Be Anxious for Nothing (Luke 12:22-34)

We're going to be actually in the Gospel of Luke this morning, not the Gospel of Mark.

We're going to take a little detour this week.

Reason being is one of our elders, Pete Maskell, was supposed to teach this morning, but their whole family got sick.

And so out of an abundance of caution, they're going to be staying home this morning.

And Pete had already studied for the next passage in Mark.

He was ready to go.

And I had not been studied for all of that.

So what you're going to get this morning is what we call a back pocket sermon.

And what that is, is each one of the elders here at the church, myself included, have an emergency sermon ready to go for occasions like this.

Just in case we find out at the last second we're teaching and we didn't know that we were teaching.

So this morning you're going to get my back pocket sermon.

And I'm actually really excited to give it because it's something I've been sitting on for a while, really wanting to give the sermon, but not being able to.

And God knew exactly what was going to happen this morning.

And apparently he thought we all needed to hear this sermon right here this morning.

So that's what you're going to get.

So we're going to be in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12, and we're going to be starting in verse 22, and we're going to be reading through verse 34.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

So let's stand for the reading of God's Word.

Starting verse 22.

Then he said to his disciples, Therefore I tell you, don't worry about your life, what you will eat, or about the body, what you will wear.

For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.

Consider the ravens.

They don't sow or reap, they don't have a storeroom or a barn.

Yet God feeds them.

Aren't you worth much more than the birds?

Can any of you add one moment to his lifespan by worrying?

If then you're not able to do even a little thing, why worry about the rest?

Consider how the wild flowers grow.

They don't labor or spin thread.

Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all of his splendor was adorned like one of these.

If that's how God clothes the grass, which is in the field today and is thrown into the furnace tomorrow, how much more will he do for you?

You of little faith, don't strive for what you should eat and what you should drink, and don't be anxious.

For the Gentile world eagerly seeks all these things, and your father knows that you need them.

But seek his kingdom, and these things will be provided for you.

Don't be afraid, little flock, because your father delights to give you the kingdom.

Sell your possessions and give to the poor.

Make money bags for yourselves that won't grow old, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for these verses.

I pray that as we go through this, Lord, that you would speak to each one of us individually exactly what it is that you want us to get out of this.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So there was a guy, and he was walking down the street.

His name is Joe.

And he comes across a friend that he hasn't seen in a while.

And the friend comes up to Joe and he says, Joe, he says, You look amazing.

Like, you look happy, you look healthy, you look younger, you look so alive.

He's like, What's going on with you?

Joe says, Well, you know, I found this guy, and I've been using him for a couple weeks now, and he's a worry man.

And what that is, is I pay him a thousand dollars every month, and he does all of my worrying for me.

And the friend looks at Joe and he's like, Really?

And Joe's like, yeah, it's amazing, you need to try it.

And the friend looks at Joe and he says, Joe, he says, I know that you don't make that much money.

So how can you afford to pay this worry man a thousand dollars a month to worry for you?

And Joe says, that's for him to worry about.

That joke is ridiculous, right?

It's just absolutely ridiculous.

But that is how ridiculous we look to God when we worry.

That's how ridiculous we look.

And that's what we're gonna be talking about this morning.

How ridiculous it is for us to grasp onto worry and to hold it so tightly.

So we're gonna start right there in verse 22.

Says, then he said to his disciples, we're gonna stop right there.

So who is Jesus talking to?

His disciples.

He's talking to his followers, those that want to be just like their rabbi.

So this isn't just for Jesus' disciples, this is for all of his disciples.

This is for you and me here today as well.

His followers right now.

This is for you and me.

So verse 22, then he said to his disciples, Therefore I tell you, don't worry about your life, what you will eat, or about the body, what you will wear.

So the word therefore that we see right there, it points back to what Jesus had been talking about in the previous verses, which was about the rich fool that stored up his riches on earth instead of storing up his riches on heaven.

So Jesus is saying, in light of the rich fool that we just talked about, we now know that earthly possessions are worthless in eternity.

So don't worry about those earthly riches.

Don't worry about your life and what you're going to eat.

Don't worry about your body and if you're going to have enough clothes to wear.

First Timothy 6, 6 through 8 says, But godliness with contentment is great gain.

For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of the world.

But if we have food and clothing, which we're talking about here today, with these we will be content.

And there's no better example of this than how Jesus lived.

As we're going through the Gospel of Mark, we just see it over and over.

