REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain: moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Key verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14).
FLIP CHART: John Stott’s outline of SOM.
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 not 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.
INTRODUCTION
Theme of 6:18-34 is “A Christian’s Ambition.” Here Jesus warns us to renounce materialism, the value system of the pagan.
Vss. 32-33: The pagans focus on material wealth, we are to focus on God’s Kingdom and righteousness.
FLIP-CHART – Vs. 33: But seek (zeteo) ye first the kingdom of God …. The same root word. So we could translate Mt. 6:33 as follows: We should have our thoughts dominated by and diligently, eagerly seek the extension of God’s Kingdom and His righteousness
REVIEW:
The big question for us: Do I have an unhealthy pre-occupation with things? Am I focused on laying up treasures on earth? Do I own a generous or a stingy eye? Am I seeking to split my allegiance between God and materialism? I have a worldview. Is it materialistic? Partially materialistic? Although there is a good type of worry/concern about the physical and spiritual well-being of others, anxious worry and running after material needs is the mark of a Materialist. It puts us in sync with pagans.
INTRODUCTION:
WHAT DID PEOPLE HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IN 1908?
The average life expectancy was 47 years.
Only 1 out of 7 homes had a bathtub.
Only 1 out of 12 homes had a telephone.
There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
The average wage in 1908 was 22 cents per hour.
The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, A dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births took place at HOME.
Ninety percent of all doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women washed their hair once a month using Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza; 2. Tuberculosis; 3. Diarrhea; 4. Heart disease; 5. Stroke
The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!!!!
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE ! U.S.A.!
WHAT WE WORRY ABOUT TODAY
| AIDS | Islam |
| Drug Abuse | Cost of Gas / Oil |
| Nuclear Waste | Water Pollution |
| Famine | Air Pollution |
| Federal Deficit | Homelessness |
| Global Terrorism | Ozone Layer |
| Full Scale War | Global Warming |
| Nuclear Attack | Jobs Loss |
| Health / Sickness | Sub-prime mortages |
QUESTION: Mark your first three worries / concerns above in order of importance.
QUESTION: Which of our worries today relate to Food, Drink and Clothing, the triad of human worries that Jesus touches on in Mt. 6:25-30? What ones related to health (food and drink) and possessions (clothing)?
Worry about FDC is incompatible with Christian faith. It ends of choking and strangling us spiritually. We must not worry or be anxious about our physical or spiritual needs but we must be deeply concerned about the extension of God’s kingdom and the well-being of His people.
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
1. The Body/Life is Worth More than FDC
2. The World’s Birds – Our Spiritual Instructors
BODIES, BIRDS AND MULTI-TASKING
I. THE BODY/LIFE IS WORTH MORE THAN FDC
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?
The world has always prioritized the body and life, and in this age certainly to the extreme.
READING: A few years ago I was sent a complementary copy of Accent, a new glossy magazine whose full title was Accent on Good Living. It included enticing advertisements for champagne, cigarettes, food, clothing, antiques and carpets, together with the description of an esoteric weekend’s shopping in Rome. There were articles on how to have a computer in your kitchen; how to win a luxury cabin cruiser or 100 twelve-bottle cases of Scotch whisky instead; and how 15 million women cannot be wrong about their cosmetic choices. We were then promised in the following month’s issue alluring articles on Caribbean holidays, staying in bed, high fashion warm underwear and the delights of reindeer meat and snowberries. From beginning to end it concerned the welfare of the body and how to feed it, clothe it, warm it, cool it, refresh it, relax it, entertain it, titivate (spruce up, make neat) and titillate it. (Stott, 161)
Those in the ancient world, including the poor, were concerned about the body too. That is why Jesus speaks to “the world’s trinity of cares” (Spurgeon) be referring to what we eat, drink, wear (vs. 31).
Remember that Jesus was speaking to many poor people, people that barely owned the clothes on their back. Poverty was endemic in the ancient world. That is why many families sold their own children into slavery. Many wondered where the next meal would come from. Remember when Jesus fed the 5,000 they did not have the option or the money to go to McDonalds or stay at Motel 6. They were really poor.
These people had valid reasons to be anxious / worry.
The first argument against worry and anxiety about FDC is an argument from common sense. It is an argument that proceeds from the greater to the lesser, a fortiori argument.
Since God has given us life, won’t he also give us food and drink? Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
Our body which God created, the life that He has given us, is far more important than the food and drink that nourishes it. If He has given us a body and life, won’t he also provide us with nourishment for this body?
