Be Not Anxious for Your Life, Part 1

Resuming the Sermon on the Mount: The Christian's Relationship to God and Things

0:04 Now we turn to Matthew chapter 6 to resume our studies again this morning. In this passage called the Sermon on the Mount,

0:18 we are considering the truths embodied in chapter 6, our Lord having laid out the Christian and his relationship to God under three heads of giving, fasting, and praying, and showing that in the manner and motive of our praying and our giving and our fasting, the most important thing is that we regard the eye of our Father. What men see and say is irrelevant. The Lord Jesus said the only thing that's important in all of these spiritual exercises is this, your Father who sees in secret.

0:59 I believe perhaps we ought periodically to repeat a couple of, a couple of sermons out of that section. For as you meet here this morning, there's only one thing that matters. Not that others see you here and think, well, you must be a pretty good Christian because you're pretty regular. But what does the Father see?

1:17 Does he see you sitting here this morning with a heart that yearns to see his face and to hear his voice? Does he see you sitting here this morning with a panting desire after him? If not, then regardless of what others see or say, because you're here, God is displeased. Unless we draw.

1:36 But a Christian is not only one who has his devotional life, his praying, his giving, and his fasting, but he has bread to put on his table. He has clothes to put upon his back in the back of his children and his loved ones. And so our Lord, beginning with verse 19 of chapter 6, deals with the Christian and his relationship to the world of things. The last time we looked at the passage, we considered verses 19-20, to 24, in which our Lord deals with the problem of making things the goal of our existence.

The Danger of Positive Worldliness and its Captivating Grip

2:16 And he said, Lay not up treasure upon earth. He is forbidding positive worldliness. That attitude in which we make the things of this life our stated goal in life. And so we seek to accumulate the things that are bound to this life and to time, they are those things which all of them can be snatched from us in the moment of death or of tragedy.

2:47 This is a danger of people, particularly in our society, where we have such an abundance of things, to set our affection upon them and to be guilty of positive worldliness seeking to accumulate the things of this life. And so our Lord gave basically two reasons why we ought not do this. The first, the first reason was the common sense reason. He said, Why do you make things that perish your pursuit?

3:15 For he said, Whatever you lay up on earth is exposed to corruption. Moth and rust corrupt, and it's exposed to violence. Thieves break through and steal. He said, It's only good sense to lay up treasure in heaven, treasure which is eternal, where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and thieves do not break through and steal.

3:36 And then we closed our study by, seeing the second reason why we should not lay up treasures on earth is because of the captivating grip of these things. Jesus said, Where your treasure is, your heart will be. What has your heart has your life. And the thing that will have your heart is the thing that is your treasure.

3:56 If your treasure is the praise of men, then that treasure will have your heart, and the only thing you live for is the approval of your fellow men. If your home and your car are your treasure, then that's what will have your heart. And all you think about is your car and your home, and how to improve these things. If your children are your treasure, then that's all you'll live for, is your children, their happiness, their well-being, their success.

4:21 And that's the whole of life for multitudes of people. So the Lord said, We must not lay up treasure on earth, because the very nature of earthly treasure is such that it captures the heart, and what captures the heart has the man. Then he said, And also what captures the heart will have the mind, and the judgment, the light of the body is the eye. If the eye be single, the whole body shall be full of light.

4:43 If thine eye be evil, the whole body shall be full of darkness. You can only make proper judgments about life when your treasure is the life beyond and not this life. When your heart is set on things, then you'll make terrible judgments and make mistakes that will pierce yourself through with many sorrows. And then the last reason, our Lord said, This captivating grip is not only found in the heart and the mind, but in the will.

5:12 No man can serve two masters.

Introducing Anxious Care: The Subject and its Scope

5:16 Now we come this morning, beginning with verse 25, to a different subject, but one that is vitally related to the matter of positive covetousness and love of the world. Beginning with verse 25, our Lord deals with the subject of anxious care about the things of this life. Verses 19 to 24 is the positive light and the love of the things of this life. Verses 25 to 34, anxious care.

