No Worries

Title: No Worries…

Text: Matthew 6:24-34

Thesis: We can fully trust God who created us and cares for us.

Introduction

Let’s look at a clip to start us thinking as we begin.

(Play Clip: worshiphousemedia.com Clip: Matthew 6: Do Not Worry)

That clip is a powerful reminder that God wants us to know that he cares for us and does not want us to be worriers.

Our text begins with strong statement about worry.

1. Worry is verboten!

“Don’t worry about everyday life – whether you have enough food, drink, and clothes. Look at the birds. They don’t need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because your heavenly Father feeds them. Doesn’t life consist of more than food and clothing?” Matthew 6:25-29

Commentator William Barclay says there is a difference between being careful and being full of care. Prudence is a good and necessary part of life. Having foresight is a good thing… planning ahead for the unforeseen is wise. Being careful is not what concerns Jesus. Jesus is concerned that we not be full of care or worry anxiously. (Wiliam Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, P. 255)

Jesus specifically tells his followers that “worry” does not reflect the mindset he desires of his followers. He uses strong language… he says, “Don’t worry.” Worry is forbidden.

• In English we would say worry is forbidden.

• In Spanish we would say worry is prohibido.

• In Italian we would say that worry is severo.

• When I looked up forbidden in the English to Swedish, there was no direct translation, suggesting that nothing is forbidden in Sweden. However, in all fairness, the Swedes do have a word for forbid, which is forbjuda.

Jesus spoke directly to the issue of worrying about the things of everyday life, then he poses the question: Doesn’t life consist of more than food and clothing? What does he mean? What does Jesus mean by “life consisting of more than food and clothing?”

Do you suppose that the God who gives the great gift of life is somehow incapable of also giving the things necessary for life? Can we not trust the giver of life to also be the sustainer of life? There is more to life than worrying about the cares of life… there is the living of a life of trust.

We are not to worry because God, the giver of life is also the sustainer of life. God will take care of us.

2. God will take care of us… We are more precious to God than birds and flowers.

“They don’t need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are more valuable than they are.” Matthew 6:26

Wild birds don’t worry. This photo happens to be of a “Flicker” at a backyard feeder but it could be a Hummingbird drinking nectar from bright flower or of the familiar Canadian Geese who graze in our lawns.

(Project slide of wild birds feeding.)

Even the most detached of bird watchers knows that birds hustle for their food. Neither the red nor the yellow finch lies around all day waiting for God to drop a sack of thistle seed into the nest. Birds hustle for their food. Sparrows are relentless in their efforts to find food. Pigeons gather around park benches in search of peanuts. Hummingbirds never stop in their relentless flutter for the nectar of wild flowers. The point is this: Birds don’t worry.

Flowers don’t worry either.

“And if God cares about so wonderfully about flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won’t he more surely care for you? You have so little faith!” Matthew 6:27 and 30

What wild flower ever worried about anything?

(Project a slide of wild flowers.)

The flowers we are looking at today are goners… we are seeing them in all their glory but in fact, they are long dead and gone now.

Bonnie and I once had an electronic ignition gas stove. When we turned on the burner the gas, an electronic ignition system would begin to spark as the gas escaped through the jets on the burner… almost instantaneously there would be a whoosh and the burner was lit. Such conveniences were not part of life in the kitchen of the ordinary person who listened to Jesus speak about wild flowers being here today and gone tomorrow.

When Jesus spoke of the flowers and grasses of the field, his listeners could imagine hillsides of wildflowers and grasses in bloom. They could also imagine how quickly they died and dried up. The women of Jesus’ day would gather those grasses and when they lit the fires beneath their clay baking ovens, they would place a tuft of dried flowers and grasses under the kindling to provide a very hot start to get the fire going. The dried wildflowers and grasses were the spark to get the burner going, so to speak.