Pastor Marty Tuesday, April 16, 2024 at 10:38PM Matthew 7:7-12. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on April 14, 2024.
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Pastor Marty Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 10:25PM Matthew 7:1-6. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on April 7, 2024.
We are going to look at the second area that is a pitfall for hypocrisy in our life today. It is in the area of relationships with other people, particularly difficult people.
Even when we hold people in higher esteem than things (see the last two sermons in this series), there are certain people that we have trouble loving, or even getting along with them. This area of how we deal with difficult people in our life can set us up for becoming hypocritical.
Let’s look at our passage.
Most people in the world are very familiar with the first two words of Matthew 7:1. They can quote these two words far quicker than John 3:16. “Judge not!” Or, a loose paraphrase, “Don’t be judging me!” Of course, this is not the whole sentence, and the sentence separated from the context can be misleading.
Think about when you were a kid. If you selectively picked words out of what your parents said, and pretended like that is what they said, would they be happy with that? Parent: “Son, under no circumstances are you to go to the party at Bobby’s house. I know that his parents are gone for the weekend.” Son thinks to himself. “hmm. Dad said “go to the party at Bobby’s house!” No parent is going to accept that kind of selective hearing. The son will be in trouble. This is what many do with the Bible when they take those first two words as a shield for all manner of sins. “Don’t judge me!”
However, this is not exactly what Jesus is getting at, and the rest of the verses make this abundantly clear. Jesus gives us a maxim, or pithy saying, that is very general, but it gets you thinking. Notice that the rest of the verse says, “Judge not…that you be not judged.” There is a connection here between the first judgment and a second judgment that will come later. The emphasis is not on a blanket statement of never making a judgment. Rather, it is an emphasis your judgment being directly connected to a judgment that will come later. It is better to see this as a strong warning that cannot be separated from the consequence of being judged yourself. It calls for us to look down the road at how my current judgment of a person could affect my own judgment.
It's purpose is not to create a world where we never make judgments, but rather a world in which we are all very careful in the judgments that we do make. It is sort of like a sign that says, “Road closed, bridge out ahead.” Many people who take the time to read that sign will go a different route and save themselves a lot of time. However, another person may read that sign and drive on by it, not because they ignored the sign, but because they considered it and recognized that their house is on this side of the bridge. It is okay for them to drive by the sign. Yet, notice that they will have taken the time to consider the sign and the warning it was giving.
Verse 2 drives home this point of a consequential judgment, which is what Jesus is really getting at. Essentially, he tells us that we will receive back the kind of judgment and the measure of judgment that we give to others. Thus, if you are tough in your judgments of others and you do it a lot, then expect a lot of tough judgments coming back your way.
This begs the question. Just who is this future judge that Jesus has in mind? We might imagine that he is simply saying that we should be judgmental to others so that they will not be judgmental towards us. However, our life experience tells us that this is not how it generally works. No matter how well you do something, there will be people who like it and people who don’t like it. People’s judgments of you often have nothing to do with how you have judged them or others.
Jesus is talking about God judging us, whether His temporal judgments during our life, or His eternal judgment at the end of our life. Be careful how you judge people because you are going to receive from God the same kind of judgment, and in the same measures, that you gave to others. Can you survive that?
This does not mean that we can cause God to judge that our sin is okay by not judging the sin of others in our life. However, this ties to his statement, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.” He doesn’t mean from others, but from God. Of course, cursed are the unmerciful for they shall not receive mercy.
So he is concerned with how we judge and our quickness to do so. We are not being wise and are not carefully thinking through what God might think about this.
In verses 3 to 5, we see that Jesus does not intend for us never to judge the actions of a person. He is rather concerned with our hypocritical tendency never to judge ourselves the way we judge others.
I have actually had a co-worker come up to me and ask me to get a wood chip out of their eye. He was working with a chainsaw, and a chip landed between his eyelid and eyeball. There was no damage, but the eye was extremely aggravated, and he had been trying to remove it by himself for a while. It was large enough that I was able to sweep it out with my finger. I still remember his sigh of relief when I got it out.
This illustration of specks and planks that Jesus gives are actually about sins and faults that we may see in one another. They are not good (literally or metaphorically), and life is better when they are removed. Yet, we can be guilty of having great mercy, and seeing the best motivations, in all that we do, and then having no mercy for others (at least for certain others that we don’t like).
