Latest / Redeemer Students Podcast / Matthew 6:19-34 | Do Not Be Anxious About Your Life | September 13th, 2026

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Matthew 6:19-34 | Do Not Be Anxious About Your Life | September 13th, 2026 · Redeemer Students Podcast

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hey guys.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: So in our passage tonight, as as Jen just read, we're gonna be finishing Matthew 6.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount, and so we're kind of making headway through there.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: We have one more chapter we'll be looking at, and what we're gonna see tonight is that Jesus' heart is the same.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: That it's the same as it's been all of these chapters, all of these verses.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is he cares about your heart.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's looking inside, not on your behavior, not on what you have, not on who you are on the outside, but the inside.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's looking at your heart.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, he cares about your actions, he cares about the obedience and disobedience of what you do, but what we see, and what we'll continue to see, is that Jesus ultimately cares about your heart and your flourishing.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to flourish.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: John 1 makes it clear that Jesus was involved in your creation, right?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus had a hand in making you, and so Jesus knows what you need, right?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: He knows what's best for you.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he knows that we like to pretend, we like to perform, that we're better off.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what Jesus is getting at is that in order for you to flourish, in order for you to thrive as a follower of Jesus, as a human on earth, he's asking for your heart.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's asking that you engage everything.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're gonna continue to see.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so where I want to start as we open up our passage tonight is the same thing, and recapping where we've been is that pretending or performing will never lead to true flourishing.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Pretending or performing will never lead to the flourishing that Jesus has for you.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So with that in mind, let me pray to open us up.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for tonight and your word.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that you would speak to us, Lord, as you speak to our hearts' desires and needs to accumulate things for ourselves, to control things ourselves, leading to anxiety.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that your peace would be over us tonight and we would see you as more beautiful than when we arrived.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we pray all this in the name of Jesus.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, in many ways, this sermon, this sermon on the mount, is a template for human flourishing.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is talking about.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Here is how you thrive as a human, as a disciple, as a follower of Jesus.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not comprehensive, right?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's not giving you every single life tip you might need to know, but he's talking about ultimately, at the end of the day, here is how to flourish, how to thrive.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how to have peace with God.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that requires engaging your inner self, engaging your heart, engaging your fears, your anxieties, everything on the inside, engaging who you really are instead of just what you want to appear like on the surface and floating through life in a surface-level way.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where thriving starts.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen that from the very beginning of the Beatitudes, admitting who we are in our hearts and bringing that to Him.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, in order to help ourselves bring ourselves to Him, because it's hard, right?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think this passage is very helpful.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: It prompts us with one question.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Where does your peace come from?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're looking at tonight.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Where does your peace come from?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: This thriving, this flourishing, this peace from God, where does it come from?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And there's two ways that we are tempted, that Jesus points out, to find our own peace.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: We believe these false gospels of the world.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: The first is the false gospel of accumulation, of gathering things.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And secondly, it's the false gospel of control.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to look at these tonight with us.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start in Matthew 6, verses 19, starting in verse 19.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: He starts saying, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's important.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So this false gospel of accumulation, pretty much what that means, what he's saying is it's this false gospel that we believe and live out of that says, What I have makes me safe.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: What I have gives me peace.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And now God is not against the saving of your money or being wise or stewarding well with what you have or what your family has, but he is against placing your faith in what you have.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's against and pointing out, placing your faith in the money you have, the things you have, the materialism of your hearts, placing faith in those things to bring you worldly security, to bring you peace, to bring you status, it won't work.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Earthly possessions are not sinful, but treasuring them is.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: That is the warning that Jesus is getting at.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: He's emphasizing that though our earthly possessions, what we have, is not wrong, he's showing us that they are susceptible.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're poor substitutes for the treasures in heaven.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: These things that we think make us safe, the things that we get and we think that give us peace and control, they're not as sure and secure as we think or as we hope, right?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: He says, why?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because moth and rust, they can destroy these things.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thieves can break in and steal them.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: See, in ancient times, you weren't able to save things as often or nearly as long as we can today.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Food and belongings that you stored or that you had were vulnerable to going bad due to natural reasons, right?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like moths, rust, mold.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have things to protect against these, or by robbers because their houses didn't have security systems like ours do.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: But today we're able to store things in ways that would have been unthinkable to someone living in the ancient Middle East.