Matthew 6:25 | Kingdom Over Anxiety

Sunday Morning | March 15, 2026 | Colby Flowers | Louisville, KY

Student Pastor concludes the WKND student retreat with Sunday morning's sermon based off Matthew 6:25.

You can join us on Sunday mornings at 11 AM for worship.  We are located at 8911 3rd Street Road, Louisville KY 40272.

Transcript

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Good morning church, how are we doing? It's good to be with you. Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter six this morning where we're going to be. Matthew chapter six. If if you didn't know that it was the weekend in a student weekend, you might have thought a colt has infiltrated the church, or a group of people escaped from prison and found a church service to get to. Or possibly we got a new set of hall monitors and are now observing people going through the hall to make sure you get to your rooms on time. But this week, this weekend has been incredible. To see a group of students, middle school and high school get together over this idea of kingdom over anxiety. And just to give you some background leading up to this, that this isn't this didn't just happen this weekend in fact, the student ministry has been preparing for this for several months. We've been even building up to it on our Wednesday nights. In fact, last Sunday we had something called an Equipping luncheon that took place in here around this issue, in which we challenged families to go on a screen fast. And you're not going to believe it. We're going to do that for an entire month in which we take away all non-essential screen use. And we had families come and sign their their life away on a document, okay. It's completely binding. And if you, break the fast, you're in big trouble. Okay. But we are targeting this issue because not only is it incredibly important for us to deal, address this issue with our students, but it's incredibly important that we address this issue with all of us. There's a book written called The Anxious Generation. Imagine being called a generation of anxious people. Well, that's what this generation Gen Z has been titled, partially because they are also called screen agers. Screen agers because they have never existed or they have been born into a culture, into a society in which they have had access to a smart device their entire life. Most of us, some of us in this room haven't had that reality. But because of those factors, we now have a very anxious generation. And so what we wanted to do this weekend as a student pastor, as our leadership team, and as our church staff, we wanted to address this issue and how important it is, and that's why we're going to be in Matthew chapter six this morning, because we had a guest speaker come in. His name was Blake Appleby. He came from a small town in west West Texas, Jayden, Texas, a couple an hour or so from Lubbock, where Texas Tech is. And he came and brought up this issue about anxiety. And so in Matthew chapter six, turn with me to verse 25. And that's where we're going to start. We're not going to, we're going to look at the verses prior to that, in fact. But we're going to start in verse 25, and we're going to highlight this idea. But have you ever had just a device give you anxiety and a device? I mean, like a screen, iPad, phone, those sorts of things. Well, I, I really wanted an iPad. I really wanted an iPad. And, it was during the pandemic and there was a huge uptick in people purchasing devices, smart devices to get in their homes because no one was going outside. In fact, I think it was like over 2000 movie theaters closed their doors because those theaters were closing, those screens were closing, but our homes were being filled up with more devices. And so part of that reason was because there were so many deals. They were selling these at a lower price, or, you could get two for one or whatever. And so I was like, I kind of want one. I see the benefit in it. I could use it for some Bible software. I can use it for, streaming. I can use it for carrying it around the house with me. Easy access. It's got all these ideas. I'm like, I got to get one. So I purchased it my first iPad mini over the pandemic, and when I got it, I was so excited. I got my Bible software app on there. I got my streaming apps on there. But here's the catch I didn't have a case yet, so I ordered a case off Amazon and it was going to be there in a day or two, so I was too excited not to use the iPad. So I went ahead, popped on a streaming app on there, and I started watching the TV show. At this time, my youngest daughter, she was she was like one, I think, at this point. And I had my iPad sitting on the edge of my couch, and I noticed my daughter needed something. So I leaned forward to either pick her up or give her a toy. I can't quite remember exactly what it was, but then as I'm coming back, that elbow went a little wide. Y'all catch me! And it bumped into that iPad and it began hurling down towards the earth. Okay. And in this room I was in, we had this rock tile. And so it seemed to be harder than any normal floor. But when I heard the sound of that iPad hit that ground, the world stopped. Bear in mind, this is one day after getting this, and I could already hear my wife yelling at me. She never yells at me. I'm kidding. That doesn't happen. Mostly no, but everything stopped and I just didn't move. My eyes were closed and I just sat there after a moment though, I go to pick it up and there is this huge crack down it right near the lock button and I'm like, oh no, but all the story to say, we still have that iPad and occasionally off. And when I see that