SPEAKER_00: Let me invite you now to open your Bibles to the Matthew chapter 6, the Gospel of Matthew, as we continue our study in the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Let me warn you that this is going to be a two-part sermon.
SPEAKER_00: If the Lord tarries, we'll finish it next week.
SPEAKER_00: I learned that lesson first hour this morning.
SPEAKER_00: So we'll go through half of it today and half of it next week.
SPEAKER_00: But that's the great thing about God's word is there's, you know, always another verse.
SPEAKER_00: You hit Revelation, you finish it, you can just start over.
SPEAKER_00: So Matthew chapter 6, we're gonna look at verses 25.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna read in a short time the whole chapter, but we're gonna focus mostly on the first few verses there.
SPEAKER_00: And it includes what feathers have to say about worry, what flowers have to say about worry, and what fathers have to say about worry.
SPEAKER_00: Feathers, flowers, and fathers.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great outline.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll do only part of it this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 6, verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: I preached this same passage at the very start of COVID.
SPEAKER_00: If you recall, the governor closed all churches, effective midnight on Sunday, and the elders at IBC determined there was enough ambiguity in midnight on Sunday to allow us to stay open one more Sunday, which we we did.
SPEAKER_00: And I set aside what I was preaching through Ephesians and preached on this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And I went back and re-listened to what I said back then, and let me just read my uh introduction.
SPEAKER_00: I said, quote, the biggest danger we face right now is highly contagious and it spreads easily.
SPEAKER_00: Most alarmingly, those that are most affected might not even be aware of the danger they pose to others.
SPEAKER_00: It afflicts the old and the young, and its symptoms include fatigue, a sense of being worn down, it causes shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, feelings of nausea and distress.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, it can be fatal.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, I'm not talking about the coronavirus, but rather worry.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, mark my words, the threat to your soul, more extreme than a virus, is anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be surprised if it kills more people than COVID will.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't looked at the actual death rates well enough.
SPEAKER_00: I tried.
SPEAKER_00: I spent 20 minutes on that last night and gave up.
SPEAKER_00: They're horribly complex and ambiguous, but I still stand by what I said back then.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, I do not recommend listening to yourself preach.
SPEAKER_00: What a terrible, terrible endeavor.
SPEAKER_00: And I feel sorry for all of you from the bottom of my heart.
SPEAKER_00: But it was interesting to think back in March of 2020.
SPEAKER_00: My concern as a pastor was for the prevalence of worry and anxiety in a congregation's life.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're being bombarded with everybody in the news, from the president all the way down to the governor and every avenue of news telling you to be very, very, very afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Do you even remember like the COVID dashboard Fairfax County had back then, broken up by zip code?
SPEAKER_00: There's three people in 22312 that have COVID.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry, they're between the ages of 50 and 62, so you might be okay.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was an insane time, entirely driven by fear, anxiety, and worry.
SPEAKER_00: Fear has a crippling effect.
SPEAKER_00: And it always has.
SPEAKER_00: Anxiety debilitates you.
SPEAKER_00: One medical book I looked at this week defined anxiety in a very helpful way, very briefly.
SPEAKER_00: It says, anxiety, quote, is an inappropriate response to circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: An inappropriate response to circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a great definition.
SPEAKER_00: And that book goes on to give an illustration of a person who's in an interview in a windowless room with a humming light, a job interview, and the boss looks intimidating from behind the, and I'm picturing as I'm reading this, I'm filling out details in my mind.
SPEAKER_00: I'm picturing like one of those metal desks that scrapes on the floor and the humming incandescent light above it, and the intimidating boss with probably a pocket protector and a scowl.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, an illustration of anxiety is a person in the interview in a windowless room with the humming light, an intimidating situation.
SPEAKER_00: She begins to feel her throat close, and the hum grows louder and louder in her head.
SPEAKER_00: Her mind becomes consumed by the thought, I've got to get out of here.
SPEAKER_00: And as I read that, I thought, I can certainly relate to that.
SPEAKER_00: Those lights, I can imagine the sound of those lights growing in your head.
SPEAKER_00: I can imagine an awkward situation where the desire to flee becomes tad amount in your experience.
SPEAKER_00: That's anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: It's a physiological response disproportionate to the circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: The American Psychological Association, and this is the first time in my life I've ever quoted them, gives a helpful contrast between fear and anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: They say, anxiety is considered future-oriented, long-acting response, broadly focused on a diffuse threat.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas fear is appropriate, present-oriented, and short-lived response to a clearly identifiable and specific threat.
SPEAKER_00: I think that is such a helpful distinction.