You may be correct in your judgment that they have a fault, or a sin, in their eye. However, you could be overlooking the fact that you have something much worse going on in your own eye (life). This does present a comical image of a guy who has a board sticking out of his eye and telling his brother that he has a speck in his eye. “Hey, let me fix that speck for you!”
Jesus speaks about our motivation. “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?” What is going on in your heart and life that you spend a lot of your time judging the condition of others, but you don’t even take a second to consider bigger issues in your own life? If we took just one second to consider our own faults and sins, it might make us a different person.
He also touches on the audacity of it. “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye?” Yeah, just how are you able to justify such hypocrisy? Don’t you know that God sees your poor job of acting righteous?
Only a person who has cleared their own eye (or asked another to help them do it) can help another person clear theirs. First of all, you can’t see clearly to fix someone’s speck when you have a plank in your own eye. Even if you genuinely wanted to help, you would only make things worse. The power of having dealt with your own sin is that it helps you to be far more sensitive and careful towards others, instead of harsh and uncaring.
Jesus is not leading up to saying that we should never judge. He is actually leading up to saying that we should spend time on fixing ourselves first, and then we will be able to rightly help our brother. That will end up being a way that pleases God instead of bringing down His judgment upon us.
Verse 6 may look like it is unrelated, if you don’t look closely. Even when you clear your own eye so that you can help your neighbor, you still need wisdom. You may have a perfectly clear eye, have helped a thousand people clear their eyes. You may even be a professional doctor of getting specks out of eyes. But, the other person may not be interested in you removing their speck. In fact, they may not agree that they have a speck. Perhaps, they simply don’t like you and don’t want you poking and prodding in their eye. We need the wisdom of God that is supplied by the Holy Spirit in our life.
Jesus uses the images of dogs and swine. Dogs represented people who had given themselves over to wickedness. They are people who give no thought to God and His ways. Instead, they love to do the opposite. Swine were connected to Gentiles who were separated from God. These are both pictures of the spiritual state of individuals who surely have many specks and planks in their eye. Yes, they need them removed. However, they won’t take kindly to it. They will end up trampling you if you aren’t careful. If a person is not ready to be helped, whether that is a lost person hearing the gospel, or a Christian brother who is offended and doesn’t want our help, then we should back off and pray for them.
Notice that he pictures it as throwing holy things to dogs. The holy thing is helping a brother or sister remove moral specks or even character specks in their life. Holy places require special caution. When you are going to meddle in the spiritual life of a person, always remember that this is a place that God is working on them. You represent a holy God who is wanting to help them become holy. It is a holy work. You may want to remove your shoes and tread lightly. This is God’s work and you can help him only by being sensitive to that.
A follower of Christ should be able to help others because they have been working on themselves, and they are being careful to be led by God.
Let me close by dealing with Jesus referring to some people as dogs and swine. We can be quick to be offended, but he is not saying that people are born dogs/swine, and will always be such. Similar to the parable of the soils, the point is not that we are stuck in categories. Rather, that people may be ready, they may not be ready. They may be repentant, or they may be given over to sin at the moment. There is a timing of God that all people who want to help others would do good to heed. Wait for it. Pray for it. In fact, you may not be the one who God uses to help them remove the speck. However, you have still helped them by being a person who prayed for them, and were careful not to injure them through insensitivity to your own sin and insensitivity to their readiness to receive help.
May God help us to judge carefully and have His heart of love for others.
Email Article | Print Article | Share Article | tagged Help, Holy Spirit, Judging, Judgment, Relationships, Wisdom Pastor Marty Sunday, April 7, 2024 at 7:13AM Romans 3:19-26; Psalm 85:4-13. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on March 31, 2024, Resurrection Sunday.
How much does God love humans? On top of that, how much does God love you? On top of that, how much does God love other people? You may respond to these differently. Some think that God loves others, but He doesn’t love me because of something He hasn’t done for them. Some may even think that God loves them, but He doesn’t love those other people over there.
Some people answer such important questions through an emotional response, sometimes even a visceral response. Their experience of life, personal wounds, and the influence of culture can lead them to believe that God either doesn’t care or doesn’t exist. They may reason this way. “If God is loving, then H should want to help us. Yet, He hasn’t helped us.” “If God is moral, then He would not let things become this bad, especially if He really is all-powerful (omnipotent).”
In fact, even believers in Jesus can some times “feel” like God’s isn’t doing anything. “God, where are you?” At the cross, God gives us a caution and a revelation. The caution is that we are most likely not as good as we would like to believe. The revelation is that God loves us even while we are yet sinners. He truly wants to save us.