I-pad, I'm reminded of this truth that devices are going to let me down. I can get a device, it can be good, but it's going to let me down. And so here's the main idea. The main point that I want us to see this morning, I want to put it up on the screen when our lives pursuit is divided between God and anything else, we will be anxious and unsatisfied. When it is divided, and I use the word in our sermon title this morning duplicity. The danger of duplicity that is double two when our worship, when our life's pursuit are divided or split, we will find anxiety. Or I might better say anxiety is going to find you. So this morning I want to give us some principles that Jesus gave us. Jesus addressed the issue of anxiety and what that means in Matthew chapter six. So I'm going to read first in verse 25, because this is where our students have been this weekend. Number two verses. And then we're going to jump into our main passage in verse 19. But I want you to set us up here in Matthew six verse 25. Here's what it says. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. This is Jesus in this passage, beginning with this command, do not be anxious about your life. Then he gets down at the end of this passage in verse 33, he gives a different command, but seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So you see these two commandments do not be anxious. Seek the kingdom. So you see where we get our theme now Kingdom over anxiety. You see that picture? This is Jesus preaching his longest sermon on the sermon on the Mount that we have recorded. And he addresses a wide variety of things. And here about in the middle, maybe towards the end, he's starting to talk about anxiety and the fear and worry of things that we need in this life. But at the end, he says, we need to seek first the kingdom. But here's the question I need. I need your help to think about this morning. What does that mean? What does it mean to seek first the kingdom of God? I believe Jesus tells us. Would you go with me to verse 19 now, verse 19, Matthew chapter six. These verses are right before his command that we should not be anxious. And so we're going to highlight these. And I'm going to give you three principles out of this that I believe are going to help us battle this issue of anxiety. Matthew chapter six, verse 19. This is what it says. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. So he commands them, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth. Here's why moth and rust will destroy them, where thieves can break in and steal them. Now this phrase do not lay up for yourself. He is kind of talking about this thing of investing your life in things of this earth, meaning your life consists of stuff. It could be focused and your life's pursuit is on your reputation, your wealth, status, all of those things we can kind of see in our culture, maybe even our own life, that we can lay up our lives and focus them on these things. Here's the truth. And Jesus simply puts it earthly treasures. They will get boring, broken or stolen. Earthly treasures are going to be. They're going to get boring. They're going to be broken, and they can be stolen. Because stuff, these things will go away. Maybe for you it is a device. Maybe your life is surrounded around a device and everything that you can find through it. But here's the thing. Like me, those things can fall and break. But maybe for you it's just wealth, money, possessions 401K, all of these things. Because at the end of the day, when we leave this earth, guess what we have to do with that stuff? We got to leave it behind. Those things are temporary, and ultimately they can't give your life meaning, purpose or anything. And even the best and the greatest of things that we might find in this world, they will get boring. So the reality is Jesus is trying to communicate this is that the treasures on earth here's what they do. They advertise a guaranteed satisfaction, but they can never deliver on the promise. Back in 1875, there's this guy that came up with this idea of a guaranteed satisfaction. You you probably seen it before. You see it all over the place. Now, back in 1875, he kind of invented it. But today it's kind of like normal to see it. It's kind of assumed you get a guaranteed satisfaction if you get this product, and it's sort of just to help someone, help a consumer have confidence in buying it. Right. Have confidence that when I buy this product, my satisfaction is going to be guaranteed. And if it's not, I get something and replace for it of equal or greater value. It's the satisfaction is guaranteed that we purchase with. But but think of this the treasures on earth. They guarantee things that it really can't promise you. Our devices, they they promise us connection and relationships when really what devices do is they isolate us and they don't really bring true, honest community to anything. Devices us actually create more walls and more isolation actually bring us together. For me, sports growing up promised me joy and satisfaction until I got hurt. Relationships. If we see our relationships, whether that is a a dating, a marriage, or even a familial relationship, if we see those things as giving us purpose, joy and meaning to our life, everything's good until it's not. Until those relationships are fractured, until those things fall short. So there's things on earth that we can put our joy in, try to find our purpose and meaning in life from these things. But the reality is, those things can't give you those things. It can't give you ultimate meaning. It can't give you purpose and it can't satisfy you. It's why Jesus goes on here.