And a few chapters prior in the book of Luke, it quotes Jesus as saying, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

Jesus didn't have a house and two cars or two and three or three children.

He wasn't living what we've come to know as the American dream.

Most of the time, when we see Jesus, he's with his disciples either camping or their house guests.

You know, both of which can be fun for a couple days, right?

But he they were doing it for three years.

You know, when Jesus entered ministry at about the age of 30, I think it'd be safe to say that he probably left a thriving business.

I mean, who wouldn't want Jesus to be their contractor or their carpenter, right?

He can't tell a lie.

When he says that he's going to do something by a certain time, he's gonna do it by a certain time.

He does everything as unto the Lord because he is the Lord.

And he's a hard worker and he's honest.

So he probably left a thriving business behind to his brothers when he entered into ministry.

With his skill, he could have easily built a beautiful home for himself and could have started to try and build an earthly kingdom.

But Jesus knew that his kingdom would not be established on this earth.

So he didn't invest in anything that wasn't eternal on this earth.

He understood and he lived, verse 23.

Read it with me.

It says, For life is more than food and the body more than clothing.

So as we're learning from Jesus, our life is for the purpose of the kingdom of God.

Our body is for the purpose of serving the kingdom of God.

God doesn't want us concerning ourselves with the things of this world, even about the necessities, even the things that we need to survive, like food and clothing, as he mentioned here.

Look at verse 24.

It says, Consider the ravens.

They don't sow or reap, they don't have a storeroom or a barn.

Yet God feeds them.

Aren't you worth much more than the birds?

So ravens, let's talk about ravens.

They are that annoying bird that makes that horrid sound.

And they wreak havoc on gardens and crops, and they spread diseases to humans and to livestock and to wildlife, things like the West Nile virus and mad cow disease.

They're a pesky bird, yet God still takes care of their every meal.

What Jesus is saying is if God is willing to pay so close attention and care for an annoying bird, how much more will he take care of each one of us?

His sons and his daughters.

You know, we so often worry about and get caught up in the little details of life.

And sometimes it's the little details of life that start to consume us.

And so often we confuse things that are actually of importance with little details, and little details with things that are of importance.

You know, I had a discipler in college that used to tell me that if I wouldn't remember it in a year, then it's a little detail and that I shouldn't worry about it or overthink it.

I used to get really stressed when tests, big tests and stuff were coming up.

And he always used to say, Are you gonna remember this in a year?

I'm like, no.

Honestly, I don't even remember a single test in college now.

But I would, it would consume me so much in that time leading up to that test.

And he he would always ask me, Are you gonna remember this in a year?

I'm like, no, I'm not gonna remember it in a year.

It's like then why are you becoming so consumed with this?

So whenever I start to go down that road currently with stress and I feel a knot or a weight on my shoulders, I try to walk through my that same line of questioning for myself.

Is this going to be a big deal in a year?

Is it gonna be something I even remember in a year?

Because we can so often take the little things and make them much bigger than they actually are when they actually have no eternal significance whatsoever.

You see, God doesn't want our thoughts being consumed with these distractions.

But you know who does want us to be consumed by these distractions?

The enemy, the devil.

He tries to tie us up and get us into knots over these little things.

And if it hasn't become evident yet, God does not want us to worry about, hear me, please.

He doesn't want us to worry about anything.

Verse 25.

Can any of you add one moment to his lifespan by worrying?

So can we add a single day to our life by worrying?

The answer is no.

In fact, it's actually the opposite.

It's been proven that worry and stress and anxiousness can lead to all kinds of health problems that actually make our life shorter.

And worry doesn't even accomplish anything.

Think about this.

Worry doesn't accomplish anything ever.

Who here has ever come to the other side of something that they were really stressed about, something that they were really worried about?

They come to the other side and you've thought, man, I'm so glad that I spent weeks with a knot in my stomach.

So glad that I lost all of that sleep over the past couple weeks.

You know, my worry made everything so much better.

That's not the case ever.

Even if the outcome is the worst case scenario of whatever that you were worrying about, it didn't help you, did it?

Having that worry leading up to that event.

And I think it's important that we we talk about what worry is at its core.

What it is, the best definition that I've found, is it's allowing our mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles, whether present or in the future.

So it's allowing our mind to dwell on difficulty of troubles, whether present or future.

The second, or the two key words I think in that definition are allow and dwell.

We allow our minds.

You know, we do have control of what our minds dwell on.

We don't always have control of what thoughts pop into our mind, but we do have control of the thoughts that we allow to live there and that we allow to entertain.