READING: “If your blood hadn’t clotted in the right place and in the right amount and at the right time, you would have bled to death. As it turns out, the system of blood clotting involves a highly choreographed cascade of ten steps that use about twenty different molecular components. Without the whole system in place it does not work. . . . The real trick with blood clotting isn’t so much the clot itself – – it’s just a blob that blocks the flow of blood – – but it’s the regulation of the system. If you make a clot in the wrong place – – say, the brain or lung – – you’ll die. If you make a clot twenty minutes after all the blood has drained from your body, you will die. If the blood clots isn’t confined to the cut, your entire blood system will solidify, and you will die. If you make a clot that doesn’t cover the entire length of the cut, you will die. To create a perfectly balanced blood-clotting system, cluster of protein components have to be inserted all at once. (The Case for Creation, Lee Strobel, Pg. 209-10)
Would God give us such a wonderful body, give us life and then be unable or unwilling to provide us with food, drink, clothing in order to nourish and protect this body, sustain our life?
QUESTION: What are some other arguments from the greater to the lesser that we can think of?
ILL: Daughter worried that her mother won’t be able to purchase food for the $1000 refrigerator they just bought. Mother’s response: Don’t you think that if I had enough money to buy the refrigerator I wouldn’t have enough money to purchase food to fill it?
ILL: Father purchases a new car for $20,000 cash. Son is worried about the increase in the cost of gas. Father answers, “Don’t you think that if I had enough money to pay $20,000 in cash for a new car I don’t have enough money to buy gas?
ILL: I buy a dog for $1000. Won’t I be able to afford dog food?
It is a case of he who made the greater can easily supply the lesser.
Paul uses the same argument in Romans 8:32 – He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
It is important to note that in the same Gospel where we are assured that God will provide us with FDC we are also commanded to provide food, drink and clothing to the sick, the stranger, the prisoner, the naked (Mt. 25:31-40).
II. THE WORLD’S BIRDS – OUR SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTORS
Look 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? (26)
The Lord Jesus does not just give a glib answer as a solution to worry, e.g. Don’t Worry, Be Happy (Bobby McFerrin)
There is this little song I wrote
I hope you learn it note for note
Like good little children
Don’t worry, be happy
Listen to what I say
In your life expect some trouble
But when you worry
You make it double
Don’t worry, be happy……
Don’t worry don’t do it, be happy
Put a smile on your face
Don’t bring everybody down like this
Don’t worry, it will soon past
Whatever it is
Don’t worry, be happy
Our Lord points to a good reason why we should not worry!!!
Martin Luther, “You see he 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 be come a theologian and a preacher to the wisest of men …..” (Stott, 164)
THE LORD JESUS USES ONE OF THE MOST COMMON OF ALL CREATURES FOR AN ILLUSTRATION.
READING: Some readers may know that I happen myself to have been since boyhood an enthusiastic bird-watcher. I know, of course, that bird-watching is regarded by some as a rather eccentric pastime; they view the likes of me with quizzical and patronizing amusement. But I claim biblical – – indeed dominical – warrant for this activity. ‘Consider the fowls of the air,’ said Jesus according to the AV, and this in basic English could be translated ‘watch birds.’! Indeed I am quite serious, for the Greek verb in the command means ‘fix your eyes on, so as to take a good look at.’ (Stott, 164).
How many birds in the world? According to Terres, The Audubon Encyclopedia of North American Birds, “it is difficult if not impossible to get an accurate count of the total population of a widespread species…” Given that ornithologists are not even sure how many species there really are in the world, it would be most difficult to estimate total populations. Nevertheless, the same source says that in 1951 “Fisher, a British ornithologist, estimated there are more than 100 billion individual wild birds in the world,” and that Leonard Wing (1956) estimated that there were about 5.6 billion birds in the U.S. in summer and about 3.75 billion in winter. In 1931 McAtee estimated 2.6 billion breeding land birds in the U.S. Obviously these numbers are quite dated and only estimates. (J. Elliott, The Web)
THE LORD IS NOT SAYING THAT WE ARE ON THE SAME LEVEL WITH BIRDS.
It is important to remember that the Lord Jesus is not saying that we are less valuable than the birds. The Bible is very clear on our exalted status over creation: “You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.” (Psalm 8:5)
No bird is created in the image of God or recreated in the image of Christ. No bird is a joint heir with Christ. No bird has a place prepared in heaven.
THE LORD JESUS IS NOT SAYING THAT BIRDS DON’T NEED TO WORK.
It is also important to keep in minds that birds work hard. It is certainly true that they follow the maxim: Early to bed, early to rise, makes a bird healthy, wealthy and wise. And of course we always are reminded that the early bird gets the worm.