5:45 Now let's look at the words themselves. Verse 25, Therefore I say unto you, take no thought. Now this is a meaning to the words back in 1600 when this particular translation of the Bible was given. Words that have changed their meaning.

6:02 Let me read from several of the modern translations. The Revised Standard Version, Do not be anxious about things. Do not be anxious about this life. Phillips translation, Don't worry about this life.

6:13 The New English Bible, Put away anxious thoughts about this life. So the meaning of the words is obvious. Our Lord is dealing with the problem of anxiety of thought concerning the things of this life. And notice three times he repeats the command, or repeats it twice, states it three times.

6:34 Verse 25, Take no thought or be not anxious. Verse 31, Therefore take no thought or be not anxious. Verse 34, Take therefore no thought or be not therefore anxious. So the subject dealt with in these verses is obvious.

6:57 Just as the subject of verses 19-24 was very obvious, laying up treasure. So the subject here is equally obvious. It's the matter of anxious care about the things of this life. Now notice the area in which our Lord is focusing.

7:17 Take no thought, verse 25, or be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat or drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. The problem is the matter of anxious care about life, its preservation, food and drink, and the body, its, what we might say, its comforts, or its protection, raiment. And our Lord says in this area of concern about the preservation of life, and this area of concern about the protection and the comfort of life, we are not to be anxious.

8:02 So this is a prohibition of that kind of concern about the preservation of life and the protection of one's body, which indicates a preoccupation of these things. It's that kind of anxious concern about food and clothing and bills and all of these things that distracts and disturbs and nags us. The kind of concern that meets us when we wake in the morning so that our first thought is not God, but it's this day and how am I going to do enough, or earn enough, for food and clothing and raiment. It's that kind of concern that hounds us through the day

8:47 and is reluctant to leave us when we pillow our head at night so that instead of looking up into the face of our God at night and saying, thank you, Lord, for seeing me through another day, we're already looking ahead into the next day with a fretful heart, wondering if the next day's labor or the next day's activities will produce enough to meet the demands of life. You know what I'm talking about? Our Lord is touching in an area that not one of us can claim exemption from. It's this area that left to ourselves, most of us, it's as natural as breathing.

The Seriousness of Anxious Care: Choking the Word and Ill-Preparation

9:25 It's anxious care about the provisions for the sustenance of life and concern about the preservation and protection of life. That concern is inherent in life itself. If God did not make us with a natural concern about the preservation and protection of life, we wouldn't live very long. It's that that makes the little infant cry like its fingers were being cut off when all it's got is a little hunger pain in its tummy.

9:56 Ours went off at 5 o'clock this morning. That was her coming home present to Daddy. Mrs. Martin said that she's been sleeping to 6.15 or 6.30 all the while I was gone,

10:06 but she wanted to let me know that she was glad to have Daddy home. So at 5 o'clock this morning she hollered like her fingers were being cut off, but wonder of wonders, eight ounces of milk completely healed her fingers. It's that innate, something that's embodied in life itself, that concern for its preservation. It's the thing that when you touch a hot stove immediately you react.

10:31 A person whose nerves have gone dead as you find happens with certain forms of leprosy. They don't have that natural reaction so they'll lose fingers in accidents, cut them off unknowingly, or allow an object to rest upon them because the nerves have gone dead. But this whole concept of preserving the body and preserving life, it's a natural part of life. And because it is, all of us have got to get this concern in its proper perspective or else that very concern, which is a blessing, will be a curse.

11:06 And may even lead to the damnation of our souls. And so the subject dealt with anxious care is one that concerns every one of us. In fact, the scriptures clearly indicate that this is a very serious matter. In the parable of the sower and the seed and the different kinds of soil, our Lord indicated in Matthew 13, 22 that some people receive the word into thorny soil and He mentions what those thorns are which eventually choke the word.