Let’s look at our passage and see that God has done something for us. He has paid the price for our sins and given us help at the very source of our problem, which is our own heart.
Paul is writing to the Christians in Rome. They are a mixture of Jewish people who know God’s true character, Romans who had a pagan background, and people from other nations who were just as confused about God as the Romans.
Paul is dealing with a question that was at the root of their walk with Christ. What had God been doing over the last 16 centuries of working with Israel? What was His purpose with the Law of Moses? Both Jews and Gentiles tend to be confused about God’s motivation, or in some cases, the motivation of the “gods.”
Paul tell us that the giving of the Law to Israel says something to the world, but it says something even more important to Israel. Israel represents people who know God, who know what He wants, and who are serving His purposes. The classic problem of sin is that even those who have the truth, and say they are doing it, are part of the problem.
God’s problem was that even the people of Israel, who were supposed to be on His side, had come to think that they had the Law because they were so righteous and acceptable to Him. Just like them, we tend to misread God’s intentions when things are going well, or going bad. Yet, when we look at Jesus, we recognize that a perfect situation is not proof of rightness with God. Going to the cross was not a “perfect situation” to us and judging with the eyes of flesh. Yet, this didn’t catch God by surprise.
Paul doesn’t write out what exactly the Law of Moses says to those who are under it. However, it is clear from the passage that it is telling the people of Israel that they are not righteous, but instead, that they are sinners and have need of forgiveness.
Like a mirror, the Law shows us that we have a sin problem and are in need of God’s forgiveness. Yet, that forgiveness can only come through sacrifice. When you get out of bed in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror, you see what sleeping on a pillow all night has done for your hair and your face. In the same way, the word of God reveals what growing up and living in this world has done for our heart and mind. However, in this case, you can’t just splash some water on your face and comb your hair. It is the good news of Jesus that can actually forgive our sins and change our hearts.
God had not been trying to teach Israel that they were better than the other nations because they had His Law. It is better to have the truth, and God had blessed them amazingly. Like a house of mirrors, the Law continually reminded Israel that they were not what they should be in response to the amazing love that God had shown them.
Think of it this way. Even as Moses was on the mountain receiving the Law that they had pledged to follow, the people had Aaron make a golden calf and were worshiping it. This is a picture of our problem. Perfect Law-keeping will never save us because we do not have the power within us to perfectly keep it. However, the Law can help you to see just how badly you need God’s powerful help.
Paul says that God intends the presence of the Law, and the message it speaks to us, to stop our mouths. It is not that God wants to tell us we are sinners and rub our nose in it. The Law is speaking to those who are in the best place possible with God. They are near to the work of God and have His Word. They know God’s great purpose and intention towards them. They represent the righteous people of God. Just think about how the Pharisees and the scribes of Jesus day presented themselves. They were proud of their position and place with God, not just over the Gentiles, but even over people within Israel who were not as blessed as they were. They were proud of their righteousness because they weren’t actually hearing what the Law was trying to tell them.
God wants to help us with sin, but there are always too many of us touting our great righteousness compared to others. To fix this, God first sends the Law, and then He sends us grace and truth in Jesus. God is listening to children arguing about how good they are compared to their sibling. Of course, the sibling is also arguing how good they are compared to the others. Even if humanity could unite and make a singular argument, “surely we are now good enough, Lord,” the whole point is that we are not.
Sin is a real problem, and we are always trying to avoid the charge. We want to change definitions of righteousness so that is points to us, and we want to change the definitions of sin so that they do not point to us. Another way we try to avoid the charge is by placing the bar as low as possible so that it is easy for us to get over.
Yet, Paul makes it clear that we are all guilty before God. Even the best of us is a sinner who falls short of the righteousness of God, who falls short of being what God created us to be. Our guilt is that we choose sin and darkness rather than the light, the truth, of God.
If God can get you to a place where you quit fighting the truth with self-serving arguments, then you will see that you are in the same boat as “your enemy.” No people, no race, are more loved by God than others. No gender, no culture, is loved by God more than the others. We are all guilty before God because of our sin. If we are in the dark, it is because we have cast off the light that God has given us. We need to quit doubling down on our righteousness and come to God for His solution.
There is a part of our nature that resists this. It is not fair to lump me in with all of those others, God! However, all of our judgments are self-serving. If we will stop fighting long enough, we just might hear something that we need to hear. And, if you understood God’s heart for you and for humanity, you would realize that this is not a bad place to be (guilty before God and in need of mercy).