SPEAKER_00: Because people will often try to excuse anxiety by saying something like, Oh, you're saying if a snake slithered on stage, I'm not supposed to be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: No, that's fear.
SPEAKER_00: The snake slither's on stage, it would be fearful for you to walk away in a good sense.
SPEAKER_00: It would be prudent for you to walk away from the snake.
SPEAKER_00: That's different than anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: That's different than saying I'm not going into that room because there might be snakes in there.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure you can understand the difference.
SPEAKER_00: The American Psychological Association goes on to define an anxiety disorder.
SPEAKER_00: And again, I think in a helpful way, it's a disorder when it is recurring, so you have the same fears over and over, or it produces a physiological response.
SPEAKER_00: Racing heart, sweating, clammy palms, etc.
SPEAKER_00: Disorder is a good word for that because fear cripples.
SPEAKER_00: Fear takes you out of circulation, it takes you out of usefulness, it limits what you can do.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 12, 25 says this anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry for the typo there, it weighs him down.
SPEAKER_00: But a good word makes him glad.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the contrast Solomon gives here.
SPEAKER_00: Anxiety in a heart cripples you.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a weight on your shoulders.
SPEAKER_00: It makes it difficult to move or to operate.
SPEAKER_00: It's a weight on you.
SPEAKER_00: In contrast, a good word makes you glad.
SPEAKER_00: And familiar with the way Proverbs use these kinds of contrasts.
SPEAKER_00: A good word here speaks of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: A good word here later on in Proverbs that says that Scripture is health for the bones.
SPEAKER_00: Anxiety decays you.
SPEAKER_00: David says that when he was in his sin, he felt wasted away.
SPEAKER_00: Anxiety decays, it erodes, it erases.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas good news, truth, builds up, gladdens the heart, strengthens you to send you out into the world.
SPEAKER_00: Fear and faith are not friends, they are foes.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of this kind of passage.
SPEAKER_00: Fear and faith, they don't like each other.
SPEAKER_00: Faith drives out fear.
SPEAKER_00: Fear combats faith.
SPEAKER_00: This is why the scripture says that God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but a spirit of courage and boldness.
SPEAKER_00: And when Paul tells Timothy that, he's not even speaking generically like God didn't make you timid, he made you courageous.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what he means.
SPEAKER_00: He means literally, God gave you a spirit of courage, not a spirit of fear.
SPEAKER_00: Because in your salvation, when you come to faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit regenerates your heart, gives you new life, indwells you, seals you, and now for the rest of your Christian life, the Holy Spirit is applying scripture to your mind, convicting your conscience of sin, compelling you, urging you to righteous living, causing you to walk in the good deeds that God appointed for you.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit is living and active inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: Getting down, Paul says elsewhere, that it cuts between bone and marrow, between spirit and soul.
SPEAKER_00: The word of God, aided by the Spirit of God, gets into your heart, exposes your hidden motives, and compels you to walk upright and confident and courageous in a dark world.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Spirit of God does.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit does not work in your conscience to make you timid and withdraw, but to push you forward.
SPEAKER_00: So it is very literally true that God did not give you a spirit of fear and timidity, but a spirit of courage and confidence and boldness.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is not fearful.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, the followers of Christ ought not be fearful either.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, we often are.
SPEAKER_00: We are often consumed by fear because there's a war in our field division between faith and circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: We know that we should see the unseen.
SPEAKER_00: We know we should have confidence in God's goodness in the world, and yet present circumstances jump up in front of our eyesight and wave their hands and say, Yeah, I know you believe in God, but what about me, me, me, me, me, me right now?
SPEAKER_00: That's fear.
SPEAKER_00: That causes a war in the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Our hearts are fickle, our nature is fallen, and our lives are short.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't like any of those truths.
SPEAKER_00: We want our hearts to be courageous, we want our nature to be noble, and we want our lives to be long.
SPEAKER_00: And that delta there, that difference between what we are and what we want to be, that is the fertile soil for worry.
SPEAKER_00: Our natures are fickle and we so want to be in control of things.
SPEAKER_00: But the seed of worry gets planted.
SPEAKER_00: Our lives are short and we so want to be in control of how long we live.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be in control of how long we live.
SPEAKER_00: And we're not.
SPEAKER_00: And so worry gets planted in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a dangerous seed because when the seed of worry is planted in our hearts, it grows and becomes a tree.
SPEAKER_00: And when the tree of worry grows, it does not produce the fruit of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The tree of worry grows and produces despair, desperation, anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: And so with that in the background, Matthew 6, verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, about what you eat or drink, about your body, what you'll put on.
SPEAKER_00: Is not life more than food, the body more than clothing?
