Matthew 6: 24-34

I was reading through a medical bill that came from my insurance company.  Down towards the bottom there was a charge for me receiving what was called Neuromuscular re-education.  What on earth is that?  Did my physical therapist really do that?  Maybe he should have asked me first.  I’m not so sure I wanted my neuros to be reeducated.  Well I found out what it was.  It actually was something that helped with my back pain. Something simple with a fancy name.   How about that!  Neuro re-education.

Well here Jesus was teaching his disciples.   Once more in the Sermon on the Mount.  He came to them as he comes to us today in his Word.  Here Jesus looks to do some reeducation.   But not my nerves and muscles.  Rather my heart, my way of thinking and looking at life.   And even if you or I have been Christians a long time, we need Jesus’ words again and again.

Something like our cars.  We drive them and sooner or later we notice.  My car doesn’t go straight.  Let go of the steering wheel and it veers one way or the other.   Not good. So we have to keep bringing it in to straighten the wheels.

You and I are like that.  Not our wheels, but our hearts.  Again and again we need Jesus to do some reeducation, some heart realignment.  For how easily this world and our own sinful hearts throw us off.  How easy it is for us to look at what we have as all important.  How easy it is to get all caught up with having or not having.  So let Jesus’ word speak to your heart.  Let it reveal your heart, evict any greed or worries, and settle into a quiet trust in the Lord.

²⁴ “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.  A husband and wife take their dog to the park.  They let the dog off the leash.  One walks behind.  The other ahead.  Then both call the dog.   Whose voice does he obey?  Who does he run to?  He can’t run to both.  Only one.

It’s the same with God and our money and possessions.  If you are devoted to one, you can’t be devoted to the other.  If you make one important to you, you make the other unimportant.  So Jesus is warning us here.  He is challenging us to look into our hearts and see.  To who or what does my heart belong?  Am I fooling myself by thinking I can have it both ways.  It’s not a  both…and.  It’s an either… or.  You cannot serve both God and Money.  And if it’s money, if that’s the love of your life,  that love will leave you empty and abandoned.

Of course someone might say that’s not my problem.  I don’t have much of anything.  Jesus’ disciples were like that.  Like so many people today these Galileans lived from day to day on the little they had.

But the problem is not what someone has in his hand or his garage or bank account.  The problem occurs  in our hearts.  Where are we looking for life?  Where do we place our confidence?

We may say to ourselves, I’m trusting in the Lord.  But then something comes along that says something different.  Worry.  Now don’t misunderstand.  We’re not talking about the concern we sometimes have for others.  We may even say, I’m worried about my children’s education.  I’m worried about the neighborhood you live in.  It seems unsafe.  But that’s a concern born out of love.

This worry is born out of something else.  A heart that is forgetting or ignoring what it means to call God our Father.  You and me sometimes.   ²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Let’s be clear.  Jesus is not talking about opening the refrigerator or closet and saying I just can’t decide what to eat or wear.  He is talking about worrying that you might not have something to eat or wear.  Will I have a place to live when I lose my house?

Those seem like big things. They are not.  We eat to live not live to eat.  Life is so much more than what our body needs.  Yet we can let those worries consume our hearts when we don’t know where it’s coming from.

But we do know.  We know who it’s coming from.  Jesus says: ²⁶ 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.?

It’s kind of interesting the way Jesus talks to us here.  He could have just said.  Stop worrying. Instead he gently schools us.  He has us consider how God provides for even the birds. Think about it.   I like to hang a finch sock full of seeds on a tree out back. They don’t need me to do that.  I do it because I enjoy seeing those finches.  Whether I hang the thing or not, God richly provides for them.  So here’s the question for you when you let your heart well up with worry.  Jesus asks you.  Are you not much more valuable than they?

What answer does Jesus expect?  Yes, you are. Some animal lovers would disagree, but you are so much more valuable.   Start with this world.  Our Father in heaven made this world in all it splendor for us.  He spent six days getting everything ready before he created mankind.  But that’s not even the half of it.  Look at the cross.  That reminds us.  You are so valuable that God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all.  And what he did for all, he did for you.  Jesus took your sin, your guilt and gave his life for you.  He suffered your death.  He won your forgiveness.  Then one day in your life, God came to you in the gospel.  You didn’t come to him.  He came to you,  gave you the Holy Spirit and made you his believing child.  You are THAT valuable to the Lord.

So why worry?  Does it make any sense for one so precious to God?   And for that matter Jesus reminds us it does us no good. What do we gain?   ²⁷ Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Anyone here succeeded?  Of course not, Worry can might even make your life shorter and certainly sadder. Remember that song?  Don’t worry be happy. How’d it go? In every life we have some trouble, when you worry you make it double.

But Jesus is not done with us.  He asks us again.  For some of us are very accomplished worriers. ²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Last season we had some beautiful sunflowers growing in our community garden.  One was so big and beautiful that I wanted to draw a smiley face on it.  Yet God designed them not just for us to admire.  Their God-given beauty was designed to attract pollinators like Honey bees.

Well think about what Jesus teaches us. A  lily a blade of grass or a sunflower last only a season.  But look.  Look how God clothes them.  So then what about you?  You are going to last more than a season.  Much more.  The gift of God to you is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.  So then, Why do you worry.   Jesus asks and answers doesn’t he.  O you and me of little faith.

³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

I remember going out to the garage when I was kid.  I came out with something I had no business carrying.  What are you doing with that? my mom or dad asked me.

What are you doing with worry?  It’s not yours.  Worries about stuff belong to this unbelieving world.  Not you, God’s child.  For you belong to the Father who knows you and cares for you.

And now comes the important part.  If you’ve been sort of listening, now the time perk up and pay attention.  This is where our hearts belong.  Not consumed by what we consume.  But this.  Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.

Remember the sisters Mary and Martha.  Jesus came to eat with them.  Dear Martha was all worked up and worried about getting supper ready and just right.  She overlooked what was most important.  What Mary was doing.  She was sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to his Word.

You see, Mary had her priorities straight.  She was seeking God’s kingdom and his righteousness.  For God’s kingdom is when he comes to our hearts in his Word.  It’s when he comes to rule in our hearts not with a clenched fist but with an open hand, a hand once nailed to a cross for us all. That kingdom begins with faith in Christ that covers our sin with his perfect righteousness. It begins with faith that wants to serve, honor and obey our Lord who loves us so.  And what will we find. What does our Lord promise us about our basic needs?   Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. When we lived in New Mexico the winds would bring all kinds of tumbleweed our way.  Left alone they would pile up everywhere.  Against the house, the fence, all over.  So what did my wife do.  One by one she dragged them out into the wind and let them blow away.

Can’t we do the same with our worries?  Drag them out and let God’s Word blow them away.  For In Christ, God is your dear Father and you, you are His dear child.