Wednesday, October 20, 2021 PM

Jesus’ Teaching on Worry, Providence, and the Kingdom

Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, nor about the body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn, and God feeds them.

Of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to his stature? If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow.

They neither toil nor spin, and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field, and tomorrow was thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you?

O you of little faith. And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your father knows that you need these things.

But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you. Do not fear, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell what you have and give alms. Provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.". It's important for us to recall what introduced this line of thinking. Why is Jesus talking about worry and anxiety and a focus upon one's possessions, one's stores?

Why is Jesus addressing these natural common anxieties and worries so prevalent among his audience? What brought up the subject as a question in verse 13? Yeah. Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

This man steps forward out of a multitude, a crowd that is very large, so large and so eager that they are trampling one another, the chapter starts off by telling us. So Jesus is surrounded by people who have gathered to see something amazing or hear something amazing.

And this man wants Jesus to settle a legal dispute about money, inheritance, value, and estate. Jesus tells a parable about the rich man who coveted, who considered that everything that he possessed was for himself, when in fact it all belongs to God.

And then Jesus turns his attention to his disciples and he says to them, do not worry. Do not worry. Now, they probably grew up worrying about all these things. If you had three sets of clothes in Jesus' day, you were very wealthy.

Worrying about where the food was going to come from the next day, that was a common concern. We have different concerns, but they are still very often focused on how will we provide, how are we going to make this, how are we going to make a go of it.

Jesus says life is more than food. The body is more than clothing. You have been made for more than subsistence, Jesus says. And he begins to address the fears and anxieties of his disciples, his little flock as he calls them, these men whose faith was small.

How does he help grow their faith? How does he exhort them in belief, moving them away from the fear of lack, the fear of not having enough, which is a subset of the fear of death. What if we can't clothe ourselves, shelter ourselves, feed ourselves?

What Jesus does is he begins to put their attention upon God. Why fear death? Consider God. Consider who he is as an all-powerful, good, faithful creator. And we have two creation images, two providence images to build the faith of these anxious, worrying disciples who needed their faith to be bolstered.

What two creation images do we have here? The birds and the flowers. Jesus is grabbing low-hanging fruit at this point. He's just saying, hey, what about the birds? Hey, what about the flowers? Just look around you.

I mean, just look around you at the obvious truth that we have a creator who is running everything that we see. He's the one who's keeping everything going, even the lives of these birds. And if God provides for the ravens, and the ravens, of course, were not the most attractive of birds in this time.

They would often be seen eating dead animals, and so on and so forth. And if God keeps the ravens going, and they don't do anything but just feed on whatever is laying around, have you ever thought how much more valuable you are to God than a raven, than a bird?

Well, that's something that they'll see every day. They'll see ravens every day. They'll see birds every day. They'll hear the birds singing, and cawing, and so on. And they should think to themselves, God's taking care of them.

I can trust that God, the Creator, has the power and the provision that I need. I need to trust in God. Fear God, not fear death. And so, he deals with the food issue, right? Because he said, don't worry about what you will eat or what you will put on.

So, he says, life is more than food. He talks about the ravens, how they always have enough to eat. And then, he turns his attention to clothing. And then, he has this other illustration, lilies. Look at this hillside covered over, not only with grass, but also with lilies, beautifying the entire scene.

Consider that they neither toil nor spin. They're not creating clothes. And even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. You see, God clothes the grass. He's concerned about grass.

God is a God who is good and powerful and promotes beauty in his creation. And he didn't simply just put some kind of unattractive, bland stuff on the ground to provide erosion control or, you know, CO2 oxygen exchange.

He's not being, he's not creating things in such a way just because he's trying to be mechanical and just trying to get something done. God creates beauty. And on something that is, that doesn't last very long at all.

A very short window for some of these flowers, I think you've probably noticed. My kids, early in the spring, they'll start, they'll go out and they'll start grabbing all the weeds out of the yard and bring them in and put them in a vase for mom, you know, because it's the first flowers.

Some of these flowers don't last very long, but look what God does as he clothes the grass with lilies. And even Solomon didn't look that special compared to this. And he says, so think about the grass, which today's in the field, tomorrow in the oven.