SPEAKER_00: Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns.
SPEAKER_00: Yet your heavenly Father feeds them, are you not more valuable than they?
SPEAKER_00: 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, they don't toil or 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 is alive, tomorrow thrown in the oven, will he not much more clothe you?
SPEAKER_00: O you of little faith.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore don't be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?
SPEAKER_00: For the Gentiles seek after these things.
SPEAKER_00: Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
SPEAKER_00: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: 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 is the day for its own trouble.
SPEAKER_00: The main point of this passage, which is obvious, it's repeated three times.
SPEAKER_00: You don't even need to go to seminary for this.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 25, verse 31, verse 34, three times Jesus says the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be anxious.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be anxious.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is commanding you, pleading with you, begging you, imploring you, asking you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be anxious.
SPEAKER_00: Please don't be anxious.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus asks you not to do something, it's a good idea not to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to stand here this morning and repeat Jesus' question to you, repeat his plea to you, and beg you not to be anxious about things in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about them.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean that in a Bob Marley way, I mean that in a Jesus Christ way.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about what you will eat or drink or where or live or how long you'll live.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about those things.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus asks you not to.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm begging you not to lead a life of worry.
SPEAKER_00: And I am convinced that when Jesus asks you not to do something, and I'm asking you not to do something in his behalf, that there's only a small category of things I can ask you not to do.
SPEAKER_00: And that category can be titled with one word, sin.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to venture beyond steering you away in wisdom choices about your life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus isn't micromanaging even your finances.
SPEAKER_00: He's big picture with your finances.
SPEAKER_00: Don't hoard.
SPEAKER_00: That's sin.
SPEAKER_00: We talked about that last week.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking to you now about something that is sinful.
SPEAKER_00: It's sinful because he says, don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's so important.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I got it in big words on your screen.
SPEAKER_00: I got it so, I think it's so important for you to understand that anxiety and worry, as it takes over the heart and moves into the heart, is sin.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's how you fight it.
SPEAKER_00: You can't fight a spiritual danger unless you identify it and categorize it in the right way.
SPEAKER_00: And people often counter.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in that March 2020, last time I preached this passage, people countered to me afterwards with all kinds of things like, oh, you don't understand worry can't be sin because worry is good.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody even steered me towards a video from a counseling organization that talked about how worry is good.
SPEAKER_00: And the person said, you know, if you don't, worry is good, of course, because if you don't worry about your teeth getting yellow, you wouldn't brush your teeth.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't worry about your stuff getting stolen, you wouldn't lock the deadbolt.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't worry about your kids going to college, you wouldn't make them do algebra.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, I've I've been there.
SPEAKER_00: But that confuses worry and prudence.
SPEAKER_00: Prudence and worry are not the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Fear is not a good motivator.
SPEAKER_00: Anxiety is not a good motivator.
SPEAKER_00: Worry is not a good motivator.
SPEAKER_00: You should brush your teeth because it's prudence, and I I can't believe I'm having to say that.
SPEAKER_00: You should lock your deadbolt.
SPEAKER_00: It's prudent to be a good steward of your stuff.
SPEAKER_00: You should have your kids do algebra.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's prudent for them to be a steward of the opportunities in the educational world you're giving them.
SPEAKER_00: That's very different than anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: And we know we know how anxiety can take over, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: I I mean, I know as a dad, I'm looking at the kid who closes the algebra book with only half of the problems done and puts it away, and then the mind just goes, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: If you don't finish algebra, you're not gonna get a good grade in class, which means you're not gonna get a you know a good GPA, you're not gonna get in the right college, you're not gonna get the right degree, you're not gonna marry the right guy, you're not gonna have a good provision in your life, you're not gonna be able to provide for your kids, you're probably gonna end up homeless under the overpass because you only did the odd numbers.
SPEAKER_00: Like our hearts go there.
SPEAKER_00: And I like that you're laughing, but believe me, in the moment when I'm thinking this, I'm not laughing.
SPEAKER_00: Anxiety is not a good motivator at that moment.
SPEAKER_00: But prudence is.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, as we define anxiety earlier, it's a it's disproportionate to the danger in front of it.
SPEAKER_00: That's worry.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus says not to do.
SPEAKER_00: And he says in a very clear and repeated way, and that's important, because under good circumstances we do, we do worry, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: On the best of days we worry.
SPEAKER_00: When the sun is shining, we have a stable job, the paycheck every two weeks, our mortgage we can afford, our cars are running, our kids are well behaved.
SPEAKER_00: On those days, we still worry.
SPEAKER_00: Tinker with any one of those things, and the worry just exponentially increases.
