SPEAKER_00: In Matthew chapter six, verse twenty-five, 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.
SPEAKER_00: Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
SPEAKER_00: Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.
SPEAKER_00: Are you not of more value than they?
SPEAKER_00: And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?
SPEAKER_00: And why are you anxious about clothing?
SPEAKER_00: Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.
SPEAKER_00: They neither toll nor spin.
SPEAKER_00: Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?
SPEAKER_00: For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
SPEAKER_00: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
SPEAKER_00: Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Can you say amen?
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We live in a world of distraction.
SPEAKER_00: Would you say amen to that?
SPEAKER_00: There is something constantly moving and glaring and peeping and sounding and whatever to get our attention.
SPEAKER_00: Had a work meeting this past week and uh at the hotel in Dallas, there was it's a huge, I mean, it's like I think it was like 39 stories, the hotel was.
SPEAKER_00: You walk into most places to eat now, and they got big TVs with the menus and stuff and all this other stuff, and there's distractions all over, you know, get this, buy that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm I'm no offense if you're in advertising.
SPEAKER_00: I know none of us here are, but there's people that listen to this all over America.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, if you're if you're in if you're in advertising, God bless you, but I don't like you.
SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is I hate commercials.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like, I like the people, I don't like the commercials.
SPEAKER_00: The commercials drive me nuts because I look at it as I'm wasting part of my life on something that ain't important to me, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, how many times do we get distracted in our everyday life on things that are not profitable, that are not beneficial?
SPEAKER_00: If you're like me, it happens, right?
SPEAKER_00: And you can go into a rabbit hole, even in good things, you know, even in things that are not necessarily wrong, because they're trying to grab our attention.
SPEAKER_00: And that happens over and over and all the time.
SPEAKER_00: We get notifications on our phone, we get, you know, we get uh emails, whatever it may be, we get them all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, as we read here, he says something very plainly and very poignantly, amen.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Don't be anxious.
SPEAKER_00: Some versions say, Don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be anxious about your life.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about your life.
SPEAKER_00: Not because our needs aren't real.
SPEAKER_00: He said he knows we need those things, right?
SPEAKER_00: Not because of that, but because worry is prayer aimed at yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Worry is prayer aimed at yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You're thinking about yourself, you're talking to yourself, you're warning about yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot be worrying and being praying to God in a sincere manner.
SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean that worry doesn't prompt us to pray.
SPEAKER_00: It should, when it comes upon us, we should pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: But if all we're doing is worrying and we're being anxious, then all we're doing is directing it to ourselves instead of God, trusting him with it.
SPEAKER_00: And so we got to make sure that if we're going through something that's causing us anxiety or worry, why are we so focused on ourselves?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't we put that focus on the one that can do something about it?
SPEAKER_00: And his name is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He says, look at the lilies, look at the birds.
SPEAKER_00: He takes care of them, and will I not also take care of you?
SPEAKER_00: Look at Mary and Martha in Luke 10.
SPEAKER_00: Martha wasn't sinning, right?
SPEAKER_00: She was serving, she was working, right?
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus said to Mary that she, or said about Mary that she chose what?
SPEAKER_00: The good portion, the right thing.
SPEAKER_00: Good things become wrong things when they take the first place and become a God thing.
SPEAKER_00: Good things become wrong things when we make them God things, and they can be anything.
SPEAKER_00: They can be family, they can be friends, they can be spouse, they can be work, they can be chasing the buck, the dollar, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And you can also say the buck if you're you like hunting buck, but but anything can become a God and an idol if we put it where only God belongs.
SPEAKER_00: We got to be plain about it.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us aren't running from God, we're just running.
SPEAKER_00: And he's somewhere behind all the other things that we're focusing on.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us, now there's some may be, I don't know, everybody's heart.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you ain't, maybe you are, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But but you may be here this morning, you may be listening, and you may say, Well, I am running.
SPEAKER_00: Well, God's there.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: But a lot of times we're not running, amen, from God in that sense.
SPEAKER_00: We just left him behind because we put other things in front of him in that sense, and we've let all the cares of this life get so important that we have pushed him to the side.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 6, 33, Amen, he tells us what to do.