11:41 And one of them is this, the cares of this life. Same word used in the original. You know what can make the word of God completely unfruitful here week after week? And whether it's I or Mr. Franklin

11:55 or visiting preachers can pray and labor in the word and seek to be clear and scriptural and practical and simple and yet the word never takes root and grips us, you know what can be the cause? Because we haven't learned how to be delivered from anxious care. Jesus said this spirit of anxious care chokes the word and it can become completely unfruitful. And the problem's not with the word.

12:20 The problem's with the heart into which it comes. There are some of you here this morning that ought to be found the rest of this day on your knees crying to God for mercy. Looking through the scriptures to find the way of salvation in Christ. For you're not born of the Holy Spirit.

12:37 You've never forsaken your sins and been savingly joined to Christ. And if this Bible is true, this very moment you're under the frown of a holy God. And the wrath of Almighty God abides on those that believe not. And you ought, having heard the word today, to receive that word into a prepared heart and begin to seek after God.

12:59 But what'll happen? Some of you will go out and the rest of this day will be the same as any other day of the week. Why? The cares of this life will choke out the word.

13:11 This is a vital issue. It's a matter of saving response to the gospel. Until a man has learned to get his concerns for the preservation and protection and provisions of life in proper perspective, he'll never get saved. For the cares of this life will choke the word so that it will not bring forth fruit unto perfection.

13:32 And then the scripture indicates in Luke 21, 34 that some will be ill-prepared for the Lord's coming because their hearts have been overcharged with surfeiting, that's banqueting. What a day of banqueting we've got. Everybody's got to have a banquet. It's interesting, the Lord said that's a sign of the last times.

13:51 Surfeiting, banqueting. And then He says, drunkenness. And certainly that's a sign of the time. You notice how the hard liquor ads now have got pretty young women?

14:01 They've broken the code that they kept for years not to show a woman with any form of hard liquor in her hands. But now it's completely broken. And all the newspapers, all the billboards, it's becoming fashionable to have the smell of liquor upon your breath. And you know what the Lord puts in the middle of banqueting and drunkenness?

14:21 You know what He puts in the middle? The cares of this. And He said it to His disciples. He said, Beware lest your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, drunkenness, and the cares of this life and that day come upon you unawares.

Distinguishing Anxious Care from Legitimate Concern, Labor, and Foresight

14:39 Beloved, this is a serious subject. And the longer I study this passage, the more I see the profound importance that we have a grasp on what our Lord is talking about. He's prohibiting anxious care. Now our Lord is not prohibiting a valid concern for the things of this life expressed in diligent labor.

15:02 And we've got to compare Scripture with Scripture. Some people will take this. Well, it says, Don't be anxious about your life, therefore I sit down or lay down upon a shade of grass. I sit in this lounge and read my Bible from sunup till sundown and the Lord will send ravens to feed me.

15:16 No, He won't. He'll let you starve. Why? Because He's told us elsewhere in His words, 2 Thessalonians 3, 10-12, If any man will not work, let him not eat.

15:28 That's pretty plain, isn't it? You see, God ordained labor as the means whereby man would come to the possession of his food. Long before sin entered, He told Adam to dress the garden and to keep it. And after sin entered, He says, In sweat and in toil shalt thou bring forth the fruit of the ground.

15:47 God ordained that man should labor six days and the seventh day be set apart as a day unto him. Ephesians 4, 28 says, Let him that stole steal no more, but let him rather work with his hands that he may have to give to him that hath need. 1 Timothy 5, 8 says, If any man provide not for his own, he hath denied the faith. He's worse than an infidel.

16:09 So when our Lord is dealing with the subject of anxious care, He is not prohibiting that valid concern expressed in diligent labor. As one person has said, Not to labor in order to provide the necessities of life is not faith, but it's presumption that would lead to such an attitude. Nor is our Lord forbidding a proper amount of foresight. You know that you're going to die.

16:36 You don't like to think about it, but you're going to. It's appointed unto men who wants to die. Now is it sinful foreseeing that I'm going to die to make proper financial arrangements that I not burden others with the matters of putting me away and relative to their well-being having some kind of life insurance? No, because the Scripture says, Go to the ant, thou sluggard, and consider her ways, how she stores up in fruitful times for the less fruitful times.

