June 10, 2009
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Condensed from John MacArthur
Anxiety-Free Living, Part 1
Luke 12:22-25
Code: 42-172The Lord Jesus in Scripture at least twelve times is recorded to have said, "Don't worry...Don't be anxious," and He explained why on the occasions in which He said that. A number of times He said, "Don't be afraid," and explained why. Anxiety-Free living is part of what the Lord offers. It's part of the gospel message. It is what we have who are in the Kingdom if we want to take it.
This the most indulged, the most lavished, comfortable society ever, but it seems to be the most angst-ridden, anxious, stressed out, panicked culture ever. We have a massive medical world that exists to do nothing but help people with stress. People live with anxiety, worry and stress. It's so common that we don't even talk about eliminating it. The term is "to manage it." Jesus comes along and says, "I'm not going to teach you how to manage your stress, I'll eliminate it."
There are only two realms in which you can worry, the physical world or the spiritual world. You can worry about what is immaterial, or what is material. You can worry about what is earthly and what is heavenly. And so that is precisely what Jesus says you don't need to worry about. In verse 22 He says, "Don't be anxious for your life," and by that He means what you eat, and your body, what you wear. Stop worrying about that, the basics of life. And then down in verse 32, "Don't be afraid on the spiritual level for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the Kingdom." You're left with nothing to worry about, nothing to be anxious about, nothing to be stressed about, nothing to panic over. If you do worry as a Christian, worry is a sin that rises from a failure to understand God, His sovereign love, care and sovereign resources. So that's what Jesus unfolds here. Jesus does offer anxiety-free living. When you come into His Kingdom, God takes care of you and your worries really are ended so that what defines your life, worrying about everything, is eliminated.
First, worry is a failure to understand divine priority. "And He said to His disciples, 'For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life as to what you shall drink, nor for your body as to what you shall put on, for life is more than food and the body than clothing.'"
First of all, He said to His disciples, remember now, He's talking to the disciples which would include the Apostles, as we note in verse 31 when Peter says, "Are You addressing this parable to us or everyone else as well?" I mean, the Apostles were learners, but not just the Apostles, there were others who had believed in Him and there were other learners which is the word disciple, mathetes who were still trying to decide, He's talking to those who have decided or are trying to decide and He's explaining to them what life in the Kingdom is. The crowd is in the tens of thousands and mingled in that crowd are those who are still open to His teaching while the majority of the crowd are hostile toward Him. But to those who are still interested, He defines the Kingdom.
And He says to His disciples, picking up after the interruption...you remember in verse 13 a man interrupted Him by telling Him He ought to say to His brother, "Give me my share of the inheritance," and Jesus gave the wonderful parable of the rich man who built bigger barns to keep everything for himself and the Lord said, "Tonight, your life will be required of you," and then Jesus said, you know, "You should lay up treasure in heaven, you should be rich toward God and not selfish," and that's how that story ended in verse 21. And after answering that young man's plea with that parable, He resumes His teaching but He connects the two together, as verse 22 says. "For this reason I say to you...." You make a choice in life as to whether you lay up treasure for yourself or are rich toward God, which is just another way to say lay up treasure in heaven, and that's how He said it in Matthew 6:19-21. Either you are selfish and materialistic and keep everything, or you lay up treasure in heaven. That's the choice you have to make. In Matthew 6:24 Jesus said you can't serve two masters, you'll love one and hate the other, you'll hold to one and despise the other, you can't serve God and money.
The picture of slavery made that pretty clear. Being a slave was not like being an employee, you didn't go to work at 8 and finish at 5. You can do that in our society and then you can go to work somewhere else at 7 and finish at 2 in the morning. You can serve two masters in our culture, you can have two jobs. But you couldn't in a slave environment because you were owned by the master and there was no way a slave could serve two masters, impossible. He would hate someone else giving him orders than the one that he belonged to, he would despise an effort on the part of someone who didn't own him and support him and feed him commanding him to do things. It was impossible. And so in the spiritual realm, you either serve God or money, you're either rich toward God, or you indulge yourself and that's the point He makes. Now He says, "For this reason I have something to say to you." That's the transition because here's what they would be thinking. The question would come to their minds, they're sitting there thinking, "Well, Jesus is saying we ought to be rich toward God and not save money and build bigger barns and store up money and make ourselves wealthy and all of that, and ignore the poor, and ignore the needy and ignore the purposes of God. But if we give it all to God, what about us? What's going to happen to us? Who's going to take care of us? I mean, we live in a dog-eat-dog world, right? Who's going to take care of us if we don't care of ourselves? If I don't build bigger barns? If I don't take care of myself? If I don't stockpile? Who is going to take care of me? I don't want to depend on somebody else. I don't want to depend on somebody's perhaps transient compassion.