SPEAKER_00: Our hearts are prone to worry.
SPEAKER_00: That's who we are.
SPEAKER_00: God gave us dominion on the earth as human beings.
SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to cultivate the land and take control of what's around us and produce something fruitful out of it.
SPEAKER_00: And yet there's a limit to what we can control because we're not God.
SPEAKER_00: You can cultivate your garden in the best way possible, and then a hurricane wipes it out.
SPEAKER_00: It's not up to you where the hurricane goes.
SPEAKER_00: You can't control that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: It just happened.
SPEAKER_00: You did everything right, and something out of your control took it all away.
SPEAKER_00: That's the reality of living in a fallen world.
SPEAKER_00: You can worry about things, and it makes no difference.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be in control.
SPEAKER_00: And you recognize you're not.
SPEAKER_00: And so you worry about those things.
SPEAKER_00: That's why people often have fear of flying, because that's the most like fundamental place where you're not in control.
SPEAKER_00: You're not in the cockpit, and it's bolted shut.
SPEAKER_00: And if you try to get in, you'll probably get tased.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have control.
SPEAKER_00: That extrapolates out to our whole life.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is that we're not God.
SPEAKER_00: We don't control how long we live.
SPEAKER_00: We don't control, to an extent, how much money we make.
SPEAKER_00: We don't control the basic things of life.
SPEAKER_00: You were not in control of what country you were born in, what your your mother tongue was.
SPEAKER_00: You're not in control of that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: And yet that just those basics determine so much about you.
SPEAKER_00: That goes all the way to the end.
SPEAKER_00: You are not in control of the length of your life.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we want to be, and so we worry.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in the context, what are people worried about?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus hits, you know, three of them in verse 25: what you will eat, uh, what you will wear, how long you'll live, he gets to in verse 27.
SPEAKER_00: This is basically Maslow's hierarchy of needs upside down.
SPEAKER_00: You remember that back in Psychology 101?
SPEAKER_00: The most important thing is life, followed by food and shelter and clothing, and I don't know the exact order those things are, but things like friendships and your sports team winning were at the very tippity top of that pyramid.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't go after those things.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say don't worry about your friends, he doesn't say don't worry about your kids, he doesn't say don't worry about your car.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to the very base level of the hierarchy of needs and says, Don't worry about how long you're going to live.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about what food you're going to eat.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about where you're going to get water.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about the clothes you're going to wrap your body in.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he says, don't worry about.
SPEAKER_00: And context here is key because he had just said, in the paragraph before, in the in his sermon, he's preaching this, remember, he had just said, store up for yourself treasure in heaven, not on earth.
SPEAKER_00: Be a generous giver towards God, advance the kingdom of God in this world with your sacrificial giving.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he just said.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're like me, you hear Jesus say that, and right away you counter with excuses.
SPEAKER_00: Right away you say, Oh, I want to be a generous giver.
SPEAKER_00: Of course I believe what Jesus says in verse 19 through 24.
SPEAKER_00: Sign me up.
SPEAKER_00: It's just that I gotta pay rent.
SPEAKER_00: It's just that I gotta have a college fund for the kids.
SPEAKER_00: It's just that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we always respond.
SPEAKER_00: It's just at those things.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is not a disconnected statement where Jesus goes next.
SPEAKER_00: He says, store it for yourself treasure in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Incidentally, my friends, don't worry about your food, your clothes, and how long you'll live.
SPEAKER_00: The Roman Empire, the people Jesus is talking to at this point, had an average life expectancy of 25 years old.
SPEAKER_00: That includes infant mortality.
SPEAKER_00: If you tease infant mortality out of that number, the life expectancy in the Roman Empire during the time of Jesus was 50 years.
SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, if you survived the first two years of life, your average life expectancy was going to be 50 years old.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is talking to people who are familiar with death.
SPEAKER_00: There were plagues all the time in the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: One, the plague of Antonin in 160, so after this, killed about a third of the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: At the height of the plague, about which is about five million people killed, at the height of the plague, about 2,000 people a day were dying in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is talking to people who were familiar with fearing for their life.
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, he's on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: Probably on the Mediterranean side of the sea.
SPEAKER_00: But he's looking over the hill.
SPEAKER_00: And I've been in this area many, many times, and you know, you don't know which exact little valley he's in or which exact It's the Sermon on the Mount, but it's also called the Sermon on the Plains in Luke.
SPEAKER_00: And there's lots of little areas that are on top of little hills that are flat there.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're looking over the Sea of Galilee, you know what's right over the side there, right?
SPEAKER_00: Desert.
SPEAKER_00: Forever.
SPEAKER_00: One wrong breeze comes in from the desert, you lose all your crops.
