their sin, and

would you help them today to carry it to the cross of Christ,

that Christ might relieve that burden and grant them new life.

Today, God, may all of us live with a good eye, an eye toward

the light of Christ, an eye toward the heavenly provision of

our Father, an eye toward your Kingdom, your will.

And may we strive for that, build our lives upon it.

I'm going to give you a moment now there in your seat to

reflect on God's words, to reflect on the sermon, to

consider your heart, your life. Repent where you must prevent or

must repent today. Confess those things you need to

confess to the Lord. Know that He hears you, that

he's able to save to the uttermost all those who draw

near to him today. Heavenly Father, we exalt you as

the God of heaven and earth today, and we thank You that you

bid us to come boldly before your throne of grace that we

might find mercy and grace in our time of need.

We thank You that Christ has bore the penalty for our sins,

that we have been made righteous in Him, that we've been made Co

heirs with Christ of heaven and all that it possesses.

We thank you, Lord, that you call us sons and daughters, that

you've granted us life where we knew only death before.

And we recognize that our hearts do become wayward, that we do

become distracted. We have divided devotion at

times it's the Lord. Would you rescue us from this?

Also? Would you set our feet upon a

rock today? It's in the name of Christ to

pray. Amen.