SPEAKER_00: What does he tell us to do?
SPEAKER_00: There's one command here and there's one promise.
SPEAKER_00: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
SPEAKER_00: You see, if you read the verses before that, amen, the questions that we ask all the time, think about this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, What shall we eat?
SPEAKER_00: What shall we drink?
SPEAKER_00: What shall we wear?
SPEAKER_00: Basically, what he is saying is, is he saying that we asked God, are you going to take care of us?
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to take care of us?
SPEAKER_00: Listen, here recently, uh I remember when I switched jobs and I was asking God a question about this question, about this, about this, and in my heart he just said, Haven't I always took care of you?
SPEAKER_00: And I just broke.
SPEAKER_00: I was in the kitchen, I'll never forget it.
SPEAKER_00: He just spoke to me.
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about it, he said, Haven't I always took care of you?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Yes, Lord, you have.
SPEAKER_00: And I just felt bad.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I should have never even been worried about it.
SPEAKER_00: And things got off good and was going good.
SPEAKER_00: Recently it's been really, really hard.
SPEAKER_00: But then he reminded me, the same God I praised who for who opened the door, who promised to take care of me, is the same God that's going to help me even when everything ain't like I want it to be.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know?
SPEAKER_00: Because he don't change.
SPEAKER_00: He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
SPEAKER_00: And if I truly believe that, then the God that I shout about on the mountain is still the God I reach for in the valley.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's still there.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know he's still there?
SPEAKER_00: For he said, I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you, but I'll go with you to the very end.
SPEAKER_00: So I know that God's with me.
SPEAKER_00: I know that God is there.
SPEAKER_00: I know that God's not changed.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Because he can't change.
SPEAKER_00: He's immutable.
SPEAKER_00: He changes not, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's what scripture teaches us.
SPEAKER_00: If you get into it, I'm not today, but there's an impossibility of God, not impasse, but impossibility.
SPEAKER_00: Not impossible, but impassibility.
SPEAKER_00: It's I M P A S S I B A B-I-L-L-T-Y.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: But God is the same.
SPEAKER_00: He is the same.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we we see here when they're saying, well, what are you going to eat?
SPEAKER_00: What are we going to drink?
SPEAKER_00: What are we going to do?
SPEAKER_00: He will take care of us.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to wonder, will he?
SPEAKER_00: We just don't know how he.
SPEAKER_00: That's the problem, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we'll say, Well, God, I know you are, but I just don't know how.
SPEAKER_00: And it just made me feel a whole lot better if you tell me how.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, sometimes we forget, you know, that what we the story, and I don't like calling them stories, even though because they really happen, they're historical events.
SPEAKER_00: If they're in the Bible, they're historical.
SPEAKER_00: But Elijah, he commanded the birds to fit him.
SPEAKER_00: Ravens.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: And then when the brook dried up, what did he tell him to do?
SPEAKER_00: Leave.
SPEAKER_00: Because if he'd have stayed, he would have died.
SPEAKER_00: There's a widow that's going to take care of you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: God took care of him.
SPEAKER_00: He said, No, it's that, no, but God put it on.
SPEAKER_00: God did it.
SPEAKER_00: And so the God doesn't change, even if our situation does.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we think about, well, you know, I just don't understand all this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: But he tells us what to do to what?
SPEAKER_00: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added.
SPEAKER_00: If you'll put me first, if you'll seek after me and seek my righteousness, then I'll take care of this other stuff that you're so worried about.
SPEAKER_00: So, okay.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to seek first?
SPEAKER_00: Him first.
SPEAKER_00: That means that he is the priority in your life.
SPEAKER_00: He is the preeminent one in your life.
SPEAKER_00: He is the first one you think of and you run to in your needs and your situations in life.
SPEAKER_00: And not just in needs and situations, but just because you love him.
SPEAKER_00: Who does the kids run to when they're especially when they're little, when they when they're hurting, when they're happy, when they need help, when they get hurt, they go to mom and daddy.
SPEAKER_00: Usually in that order.
SPEAKER_00: Usually mama first, then daddy.
SPEAKER_00: Not always, but you know, right?
SPEAKER_00: They run to them, right?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they know they love them.
