Day 17

Chase: Hello and welcome to the Point Church Podcast. We're really glad you're here. Before we jump in, if you'd like to stay connected, you can download the Point Church app. It's a simple way to find messages, resource, and what's happening. And if this podcast is helpful, take a moment to like, subscribe, and share. You can find us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music. Let's get into today's episode. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Point Church Podcast. I'm here with Pastor Sam. As we're working through the book of Matthew for our 40-day, 40 podcast Lint series, we're walking through right now, we're in Matthew 6, chapter 6, ⁓ Sermon on the Mound. And we're diving into a really big ones today, starting in verse 19. So I'm gonna start us off with reading. Again, this is Jesus Jesus speaking. And it reads, Don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth. Where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don't break in and steal steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So when he's talking here about storing up treasures in heaven, what what is how do you store up a treasure in heaven? Yeah. Good question. ⁓ I mean, it goes back to everything he was just talking about, like how to pray, how to give, how to fast. Like, great is your reward. Great is your reward in heaven. And and we're told like, you know, there are rewards in heaven. we're not really told specifically what they are, but I think I think you can honestly come back to the idea that the greatest reward of heaven is what we already have in Christ. And so You know, we just get to enjoy more of Christ. Eternity. In eternity. Yeah. Like there is something about that that you're like, we've already been given the ultimate reward, but it's just more of it, more and more. So it's not how we would think of like earthly treasures, like you get a bigger palace or you get more gold. You know, that's still taking what we value here and just putting it out there. ⁓ but it's just like, you know, you you become more like Jesus, more of who you were designed to be, and then you get kind a foretaste of that now. Yeah. It's it's so good. picking up verse twenty two, the eye is the lamp of the body. 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. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness? Yeah. This this passage really connects the two sections of don't store up for yourself treasure in heaven. The eyes, the lamp of the body, and then what we're about to read of serving two masters. But what I wrote in my margins of the Bible was ⁓ earthly treasures will rot your heart. Like because it's where your heart is. So it's like if you're coveting, you know, like with your eyes, like the speedboat, the lake house, you know, you're coveting that, it'll rot your heart if that's what your ultimate treasure is. And so Jesus again is like, be careful what you put your gaze upon, like what you covet, what you seek, is if it's something other than the kingdom, it it'll lead to darkness. But if it's the kingdom, it'll lead to light. Mm. And then he goes on and really explains because otherwise it seems random. Yeah. But it's the same thought in three different ways. Yeah, 'cause picking up in verse twenty-four, Jesus said, No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Yep. Again, seek first his kingdom, his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. But ⁓ really he gets into this in the next section because it's amazing that Jesus could have structured this any way he wanted to, and how he specifically structured it was he put possessions right next to anxiety. And there's something very interesting about that. Yeah, and you know, with this next section. The cure for anxiety is how it's entitled in our Bibles. you've done great teaching on anxiety, so we're gonna do things a little different, if you don't mind, where I'm just gonna let you run with it. Okay. Yeah, that sounds good. Well, as someone who's always wrestled with anxiety is just you know, it's ⁓ it's kind of like something you desire to figure out when you're like, Okay, I have this, you know, if you have a certain we'll say illness, you're gonna want to study the cure for that illness. Yep. And for me, anxiety is a personal thing, but it's also something that just plagues particularly our country. ⁓ just our culture and it it just statistics are off the charts on it. Yeah. ⁓ and I do wonder if, you know, if there isn't a link between the abundance of possessions and the anxiety that comes with it, but you know, maybe that's for another day. But let me break down this part of scripture. So it says the cure for anxiety, Jesus says, Therefore I tell you, don't worry about your life. What you will eat or what you will drink or about your body, what you wear, isn't life more than food in the body, more than clothing? It almost sounds like there, Jesus like, quit choosing to be anxious. Like try harder. Which is very out of character for him. Like who wakes up in the morning and is like, I can't wait to be anxious? Like it's not exactly a voluntary