Games People Play: “Hungry Hungry Hippos”
Matthew 6:25-34
INTRODUCTION: Hungry Hungry Hippos is the game of get all you can while the getting is good. [Demonstrate game] My kids love to play Hungry Hungry Hippos; unfortunately, so do most Americans as we play for all the "marbles" we can.
[READ Matthew 6:25-34]
It is a pity this passage is often read on its own in church, isolated from what has gone before. The significance of the phrase “so I tell you” is missed unless we look at what Jesus has said right before—that “no one can serve two masters” and “you cannot serve both God and money.” Remember last week we saw how some people choose to serve God and use money, but others choose to serve money, and try to use God. If you choose to serve money, you will worry about life.
I. IF WE COMMIT OURSELVES TO MONEY, WE WILL WORRY ABOUT LIFE.
A. Do you worry? Worry can literally make us sick. It may even be possible to worry ourselves to death.
1. When we worry, we don’t worry with our minds, we worry with our organs. And if we worry long enough and hard enough, we will get ulcers and make ourselves vulnerable to all kinds of other sicknesses.
2. Worry can sometimes lead people to commit suicide.
B. The way we look at life, Jesus said, has a lot to do with how much we worry.
1. If we focus our attention on temporal things, such as bank accounts, careers, and physical appearance, we have reasons to worry. We can never get enough to keep us from worrying. Hungry Hippo marbles can represent our wardrobe, bank account, house, possessions.
2. People in Jesus’ day had just as much anxiety about life as we do.
a. Some may think life was easier in the first century because times were simpler and people didn’t have as much to worry about.
b. But most of the people in the ancient world lived like people in the third world today.
1) Workers were paid every day because they needed the money to live the next day.
2) Taxes were high, but there was no social security or safety net. Times were tough, but to people then and now, Jesus says “Don’t worry.”
C. Worry distorts our perspective on life.
1. According to our nation’s Bureau of Standards, a dense fog covering seven city blocks to a depth of a hundred feet contains less than one glass of water. All of that fog, if it could be condensed into water, wouldn’t quite fill a drinking glass. Compare this to the things we often worry about. Like fog our worries can thoroughly block our vision of the light of God, but the fact is, they have little substance to them.
2. What do you worry about most? Job? Family? Money? Health? Future?
3. ILLUSTRATION: If Danny Simpson had known more about guns, he might not have needed to rob the bank. But in 1990, in Ottawa, Canada, this 24-year-old went to jail, and his gun went to a museum. He was arrested for robbing a bank of $6,000 and then sent to jail for six years. He had used a .45 caliber Colt semi-automatic, which turned out to be an antique made by the Ross Rifle Company, Quebec City, in 1918. The pistol is worth up to $100,000—much more than Danny Simpson had stolen. If he had just known what he carried in his hand, he wouldn’t have robbed the bank. In other words, Danny already had what he needed.
>>What we value determines how we live. We have to choose—if we value what is temporal, we will serve money. If we value what is eternal, we will serve God. We all commit our lives to something—what that will be is up to us. One positive byproduct from serving God is that we don’t have to worry. Why? Because when we commit ourselves to Him, He commits Himself to us.
II. WHEN WE COMMIT OURSELVES TO GOD, HE COMMITS HIMSELF TO US.
A. Specifically, He commits Himself to providing for our basic needs: what goes into our bodies (food, drink) and what goes onto our bodies (clothes).
1. “Don’t worry” doesn’t mean “don’t work.” Jesus used birds as an example. Every self-respecting bird works hard for food and shelter. But it doesn’t worry. God isn’t against working; He’s against worrying. Jesus was saying to his disciples, “don’t worry about the necessities of life.” If we commit ourselves to Him, He commits Himself to us.
2. To illustrate God’s provision of clothing, Jesus next directs attention to “the lilies of the field.” Uncultivated vegetation does much less to provide for itself than do birds, yet God adorns it with beauty that at times surpasses the greatest splendor of human raiment. Plants prove more fragile than birds and more short-lived than humans. If God lavishes such concern over the rest of His creation, how much more does He love us!
3. The Hungry Hippos don’t realize who’s giving them their marbles!
B. He commits Himself to us as a loving Father
1. The Jews of the OT did not think about God as Father. No one in the OT prayed to God as a heavenly Father. But again and again Jesus told us that our Father is God, and that God is our Father. When he introduced the Lord’s Prayer earlier in this chapter, he said we are to pray to “our Father.” This is incredibly significant. It means that at the heart of the universe is not only ultimate power but also ultimate love. We are part of God’s family. We bear the family name. And God has committed Himself to us as a father commits himself to his children.
2. My children don’t always know what they need. Sometimes we confuse necessities and luxuries, but God gives us what we need. Sometimes we ask for things that could destroy us, but our Father doesn’t give us those. God does for us what a good father does for his children. If we believe this is true, we have no reason to worry.
C. As we commit ourselves to Him, we’ll find no reason to worry.
1. Because we are our Father’s children, if we worry about anything it should be about His kingdom. In the Lord’s prayer, the first section deals with praying to the Father about the Father—that His name be hallowed, that His kingdom come, and that His will be done. Then we can ask for daily bread. In other words, we are to seek His kingdom first, to make that the aim of our lives, and then these things will be given to us, leaving us no reason to worry.
2. If we focus on that which is eternal—God’s work in the world—our hearts will be at ease. As we commit ourselves to God, He commits Himself to us. And He promises that if our hearts are where His heart is, He will take care of our needs. The absence of worry ought to distinguish people who live for the eternal. We are people who trust in God, and that should make a difference in the way we handle life.
D. ILLUSTRATION: Billy Ray Valentine, from the movie Trading Places, experienced an overnight reversal of misfortune. Millionaire brothers Randolph & Mortimer Duke theorized that they could take an underprivileged hoodlum like Billy Ray and transform him into a productive member of their investment empire. They gave him new clothes, a new home, a chauffer-driven limousine, a butler, and a prestigious position at their firm. At first, Billy Ray doesn’t get it. When the Duke brothers give him a tour of his lavish new townhouse in uptown Philadelphia, Billy Ray stuffs his pockets with anything that isn’t nailed down. Randolph tried to explain that the whole place belonged to him now, but Billy Ray saw the situation through a different lens. He came from a world of financial fear—he was afraid that if he didn’t seize the opportunity to meet his own needs, he would go hungry. So he grabbed whatever loot he could get his hands on: Cuban cigars, fistfuls of chocolates, and gold trinkets he could trade at a pawnshop. It was the only way he knew how to operate. Eventually, Billy Ray catches on. He begins to trust what the Dukes were telling him and realized he no longer had to fear hunger. Before long, he began to shift his focus away from meeting his basic needs and onto the task of managing the affairs of Duke & Duke. Once his perspective changed, he actually became a valuable employee. How many of us are like Billy Ray Valentine? God wants to entrust vast portions of His empire into our care. Not for our personal consumption, but to be sown for His Kingdom. He wants capable managers to handle His affairs, distribute His wealth, and spread His message. But do we really get it? Do you? How would your life be different if you did?
CONCLUSION: (BI) When we commit ourselves to God, He commits Himself to us.
Our worries must not sound like the worries of the world. Followers of Jesus will be concerned to have a distinctive approach to life, one characterized by values and perspectives stamped all over with the words “Made in the Kingdom of God.”
I used to worry about whether I would ever get married. Then I got married, and I worried about finding a job. Then we found a job, Angie got pregnant, and I worried about being a good father. Lately I’ve been worried about our church, but that’s not my place. Our church belongs to our Father. My role is to live for Him and make His kingdom my primary concern. And that’s your role, too.