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: See, one of my favorite things to collect is Blu-ray discs, and I'm really, really cool, right?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's become a bit of a problem.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I have somewhere between like 200 or 300.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're spilling out of our bookshelf.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have a picture of our bookshelf.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: I can like just feel Ellie sighing in the background.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're just they're coming out.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have quietly and secretly moved to a third shelf, right, without really, without really knowing.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's kind of a problem.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, is in my mind, this is a good investment because streaming services, they're expensive and they all have ads now, right?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so many of them.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if I want a movie and I want to watch something, like I'm just rather habits and go get it off the shelf and have the security and the peace, knowing that this thing is resting on my bookshelf instead of floating out in the streaming service world, right?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, I can I can just feel you're like, yeah, like I believe in this too, right?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Just converts of physical media is what I'm trying to make.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: But our our modern ability to accumulate, right?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: We can just get all of these things.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: If we want them, there is a way to go get them.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: We accumulate and we can preserve.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: These things last a long time.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they last much longer than they did in the ancient Middle East.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's easy to deny the fact that these things we have are temporary.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' day, the things that they had felt more temporary.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: They knew they went bad fast.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: They had things stolen.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: But for us, we can ignore that reality because we're so good at accumulating things and preserving them.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: We feel like we have more control than we really do.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: How we view the things we have, it reveals what our heart treasures.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: As he says, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes into this example of the eye being the lamp of our body.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: He says, The eye is the lamp of your body, so if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: But if your eye is bad, the whole body be full of darkness.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: The light is in you.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: How great is that darkness?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, the eye is the light in your heart.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's revealing what you do and how you treat and how you view the things that you have, how you view the world.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's revealing the heart behind it.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's revealing the treasure that your heart holds, what's sitting on the throne of your heart.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Having these things is not bad in and of themselves, but treasuring them to bring you control, to bring you peace.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: That is what Jesus is warning against.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: See, it's it's it's not that God and money or God and things in themselves are opposed to each other, but devotion to God and devotion to money, the service of money, the faith of money is opposed and cannot walk alongside the devotion of the service of the faith in material things.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: He says, No one can serve two masters.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot serve God in money.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that you can't serve God and have things, you can't serve them both.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Where does your peace come from?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because in any given moment, you you're living and you are serving a master, looking to get what you think you need.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So the gospel of God is enough for me, and the gospel of I can do it myself, they can't live together side by side.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus draws a firm line between these two ways of living and viewing the things that we have.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's love and hate, it's devotion and despising.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: They can't go hand in hand.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between owning things and stewarding what you have well and placing your faith in the things you have to accumulate control and security.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: But see, Jesus is not just making these rules up as we've seen through the Sermon on the Mount because he's this tyrannical ruler who just wants control, right?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: He's not doing this for power, but Jesus, like I said, has your flourishing and your thriving in mind.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: What Jesus wants is for you to thrive.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's warning against these things.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: As your loving creator, he knows what you need more than even you do.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: In this false gospel of material things, we think we need them for safety and security, but Jesus is saying, I know what you need more than you do.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's showing us that we spend so much of our time, so much of our energy by trying to produce, to acquire, to preserve things on our own that actually we've already been given in Christ.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Treasure in earth or treasure in heaven.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I love how he transitions here because he gets at the consequence of living this false gospel of accumulation and control.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we operate and live in the false gospel of me, of I can control my future, I can control my life, we actually are watering the seeds of anxiety that are scattered all over our hearts.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at where he goes after this.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, right, that therefore is important.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: What you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body or what you put on.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is life not more than food?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the body more than clothing?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus is connecting our experience of anxiety, a word that we're gonna talk about here shortly, to uncertainty about what's gonna happen in the future, about what we're gonna have to eat, about what we're gonna have to wear, about whether I have enough Blu-rays enough, right?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whether we have what we think we need for the security that we think we need, he's connecting that impulse to our experience of anxiety.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about anxiety for a minute.