Now, the other word that pops out to me is dwell.

And I want to think of the word dwell.

You know, it's like a dwelling place.

A dwelling place is somewhere where we live, a place that we are consistent in just being in that place.

That is a dwelling place.

So I want to ask you, where do your thoughts live?

Where do your thoughts dwell?

And maybe you don't struggle personally with a lot of worry in your life, but maybe your thoughts dwell on the things that you covet.

Or maybe you struggle with less and you allow your thoughts to dwell there.

Or maybe it's with anger and you allow your thoughts to dwell on all the things that you're angry about, or how you've had all these things come against you.

Or maybe it's bitterness or jealousy, or maybe you allow your thoughts to dwell on comparison, comparing yourself to other people or other circumstances.

So that's the question: where do your thoughts dwell?

Where do your thoughts live?

Now, the more important question is where does the Bible tell us that they should dwell?

What does the Bible tell us where they should live?

And in Philippians 4.8, it tells us, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

That's where our thoughts need to live.

That's where our thoughts need to dwell.

Philippians 4 8.

If you want to go and dwell on that a little bit after service.

But for some reason, we think that we can change our troublesome circumstances by troubling our own mind with worry.

So I hope as we're going through this that worry starts to look as ridiculous as that joke that I told you at the beginning of this sermon.

What it comes down to is that we like to worry, I think.

Because it makes us feel like we have control of the situation.

Or it makes us feel like we're of some importance because we have things to worry about.

And I think this stems all the way back to Adam and Eve in the fall in the garden.

All the way back to them.

Because Satan tempted them with the idea of being equal with God.

And how appropriate, because Satan fell from heaven because he wanted to be equal with God.

And he still tempts us today with that very thing, but he disguises it under the mask of worry.

We can't let go of a circumstance and trust God with it.

So we like to pretend that we have control of it.

Because deep down our flesh is still begging for that equality with God.

You know, God tells us to trust him and to not worry.

But we say, you know what, God, I got this one.

I'm just gonna take this all in, I'm gonna do all the worrying for you.

I'm gonna take care of this under my flesh.

Just like we've seen Peter do over the last couple weeks in the Gospel of Mark, when he was trusting in his own flesh, saying, No, Jesus, I got this, I can follow you all the way to the cross.

And then we see where his flesh got him in those multiple denials that we covered last week.

And then I think the Christian life should not be characterized by worry.

Because who would want to follow Christ if our example is freaking out, running around saying that the sky is falling all the time?

Nobody's gonna look at us and say, I want to be like that person, right?

2 Timothy 1.7 says, For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control.

It's when we trust God in the biggest, hardest things that we set set our side that we set ourselves aside from the world, that we stand out to the world.

People will look at you and say, Why aren't you freaking out like everybody else?

Because everybody, I don't know if you've looked around lately, everybody's running around acting like the sky is falling.

But if we were able to exude hope and light in the midst of the chaos, that's how people are gonna see the hope that lies within us.

And then when they ask you, how come you're not freaking out, like everybody else is freaking out?

He's like, Well, let me tell you about my hope and where I get my hope, and it's in Jesus Christ.

Jesus goes on in verse 26.

He says, If then you're not able to do even a little thing, like add a minute to your life, why worry about the rest?

He's saying, you can't even control the length of your days, but you worry about if God, the one that does control the length of your days, if he's going to come through.

And I think Jesus wants us to learn like stop acting like you have control because you don't.

Stop elevating yourself to equality with God by trying to grasp control of things that you have no control of.

That's what Jesus is communicating here in these verses.

Look at verse 27 with me.

It says, Consider how the wildflowers grow.

They don't labor or spin thread.

Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these.

If that's how God clothes the grass, which is in the field today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, how much more will he do for you, you of little faith?

Jesus is saying, the beauty of the wildflower is greater than anything in Solomon's kingdom.

And he's talking to a Jewish crowd here.

So Solomon's kingdom was known as the height of Israel's prosperity.

And nothing in Solomon's kingdom was as beautiful as the in or intricate as the flower, the wildflower that comes up naturally out in the field all by itself.

And the flower, think about it, it has nothing to do with its own growth.

It has nothing to do with its own beauty.

And it's more beautiful than anything that man can make.

Even if that man has unlimited resources like Solomon had.

So what Jesus is telling us is there is beauty in trust.

God sees more beauty in something that has nothing to do with the work of its own hands than anything that we've strived for or worried about.

