Therefore, Do Not Worry Series

Our primary passage today will be from Matthew chapter 6; but from time to time, I will reference Luke 12:22-32, which is a gospel parallel, or what we might call Luke’s recollection of events.

E. Stanley Jones, a missionary to India in the early 1900’s, stated, “I live better by faith and confidence than by fear, doubt and anxiety. In anxiety and worry, my being is grasping for breath – these are not my native air. But in faith and confidence, I breathe freely – these are my native air.”(1) Jones had a better quality of life through faith than by worry. In fact, he said that worry caused him to feel as though he were grasping for breath; and there are many believers who feel this way today.

Park Tucker, a prison chaplain in Atlanta, Georgia, tells us, “Many people are walking around half-dead because worry has built a mountain of problems over which there is no path, and they have surrendered to fate.”(2) Worry causes us to feel as though we are gasping for breath and walking around half-dead. In fact, the English word “worry” comes from an old Anglo-Saxon word that means “to strangle.”(3)

Corrie Ten Boom said, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”(4) If you are going through some dilemma or problem in life and find yourself completely immersed in that situation trying to come up with a solution, and you tend to think about it day and night, then you know all too well how worry feels. Worry can zap our life and drain our strength; and in our message this morning we are going to see that, in order to have true life in the Lord, we must place all our cares and burdens in the hands of Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Pt 5:7).

Worrying About Food and Clothing (v. 25)

25 Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

There are two things that are abundant in America – food and clothing. In John 10:10, Jesus spoke about having abundant life; and if a person could ever have abundance, it would be in today’s western culture and society. But, Jesus was referring to abundant spiritual life, and not material things.

We have so much available food that people are using it as a substitute for life, trying to fill their emptiness with an addiction to food, resulting in rampant obesity and major health issues. We are presented with so much temptation today to wear the latest fashion, that some people will spend most of their income on clothing, and then have to “worry” about how to meet the other expenses in life.

It is strange that in a place where you find an abundance of food and clothing that we worry so much. You might expect it in a poverty-stricken nation; however, we cannot seem to wait for the next morsel of food, or the next big shopping spree! We think these things will bring us happiness and satisfaction, but once we obtain them, we are still empty with a deep void inside.

In 1 Timothy 6:8, the apostle Paul said, “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” We should be content and satisfied with the food on our table and the clothing on our body; however, here in American, people seem dissatisfied. We worry about acquiring these things, because we think they will bring us fulfillment, but they cannot. In verse 25, Jesus said that “Life [is] more than food, and the body [is] more than clothing.”

In John chapter six, we read how Jesus fed five thousand people from five loaves of bread and two fish (John 6:4-14). The very next day the people came looking for Him, and He shared with them these words: “You seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you . . . I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:26-27, 35). You see, life is more than food; for true, abundant, and fulfilling life is found in Jesus!

Life is also more than clothing, and what we “put on” (v. 25). This expression “put on,” in verse 25, is found elsewhere in the Bible in reference to how a believer should "clothe himself" in Christ. For example, Paul admonished the believers in Rome, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Rom 13:14). Paul informed the believers in Colossae to “put on love, which is the bond of perfection” (Col 3:14), and noted that when they did, the peace of God would rule in their hearts and they would be thankful (3:15); once again revealing that spiritual satisfaction and abundant life is found in Jesus, not in earthly things!