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: See, this this passage is not necessarily everything we need to know about anxiety, but he talks about it.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to look and see what he has to say.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because the reality is that many of you have a daily experience and suffering from anxiety.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Statistics prove that there are probably more of you in this room who know what anxiety feels like than there are those who don't.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I do want to walk through this carefully and thoughtfully with you, and I invite you to just engage and ponder the things that Jesus has for us.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple quick points to set the stage for this section.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: First, we should be slow to apply our modern understanding of the word anxiety onto Jesus' use of it.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just be slow to the things that come to mind when you think about anxiety might not be exactly what he has in mind here.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: It might be, but it might not be.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because, see, the Greek word used for anxiety here is merimnate, right?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Which pretty much just means worry, concern, or interest.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's sometimes used in the positive as a careful thought.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: So when he talks about anxiety, it can be translated as a worry, right?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily full-blown acute anxiety.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't necessarily have in mind a clinical diagnosis of an anxiety disorder, but something that we would say is more common that all of us to some extent, one or another, experience.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And secondly, Jesus is not giving a comprehensive teaching of anxiety, meaning that this passage, what he has to say here, it's not the only time this word's used in the Bible.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: There are plenty of other moments and other things that we could look at.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: But also this passage is not meant to override any other clinical or scientific understandings that we have of anxiety, but rather the amazing thing that we're going to see is that it comes alongside what we as a society have learned about our brains and about anxiety.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: It comes alongside of it and actually serves as a foundation for our understanding of it.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's actually what I want us to see here is that when we talk about these things, we don't have to choose between a biblical understanding of something and a secular or worldly understanding of something.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to choose between what the Bible says or what science says, because what we see is the Bible actually reinforces everything we know about anxiety.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: In some conversations with some very wise and trusted people, one of which who is a clinical therapist, I've learned to see that the way that we talk about anxiety shouldn't be clinical and general, but actually we should talk about it about what's underneath.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: When we get anxious, what is underneath and how severe is that feeling?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because what Jesus does speak into in his godly wisdom, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: He is the creator of the universe after all, is that all of our anxiety, all of our worry, with varying degrees of severity, with varying degrees of interest, is rooted in a momentary inability to be grounded in the present.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety is rooted in a momentary inability to be grounded in the present.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is getting at.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to flatten your experience to make make it a one size fits all, but underneath it's what we're gonna see as true.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: So our second false gospel that comes as a consequence or a reinforcement, even of our first one is the false gospel of control, which pretty much says the more I can manage my circumstances, the more safe I will be.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Just think about that for a second.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the ways and places in your life where you find that to be true.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: The more I can manage my circumstances, what's going on around me, what happened, what is gonna happen, the more safe I will be.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because when this false gospel of control, when we think we have it in control, when that false gospel of control is threatened by an event, by a disruption, by a loss, by a lack of control, by an unknown feeling that you can't put your finger on, when it's threatened, that's when we experience this anxiety.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: When we experience this worry that Jesus is talking to, our nervous systems, our bodies, it's not just our hearts and our minds, but it's all of us.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Our bodies go into a life or death, a flight or flight moment.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe your experience with worry and anxiety is just kind of a low hum of worry that runs kind of as a steady current in your heart.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you experience anxiety really acutely, really strongly, really intense in moments.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you just experience it as a steady, small rattling in your heart that's stirred when uncertainty sings in.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because see, when when we don't get the things that we think we need, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a false gospel.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: We don't get the things we think we need, our body is communicating to us that we're in danger.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's happening.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And anxiety, what it's doing is it's trying to protect you from this danger.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, it's a false danger.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's something you think you need, it's something you think you need to be protected from.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus has something else in mind.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because anxiety, when we're in that moment, what it does is it blinds us and makes it hard to live in and hard to see the reality of God's past, present, and future provision for our lives.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that God is with us and He is enough for us.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety disconnects us from that reality that we try to believe.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: It makes it hard to see it.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: It blurs our vision, it disconnects us from ourself, it disconnects us from the present reality of God with you in your daily life.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And in those moments, however severe, however intense, what Jesus is doing here is he is inviting you to step out of your worry and inviting you to trust in him.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, how do we do that?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: How do we do that?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this is not a comprehensive or complete understanding, but he has some really rich stuff here.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let's continue.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 6, 26.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the birds of the air.