Hakuna Matata for Christians Matthew January 20, 2013

Transcription

1 Hakuna Matata for Christians Matthew January 20, 2013 Introduction: Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase Hakuna Matata! Ain't no passing craze It means no worries For the rest of your days It's our problem-free philosophy Hakuna Matata! I would imagine many of you are familiar with the song Hakuna Matata from the movie The Lion King. Audiences are introduced to the song when Simba, the lion cub who has fled from his home, encounters a meerkat named Timon and a warthog named Pumbaa. They explain to Simba their personal philosophy called Hakuna Matata which is actually a real phrase in Swahili meaning no worries. They convince young Simba to forget about his troubled past and begin living his life without any worries about the future. But there s a problem with Timon s and Pumbaa s version of hakuna matata: not only is it a worry-free philosophy but it s also turns out to be a responsibility-free philosophy. Simba adopts their version of hakuna matata to the neglect of his responsibility to lead his pride of lions. Their philosophy was ultimately self-centered in that it encouraged Simba to forget about others and live for himself. But it doesn t have to be this way. In our passage this morning Jesus is going to invite his disciples to enjoy a God-centered hakuna matata. Jesus wants us to discover that our Heavenly Father offers us a life free of worry if we would only trust him to provide for our needs. But unlike the version of hakuna matata in The Lion King, the freedom from worry that God offers us is not a freedom from responsibility. Rather God offers us hakuna matata so that we might be free to carry out our responsibilities as citizens of the kingdom of God. So as we consider our passage in Matthew 6 this morning, I d like to summarize what Jesus would have us learn for it like this: Main idea: God s provision frees us from worry so we can focus on his kingdom. Let s see how Jesus teaches us this by opening your Bibles with me to Matthew 6, starting at v. 25. If you didn t bring your Bible along with you, I d invite you to follow along in one of the hardcover Bibles in the pew in front of you. You should be able to find our passage on page 685. Again, we are in Matthew 6, starting at v. 25, which I ll be reading from the ESV. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious 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? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap 1

2 nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. I think the first point that Jesus makes from these verses that we just read is that 1. Since God cares for you, don t worry about material needs. (v ) Jesus begins with the word therefore which means he s drawing a conclusion from what he said previously. We spent the past two weeks covering the passage that this word therefore is referring to. Jesus warned against storing up treasures on earth and trying to serve God and money at the same time. There s a danger in living your life in the pursuit of material things because first they won t last, second, as they say, You can t take it with you and third, you can t pursue them and God without loving one and hating the other. So in light of the fleeting nature of material goods and the way money can easily become a rival for our ultimate allegiance, Jesus draws out a conclusion here in v. 25 saying, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious 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? In other words, Jesus is saying hakuna matata : no worries! Life is about far more than food and clothing so Jesus says don t spend your time worrying about them: Hakuna matata! But if we re honest, hakuna matata is far easier to say than it is to live by, isn t it? When you have a steady income and you re able to set aside some savings and purchase a few luxury items for yourself, then like Bobby McFerrin you can whistle to yourself, Don t worry. Be happy. But when you re unemployed and the medical bills are mounting up and the bill collectors are knocking on your door expecting to get paid, this gets a bit more difficult, doesn t it? Hakuna matata might be all fine and well for animated Disney films, but it doesn t pay next month s rent. If you want to live your life without worries, then you better have a good reason to do so. Hakuna matata needs to be backed up with something otherwise it s nothing more than wishful thinking. Thankfully Jesus backs up his call to worry-free living by telling us we can enjoy hakuna matata because God loves us and promises to provide for us. As Christians, we have become children of God who have a Heavenly Father who watches out for us and will take care of our every need. 2