thing. It just kind of happens to you. No, it's the opposite. Yeah, don't You're like, I don't want to be anxious. And just like it i at first it seems like he's like Doing that Bob Newhart sketch where he's like, stop it. Yeah. Stop it. Like, quit doing that. Like, and he's not. He's not saying that. What he's doing is he's giving us two things. And I'm gonna refer to some notes because Pastor Tim Keller, someone I really admire and study, did an amazing breakdown of this. But he says what Jesus is doing is saying, Okay, here's the problem, is anxiety, and here's the solution, is you need to fix your thinking and fix your priorities. And that's what he goes into. So he begins with Fix your thinking. Consider the birds of the sky. They don't sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. Aren't you more worthy than they? Can you any of you add one moment to his lifespan by worrying? And why do you worry about your clothes? Observe how the wildflowers of the fields grow. They don't labor or spin a thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. If that's how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won't He do much more for you, you of little faith? So he's saying, like, when you're awake at night at 3 a.m., whatever, and you can't sleep, or you're anxious, or you just feel like what about this? What about this? ⁓ what anxiety is, is a desire to control. That which you cannot control. You want to control what you cannot control. Anxiety, honestly, is the desire to have the powers of God. You want to be God of your situation, of your life. And you don't feel anxious when your life is going the way that you would want it to go. But when you feel anxious is when things do not go the way you want it to go. Like, ⁓ let's say some the doctor comes into the room. With a bad diagnosis. That's not what you want it to go, and you want control. You want to change the situation. When your boss comes in with bad news, you want to control the situation. You feel that heightened anxiety because what it does is it exposes you're not in control. You're not in control of your life. And what Jesus is saying here is in fact, it's kind of a reality check. You've never been in control of your life. Ever. It's just things were running well. But you've never really been in control of your life. Yeah. And it's a wake-up call that we've always had to depend on God. But we don't like to depend on God. We want to be our own God, thus have our own power, our own control. And this is just something I wrote down is that we don't like that we're not God. So threats make us feel trapped. And it wakes us up to the reality that ⁓ we've never been in control. And the reason that we, you know, feel this way is because we're not sufficient. Like we don't feel sufficient in ourselves. Like if everything was taken away, we we are not enough as people. Yeah. So it goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, all the way back when God had provided everything for them. They didn't struggle with what food to eat or have to worry about clothing. They didn't know what anxiety was. It wasn't until they took the fruit for themselves, a desire to be like God is what it says, and they ate of it. They gave into that desire. They grasped to be like God and then they became less human in the process. And that is where you then see that they hid from God, they clothe themselves, and they didn't want to depend on God. I mean, that's part of the fall. So What it is is anxiety is you want to be God in your world. And ⁓ So when you say that though, ⁓ you know, though some people will say, Well, I've never wanted to be like God. I don't want to be God. What are like some examples of us trying to be like God? Maybe that we're not even realizing. You wanna be like God when you wanna keep your family members safe and secure. Yeah. Wouldn't you want to be like God and there's no cancer in your family? Mm-hmm. Wouldn't you want to be like God that there was no debt? Yeah. Wouldn't you want to be like God that there's no war? Yeah. I mean, wouldn't you want to be like God where the people you wanted got into political office? Mm-hmm. You want to be like God. Like whether you're a you might not be a naturally bold like alpha male or whatever, but every one of us wants life to go a certain way. Yeah. And when it doesn't and we don't trust that God really is in control of our lives. Mm-hmm. And we're okay with that. We trust that ⁓ I believe in God. But it's one thing to believe in God and it's another thing to believe in God. Yeah. It's only you're saying Everyone has done this at one point or another. If not constantly. Yeah. Yeah. We're not trying to point out just a certain type of individual. No. It's going on the fact that we've all tried to do this. It goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden that when you take from something, when they took in that nature to become like God, we wanted the powers of God that we don't have. Mm-hmm. Because we want the control that only God has. And maybe we project it onto different things, but it's all because we want to have