As I was thinking about what I was going to share this morning, a came across a survey that was carried out in 2015. It was a piece of research looked at what people in the UK worry about, and it found some interesting things. It revealed that the average adult spends an average of one hour and 50 minutes fretting about something each day \u2013 a total of 12 hours and 53 minutes a week or almost 28 days of each year. Everyone worries about different things at different times, but it is work that has been rated top, followed by money, being late for something, the health of a friend of relative and their own health concerns. To a world that is worried and anxious about many things, it seems to me that today\u2019s reading from Matthew\u2019s account of Jesus\u2019 teaching is good news. <\/p>\n
The first question that we always need to ask when we come across a \u201ctherefore\u201d at the beginning of a Bible reading is, \u201cWhat is the \u201ctherefore\u201d there for?\u201d We\u2019re in the part of Matthew known as the Sermon on the Mount, a whole raft of teaching that Jesus gives about what it means, practically, to follow him. In the section immediately before he\u2019s been talking about money, and particularly about the fact that it is not possible to serve two masters, God and money. He teaches that serving money will not lead to riches in the final analysis, but the serving God will, and calls his listeners to commit to following God wholeheartedly. He then moves on to this morning\u2019s passage, where we get the practical outworking of it. <\/p>\n
Worldly riches will count for nothing in the end, heavenly riches are what\u2019s important. You can\u2019t serve God and money, therefore don\u2019t worry about your life, food, drink, clothes…<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important here to understand what Jesus is concerned about, what is he really speaking against. Jesus is prohibiting worry not work. He is telling us not to be anxious, not to expend our energy on fretting about stuff, not to waste time imagining all the ways things could go wrong. He is not saying that we shouldn\u2019t work, or make sensible plans and provisions for our future. <\/p>\n
Some of you might know the film \u201cThe Lion King\u201d in which there is a famous song, \u201cHakuna Matata\u201d Don\u2019t worry, I\u2019m not going to sing it, but it\u2019s all about not having worries in life because everything is easy and all responsibility is evaded. That is not what Jesus is talking about. He knows that life is not always easy, and that we do have responsibilities that we need to take on. What he\u2019s saying is that in the middle of the difficulties, and whilst bearing those responsibilities we are not to worry. <\/p>\n
Now that\u2019s all very easy for him to say, but it\u2019s not easy to do. So Jesus gives us some guidance on that as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes\u201d he says. Where did we get our life? Where did we get our body? Did we generate either of them by worrying? No. they were both the gift of God. If the more important things have already been provided by God, then can we not trust that the less important things will also be provided, that we do not have to worry about them?<\/p>\n
That is why trust, and its sister, faith are so important in combatting worry. Faith is the opposite of anxiety, and is the antidote for it. Jesus says that his listeners have, \u201clittle faith\u201d. That phrase crops up again in Matthew. In a couple of chapters Jesus and his friends will be out in a boat. Jesus will be asleep and his friends will be afraid for the lives and will wake him up, shouting for him to save them. He\u2019ll calm the storm and then say to them, \u201cyou of little faith\u201d. A couple more chapters and they\u2019re out in a boat again, only this time Jesus isn\u2019t with them. Not until he comes walking across the water towards them. At first they\u2019ll be frightened, but then they recognise him and Peter jumps out of the boat and heads across the water towards him. All is well until Peter takes his eyes off Jesus and is distracted by the size of the waves and begins to sink. \u201clittle faith\u201d says Jesus. <\/p>\n
Faith is about a trust in the saving work of Jesus that restores our relationship with God, but it is also about practical reliance on our Father to provide what we need. One of the ways it grows is for us to exercise it. Sometimes we get into crisis situations and discover that our faith isn\u2019t as strong as we thought it was. Jesus doesn\u2019t desert us there. He calms the waves, he lifts us above the water. But when we\u2019re back in the safe place he also invites us to remember and to exercise our faith and choose not to entertain our worries so that our faith can grow and sustain us in those difficult times.<\/p>\n
Because, as Jesus says, worry doesn\u2019t work anyway. Who by worrying has added a single hour to their life? In fact we know that worry and stress has exactly the opposite effect, it shortens our lives. It is bad for us, so let\u2019s find something else to do instead. Oh look, Jesus has given us something else to do. Seek God\u2019s kingdom and righteousness. This is back to Jesus\u2019 first point, commitment to God and God\u2019s will must come first, not second.<\/p>\n
What do we pray? \u201cOur Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done.\u201d God\u2019s kingdom is the place where God\u2019s will is done. If we truly are people who seek God\u2019s kingdom, then we are to be people who do God\u2019s will in our own lives and work for God\u2019s will to be done in our communities, our families, our country, our world. It is as we do this that we discover that all we actually need, in the long run, is ours. <\/p>\n
We value our lives and our bodies so we chase after food and drink to keep those bodies going, and our lives in them. But the reality is that these bodies will die, however much we feed them, look after them, pamper them, exercise them. The only way that our lives survive the death of these bodies is if they are held secure by God, and we are resurrected into new bodies. And that only happens if we trust Jesus and follow his way. It is truly pointless to expend time and energy worrying about it. If we actually believe what we say that we believe in the creed every week then our lives are secure in God. There is no need to worry.<\/p>\n
It is true that there are Christians who follow Jesus who do live in very difficult circumstances, who don\u2019t know where their next meal is coming from, who live under threat of persecution and torture. A couple of years ago I was part of a team doing discipleship training in the depths of rural Uganda, up in the mountains, miles from anywhere. The folk there were subsistence farmers, not particularly well fed or secure. One day we were doing some teaching on prayer and, in passing, mentioned fasting as an aid to prayer. The delegates asked us if we would do some special teaching on fasting, so the next morning, we met with the delegates, instead of breakfast and talked with these folk, not all of whom had secure food supplies, about fasting. They had nothing, but they did not worry about it, they were focussed on the kingdom of God, and they trusted God with their lives.<\/p>\n
I read this story this week, taken from a Canadian newspaper,
\n\u201cDanny Simpson, twenty-four, robbed a bank in Ottawa, Canada, of $6,000 in 1990. He was caught and sentenced to six years in prison. He used a .45 caliber Colt semiautomatic in the robbery, which turned out to be an antique made by the Ross Rifle Company, Quebec City, in 1918. It was worth up to $100,000 \u2014 much more than Simpson stole. If he had just known what he carried in his hand, he wouldn\u2019t have robbed the bank. In other words, Danny already had what he needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
We are children of the King, adopted into God\u2019s family. We already have all that we need, we do not need to worry or be anxious. We have a Father who loves us, a Saviour who redeems us and a Spirit living in us who strengthens and encourages us. So to finish, a summary of this passage from one of the commentators I read as I was preparing, \u201cFor Christians of every age, anxiety is incompatible with a lifestyle focused on God\u2019s kingdom. Indeed, anxiety and worry need not govern the disciple who has known the grace of the kingdom.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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