17:06 God says we're to learn something from the animals. And I mentioned two weeks ago about the squirrels who somehow know that winter's coming and they store up. And the Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 12, 14 that the parents ought to lay up for the children and not the children for the parents. So if a parent sees that his child will no doubt need education and he takes proper foresight and seeks to salt a little bit away regularly, this is not what our Lord's talking about.

17:37 He's dealing with something that comes in the area of an anxious concern and we're going to see how we may know the difference between legitimate concern leading to labor and foresight and a sinful concern which is born of unbelief. Now, the second thing we want to consider this morning, not only the subject dealt with, but what is its connection with what preceded it. Is there any connection? Notice verse 25.

The Connection Between Covetousness and Anxious Care: Root and Fruit

18:10 Verse 25 starts with the word, therefore. Whenever you find the word therefore in the Bible, you ask, why for? Therefore? Why for?

18:20 There is a vital connection between these two subjects. The subject of positive worldliness, laying up treasure on earth, and the more subtle problem of anxious concern about the things of this life. Our Lord is not talking in the last part about people who want to accumulate things. He's talking about people who are anxiously concerned about having enough for today.

18:45 Now, what's the connection between anxious concern for the things of life and a positive sinful desire to accumulate the things of life? Well, the connection, I believe, is this. Having dealt with covetousness in its full bloom, the desire to lay up treasures, our Lord traces covetousness now to its root, which always begins with a wrong attitude towards things themselves. Let me illustrate it as our Lord deals with it in other ways.

19:25 The same Bible that calls the matter of drunkenness sin would lead us back to the root of this sin and tell us to flee every occasion of evil. Therefore, if I want to be sure that I'll never be a drunkard, I'll never touch the first social drink. That just makes good sense. No man ever became a drunkard overnight.

19:51 But one out of... I forgot what the statistics are.

19:53 I won't quote them because it's not accurate. I wouldn't be sure that I were accurate. But one out of every so many people that takes his first social drink and you don't know who's going to be the one will end up a drunkard. That's just a fact of medical statistics.

20:07 And you don't know whether you'll be that one out of that many. So the only safe course for you fellows and girls is what? You never touch a drop. You never need to worry about being a drunkard.

20:18 And the Bible that condemns drunkenness also says, flee all that would lead to unnecessary occasions of sin. The Bible condemns the sin of adultery. But no man ever walks up to some woman, a total stranger, out of the clear blue sky unless she's a harlot who makes it known that she's selling her body and falls into adultery. No. What happens?

20:42 It starts with flirtatious looks and language. And then, that's why the Bible says, listen, let all foolish jesting be put away. Why? Because it's that jesting, that bantering language between a man and a woman that breaks down that wall of purity that ends up in adultery.

21:04 And God condemns the one as much as the other. The same is true with murder. The Scripture condemns murder as a sin. But where does murder start?

21:18 It starts with hatred in the heart. That's why the Bible says, whoso hated his brother in his heart is a murderer. That's why God says, beware lest any root of bitterness springs up. Now, you see, the same Scripture that condemns these sins in their full bloom would teach us to deal with them in their germ form.

21:39 Now, our Lord does precisely the same here. In verses 19 to 24, He has taken the full blooming sin of overt covetousness. In the Bible, He says that the Lord is a man or a woman trying to amass treasure in this life. Whether it's reputation, whether it's pleasure, whether it's things, they make it obvious by the way they spend their time, by what they talk, how they dress, how they devote their energies and their faculties and abilities.

22:06 I'm laying up treasures in this life. They make it obvious. We stand back and say, no, not me. I'll never be that way.

22:16 The Lord says don't be too sure. Are you ever anxious? Do you ever have a nagging concern about the provisions of life, the kind of concern that meets you at 6 o'clock in the morning when you wake and follows you when you go to bed at 11? The Lord says, watch out, watch out, for this is the seed of covetous, sinful anxiety about the things of this life.