control. Yeah. And when we don't have control, we freak out, we spin out, and we try and be the king of the world in many ways. And and so what Jesus is coming along and saying instead of just being like, stop it, stop it, what he's saying is change your thinking that whatever it is you're anxious about, take a breath and pause and say, Wait a minute, these birds don't have a feeding schedule. None of them are dying of starvation. You know. These flowers don't have a timetable for when they're supposed to bloom. And these are flowers and these are birds. There's billions of them. And I'm created in the image of God. How much more valuable am I than they? And so that's when you pause and you're like, okay, ⁓ am I putting my faith in my job or in God? Am I putting my faith in in love by my family and friends to be all sufficient or in God? Am I putting my faith in in money to give me purpose or in God? Like you have to pause and think everything I'm thinking goes through the lens of providence. Like God provides for all these things. So you have to pause and change your thinking. God has always been in control, whether you've realized it or not. It's just that we freak out when we feel like we're not in control. And this is not someone who has never struggled with anxiety. Like I am the a you know, like the most common anxious person. Yep. So like this this is preaching to me. So ⁓ so he goes on to say, so don't worry saying, what will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly father knows that you need them. That's the next part is you change your thinking that he's providing all these things, but then you change your priorities. Like you realize who's the one who's giving it to you is not just some vague being, but it's your father. Like this is where he calls him father again, being like, Your father, your father, your father, your father. Like use that word. Don't just use God. God can become cold. Father is supposed to be a warm, gentle, receiving identity. So you're like my father will feed me. My father will put clothes on my back. My father and that changes again the relationship. But then when you change your priorities, he says, But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness all again, and these things will be provided for you. Therefore, don't worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough troubles to on its own. So you fix your thinking. Okay, he's gonna provide, and then you fix your priorities. My priorities are not my needs, my priorities are the kingdom. And ⁓ Tim Keller told this incredible story where he says there was ⁓ Queen Elizabeth, the the first one, not the second one. But Queen Elizabeth ⁓ needed an explorer to go to some distant land for her. And he had just started a small business that was kind of struggling, like he'd kind of gotten out of the business of ⁓ you know, exploring the world. And she tapped him on the shoulder and was like, I need I need someone like you. And he was like, Well, your your excellency, your grace, like I can't go. My business is just starting, it's struggling, and if I leave, it'll fail. And Queen Elizabeth says, If you take care of my business, I'll take care of your business. So if you take care of my business, I'll take care of your business. And the man thought to himself, like, the Queen of England is not going to let my small business fail. If she doesn't want to let it fail, I I'll sure, I'll go be the explorer for her because she's not going to let it fail in the process. And I think that's just a small example of the infinite value that we have with the king of the world who's like, if you take care of my business, I'll take care of your business. Like your needs will be met. It'll be provided for. I will not let it fail as long as you do what I call you to do. And that is really the the the recipe in many ways is like, okay, right thinking, right priority. He w has always been a father. He's always been kind. He's provided everything I need for not only my salvation, but I mean in America where things are so rampant with anxiety, like let's be honest, especially in the suburbs where we You know, Pastor, how many people really miss a meal in the suburbs, like where we pastor? Not many. But we we strive for all these things, these possessions, because we think that's what's gonna fulfill us. And then it creates anxiety when it's not enough and it just becomes cyclical. And he's like, Love me, not the other master, trust me, seek me first, and wouldn't you know it? The anxiety, that's that's what we see all the time with people who come to Jesus for the first time is peace. That the anxiety like has been taken away in many ways because they're like, wow, I found what I was looking for. And it wasn't in possessions or in the success or anything like that. So yeah, it it's right thinking and it's right priority. By seeking his kingdom, taking care of his business, he takes care of us. Amen. ⁓ so with that, we're gonna close out today. ⁓ That's finishing up chapter six. ⁓ so tomorrow we'll be moving into chapter seven. So thanks for tuning in and we'll see you tomorrow.