The Kingdom: Where is our focus? Sermon Matthew 6:25-33 Manuscript:

Transcription

1 The Kingdom: Where is our focus? Sermon Matthew 6: Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 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? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, What will we eat? or What will we drink? or What will we wear? 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Manuscript: When I was thinking about today s message, a song continued to pop in my head. Some of you may know the Bob Marley song, Three Little Birds. In just a moment, I m going to play the song. Just relax. Soak in the song. Meditate on its lyrics. And get a little bit of the vibe that Jesus is trying to go for in our passage today. Bob Marley makes it sound so easy. Don t worry about a thing. Every little thing is going to be alright. I believe Jesus is going for a similar vibe and sentiment in our passage today, but Jesus intent is a little different than Bob Marley s. And the preceding sections in the Sermon on the Mount lead up to our passage. Chapter 6 of Matthew begins with, Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Then in the next section, verse 5, And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites And then in verse 16, And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are

2 fasting. And then verse 19-24, Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Skipping ahead to verse 24, 24 No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. Do you see how Jesus argument is building and leading up to our passage? This Kingdom of God thing isn t about how pious we are or how good we look serving God. We can play the part of praying and fasting, but is it genuine? Is it for God or others? We can build up great treasures on earth. We can have the nicest stuff in the world, but do we understand that it is God s and for the building of His Kingdom? So then when we get to our passage for today, it further teases out this idea that we cannot serve two masters. We cannot serve our vanity, our piety or our wealth AND serve God. That s why Jesus further argues, 25 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? We often look at this passage as saying to each of us, Well just stop worrying. It s that simple. But what happens if I try to tell you to stop thinking about Elephants? Are you still thinking about Elephants? Probably. Likewise, when you try to tell yourself to stop worrying, you usually keep worrying. It s not just a matter of willful thinking. Especially if you don t have anything else for your mind to focus upon. So it s not as simple as just pull yourself together and stop worrying. Jesus is trying to tell us

3 something more than that. Jesus is trying to get us not to just stop something. Like quitting smoking or stop eating chocolate. Jesus is trying to shift our attention to the right stuff. Do we have to stop doing some things to shift our attention? Yes. But that is only the first-half of what Jesus is saying. Jesus further illustrates this point of stop worrying, 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? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you you of little faith? So Jesus is telling us that we need not worry about our basic needs. And you might be saying, That sounds crazy! How am I going to pay the bills? The mortgage? Clothes? Food to feed myself? I have to be concerned about these things. 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, What will we eat? or What will we drink? or What will we wear? 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. What Jesus is challenging here is, do we have enough confidence in God not to worry about these things and understand that God is going to provide? That s not to say throw-up your arms and do nothing hoping God will provide. Jesus is saying do your work and stay committed to your work, but trust that the Lord will provide through your dedicated work. Because God knows that you need food, water, clothing, shelter and love. God knows these things. He is not ignorant to these needs. But do you trust that

4 He will provide? I m sure this is a challenge for many of us. I am challenged by this often. Do I trust that the Lord will provide? What s our church name? Providence. Do we, as a body of people, the church, trust that God is going to provide? It s in our church name. Maybe we need to take that more seriously. Especially since we are in a season as a church that there are things that we cannot provide by shear willpower. We actually have to rely upon God. Some of our needs can only be provided by an act of God. So the second half of Jesus argument is this, the punchline, 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Now this sounds strange. Jesus tells us not to worry about these basic things that we need and instead turn our focus to the kingdom of God? How is that going to help? How is that going to help me to stop worrying? Like I said earlier, you can tell yourself to stop worrying, but if you don t have something else to focus upon, you will keep worrying about the same thing. So if I m worried about having enough money to purchase food for my family. And I tell myself that God will provide. I stop worrying. Well when my mind needs to shift to something else, there is nothing to shift to. So I return back to the familiar. I return to worrying about having enough money to purchase food for my family. Where Jesus is saying, stop worrying AND turn your attention to the Kingdom of God. This might sound bizarre and counterintuitive, but when we have our attention fixed upon the things of God, our small basic worries will lose its power and sway. When we are fixed upon the things of God, somehow everything falls into place. I know it sounds strange and bizarre, but I have had to do it so many times that I can testify that when you focus on the Kingdom of God, your needs

5 will be met. Because then our surrender and reliance is thrust upon God s providence for our lives and not merely dependent upon our human power. Our lives become acts of God. So you might be convinced by now that you need to focus your attention upon the Kingdom of God as you stop worrying about your basic needs. But how do we begin to take this sort of action and engage in this surrender? One of the ways is to prioritize the things in our life. If you don t prioritize the many various aspects in your life, it will get prioritized for you. Every which way someone or something will be demanding your focus. And it may even induce worry and anxiety into your life. This is why it s important to know your values and what is important to you. On the social media platform, Yahoo Answers, the question was once asked, Why are priorities important? The top voted answer was simply, A priority is something that IS important. We all have priorities in our life. There are things we treat as most important. The only question is, are you treating the most important thing with the most importance? Similarly, Stephen Covey talks about the idea of having a life mission statement in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. This might sound silly and rote, but when making your mission statement for your life, you begin to tease out what is important and what is less important. And if you start to measure who you are using your time in your life, are you using your time in such a way that it measures up to what you say your values are? This is what makes life fulfilling. Living in such a way that our time is devoted most to the things we value most. So if we say that God is our first love. That the building of the Kingdom of God is our chief aim or priority, does our life reflect that?

6 Now, when we make priorities, there are some mistakes that we make according to an article on success.com by Leo Babuta. The first is what I just talked about, we don t think about it. So our actions speak louder than words. By how we use our time and energy is how people begin to understand what our priorities are in our life. So if we say God is first, but the other activities in our life take more time than time with God, then what IS really our priority? The second mistake people make with priorities is that they make it too complicated. According to Babuta, Some people do set priorities, but they do so with complicated systems of numbers and letters. A1 is given to top priorities, then A2 to the next level, down to B1 and C2 and so forth. The truth is, you can only really have a couple of real priorities at a time. If you think you have many priorities, you aren't being realistic -- you will end up putting a couple of those priorities on the backburner -- which means they weren't priorities in the first place. The third mistake sounds very similar to the first, people don t live their priorities. It s one thing to make a list or a mission statement that outlines your priorities, but it is another thing to live it. So we may say that the Kingdom of God is going to be our chief priority and aim, but how are we actually going to live it? We need to not only think priorities, but think through how our life will change in such a way that we live those priorities. So the opposite of these mistakes would be: Consciously set priorities, Keep them simple and focused and live your priorities. Again, it probably sounds counterintuitive, but if we set our sight and our life upon the things that are the Kingdom of God, we will begin to see that the other things we are concerned about in our life somehow fall into place. Because they are part of what God has in store for

7 our lives. It s scary to impart such trust in God, but I m telling you, it s worth it. In an age where seemingly everything is vying for our energy and time, it is all the more important to know and understand where your focus truly lies. Take an inventory of your life. Take an honest look to see if the Kingdom of God is actually what you care about and prioritize. You might not like what you see, but at least it will help you make the changes that are important for your future and for the future of the Kingdom of God. When we set our sight on the Kingdom, our worries will begin to become less important. So again, Jesus is saying stop worrying about your basic needs AND turn your focus towards the Kingdom of God. Prioritize the right things. The heavenly things in your life and begin to experience more and more the salvation of Christ. The Kingdom of God. Don t worry about a thing. Every little thing is gonna be alright as you seek the Kingdom of God first. Amen.