Do Not Worry ... Beat Anxiety Forever

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? 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. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

- Matthew 6:25-34 (NKJV)

But people will say,

"I have so much that I need to afford now, and I need to work, and I need to get, and I need to sustain myself, and so on. So I'm worried about that. The light that is in me—well, I'm worried about that. No one can serve two masters, but how am I going to make God the priority in my life? I'm worried about that, right?"

Everything comes down to that. People get worried about these things, and that's why Jesus says, "Therefore do not worry." Because He knows this is the reaction to all of those things, right? Well, you are going to worry, but don't worry. In fact, He's saying, "Because of all these things, therefore, don't worry."

And that's the command: "Therefore do not worry about your life."

If we think about it like that, it's actually very helpful: Jesus wasn't just giving mental health guidelines, He was giving us a command - "Don't worry!"

The next command is, "Look at, dwell on, take the time to look, to watch the birds in the air." The wild birds flying around. Not a caged bird, but a bird that's out in the open in the natural air.

Then, the third command is, "Consider the wild flowers, how they grow." We have so many varieties of wild flowers that have burst up in the past month or so. You can go anywhere and see them.

"Therefore do not worry"—this fourth command is a repeat, right? "Therefore do not worry." So we've got: "Therefore don't worry," "Look at the birds," "Consider the flowers," and "Therefore do not worry." "But..." And those are some activities that we do: considering, thinking, and "Do not! Let's not! Do not!" "But..." here's the positive command that this is all leading to: "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness."

That's the meaningful activity that all of this leads to: the "do not worries," the "do not worries," the "do not worries" then come to: But do this first, do this above all. First, in terms of chronologically—this is the first thing that I do—but first also in priority. It's number one. The word can mean both things. It's number one in my life. And then following that up again with, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow." So those are the commands that He has here.

Here are the questions: "Isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing?" And the question there is saying:

we're not just material, physical beings. There is so much more to what we are meant to be than just existing, just living. Each individual human being has a destiny that God wants for that person, and it's beyond material goods. It's actually a destiny with Him.

"Aren't you of more value than the birds?" "Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his life?" The word there is actually probably best understood as your lifespan. How can you add more length to your lifespan if you're worrying? The likelihood is you're going to reduce your lifespan rather than increase it, right? You'll get ulcers, you'll get all kinds of things because you're worried and anxious, sleeplessness—all those kinds of things. We can cut off decades from somebody's life if it's bad enough.

"So why do you worry about clothing? Won't God much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" We'll have a look at that in a minute. So those are the questions. Now to the statements. "For they (the birds) neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them." Next statement: "They (the wild flowers) neither toil nor spin, even Solomon in all his glory is not clothed like one of these." Next one: "God so clothes the grass of the field." Next: "What shall we eat and drink and wear?" All these things are what the nations, the pagans, the non-believers, the Gentiles seek. But your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Next statement: "All these things shall be added to you." And then this general principle: "For tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." There's enough to worry about for today, or enough trouble for today. Don't go worrying about tomorrow.

So what we see there, I think if you break it down like that, is this emphasis again and again on what really it is that worry, anxiety is about. What is the basis of it? What's the basis of anxiety and worry? Fear. It's fear, right?

Fear is the reason why these things crop up in our minds. Fear that we're not going to have food, not going to have clothing, and so on. It's fear. And so what He's saying is, "You do not have to fear". Why? Because you have a Father in heaven. Fear is the opposite and the enemy of faith, which is an absolute trust and reliance on Our Heavenly Father who loves us.

Taken from the sermon "Stop Worrying ... Embrace the Theology of the Birds", delivered November 23, 2024.

(You can watch the whole sermon here, premiering on YouTube 1 Feb 2025.)