22:43 One has said that the fear of poverty and worrying about the future as truly ensnares the souls of the relatively poor as the love of wealth ensnares the souls of the rich. Will you listen to that? If that's true, that's talking to most of us here. For most of us are what we call just average middle class people, some lower middle, some middle middle, some upper middle, but this is where we are.

23:10 Listen. The fear of poverty and worrying about the future as truly ensnares the souls of the relatively poor as the love of riches ensnares the souls of the rich. So the subject our Lord is dealing with is anxiety about the preservation and provisions and protection of life. The connection of this with what precedes is the connection between a seed and the full flower, between the germ and the full manifestation, between a root and the branch, branches of a tree.

The Manner of Christ's Teaching: A Command and its Implications

23:55 Now the third thing I want us to consider before we actually tackle the details of the passage, what is the manner in which our Lord handles this problem? We've looked at the subject matter, its relationship to what preceded. Now how does our Lord handle this subject? Well, I want you to notice first of all that it comes to us in the form of a command.

24:19 Therefore, verse 25, Therefore I say unto you, and this is interesting, in the imperative mode, take no thought, or better translated, be not anxious for your life nor for your body. Verse 31, Therefore be not anxious, saying what should we eat or drink or what should we have to be clothed with. Verse 34, Be not anxious for the more. Now I think this is particularly interesting that our Lord deals with the subject in this manner of bringing the truth to us in the form of a command three times.

25:00 Why?

25:03 Well, I believe the first reason is this. All who profess to know the Lord Jesus must soberly reflect on this issue because it's not a matter of option. Jesus said in John 14, 21, He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. Do you profess to know the Lord Jesus in a saving way?

25:26 Then these words come not as a desirable suggestion, but they come as a binding command from your Lord.

25:40 I read something the other day that has been precious to me in which the writer said that commandments are love's eyes and without it love is blind.

25:53 Do you love the Lord? Well, how are you going to express that love? His commandments are the eyes with which love sees the will of God. Without commandment, love to the Lord is blind.

26:09 You say you love the Lord. What shall you do then to express that love? You dare not simply do what your heart tells you for though you have the Holy Spirit within, there are still the remains of corruption and there is the darkness. Paul says we see through a glass darkly.

26:24 There is the impression of a wicked devil and the pressures of the world. How then can I express my love to the Lord? He tells me, if ye love me, ye will keep my commandments. The commandments become love's eyes.

26:39 Now, do you love the Lord? If you do, then your heart says, O Lord Jesus, I want to do what pleases you. Now He's going to tell you what pleases Him. So if you're a professing Christian, this is a good test to see if you really love Him.

26:53 Because this is going to touch you at some sore spots. The Lord's going to touch you in some areas that are going to mean some adjustments of life. Now, do you love Him? He says, if you love Me, you'll keep My commands.

27:04 And so this instruction comes in the form of commandment to test the reality of our profession and if we are truly His, to give directive to our love for the Savior.

27:18 The second reason I believe it comes in the form of a commandment is that we might catch the shocking realization that disobedience to this command is sin.

27:31 We all would acknowledge that verses 19-24 deal with sin. Anybody who's laying up treasure on earth, anybody who's making things his occupation, we say, oh, that's sin. That's idolatry. But what is sin?

27:47 1 John 3-4 tells us that sin is transgression of the law. Whether that law is the expression of God's will in the Ten Commandments or the expression of His will in any of the precepts of the apostles or the Lord Jesus.

28:03 Now, do we really believe that anxious care about food and clothing and the preservation of life is sin? Most of us don't.

28:16 Oh yeah, if we blow off that our husbands are white, most of us got sense enough to know that's sin. God have mercy on us if we don't. If we just say that's just me, the way I'm built. Well, the Lord have mercy on anybody that's got to live with anyone who's just built that way and isn't willing for the Lord to do something about the way they're built.

