to continue and I would like you to turn your Bibles to Matthew in chapter 6. We are teaching the life of Christ is the intention of this class and we have been on the Sermon on the Mount. It starts in chapter 5 and it goes through chapter 7. So we've been going verse by verse through chapter 5, 6, and 7 and in chapter 6 we're right at the end of chapter six right now. And we're going to pick it up as our outline will tell you in verse 25 through the end of the chapter. Now this is our second week on this lesson, so I'll quickly review the few points. And we are on point number three under letter B there. And so we'll get that to you in just a second. But let's read the text and take verse number 25 and go to the end. It says, therefore I say unto you, take no thought. Now I want you to remember those three words because you'll see them three times. Take no thought for your life what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not Neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit unto your stature? And why take ye a thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore, here we go, take no thought. So there's the second time. Saying what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth that you have need of all these things, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. Take, therefore, no thought. So there's the third time. For tomorrow, for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. So our topic today is that the Lord is condemning the issue of worry. He's actually saying it's wrong for a Christian to worry. Now, has anybody here, how many of you are worry-free? Yeah, I mean, it's the goal, but the fact is that you and I, we do this by nature. I worry about when the weather's bad. My son is right now working as a mailman in a rural area, takes his Jeep out there and he leaves the house in the morning. I see him before he leaves about six o'clock in the morning. I get up and I'm there normally. And sometimes we have breakfast when I feel like cooking him breakfast. And so I worry about the roads. I mean, what parent doesn't worry when his kids are out there driving in bad weather, right? All right, and I'm concerned. We say, I'm concerned, I'm worrying. All right, now there's a difference. There's a difference kind of like a spectrum of difference between being concerned about something and letting worry overtake you. There's a difference between the two. But at the same time, all of us have worries. And the Lord is saying here in this long passage, That isn't my intention for you to worry. As we had the hymn story, he leadeth me. The Lord is supposed to be the one leading us and taking care of us, amen? And if we know we're in the center of God's will, it's the safest place that a person be. I've been in some pretty unsafe places. I've been in some situations where I didn't know exactly what was gonna happen. But I'll tell you, God is always taking care of me. And the safest and best and happiest place for the Christian is dead center in the will of God. Whatever God says to do, you do what God says. It's the safest and happiest place for a Christian. Find that out for your life. And as we look at this, we look at the condemning of anxiety. And by the way, those words take no thought is translated from the same Greek word as Philippians 4, 6, where it says, be careful for nothing. In other words, both of them mean don't worry. The negative of it means don't worry. So worry is not supposed to be the fundamental overriding theme of a Christian. We're not supposed to worry. So we find that in three times, verse 25, 31, and 34. And the fact that it's repeated three times in Scripture indicates that God had a plan that we might realize its seriousness. The Lord doesn't waste words. He's all about specifically guiding These are his words, not his thoughts. They are his thoughts, but there's people that limit inspiration to just thoughts. And the Bible says that the words of the Lord in Psalm 12 are pure words. In Proverbs it says the words of the Lord are perfect. They're God's words, not just his thoughts. So it's very important to notice that. We noticed, first of all, the actions, as he says here, the verse number 25, what ye shall eat or what ye shall do, he talked about that. And then we were on this second point, the arguments. Capital letter B is the letter, if you have to fill it in, A is actions, A-C-T-I-O-N-S. B is arguments, A-R-G-U-M-E-N-T-S. And we were on number three, so let me give you, first of all, the composition of life. So the Lord, beginning down here in verse number 26, and He begins to argue, let's go verse 25, He says, therefore take no thought, and He says at the second half of this, is not the life, in verse 25, more than meat and the body than raiment? So the Lord is arguing here why worry is so wrong, why it's condemned. Isn't your life more than your food and your clothing? So he argues, first of all, about the composition of life. He says there's more to life than just food and clothing. And when we get down to the end, the Lord's going to tell you. I'm God. If you seek after me first, I'll always take care of the simple things. So the second argument was the care, the care of God, C-A-R-E, the care of God. And we find that if you look at verse 26, he says, I take care of the fowls of the air. I mean, He says, you are much better than these birds. I know I've been called a bird brain before, but we are, according to the Lord, more important to Him than these birds. And not just some, but much, He says. Much more than these birds. But the Lord says, I care for them. So what makes you think that a God who says he loves you demonstrated his love by dying for you, bringing you salvation and allowing you to trust in him? And then what is in our hearts that we don't believe God will take care of us? Why are we doubting that? And worry comes down to a lack of faith because worry means we're going to say, I don't think God is going to keep