the basic message #E202
9/30/04
Matthew 6
25"Therefore
I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about
your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the
body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air;
they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father
feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by
worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the
field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even
Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that
is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is
thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So
do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What
shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your
heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as
well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will
worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
What do you worry about?
There are two kind of worriers in the word- those who worry and admit it,
and those who worry and won’t admit it. Let’s
face it, worry is a serious part of our lives.
The subject, however, certainly isn’t new.
Jesus spent a fair amount of time addressing the subject in the passage
above. So I ask again, “what do
you worry about?” As I write this in 2004, many people are worried about the
war in Iraq. It seems to drag on
without any perceptible end. I’m
thankful I have no friends or relatives in the war, but that doesn’t make me
worried any less about the safety of our soldiers and workers in Iraq. Know what else I’m worried about? Innocent Iraqis that are simply caught-up in a high stakes
game that must be played out. I’m
concerned that the average American may reject the idea that there is any such
thing as an “innocent” Iraqi. Don’t
be mislead, friends, no matter where we wage war, there will always be
thousands of people in “enemy” lands that aren’t necessarily our enemies.
You can twist and turn the subject all you want, but there’s no way you
can convince me or yourself that a little child is an enemy.
Do our bombs selectively kill only the “bad” Iraqis?
More on this subject another day.
Perhaps your worry is more
domestic. As large companies
lay-off employees, your area of worry may be related to unemployment.
Sometimes our purported worries don’t mesh with our other habits- case
in point: Although large percentages of people worry about their job security,
what are equally large percentages of people doing? Buying new houses.
Not just new houses, but BIG new houses- bigger than ever before, and
certainly bigger than most of us need. Why?
Low interest rates. Apparently
the worry of keeping our jobs is lower in priority than signing up for low
interest mortgages. Go figure.
All of us who are parents worry
about our children. Perhaps I
should say “most of us who are parents” worry about our children, since
it’s not a given that all parents are equally concerned about our children.
How many parents have you read about in the past few years that
carelessly forgot to drop their infant at daycare only to go back out to their
car hours later to find the child dead from the suffocating heat of a car with
no ventilation? That peculiar
phenomenon seems to be on the increase. I
never heard of such a thing until about 5 years ago.
How in the world can someone "forget" their precious child in an unattended
car? It's because they’re generally worried
about something else, and that worry clearly has higher priority than their
child. Worrying about a child
doesn’t cease when they become adults, either.
For those of you with toddlers that look forward to one day
“disconnecting” your worry when your kids are grown, forget that.
While I do have to worry less about my grown children, there is seldom a
day that I’m not worried about something in their adult lives.
The polls show that most
Americans are worried about terrorists. That’s
good news for the terrorists, since that was their original goal- keep us
worried and tense. We go on and on
about America being a “Christian nation” and we love to talk about our
“faith in God”, yet where is our faith?
In Tomahawk missiles and Blackhawk helicopters?
No matter what your opinion on Muslims might be, you will have to admit
that their level of faith in Allah is generally much higher than our faith in
our God. You don’t agree? Then why are you worried about the terrorists?
I have faith in a mighty God that oversees all men.
He’s a God that will prevail, although I may not see it in my lifetime.
Americans can boast all they want about their faith in God, yet our
actions in such silly things as the Patriot Act certainly indicate that we put
more faith in our frail human actions than we do in God.
31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
What is Jesus telling us in this passage? Is he telling us that eating at McDonalds is as good as eating at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse? Is he telling us that Kmart clothes are just as good as Tommy Hilfiger? Nope- he’s telling us to put our full faith in him and charge ahead living the life he wants us to lead. Not a life of fear and worry, but a life that looks ahead to a life in Heaven that is free from all anxiety. I find it tragically funny that people claim such great faith, yet they neglect to follow through on the instructions of their Savior that will allow them total, complete freedom in the next life. We’re a strange bunch.