3 Jesus illustrates this by using a couple of examples from nature. First he says in v. 26, Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? We see birds all the time, and unless it s something out of the ordinary like an eagle we probably don t give birds a whole lot of thought. But Jesus calls us to slow down for a moment and look to them and consider the nature of their sustenance. They don t store up any food yet God takes care of them. Somehow all these birds from sparrows and robins to hawk and eagles all manage to get the food they need without fretting over where it would come from. Now this doesn t means we shouldn t work and wisely store up provision for the future. Jesus isn t against retirement plans or insurance or working hard at your job to make money. Birds don t just sit in their nests and have food magically come to them! They have to go and look for it. So this isn t a blank check for laziness. But it means when you work and save, don t do so with an anxious heart that thinks it all depends on you. It doesn t. God will take care of you. Your labors will not come up empty. You may not get everything you want, but God promises to provide all that you need. Jesus then argues from the lesser to the greater by saying, Are you not of more value than they? If God provides food for the birds, then of course God s going to provide for you! It would be like me diligently filling up bird feeders outside my house every morning with birdseed while at the same time allowing my three girls to go hungry. I d never feed birds to the neglect of my kids and neither would God. If God provides for birds, which are of little value relative to those of us who ve been created in the image of God and redeemed by his Son, then he most certainly will provide for you and for me, so we need not worry about food and clothing and the basic necessities of life. You are of great value to God and if he s faithful to provide for the birds, how much more so will he be faithful to provide for his children! Jesus then elaborates on the pointlessness of worrying in v. 27. He asks, And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? Can any of you do that? Of course not! In the book of Job we re told, A man's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed (Job 14:5). All the worrying in the world cannot add a minute, much less an hour, to your life. In fact the only thing worrying can do is shorten your life. I read a quote reportedly from a physician out of the Mayo Clinic that said in his opinion, 70% of all medical patients could cure themselves if only they got rid of their worries and fears. Medical science has closely tied worry to heart trouble, blood pressure problems, ulcers, thyroid malfunction, migraine headaches, and a host of stomach disorders, amongst others. (Craig Simpson. Don t Worry About Anything. SermonCentral.com) All worrying will do is lead you to an early grave, not keep you from it. So then, since we can t add even a mere hour to our lives by worrying, Jesus says, Why bother? It s pointless to worry about food and clothing because worrying can t bring them to you and God has already promised to provide them for you. 3

4 Jesus then goes on to give a second example from nature. Look back in your Bibles with me at v And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Do you guys ever do that? Stop and smell the roses as it were? At the church I was at in St. Louis, the property was next to a field where various wild flowers grew, and on warm days I would go out and pray while walking alongside the field. Sometimes I would stoop down and study one of the flowers and consider how beautifully fragile they were. Here were these delicate flowers that bloom for a season but then in a few short months disappear for the winter. When you stop to study them closely, you see the splendor of how God uniquely created them, yet they last for such a brief period of time. Jesus is reminding us here to stop and smell the roses. These flowers which are here today and gone tomorrow are carefully and beautifully crafted by God. If God provides such rich clothing for flowers, how much more will God provide for us, his children, the clothing we need. We need not worry because the evidence of God s loving provision is all around us if we only stop for a moment and reflect upon it. If God generously takes care of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, how much more can we be assured that God will take care of you! So let s pause here for a moment and ask yourself, What am I worrying about right now? What is it that causes you anxiety? What is it that tumbles around over and over in your mind as you fret and worry? What concerns you most reveals something of the nature of your faith. We are of little faith as Jesus describes us if we constantly worry about God s provision for our future. God will provide what we need, but not all those things that we want. If I might quote the Rolling Stones for a moment, You can t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what need. That s what God promises us, hidden in a Rolling Stones song and communicated quite clearly in this passage before us. God won t always give us what our materialistic hearts want, but if we try and simply trust him, we ll find he ll give us what we need. We aren t promised to get everything we want because often what we want isn t good for us, so there s no sense in worrying about those things God hasn t promised us and may very well keep from us because he loves us. But he will give us all that we need. His children will not go hungry and naked so we need not worry about our needs being met: God is faithful even when our faith is weak. As he provides for birds and flowers, he will most certainly also provide for us. My kids ask me lots of questions about all kinds of things. How come we have to go to bed now? How come we have to eat everything on our plate? Why won t you buy me every single toy I see at Toys R Us? But there are some questions my girls never ask. They never ask me if they ll have food to eat tomorrow. They never ask me if we ll need to sleep on a park bench tonight. They never ask me if they ll have clothes to wear the next day. Those questions don t cross their minds because they trust that their dad will 4

5 always provide for them. They don t worry and become anxious about such things. God wants us to be like that. He wants us to so trust him that such concerns never cross our minds. God doesn t want us to worry because he promises to take care of our every need. He wants us to experience hakuna matata for the rest of our days because we can rest in the knowledge that our Heavenly Father loves us and promises to take care of all of our material needs Moving on now, as I said earlier, the hakuna matata God has called Christians to is one free of worry, but not one free of responsibility. God liberates us from worrying about food and clothing because we know he loves us and promises to care for us. This in turn frees us to pursue other goals, so our second point this morning is this 2. Since God cares for you, seek first his kingdom. (v ) Let s take a look at what Jesus says in v Therefore don t be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. As Christians, there should be a marked difference between us and the rest of the world. The Gentiles, which refers to unbelievers, seek after all these material things and earthly treasures because for them, this world is all there is. Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. If there is no God, no heaven or hell, above us only sky, like John Lennon once sang, then live for today. If no one is watching out for you but yourself, then you should by all means worry! It s a dog eat dog world and there are no guarantees that tomorrow will bring you health, wealth, and happiness. It makes perfect sense for unbelievers to strive to concern themselves with the material wants and needs of this world because for them this is all there is and they re on their own to get whatever they can get while they can. But as a Christian, you know better. You ve placed your faith in a Heavenly Father who loved you so much he gave up his only begotten Son to die for you. And if he did not spare his own Son for you, how will he not also give you all good things? So live in light of that. Since God cares for you far more than the birds of the air and flowers of the field, don t be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we wear? as if God had forgotten about you or was unable to supply your needs. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. Jesus said don t worry about food and clothing because God knows we need them and he ll provide them for us. Instead, he says do this: seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. That s a fundamentally different priority. There s a night and day difference between a man who is constantly striving to gain and keep the things of this world and one who is single-mindedly pursuing God s kingdom and living his life before the throne of his Heavenly Father. A person who is seeking to put the kingdom of God first will be pursuing those things which will bring God glory in his home and his place of work. He ll be striving to make the gospel known through his words and 5