SPEAKER_00: The locusts come in from Egypt, you lose all your crops.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's dealing with people that are on the very edge of civilization in a sense.
SPEAKER_00: You can't grow, you know, five miles that way, you can't grow anything anymore.
SPEAKER_00: That's who he's talking to.
SPEAKER_00: They're familiar with being afraid of losing food.
SPEAKER_00: They understand that.
SPEAKER_00: And yet that's what Jesus goes after.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in addressing this, he says, verse 26, look at the birds of the air.
SPEAKER_00: They neither sow nor reap, nor gather into your barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus uses the analogy of the feather first, the birds of the air.
SPEAKER_00: He's not extolling passivity.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying, don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, just sit back, open your mouth, and God will reign food.
SPEAKER_00: Does God reign worms?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: See, the analogy from the bird is very important.
SPEAKER_00: The bird is a perfect analogy for this.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, our Lord used it.
SPEAKER_00: The birds, they go out and work.
SPEAKER_00: The birds go to work.
SPEAKER_00: They don't worry about their work, but they go to work.
SPEAKER_00: We even have the expression in English: the early bird gets the work.
SPEAKER_00: See, you know all this.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say, hey, if you don't get up early, just open up your mouth and wait for the Lord to drop a worm in it.
SPEAKER_00: That works for baby birds, but not bigger words.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta go hunting.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta go working in order to eat.
SPEAKER_00: This is exactly how God made us.
SPEAKER_00: The bird doesn't have to sow and reap, God provides for it.
SPEAKER_00: And the point here is that God provides from the growth of the ground, but the bird has to go hunt.
SPEAKER_00: Human beings, God provides us ways to eat, namely work.
SPEAKER_00: Namely, work.
SPEAKER_00: It's Labor Day weekend, for goodness sake.
SPEAKER_00: So you know this.
SPEAKER_00: God made the world in such a way that you go work, that means you get food.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't rain worms.
SPEAKER_00: You can't go into old navy and take clothes off the shelf and on your way out say, hey, the lilies of the field.
SPEAKER_00: You work for money to spend on food.
SPEAKER_00: Food comes from work, though, not worry.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 18.9 says that.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 18.24 says that as well.
SPEAKER_00: Food comes from work, not from worry.
SPEAKER_00: The overall teaching of this section is clear that worry about the length of life and the abundance of food are foolish.
SPEAKER_00: Just ask the birds.
SPEAKER_00: My favorite bird, by the way, is the purple marten.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're friends with me, you might be rolling your eyes right now because you've heard my purple marten speech many, many times.
SPEAKER_00: It's an amazing bird.
SPEAKER_00: It's roughly this big.
SPEAKER_00: It's a tiny little bird.
SPEAKER_00: It's possibly the only bird in the world that lives entirely in man-made housing.
SPEAKER_00: It spends our winters in South America in factories.
SPEAKER_00: They nest in factories of thousands, tens of thousands of these birds in the roofs of factories in Argentina and Brazil.
SPEAKER_00: They're running 24-7, bright lights, loud machines.
SPEAKER_00: That's where they live half of the year.
SPEAKER_00: And they fly their little bird bodies over the Gulf of Mexico, which they somehow do.
SPEAKER_00: They can time the wind right to carry them over the Gulf of Mexico.
SPEAKER_00: And they fly up into the United States and they come in those little houses on poles around Lake Anna and Lake of the Woods and spend the rest of the year there.
SPEAKER_00: They're kind of like some of us in that regard.
SPEAKER_00: How do they get across the Gulf of Mexico, these little tiny birds?
SPEAKER_00: They just know how to do it.
SPEAKER_00: People used to think like their mommy birds taught them, and no, they did experiments where they took these birds out on boats from babies, tagged them, let them go in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, out even out towards Cuba, and they've made it to where they're going.
SPEAKER_00: They just know where to fly.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have Google Maps or anything.
SPEAKER_00: How did God make them know how to do that?
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, as I said, they're the only bird that lives entirely in man-made housing.
SPEAKER_00: Checkmate evolutionists.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I gotta say about that.
SPEAKER_00: God gave them an instinct and a knowledge that provides food for them.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we are.
SPEAKER_00: We work.
SPEAKER_00: He made us to work.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't make us to worry.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke's gospel, this is followed by the contrast of the hoarder, the one who builds bigger barns for himself.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good thing Jesus used birds as an analogy and not squirrels, because it would break down with the squirrels.
SPEAKER_00: Squirrels do hoard, those squirrels.
SPEAKER_00: But birds don't.
SPEAKER_00: You've never seen a fat bird, unless it's in a cage.