How much more will he clothe you, oh you little faith? And these are things that they're going to see and hear and experience in their walk home. And when they wake up the next day and they're to think of how God provides, and they will fear God rather than fearing death.

What a compassionate Savior we have. What a good shepherd that he would give us these images to consider. Things that we can see every day and remind ourselves that he, that God is our creator and he is our provider.

Let us fear him and not fear loss, lack, death. And Jesus has, I think, some humor here to help us laugh at ourselves. He says, how much more value are you than the birds? Right? If God cares about birds, don't you think he cares about you?

And if that doesn't get a smile, then he says, which one of you, by worrying, by fretting, by having anxiety, which one of you can add a cubit to your stature? You know, grow a foot and a half. Have you noticed that people who are greatly worried and concerned don't grow a foot and a half?

Right? They can't change their stature, they can't change the reality of their situation by simply worrying. There are things that we cannot control, like our height. I can't grow a foot and a half if I wanted to right now, just by worrying.

God's in control of that, like he's in control of the birds, like he's in control of what kind of flowers end up in the field on the hillsides we drive past. So, he says, if you can't even do this small thing, why are you anxious for the rest?

And so, this is very helpful in that Jesus helps us to laugh at ourselves a little bit and say, why am I spending so much energy and time and concern? Why am I so consumed with these things that I cannot change?

I cannot handle the future, I cannot bear the next month, let alone the next week, upon my shoulders and be concerned about all the little details and worrying whether or not it's going to work out. He says, you need to trust in the Lord, trust in God.

And so, he says in verse 29, summing up, do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. The idea here is that your focus, your pursuit, your drive should not be about these necessities.

Now, of course, we are to provide, we are to labor, we are to go to the anto slugger, consider her ways and be wise, and we are to be diligent and not to be lazy, and so on and so forth. But our focus, our goal, what we want to achieve is not bound up in having more stuff so I don't have to be worried.

The answer to solving worry and anxiety is not having bigger reserves. Now, I like some of the cool stuff that the prepper community has come out with. I think it's kind of cool, but you know what I've noticed?

The preppers who are the most well supplied and have everything, always think about something else. The next thing, that well, I don't have this. I got to have this now prepared, and then I got to have this now prepared, and so on.

Now, granted, some of that can have a modicum of wisdom. However, you can't solve worry and anxiety by simple provision, trying to store up what you can store up. And this was exactly Jesus's parable.

Remember the rich man who said to himself, now that I have more stuff, I will tear down my barns, build bigger barns, and then I'm going to put it all in. And then, when I have all of that stuff in my barns, then he said to himself, he's eating all of his stuff.

And Jesus says, you fool, this night your soul is required of you. It's like, you don't have control over that. You don't have control over your very own life. All the days that were written for you were written in God's book before there was yet one of them, and how David talks about it in the Psalms.

So again, this is something that's in the hands of God. Now, Jesus says that these concerns, always thinking about the food and clothing and what we're going to drink, and this anxious mind. He says in verse 30, for all these things the nations of the world seek after.

Gentiles seek after. And your Father knows that you need these things. It's interesting that we know we need these things. You know who knows that we need these things more than we know it? God does. And He knows it on a level that we don't.

When Jesus was teaching His disciples how to pray, He said that when you pray to your Heavenly Father about the things that you need, He already actually knows the needs that you have before you even ask.

And yet, we are still compelled to ask as we live by faith in our good Heavenly Father. So, your Father, He says, knows that you need things. So, if we're not going to seek what to eat, what to drink, what to wear, if we're not going to seek that, then what are we to seek?

Verse 31, He says, seek the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you. So, what is the goal? What is the focus? What are we hoping to grow in or achieve or make progress in? The elimination of worry by more and more supply?

No. We are freed from the fear of death, which is enslavement. The Bible says the fear of death is enslavement. And the fear of man is a snare, but the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.

