Introduction
Well, I want you to turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12, where this morning we are going to consider that Jesus wants us to invest in kingdom dividends. He wants us to put our priorities in what matters most rather than what is passing away.
And this is an extremely timely message. Jesus was obviously speaking in first-century Palestine and he was talking privately to his 12 disciples. But what he shared has had ripple effects through Christians of every generation down to us.
You see, Jesus understood what is going on in our hearts and minds, what's happening below the surface, the fears, the anxieties, and the nightmares that keep us awake at night.
What Keeps You Up at Night
In fact, I would ask you before we read the passage to consider: what are those things that keep you up at night? What is it that you lie awake rolling over in your mind over and over again, wondering how this is going to get solved? What's going to happen next? What is the best decision? What should you do? What are those parts of life that worry you? What causes you to toss and turn?
Sometimes it's conscious. We know that we run a business and we're trying to meet payroll and we don't know how we're going to do it. Maybe we're an employee and we just hope that we're hanging on to our job through this next round of layoffs or reorgs at our business. Or maybe we're a child or a teenager, and we're worried about the grade that we might be earning in this class or that class. Whatever it is, there's something that makes all of us panic when we think about it. There's something that makes us anxious when it is brought up. And those are the kinds of things that we are striving after that just seem beyond our control.
Jesus' disciples had the same hearts that we do. They struggled in many of the same ways we do. The particulars of their struggle may be different, but the heart of their struggle is the same. So hear these words from Luke chapter 11, beginning in verse 22:
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens. They do not sow or reap. They have no storeroom or barn. Yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds. Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the wildflowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all of his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into a fire, how much more will he clothe you? You of little faith. And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink. Do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes and no moth destroys, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
As Jesus is teaching the disciples, he knows that worry comes naturally to everyone. He understood that even in the first century, people worried about the weather. You might remember when they were on a boat with Jesus and a storm came up, they were terrified. They went to the back of the boat and said, "Master, wake up." They were scared about something they could not control. They also knew that they worried about family members. Jesus had asked the disciples to leave their families to follow him, and no doubt they probably wondered and worried at times about those family members.
Well, we also have similar worries ourselves. We worry about the weather. I said in my announcements that we were worried this week. Was it going to rain yesterday? Was it going to rain us out of the fall festival? And yet, how many of us could control the weather? None of us. God controlled it, and He was gracious yesterday.
We also worry about our children. We wonder how their lives are going to turn out, what we should provide for them, what we should allow them to do, what we should not allow them to do, and what direction their lives might take. We also worry about our employment. Whether we're the boss or the one reporting to the boss, we have all kinds of concerns about those that we're working with, including the vitality of our business. We can worry about the stock market and our retirement and how that's going to time out. We also worry about politics and become very invested in one candidate or another. We worry about wars and rumors of wars, and we worry about all kinds of things in the future, none of which we have control over.
As we worry about all of these things, and even as the disciples worried, Jesus consistently taught the disciples to trust their heavenly father. They could trust God to give them the forgiveness of sins. This is why he sent Jesus to forgive them of all the wrong things that they had done. They could also trust their father to assure them of eternal life through Jesus Christ, and they could furthermore trust God for the daily necessities of food and clothes.
Jesus knew that nearly everyone, including the men closest to him, naturally worried. And he knew what the remedy to the worry was: that they should put their confidence in what was promised by their father.
One way Jesus regularly exposed people's hearts involved their attitudes and their decisions about money and resources. In the passage just prior to this, Jesus assures his disciples, but by implication, he was confronting the Pharisees. He was confronting them because they put their hope in wealth and resources. And Jesus was saying, those things will die when you die. Instead, be rich toward God, he said in verse number 20.
Jesus is now going to teach his disciples that they can trust him with as little as they might have and that he would provide everything that they needed. Jesus was not giving the disciples a vow of poverty. He was not going to tell them in this passage that they must be poor in order to honor him, but he was testing what they valued most, whether it would be temporary resources such as food and clothes or the eternal riches of Christ in heaven.
