Sermon Text: Gospel of Matthew 6:25-34
Sermon Title: "Do Not Worry"
By Rev. Joon-Sik Park

According to a recent USA WEEKEND poll, Americans are scared to death. 54 % of adults are very afraid of being in a car crash, 53% of having cancer, 50% of losing their Social Security or not having enough money for retirement, and 33% fear being a victim of violent crime. At a time when the crime rate continues to drop, advances in medical technology are announced daily, and even Congress is learning to balance the budget, why are people so scared? Are they choked by fears warranted?

Most worrying is voluntary; it is the fear that we manufacture. Near the end of his life, Mark Twain said, "I have had a great many fears, but most of them never happened." In fact, anxiety kills more Americans each year than most of the things feared–through high blood pressure, heart disease, and depression, just to name a few. Often fear is more harmful than the outcome we are afraid of. In spite of vanity of worrying, however, many people including Christians busy themselves worrying. Millions of people spend a half-hour in bed just worrying before going to sleep.

In the passage we read from Matthew 6, Jesus prohibits worrying. "Do not worry" is repeated three times. "Worry" is the word used of Martha who was "distracted" with much serving, and of the seed among thorns which was choked by the "cares" of life.

The preoccupation he forbids us is food, drink and clothing: "Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’" Yet they are precisely the world’s most-often-mentioned cares. We have only to glance at the advertisements on TV to find a vivid modern proof of what Jesus taught two thousand years ago.

Jesus invited those who worry to to see God’s creation: "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet He also dresses them in garments more beautiful than Solomon could secure with all his wealth. If God does all this for birds and flowers, will He not also take care of you, O you of little faith?" (vv. 26-30)

They are called to consider God’s providence for all creation. There is a poem I found very interesting:

All of nature depends on God, and God never fails. If the Creator cares for His creatures, we should be even more sure that the Father will look after His children.

Jesus is stressing that to become engrossed in and worried about material security is a false preoccupation. First, it is unproductive, except of ulcers and more worry. Worry does not bring any good to us. That's why Jesus asks, "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" There's no one who can live even a bit longer by worrying. Second, it is unnecessary, because "your Father knows what you need." Third, it is not right, because it betrays a lack of trust in the Father. We worry because we lack confidence in God's care and provision, and thus it is incompatible with Christian faith; it is distrustful of our heavenly Father; and it is what Gentiles do.

There are, however, three things that God has not promised even His children. First, we are not exempt from earning our own living. We cannot sit back in an armchair, say, "My heavenly Father will provide" and do nothing. We have to work. Secondly, believers are not exempt from responsibility for others. In this same Gospel of Matthew Jesus, who says that our heavenly Father feeds and clothes His children, later says that we must ourselves feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and will be judged accordingly. The fact that God feeds and clothes His children does not exempt us from the responsibility of being the agents through whom He does it.

Thirdly, believers are not exempt from experiencing trouble. To be free from worry does not mean to be free from trouble. A Christian’s freedom from anxiety is not due to guaranteed freedom from trouble, but to the confidence that God is our Father, and that "in everything God works for good with those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose." So then God’s children are promised freedom neither from work, nor from responsibility, nor from trouble, but only from worry.

Then how can we live our lives free from worries? First, we have set our priority right. We must decide whom we will serve, and what is the most important in our lives.

Jesus contrasts the life of trust in God with that of Gentiles who do not know God. Earlier referring to worries forbidden, he said, "For the Gentiles seek all these things." Seeking means to set one’s heart on. But to his disciples Jesus says, "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

To seek God's kingdom means desiring and working to bring the reign of God into our own lives, into our own families, into our neighbors, into the community, and into the whole world. To seek God's righteousness is always to examine whether our life is in agreement with His will, desiring to do it. It is to live a life that demonstrates obedience to the divine will.

Seek first the kingdom and righteousness of God is not intended chronologically, as though the disciples are free to pursue material goods after seeking the kingdom above all else. The disciple can have only one priority: God’s kingdom and will and their spread in the world.

When we earnestly seek God in every area of our life, God will meet all our needs. God has never promised to make us rich, but to faithfully provide and fill our needs when we trust and rely upon Him. If we basically live for ourselves, we cannot help but be worried and anxious. Only by faith in God and by seeking first his Kingdom, we will be delivered from anxiety. So is the life of the church. When our church seeks first God's kingdom and righteousness, we do not have to worry about its needs. God will provide all the needs of our church in abundance.

Second, in order to live a life free of worry, we have to live one day at a time. At the end of this passage Jesus says, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." When we try to live a month, a year, or ten years at a time, we cannot but be burdened by unnecessary yokes of life.

As Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread, not monthly or yearly, we have to trust in God for His daily provision, living one day at a time. In this life we will never be short of troubles and burdens. We have to live in the present instead of crippling the present by fear of the imagined future–that's the only way for us to be able to live our lives in peace, joy and contentment. We shouldn’t be robbed of joy of today by worries of tomorrow. Rather we have to entrust tomorrow into the hands of God.

The conclusion in v. 34 is not intended to discourage planning for the future (25:2-23) but to be reassuring: Address each day’s problems as they come, confident that your life is in the hands of a loving Father, who holds the whole world in his hands and will bring it to a worthy conclusion. We should plan for the future, but not worry about it. We need to learn to live a day at a time. What Jesus prohibits is neither thought nor planning, but anxious thought.

Jesus’ sayings represents a radical call to decide to move away from cultural values into a life of trust and obedience. The words are not given as advice to the general public on how to live, but are directed to disciples who have chosen to trust in God, and not in human security.

Yet Jesus’ use of "little faith" affirms that they have faith, but that their faith is hesitant and needs reassurance. They are told not to be anxious, that the one who calls them to this radical style of discipleship is also the Creator who lovingly provides for the whole creation and who will finally bring His children into His kingdom.

May we put our complete trust and hope only in the Lord, and seek first His kingdom and righteousness so that we will be able to live in perfect peace and freedom and joy. Amen.