The answer that the Lord gives here is that God's going to take care of you. God is the one who feeds the birds. God is the one who will raise the grass in the field. God is the one who knows what you need. God is the one who will give you the Kingdom. You just came under the care of God. First Peter 5:7, "Casting all your care on Him, He cares for you." So if He asks you to give up everything like He did the rich young ruler, sell everything you have, give your money to the poor...."Not on your life," he said. He turned around and walked away for he was very rich. He wanted his money and he didn't want to give it away and depend on God. But on the other hand, Jesus said if you want to come after Me, Luke 9:23, you have to deny yourself. You have to lose your life. Or in the words of Matthew 13:44-46, you sell all to buy the pearl, you sell all to buy the treasure in the field, you abandon everything. Or in chapter 9 verses 57 and following of Luke's gospel, Jesus said, "Follow Me," and the man said, "I'll follow You wherever You go." Jesus said, "The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. If you follow Me it may cost you everything." It cost the Apostles everything. They dropped their nets, dropped everything and followed Him. He said to another, "Follow Me." He said, "I want to go bury my father." His father wasn't dead, he wanted to go home and get his inheritance. He wanted to follow but not until he had all the money he needed. And He said to another, "Follow Me." And he said, "I want to go home and say goodbye, I want to collect some money from my relatives." And He said, "If you put your hand to the plow and look back, you're not fit for My Kingdom."
What Jesus is saying is, how much do you want to be in this Kingdom? If you're still holding on to money, then according to the parable of the soils, what will happen is the seed will go in, and there will be a little bit of a reaction and response, but the love of riches, the deceitfulness of riches will choke out that seed, choke out that life. Salvation is for people that are desperate enough to say, "Look, I don't care what it costs me, if You want everything I have, I'll give it. Whatever it is, I'll give it." And even if You don't ask, like Zacchaeus in chapter 19, the Lord gives the gospel to Zacchaeus and Zacchaeus says, "I'm going to pay back everybody I ever extorted anything from in multiples." It just came out of his heart. If you respond to the truth and you come into the Kingdom, then you become His to care for. And in the words of the Apostle Paul, he said this, chapter 4 of Philippians, verse 11, "I learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means. I also know how to live in prosperity. In any and every circumstance I've learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, of having abundance and suffering." What's the secret? Trusting God. Sometimes you have a lot, sometimes you have a little, but you always have enough.
Why? Verse 19, "My God shall supply all your needs." Do you trust God to that point? You come into His Kingdom and you can trust Him to meet your needs. Now this is an issue of divine priority. Let's go back to the text and I'll show you how this works. "Do not be anxious for your life." Now what do you mean by "life?" Your physical life, He explains it, meaning what you eat. Don't be anxious about your body, what you're going to wear.
This deeply concerned people in Jesus' day. I mean, they basically lived to survive. There were no fast-food places, no stores to go buy the endless elements of clothing that are available to us. If you wanted to eat, you had to grind it out yourself and cook it yourself and do all the preparation. And if you wanted clothing you went somewhere and you bought thread and you made it on a loom and you made the fabric or you bought the fabric and you made the garment and if you were poor you had a real struggle for your food and struggle for your clothing. 1 Timothy 6:8 says, "With food and covering be content." And that was what life was about. It was about getting enough meals each day to survive and the clothes you needed to stay warm and to be protected from the blazing heat of the middle eastern sun. But He says, "Look, don't worry about your life, don't worry about what you're going to eat to support your life. Don't worry about your body, what you're going to put on." Verse 23, "For life is more than food and the body than clothing."
Here's another way to say that. You exist for a higher reason. Life is more than food and you have a body for more reasons than just clothing. You're not an eating machine and a mannequin. You know, it's hard to convince our culture of that. Food and fashion... OD'ed on restaurants and clothes. But without God, you are an eating machine and a mannequin. But God didn't give His people life for that reason. I'm not here just to exist. It's in God that I live and move and have my being. But God has a purpose for my life. I'm under divine priority. For those who are in the Kingdom, if God gave you life, and He did, if He wants you to live, and He does if you're alive, if He brought you into His Kingdom, and He has, then He has a purpose for you to fulfill in His Kingdom to His glory and so He will sustain you to that fulfillment.