Think about that.

It's not about our own works of what we can do or our own worry.

It's just about trust and allowing Him to do all of that.

God is looking at each one of us right now and He's saying, Trust me.

Stop toiling.

Verse 29.

It says, Don't strive for what you should eat and what you should drink, and don't be anxious.

For the Gentile world eagerly seeks all these things, and your father knows that you need them.

So don't hold dear the things that the world holds dear.

Like the rich fool did in the previous passage.

Store up your treasure in heaven.

You know, the things of this world don't make you happy, they don't satisfy.

All they do is they whet your appetite and they make you want the next thing.

I think about this iPad that I'm teaching off of.

I got it probably seven years ago, something like that.

I just remember thinking, man, if I could just get an iPad, I could teach off of it, I could manage all of my music on this iPad.

Man, if I just had an iPad and I saved up and I saved up and I got this iPad.

And it's a great tool, and it's helped me a lot.

But what I found is it didn't make me any more happy or any more satisfied in my life once I got it.

Actually, once I got it, then I was like, wow, this thing's expensive and it's delicate.

Like, I need to get a screen protector now.

Now I need to get a neoprene case to put it in so it doesn't get bounced around in my backpack.

Then I'm gonna need to get one of those little tiny keyboards so I can actually use the thing.

And all it did is it made me want more stuff.

I wasn't happier once I got this iPad.

Now contrast that with Jesus.

He satisfies.

And true satisfaction comes from investing in the eternal, not in the temporal.

Verse 31.

But seek his kingdom, and these things will be provided.

For you.

Meaning the things you need will be provided, just like the wildflower, just like the example that we just saw.

Now, it's important though that we keep this verse in context because we often just read the second half of this verse of 31.

All these things will be provided for you.

That's what we want to hold on to.

But if you look at it, the statement is conditional.

And it's conditional on seeking the kingdom of God first.

And then God will bless you with the things that you need, with the necessities of life.

Jesus is saying, live for God.

You won't have to ever worry about anything else, just like the wildflowers in the field.

Now, if you want to worry about something, I think we need to worry about whether we're living for the kingdom of God or not.

I think it's the only thing we should be worried about is if we're doing that or not.

You see, Jesus didn't seek the kingdom of God through attaining earthly possessions, it was through doing the will of the Father.

Now, at this point, I think it's important that we define the kingdom of God.

What does that mean when we see that in Scripture?

Because how can we seek to do something if we don't know exactly what that is?

And we've defined this in the past, but I think it was way back in the beginning.

It was a long time ago of what exactly is the kingdom of God.

So let's look at what we know about the kingdom of God.

We know Jesus is the ruler of the kingdom of God.

We know that from the Gospels.

The kingdom is not this earth, because we saw Satan offer Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth when he was being tempted in the wilderness.

We also know that we as Christians can experience the kingdom of God on earth, but not everybody does.

We also know that the kingdom of God is established in heaven, because Jesus prayed, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So I think it's safe to say that the kingdom of God is wherever Christ is reigning.

And I'm not talking about geography here.

God's kingdom is established in heaven.

It will be established on the new heaven and the new earth after the millennial reign.

But the question is, how do we experience it and seek it right now?

The kingdom of God, well, let's look at what we know about that as well.

The kingdom of God is where Christ rules.

So through the process of elimination, we can see where he's ruling.

Is he ruling in Washington, D.C.

right now?

I heard somebody say, heck no.

Is he ruling in our school systems right now?

No.

Is he ruling in any city geographically on this earth right now?

I can't think of a single one.

So how can we experience the kingdom of God on earth?

It's through Christ's rule in our heart.

The kingdom of God on earth is the body of Christ.

It's this church and so many others.

If you want to experience the kingdom in your own life, it means surrendering to the rule of Christ in your own life.

And seeking means pursuing Christ's rule.

Pursuing God's will over everything in your life.

That's how we experience the kingdom of God right now in our own lives.

So seek those things that we just talked about, and you will never have to worry about food in your belly or clothes on your back.

Seek his kingdom, and these things will be provided for you.

Verse 32 says, Don't be afraid, little flock, because your father delights to give you the kingdom.

God's kingdom is not hard to attain.

Jesus says, Seek, and God will freely give it to you.

It's actually his good pleasure to do so.

So when the Jews heard the kingdom of God, their thoughts would have automatically gone to the Messiah.

Jesus is saying that the kingdom is here.

He's saying, I am here, I am the kingdom, I am not hard to attain.