SPEAKER_00: You have to put it in a cage and make it a pet and feed it to get it fat.
SPEAKER_00: Birds in the wild, they don't hoard, they don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: They just work and eat.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus is teaching you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: Worry is your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you two reasons why in the time that remains.
SPEAKER_00: First, your real enemy is worry.
SPEAKER_00: Because worry doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: Worry is the anti-bird.
SPEAKER_00: The bird works, worry doesn't.
SPEAKER_00: Worry is not effective.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm appealing to you, and Jesus is appealing to you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to borrow his argument here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is appealing to you just based on the practical level.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get to the spiritual stuff next week.
SPEAKER_00: But for now, just a practical level.
SPEAKER_00: Fine, you buy into the argument.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you buy into the argument.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to get bit by a snake.
SPEAKER_00: Got it.
SPEAKER_00: Worrying about there being a den of snakes in your basement doesn't increase the odds or decrease the odds of there actually being a said snake there.
SPEAKER_00: Worry is totally disconnected from the reality that you're around.
SPEAKER_00: It does not change the reality in front of you at all.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't do anything.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says this in verse 27.
SPEAKER_00: Which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to a span of life?
SPEAKER_00: And that phrase span of life, some of the old translations of King James says, cubit to your height.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, who can add a single qubit to themselves?
SPEAKER_00: A cubit is the length from the elbow to the fingertips.
SPEAKER_00: So roughly 18 inches.
SPEAKER_00: It probably doesn't mean add a qubit to your height because that would be ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00: I'd be seven foot tall with a qubit on top of me.
SPEAKER_00: It means more likely an idiom for your fingertip, you can't add a single, single smidgen to the span of your life through worry.
SPEAKER_00: Worry all you want, it's not going to do anything for you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to keep you out of danger.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to give your kids a better future.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to make you live longer.
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't help.
SPEAKER_00: That's the lie that people believe of I don't worry about this, then other bad things will happen.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus' point here is worrying about it doesn't keep those things from happening.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't say, because you're never gonna get bit by a snake.
SPEAKER_00: People do get bit by snakes.
SPEAKER_00: He just says worrying about it is not ultimately going to help.
SPEAKER_00: This again is the key difference between prudence and anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: People argue with Jesus and say, oh, don't worry about things, then the bad things will happen.
SPEAKER_00: And listen, it's prudent to do all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: You're in a global pandemic, wash your hands.
SPEAKER_00: Why not?
SPEAKER_00: It might make you live longer.
SPEAKER_00: Quit smoking.
SPEAKER_00: That'll make you live longer.
SPEAKER_00: Don't text and drive.
SPEAKER_00: That'll make you live longer.
SPEAKER_00: Kids, keep your parents accountable.
SPEAKER_00: But worry won't make you live longer.
SPEAKER_00: I mean the irony is worry probably has the opposite effect.
SPEAKER_00: Worry will make you live shorter.
SPEAKER_00: Worry just won't help.
SPEAKER_00: Corey Tin Boom in her book The Hiding Place, which if you haven't read, I strongly encourage you to do so.
SPEAKER_00: She describes worry this way.
SPEAKER_00: She says, quote, worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but it does empty today of its strength.
SPEAKER_00: She says that in a concentration camp.
SPEAKER_00: Where it's a very real risk.
SPEAKER_00: All of her friends are getting put in the ovens.
SPEAKER_00: That's where she says that.
SPEAKER_00: What's she has a real danger about her life.
SPEAKER_00: And she says, What's worry?
SPEAKER_00: What's worry gonna do for me?
SPEAKER_00: I can't do anything.
SPEAKER_00: It just makes your life shorter, ultimately.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the rub.
SPEAKER_00: Underneath everything about worry and anxiety, ultimately, worry and anxiety don't actually make an impact.
SPEAKER_00: Prudence is taking care of your responsibilities, and you should be prudent.
SPEAKER_00: But worry, worry ultimately is pointless.
SPEAKER_00: It cannot help.
SPEAKER_00: Earlier this summer, I was working on one side of a fence that you couldn't see through.
SPEAKER_00: My kids were at a pool on the other side of the fence, and I couldn't see them, but I could hear them.
SPEAKER_00: And they had got these soap, you know, those bubbles that the kids blow, and they were trying to blow them, they were so badly wanted me to see the bubbles.
SPEAKER_00: They were trying to blow them over the fence line so I could see them from the other side.
SPEAKER_00: So you kind of got the image, and they're telling me we're blowing the bubbles, blowing the bubbles, but it was a small breeze, a tiny breeze, and those bubbles did not have a fighting chance.