28:33 But most of us would acknowledge that. If we lose our tempers, if we become fretful, if we become cautious, stick in our speech, we acknowledge that's sin. But do we acknowledge that that concern that meets us in the morning, follows us through the day, goes to bed with us at night, that robs us of our peace, robs us of our rest in the Lord, that fretful, gnawing anxiety about food, about clothing, about the body, do we acknowledge that this is sin? We're going to see as we expound this passage in the weeks ahead that this involves some of the most grievous forms of sin that a Christian can be guilty of.

29:15 For when we have anxious concern about the preservation and the provisions of life and of the body, do you know what we're doing? We're casting aspersions on the character of our Heavenly Father. We're saying God's more concerned about flowers that go into the oven or grass that burns. We'll see what that means as we follow it down through.

29:39 That God's more concerned about a little bird that lives for a couple of years and then goes off somewhere and we don't know where and dies. Very difficult to find where birds go. They die. They have a way of knowing when they're about to die.

29:50 You seldom see a dead bird unless it's been killed by a cat or a BB gun.

29:55 And when we're anxiously concerned about the provisions of life, we're insulting God. We're saying, God, you're more concerned about the flowers of the field and the birds of the air than you are about me. What a terrible insult to God. It'd be like having my son come up to me and say, Daddy, I've watched you dig around the plants out there in the yard or the bushes and I've watched you put bread out for the birds, but Daddy, I don't believe that you're going to buy enough food for me to eat and I'm afraid you're going to starve me to death.

30:25 That would break my heart if my son had that kind of an attitude toward me. Wouldn't it break your heart to pass? If I saw him going around getting lines in his little brow at the age of four and a half because he wasn't sure whether Daddy was going to be concerned enough to save out enough money for his food? That would break my heart.

30:44 That's exactly what we do to God.

30:48 When we're sinfully anxious, now we're not talking about presumptive. If we're not diligently laboring six days and sit back and say, well, I trust my father he'll bring it. That's presumption. That's the sin of presumption.

31:02 God keep us from that.

31:05 But beloved, when we're doing all God's given us grace to do with the strength and ability that He's given, if we cannot rest assured that our Father will care, we insult Him. We cast aspersions to His tender Father heart. Another reason it's sin as we're going to see is that it's blatant unbelief in the promises of His Word. It's a perversion of the very function of the body and the very dignity of life itself.

31:35 We're going to see all of these things, but I'm just touching on them now to answer the question, why does this teaching come in the form of a command? The first reason that we might test our love to the Lord is because we're the second reason that we might acknowledge the sin of sinful anxiety. I trust after we're done going through this passage that you alone with God will know what it is to confess the sin of sinful anxiety with a broken heart as much as you confess the sins of pride and covetousness and impurity of thought. That's where the truth should lead us.

The Manner of Christ's Teaching: Supported by Simple Observations

32:14 And then the second way it comes to us, this teaching, not only in the form of a command, but look at the length of the passage, it comes to us supported by reasonable and simple observations. Our Lord did not simply say three times, take no anxious thought, take no anxious thought, but each one of those commands is interspersed with reasonable and simple observations. Let's just read them this morning to get a little bit familiar with them. In no means will we seek to deal with them in detail.

32:47 Be not anxious for your life, what you'll do, eat or drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment? He asked a simple question. He says, isn't the gift of life a greater thing than the meat that is needed to sustain life?

33:06 What's greater? Some vegetables and meat and potatoes on your table or the life that sits there to eat it? When the answer is obvious, why, life itself. So the Lord's going to prove something from this.

33:18 We're not going to tell you what yet. Then he says in verse, verse 26, Behold the fowls of the air. Anybody that can't look up and see the birds? There they are.

33:26 He says, now look at them. He says, I want to teach you something from the birds. You don't need to have a six-inch reflecting telescope. I'm not going to talk about far-off stars.

33:34 He said, I want to teach you something from a common observation. Behold the fowls of the air. Then he talks about them. Then verse 27, he said, which of you by taking thought can add one cubit, can add one day to the length of his life?