I mean, it wouldn't make any sense for God to say, "I will save you and I will give you eternal life, I'll give you spiritual life, and I have a purpose for your life and a destiny and a plan and a purpose and I gifted you and I've called you, and I've laid out circumstances and, man, if you can just keep yourself alive to fill this deal out, this will be really good." No. In all honesty, the people who are not in God's family come and go and live and die with no contribution to the divine Kingdom. But those of us who are His are fulfilling divine purpose and that's why you can say with the Psalmist, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me through the valley of the shadow of death and out the other side. The earth is the Lord and all that is in it, the Psalmist says.
So if God gave you life, and He did, if God redeemed you and He did, if God has a purpose for your life and He does, then He will provide what you need to survive. So be rich toward God and you will have the promise that as you're rich toward God, He'll be lavishly rich toward you. As long as He has that unfolding plan in your life, He will sustain it. We have a life, we have a body for the purposes of God to live to His glory, to fulfill His will, to fulfill His plan and as long as that plan is operating, He will sustain us. You don't have to build bigger barns to take care of yourself, to protect yourself. Be wise, be faithful, don't be foolish, be a good steward, do some planning for the future, but you're not the one who has obligated himself to your care, God has. No need to horde so that you can survive in the future, you will be sustained by the Creator until His purpose for your life ends, He'll feed you till the very end. You can divest yourself of everything, everything you have, that wouldn't change God's commitment to sustain you until it's your time to enter into His heaven. So you have to understand the priority, right? And the priority is spiritual purpose. If you understand God's gifted you, He's called you, He's regenerated you, He's put you into His family, He's put you into a place of witness and ministry and service, and all He wants you to do is live to His glory...and He will take care of your life. Your life is not about food. Your life is not about clothing. It's not about making sure you can survive. That's God's commitment, that's the priority. And if you understand the divine priority, that is that you live and exist for the purpose of God, and God will sustain your life until that purpose is fulfilled, then you don't have to worry about it.
Secondly, worry fails to understand divine provision. "Consider the ravens...or crows...for they neither sow nor reap and they have no storeroom nor barn and yet God feeds them. How much more valuable you are than the birds?" He picks birds because they're fragile, but they are a great illustration of divine provision. Do you know that every crow that's ever lived, every raven that's ever lived God wanted to live? For however long God wanted that bird to live, He provided its food. And if God feeds birds that only in a very modest way, in a very limited way give Him glory, as any of His creation does, don't you think He's going to take care of making sure you can eat who have the highest and noblest capacity to give Him glory? Jesus probably said, you know, "Look at them, they don't sow and reap, you do. You're out here slaving away, plowing, putting the seed in, watering the seed, coming long to the back-breaking work of harvest, they don't do that and they don't have a storeroom and they don't have a barn. They're incapable of generating their own food supply. They are totally dependent on God. What is provided them by the Creator is all they have. They don't have the ingenuity or the capability, they only have the capability and the instinct to pick up what's been provided for them."
It's not to say because God provides for us we don't work. He's provided the resources for us, He's provided the capability for us to work and to gain those things and if we're in a situation where even at our best efforts we can't provide enough, God will find a way to take care of us to sustain us, right? They work and we work, but it's God who providentially provides. Job 38:41 says, "Who prepares for the raven its nourishment when its young cry to God and wander about without food? The Almighty does." (Psalm 104:25-27, Psalm 145:15, Psalm 147:9) God feeds the animals, and God has a purpose for their existence. There is a manifest honor and glory that comes to Him. There is a delight that comes to Him. The same provision that He makes for them that He makes for us. "How much more valuable you are than the birds?" If He sees to it that the birds have food, don't you think He'll see to it that you do? You don't need to spend your life worrying about whether you're going to have enough, whether you're going to have enough now, whether you're going to have enough when you retire, whether you're going to have enough in the future. Your God promises to sustain you to the end of His purpose.
These are powerful arguments in these first two points. Life is from God. He gives it. He sustains it. He makes provision for it. In Haggai 1:5, the Lord says, "Consider your ways, consider your ways, you have sown much but harvest little, you eat but there's not enough to be satisfied, you drink but there's not enough to become drunk, you put on clothing but no one is warm enough, and he who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes." That doesn't sound like provision. It's not. "Thus says the Lord of host, Consider your ways, take a look at yourself and ask why is it like this? Why do you not have enough food? Why do you not have enough drink? Why are you not able to have the clothes to keep yourself warm? Why is it that when you earn wages they disappear? Verse 8, He says, "Go to the mountains, bring some wood and rebuild the temple." There's the answer. They had forgotten whom? God. "That I may be pleased with it and glorified," says the Lord. "You look for much, you hold it comes to little. And when you bring it home, I blow it away."