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't make it over the fence.
SPEAKER_00: No matter how many styles they tried blowing, whatever handles they tried, none of the bubbles made it to where I could see it.
SPEAKER_00: And it struck me that is the perfect illustration for worry.
SPEAKER_00: You try so hard.
SPEAKER_00: You think if I worry about this and I worry about that, and I think this and I plan this and I do this, and you're blowing all the different bubbles.
SPEAKER_00: When tomorrow comes, the sum weight of everything you did in worry is meaningless.
SPEAKER_00: None of it actually makes it to tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: All of the mental energy, all of the things you're worrying about, sum it all up, capture it, put it in a box and a bow on it.
SPEAKER_00: The next day it's gone.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't do anything.
SPEAKER_00: Worry doesn't work and it just disappears.
SPEAKER_00: And people try to grab on to things they think will help.
SPEAKER_00: It's just forms of worry.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 127.
SPEAKER_00: Since Jesus quoted Solomon in this, I'm trying to only quote Solomon this morning.
SPEAKER_00: 127, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: It is vain that you rise up early and you go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil.
SPEAKER_00: That word vain, that's one of Solomon's favorite words, vanity.
SPEAKER_00: It's a word for ephemeral or like a soap bubble that pops and is gone.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Solomon says is that like the person who goes, even working is good, but Solomon says if you're working fueled by worry, you get up early, you stay up late, and all of the worry is like soap bubbles.
SPEAKER_00: It just disappears.
SPEAKER_00: It's vanity, vanity.
SPEAKER_00: All of it is vanity.
SPEAKER_00: In contrast, God's beloved children go to sleep.
SPEAKER_00: Sleep becomes a gift.
SPEAKER_00: Work is a gift, sleep is a gift, worry is a curse.
SPEAKER_00: So first reason worry is your enemy is because it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: Second reason worry is your enemy, because you're worth more than what you worry about.
SPEAKER_00: You're worth more than what you worry about.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll get through some of this today and then the rest of it.
SPEAKER_00: Next Lord's Day, Lord willing, but verse 25, Jesus says, he just reasons this way, is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't what matters more than those things?
SPEAKER_00: You are not, with apologies to the elementary school health teachers, you are not what you eat.
SPEAKER_00: And the expression, the clothes make the man, is not true.
SPEAKER_00: You are not what you eat, and the clothes do not make the man.
SPEAKER_00: And here's where it gets uniquely Christian.
SPEAKER_00: You are more than the sum of your life.
SPEAKER_00: All of your days, everything you accomplish in your life, does not define you.
SPEAKER_00: You are more than that.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard the expression you only live once.
SPEAKER_00: Not true.
SPEAKER_00: You live twice if you're a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: You get this life and then you get another one forever and ever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: And this life is the short one.
SPEAKER_00: You're more than your life.
SPEAKER_00: For the non-Christian, this is gibberish.
SPEAKER_00: For the non-Christian, it's all that matters right now is your life.
SPEAKER_00: You'll do anything to live longer because that's all you got.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Paul says if the resurrection is not true, eat, drink, and be merry.
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow we die.
SPEAKER_00: Look good.
SPEAKER_00: Go fast.
SPEAKER_00: Be cool.
SPEAKER_00: Do it all.
SPEAKER_00: Because this is all you got.
SPEAKER_00: But for the Christian, Jesus says, your life is just worth more than the things you're worried about.
SPEAKER_00: It just is worth more.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a huge statement because your soul is what matters.
SPEAKER_00: Your soul is what determines your worth.
SPEAKER_00: And you're made in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: You are defined by your spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to take you to one illustration of this.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 11.
SPEAKER_00: Why don't you turn with me over to 2 Corinthians 11?
SPEAKER_00: Because oftentimes when people are talking about worry, they will say things like, no, worry and anxiety is actually good.
SPEAKER_00: Because, for example, Paul had anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: Paul had anxiety in 2 Corinthians 11.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 7 is another place, but we'll only look at this one.
SPEAKER_00: We might look at the other one next week.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 16, I don't want to be a fool.
SPEAKER_00: So I may boast a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: So the intro here is Paul saying, I'm going to boast about what a good pastor I am.
SPEAKER_00: So that's not the kind of person you want to listen to.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you sit down in an airplane, you ask the guy next to you, hey, what do you do for a living?
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Oh, I won these 17 major awards last year.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm going to go sit in the middle seat over there.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, All right, I'm going to tell you a little bit myself, and I'm going to boast.
SPEAKER_00: Get ready.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to boast in verse 21 as a fool.
SPEAKER_00: He'll boast of the foolish things in his life.