33:48 Is there a more correct rendering as we'll see? Now we know this is obvious. Some of you don't like how tall you are.

33:58 All right, go sit in the corner somewhere and concentrate for the next 30 days. I don't like my height. I shall shrink. Come on back and measure yourself.

34:06 See what good it's done.

34:09 Some of you don't like it that you're so runty and short. You feel God cheated you. And so you go off for 30 days and you sit and think, I will grow three inches. I will grow three inches.

34:20 Come on back and measure yourself. What have you done? You haven't added or subtracted a thing. The length, the height, or the lack of height.

34:29 Why anybody knows this, the Lord says, when you get anxious about tomorrow, you've forgotten a simple thing like that. We're going to see that. He supports this command with such simple and reasonable observations. And why does He do this?

34:45 He does it so that we'll not think that the way to get delivered from sinful anxiety is simply to hand it over to the Lord. Now that's one thing you ought to do. When you're conscious of having a sinful anxiety, you see ahead and you see needs that are arising and you're doing all you can do in the providence of God to meet them, but you're still not trusting in the Lord, but you're fretful and you're restless. Now one thing you've got to do is hand it over to the Lord.

35:10 1 Peter 5, 7, casting all your care upon Him. Same word. All your anxious care upon Him. But that's not all you have to do.

35:18 And that's the trouble. Some of you have just been casting it on the Lord and you haven't faced the simple considerations and questions that our Lord gives here. It's not enough to pray when you have sinful anxiety. You've got to do some thinking.

35:31 The best thing some of you people today could do to get delivered from sinful anxiety is not to pray, but to think.

35:38 That's right. The best thing you could do is to do some thinking, not some praying. Instead of going home and praying this afternoon about it, you ought to go out and sit in the backyard and look at the birds. That's what Jesus said.

35:50 There comes a time when you get delivered from sinful anxiety not by praying, but by looking at birds and looking at flowers and learning something and letting them preach to you. Now we need to pray, 1 Peter 5, but our Lord says two words, Behold the birds, consider the lilies. And so this teaching comes in the form not only of a command, but a command supported by reasonable and simple observations. Why?

36:19 So that we'll learn it's not enough to simply hand it over to the Lord. Not enough just to pray about it. We need to pray. Philippians 4, 6 tells us, Be anxious for nothing, saying, Were it in the original, but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known unto God.

36:34 But we must couple our praying and our handing it over to the Lord by facing these questions. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought and all the questions down through, and then we've got to sit and look at birds and look at flowers and let them preach a sermon and have ears to hear what the flowers would say to us and eyes to see what the birds would say to us. And so I trust we've whetted your appetite for this passage this morning.

Concluding Exhortation: For God's Children Only

37:06 This has just been an introductory message and that's all I wanted it to be. That we could feel the pulse of what our Lord is dealing with. That as we read it down through we'll be kept from shooting off in this terrible direction of saying, well, since the Lord said take no thought for your life that means I shouldn't be concerned whether I go to work and every time I've got a little headache I can just stay home and skip a day and the Lord will provide. No, no, no, no, no.

37:33 The Lord didn't put in a premium on laziness in this passage.

37:37 He said, six days shalt thou labor. He said, if any man will not work let him not eat. He's dealing with this anxiety that comes when after you've gone to work with a headache and you've done all you can. You're robbed of your peace in the Lord because you think of needs in your family.

37:56 Needs in the provision of food and clothing. And you don't have the rest of God in your heart. That's what the Lord's talking about. Now will you read it through this week?

38:07 I'd make the suggestion perhaps try to read it through at least once a day during the coming week praying that the Holy Spirit will enable you to lay hold of the precious simple truths that our Lord has laid out in this passage. And then let me say by way of closing this morning that this passage is for the children of God. Jesus said, Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine. This passage in Matthew 6, 25 to the end is not for just anybody.

38:45 But it's only for those who are the children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. For God is the Father of all men only in the sense that He created all men and governs all men and rules the hearts of all men by His sovereignty. But He is only our Father in the family sense when we by faith turn to Jesus Christ. Galatians 3, 26 Ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ.