SPEAKER_00: They know that their mom, if and if you're in a situation where your parents didn't treat you that way, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: God will help you, and I don't mean that condescending.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God will help you, right?
SPEAKER_00: But thank God for you that like me, we were raised in good families.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my parents was far from perfect, just like I am.
SPEAKER_00: I'm far from perfect.
SPEAKER_00: But if you lived in a home where you didn't have to wonder if you was going to have somewhere to sleep, somewhere to eat, that's a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And they do, they run because they know that they care.
SPEAKER_00: And we should go to God because we know he cares.
SPEAKER_00: Do we really, really know that he loves us and that he's gonna take care of us?
SPEAKER_00: If we do, then we're gonna seek after him.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna run after him.
SPEAKER_00: And look, he says, in his righteousness and his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, don't misunderstand this.
SPEAKER_00: This ain't you being good enough.
SPEAKER_00: This is you following Christ's example through the power and the enablement of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And through that, his righteousness is seen through your life.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we need to seek after.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want people to hear me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want them to know me.
SPEAKER_00: You say, well, they're gonna hear you.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I want the power and the presence and the person that shines through above everything is to be Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because if it is, then they'll be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: If it ain't, if it ain't, then they won't be.
SPEAKER_00: I'm acutely aware that there's nothing special about me except Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You say, well, you're talking bad about yourself.
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean it like that.
SPEAKER_00: Paul said it this way: my righteousness, uh, amen, is of filthy rags.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That's literally, if you get into the translation, they're not trying to be gross.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's minstrel rags.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's it is just it's bad.
SPEAKER_00: So it ain't my righteousness that I need to seek after.
SPEAKER_00: He says we need to seek after his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And when we put him first and his work and his plan, amen, and seek after his righteousness and walk in his way, amen.
SPEAKER_00: Then we he says, What?
SPEAKER_00: All these things will be added to you.
SPEAKER_00: There is a promise.
SPEAKER_00: There's a command, which is seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: We've got to do what he says, but then there's a promise, and all these things will be added to you.
SPEAKER_00: When we think about first things first, if God ain't first, everything else is out of order, as we said earlier.
SPEAKER_00: And so we've got to understand that yes, God promises to supply, but all a lot of times all people hear, right, is that last part, and all these things will be added to you.
SPEAKER_00: We hear, delight myself in the Lord, he'll give us all the desires of your heart.
SPEAKER_00: We hear that last part.
SPEAKER_00: But what's the first part?
SPEAKER_00: Delight yourself in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Let him be where you gain the most joy from, the most peace from, where your heart rests in.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: I'm at peace because of the peace speaker.
SPEAKER_00: I have hope because the hope of life everlasting is in me through the salvation that he's afforded me through his work on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: One command.
SPEAKER_00: With a promise and one promise.
SPEAKER_00: Notice here, he didn't say you can figure it out after that, and somehow it'll work out.
SPEAKER_00: No, he said all these will be added to you.
SPEAKER_00: It ain't you doing the adding, it's God's doing the adding.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: God will add it to you.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing that we struggle with sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we want him to add things to us that he sees we're not ready for.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean we say, well, he said he'll take care of us, he will.
SPEAKER_00: And he'll make sure you have the needs that you have need of.
SPEAKER_00: He'll take care of that.
SPEAKER_00: There's some things that we think are needs that are not.
SPEAKER_00: And those things that aren't needs that we think is needs, and and we get aggravated because we ain't got them.
SPEAKER_00: And all the while, God's saying, you know, really, there's only one need that we all have.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the need of a savior.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's who what we really need.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Apart from needing salvation, amen.
SPEAKER_00: Now you say, well, what about food?
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I mean, our our physical bodies need it, but in the grand scheme of eternity, if my body died, that's why Paul said, for me to live is what Christ and to dies gain.
SPEAKER_00: So even if my body wastes away, as long as I have what really matters, and that's Christ in my heart, in my life, amen.
SPEAKER_00: Then if my body leaves this place and my body passes away and degradates and returns to the ground, well, my spirit will not be here.
SPEAKER_00: For he said to be absent from the body is what?
