Matthew 6:25–34Scripture
All right, Matthew chapter 6. We're closing out this chapter this week. Kind of been in there a long time, haven't we? I don't know. It's been encouraging a bit. I didn't realize how much I probably read that. I've been reading the Bible through every year for quite a lot of years, but I didn't realize how much was in this chapter. Until I started kind of slowly going through it.
I have said every week and I'll continue to say and by the way you won't get away from it because the first portion of chapter 6 he's still doing the same thing. I've called this section a dethroning ceremony. I still think that's what he's doing. He's trying to unbburden us from prioritizing self and get to the place where we can begin to be kingdom- minded in the way that we live life. It's really heavy on this side. This is really interesting.
Anyway, if this were a boat, this would tip over. All right. I had to on the front row, while you're looking, we're going to look at verse 25 through 34. So, it's quite an extensive portion of text, but I didn't know how to break it up because it's kind of it all is saying one thing. I had to take my contacts off on the front row. It's official. I have I can no longer wear contacts and read paper in front of me and so I have aged to the place where now I am well I'm falling apart and so now I have to have readers to wear contacts. So I was up there trying to pop them out and these are interesting days right? So interesting days. I mean, I can fool people because all I have to do is trim my beard a little bit or you can't see it's all gray now and then shave my head and I look about 8 years younger, but we all know it's a lie. Straight, it's a lie. And okay. So, Matthew
Introduction
chapter 6 and verse 25 through 34 talks about a subject that I think has become prevalent in our day.
Anxiousness. We live in a very anxious generation. We live in a generation that is the most highly medicated generation we have ever known. And there is a biblical reason for that. And he talks about it right here. I really truly believe that the reason for that other than you know all the bad food we eat, I think that plays a role into it. Let's just be honest. It just does something to you. It's not healthy. There have been a rise in all kinds of illnesses in our society just because of what we eat.
And the Bible speaks plainly about that too. It speaks about how to not be anxious by what our eyes are focused on. It also countes us on what we should eat. We don't listen to the Lord regarding these things. And so at the end of the day then we are we fall prey to some of the things in society and in life because we feed oursel improperly and we fix our gaze on things we should not right and this affects us so God tries to remedy these things that he doesn't want us to live in by giving us counsel this in this text today he gives us some counsel on how we can lift oursself out of the pit of anxiety he gives us counsel.
The question is, do you trust him enough to obey his counsel? That's the question. It isn't a matter of does he will he love you? Will the gift of the cross still be extended to you if you don't abide by or take his counsel? It's what kind of life are you going to live today if you do not mind his counsel?
And
Some of you choose the misery you live in spite of the fact you've been redeemed through Christ into a heavenly promise.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 4:02
You will live tormented today. And that's the reality of our life. And the choice is yours. You get to choose how you'll live. Choose this day. Me as far as my house, we will choose to serve the Lord. And so the question is what will be the banner over your house? What will be the banner over your life? What will be the banner over your marriage?
Whom will you choose to serve? And so I think that's the question today. He gives us a command. This is not a recommendation. It's a command. And he says, "do not be anxious." This is a command for disciples.
Stop it. Which means you can now. Now, let me just stop here before I read Scripture. Right? Because it's been told today from pulpits, from counselors, from biblical counselors, from people in the world that you cannot stop yourself from feeling a certain way. What do you do with this? What are we to do with this?
So today you have a choice. You're going to trust the Lord. You're going to trust the science. What they tell you today? How many of you know that they say a lot of stuff and then they change their mind in two years? Coffee will kill you. Now coffee is good for you. Amen. 15 years ago coffee was good for you.
Then it became bad for you. Then it became good for you and then it became bad for you. Trust the science. We have no problem trusting the science. Although the science has lied to us multiple times, but we have a hard time trusting God when it doesn't line up with the science that's been lying to us.
And you have a question. I mean, the question at the end of the day falling on the house more heavily on this side than this side because everybody wants to sit over here is this.
Do you trust God or do you trust man? Do you trust God or do you trust your feelings? Who is Lord of your life and who sits on the throne?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 6:33
Right? Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.
Is not life more than food, and body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
And why are you so anxious about clothing? Consider the liies of the field. How they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not a raid like one of these. But if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you?
Oh you of little faith. Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, "what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the gentiles seek after these things, and your heavenly father knows that you need them all. He knows. That's comforting, right? That a father knows that helps. So, you're saying there's a chance that if he knows, he'll hook a brother up.