Verse 20 shows us that the Law cannot justify us. It can only give us the knowledge, or understanding, of sin. It may seem cruel for God to try and get us all to accept that we are guilty of sin before Him, that we are the reason why this world is so messed up. However, denial is always the saboteur of true change that brings life.
If we quit fighting God, if we can accept that we fall short of what is good and righteous, then we might be able to hear and see His answer, Jesus. No amount of laws can make us a better people. Even a thousand years of scientifically coming up with more and better laws will not make us a perfectly righteous people. All of our science is impotent in the face of our penchant for sin.
In verse 21, Paul points to a righteousness of God that does not come from Law-keeping. For those who continue to make the case that they are righteousness enough, the idea that they must be “perfect” as God defines it seems outrageous. “That’s impossible! God can’t expect us to be perfect.” Yet, Paul shows us that, in His love, God has made His righteousness available to us. God won’t change the truth for us, but He will die on a cross to pay the price for your guilt and for mine. It is true that we are all sinners, but there is a truth greater than our sin. God still loves us and will save us with His righteousness, if we will believe upon the One He sent to die on our behalf.
This is why the devil works so hard to get people to quit trusting God. He did this with Eve by saying that God was holding out on Eve, that He was keeping Eve from having something good. Think of it. The God who had done nothing but good to Eve, providing purpose and meaning, a perfect environment where all of her needs were taken care of, somehow was the problem. He does the same with us today.
Remember this point. For the same reason that we are bent toward sin, we are bent towards not trusting God’s heart of love for us. When a parent refuses to let a child ignore their sins, it is supposed to be because they care about that child and what they are becoming. However, God is a perfect heavenly Father. How much more is His heart full of love towards us?
Yes, God expects you to be perfect. However, He has also made it possible for you to be made perfect by giving you His righteousness. Instead of continuing to make the case of how righteous you are, start making the case of how righteous God is and then you will be on the right track.
God’s plan never depended on your perfection or mine. It always depended upon His own perfection, His own righteousness. No one ever was saved by their righteousness, except for Jesus. He alone was the perfect sinless one. Of course, we can misread this too. “Jesus fulfilled the Law so that I don’t have to do it!” These kind of self-serving arguments for why it is okay for me to keep sinning are themselves sinful. How can I look the grace of God in the face and pretend like He did that so that I can keep on sinning?
All throughout the Old Testament, the prophets pointed out that no one was saved through their Law-keeping. This is why Paul states that the Law and the Prophets testified to this righteousness of God. Jesus and the early Christians were not hijacking Judaism. This idea was as old as the Bible itself. Really? Yes, really.
In Genesis 15:6, we are told that “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Notice that God accepted Abraham’s faith and treated it as if it were righteousness. Of course, it is the righteousness of God that actually is applied to Abraham’s account. Yes, Abraham showed his faith in obeying God. However, Abraham was not without sin and falling short. He was not saved by perfect obedience, but by faith.
In Psalm 51:16-17, David had failed miserably before God. He had become an adulterer and a murderer. David knew that he had no righteousness to save himself before God. Yet, in that crisis, he recognizes that no amount of sacrificial animals could make him right before God. If it could work, then he would do it. David understood that the only act of righteousness that he could do was to be broken in his spirit over his sin, and to come to God with sincere remorse (contrition). “These, O God, You will not despise.” David too was saved by faith in God.
Habakkuk 2:4 says this, “Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just (righteous one) shall live by his faith.” This is exactly what Paul is pointing out. The religious leaders had become proud of their righteousness instead of hearing the true witness of the prophets.
This testimony of the Law and the prophets tells us that none of us are righteous, no not one. Each of us like sheep have gone astray. “We have turned everyone to his own way. And the LORD has laid upon him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6).” If we are going to be right before God, it will be by putting our trust in Him and His grace alone like David did.
The righteousness of God has always been made available to those who put their trust in Him and His Word. Abraham believed God. David put His trust in God, rather than his ability to do an act of righteousness himself. Habakkuk saw that a proud man is always pushing his own righteousness, even though he is not right inside.
Jesus is the ultimate Word of God. He is God’s solution for our lack of righteousness. You and I simply need to put our trust in Jesus and follow him. Trust, faith, believing, these are all different ways of saying the same thing. You can put your trust in God’s love for you, for us! And, when you do that, God will apply His righteousness to your account. You will become right before Him, justified.
Verse 26 brings the point home that Jesus is the only Just One who justifies those who have faith in him. Jesus is God’s answer for our predicament. God is just and cannot allow sinners to continue to wreck His world. I am a sinner and fall short of His righteousness. Yet, God loves me and doesn’t want me (you) to perish.