Why do I do that? Because of My house which lies desolate while each of you runs to his own house. You're not taking care of My house, but you all take care of your house. Back in verse 4 He says, "Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate?" In verse 10 He says, "Because of you the sky has withheld its due and the earth has withheld its produce. I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on what the ground produces, on men, on cattle, and all the labor of your hands." God made it all go bad.
If He gave you life, He will sustain that life and He will provide all you need if you continue to honor Him, right? The Lord's providence in the food supply is staggering. The variety is just beyond belief, abundant, boundless, self-perpetuating renewable food supply. There's more than enough potential for this planet to provide food for the whole world. You say, "What about famine?" Famine has nothing to do with the capability of this planet to produce. It has to do with false religion, such as in India where they feed grain to rats and cows. It has to do with war and social politics in Africa. It has to do with communism where they tell people not to work as a way to protest against the people who rule over them and consequently they turn verdant fields into dust bowls. It has to do with laziness. It doesn't have to do with potential. The earth is still filled with food. God has created a boundless, boundless supply and He provides it for His faithful people. That's why David said, "I've never seen the Lord's people begging bread." If you belong to Him, He takes care of you until His work for you is finished.
Anxiety-Free Living, Part 2
Luke 12:25-31
Code: 42-173Third point, worry is a failure to understand divine privilege. "Which of you by being anxious can add a single cubit to his life span?" He's saying, "Do you think by worrying you're going to add to your life span?" This is a matter of divine privilege. You do not have the privilege to determine your life span, God does. Worry isn't going to lengthen your life because the one who has the privilege to determine when you are born and when you die is the sovereign God. You can't add to the years of your life that God has determined for you. It's not wrong to be disciplined, it's not wrong to be moderate, it's not wrong to avoid the sin of gluttony, it's not wrong to be wise, it's wrong to be foolish about what you eat, you want to take care of yourself.
You need to be reasonable in how you conduct your life and how you use the resources that God gives you and not be dissipated and gluttonous and all of that kind of stuff that steals your energy and robs you of the strength that the Lord desires to use. But you're not going to do anything to add to your life. Worry, anxiety and fear affects the heart, the circulation, nervous system, the glands, everything else. We are not the determiners of the span of our lives, this is divine privilege. So you don't want to be ignorant of God's privilege. It is His privilege to determine where we're born, to whom we're born, when we're born and how long we're here. God has given us life. He will sustain that life until our service is done. Worry makes no contribution. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. If we live obediently to His Word, He will sustain our life to the end. You can't lengthen it beyond the purposes of God.
So verse 26 says, "If you cannot do even a very little thing, like add a unit to your life, why are you worrying about what you're going to eat and what you're going to wear?" This is a failure to understand God's priority and that is that your life matters spiritually, and achieve a spiritual end. God's provision that He will sustain that life to fulfill that end. And God's privilege, it is God's to determine when we live and when we die and how we fit into the redemptive scheme for the advancement of His glory and His Kingdom.
Number four, worry is a failure to understand divine preference. You can look at the world of God's creation and you will see a massive gap between everything He created and man created in His image, and we bear the divine preference. Look at verse 27, here's an illustration. "Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil or spin, but I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory didn't clothe himself like one of these. If God so arrays the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you, O men of little faith?"
Our Lord turns from the issue of food to the issue of clothing here. In a physical world, those are the two things people are concerned about. They're concerned about nourishing their body and protecting it. Look at how the flowers grow. They don't toil or spin. They don't labor over their clothes or their beauty. And yet if you take a petal off of a flower, even a wild flower, and you look under a microscope at its intricate texture, color, design, form...it's staggering. You can take the most beautifully manufactured garment out of wool or out of cotton or out of some synthetic and look at it under a microscope and it looks rough, and you look at a flower petal and there's a refinement there that only God can make. And so He says, "Look, they don't work to get their clothing. I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory didn't clothe himself like one of these."