You're saying there's a chance he sees you and he knows. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Preach that preach for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. How many of you know there's plenty of trouble to go around?
I mean this Listen, if this don't hit you're dead today. You're dead. Cuz I mean I feel like I kind of you know, you ever have those things in your life where life just kind of es and flows into these seasons and there are definitely seasons where you know the tension is mounting like a rubber band about to pop. You ever been there?
Yes. Like you just if just one more tug and it'll all snap. Like it's just I can't like I can't take anymore. Not one more t not any more tension. Not any more problems. Not anymore issues. I can't take anymore. I will break under the pressure that is mounting in life.
And then there are seasons that are like, you know, you're you got a your life is a flippy floppy rubber band. You know, it's like you got all the tension in the world. You can handle a few problems and it's not a big deal. And life es and flows this way, but there's always trouble around the corner. And sometimes you can be everything in life can be going well, but you remember, track with me, you remember what happened yesterday and you know that although it's good, you can't even enjoy the good you're in because of the tension that was. And you're afraid that the tension that was will circle back around. So you're in misery not only in the tension, but you're in misery when it's relaxed.
So Jesus is trying to help us understand there's a different way to live life. There's a different way to live life in the tension and there's a different way to live life when things are loosey goosey. And he begins to give us counsel about this. My titled my sermon today and I think this is fitting the tyranny of control.
That is really the issue here. Now I know we're talking about anxiety and we're going to we're going to talk about that. But
Anxiety is the byproduct of a life that thinks they can control what they were never designed to control.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 11:04
It makes you miserable. There's nothing more irritating than feeling like you can do something but have no power to do it. It's irritating. It makes you feel frustrated. And no matter what you do, you no matter how much you toil and trouble over these issues in life, you can never seem to make headway in life.
And that makes a person a little bit anxious. No matter what I do, it seems like everything is falling apart. And the more I try, the more problems come and it creates anxiety in the heart of a man and a woman.
And it's a tyrant. Control is a tyrant. It's destroying and wrecking your life and blowing up your life with anxiety. This has happened from the beginning. I hadn't even got to my notes yet. Y'all doomed. Listen. It's happened from the beginning. From the very beginning, God put Adam and Eve in the garden and gave them everything at their disposal except for one tree.
And Satan just kind of slithered or something in there. I don't know. They he's some kind of he slithered in there.
And he basically convinced them that they should be in control of determining where they ate. It's been from the very beginning, man. Let me tell you. Let me tell you what that control backfired big time. And the pain that they suffered and the sorrow that they have lived in they lived in and that now has been transferred to us over wanting to be in control of where they ate, right?
It's just crazy. And the same thing goes for us. And by the way, let me just I'm still in my introduction. Y'all are double doomed. Let me just tell you something. Control is not all bad. Let me just start with this. We're we are counseledled to control our tongues. We are we're counseledled to control many things about our life.
We are told to control where we focus our eyes and our gaze. We are told to control what goes into our ear gate, comes out our mouth gate, goes in our eye gate. Are you with me? The these are told to us and we are commanded to control those things.
The problem is we choose not to control those things, right? But to try to control the president and the government.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 14:03
By the way, ain't no facebook post helped make anything any changes in government. That's right. You kidding me? Are you serious? You know how many people are tormented over what's happening in Twitter and Facebook and out there in social media and the news and all they do with their whole life is talk about how everyone else should be doing something different because I if I could control them this, you know, the world and the government would be better. I'm pretty sure I've seen how you run your house. It won't.
Are you with me today? And I'm not just talking to you. I'm talking to me. I have a hard time running my house. I have a hard time getting my kids in line. Can Am I preaching to the choir in here? Well, you want to control the government? Let's just Let's just back off that. That's too personal. I want to control my wife.
Actually, don't. That's scary. That's just scary even saying out loud. She ain't even in here. And now it scared me. She ain't even here. She's going to hear about it. You somebody someone's going to go to her and be like, "Sean said he wants to control you." No, that's not exactly what I'm saying. I'm just saying be careful little mouth what you say, right?
You if you love a brother, right? I don't want to control Brooke. Sometimes I do. Are you with me today? Wives want to control their husbands. I tell you what, listen to me. It's a full-time job to control you. And God gives you authority to do that. Anxiety comes from a misappropriation of control. You want to tr want to control your boss.
Want to control another pastor at another church. You want to control. Just want to control stuff. Just want to be in control. Just want to tell people how to live their life. Listen. Listen. Control is not bad. Misappropriation of it is. And let me tell you something. Sometimes we try to control what God did not give us authority to control.