39:17 John 1, 12 As many as received Him to them gave He the right to become the children of God even to them that believe on His name. And until we come in that crisis of repentance and faith and by the Spirit our neighbor is able to receive the Lord Jesus as our Savior and Lord trusting only in the merits of His blood. We are not children of God, dear ones. The Bible says in John 8, 44 Ye are of your father the devil.

39:45 Ephesians 2, 2 says we walk according to the prince of the power of the air. 1 John 5, 19 says the whole world lieth in the palm of the wicked one. And so those who may be among us this morning members or friends or visitors whoever you be if you have never seen yourself an empty naked sinner destitute of all righteousness destitute of all grounds upon which you can approach a holy God if you have never seen that Jesus Christ is the only way whereby sinful men may come to a holy God 1 Timothy 2, 5 one God and one go-between one mediator

40:29 the man Christ Jesus and seeing the Lord Jesus in his sufferings and death as the only hope of mercy if you have not turning from sin turned to him and committed yourself to him you are not a child of God and this is children's bread and I dare not give it out indiscriminately but if you will turn and trust repent and believe you have the promise that you will become the child of God and then these precious pearls of truth will be for you if you are in Christ Jesus those of us who are in him may I urge upon you to pray over the passage plead with God that he'll show you the terrible grievous nature

41:13 of the sin of sinful anxiety I know I could call some of you by name in whom I've seen these manifestations and if I couldn't do that I could squeal on myself because I see this coming up again and again and again from the confines of my mind from my own heart so whether I've seen the manifestations or not you need this truth from the Lord will you pray and let us together pray that God will show us and give us a glimpse into his Father heart that will forever cure us of indulging in this sin without terrible prickings of conscience if we see his Father heart and Father concern

Pastoral Prayer and Benediction

41:58 as I trust we will in these days we'll never see ever be able again to insult his Father heart without it breaking our own hearts may the Lord give us understanding in his truth let us pray our Father we are grateful for this your word touching upon an area of life common to every one of us and oh we plead that we shall not be guilty of that sinful anxiety which clouds the face of our God which fills our hearts with unrest

42:43 which gnaws and nags from waking hours till resting hours thereby cutting off all sense of joyous overflow of witness and testimony to others Lord we pray that as we come to study this passage as we ponder it this week that like a mighty purging influence your word shall sweep through this assembly of people beginning with its pastor down through the youngest child who can understand and purge out of our midst oh God every last vestige of sinful anxiety

43:27 about life and about the body and make us a people radiantly resting in the largeness of your Father heart oh God we pray don't let us be like the heathen about us for you've said for after these things do the heathens seek and we see people on every hand their whole lives one whirl of activity mind and body and faculties all caught up in making a living in buying this in providing the other thing oh Father help us to be strikingly different that men may see

44:12 the radiance of a heart that is at rest in you and may ask a reason of the hope that is in us to this end seal your word to our hearts give us insight by the Holy Spirit and grant that that which we learn may forever and eternally affect us in the way we live and think and act and then for those among us our Father who are not your children through faith in the Lord Jesus we pray that what they've heard this morning shall be owned of the Holy Spirit to make them hungry to know this Savior who offers himself and his grace so freely in the Gospel to all

44:57 who will turn and trust to this end Lord may your word be received by everyone present unto the good of his or her soul and unto the glory of your own worthy name Amen now just before we are dismissed with the benediction we would urge upon all who are able to do so to join us again tonight as we meet at seven o'clock more opportunity for corporate worship in our singing of hymns together sharing by way of testimony and exhortation what God has done for us and shown to us and then for the exposition of his word we invite each of you back to culminate

45:42 a good Lord's day meeting again with God's people in this place let us stand now to be dismissed with prayer and now may the grace of our Lord's Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit rest upon each one who knows the living God in truth and may pressure persistent and deep be the portion of all others until they rest in him who is the Prince

46:26 of Peace through Jesus Christ our Lord