Paul references several big concepts in verse 24. Justification is being made right before God. He says that it is given freely by His grace to those who believe. He also mentions “redemption through Christ.” Jesus makes it possible for us to get back our lost place with God, and our lost inheritance. I can now truly image Him because of the work of Jesus. I can now inherit eternal life. I can walk in true righteousness as opposed to a false self-righteousness.
All of this is possible because of the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. He died in your place because he loves you. He paid the punishment for our sins so that we could enter into the fruit of God’s love. Jesus is the only just one who is able to justify those who come to him in faith.
At this point I want to finish by looking at an Old Testament picture of God’s character coming together in order to save us, and connect it to what Jesus did on the cross.
In this passage, the psalmist is calling out for God’s help. He knows from Israel’s past experience with God that He will save them. He then states that he will wait for God’s answer (v. 8).
In verse 10, we are given a picture of God’s coming salvation. It pictures the different aspects of God’s character coming together in order to save those who believe in Him. This verse really is about what the character of God is doing at the cross. The cross is not just a gory spectacle to get our attention. It is the very love of God going to war for your soul, for your eternity.
The four virtues are given in pairs: Mercy and Truth, Righteousness and Peace. I want us to picture them as opposing virtues that are at each end of the beams of the cross.
The Hebrew word behind “Mercy” is hard to translate. It is a love that includes the concepts of generosity and enduring commitment. Some versions translate it as unfailing love, steadfast love, and lovingkindness. God is unfailing, generous love (che’ sed in Hebrew), and He has this heart for us. Yet on the opposite side of the beam is the Truth of God (em’ meth in Hebrew). This word does mean truth, but it has at its roots the idea of faithful and trustworthy, even real. The truth can be depended upon, whereas a lie cannot. Yes, God is truth, but the truth is that we are not. How can the love of God be reconciled with the truth of our unfaithfulness? Before we answer that, let’s look at the next pair.
Righteousness (tse’ deq) is the rightness of God. Everything He does is absolutely upright, straight, perfect. Of course, we are not upright and perfect. Yet, God is Peace (sha lom’ in Hebrew), and therefore wants us to be at peace with Him. How can God make peace with man, who is not righteous, and remain righteous Himself?
The tension between these aspects of God’s character are pictured with two verbs that are parallel concepts. God’s unfailing, generous Love and Truth have a meeting, or an encounter, and His Righteousness and His Peace kiss. This is actually one meeting in which all of God’s character is unified in redeeming mankind, and it is happening at the cross. God’s righteousness and truth are satisfied in one great act of love and peace in the man Jesus. Jesus dying on the cross is the solution to preserving God’s character as perfect, and yet at the same time, making redemption available to mankind.
This is how much God loves us. Jesus was without sin and absolutely righteous. This is and was the truth about him at the time. He became the perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sin. Yet, he also lives and invites us to enter into the eternal life that he has and shares with those who love him.
When you look at the world today, it is easy to think that everything is falling apart and that Jesus will never come back, or perhaps it was a fairy tale. Yet, this is the wrong view. God is patiently teaching humanity of His love and yet, the problems that come from rejecting Him. Today, if you hear his voice, will you not believe on Jesus, the One who took your place under God’s wrath against your sin?
Let us worship the Lord Jesus!
Pastor Marty Sunday, March 31, 2024 at 7:37AM Matthew 6:25-34. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on March 24, 2024.
We continue looking at our relationship with things and asking how they can cause us to be hypocritical. In the previous sections, Jesus has focused on wealth and its tendency to become our master. However, most of the people in the crowd are not wealthy and do not entertain any ideas of becoming wealthy. Today’s passage speaks to that large percentage of people who live at a level of survival. They live from day to day, week to week, and their whole life is focused on the things that are necessary to keep living.
It is also important to understand that Jesus is using language that will remind them of the wilderness wanderings of Israel when they came out of Egypt. There, God helped them to survive with food, water, and clothes that didn’t wear out.
Let’s look at our passage.
The backdrop of Israel in the wilderness reminds us that God took care of them even though they were in a place of scarcity. In His love, God wants us to understand that it is not His intention to live in worry about food, water, shelter and clothing.