And anxiety springs up in areas where misappropriation of control is happening.
Track it back. You ever feel yourself getting anxious? Ask yourself the question, what am I trying to control?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 16:46
What do I want to be in control of here? And then consider what you should be controlling. The command is stop being anxious. Don't do it. And then he gives you a remedy of how to do that. And there is a tyrant and the tyrant is control.
It rules the hearts of people today. The tyrant is not government. It's not an army. It's not an enemy outside of us. The tyrant is right here.
That's the tyrant. The human heart longs to govern its own life. We want to secure our future. You can't control that. Protect oursel from suffering and guarantee our survival. You can't be. You're not in control of all of that. We want to know that tomorrow will unfold according to the plans that we've made. I guarantee you're not going to control that. Well, I got plans.
Well, but God loves me and he cares about my plans. He has better plans. And he cares for you more than you even know that you care for yourself. He cares for you. He sees things you don't see. He knows things you don't know. He has plans for you that you still have not that have not been revealed to you.
And just listen to me. Sometimes pain is your best teacher. Spare the rod. Spool the child. If you're his child, you fill it in. I don't want somebody Facebooking and hashtagging about this sermon. Like, I'm just saying like, he has no problem disciplining his children.
He has no problem doing it because if he has a plan for you that's better for you than what you're currently in, discipline is a part of that plan to get
You to the destination. Sometimes a encouraging word does not inspire you to change.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 19:15
Sometimes it has to hurt and you do what you want with that. That either for you comes directly from the hand of God or he allows things to happen in your life where it pushes you from pain into obedience. You determine however God handles that theologically for yourself. I have an opinion, but you determine that. At the end of the day, God is moving you.
He has a plan for you. But the moment that we try to seize control, we discover something troubling. We cannot carry it. The weight of it.
And the result is anxiety. We get anxious because things are falling apart. Because it's in the hands of the wrong person. Just in the hands of the wrong person.
Worry is the restless cry of a heart that is trying to hold together a world it was never designed to govern.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:21
This is exactly what the Lord confronts in Matthew 6. In the middle of the sermon on the mount, Jesus exposes the oppressive rule of this tyrant and calls his disciples to freedom.
The tyrant of control produces anxiety. Fear and exhaustion. In a society where we talk about fear, anxiety, and burnout more than any other generation in the history of the world, this Scripture nestles itself in our culture and calls us to a new way of living.
Point 1Control makes us believe life depends on us
Anxiety is the burden produced by the tyrant of control. Number one, the tyrant, the tyranny of control makes us believe life depends on us. And life does not depend on you. It just does not. Jesus begins with this command. Do not be anxious about your life. That command collides directly with the spirit of this age because we are living in the most controlobsessed culture in history.
Let me tell you why. Let me tell you why. Because we live in the largest information age in history. Listen,
Information breeds opinions and opinions give the illusion of control.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 22:06
Let me tell you this too. Let me tell you this too. This information age we live in has allowed us to peer into the issues around the world.
Some of you should do the hard work of disconnecting from information. Hey, listen to me. I'm just trying to help you here. Well, I got to know. I got to know. I got to know. I got to know what's going on. I have to know. To be relevant, I have to know. That's That's another one from the pastors. To be relevant, I have to know. And I've seen some miserable pastors.
I'm like, do you though? Do you need to know what you need to know is this that's what you need to know. See this saves not what happen not what is happening in our age that doesn't save the connection of what's happening in our age versus what's happening in the word alone saves. Okay. And people have the ability to connect the word to their life. You preach the word. You be faithful to preach the word, right? Pastors are just too connected, too locked in.
We can't even pastor our local congregation because we're too busy trying to pastor the earth online.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 23:32
We're unfaithful with the men. I'm talking about pastors, just to get off your back for a second. Listen, pastors are unfaithful with men and women in their congregation because they're trying to pastor the earth, the whole globe. And so their sheep are forsaken for the sake of the globe. I need a I need a I'm not against blog posts. I'm not against websites. I'm not against preaching to people. But why are we trying to win people we've never seen, talk to people we've never seen, and love people we've never seen?
They're not in our sphere. And information has given us a sense, this sense of idea that we can control the lives of others without ever rubbing our shoulder with the lives of others. It's amazing because we have husband, let me bring us down to the house. We have h I'll pick on men. I'll pick on men. Men can handle it, right?