SPEAKER_00: And he gives you a few of them.
SPEAKER_00: He's a bit more of a Hebrew than they are.
SPEAKER_00: He's more of a Jew than they are.
SPEAKER_00: He's more from Abraham than they are.
SPEAKER_00: And of course he's being boasting and ridiculous here to make a point.
SPEAKER_00: Here's where he gets to the fun part, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a better servant of Christ than they are.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I'm talking like a madman here.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's aware of how he sounds.
SPEAKER_00: I have greater labors, more imprisonments, countless beatings, often near death.
SPEAKER_00: Five times I received from the hands of the Jews 40 lashes, less one, so 39 times he was whipped.
SPEAKER_00: Three times I was beaten with rods.
SPEAKER_00: Once I was stoned, three times shipwrecked.
SPEAKER_00: A night and a day adrift of the sea.
SPEAKER_00: On many journeys, dangers in rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, again, dangers from false brothers, in toil, hardship, through sleepless nights, in hunger, thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.
SPEAKER_00: And that word exposure means naked.
SPEAKER_00: That's Paul's bragging.
SPEAKER_00: No food, no clothes.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, also he's sentenced to die.
SPEAKER_00: You know the list he's going through right here?
SPEAKER_00: That is what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 6, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about your food.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about your clothes.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about how long you live.
SPEAKER_00: And here Paul's like, I don't got any clothes, I'm always starving to death, and I'm going to die any moment.
SPEAKER_00: Let me brag about that.
SPEAKER_00: That's the context for verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: Apart from all the other things he says, there's the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.
SPEAKER_00: That's a plot twist you probably weren't expecting.
SPEAKER_00: The guy says, I'm starving to death and I'm being beaten all the time.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm anxious for the churches.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is his rhetorical device to bring the point of the spear at the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: You want to discount my apostolic leadership, Paul tells them?
SPEAKER_00: Let me brag a bit.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have food.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have clothes.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a life.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I have?
SPEAKER_00: Concern about your soul.
SPEAKER_00: You can't take a verse like that and say, hey, that justifies worrying about my life.
SPEAKER_00: You're not, it's not even abstract here what Paul means when he says I'm worried for the churches.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 29.
SPEAKER_00: Who's weak and I'm not weak?
SPEAKER_00: Who's made to fall and I'm not indignant?
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, the weakest person in the church, that's him.
SPEAKER_00: As he looks at the Corinthian church, he planted that church.
SPEAKER_00: He's their father in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: He looks at them, he says, There's one person in the church that is so spiritually mature.
SPEAKER_00: That's where I am.
SPEAKER_00: I'm tethered to them.
SPEAKER_00: We're all in the body together.
SPEAKER_00: I'm down with them.
SPEAKER_00: If anybody in the church is walking in sin, Paul says it pulls me with them.
SPEAKER_00: That's the word for anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: He's so anxious for the church because he wants them to thrive in godliness.
SPEAKER_00: Or 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul says the married person is anxious for how to please their husband or their wife.
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
SPEAKER_00: The single person is anxious for how to please God.
SPEAKER_00: That's better.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what the person is worrying about in 1 Corinthians 7.
SPEAKER_00: How to be pleasing to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
SPEAKER_00: Be driven by that.
SPEAKER_00: And that should drive you to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: That should drive you to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to be worried about something, be worried about your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Be anxious for your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Be anxious for how to be pleasing to God.
SPEAKER_00: Be anxious for how to make your church a better body and a better congregation and godlier.
SPEAKER_00: Be anxious for those things.
SPEAKER_00: Not for the how long you live, the food you wear, your food you leave, where your kids will go to school.
SPEAKER_00: All the things that are just here for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: That's where the action is at.
SPEAKER_00: You want to worry?
SPEAKER_00: Worry about godliness.
SPEAKER_00: Worry about holiness.
SPEAKER_00: Worry about pleasing to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We'll come back to Matthew 6 next so we can look at practical ways to go to war against worry.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful that you have made our lives short in a sense because we're eager for heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We are strangers and pilgrims passing through.
SPEAKER_00: Keep us from being tethered down in a world that is fleeting.
SPEAKER_00: We know this is just a very basic way we're called out from the world.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be different because we want to live for different things.
SPEAKER_00: Spend money on different things.
SPEAKER_00: Speak of different things.
SPEAKER_00: We hear you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to worry about life and food and clothes.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be totally at peace with you as our Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: You, as our Father, care for your children.
SPEAKER_00: We are your children.
SPEAKER_00: We feel cared for by you.
SPEAKER_00: And so we rest in the confidence that you are good and that you love us.
SPEAKER_00: We give you thanks in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.