And so, we must fear the Lord and then we are freed by fearing the Lord to seek the kingdom of God. And all these things will be added to you, He says. Now, I want to come back to that in a moment, but first listen to the vision that Jesus casts for His little flock, for these disciples.

Once you're freed from this enslavement to the fear of death and you are freed into the fear of the Lord, then you don't have to live a life of fear, fearing these other things. Verse 32, do not fear the little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

When He says, seek the kingdom of God, He says, and guess what? He wants to give it to you. He wants to increase this in your life and in His world. And so, don't fear. And then He says, look at this.

As He says it to a people, who again, who have grown up all of their lives living under harsh circumstances, the oppression of the Roman Empire, getting taxed by the Romans and the Jewish leaders, double taxation, things are just not going well, all of Israel is living under the curses of the old covenant, they're having trouble with famine and pestilence, and all sorts of bad things are happening.

So they've grown up, you know, like, are we gonna have enough bread this week? You know, are we gonna, how are we gonna have another set of clothes for next year? How are we gonna manage this? And this has been their life.

And He says to them, sell what you have, give alms, provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

And Jesus says to these people, who are kind of, you know, like the Great Depression generation, don't throw anything away, right? Because they grew up without all these things that they needed. He's saying to them, once you fear the Lord and trust in Him and you're not fearing scarcity and fearing death and being focused on what are we gonna eat, what are we gonna wear, look how free you are.

Now all of a sudden, you can give. Now all of a sudden, you can invest in the advance of the kingdom. All of a sudden, you're free to be generous and to be joyful in your giving and so on, when you don't fear death, when you don't fear scarcity.

And He says, when you do this, you have invested in something that will never fail, will never go away. He says, in this case, no thief approaches. No one's gonna steal this, like someone might steal your loaf of bread and moth will not destroy, like moths may eat your only garment, you know.

This kind of treasure will never pass away, will never fail. So what I want us to do now is just to think about the comforts that Jesus is giving and how some of this is going to be related to how they've grown up and what they have known and how Jesus is here applying the good news of the kingdom, the gospel, to the promise of the new covenant to His disciples.

Deuteronomy’s Blessings and Curses as Background to the Kingdom

When you go back to Deuteronomy Deuteronomy 29, we have here a passage where Jesus or where Moses is relaying relaying to the people of Israel blessings and curses. I think we're going to go 28. Sorry, Deuteronomy 28.

I just want you to listen to the beginning of Deuteronomy 28. Remember that in the old covenant, God had made a covenant with Israel. He told them in the beginning of Deuteronomy, I have set my love on you because I love you.

I love you because I love you. I made my promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And here's how we're going to run things. Everybody in the nation of Israel, all of the male children are going to get circumcised.

And this is the sign of the covenant. If you don't do this, then you're going to be in big trouble. And here's how we're going to run things. We're going to have these certain feasts. We're going to have these certain sacrifices.

When people sin and have problems or get unclean or so on, here's how we're going to continually come back again and again and centralize our focus upon the tabernacle. And where we have the the pillar of smoke and the pillar of fire.

Later on, it'll be two different pillars in the front of Solomon's temple. But we're going to keep on focusing on God's presence in your midst and their sacrifices being offered for being made right again.

And he says, now if you keep this covenant, if you obey the instructions of this law. Remember that the law is the schoolmaster that leads to Jesus. So everything in the law teaches us about Christ. The law is the shadow and Christ is the substance.

So he says, now if you if you follow this and you walk in these ways and you keep this covenant, you're gonna be blessed. You're gonna be blessed. And the better that Israel kept the covenant, the brighter they would shine to all the nations and say, here is the one true God and here is this message of salvation.

And the visions cast to the Israelites in the old covenant included them going up to Mount Zion and going up to Jerusalem and the nations grabbing on to the to the hymns of the Jews and saying, take us with you.

Take us to this glorious place. So that's what they were supposed to be and do. And in verse 1 chapter 28 Deuteronomy, now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, observe carefully all his commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you. Isn't that great? That's usually the word that you use of an enemy falling upon a tired army. They overtook you and routed you. Well, this is blessings.

Blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. So all these blessings of the old covenant will be made manifest. Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.

The increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out.

The Lord will cause your enemies against you to be defeated before your face and they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessings on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand and he will bless you.

The Lord your God is giving you. Just as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. And he talks again about all the peoples of the earth are gonna see the truth and the power and the glory of the name of the Lord.

Now he goes on and talks about all the curses and the curses are much more lengthy because God is very patient and he says, well this is what's going to happen to you first and if you don't repent then they'll go to another stage of curses and if you don't repent and we're going to another stage of curses and so on.

And in the time of Christ, remember how Jesus deals with the people that he's talking to. A perverse generation. He keeps on saying that. A perverse and wicked generation. They were living under the curses of the Old Covenant and so they were having a horrible time.

Israel was unfaithful and disobedient and so on. But here's the good news. Jesus shows up and he's keeping the covenant. He's keeping the covenant. He's being faithful. He's doing all that God requires of him.

And as God says of Israel in Exodus 4, my son, my firstborn son, my only son, he says of Israel. So God says this at the baptism of Christ. Here is my son. And Jesus keeps the law and Jesus keeps the covenant and all the blessings are wrapped up in him.

All the blessings are in him and doesn't he also bear our curse upon the cross? And here he talks to his disciples and he says, trust in your father. Not just your creator. Your father. How is it that they would recognize God as their father?

Well they might be able to somehow reach back to Exodus 4 and remember that God called Israel my son. So they would have this connection. I can think of God as father but it's even stronger than that.

Because Jesus says, do not fear little flock. It is your father's good pleasure to give you, just out and out, grant you the kingdom. And how in the world is God going to do that? How is God gonna just grant and just give the kingdom to this little flock?

Because their shepherd would die for them. He's the good shepherd and he lays down his life for his sheep. And think about what Jesus is saying here. He wants them to seek the kingdom of God. He wants them to put their attention on proclaiming, declaring, and advancing the authority of God everywhere.

Well how are they gonna do that if they're so scared about scarcity? Scared about death? Scared about, we can't do it. We don't have enough resources. How are we going to succeed? Jesus is saying, no.

Do not be afraid. Think of your, not just your creator, but your heavenly father. And that he wants to give you the kingdom so you can be free to do all these things that I'm calling you to do. Why? Because of who Christ is.

Because he keeps the covenant. In the New Covenant, in the New Covenant, we're identified as all, everyone in the New Covenant is in Christ and has the Holy Spirit and has all the blessings that God wants us to have through Christ.

Now we didn't earn that. Christ did. We don't have to, we don't have to make sure to keep up a certain list of things in order to make sure that the covenant doesn't get broken. Jesus does that. Now where's the blessing?

The blessing is in Christ. Why would Jesus, who has all authority in heaven and on earth, why would Jesus Christ, who is the heir of all things and has been given everything, why would, why would he bless us?

Right. Well, he loves us. What's his goal for us in the blessings? Does he want us to be like the rich man who says, well, now that I got more stuff, I'll build more barns to keep more stuff. That way I don't have to worry anymore.

No, he wants us to be free from that kind of fear of death. And what he gives to us, he wants us to use and direct and orient towards the kingdom of God. Do we have something extra? What's it for? It's for the advancement of the cause of Christ.

Do we have, do we have health? Do we have a strong family? Do we have, do we have a healthy church? So on and so forth. What are the blessings that we have? They're not for our building up of our personal empire of, I will live in pleasure all the rest of my life.

That's not the goal. The goal is to seek first the kingdom of God. And, and when we're faithful with little, then we're given some more. And then we'll be faithful with that and we'll be given some more.

And then we just, we keep pushing forward and doing what we can to advance the kingdom. Now that's a, that's a much better life than living in fear about scarcity and worry and, and all of that. And rather than that, trusting in the Lord.

And that's the kind that Jesus wants to bless us with. All right. And conveniently enough, the very next passage has to do with servants and whether or not they're using the, the, the resources of their master well before he comes back.

So he's just continuing the theme and we'll look at that next time. All right, I'm gonna ask Brian if he'll come up and lead us in our time of prayer.