Men forsaking their wives in the house because they want to be tapped into what's going on around the earth.
Scrolling when they could be communing, checking their likes rather than loving their wives and vice versa. Women. If in globally on the earth we're spending four and a half hours on our phone, that means that we're we're committing oursel to neglect for 4 and a half hours our children and our spouse. I just don't have time. I just don't have time this weekend to go on a date with you.
Have time. Matter of fact, I need to add it up. I'm not real good at ma. I don't math so well. So, just hold on just a second. Let me see how much time you got. I'll I'll tell you exactly how much time you got. Listen here. 4.5 * 7 a week. You have 31 hours and 31 and a2 hours. You can't spend an hour with your wife over dinner.
You Sorry, men are really quiet. You have 31 and a half hours. Women, you can't you can't find an hour to spend with the person you committed to do your life with one time a week. Listen, marriages, I just want to control the government and Trump, but you can't even control your own house. You can't even be committed to the one you made covenant with before the eyes of God.
You can't prioritize them over your phone, but you want to control everyone else.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 26:46
Well, my marriage is really stressful right now, Sean. I have so much anxiety over my marriage. It's just constant tension and constant trouble and whatever.
You can control what you do with your scrolling and reignite passion in your marriage again. You can control what you do. You want to fix. Let me tell you, often times we want to fix a problem that we caused and we're the author of because of neglect.
Track with me here. You can't sit in some vacuumous space and just hope that God will fix it when you continue to wreck it with the choices you make. Well, I just want to change the choices of everyone else. Like the way that I'm going to come out of this pit in my marriage is I'm going to pray that God fixes my wife.
Love her. Love your wife. Yeah, that's that's funny. That is funny because you can't control her. You can't control God to control her. See,
You think your prayers are going to control God to control her to fix your marriage.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 28:18
It don't work that way. Love your wife like Christ loved the church. Pretty sure if Jesus had a cell phone, he would not love it more than his wife if he got married. You feeling what I'm saying? It was a bad example. Really bad example. I'm just saying because neither was he married or did he have a cell phone. But you feeling what I'm saying, right?
Well, it's a tyrant. The tyrant of control. It's not just control is the problem. Misappropriation of it is the problem. I want to control everything else including God with my prayers. It's manipulation station. My prayers basically is pulling the train into manipulation station. That's what that's the extent of my prayers.
Manipulation station. God do this. God do that. God, would you move here? God, would you do that? He sees you and he already knows.
But we want to control and it shapes our prayers. Listen to your prayers because sometimes you're anxious because your prayers produce that because your prayers in of themselves is a manipulation station. It is an it is an avenue of trying to control God to do what you want and you wonder why you're so anxious in your relationship with God. Track with me here.
Jesus is trying to unhitch us from this. You're drowning in fear. Fear. Why? Because control is a tyrant. Listen,
Control promises peace if you can just manage your life enough.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 30:03
No, that doesn't happen, man. It doesn't happen. That's hilarious. How many of you have ever thought I got it figured out and then all hell breaks loose because there ain't no way you can't you can't get all the pieces together.
And the command in Scripture through the entirety of it is discover peace in the midst of trouble. The whole thing is a big book of trouble. This thing is a big book of trouble. Yet there are men and women who are believers in God, who are believers in Christ, who in the midst of their greatest pain and made us trouble and greatest turmoil, live peaceful and joyful lives.
It's possible. We've seen it. We've seen it all through Scripture. It's there. It's possible.
Promises peace if you can manage your life enough. And I'm just telling you can't. I just I can't like I if you have little kids, you just really know. You know, this is not possible. How many of you have ever cleaned your house with little toddlers? I remember this vividly. I There's a lot I have forgotten, but this I remember vividly. I would clean up two like a living room and walk down the hall and clean a bedroom. And by the time I came out of the bedroom, the hallway was a mess and the living room like an a- bomb went off in there.
And then I go back in the living room and then I come back to the bedroom to get to the next bedroom and that bedroom like an a- bomb went off in there.
And I'm not saying you should just live like a hoarder and let your kids take over, but I am saying you're there's just good luck controlling things.
You can't you can't. So Jesus interrupts this lie and he basically says,"Do not be anxious about your life." Notice what he says. "Your life, not the trappings in it." The focus goes down to your life.
He prioritizes what's important. Track with me here. Don't you can't control your life.