up his end of the bargain. All right, but there's a simple faith. Now let me illustrate this when Elijah was very little. You know, you remember things for the first kid. I did this with all of my children, but I remember this specifically with Elijah, that I wanted him to have a trusting spirit, so I would put him on the bed, and I'd take a little step back when he was a toddler. I'd say, jump, and he would jump into my arms. Now, he is naturally a trusting person, and I learned that from the beginning. Like, I could put him anywhere. I could put him on the table, or the counter, and I could step back, and he just got a thrill out of being able to leap into my arms. I could put him up the steps. You know, and he would do this, he'd get down the steps to where he would catch my eyes and he would just leap. I wouldn't even have to put my hands out there. And it got to be a point like a couple of times when he was that age where I barely looked at him in time. That's how trusting he was. But I think today, if we could illustrate the age, you know, we get as young people, we're like, God, you can have my life, I can trust you, I can, whatever you want, I know God will take care of me. And then you get older and you got a family and you got responsibilities and you have a home and you have things and. All of that complicates that, and then we start to look at around us and say, man, look at the bad politics, look at the woke-ism, look at the way that the world is going, and look at how the economy has taken a downturn in the last four years, and by tomorrow afternoon, we think it's gonna turn around, amen. Anyway, but the point I'm making is, we start to worry, what kind of country are my children and grandchildren gonna have? And the fact is, they're gonna have exactly what God put them there for. We raise those kids that instead of being affected by this world, but that they're going to be in effect upon this world. That they're gonna stand against these things, amen. But we worry, don't we? And the Lord says, hey, if I can take care of the fowls of the air, you are much better than they. And then he talks about the flowers. down in verses 28 through the verse number 30. And he says, hey, I take care of these flowers and they are, Solomon was not as beautiful as the flowers of the grass. And he's saying, I clothe, listen, have you ever thought about the little daisy? I'm sorry, the little, the one that grows, what am I thinking, it grows in, huh? The dandelion. I mean, there is a weed that is pretty. I mean, everybody like, dandelions, I had to get those out of my yard. And then when you, you know, the snobs, it's the snobbish person in the community goes by a house with dandelions like, well, I'm glad my yard doesn't look trashy like that. But the fact is that a dandelion is a beautiful flower in and of itself, and it's a weed. Even the weeds look nice. Think about that for a moment. I mean, most weeds are ugly. But even this weed is nice. The point I'm making is, the Lord says, if I can take such care of grass that is the most temporary thing that I could use as an example, because today it's there, and tomorrow the sun will scorch it, and by August it's all gone and brown, if I can clothe the grass of the field, don't you think I'm gonna take care of you? But when our needs come upon us, some of it we bring on ourselves, right? When the problems come, Lord, what's going to happen? And we worry. Oh, we worry. God takes care. So the care of God. And then lastly, here under this point, number three, the character, the character of anxiety, the character of anxiety. What is it like? Well, look at verse 27. Notice in verse 27 that which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature, right? Now, anybody wanna be taller than you are? Yeah, I've always wanted, when I was a kid, I was a basketball player. I'm six foot tall, and I always thought it would be the best thing in the world to be six foot four. Like on a basketball court, I loved playing inside. I was a strong, what they call power forward, right? Six foot four would have made me able to do whatever I wanted down there, all right? So I always wanted to be six four. So what happened is I got to be 14. When I was 13, I was about five seven. By the time that summer was over and I turned 14, I was six foot tall, same height I am basically today. And I was about 100, 135 pounds in eighth grade, and by the time I got to ninth grade and I was six foot tall, I was 175 pounds and fairly athletic. I could stand underneath the basket ball hoop and jump and grab the rim, all right, at 14. And I have cousins that are six foot eight and six foot four, and I thought, here I am. I'm ninth grade, Terry, and I'm gonna go to six, I'm gonna at least be six foot four. And the Lord put a cinder block on my head. And when I graduated from high school, I was 205 pounds, pretty athletic, like a 30 inch waist, but 205 pounds. And I was still six foot tall. And so in that kind of directions, you can't change that. So really what he's saying here about the character anxiety is that worry does nothing. It can do nothing, it is totally futile. You think about what did your worry accomplish? Except to raise your heart rate, put you into position of your body is in that fight or flight mode, and your heart rate has been raised and literally you're wearing your body out. You're literally causing yourself physical harm. Are you hearing that? Worry is a terrible thing to your body. But yet we'll worry, worry, worry, worry. I like that song the kids sing. Why worry when you can pray? You ever heard that song? Trust Jesus, he'll be your stay. And it goes on. I'll spare the rest of the song for you. But you know, we worry so much, but it's totally useless. The character of worry is that it's a waste of time. We need to hurry. And then it's also faithless in verse 30. Verse 30, wherefore if God so clothed the grass, look at the last phrase in verse 30, O ye of little faith. Comes