Of course, in our luxury, we can be confused on what is necessary and what is simply a desire or a want. Even in a necessary category such as food, we can long for a particular kind of food, or a level of cuisine that is higher. It is important for us to understand that our Creator is also our heavenly Father. He knows that we are mortal beings that need food. However, He also knows that we do not “need” expensive food every day. I don’t believe that this means He is opposed to the desires we have that go beyond necessities. Yet, He never made us to be slaves to our desires, nor fearful of our necessities. He has designed the world to care for such needs, and His supervision ensures that we will find what we need.
In the midst of our worrying, God wants us to know that we don’t have to do it. We can choose to stop worrying. In fact, Jesus commands his followers, “Do not worry…”
Jesus is talking about a stressful anxiety about these things and not simply planning for them. He is not commanding us never to think about these things. This word has the idea of being internally divided, or fractured, over various concerns. Worrying about things is a type of bad stress that actually affects our health and life span negatively, but more on that later.
The average person in the crowd that day most likely stressed about food, clothing, and not being killed by the Romans. Jesus focuses on food and drink (water) as necessary for life, and clothing as necessary for our bodies. He could have added oxygen or other things, but these work best because they will remind the people of the wilderness wanderings of Israel.
God provided food (bread and meat) and water in the desert. They may have gone some days here and there without, but in the end, God always made sure they had these things.
The Bible also tells us that their clothing and sandals did not wear out during the 40 years they were in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 8:4; 29:5). It was His supernatural provision just as much as the manna, flocks of quail, and water coming out of a rock upon the strike of the staff of Moses. However, the clothing would also have the connotation of the Garden of Eden. The environment of the earth was not hostile in the beginning. Also, the earth was not a morally hostile environment either (sin and sinners). Clothing becomes a protectant against exposure to the elements and exposure to those who may be stirred up by nakedness and thereby led into sin.
You will also notice that this section is filled with questions. You could say that at the heart of worry is our unanswered questions, or questions that we have for which we do not like God’s answers. We are questioned by Jesus (by God) five times versus the three questions that we often wrestle with and laid out in verse 31.
Here is the tie to hypocrisy. Fearful questioning of God and the world around us can lead us to playing the hypocrite.. We may go through religious rituals that declare God’s provision and greatness, and yet, we do not actually trust Him.
Jesus asks the question, “Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” Of course, it is! God’s purpose for humanity is higher than simply eating food and wearing clothes. In fact, food, drink and clothing are symbols for the higher spiritual things that God wants to accomplish in our life. The manna in the wilderness hints at a supernatural bread from heaven that we need. We are told in the New Testament that this bread from heaven is Jesus himself. The work that Jesus did in a human body was as necessary for us as natural bread is for our body’s survival.
We are also told that Jesus is the source of the water of life. It is the Words that Jesus spoke to us, and the Holy Spirit that He has poured out upon us. Jesus is the source of water, the rock in the wilderness that has been struck so that the waters of life would pour out to us.
Finally, the righteousness of Christ is presented as a white robe that we can wear. Our righteousness is not pure white. Our robes are speckled with sin. However, our faith in Jesus gives us a new robe of his righteousness that we can put on. By faith, the Holy Spirit helps us to obey Jesus and go to war against sin our life. Thus, we are enabled to walk out the righteousness of Christ even as we wear his robe. This clothing will never wear out.
All of this is important to understand. Yet, Jesus is telling us to stop worrying about the natural necessities of our life. I can say that I believe, but then go on not to trust Him fully through worrying, complaining, and not having the relationship with God that I should, or even could.
To illustrate the illogical nature of worrying about these things, Jesus gives three illustrations of God supplying for His lesser creatures. The first is about birds.
Birds do not sow seeds, water them, reap them and then store the seed in barns. These are the kinds of things that God has given humans the wisdom and ability to do. Thus, birds are in an even more precarious place than humans. They are at the mercy of God’s provision even more than we are. There are some animals that will cache food (squirrels), or store it as fat for winter (bears etc.), but don’t miss the point. The emphasis is on the situation of the birds. A bird has to forage and find food each day. They have to wake up each day and go about looking for what God will provide. Jesus actually says, “Your heavenly Father feeds them.” Think about what that looks like. The birds do not see a man with a grey beard floating down from the sky with a bag of bird seed. God’s provision operates at a far grander and foundational level than that. Because birds are not human, they will not spend time fretting over whether they will find enough seed each day. Neither should we think that they exercise great faith in God. They are simply an illustration to us that we don’t have to fret.