Jesus cared for his disciples deeply. He knew that they needed a place to live, food and drink to sustain their health, and clothes to protect them from the elements. But he also understood that the disciples, just like anyone else, might be tempted to focus all of their energy on obtaining and securing these resources. This is why he taught them to value his kingdom and righteousness and invest in eternity.
I said last week toward the end of my sermon that most of you, if I promised you an investment with your finances that would return 10% year on year, guaranteed every year, most of you would give large checks to get in on that kind of investment. But I also said that God has given us the promise of an eternal investment that reels streets of gold, a place that will live where we will trod on pavement made of precious metal. That's far more valuable than any investment we could make now. It's worth giving our lives to that kind of kingdom.
And Jesus says in this passage that God has already given it to us. So that means we must live as if we believe this. We must live trusting God. And that brings us to the first thing I want you to consider from our passage this morning.
Life Involves More Than Possessions
And the first point is that life involves more than our possessions. Beginning in verses 13 through 21, Jesus had warned against covetousness. He warned the disciples and those listening not to desire what other people had, but be content with what God had given them. And he gave a powerful illustration of a rich farmer who had too much, but he only wanted more, and then he died.
But now in verses 22 through 26, Jesus directs his disciples to seek the kingdom of God and trust God's generosity. The disciples had limited resources, and this may have caused them to worry. Remember, they left their homes so they didn't have a guaranteed place to sleep. They did not have McDonald's where they could get a meal whenever they wanted it. And they didn't have Walmart where they could buy their groceries. Instead, they were walking by faith every day, and Jesus was assuring them that he would provide.
Jesus knew his disciples' hearts. So he said to them, beginning in verse 22, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear." Jesus understood that these concerns were real. People with hungry stomachs are not only hangry, but they also can become desperate. And Jesus did not put his disciples in a vulnerable position of being desperate. Instead, he reminded them that he would provide their daily sustenance. The disciples could rely on God's promises.
The word that is translated "worry" here means to be torn apart. Jesus is telling his disciples, "Don't be torn apart," or another way of saying it, "Don't be divided in your affections." Although worry comes naturally for most of us, it sends our hearts and our minds in opposing directions. Picture worry like a boat that's being tossed back and forth in the sea violently and uncontrollably. Or maybe picture worry like a tumbleweed that's blowing here and there all across the desert with no place to land, and it doesn't stay in one place for long. When we worry, our hearts and minds are just going from one thing to the next and they're never at rest. And we're acting contrary to faith and God's ability to provide for us.
So Jesus doesn't say this is a good idea. He actually commanded the disciples not to worry. And he does this because he will provide. This is why Jesus adds at verse 23 that life is more than food and the body is more than clothes. That means life involves more than what we need now or the things that we wish we had more of. A full life comes from trusting God to provide everything that we need when we need it. And remembering that God provides for us only serves to strengthen our faith in him and set our affections on him. Instead of being someone whose heart is divided, our heart can be united and focused on him.
God, in fact, remains constant while our needs are always changing. So if we're focused only on our needs, we're going to be so tossed around and so blown around that we won't know what's coming next. But if we put our hearts on the rock of Christ and we focus on him who is the same forever, yesterday, today, and forever, then we will have steady, durable faith that will sustain us through everything.
In order to illustrate this, God used some examples from nature that his audience would have immediately understood. The disciples would have known the example of ravens and wildflowers, but anyone that would have been within earshot, even down to our generation, we can understand birds and plants. So he illustrates God's provision with an ordinary blackbird. He said, verse 24: "Consider the ravens."
The ravens in first-century Palestine were undesirable birds, especially for Jewish people. They were considered unclean birds that were of no use to them. And the ravens were those who scavenged on the bottom of the food chain. This is why Jesus said, "They do not sow or reap. They have no storeroom or barn, yet God feeds them." And think about the graphic image here: that God feeds them dead carcasses. Things that were left over or left behind, God used to feed these birds and sustain their life. And God fed them every day, providing what they needed to continue the work that he designed for them as scavengers.