down to the, the Lord says, worry is really a lack of faith. If the Lord promised to you that he's gonna take care of you, and you find yourself fretting and worrying, what are we doing? We're questioning whether God's gonna take care of us. And this is not, man, this is not, like I'm not the preacher getting up and saying, you know what the problem is with all of you is that you lack faith. You know how they do down south, they talk and preach. They call them the hackers down in the Bible Belt. You ever heard that before? They go down and the Bible says. They preach like that, it's kind of fun to watch. But anyway, this is not the preacher saying this. This is the Lord saying. If you're fretting over something, and I've given you my promise, then you're fretting is really saying, I don't think God will, and I don't think God can take care of me. He says it's a lack of faith. And he also says in verse 31 and 32 that it's kind of thinking about the flesh all the time. He says it's kind of fleshly. If you're taking notes, I don't have this. It's under the character of anxiety. that the character is, it's futile, it's faithless, it's fleshly, because all you're thinking about. He says, therefore, take no thought what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or wherewithal shall ye be clothed. For after all these things, that's just like the unsaved. At that time, they called like the Gentiles. It'd be just like the unsaved. All their life is wrapped up in this stuff. The abundance that we have. God says, hey, I'll take care of you. So take no thought, I like verse 34. I've quoted that a lot of times. When I'm tempted to worry, take no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow shall take thought for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. So in other words, somebody else said don't borrow tomorrow's problems today. Because your body will need to be rested up to deal with those problems. Are there going to be problems tomorrow? Well, as soon as the sun rises, we know if the sun rises, there'll be problems. We live in a fallen world, and I'm an imperfect person, and I'm going to have difficulties and temptations and hardships and problems, and so if we are worrying today about tomorrow's problems, we are really wasting our spiritual strength. God says, hey, tomorrow, you'll need that strength tomorrow. Just take care of today what you can take care of. That doesn't mean you don't plan for the future, right? I mean, the Lord might come back today. It doesn't mean you don't plan the work tomorrow, right? Some people have the day off tomorrow as a holiday. Let's go on to the cure. I need to take my time here real quick and get to this. Four things that are the cure. We find it all in verse number 33. The first one, call it the entities, E-N-T-I-T-E-I-E-S. In other words, notice what you're supposed to seek. So the Lord is never the God of a vacuum. All right, I'm not talking about a vacuum cleaner, the vacuum as it exists for real. In other words, he doesn't just tell you, stop worrying, but he's instead going to direct you, this is what you really should be thinking about. I think if you concentrate on, like you're talking to yourself like I do. You ever talk to yourself? Good, because I'm not the only crazy person in here. Like I fold my arms, I look myself in the mirror, and I say, Don, listen to me. You ever do that? I do it without the mirror. And I have to tell myself, I have to sometimes scold myself because I don't want to do what's right. That's the want. And I tell myself, you're not going to win by just saying, stop worrying, stop worrying, don't think about that, stop worrying, stop worrying, stop worrying, and you just go. God didn't make you that way. Instead he said, if you're gonna change this thing, this whole habit, start thinking about something else. And what does he say? He said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. So we change from this worry to our focus upon Him. So it doesn't matter what trials you're going through, I'm gonna preach on hardships, but the answer in short to hardships is a great God. I mean, He's such a wonderful God that no matter how bad we have it, we always have Him, and He is above all, in all, through all, and He is for everything, is for Him. And there's not a problem too big for God. There's nothing you're going through that God doesn't see. So if we could concentrate on the bigness of God, then that's a cure for our anxiety. I like to go back in history. I like to go back and say, hey Don, every time I worried, God still took care of it. And I'm tempted to worry again. I start looking at God being so good. Then you start talking to him. Then you start examining your life. It's a good thing to say, Lord, do you find any sin in my life besides the faithlessness of my worrying? And you start talking to God. The second thing, earliness, earliness, E-A-R-L-I-N-E-S-S, earliness. And here's the point, seek first the kingdom of God. I would say today, you did that. You sought the kingdom of God first. But a lot of our lives, we seek first the kingdom of God in theory. And in actuality, we're like, seek 10th. Like, before I go to church, if they call me into work, I'm going to work. What did you just do? You've put something before Him. There are some people who say, Pastor, that's really harsh. Again, I'm not the one preaching the sermon. This is His sermon. He didn't say, but seek second the kingdom of God and His righteousness. The fact is that the condition of God's promise here is right here. That you come to Him first. Put first things first. And friend, beyond all things and in front of everything should be Him. And if He is your heart, before all things there is Jesus. So that whatever His duties are, by the way, it's more than duty, it's Him. He is altogether lovely, the Bible says. He is everything in us that is, Bible says, all is yea and nothing nay. That's the person of Jesus Christ. And if we seek Him, His