Without food, we won’t last long.  If we understand that, how much more people in the days of Jesus, when crop failures and famines were real things?  Though the Roman Empire included many prominent cities, a very large number of people in those times still spent much of their lives working the earth, working to eat.  That’s still the case in several corners of the world, where, each day, people still hope to earn enough to be able to eat that day.

In the ancient world, most people didn’t have much.  Maybe some cooking pots, a few spoons and bowls.  Maybe a table.  A mat to sleep on.  Maybe the only clothing they had was what they were wearing.  Clothing took time and labor to make and was more portable than large cooking pots and tables, so clothing became a sort of wealth; clothing had great value.  Even today, people can open those walk-in closets larger than homes in some parts of this world and see their wealth—got some expensive shirts, dresses, in there.

It’s nice to have nice things, and there are days when it can feel a little hard and unfair to have just decent things.  We get that “life [is] more than food, and the body more than clothes” (6:25).  We sure can spend a lot of our lives in pursuit of clothing and food, though.  Modern American society seems to have a badly skewed perspective on both.  Jesus is telling us that God will provide what we need.  We agree and aren’t so sure.  Life is uncertain!  Things happen, and then where is God’s good provision?  We love and praise God when life goes along without more than ordinary bumps and potholes.  We’re not so sure about all this God and Jesus business when things take a bad turn; only, that’s the time when we need faith the most, feel most the need for faith.  Job, of all people, told his wife, who wasn’t exactly encouraging him, “shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10).

When Jesus asks those listening to him, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (6:27), we know the answer is No.  That doesn’t keep us from worrying.  Worriers gonna worry.  We all worry, just about different things to different degrees.  We’re concerned, afraid, that things won’t go our way, or we won’t be prepared.  God says He is on our side, that nothing can separate us from the love He has for us in Jesus Christ.  There’s plenty, though, that can dull and distract us from our love for God.  And it does, all too often.

Worrying is useless; we all worry.  Now, worry isn’t the opposite of faith, any more than doubt is the opposite of faith.  The opposite of faith is disobedience.  We never can finish the list of all the things entirely out of our hands, beyond our control.  We want to get the most out of the time we have—there’s only so much of it!  But God does not say get the most out of this life.  He says make the most of this life.  When we live to get the most out of this life, we are focused on that finicky, voracious idol Me.  When we live to make the most of this life, we are directing our hearts and our living to Thee, to God from whom all blessings flow, to whom all life returns, to whom we all shall give an account—and I’ll be giving mine, too.  And Jesus says, many times—so often that he really must mean it—don’t be afraid, only have faith.  Let God lead you more and more out of the habit of worry and, more and more, into the habit of trust.  Your fingernails will thank you.

Whether a person lives to get the most or make the most of this life, the question is how to maximize our time here.  But the question is understood and answered quite differently, depending on whether you are living to get or to make.  What we value very much influences what we pursue.  What we pursue can tell us a lot about what we actually value.

What are we really worried about when we worry?  Actual problems that truly are problems?  Some aren’t.  Potential problems?  There’s a rabbit hole if ever there was one!  Worry isn’t the same as forethought.  Forethought is one dimension of wisdom, but I don’t think anyone would call worrying wise.  Life is a continuous dance of adjustments, and we don’t get to call the tunes.  Yes, we’re always at a disadvantage.  You and I also have God with us.  God provides.  What shall we eat?  What God provides.  What shall we wear?  What God provides.  What shall we do?  What God expects of us.  How can we ever?  God shall provide the way.  It’s sort of a really irritating response, isn’t it: “God provides!”  It sounds so simplistic, so ignorant, so stupid; it doesn’t seem to satisfy at all, yet it is God’s own truth.

The main challenge that faces each of us in this life is not the one problem or another that gives rise to worry.  The main challenge each of us faces in this life is our puny faith: underfed, lacking exercise, pale, frail.  “It will always help us if we regard this world as organized not for our comfort but for our training.”[1]  It won’t do us any good to curl up and gnaw away at the bones of our woes.  God shall provide.  Have faith.  Relish the exercise—God intends to strengthen, fortify, our faith, if we’ll let Him.

But how to get faith?!  That’s what the disciples wondered, worried about.  We already know the answer: God shall provide.  It’s for us to accept what God provides.  It’s for us, together, to be in training.  Make the most of what God provides.  If you’re here today, you already know God provides; only remember, He shall supply all our need.  If He hasn’t given it, it may be that He will in His time, or it may be that He will not because it isn’t what you and I truly, deeply need, no matter whether you or I think quite differently.  We’d probably none of us say no to a million dollars, but that isn’t what we most need.

Among other things, Jesus came to change our focus.  He began by calling anyone who would listen to repent, to dedicate and apply yourself to a changed life.  Even the mere wanting to would be enough, for a start.  The change was the turn toward God.  The turn toward God must at the same time be a turn away from something else—whatever it was that was consuming our attention, concern, devotion, labor.  Let God be God, and let us be obedient.  Probably precious few of us would say that the heart of Christianity is obedience—we’d be much quicker to say it’s love: love is the heart of Christianity!  And it is.  That’s true.  And the love at the very heart of Christianity is obedient love, loving obedience, even Christ Jesus.  Obedient love brings showers of blessing.  Disobedient love just keeps making a muddy mess of things.  You and I, we’re blessed with the rain, and we have mud on our shoes.

We can become overly focused on the mud.  We also sometimes run the risk of acting as if the mud wasn’t there, or as if it didn’t really matter.  Jesus seems quite insistent, on several occasions, not the least of which is on the cross, that the mud does matter.  If it’s at the cross that he reminds us that the mud does matter, it’s at the empty tomb that he reminds us the mud isn’t all, that there is something more, something he can give us, if we would turn our eyes upon him.  That means we must make it a practice, a habit—we have to begin to force ourselves—to hand over to God our concerns, our labor, our attention, and our devotion.  Less Me, more Thee.

Jesus promises us something truly precious about that: “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (6:33).  This chapter of Matthew’s account has largely been concerned with prayer.  Prayer is many things, many blessed things.  For the point I want to share with you today, prayer is a very healthy exercise in learning to trust God, in taking it all to Jesus, and surrendering it.  Prayer is God’s way of calling us to remember before Him, remember that you and I, we don’t have the wisdom we need, we don’t have the patience we need, we don’t have the compassion we need, we don’t have the resources we need to navigate this life successfully.  God does.  Seek Him.  Less Me, more He.

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow [. . . .] Each day has enough trouble of its own” (6:34).  Amen and amen!  Distracted from the work God sets before us to do today . . . let God take care of tomorrow, and trust that He will also take care of today.  Our part is to recommit ourselves, each day, if necessary each hour, to striving to live Christ’s way—that is sacrificial, it is loving, it is giving, it is patient, it is trusting, it is confident.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

               [1] William Barclay.  Gospel of Matthew.  Vol. 1.  Daily Study Bible.  1956.  Philadelphia: Westminster P, 1975.  201.