Seek First (Matthew 6:25-34) Series

Seek First (Matthew 6:25-34)

Good morning. Please open your Bibles to Matthew 6, beginning in verse 25.

This week, a church member asked to meet with me for a few minutes. This person has had a lot on her plate lately, and it was causing her a lot of anxiety. And what she said to me was so tender and honest and vulnerable. She said, “James, I’m worried that God is going to fail me.”

I had to ask her to clarify. At first, I thought she was saying she was worried that when God looked at her life, He was going to give her a failing grade. But the more we talked, the more I realized it wasn’t that. It was that she was worried God was going to let her down.

She said, “We just have so many things our family has been trusting God for. But what if He doesn’t come through?”

We have some health challenges in our family, and we’ve been praying for healing. But what if it doesn’t come?

I’ve been praying for a new job. But what if it doesn’t pan out?

And I realized as a pastor that there are times when what God gives me to say doesn’t seem to match up with what you guys need to hear.

Let me explain.

Over the last several weeks, we’ve listened to what Jesus had to say about money—how we handle it, how we think about it, and how it shapes our hearts.

We started off talking about greed—the man who stored up treasure for himself but wasn’t rich toward God.

Then we looked at the servants who were entrusted by the Master and learned that what matters most isn’t equal gifts, but equal faithfulness.

We talked about motives—how God cares more about why we give than what we give.

Last week, we talked about the widow who trusted all she had to God, believing that not only was He worthy of it, but that He could be trusted with it.

And maybe that’s where some of us are right now.

You’ve heard Jesus’ teaching on money, and you’re thinking, “Lord, I want to be faithful. I want to trust You. But if I give, how will I make it?”

Or the question we don’t want to say out loud:

If I trust you with my finances, how do I know you won’t fail me?

In Matthew 6, Jesus shows that He gets us. I want you to notice that right after his pronouncement in verse 24, that

“You cannot serve both God and money,”

He pivots immediately to…

“Therefore I tell you, Don’t about your life…”

See, Jesus wouldn’t have said ‘do not be anxious’ unless He understood that these kind of conversations cause us all sorts of anxiety. Because when you let go of control, anxiety always tries to take its place.

And He doesn’t shame us for it. He exposes the root of it. He knows that worry grows in the soil of divided trust. That’s why the very first word of verse 25 is ‘Therefore’—He’s connecting worry to what He just said about serving two masters.”Because when you let go of control, anxiety always tries to take its place.

But Jesus doesn’t just say don’t worry—He shows us why we don’t have to.

This morning, I want you to walk out of here with the assurance that Jesus is not going to fail you. And if that makes you a more confident giver, awesome. But that’s not the reason I’m telling you this. I’m telling you this because I want you to put your trust in the one who will never fail you.

Let’s look at Matthew 6:25-34 together. I’m going to read from the Christian Standard Bible this morning, mainly because it uses the word “worry” instead of “anxious”

[READ]

[pray]

Before we look at what Jesus tells us not to worry about, let’s talk about why worry is a problem.

1. The Problem of Worry (v. 25)

In verse 25, Jesus says, “Don’t worry about your life.” For a lot of us, that’s like telling water not to be wet. Everybody worries. We worry about bills, health, kids, aging parents, retirement, the future.

And to be fair, when Jesus says in verse 25 “Don’t worry,” He isn’t talking about the concern that your outdoor picnic is going to be rained out. And He certainly isn’t saying to just blow it off and go back to sleep if your teenager is two hours late coming home.

Verse 25 is a present imperative in the Greek— that means it’s a command calling for constant and continuous action. In other words, stop letting worry be your default setting. Don’t allow worry to define your life.

Then He asks a painfully practical question in verse 27: