God Is Not Worried - [1 Timothy 6:13-16]

Worry, God’s Peace, and the Goal of the Sermon

Yeah, two questions to start the sermon this morning. Important questions. Number one, do you ever worry? Number two, more importantly, does God ever worry? Question one, do you ever worry? Are you anxious about things?

Question two, what about God? Is he ever worried? I don't know about you, but the answer to question one, in my mind, is yes. I regularly, sadly and shamefully, but I regularly worry. And question number two, does God ever worry?

The great news is, today, I wanna remind you that God never worries. God is never agitated. God is never upset and worrying. I worry about coronavirus. I worry about, is my leg healing? Are the blood thinners, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, salvation of loved ones?

If I'm not careful, I could have cold sweat, disquiet, countenance, distress, fidget. I looked up a bunch of words that will be similar to worry. Foreboding, fretfulness, nervous, uncertain, having unease, apprehension, consternation, and tension.

And a far cry from serenity and peace and relaxation. Some have called worry the forbidden fruit in the Bible. One man said, why, excuse me, and why, we may well ask, has the pulpit for so long maintained a criminal silence instead of condemning this flagrant sin of worry?

But you know what's more important than condemning sin, condemning worry as a sin, although we should? It's one thing to decry anxiety as a sin. It's another thing to point people to the Prince of Peace.

I'd like you to take your Bible and turn to 1 Timothy, please, chapter one, deviating from Hebrews a little bit. And I'll just be very honest with you this morning. I was working on Hebrews. I got most of it done.

I got most of my sermon for next Sunday done. I'll be traveling this week. And I thought, you know what? I'm getting tempted to worry. Blood tests and all kinds of other things coming back. I'm thinking, I have to not worry.

This is not right. It's not godly. What do I need to do? So I began to look at passages in the Bible to remind me not to worry. And I thought, you know what? If I worry, my guess is probably you worry once in a while too, don't you?

Although maybe as your pastor, I worry that you don't worry enough. Maybe it's that. So I thought, you know, if this is good balm for my soul, if this is a good reminder for me to think about who God is and how He doesn't worry, it'd probably be good for you too in this day and age where we worry about all kinds of things.

So today it's gonna be very simple. We're gonna look at two passages in the Bible, one in 1 Timothy, one in Matthew 6, to be reminded that A, God doesn't worry, and B, God the Father cares for His children.

Super simple. So it's a topic, worry, but we're gonna work through it expositionally through 1 Timothy and then Matthew 6. Two good reasons not to worry. God isn't worried and He cares for His people.

The Pastoral Epistles and the Gospel Foundation of 1 Timothy

Now, if you ever come to the book of the Bible, especially if you're not familiar with a particular book, it's good for kind of a background. And Timothy, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus are what we call pastoral epistles.

And those pastoral epistles help pastors, church leaders, elders, deacons lead the church. It's not our church, it's the Lord Jesus's church. And so He gives us instruction on how to take care of the local church, how to set it up for government, how to take care of church discipline and everything in between.

Paul is writing to his legate, his understudy, Timothy, and he essentially in 1 Timothy 1, 1 Timothy 1 through 6 is saying, there's a lot of false teachers that are teaching crazy things. And in the middle of all this false teaching, I wanna make sure you teach the gospel of the Lord Jesus and then live a life commensurate with the gospel.

In other words, false teachers are gonna give you false gospel and then they'll tell you live like you want. I wanna make sure that you don't buy into any of their asceticism or greed or arrogance. There's a real gospel that yields real Christian behavior.

And Timothy, you make sure to teach that to your people. This is of first order. Now to review, because our passage is in 1 Timothy 6, let me just read you a couple of verses, a few verses from every chapter to get us to chapter six.

So then you have kind of a sweep of what 1 Timothy is like. I hope when you get home today, you reread 1 Timothy. Verse 15 through 17 in 1 Timothy chapter one, as we're just building context, 1 Timothy 1, 15, the saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost, Paul said, present tense.

But I received mercy for this reason that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. We sang a song about this this morning, did we not?

To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever, amen. If you go to chapter two, the theme is still there. It's the saving work of Jesus Christ. And should we pray for people?

Of course we should pray for people. He says in 1 Timothy two, verses three through six, this is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved. Those people we were praying for in verses one and two, these different leaders.

And to come to the knowledge of the truth, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man, doesn't say the Jew, the man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

And so chapter one, although it has exhortations, it's settled with the gospel. Foundation is the gospel. Chapter two, it tells us to pray and do other things, but settled there is the gospel of the Lord Jesus, his life and his death.

And similarly in chapter three, he gives qualifications for elders, for deacons, but then he tells us why he wrote the book. 1 Timothy 3, 14 through 16. I hope to come to you soon, but I'm writing these things to you so that if I delay, I'd like to get to Ephesus to see you face to face, but if I delay that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

And then here's this confession about the Lord Jesus. Great indeed, we confess, we agree about this mystery of godliness. Jesus was manifest in the flesh. He was vindicated by the spirit as the spirit raised him from the dead, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world and taken up in glory.

So I want you to see in this book that's telling you how to run the church order. We still have the rebar of the gospel chapter one, the rebar of the gospel two, the rebar of the gospel chapter three.

Then he says in chapter four, some people don't like this. Some depart from this. 1 Timothy 4, one and two. Now the spirit, capital S, expressly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves.

That's interesting. Not just by following, but devotion. Devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared. There are people who are teaching demonic doctrine.

And then in verse 25 of 1 Timothy 5, so also good works are conspicuous and even those that are not cannot remain hidden. In other words, the gospel underlies what Paul is trying to say to Timothy in the operation of the local church.

Now let's go to chapter six for our worry passage today. And by the way, what an important message for church leaders when it comes to this topic. Now you have your own worries and your friends' worries.

Can you imagine just for a second, you think, okay, how many worries must the pastor have? I worry about myself if I'm not careful, my family. And then you talk about some kind of aggregation of worries.

It'd be nice to know that God is in charge of everything so I don't have to worry. And Paul teaches Timothy by the power of the spirit and his inspiration. He ends in chapter six and essentially says, you don't have to worry, God's in charge.

What a great way to end the chapter. Where is that found? Well, our verses for this morning in this first main section, 1 Timothy 6 verses 13 through 16. God doesn't worry. I wonder if you can spot that in this section.

He's just confronted false teaching again. He's saying false teachers are greedy, Timothy. Here's how I want you to act instead. 1 Timothy 6, 13 through 16. I charge you in the presence of God who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate that you keep the commandment without staying or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ which he will bring about at the proper time.

He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light whom no man has seen or can see to him be honor and eternal dominion, amen.

God’s Sovereignty, Christ’s Good Confession, and Divine Blessedness

Now, if you're a pastor and you want to talk about worry and how God isn't worried, what section in this passage that I just read would you go to to remind people that God doesn't worry? Well, I think you're going to be surprised.

Let's just work through it. And I think you're gonna be happily surprised. Let's work through verses 13, 14, 15, and 16 under the rubric that God isn't worried. Well, what's Paul say? Do you see in verse 13, as we just kind of see the context and understand what Paul is saying, I charge you in the presence of God.

By the way, this is an authoritative charge. This is not some suggestion. This is not, well, maybe you see the language. I command you. This is an authoritative message that in the presence of God, right?

How often do you hear language like that? I guess we heard it at the wedding last week in the presence of God and these witnesses. I now pronounce for you the first time, a Mr. and Mrs. type of thing.

But here in the presence of God, this is not in the presence of Paul the Apostle or the Presbytery or the council in Jerusalem or anything else. I charge you, I'm commanding you, I direct you. There's no way around this in the presence of God.

And he gives two reasons why this is important. This God, number one, gives life to all things. He gave life to you, Timothy. I charge you, Timothy, to do what I say because God has given you life. He's the one that makes alive.

He's the life giver. And not only that, I charge you, Timothy, to do what I say in the presence of God because God has given you life and because Jesus has a good confession. Do you see it in verse 13?

Who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate. What confession was that? Was that the Belgic confession? Not many people got that. Okay, good. What confession did Jesus have before Pilate? By the way, if you go to Israel with us, maybe my all-time favorite thing when we're walking around in Israel is they have a replica of an insignia that talked about Pontius Pilate.

The real one is in the museum, but they put the other one out there by Caesarea by the sea and it talks about Pontius Pilate. And I'm thinking, you know what? Christianity isn't Narnia. Christianity isn't Lord of the Rings, Middle Earth.

Christianity is real. And here we have authenticated by secular governments. Jesus gives a message to Pontius Pilate. No wonder Revelation calls Jesus the faithful witness. No wonder Revelation 3 says Jesus is the faithful and true witness.

What kind of confession did Jesus give that would motivate Timothy to do what he is supposed to do? I'll just read it to you from Matthew 27. It's just a few words. Jesus stood before the governor, Pontius Pilate, and the governor asked him, are you the king of the Jews?

And Jesus said, this is the good confession, by the way. What did Jesus say? You have said so. He's accused by the chief priest and elders. He gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him, do you not hear how many things they testify against you?

But he gave him no answer, not even a single charge so that the governor was greatly amazed. Are you the king of the Jews? The great confession in front of Pilate, which is gonna get him killed is, you have said it so, and therefore it is true.

Verse 14 of 1 Timothy 6, that you keep the commandment without staying. I'm charging you to do something because God gave you life and God has shown you by the example of the Lord Jesus' confession that you keep the commandment without staying or approach until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm gonna put you at Ephesus, and here's what you do. You keep teaching the gospel. You keep teaching everything I taught you until you die or Jesus comes back. I'm charging you. You've been given life by God.

This is your calling. And Jesus gives a good confession. You better make the good confession as well. And this of course is true for every pastor, for every elder. They are to teach what the Bible says, keeping the commandment without staying, personal staying or approach and doctrinal staying or approach until they either die or Jesus comes back.

And by the way, Jesus will come back exactly at the right time, verse 15, which He will bring about at the proper time. The epiphany, the appearing of Jesus, He's gonna come back just at the right time.

So Timothy, here's this deposit. You guard it. Here's this deposit. I've said before over other things and I should say it here. Over my dead body are we going to deviate from the charge to proclaim the good news that Jesus saved sinners, that Jesus is the good confession because He has given leaders that kind of charge.

And we don't answer necessarily to the church or to the Senate or anyone else, but in fact, into the Lord, to the Lord, before His presence. Lives are on the line. Minister in light of one day appearing before the Lord God Almighty.

That will help your holy living. That will help your holy doctrine. And now He gives the reason why He's doing all this because it's to the praise of who God is compared to all the troubles and trials and issues that go on.

This is why we do things. Not only pastors, but dear Christians, this is why you do what you do. If you work in the nursery, this is why you do what you do. At least it should be the motivation. And He goes through with this kind of this burst, this praise.

One person called it the rapturous contemplation of majestic attributes. Another one called it the doxology of praise is one of the finest here in scripture. Maybe this was something that Paul said a lot.

Maybe it was Paul's prayer. Maybe it was an early hymn, but here we have all these things about God. Can you spot where you shouldn't be worried because God isn't worried? By the way, everything here is tied into the Old Testament from Deuteronomy to Malachi.

He says in chapter one, Jesus comes the first time and saves. He's coming the second time. So let's make sure we honor Him. Let's take a look at a few of these. These are wonderful. He's the only sovereign.

God is not a figurehead. This is not a constitutional monarchy. He is the sovereign over all. The actual ruler of everything. He rules the world with power and authority. He's sovereign. What's the root word for sovereign?

What's the root word in sovereign? Reign, He reigns. Satan is not His co-equal. What else is He? Do you see it? Number two, He's the King of kings. Literally, the King of those king-ing. Out of all those king-ing in the world, He's the King.

This is language of Revelation 17. They will make war on the Lamb and the Lamb will conquer them for He is the Lord of lords and the King of kings. And you see the next one there too. He's the Lord of lords.

Who in the world can say to God the Son, what have you done? Why have you done it that way? I don't like that. He goes on, who alone possesses immortality. I mean, this is all in the context of Ephesus and Diana and all these cults that they had.

And do these cult leaders live forever? And does Diana live forever? Oh, Diana, forever we worship you. Oh, Diana. No, no, Diana's dead and gone. Matter of fact, she's nothing. She's satanic anyway. But God alone is immortal.

He has immortality. This is where we get the word death and you put an A in front of it, an alpha privative. No dying. He's immortal. Deathlessness. And He dwells in unapproachable light. He's hidden as it were, as Luther would say, because if you got the full orb view of God, you'd be disintegrated.

That's why Moses has to be tucked in the cleft of the rock. That's why on top of the Mount of Transfiguration, there's this glory cloud, dwelling in light unapproachable. And because of that, what's the text say?

Whom no man has seen or can see. Nobody can see God directly. And then He burst out with praise. What kind of honor would this God get? What kind of glory would this God get? What kind of reverence, esteem, adoration and praise?

To Him be honor and eternal dominion. And everybody has to say, amen. But I skipped over one. What did I skip over in this section? I skipped over He who is the blessed. Chapter six, verse 15. Do you see it?

Now, I know what you're normally thinking. Blessed are the poor in spirit, right? It's applied to people. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who have mercy. Here, God's called the blessed.

What's up with that? You know what this means, don't you? God is the blessed one. God is the content one. God is the fulfilled one. God is the happy one. God is the one who's not worried. That's what this word blessed is.

If you're blessed, you're satisfied, you have peace, you have joy. God isn't worried. What a perfect thing to remind Timothy in pastoral ministry. By the way, you worship the God who's always at rest and at peace and he never worries.

And by the way, I know what my dad would probably say to me, something like this. If God's not worried, should you be worried? If I flip it around, if God's worried, should you be worried? Yeah, but you don't understand.

I've got kids that aren't saved. I've got loved ones. I've got this, I've got that. I've got health issues. I've got all these. If God's worried, you ought to be very worried. But I want to remind you that in the midst of even pastoral ministry, lives on the line, Paul says, says Timothy, God's the blessed one.

God doesn't worry. He's not worried right now. Dutch theologian, Bavink said, blessedness when ascribed to God comprises three elements. In the first place, it expresses the fact that God is absolute perfection, free from disturbance, whether inwardly or outwardly.

Because of the fact that God is absolute perfection, the sum total of all virtues, the highest essence, the supreme of goodness and truth. He's absolute life. He's the God of absolute blessedness. Secondly, the word blessedness when applies to God means this absolute perfection is the object of God's knowledge and love.

God knows himself with a knowledge that's absolute. Hence, blessedness when applied to God implies that God delights in himself in an absolute sense, end quote. God isn't worried. He's blessed. He has, as one writer said, eternal felicity.

I think I should just probably start driving. I'll give my wife and children carte blanche just to remind me. When they see me kind of fretting and worried, that'd be a good thing just to remind me of, sweetheart, just to say, God's not worried.

God's not worried. Can you imagine if God was worried? Oh, coronavirus, God's up there biting his fingernails, hand wringing. What do you do when you worry? Pace, fret, NyQuil. I mean, I don't know, what do you do?

You don't pace very long when you do have the NyQuil, I guess. God is, I mean, you look at the world and it looks crazy, yet God, sovereign over all, says, I'm unperturbed. Jesus will come back at the right time.

I'm sovereign over this. And matter of fact, since I'm sovereign over the death of Jesus, I'm sovereign over the worst sin in the world, I can be sovereign over all this other sin. It's not an optical illusion that God is sovereign and that he's blessed.

It's true. No wonder the psalmist, when he said in chapter two, chapter 34, chapter 40, chapter 84, chapter 112 and 128, how blessed are all those who take refuge in him, the blessed one. That's a good thing to study about God, that he's blessed.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love God, and to those who are called according to his purpose. God isn't worried. By the way, as a matter of fact, on earth, Jesus, was he ever worried?

Concerned, yes. Caring, yes. Agonizing with sweat like great drops of blood, yes. But did Jesus, the sinless, blameless one, did he ever worry, you know what? I have to go meet those Pharisees and I think they might actually trap me if I'm not careful.

I'm kind of worried about that. You know, the Sadducees, they're pretty good, you know, about denying the resurrection. You know what? I know I'm supposed to raise Lazarus from the dead, but I'm not quite sure if I could do it, wonder what I'm gonna do.

And the list goes on and on and on. Jesus isn't worried. So friends, when you say, I'm worried, I want you to be reminded, that although you might be worried, the God of the universe isn't worried, he's blessed.

The Father’s Care, the Birds and Lilies, and the Call to Seek First the Kingdom

Secondly, turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter six, and this is the passage that we typically go to when we think of worry. And it too, dear Christian, is God-centered. It is not enough for me to tell you, don't worry.

That is the right thing to tell people, but that's not enough. Law never motivates. Law tells you what's right or wrong, are you obeying or not, but it doesn't give you the motivation. It's the gospel that gives you motivation, it's the character of God who gives you motivation.

That's why Paul in first Timothy says, by the way, set up elders, set up deacons, do all these things in local church for the glory of God. He's your motivator, he's your savior. Similarly here with the Lord Jesus on earth.

Motivation is not, don't worry. Motivation is why you shouldn't worry, and who is God behind the scenes. Yes, worry is a sin, how do we know that? Let's take a look at verse 25 of Matthew chapter six, the great sermon on the Mount.

Our Lord Jesus says, "'Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, "'as what you shall eat or what you shall drink, "'nor for your body as to what you shall put on. "'Is not life more than food "'and the body more than clothing?'.

Now you do have to let that settle in a little bit and see what Jesus says. If you're anxious about these things, then confess with Jesus' direction that it's sinful. In light of everything that the Lord Jesus says, we can't run from this fact that worry is sinful.

Jesus wants to make sure earlier in terms of serving two masters in verse 24, that if you're serving God and not money or another master, then you should have the logical conclusion that you shouldn't have to worry about things if you're serving God, because he'll take care of you.

The text is very clear, it's a present imperative. Stop worrying. If you are, stop it. If you aren't, don't. When you say, you know what, I can't help it, that's not going to serve you well. What does the Bible say in Proverbs?

Remember Solomon's great wisdom in Proverbs 28? If you'd like mercy, confess your sin and forsake it. God, I worry. I'll never forget. Steve Nelson told me that I could tell him the story, tell you all the story.

Steve was here for many years, served as a deacon as well. And Steve and I are going to the Peabody CBD sale. Remember CBD? Before it was not what it is now, or vice versa. Get up at four o 'clock, drive to Peabody, and we're talking and I don't really know Steve.

He just said he likes to read. And I thought, okay, I'll grab you to be the book guy. And I said, what do you like to read? And he's like, C .S. Lewis and I don't know, left behind books or something.

I'm thinking, well, we'll fix that, won't we? But instead of just blasting that, I think I'm going to give him some R .C. Sproul books or something, he'll go, oh yeah, that's right. So we're driving and he's like, I really struggle with worry.

And I just looked at Steve and I said, Steve, thanks for telling me, I want to help you in any way I can. I just have a quick question though. If the Bible says don't worry and you worry, what do you call that?

He didn't want to tell me the answer, but he knew he had to. And he goes, it's called sin. I said, that's right. And now we have hope. Because when you obfuscate and you do all this kind of deny and everything else, it's okay.

God knows we do it anyway. And so it's okay to just go, you know, if Philippians 4 says be anxious for nothing, and we're anxious for a lot of things, you just say to the Lord, you know what? Would you please forgive me?

I acknowledge that. I confess that. And when you think about that word anxious there in the text, do you see it in verse 25? It comes from the word that means to rip or to tear. It's like you're up all night and your heart is just torn.

So you like feel strangled. Your feelings are in knots on the inside. That's that word. And of course, a good heavenly father doesn't want you to worry. He doesn't want you to act like that. He gives you lots of possible anxieties, does he not?

Your life, what you shall eat, what you shall drink, your body, clothes. John Stott called that the world's trinity of cares. What do we eat? What do we drink? And what do we wear? It's all temporal anyway.

It's all that if the Lord Jesus takes care of your greatest need, salvation and forgiveness, won't He take care of the necessities, the essentials? Yeah, but that's easy for you to say. You don't know my circumstance.

Everybody says it's okay. My doctor said it's okay. I can't help it. At least I don't worry as much as other people do. My support group says it's fine. Friends, what does Jesus say? He says, don't worry.

Don't worry. It's estimated that 19 million adults suffer from anxiety disorders. I don't blame them, but there's a solution. Listen to what Proverbs 12 says. Anxiety in the heart of man weighs it down, but a good word makes it glad.

Anxiety wears and corrodes and torments, but there's a good word. What's the good word? Not only is God blessed, but He's a good Father. Take a look at verse 26. I mean, this is the best. 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? See, the focus is on who the Lord is. You say, yes, I am sinful. I do worry about the future.

And by the way, then you start to have kids, and now you can have more worries because now you're more vulnerable, and then you have grandkids, and then you're even more vulnerable, and pretty soon you don't know what to do, and then it's who knows what.

I look at world solutions for getting rid of your worry. Some are kind of fine. Keep a duplicate key for your car in your wallet. So I guess you worry you're not locked out of your house. This one said, say no thank you to extra projects you don't have the time or energy for.

I guess that's fine. This one I like, put your brain in gear before opening your mouth. I guess that would take care of things. But out of all these approaches, my favorite secular approach to worry is, remember G. Gordon Liddy?

He's a tough guy. He was like MMA without fighting. And he was afraid of heights, electricity, and rats. So according to one account, to get over his fear as anxieties of rats, heights, and electricity, he climbed up an electrical pole and ate a rat while he was up there.

Now that's a man. You can call 1 -88 -88-ANXIETY. You can do what Minerthan Meyer, alleged Christian counselor said, quote, we suggest setting aside 15 minutes in the morning and another 15 minutes in the evening for active worry.

Worry-free living involves confining the natural worry we all feel into a designated time slot of only 1 of a 12 hour day. Page 113. Well, you know how I like to use the word stupid, but I won't use it today.

We've been talking a lot about the just shall live by what in this sermon series, faith. That's what this is. Open your eyes and you say, you know what? The just shall live by faith. I first got saved by looking to the Lord Jesus, recognizing I offered nothing but sin, and He lived the life under the law for earning righteousness that He gave to me by divine imputation, and then all my sins got credited to His account.

He's raised from the dead. And I'm thinking, all right, that's initial salvation. But ongoing sanctification, what's the text say? Look to the Father. He says, look to the birds, but He's telling you to look to the Father indirectly by directly looking at the birds.

Look at the birds of the air. I could put it this way. When you sin or when I sin with worry, it impugns the nature of God's care. It says, God, you're no good. God, you don't care. God, you don't love me.

God, you don't providentially take care of things like the birds. But when you look at the birds and say, you know, from the lesser of the greater, if God takes care of the birds, He'll take care of me.

I mean, what's a sparrow worth? Pink said creation is a pledge of preservation. So look, and by the way, if you look at the text here, look at the birds, it doesn't mean glance. It means to give serious thought.

It means to think, to contemplate, to gaze, to consider. Lloyd-Jones says the essence of worry is the absence of thought, a failure to think. God providentially takes care of the birds. I mean, I don't know if you saw any birds standing in line at Lowe's to get face masks or Costco pallets of food.

You say, well, birds do stockpile. Yes, but not out of worry, by instinct. Here's a conviction for you. One writer said, nobody ever saw an earthly father feed his birds and abandon his children. Both for Paul in 1 Timothy, and now for the listeners to the Sermon on the Mount, it's the character and nature of God.

Theology, theology matters. Well, I just got to get myself through the day. Just give me five tips to get through my work week. Friends, the five tips are all focused on the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

God's the blessed one, and God's the providing, caring, loving one. He keeps his promises. Psalm 147, he gives to the beast its food. Job 38, who prepares for the raven its nourishment. I love to read this at weddings, and I did the wedding last week.

The goodness of God, Tozer said, is that which disposes him to be kind, cordial, benevolent, and full of goodwill toward men. He's tenderhearted and of quick sympathy, and his unfailing attitude toward all moral beings is open, frank, and friendly.

By his nature, he is inclined to bestow blessedness, and he takes holy pleasure in the happiness of his people. Everything about God is good, including his preservation of his people. Luther, you see, God is making the birds our schoolmasters and teachers.

It is a great and abiding disgrace to us that in the gospel, a helpless sparrow should become a theologian and a preacher to the wisest of men. Whenever you listen to a nightingale, therefore, you are listening to an excellent preacher.

And I thought birdwatchers were for geriatrics only. One writer said, lovely lilies, how ye rebuke our foolish nervousness. A poem said, said the robin to the sparrow, I should really like to know why these anxious human beings rush about and worry so, said the sparrow to the robin, and friend, I think that it must be that they have no heavenly father such as cares for you and me.

1 John 3 says, see how great a love the father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God, and such we, what? Are. We're God's children. Of course, he'll take care of us. And he tells us, worry is unproductive.

It doesn't do any good. Verse 27, the Lord Jesus' words. And which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his lifespan? Can you add to your life one cubit? Can you add to your height, however you want to interpret this here?

Your days are determined. Your months are determined. Job 14, and God has set limits so that you cannot pass your lifespan. Thomas Stonewall Jackson, the great general of the confederate army said, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed.

God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to always be ready, no matter when it may overtake me. Verse 28, why are you anxious about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow.

Now we've moved from looking at birds to looking at the flowers. They do not toil, nor do they spin. Yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory, and he had a lot by the way, did not clothe himself like one of these.

By the way, observe, do you see the text in verse 28? Observe, look at the birds and now observe the lilies. Take a magnifying glass out and don't do what we did when we were boys and that is try to burn a bug, but look at a magnifying glass at the flower petals and take a look at the intricate nature of it and the beauty of it.

Am I the only one that ever burned a bug? Are the young men here awake? Any of you young men ever taken a grasshopper, pull the legs off and throw it into a spider's web? Oh, I don't know, just was wondering.

We didn't have TV in Nebraska. Some of those grasshoppers are so powerful that they can get out. God cares for flowers, but he doesn't care for me. Of course not. Verse 30, God so arrays the grass of the field which is alive today and tomorrow thrown in the furnace.

I mean, just comes and goes, means nothing. Will he not much more? Do you see? Let's show the greater argument. Will he not much more do so for you, oh, men of little faith? It's all about faith. The root cause of all anxiety, dear Christian, and I'm preaching to myself too, is a lack of what?