Matthew 6: 14:18

20 instead of laying up treasures in earth, he says this in verse 20, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither rust or moth or rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal, so the opposite is true. Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where things are going to break. Get boring, and they're going to they're going to be stolen. Put your hope and trust in things that are going to last that can't be stolen, that can't be broken, that aren't boring. This idea of treasures in heaven, I think, is perfectly illustrated, perfectly described in Ephesians chapter one, in that Paul is saying to the church in Ephesus, he says, blessed be the God and Father in our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places that is in Christ. Through our relationship with him, God has granted us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places because of our relationship with him. And that's things like redemption, forgiveness of our sin, grace, peace, adoption, predestination, all of these things Paul addresses in this passage, all to say we have been given everything we need through our relationship with Christ, and I love how he ends it. In verse 13, I want you to see this

Ephesians 1: 15:56

13. Words will be on the screen. It says in him that is, in Jesus you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, so a person who believed in Jesus accepted them as their Savior. They were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. And look what verse 14 says, who is the what? The guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. When we get to go home and be with our Lord and Savior, you want to guarantee that the world can't provide you. Go to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a guarantee for all of us that we have received every spiritual blessing, everything we need, all of the heavenly treasure we could imagine through Christ. That's why Jesus gets to this point in verse 21. And this is where we need to ask ourselves a question. When we read this, Matthew six verse 21 says, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. In other words, where you invest your life is where you're seeking for joy and purpose. For pause, consider. Think to yourself, where's your treasure at today? Where's your treasure at? Is it in the things of this earth that you're wanting to find meaning and purpose and satisfaction and joy from? But it's not doing it for you. That's because those things can't. They are. They are giving you promises that that they can't deliver on. But you know who can. Is God giving you lasting joy, spiritual blessing that will never end. So I want to bring it to this point. When you seek for joy and purpose from earthly treasure, it will lead to anxiety. I think for some of us this morning, we experience anxiety because we have set up shop on this earth and we are trying to get a little too comfortable here. Between our devices, between our our castles we built at home, finding all of our comfort, all of our purpose, all of our meaning in this life. And when this life doesn't give us what we want from it, we get anxious about it. So here's your first point this morning invest in heaven, not in earth. Invest your life in heaven, not in earth. Invest your life in the things that are eternal, not in the things that are temporary. Invest your life in the things that will satisfy, not on those things that just promise you satisfaction. Invest your life in heaven, not in the things on earth. And I guarantee you. Those things that you are anxious over, especially when it's regarding possessions or reputations or relationships, that anxiety will go away. Because it's no longer being invested in this earth, it's being invested in heaven. Amen. Matthew six, verse 22. Second principle Jesus gets into. Jesus says, the eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye’s healthy, your whole body will be full of light. It's might be a little uncommon for us to hear, but what Jesus is addressing is a Hebrew idea. It's a Hebrew idiom. It's a it's a it's a teaching in which you can judge the health of someone's body or their soul by going through the eye, the eye, sort of this gateway to the soul, the gateway to the body, that if your eye is healthy, then your body and your soul will be healthy. He says the opposite in verse 23, though he says, 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? So we contrast the two. If your eyes healthy, your body will be healthy. If your eyes bad, then you are full of darkness. So what is? What is Jesus meaning? He's talking about the eye in a figurative way. He's basically saying, what is your life focused on? What is your attention and life focused on? So when you're focused on what is good, what is right, what is godly, what is God centered? Your whole body? Your life will be healthy. But if your life's focus, if your life's pursuit are on things that are not godly, are harmful, or things that are going to mislead you, then your body will be full of darkness. What is the guiding principle for your life? Where is your life focused? So think of it this way our eyes will direct the course of our lives. So I played baseball in college in my freshman year, we were in the conference tournament. We were in the first game of our conference tournament. So I was a little nervous, but I was incredibly excited. And I'm playing third base and we're about in the middle of the game. It's close game. We're playing a team that we're probably evenly matched against, but we've got a little bit of a lead and there's a fly ball that's hit in the infield and it's right at me and I know I'm tracking it really well. So as I'm moving towards it, I noticed this large orb in the sky. It's sort of orange if you look at a little too long, looks a little white, and it's really bright. I don't know if you've ever seen it before, but I see the ball, I see the sun, and I'm like, oh boy, oh no, this is one of the biggest games of my life. This is my first year in college. It's my first conference tournament game. Balls up in the air. And I'm getting really anxious because as that ball is there, it was as if the sun moved across the sky in some tiny, miraculous way because now the ball is in the sun and it's starting to come down. So I had to do my best because now I don't know where the ball is. I stick my glove where I