If you read 1 Kings 10 and 2 Chronicles 9, you read about the lavish attire and the lavish life of Solomon. And as the best-dressed man, he had the finest garments, but even Solomon in all his glory didn't wear things like the petals of a flower. They live and they die. They serve no spiritual purpose other than to give this little brief testimony to a God of beauty and a God of order and a God of design and a God of infinite variety. And the point is this, if God, verse 28, so arrays the grass in the field which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you, O men of little faith? Do you understand God's preference?
It talks about throwing the grass into the fire, there's a very good reason for that. People cooked everything in those days, of course, the staple was bread. But they cooked everything in a clay oven. And the way they regulated the temperature of that clay oven was with dried grass. And so they would go out into the hillsides and they would collect all of the dead, dry grass, bring it together, keep it in a storage place and whenever they wanted to get the fire hotter, they put more in. He's saying, "Look, this stuff has short life and look how God clothes it." He's made a commitment to the delicate beauty of things that perish, sometimes in a day. How much more will He clothe you? This is again the typical Hebrew argument from the lesser to the greater. God prefers you, you don't really think He's going to put that kind of a garment on a flower and not cover you when He wants you to accomplish His purpose and you're His own beloved children. If He made such lavish beauty to clothe plants that die in days and have no spiritual value, how much more will He take care to clothe the crown of His creation, the Bride of His beloved Son whom He has elected and redeemed? No wonder Peter said, "Casting all your care on Him for He cares for you." And if you still live in fear, doubt and worry, then you fall into the category of the end of verse 28, "O men of little faith."
Fear, worry, anxiety is about a lack of faith. And Jesus used this a lot, Matthew 6:30, Matthew 8:26, Matthew 14:31, Matthew 16:8, even refer to it back in Luke 8 when He said to the disciples who were worrying about drowning, you know, "Where's your faith?" Do you think the God of the universe who is calling you to be His apostles and preachers is just going to let you drown? Why the panic? If you know My promise and you know My power, then it's a question of trust. If you don't trust Me, now you've got a sin problem. Do you not trust my knowledge? Do you not trust My wisdom? Do you not trust my compassion? What is it about Me you don't trust? Do you not trust My power? Do you not trust My care? Well what is it about Me you don't trust? Or maybe you think the devil is stronger than Me, there's a blasphemous thought.
He's not saying these people didn't have any faith. He called them "men of little faith." They are the ones who believe in Him. He's directing this, it says in verse 22, to His disciples, those who are true believers and those who are becoming true believers and He says it's possible for you, He says, to worry and fear and be anxious, but understand this, if that is the case, you have a problem with trusting Me.
In verse 29 He says, "Do not seek what you shall eat, what you shall drink." Don't make that the pursuit of your life, that's what He is saying. And don't keep worrying. Don't live as if there were no caring God. Don't live as if that God had no promises or no power or no knowledge of your situation. And don't keep worrying." And if you do, you don't understand God's priority, God's provision, God's privilege to determine the end of your life and God's preference, His personal preference for you over anything else He's created.
Fifth, worry is a failure to understand God's paternity. Paternity is a wonderful world from Latin pater, or father. God's fatherhood, don't you understand that God is your Father, verse 30 and 31, "For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek, but your Father knows that you need these things." God has a priority for us. He will make provision to see that priority fulfilled. He is the one who has the privilege to determine how long we live. He prefers us because He is our Father.
Here for the first time in the discourse Jesus speaks of God as Father, your Father. If you don't have God as your Father, who's your father? The devil, John 8:44. If the devil's your father, he makes no promises, provides no benefits. He's not about doing good in your life, he's about doing evil so you're on your own. The only good that does come into your life is basically common grace. It is God letting the rain fall on the just and the unjust, and it's very temporary. But no unbelieving person can make any claim on God. The unbelieving world has no promises from God, no commitments from God, no pledges from God, no guarantees from God for anything. So, according to verse 30, eating, drinking, clothing, all these things the nations of the world strongly pursue. That describes life among the unregenerate. It's a battle for bread. It's a battle for survival. It's a dog-eat-dog world. The world lives to acquire material things, they're all about survival. Why? They're dead to God. They're dead to spiritual life. So being spiritually dead, all there is is the spiritual world, not being children of God, having a father, the devil, who provides no good thing ever, they are therefore left to themselves only to sort of reap what little they can from the common grace of God.