kingdom, His working, and His righteousness first, He says, you got a guarantee I'm going to take care of you. But it's important that we do it early. Notice thirdly there, letter C, the effort. Effort, E-F-F-O-R-T. Seek. Seek. In this, this is in the imperative mood. Grammatically, it is a command. So instead of worrying, God says, get working. So literally, the answer to worry is prayer and conditioning your heart and correcting your heart in effort to seek after God and his righteousness. If you'll do that, there's no room for the worry. He is so big that if you fill your heart with Him, His service, His ministries, your life filled with God, there's not gonna be any room to worry about tomorrow's problems. Fretting over whether somebody likes you. Fretting over the acceptance that you're longing for among the brethren or in the crowd. Looking and longing for, hey, I hope I have enough to retire on. Do we believe God in this promise? So why do you get up when you're not 100%? You're tired, you say, I'm still gonna go to church? Because you're not seeking worry, you're seeking Him. Why do you serve the Lord? Because I'm seeking Him. Why do you follow Him? Why do you be guided by Him? Because I'm seeking Him and His righteousness first, amen. And then lastly, we'll call this the endowment, E-N-D-O-W-M-E-N-T. the endowment, and all these things will be added unto you. I have a promise from the God of creation. The Bible says in Psalms that he owns the cattle in a thousand hills. And I have lived this in a sense that I have had my back up against the wall a hundred times as a Christian, And I've gone to God in prayer and said, Lord, this is what I try to explain to God, and he knows my heart. Lord, I've tried to put you first in everything, and I have. And I always pray, Lord, if there's some area in my life where I'm not putting you first, if you'll reveal it to me, I'll change by your grace. But I get my back up against the wall, and things are gonna fall apart, and I say, Lord, I've sought you first. And I'm gonna say this, I've never had God fail me, not once. Not one time. I mean, he puts you through trials. We'll go through some difficulties, and those difficulties are good for me. Say amen. That I have learned more from one difficulty than a thousand easy days that I have lived. These things have been the lessons of life and the turning points, the victories that I talk about. I don't get up here and say, let me give you an illustration. The other day I got up and I had no problems all day. I had a wonderful time and I went to bed easily and fell right asleep. Boring. I have nothing to teach you from that. But I do tell you this, I had a bad day over here. I got my back up against the wall. I had to cry out to God and God never failed me. With every instance of that, sometimes I like to write it down. I wrote down, I was reading recently, I had this little paragraph I wrote. I have a little journal book. It's not a journal, but I write down things like this. I said, the devil swings on a pendulum. It was the same day here at the church where the homosexual crowd got mad at me. We had hung something on their door. They had written all over it how I was a homophobe. how evil I was, and hung it on the church door. The same day, I got a letter in the mail where somebody was falsely accusing me of being a homosexual. I said, ooh, even the devil can't make up his mind, because it was the same day. I have somebody mad at me. At the same time, I had somebody mad at me in the church, and they're leaving the church because I'm too soft. Get this, and I had the same time, I had a family leaving the church, he's too hard. I said, the devil runs on a pendulum. He doesn't even know what direction he's coming and where he's going. He just hates. But I have been with God. And I know the hand of God, he leads us. And he will always take care of you, always provide for you, always manifest. When you need him, he will not fail. if you'll seek him first and put him first in your life. So before I was a pastor, I would be in every church service. You say, why were you there seeking him first? From the time I was a teenager, I get paid, I would always tithe. You say, why do you tithe? To seek him first. He gets the first thing. He doesn't get the last thing, he gets the first thing. And he's never failed me. Never fail me. I've always had enough. I've had abundance at times, and I know what it is to tighten your belt when you need to tighten your belt, but the Lord has never failed me. And He'll never fail you if you'll seek Him first. Isn't this awesome? Can you imagine what it would be like to live without this promise? I mean, the Lord had to do it in a way that He almost scolds these people. Oh, ye of little faith. Where's your faith? And we get fretting and worrying, oh, I'm not going to be able to pay the bills. Well, did you tithe? You may not be able to pay your bills if you're not seeking him first. Oh, I don't have enough money to tithe. You don't have enough money not to tithe. The less you have, the more important it would be to be very sure that you're doing right with God and that you had God's promise that he'll take care of the rest. You see the difference? Seek you first the kingdom of God. I've got to stop, but I'm having fun. I hope you are. Let's have word of prayer. We'll get ready for the morning service. I'm running out of time here. Father, I pray that you bless our people. Help us, Lord, to get up this worry and to give it to you. You said to casting all our care upon you because you care for us. Help us, Lord, because we live in a world that we're prone to fret. prone to worry and take all of tomorrow's problems on today. And Lord, I just pray that you'd help us to learn these lessons of letting go, that you have a plan. And as long as I'm seeking you first, you'll always take care of us. Please bless this day used today to meet our spiritual needs, every one of us. In your name I pray, amen.