6 actions. He ll use his money and possessions as means to advancing God s kingdom rather than using them solely for his own selfish benefit. His attitudes and motivations will be shaped by his desire to make Christ known in every aspect of life. He will own things, but his things will not own him, for he will see himself as a steward of the material blessings God has entrusted to him. He will take material gain as good gift from God joyfully and gratefully received and will suffer loss with the humility that recognizes it was never really his to possess to begin with. He will live aware that his Heavenly Father is always faithful to his own and will not ever allow the tiniest hair of our hair to be damaged apart for his wise and loving purposes. The hakuna matata Jesus offers us is a worry-free existence but not a responsibility-free existence like Simba was experiencing early on in The Lion King. God wants to liberate us from our enslavement to worry so that we can freely and joyfully give ourselves to the pursuit of his kingdom and his righteousness. But what s especially wonderful about our Lord s call to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness is that we do not lose what we are told not to seek. It s a not a choice between either/or but both/and. Jesus says, Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. If we seek his kingdom as the priority of our desires, then all these other material things such as food and clothing will be given to us as well. It s as C. S. Lewis once said, Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you will get neither. Seeking God s kingdom first not only will bring us heavenly reward, but it will also result in God providing for our material needs in the here and now. So in light of this, Jesus says in v. 34, Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. In other words, don t needlessly take upon yourself the burden of tomorrow s concerns. Each day has its own concerns and troubles and God s grace is sufficient for what you need today and it will be sufficient for what you need tomorrow. So don t worry about it. Don t become overwhelmed with What if this? and What if that? God s in control and he will provide for all your needs. Instead, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and God will see to it that all those material things you need will be given to you as well. Conclusion So then let s make a few points of application as we draw this to a close. The first is this: Don t worry, be happy! Now I don t mean that in a glib sing-songy way but in the rich, deep, soul-satisfying manner that Jesus is presenting it to us here in our passage. As adopted sons and daughters of God, we don t need to worry about material needs because just as God provides for the birds of the air and the lilies of the fields, so also will he provide for us his children. And that is a cause for happiness, for joy, for gladness because you and I as Christians don t need to be weighed down by the same concerns that unbelievers have. We have a Heavenly Father who knows the number of hairs on our heads and owns the cattle on a thousand hills he is able to protect us and provide for us all that we need. So take joy in that and stop fretting over things that God knows you needs and promises to provide. 6

7 Second, recognize your great value in God s eyes. After telling us to consider the birds and how God provides for them, Jesus asks, Are you not of more value than they? Some of you need to hear this: you are of great value to God. You are not an accident. You are not a problem that needs to be dealt with. You are not worthless. If you ve trusted in Christ then you are a child of God and he loves you and cherishes you with a love boundless and reckless like the love of a father for his children. The world too often measures our worth by what we earn or what we can do or in relation to how others view us, but God cuts through all of that and says to you, You are worth infinitely more than all the sparrows and all the flowers of the earth. I care for them and provide for them but for none of them did I send my Son to redeem them. I only did that for such as you. You are my son, my daughter, and I ve chosen you before the foundations of the world were laid to be loved by me for all eternity. Never think God has forgotten you or forsaken you. Remember what Hebrews 13:5 says, Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you. Living a life of hakuna matata is impossible unless you recognize how much your Heavenly Father loves you. You are of great worth in his eyes and nothing you can say or do will ever change that. Third and final application is this: seek his kingdom and his righteousness. Since God loves you and values you as his child and since he promises to supply all of your needs for food and clothing, you can stop fretting and worrying yourself over lesser things. As Jesus asked at the end of v. 25, Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? If all you re living for is food and drink, fancy clothes and expensive cars, cool electronic gadgets and a big home in the suburbs to put them all in, then you re selling yourself short. The joy of life is not found in the abundance of one s possessions. True joy is found in seeking his kingdom and his righteousness. Seek those heavenly treasures and you will find them and as a bonus you ll get all those earthly treasures you need thrown in. Let s bow our heads now and pray and ask God to help us take these encouraging words and put them into practice and we live free of worry and live for his kingdom. Let s pray. This sermon was addressed originally to the people at Grace Brethren Church of Waterloo, IA by Pastor Rob Borkowitz. Copyright