Just believe, just trust.

You know, accepting Christ into your life is the easy part.

It's walking with Jesus on the throne of your life that's a different story.

You don't just give your life to Jesus and then life becomes easy.

It's quite the contrary.

You give your life to Jesus and then he asks you to trust him.

And then he asks you to not worry anymore.

You see, he wants to see your faith and trust built through experience.

And in order to learn that, you have to be put in a position where you have to trust him.

You know, trust in any relationship is built over time, and it's no different with Jesus.

He gives you little bits in the beginning, and he allows us to start to grow naturally and start to trust him more and more over time.

But it starts with giving him that spot on the throne of our lives.

Verse 33.

Says, sell your possessions and give to the poor.

Make money bags for yourselves that won't grow old, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

Now the money bags that do not grow old infer that this is talking about heavenly money bags, where no earthly thing, like a thief or a moth, can endanger it.

And that's one of the problems with earthly treasure.

You have to protect it, you have to insure it, then you have to worry about it.

You have to buy a screen protector and then a neighboring case for it.

So could Jesus be telling us here that one way to worry less is to have less things to worry about?

Because that is the exact opposite of what the American dream is.

Which leads us right to verse 34.

It says, For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

I don't know about you, but I want my retirement to be in heaven.

You know, the world teaches us to work our whole life putting into our 401k and our IRAs so that we can live the last 30 years of our life how we wished we were living the first 60 years of our life.

And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that.

You know, we should be doing that, we should be planning ahead, we should be responsible with what God's given us.

But it's about not placing our hope or our trust in a 401k or an IRA or in our savings accounts.

God says, give me your whole life, which he sees as a vapor, and I'll give you the eternal retirement plan in the kingdom of God.

So save up and invest in the eternal.

That's what Jesus is telling us right here in these verses.

Now, I want to leave you with this.

You know, our lives in the scope of eternity are a tiny little dot on an infinite line that we can't see the ends of.

And God says, invest that dot in my kingdom's stock, and I'll give you the best return on your investment possible.

Eternity with me.

He says, seek my kingdom first, and you will never need to worry again.

The question is, are we seeking the kingdom of God first in our life?

You know, maybe you've been following Jesus for a while, but there's things that you have refused to let go of.

Things that you want to pretend that you actually have control of that you don't.

Things that maybe you refuse to stop worrying about because you see yourself as a better steward of those things than God is.

Jesus is saying right here in this passage, let go.

Because you're only killing yourself worrying about it.

And maybe you're listening and you're thinking, you know, I've never truly sought the kingdom of God in the first place.

I've never asked Jesus to sit on the throne of my life and to let him rule and to let him take charge, to allow him to forgive me and to wash me of my sins.

I've never done that before.

And if that's you here today, today's the day.

Give yourself to him.

Invite him to take that position on the throne of your life.

And if Jesus is already there, but sometimes you bump him off the throne from time to time because you're trying to grasp control, today's the day to say, Jesus, I surrender everything.

Would you remove all of the worry?

And when I think about worry, and when I start to worry, would you remind me that this is not my job to be doing this, that you are still on your throne, and you're on the throne of my life, and I'm giving you all of these things.

Would you please pray with me?

If you are making that decision for the first time today, just pray something similar to what I'm gonna pray right now.

Jesus, would you take the throne of my life?

I've held on to way too many things for way too long.

Would you take that position in my life?

Lord, I've sinned against you.

I've offended you, I've done things against you.

Would you forgive me?

Would you cleanse me with the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ and wash me clean so that I can be born again to become your son or your daughter in your kingdom?

Lord, I want to start experiencing your kingdom here on earth in my own life through the body of Christ.

Would you now take control?

Lord, for the rest of us, we struggle with this.

Lord, so many of us, all of us, if we're to be honest, struggle with worry and anxiety and anxiousness.

That's just not trusting you.

That just means you are not big enough in our mind.

But Lord, would you help us with this?

Would you remind us through your Holy Spirit living in and through us of those times where we try to grasp control, where we worry about things that we shouldn't, where we have that lack of trust, where we think we're a better steward of something than you are, or we think we're equal with you can handle it better.

Lord, help us to surrender all of those things to you.

And to just come a place to a place of complete surrender before you.

Because we're standing out so much in this world that has no hope, that has no light, that is yelling at the top of their lungs that the sky is falling.

Lord, help us to be those those lights, those beacons of lights, those places where people can find hope because they see Jesus inside of us.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.