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: They neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Are you not of more value than they?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of his life?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And why are you anxious about clothing?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: What shall we drink?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: What shall we wear?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: For the Gentiles seek after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: We see that Jesus gives us a how.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: A good way to think about this, which is something I was kind of helped walk through, is we can picture a gap between the past and the future.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And our anxiety, what's happening is when we feel this moment, these two things are closing in on us, and the present becomes very, very small in our felt experience.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to look at that.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you feel anxious, it's either the past or the future or both are crushing into your present experience.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your past and you're thinking about a conversation you had, some a test you took, maybe something that happened in your life, a loss, suffering that you've experienced, and that's crushing into your present reality, making you uncertain or worrying about your presence.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or you're thinking about the future, something you have coming up, a game or tests, or even something very severe, struggling to make ends meet, struggling to think about college, all of these things.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is when the past and the future crush in on the presence and that space shrinks, we grow disconnected from the present reality of God with us.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so, how, and the goal that Jesus is getting at that we can visualize here is as that space widens and we can regulate, we're able to live in the reality of the gospel more easily.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Where the present reality is accessible to us.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're thinking clearly, we have peace, knowing that the past and the future are still there, they are still important, the past still influences what's happening, the future will still happen, but in the present we trust that it is under God's control.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, what causes that gap to shrink and that gap to widen?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: There are many things.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: We can think of a picture of a cat being stuck in a tree.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: I found it helpful for me as I thought through this.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of cliche for cats, right?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like a cat stuck in a tree, and you gotta get the firefighter out.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's very, very cliche, right?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: When I think of cats, I honestly think of a cat being stuck in a tree.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um but the reason for this, I've learned, is that cats' claws are actually made to climb up and forward.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it's much difficult once they climb a tree to then go down the tree, right?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: But they don't know that.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: So they do it.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: They climb up there and they get scared and they'll just stay there because they sense danger and they sense I'm stuck here, and they'll just stay there for days.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: For days and days.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Holding on to a branch with all their strength.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems like anything that a human can do to try to get them down, what our instincts would be like to shake the tree, to yell out at them, to call them to come down, that just makes them hold on to that branch even more tightly.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Calling at them doesn't help.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: It actually makes them worse off and more scared.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: The only way to get a cat down is to get a ladder, to climb to them calmly, to climb to them slowly, and to reach out a hand and bring them down, to help them out of their fear and do it yourself.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now there is a lot of bad advice on treating anxiety.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: There is a lot of bad advice on how to widen that gap in the present.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've heard, maybe even this verse and you've heard it and you've heard it taught, or you've read it, saying, you're not a good Christian because you don't have enough faith not to be anxious.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've heard, okay, just stop being anxious and do something about it.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Suck it up.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you look around and you see, okay, that person seems like a good Christian, but I don't see them struggling with anxiety the same ways that I do.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: What am I doing wrong?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times the common advice for anxiety is to increase control.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you're anxious about the future.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: What can you do about it now?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: What can you do to prepare?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: What can you do to control it?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: What can you do to accumulate it?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: But control is a poor substitute because what Jesus is getting at at the first part of this passage is that you actually don't have any.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Control is not going to work.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Increasing control in your life, it doesn't mean to not be responsible for anything.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: But increasing control in the past and in the future is not going to work because you don't have any true control.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than yelling at you to get down out of the tree of anxiety, Jesus, what he's doing, is patiently moving towards you and inviting you to hold on to him instead of that limb of your own control.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about how many things can you accumulate.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about how many things can you control, but it's about where do you find your peace?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Who do you trust in to provide?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in a lot of ways, anxiety and this worry that sits in our heart can be a reminder or an invitation, actually, from Jesus to look outside of yourself and what you can do about it, and to your Father in heaven who will tend and to who will provide to your heart's real and deep needs.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety and worry is often a cue that my insides, my heart, my brain is probably dealing with some form of anxiet of uncertainty, which at its core is a lack of trust in God in that moment to answer whatever my heart thinks it needs.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: But the beautiful thing here is that Jesus is not merely saying, don't do this.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Don't just be anxious.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: But he actually gives us the reason as to why we don't need to be anxious about the past, why we don't need to be anxious about the future, and he guides us into how we can do it.