Jesus goes straight to the deepest issue because that's what he does. He goes to the root of the issues and he says you can't control your life, not your circumstances, your life itself. Stop trying to control your life itself. Then he says something that's completely dismantles our illusion. It is not track with me and you guys might have missed this, but this is really important. This can't be lost on you. He jumps from that and then he says, "is not life more than food?" He's prioritizing something. He's prioritizing value here. He's placing value on that which he controls.
How many of you know that you can work a job, you can pay for food at Price Chopper, you can eat the food, you can cook the food, and you can clean up the food. And you can throw away the leftover food, and you can be in control of that.
But here you see Jesus prioritizing that which is most important and that which he is in control of. And he says at the end of the day do when you begin to try to control that which he is in control of. That's where anxiety erupts.
Track with me. Is not life more than food and body more than clothing? In other words,
You're worried about sustaining a life you never created.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:56
How are you going to sustain something you never made? You did not design your lungs. You did not design your brain. You did not design when you would be born. You woke up in this morning breathing because God allowed it. You. Your heart is beating right now in this room in your chest because God is sustaining it. And yet we live as if the whole thing depends on us. No wonder you're anxious.
Point 2Control promises power it cannot give
Number two, the tyranny of control promises power it cannot give. Now, let me stop for a second.
A lot of people in here have a job. Not everybody. Maybe this will only be relevant for those who do, okay?
But for those of you who have a job, you get paid so much per hour. Your job is buying your life and they're placing value on your life by what they pay you per hour.
And you either acquies and accept that, take that and you ascribe to the value they place on that or you don't.
But every hour you go to work, they pay you for that hour. And time is important to us. Now, for those of us that are have Listen, some people ask me, Sean, I know you're really careful with your spending. So, why do you get people to mow your lawn? Because I value that time.
Track with me. And I'd rather pay somebody else to do it so I can spend that hour with my kids.
Well, but if you do it's free. It's not. Cost an hour of your life that your boss paid for.
Are you with me today? And
You need to begin to think about things this way and understand that you're ascribing value to things with every decision you make.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 36:48
Some of you say that you value time and you want more of it, but then you spend four and a half hours a day scrolling on your phone. I'm just gonna keep coming back to it because it's really fascinating to me.
On average. That means there's a lot of people that spend less than that. You're like, "That's me." You should probably look at your phone. You'd you'd amaze yourself how much you actually spend on there. And then some people spend eight to nine to balance it out to get to the average four and a half. And this is globally.
This is in third world countries. Crazy, right?
You cannot make life longer. But you can control how you spend your life here.
And so here's here's here's where anxiety ignites. God, I want you to give me a long life, a healthy life, and then you make bad choices with every hour you have today.
Anxiety comes from neglecting what you are responsible to control and being irritated that he won't give you what only he controls.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 38:20
Are you with me today? So anxiety is not just one way. It isn't just the relinquishment of control, but it's the ownership of that which you do control.
First of all, Jesus is trying to God Jesus is trying to help you understand you're trying to control stuff you were never made to control. Why don't you just focus on what you can?
You cannot guarantee that your heart will beat tomorrow morning. We live in a culture that believes it can conquer everything. We believe we can conquer disease. We believe we can conquer aging. I have a guy there's one guy online on Instagram in my four and a half hours scrolling a day that he spends 1 million $1.2 million a year trying to defeat death.
$1.2 million dollars a year. And he's like I think he's like 58 or 60 and then he has a metabolic age of 30.
But even he is not guaranteed a 30 extra years because his heart can stop like that.
His whole life is centered around trying to extend that which he never created. And honestly, our fixation on controlling what only God controls causes us to be unfaithful what with what we can control.
It's a problem. But all it takes is one phone call to remind you how fragile life really is. One diagnosis, one accident, one moment you never saw coming. And suddenly all the systems, all the plans, all the careful control reveal their limits. And Jesus is forcing us to see something.
The tyranny of control demands that you secure your life, but then gives you no power to do it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 40:28
Tells you to hold everything together, but your hands are not strong enough. And then comes the diagnosis. And then the Scripture says in Matthew here, "Oh ye of little faith." Now that faith I had a I was able to get in a conversation with Alicia this week. It was really interesting. And you know we have this faith when it talks about this is not a saving faith.
Just real to make this real simple. This is a trusting faith.
And that's very important because some of you have little trust in God because you because some of you don't know him.
You know of him. Track with me. I've been around Kirk for a little while now. Kirk's my since Brook's not in here, I'll pick on Kirk. That's he's my new guy, right? I've been around Kirk for a little while here. I know of Kirk. I might like to think I know Kirk, but I don't know Kirk like Samantha knows Kirk. Are you with me today? I know of him.