think the ball is going to be. It wasn't a ball dropped, runners run and they end up scoring a couple runs. We lose the game wasn't a good day for me, was not a good day. But all that to say, I couldn't blame my glove for that. I couldn't blame my hands. I couldn't blame my feet because I was under it. I was ready, but I had to blame my eyes. Not I've been the sun because I'm taught to block the sun. But it's my eyes. And that's the problem. Our eyes will direct our life. It directs our whole body. So listen to me. What you're focused on in your life will direct your life. What you allow into your life will direct your life. What are you focused on? Where is your attention? What are you scrolling and consuming? What are you watching? What have you normalized in your life? Because here's what Jesus saying I think he's saying this what you give your attention to reveals the condition of your body's health. The question has to be asked, what are we giving our attention to right now? What are you allowing to feed your heart and your mind? To go from your eyes down into your heart, because that affects us? What is the determining factor for your life and for this whole issue of anxiety? I think this tells us that your spiritual and mental health are not determined by how hard you try. But listen what you set your focus on. Your mental health and your spiritual health. It's not about I got to try better, I got to I just have to I have to fix it. It's less about effort. It's more about where you're focused. Meaning, great case in point, when you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing you look to? Is it your phone? Or is it God's word? What's the last thing you look at before you go to sleep? Is it a TV? Device or is it God's word? Where your attention goes matters. And we're we're sometimes confused. Why do I feel anxious all the time? It's because our attention is set on everything other than the one who can fix it. So here's your second point. We need to set our eyes solely on Christ. Not to have a divided attention or a divided worship, but our attention solely set on the one who is the Prince of Peace. Instead of setting our attention on a world of anxiety. If you're anxious about your family. Anxious about your future. Anxious about friendships. Anxious about money. Too often we go to numb it with a device. Too often we go to people on the internet to tell us what we need to do. Too often we go to ChatGPT and Google to give us a solution to our problems. The problem is not out there. The problem is or the solution is with God. You want a solution to your anxiety? Get your attention off of this world. Get your attention off of of of what the world is offering you and get it on Christ. He is your solution. He alone should be directing your life. Last part of our scripture this morning. Third principle Matthew chapter six one verse Matthew chapter 624. No one can serve two masters, father. 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. Now, what's interesting about this is Jesus is using that last word there money. It's a Hebrew word that means wealth, or it's a Greek word. I'm sorry. That means wealth, possessions, treasures. And so it's not necessarily just talking about a currency or a dollar bill. It's what we put value in. In fact, this is based off of an Aramaic word that was used to personify money. And they would call this thing mammon. You may have heard this before, but it was this false god that people came up with to represent money, wealth, possessions. And there is this we can worship this false God to get what we need and the provisions that we need. And so Jesus, what he's doing here is incredible. He's pitting these two things against each other to worship the true God, or to worship this false god of mammon. And what is so important that you have to see here is, is that you can only serve one of them, which is why I think it's important that we don't try to divide our worship. Because anytime you try to divide your worship between God and whatever this other thing is, you no longer worship God. It's either one or the other. There is no in between. And here's where I think we can fall into a dangerous place. Church. We think I can do a little bit of both. I can worship God, but then I also I can live my life however I want to. I. I can attend church and I can pray, but then I can spend my time, my wealth, my my attention on everything that I want to and just consume, consume, consume, consume. And we think we're still worshiping God. But what Jesus is saying, you can't have a do, you can't have a divided worship. So here's what will happen. You will find exciting when you become friendly and comfortable with this world, you will. James four says it this way friendship with the world is enmity or division with God. And here's the danger where if I can use it this way, if I can say it this way, we're flirting too much with the world church. We can choose to worship God or to worship anything else. There's no in between. There's no fence. It's either God or something else. And so we were created to worship. It's it's unavoidable. We have this unavoidable ability to worship one thing above all else. You can't just say, well, I'm not going to worship anything. I'm not going to serve anything. But that's not the way we're wired. We're wired to worship something or someone. And so the truth is, you're worshiping something, right now. Church. And what Jesus would say is you can't serve God and fill the blank. So last point this morning we need to worship God alone. Think to yourself. Do you have a dual allegiance, a dual allegiance to God in this world? Are you trying to walk a line to to get a little bit of both, to get God on Sunday than to have six days of what I want? Because we think we can worship God one day, and then we can just live a life of pleasure and comfort and pursuing what we want. But the reality is, if you do it that way, you're just going to find anxiety. Now I want to share with you two verses to close. Because I think these are going to help us now. I've been meditating on this church because I've been thinking about families and parents. I've been thinking about our church as a whole, because the way in which you worship and the way in which you live, it trickles down to our teenagers, to our kids. And this verse is. A little scary, if I can put it that way. Certainly humbling.