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: See, a common practice for treating anxiety is something called grounding techniques.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's what if you go to seek help for it, it's probably something they will give you to do.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what these grounding techniques do is they aim to pull your focus away from the racing thoughts in your mind back into the presence by grounding your mind and your body into things around you, right?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: So some of these things could be finding, you know, five things that you can see and going through all of your senses down through one, and you're grounding yourself to okay, what is actually real and around me.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if you look, that's actually exactly what Jesus is doing here.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: To call us out of our worry and anxiety about the past and especially the future, he's saying, Look around you.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the birds, look how the birds always have food.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the flowers, look how they're provided water, how they're provided sun, how they're beautiful.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And in the same way, trust that your Father in heaven will provide for you even more so.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: He will tend to your needs, he knows what you need.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, look around you and see all the other things in this world that seem to trust God, you do the same because God cares for you far more than he cares for those.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is grounding our scattered hearts and our racing hearts, not just in some good advice, or not just in, hey, you do more or control more, but he's grounding our anxiety in himself.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Oh, ye of little faith, it's not him pointing a finger down in disappointment, but he's saying, You just need to trust me.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's calling us into deeper trust in the present reality of his grace and his provision to us.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: This relief, the relief and peace from anxiety comes through surrender, not more control.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: See, the Sermon on the Mounts, if you've noticed, it's about the present availability of life in the kingdom of God on earth.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the kingdom of God is at hand.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of God is here.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he's talking about the availability of life and flourishing that's available in this kingdom.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this is an example of what it means to live in that reality, that we can be freed and relieved from the false gospel of anxiety and control and rest in the present risenness, the present presentness of Jesus in our daily lives.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the call is still an active one.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 33 he says, or Matthew 6, 33, he says, seek first the kingdom of God.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is a call not to muster up more faith in yourself, but to look outside of yourself for the for the help and relief and the peace that your heart needs.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: See, the present and available kingdom of God frees you from the unbearable weights of living your life with a white-knuckled control and fear of the future, and it also frees you from the weights of the lazy passivity that says, Okay, God's got me, I don't have to do anything.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Seek first the kingdom.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Seek and pursue it and go after it, but not in your own strength, but outside of yourself.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Seek first the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of you.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to do it yourself and living in this false gospel of accumulation or the false gospel of control, it's inviting a life of exhaustion and inviting a life of anxiety.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Our worries and our fears, they're not soothed by trying harder and earning more.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure a lot of you know that dearly.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, we can live in the words of Peter, 1 Peter 5, where he says, Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: So at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all of your anxieties on him.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because he cares for you.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Your anxiety is real, your fears are real, but you do not have to carry them and bear them alone.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Cast them on Jesus, who has promised, I will provide.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'll provide for the physical things you need, but more importantly, I will provide and soothe your hearts and give you peace where control will only lead to more and more worry.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Life in the kingdom of God and the gospel of Jesus offers a life of peace, security.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Peace and security and the firm foundation of your Father in heaven.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: So what I want to do now is as we close, I want to, I'm gonna pray for us, and then I want to read this passage over you.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to just close your eyes and think through maybe if there's a phrase that sticks out, maybe if there is a certain anxiety you're feeling, a certain fear that you're feeling, maybe if there's just a vague sense of worry, I want you to cast that on Jesus because he can handle it.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it may not go away, but the hope and prayer is that God will increase our faith in him to trust that he is present with us.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody pray for us and then read this over you.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Father, you are our provider.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: You are our God, you are the lover of our souls, the lifter of our heads.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we we have real worries and real fears.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: We have anxiety about things that we've done, things in our past that we cannot change.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we have many anxieties about the future, about what it holds for us, what it holds for our families, what it holds for our friends.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray now that you would soothe them, Lord, not just in the abstract sense, but you would soothe them by the truth that you are in control, that you are sovereign, and you are good, and you have our good and your glory in mind.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we pray this in the name of Jesus, and we listen to your words again.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is life not more than food?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is the body not more than clothing?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the birds of the air.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: They neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, they do nothing.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: And yet your heavenly father feeds them.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Are you not of more value than they?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And why are you anxious about clothing?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow's thrownest the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: For the Gentiles, those who do not know me, seek after these things.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself, sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.