I know what he does for a living. I know that when he goes to one arm wrestling practice, it breaks him and he has a real hard time functioning in his job afterwards because his tendons hurt so bad. There are things I know. Sorry. There are things I know about him. I know that he goes to breakfast with his dad on Saturdays at nine o'clockish somewhere around there because I would run into him once I finally woke up.
They had already been there for a couple hours so you can kind of know when I wake up on Saturdays. I'm getting my much needed I would say beauty sleep but making sure I don't become any uglier sleep. Right. That's I know of kirk. And some of us in the church, we know of Jesus, but we don't know Jesus.
We know of God, but we don't know God. And it makes you a little anxious when you learn that he's in control because you don't know he's a good father who longs to do good things for his kids. That's important. It's important because
If we truly believe that our father governs our lives, we might stop trying to rule what was never ours to rule.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 43:10
And this is why control is such a cruel tyrant. It promises power. It doesn't give you any. But in the end, it only produces exhaustion. Because you were never meant to carry the weight of the future. Let tomorrow worry about itself.
Some of us are freaking out because we're worried about tomorrow.
Point 3Freedom comes when the tyranny of control is overthrown
Only God can carry that weight. Number three, and the final one, freedom comes when the tyranny of control is overthrown. And then he gives us tools on how to do that.
There's two things that he wants you to see, okay? He brings us to the there's a turning point in this passage. After exposing the lies of control, he shows us the only way to be free from control's tyranny. He says, "for the Gentiles seek after all these things." What things? Earthly things. In other words, this is how the world lives. The world runs after security.
More money, more stability, more guarantees, a better future. The world believes that peace comes when you finally gain enough control over life. But Jesus says that it is the mindset of people who do not know the father. That this is the mindset of people who do not know God.
When you do not know God, you must try to control everything because you failed to understand he's in control.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 44:50
You must secure your own future, provide your own safety. You must hold your life together with your own strength. Well, sean, I should worry about tomorrow. No, you shouldn't. Well, that's responsible. No, it's not. Well, it's godly. He says you don't know him.
If you worry about that, look at the birds of the air. They don't toil and store for tomorrow. See how I care for them? Do what you want with that.
Jesus reminds the disciples something the world does not understand. Your heavenly father knows that you need them all. This sentence dismantles the entire system of anxious control. Your Father knows before the need arises. He knows before the worry enters your mind. He knows before tomorrow ever arrives. He knows. Your father knows. And then Jesus gives the command. And this is it, guys. This is it. Here's the remedy.
You've been waiting this whole time. How do we kill this tyrant? How do we How do we drop bombs on him? How do we get it? How do we eliminate him? How do we get rid of this? Jesus gives the command that breaks the power of this tyrant. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and God's got the rest.
Well, I'd have to trust him for that. That's the point. I have to trust him with the rest. I don't know if I can trust him. I know that's why you're anxious.
This is the great reordering of the human heart. Instead of living to control life, you live to pursue the king.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 46:50
Come on now. Come on, guys. Instead of obsessing over provision, you pursue righteousness. Instead of spending your life trying to secure tomorrow, you live for the reign of God today.
And Jesus makes a promise. All these things will be added to you. And notice the shift. Provision belongs to God. Pursuit belongs to us. Anxiousness comes when you get those reordered or improperly ordered. Provision belongs to God. Pursuit belongs to us. Your responsibility is not to control the future. Your responsibility is to seek the kingdom. And when God's kingdom becomes the priority of your life, the burden of control is lifted from your shoulders.
This is where the freedom you want springs from.
Freedom does not come when you finally control everything and get everything lined out. Freedom comes when you stop trying to.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 48:01
Freedom comes from the tyranny of control is overthrown and God takes his rightful place as king over your life. And the beautiful truth is this. The king who asked you to trust him is the same king who gave his life to redeem you.
The one who calls you to surrender control is the one whose hands was pierced for your salvation. You can trust the king like that. You can trust them.
Really, man? Are you trying to tell me that the way we fix our anxiety is by seeking first the kingdom of God?
No. That's what the Bible says. So if I seek first the kingdom of God, that's what the Bible says.
Okay, Sean, but it's God plus, right? God plus this, right? That's not what the Bible says. So you decide who and what you trust.
You trust man. You trust you. You trust the science. You trust God. What do you trust?
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