And Jesus' point is very simple: he's saying, since God cares for wild ravens that have no control over what happens, then how much more will he take care of his children whom he loves dearly? After all, Christians are more valuable than these birds, verse 24. The ravens eat because God provides for them, and God wants us to depend on him for our daily bread. He had already exhorted the disciples to pray for their daily bread, chapter 11, verse 3. And if God notices the ravens, then we can trust him to meet our needs too.
To bring this point home, or this illustration to their hearts, Jesus asked them a rhetorical question. He said, "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?" The answer is no one.
And his point is this: none of us can add a single hour to the timeline of our life with a second of worry. Think about that. None of us can add a single hour to the timeline of our life with a second of worry. If you live 80 or more years, that's a lot of life. Some are living longer. One of our church members, B.Y. Coleman, is turning 100 this month, which is incredible and it's exciting. Last year, at his 99th birthday party, he was so vibrant and full of life. And I'm excited about his 100th birthday.
But imagine B.Y. worrying about if I could just add one more hour to this long life. We would think, "Huh, that seems a little bit greedy or short-sighted." And I'm not accusing B.Y. of that, to be clear. But the point is, none of our worries will change the outcome of our lives. It might change us to become more consumed by what we think we need or what we don't have, but it will not advance our lives by giving us what we need or helping us in serving God.
God always provides exactly what we need at precisely the right moment we need it and just the right quantity that we need. We simply have to believe him and trust that he would do that. Just like he provides for the ravens, he provides for us. Jesus reinforced this with a second rhetorical question. As if the first question doesn't land on their hearts, he asked them the second question: Since you cannot do this very little thing, then why do you worry about all the rest?
Since we cannot add time or resources to our lives by worrying about them, we should not be of two minds. We should not let our minds be torn between God and between what we see. We should trust God for eternal life, and we should trust God for the here and now. We are more valuable than ravens, he says here. Worry always drains our mental strength and wastes our emotional energy. It's an investment of time and thought that produces zero dividends.
And when we're overcome with worry, we must train our hearts to remember God's faithfulness and to trust him. We can look at nature, something as simple as a bird, and be reminded God loves us more than that bird. And we can know God cares for us and that he's always trustworthy. Therefore, we should trust him to take care of us no matter what we may be struggling with.
It's a marvel to watch, but young children naturally trust their parents. They're not yet cynical teenagers. The young children don't worry about how much money their parents have for groceries. They don't say, "Are we spending $300 or $500 this week?" which seems to be the price nowadays. They also don't say, "Well, how much money do you have in the bank? Like, how much could we buy if we really wanted to go crazy?" Children simply live in the moment and they trust their parents to provide for them. Sure, they might want ice cream and candy bars. They might beg for those things, but they receive what they need because loving parents care for them.
Jesus wants us to live our lives the same way. He wants us to live in a way that trusts him, that doesn't doubt him, that says, "God, how much wealth do you actually have?" Well, it says in the Bible he owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He also owns the hills, too. He owns it all. God has more than enough to provide for all of us. The question is, do we trust him to provide for each of us? Do we trust him to provide what we need now?
God wants us to live our life in such a way that reflects our dependence on him. He doesn't want us to be owned by our possessions. Yet how many people are so worried and so consumed that they let the object of their worry control them to the point that it owns them? This could be a parent that's paralyzed in the responsibility of raising their child. They're so worried about this could happen and that could happen that they end up being bad parents. It could be the employee who's so worried about holding on to his job and just self-preservation that he becomes a worthless employee. But it could also be the Christian who's so consumed and so worried about whether God will do this or do that that they don't live the Christian life in abundance. God calls us to live beyond our mere possessions and our mere desire for things. He shows us that life involves more than these.
God Provides Everything We Need
Things. It involves trusting him. And that leads to the second point that I see in this passage, and that is that God provides everything we need to live. God provides everything we need to live. I've already said this, but now Jesus makes it explicit in his next paragraph.
After he established that our lives are more valuable than ravens, he offers a second illustration, something closer to the ground that they can look at and marvel over. He said, consider how the wildflowers grow. Some of your translations say lilies, which is a particular kind of wildflower. The original language doesn't require that we say lilies. The point in the original language is that it is a flower that appears randomly, that no one has planted this wildflower. It's a humble flower. It briefly appears according to the providence of God. It's not there because someone has intentionally planted it or is cultivating it.