Look at this in Second Kings 17: 32:57

41. This is when the mess was happening, with all the kings of Israel continuing to fall after idols and worship other gods. Look what it says here in verse 41 of chapter 17. So these nations feared the Lord. And what? And also served their carved images. See it? But notice what it says. Listen, their children did likewise. And their children's children, as their father did. So they do to this day. We will pass down our worship and our habits and our things that we value. We will pass down our treasures to our kids and to those who are after us. Meaning, how we live now will affect the generation that comes after us. It's inevitable. So the question has to be asked am I seeking earthly treasure or heavenly treasure? Am I setting my attention and eyes on things that are not godly, that are worldly? Am I attempting to serve two masters when I can only really serve one? Because we're setting a model and paving a road for someone behind us. But let me encourage you with another verse, last verse,

Psalm 73: 34:40

25. I shared this at staff meeting on Monday. This has been weighing on me and I think this is true and this is what I'm praying for. Whom have I in heaven but you, God, and there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. I pray that that's my heart. I pray that as our church's heart, that there's nothing in this earth that we desire besides God alone and everything else falls a very far second place. So here's your challenge this morning is your worship divided? Or directed solely to God? And you're thinking to yourself, well, Colby, you brought up the word anxiety, too. So where's the word anxiety in all of this? This will answer if you're going to be struggling with anxiety or not. When you worship the Lord solely, you'll notice anxiety starts to leave your life. But if your worship is divided, that's where anxiety comes. So church this morning what if we take the Lord at His word and say, we worship you and you alone because you are the Prince of Peace, You are the solution to man's anxiety and I can rest in you. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much. Thank you for teaching us about what it is to to be anxious and and to deal with anxiety. I'm thankful, father, that we got to walk through it this weekend with our students and we've collectively, as a church, looked at this topic and this idea. And we know, Lord, that you are the solution to our anxiety. It's not something that we can find on this earth. It's not a relationship that we can invest our life in. It's not a device that we can numb our pain to. It's not children that we can relive our life through. It's not even a good marriage that we can put our purpose in. Because all of those things, as great as they are, they can fail us. But God, you never fail us. So I pray this morning, Lord, that we would not have a dual allegiance to anything, but to solely worship you, that we would desire you above all things so that God we would see our anxiety dissipate, go away in the glory. And the holiness that we see in Jesus. So help us to set our eyes to you. And father, if there's anyone in this room that's struggling with anxiety who feel like it is uncontrollable, may they not be afraid or be ashamed to go and talk to someone. But I pray, father, that we would be a community that is not laying up treasure here on earth, but we would be laying up treasure in heaven. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus, Amen.