Thus, Jesus gives his second question. “Are you not of more value than they?” The answer is “Yes, yes you are!” This does not mean birds have no value, but that the value placed upon them within God’s purposes is much lower than that placed upon us as humans. We are His imagers upon this earth. This means that He will even more make sure we are taken care of. Surely your Creator has thought about your need and made provisions. Yes, you will have to get up each day and work at bringing it in. You will need to use your mind, and prayerfully ask God’s help. But, you can trust Him. Thus, our deepest question is simply this. Can I trust God? God is your God. He cares for you. Don’t think of Him as the pastor’s God, or the prophet’s God, like Saul did with Samuel in 1 Samuel 15:15, 21. He is your God, and He cares about you more than the birds.
The second illustration is about length (verse 27). It is simply laid out in the third question that Jesus asks us. “Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” This translation (NKJV) relates the issue of length (1 cubit is about 18”) to stature. However, the word primarily has a meaning of life. It is more likely that the length here is a picture of lengthening one’s life in the sense of adding a step to your journey. This fits the passage better than the concept of height, which is a secondary meaning of this word anyway. No one can add a step (minute, hour, day, etc.) to their life by worrying. The truth is that worrying will only lower our life. Studies have shown that heavy anxiety can affect our immune system, our emotional well-being, and thereby our physical well-being.
One particular study tracked a large number of people from teens to ninety-year-olds. They were able to follow them over the course of twelve years while tracking their anxiety levels. At the end of the 12 years, they determined that a person with high anxiety was 2 times more likely not to be alive than those who did not have high anxiety. It simply does you no good to worry and fret about something you cannot control, and it generally does bad things.
Why not make your default position trust in God’s purpose and loving care for you? We will live exactly as long as God has enabled us to live, and I can be good with that. Even if I were to die in my childhood, the resurrection and the age to come cause this time of our lives to pale in comparison. Then, we will have bodies that are not dying, weak, and impacted by disease. We will be immortal. This life is actually just the proving grounds for our place in the life to come.
The third illustration (verse 28) is about flowers. His fourth question is this. “Why do you worry about clothing?” He tells us that lilies do not toil nor spin. These verbs have to do with making clothes. They don’t work hard amassing the raw materials of clothing, neither do they spin that raw material into threads that can be worked in a loom into the material for making clothes. This may seem like a silly statement, but notice that Jesus has increased the dependency by moving from an animal to a form of vegetation. Birds can forage around, but flowers simply are what they are. They draw nutrients from the soil and their DNA code expresses that in a particular form. They are in an even more precarious situation than birds. However, Jesus tells them that not even King Solomon was dressed, arrayed, in as much glory as they. Remember that Solomon was extremely rich and would have the finest clothes that money could buy.
These simple flowers that grow up, bloom and then die, have a beauty that outshines our clothing. If you think that Jesus is stretching the concept of clothing here, then think of it this way. I spoke of clothing earlier in the sense of protection from the elements. However, we generally fret and are anxious over how nice those clothes look. Thus, clothes become a big part of a person’s identity, whether a rich nobleman or a peasant. Jesus tells us that God has given flowers a visual glory to which our humanness doesn’t compare.
Yet, there is a beauty in our nature as humans. I am not just talking about a beautiful person in the prime of their life. There is a different kind of beauty that is displayed in the whole range of our look from newborn to senior. There is also a beauty that is displayed in our male and female similarities and differences.
We can spend too much time trying to mimic the glory of a flower and forget that God’s different glory for us can be enough. It should not be lost on us that Jesus emphasizes that the flowers which have a greater glory also have a much shorter life-span. What glory are you going for? The Bible says that the righteous will shine like the stars in the resurrection (Daniel 12:3).
The fifth and final question is this. “Will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” Of course, this is our true problem. Faith and worry are inversely proportional. That means, when faith goes up, worry goes down. It is impossible to quit worrying without putting faith in something. Some may not worry because they have faith in their own ability. The believer knows that they have ability, but even greater than that, they also know that they have a heavenly Father who is caring for them. We really do not have an excuse for worrying.
This is exactly the problem that is expressed by Israel back in the wilderness. They perished because of their unbelief, lack of faith in God. What is even sadder is the fact that they had a tremendous amount of amazing evidence that God could and would take care of them. Don’t be the kind of person who blames their lack of faith on God’s lack of giving us evidence. Unbelief actually blinds you to all the evidence. So, listen to Jesus and start trusting God and stop worrying. It just isn’t the logical and righteous thing to do.
It is clear from the creation account that man is not only the apex of God’s creation, but that His purpose for us is for us to image Him to the earth and to the heavens. Birds have their part in the purpose of God (i.e., one of those is to be an illustration to us humans). But, our purpose is much more important to God.
