History's Greatest Teaching on Worry: Matthew 6:24-34

Today’s DAWG is the passage we covered in our weekend services. The
passage is from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and is history’s greatest teaching
on worry. If you would like to access the message it is available at http://radiantchurch.org/node/426.
In this blog we will hit some of the basic points from yesterday.

Matthew 6:24-34

24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love
the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You
cannot serve God and mammon.

Fear and worry exposes
idols. God again and again tells us, we are to have no other gods before Him.
If we do, it will lead to issues of divided loyalties. This is true when it
comes to fear and worry. What you fear and worry about are those things we value
the most and we are tempted to even value over God. They may not be bad things
but good things that have become too important. Your fears and worries follow
your devotion. You worry most about what you are most devoted to.

25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat
or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life
more than food and the body more than clothing?

Fear and worry reveals narrow
perspective. Jesus said, “Do not worry about your life.” This is not a
suggestion but a command. Life is bigger than what you are worrying about?
Nothing we worry about is the totality of life.

26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather
into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than
they?

27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 

28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how
they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 

29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like one of these. 

30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow
is thrown into the oven, will He not
much more clothe you, O you of little
faith? 

31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, “What shall we eat?’ or “What shall we
drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 

32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father
knows that you need all these things.

Worry demonstrates a lack of
faith in God.

33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these
things shall be added to you.

The things you’re most
devoted to – they are things you worry about most. Worries reflect devotions.

If you will make the Kingdom
of God your true priority in life – the things you worry about won’t be so
significant anymore.

34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its
own things. Sufficient for the day is
its own trouble.

Worry is a pre-occupation
with tomorrow – finding certainty in or controlling it. Worry cannot change the
past or control the future, it just makes you miserable today.