In spite of their hard work and beak to throat existence birds don’t seem to suffer from hypertension and stress related diseases. In fact there is some common doggerel that we all know about birds:
BIRDS ARE USED TO SHOW GOD’S PROVISION OF FDC
The birds do not sow and reap or store away in barns yet your Father feeds them.
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:
‘Friend, I think it must be
That they have no heavenly Father,
Such as cares for you and me.’
QUESTION: What is the theological mistake in this poem?
God does not say to the birds that He has done His part. Now you are on your own.
OUR FATHER HAS LOADED CREATION WITH PROOF OF HIS CARE!
The Lord uses sparrows for illustrative purposes in another setting: Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Mt. 10:29-30)
Jesus does not say that the sparrows will not fall to the earth either. He just says that it will not happen without the Father’s consent.
ILL: There are at least 100 billion birds on earth. Not one of them falls to the ground apart from our Father’s consent. There are 100 billion birds on the earth and yet our Father feeds them.
ILL: Even the very hairs of our head are numbered. The average human head has about 100,000 hair follicles. Each follicle can grow about 20 individual hairs in a person’s lifetime. There are almost 7 billion people in the world. That means 700 trillion human hairs and over the lifetime of one generation 14,000 quadrillion hairs. Each one has a number. Each one is tracked when it falls from our head. If a farmer in Uzbekistan puts his hand to his forehead to swat a fly and a strand of hair comes lose, it has a number on it. Do I believe this? This is an illustration from our Lord to assure us that God really watches us.
CREATION IS USED BY THE LORD AS A WAY OF ASSURING US OF GOD’S CARE AND THUS SHOWING US THAT WE NEED NOT WORRY.
“All Thy works with joy surround Thee,
Heaven and earth reflect Thy rays.
Stars and angels sing around Thee,
Center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
Flowery meadow, flashing sea
Singing bird and flowing fountain, Call us to rejoice in Thee.”
“Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will sense them. The least we can do is to try to be there so that creation need not play to an empty house.” (Anne Dillard)
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every bush aflame with God.
But only those who see take off their shoes;
The rest of us sit around and pluck blackberries.”
(Elizabeth Barret Browning, 1806-61)
ILL: A consecrated Jewish believer, Dr. Max Reich, gave this testimony: “When my wife and I were first married, we felt called to full-time Christian service, God blessed our ministry and many people accepted the Lord. Although our income was small and we had few worldly possessions, our hearts were full of joy. One day, however, my wife said, “Max, there’s nothing to eat for dinner!’
I didn’t reply at first but stood listening to the birds singing in the trees. Suddenly these words from a well-known Gospel song flashed through my mind: ‘His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.’ Immediately I said, ‘If our Heavenly Father feeds the birds, surely He’ll take care of us!’ Just then a lady knocked at the door. After introducing herself she said, ‘My husband was a hopeless alcoholic. Every time he got his check he’d spend most of it to get drunk, so the children and I were often hungry. Recently he heard you preach the Gospel, and the Lord worked a miracle in his heart. Now he’s a changed man! For the first time in years he brought home a full week’s pay, and I was able to get a good supply of groceries. I thought as I was cooking, part of this food really belongs to Brother Reich. I was going to bring you some later, but I felt compelled to do it immediately. Here’s half of the chicken I fried and some biscuits fresh from the oven!’ ‘We were so happy,’ said Dr. Reich, that we sang, ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow!’ To this moment the Lord has never failed to give us our daily bread.” (From a sermon preached on October 14, 2001 by Rev. Adrian Dieleman)
HYMN:
HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW
Why should I feel discouraged, Why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, And long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, And I know He watches me. (2x)
I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.
“Let not your heart be troubled,” His tender word I hear,
And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;
Though by the path He leadeth, But one step I may see;
His eye is on the sparrow, And I know He watches me. (2x)
Whenever I am tempted, Whenever clouds arise,
When songs give place to sighing, When hope within me dies,
I draw the closer to Him, From care He sets me free;
His eye is on the sparrow, And I know He watches me. (2x)
SO WHAT???
1. Worry, after selfishness, is perhaps the most common of human sins. It is totally unacceptable for a Christian to be a worrier.
2. Our Lord does not give us glib answers when dealing with our human weaknesses.
3. Our Father who is omnipotent made our body and gave our bodies life. Thus He is absolutely able to provide nourishment for our bodies and sustain our lives.
4. If He watches over the 100 billion birds in the world and tracks the 700 trillion strands of hair on top of the heads of the world’s 7 billion people, he also watches over us, His redeemed children, bought with the precious blood of the Divine Son.
5. When in doubt about God’s ability to multi-task, look to creation for the whole world is crammed with heaven and every bush (and bird) aflame with God.