SPEAKER_00: Is to be present with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so if I leave my body here, the physical body dies, my spiritual body is going to be with him.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the most need that we have is to have Christ in our life.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't ask for our first, our best, because he needs it.
SPEAKER_00: Get that into our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Some people say, well, God is God is greedy, God is jealous.
SPEAKER_00: He is jealous, but not in a sinful way.
SPEAKER_00: He says he's a jealous God.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not being greedy when you deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he wants everything.
SPEAKER_00: He deserves it all.
SPEAKER_00: There's a song.
SPEAKER_00: You're worthy of it all.
SPEAKER_00: You are worthy of it all.
SPEAKER_00: For from you are things, and to you are a things.
SPEAKER_00: You are worthy of it all.
SPEAKER_00: And that's scripture, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: You're worthy of it all.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's not him being greedy, it's not him having an ego trip because he actually deserves it.
SPEAKER_00: He deserves it.
SPEAKER_00: He asks for our first because that's where faith lives and is revealed.
SPEAKER_00: If I truly believe that he is God and He is my Savior and He is my Lord, then I'm going to put Him first because I understand apart from Him, I'm lost.
SPEAKER_00: I understand that He is divine.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just a branch.
SPEAKER_00: I understand that, as He said in John 15, apart from Him, I can do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Apart from the life of Christ flowing in and through me, you say, Well, I did a lot of stuff before Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but they weren't good.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, I did some civic things.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that God can use people to do civic things, but it wasn't good in the sense of God's righteousness, good.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't good in the sense of qualifying salvation.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one that's lived, that's qualified for perfection, that did nothing wrong.
SPEAKER_00: A man that died and was raised again because of his perfect life, and his name is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't ask for your first because he needs it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna throw out a theological word.
SPEAKER_00: You can look it up.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you already know it, but I remind try to remind myself of it a lot uh every so often as well.
SPEAKER_00: It's the asseity of God.
SPEAKER_00: The asseity of God.
SPEAKER_00: A-S-E-I-T-Y.
SPEAKER_00: My memory serves me correct.
SPEAKER_00: It means that he is fully, complete, and total and needs nothing.
SPEAKER_00: He is in of himself, he has everything he needs.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't create man because he was lonely.
SPEAKER_00: Get that out of your mind.
SPEAKER_00: If you thought that, wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: He had fellowship in the Godhead for all eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He chose to create us, but he didn't need to create us.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 34.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
SPEAKER_00: Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Notice here that Jesus confines worry to what?
SPEAKER_00: Today.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: What I mean by that is that the only thing that we know about is today.
SPEAKER_00: We can't change yesterday, or we that we can affect is today.
SPEAKER_00: We can't change yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know the future.
SPEAKER_00: So today we shouldn't worry about it because today is the only day that we know about.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: It's the only day we know about.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what's going to happen later today.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what's going to happen in 10 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: We can't change what happened five minutes ago.
SPEAKER_00: But right now, in this moment, he tells us, amen, not to be anxious, not to worry and say, God, in this moment, I'm going to trust you.
SPEAKER_00: It's an active participation in his presence and in his promise.
SPEAKER_00: I'll say it again.
SPEAKER_00: It's an active participation in his presence and in his promises.
SPEAKER_00: When we don't worry, but we have faith in him, it's an active participation in his presence and in his promise.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: He's with me, so I don't have to fear.
SPEAKER_00: That's why David said, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, what?
SPEAKER_00: I will fear no evil.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: For you are with me.
SPEAKER_00: The whole qualifier of why he wasn't afraid was not because of the situation wasn't scary, it's a valley of death.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't because it wasn't hard or difficult or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: It was all that, and symbolically speaking.
SPEAKER_00: He was in the valley of death.
SPEAKER_00: But the reason why, even though the situation was dire and terrible, I don't have to fear about that because he's with me.
SPEAKER_00: And if you really believe God, I feel the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_00: If you really believe God this morning and you know he's with you, it's enough.
SPEAKER_00: It's enough.
SPEAKER_00: For tomorrow will be anxious for itself, sufficient for what?
SPEAKER_00: The day is its own troubles.
SPEAKER_00: So first, seek first Him.