In verse 30, Jesus tells us to stop questioning ourselves out of trusting God. “What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear?” These are real questions that we may not have the answers to. However, our lack of an answer is not a reason for unbelief, and not trusting God. The Red Sea was not a reason for Israel to stop trusting God. That is precisely when trust becomes the most critical thing. It really doesn’t matter if a kid doesn’t know what they are going to eat for dinner. What matters is that they have a loving parent who is taking care of those things for them. Your worrying won’t fix any of your problems, but God can and will when we trust Him.
This leads to his first conclusion in verse 31. He reminds them that this is how the Gentiles act (i.e., the nations). They clamor and desperately seek for these kinds of things. However, Israel was the people of God. They had a heavenly Father Who had pledged Himself to caring for them. Of course, there was a time when all the sons of Noah (all of humanity) were God’s people and cared for by Him. However, the rebellion at the Tower of Babel brought judgment upon them. On top of the confusion of languages and scattering across the earth, these nations doubled down on rebellion by throwing off the truth of their error. They connected to fallen spirits who taught them all manner of false religion for the ulterior motives of those fallen spirits.
Jesus would go on to pay the price for the sins of the nations so that they too could come near to God. However, don’t miss the power of the point. Don’t act like a rebellious orphan who has no loving Father. We shouldn’t fault a lost person who worries. That is simply their situation. However, it is a strange thing for a child of God to walk in worry and complaining. Stop it!
The second conclusion is put in a positive form and is clearly the most important of the three. Seek first the Kingdom of God, and He will take care of these natural needs. The life of the nations was all focused on these lower, lesser, things of life. We could categorize them as concerns of the flesh. God’s people on the other hand are to seek His kingdom and his righteousness. These two themes have been presented throughout the sermon on the mount. Our higher purpose is to work with God in order to bring His will and rule to the earth. If we will do that, then He will take care of the lower needs. This doesn’t mean we don’t work, buy food, prepare meals, make clothing, etc. It does mean that we don’t worry about those things. Instead, we will trust in His care.
We should even note that we can do these lesser things for God’s higher purposes. We pray for food so that we can be strengthen to accomplish His greater purpose of the Kingdom. In this way, even things like food, water and clothing can become holy. I am not consumed with wanting designer clothes so that others will think I am great. Instead, we will use clothing as a means of bringing in God’s Kingdom, whether in how we dress or in blessing others with their necessary clothing. Lesser things can be done for higher purposes, which elevates them in the end.
This highlights the need for faith in our lives, not just faith for salvation, but also for living itself. For a kid, becoming an adult is a scary thing. A teenage boy can be intimidated by becoming a man, getting a job, paying for his own place, his own insurance, etc. On top of this, he can really be intimidated by marrying a woman and raising a family. No one ever approaches that with every single question answered about the future. However, God has fitted us for becoming adults in many ways, and a critical part of that is having faith. We don’t have to have all the answers. We just have to have a reasonable hope that we can do it and it will be good. In God, we always have a reason for hope and faith in our future. I mentioned a young man, but we could also picture a teenage girl. How intimidating is it to become a woman, marry a man, become pregnant, birth and raise a baby? In and of themselves, these can be scary things. God has not only fitted you to be able to do these things, but He also pledges to be with us and help us in them. We can walk forward with faith and trust in Him.
The final conclusion is given in verse 34. We are told to stop worrying about tomorrow and just face the difficulties of today. Of course, as I said before, he is not talking about the thinking we do in order to plan for tomorrow. This is our tendency to worry about the things that we think will happen or could happen tomorrow.
Today has enough evil of its own, whether we know what it will be or not. Of course, you will want to trust God and ask His help as you face them. You will also want to trust that He is working to help you with it as well. It may take time for God’s answer to materialize, but it will.
We also have to be careful that our planning is not a means of ensuring that we never have to trust God. Our best plans are still the plans of frail humans. We can’t control everything through sheer planning. Even our plans have to be put in God’s hands. We don’t have to trust Him, but we can. We are privileged to have a heavenly Father who cares for us. If your plan has no room for God in it, then you are not aiming high enough.
This life is a journey in which the Lord walks with you. Don’t walk it as if He is not with you. Instead, make your trusting in Him a critical part of your plan. Anything short of this will lead religious people to be hypocrites. We will give lip service to trusting and loving God, but we will doubt His love and care, becoming mere posers, actors. May God save us from such an empty life!
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