Being ignorant of God, being ignorant of God's provision and being unable to lay any claim on God's promise or God's power, they live to survive. Those people in spiritual darkness without the life of God may create religion and they may create a God that they hope will help them, but the deities they create are only a reflection of evil men and demons. That's why the gods of the world are wicked, devious, selfish, violent, untrustworthy, indifferent, capricious, evil and merciless. So people are left to the gods that they believe in only in the sense that they...not that they think those gods may benefit them, but they just hope those gods won't harm them. There are little benefits, you know, that they think those gods deliver, like when they get a good harvest, and they thank the moon god, or the mountain god, or whatever. But they're just really reaping common grace that God has built into the world. Their gods don't help them, because their gods are demons impersonating the gods they think they worship. They're on their own. Unbelievers feel the full weight of survival.
Verse 30 says, "Your Father," in contrast, "knows that you need these things." It's not a question of power, resources, love, compassion, sympathy or mercy, it's just a question of knowledge. We know He has the power and the resources, so the most comforting reality is that He has the knowledge. Your Father, in contrast to all the lifeless gods of the pagans, is your Father. And He acts as a father acts and a father is a provider and a protector, and your Father knows what you need. All that you need is available to you from God.
How can I be assured that I'm going to get all that my Father has for me? Verse 31, here is the key, very important principle, "But seek for His Kingdom and these things shall be added to you." Instead of worrying about your bank accounts, let the dominant enterprise of your life be the Kingdom of God, the sphere of salvation, the gospel, Christ. The focus of our life is to worship and to serve and to proclaim Christ and to live obediently to the Word of God, to pursue truth and holiness and love. Colossians chapter 3 says it in straightforward language, "If then, verse 1, you have been raised up with Christ and you have," it could be read, "Since you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above. Stop seeking the things here, seek the things above, live your life for the Kingdom and all the others will be added."
God may add a lot more than you need in many cases, You can take whatever God gives if you're seeking His Kingdom with all your heart, and then be a good steward of it. But He says, "Keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Seek Christ's honor, or Christ's exaltation, Christ's glory, seek to proclaim Christ as Lord and Savior and King and ruler, submit to His will, submit to His Word, submit to His authority." Verse 2 he says it this way, "Set your mind on the things above not on the things that are on the earth. For you have died to this life and your life is hidden with Christ in God."
Your whole life has to be directed at the Kingdom, at the sphere of salvation, the sphere where God rules as King and Lord. Everything you do is for His honor and His glory. The first seeking is to seek to enter the Kingdom. In Luke 16:16, entering the Kingdom is described as seizing the Kingdom. It says, "Everyone is forcing his way into it." That's the first thing you have to do is you have to come to the Kingdom and understand that it's difficult, it's hard because it requires repentance, self-denial, self-sacrifice, humility, meekness, mourning, hunger, thirst. Start by entering the Kingdom. Start by believing the gospel. Start by self-denial and embracing Jesus Christ and hungering after righteousness and turning from sin. Start that way, enter the Kingdom. Once you've come in, seek only those things that exalt Christ and honor Christ. Give your life for salvation, for righteousness, for obedience, for truth, for service, for worship, for witness. Back to that parable, the duet of parables in Matthew 13, sell all to buy the pearl, sell all to buy the treasure hidden in the field. It's self-abandonment, give yourself away to the Kingdom. Live only to honor Christ, only to exalt Christ, to advance His name, advance His gospel. Be devoted to what is eternal, not what is temporal. And by the way, this is not an isolated principle. I mean, Jesus says here if you do this, everything else is going to be added. And everything else means you're going to live out the full years of your life, you're going to have enough food and drink to survive and be clothed and all that if you just seek the Kingdom.
These were not new ideas to the Jewish listeners. (Psalm 34, Psalm 37, Isaiah 33) This is an old principle. Same promise, God takes care of those who belong to Him and are faithful to Him. Seek the Kingdom, His Kingdom and all that that means, the whole of the rule of Christ and let Him take care of everything else. And you know what? He will not supply in a meager way. You'll inherit the land. You'll have an abundance. God will give you more than enough in many cases because He knows you can be trusted to be a faithful steward of it because you are rich toward God and you seek treasure in heaven. Don't get involved in the sin of doubt, fear, worry. God's priority, God's provision, God's privilege, God's preference, God's paternity as our Father indicates that we do not need to worry. And as long as we passionately pursue the Kingdom, He promises that He will sustain us to the very end of His plan.
Worry is also a failure to understand divine pleasure. Verse 32, "Don't be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the Kingdom." It's not as if God is reluctant. This is His delight. What delights God? The same thing that delights a father, to provide for the children He loves.
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