A wildflower grows with all of its natural beauty because God ordains it and it pleases him. Every individual wildflower illustrates the generosity of God because these flowers, it says, do not labor or spin. What this means is wildflowers do not select the number of blooms that will appear on their petals. They do not pick their brilliant colors and say, "Well, I want to be orange." "Well, that one will be pink or yellow or blue." No, the colors and the blooms are all God-given. There's no self-made wildflower.
Jesus then compares and says that there is no wildflower that is more beautiful than the finest clothes that Solomon could buy or wear. Solomon, you may remember, was the most wealthy king in Israel. He had hundreds of everything. He had more money than he would ever need, more livestock and homes and resources than one person could ever use. He had more wives than any person needed. And yet, Jesus says that a flower that appears seemingly by random is more beautiful than him.
Then Jesus compares God's attention to this wildflower to his care for our lives. He says in verse 28, "If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, you of little faith?" In other words, since God dresses something as fleeting as a lonely flower, then of course he will dress us.
This is why Jesus continued and told his disciples, "Don't set your heart on what you will eat or drink. Don't worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them." Our hearts are the seat of our affections, which include our desires. And Jesus is warning the disciples and warning us not to waste our affections or to set our desires on things that are short-lived, things like food or drink.
If you need any clarity on this, I would like to ask you, what did you eat on July 14th? Now, if it was your birthday on July 14th, you might remember that you had a birthday cake or dessert that you love. You may have even had your favorite meal that someone prepared for you. But for most of us, July 14th was not our birthday. And most of us would have to dig deep in our memory or look at notes to try to remember what we had for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that day.
The point is, we spend a lot of time as Southerners. We always joke at our house that you can tell we're Southern because while we're eating one meal, we're talking about the next meal. We don't even talk about what we're having right now. We're like, "Well, what are we going to have for supper?" "Let's act at what time are we going to eat?" "What exactly?" "And who's going to prepare?" And all the things.
The point is, these are such short-term things that God is saying: focus on him. Don't set your heart on these things that are here and gone so quickly. Set your heart on the things that your Father will provide for you, which is far more important. And what will He provide? The Father provides the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus Christ, that if we confess with our mouths, then He will forgive us. And our Father provides for us a rich inheritance unto eternal life in His kingdom.
So rather than strive for what is temporary, Jesus exhorts us to seek his kingdom and these things will be given to you as well. In other words, focus on the thing that is most important and the little things will take care of themselves. Focus on getting the job done, so to speak, and you will get all the little tasks done that lead up and completing the bigger project.
And Jesus is making this point that we should pursue what God desires for us, which is our eternal life and righteousness. It can only be found in Christ, and he will provide everything we need to live along the way. Jesus does not want his disciples then or us now to spend our limited time and energy worrying about things that he has already assured us he will provide.
We shouldn't fret over what we need to survive. It's not to say that we should be blasé and absolutely careless, but it's to say we should not be consumed or driven by these things. We must not allow worry to control our thoughts, our emotions, our decisions.
All of us struggle with worry at different points and in different ways, but we should give that over to God. We should see our worry not as the solution to our problem, but our worry leads us to Christ. And we should take it to the Lord. This is why Jesus said, "Cast all your anxieties on me and I will give you rest." Those are his words in Matthew's gospel. God has promised to take care of everything we need, and he proves himself to be trustworthy.
As many of you know, Crystal teaches kindergarten. And every year she hosts two class parties in a local park, one at the beginning of the school year and one at the end of the school year. And each time we go watching these kids play on the playground, you can see their carefree joy for life. Yes, some of them have accidents. Some of them get their feelings hurt. There can sometimes be tears. But for the most part, the kids on the playground are focused on the playground. They're having the time of their lives. They're not worried about what's coming next. They're not worried about bedtime. They're not worried about mealtime. They're simply enjoying the moment.
And when I see kids going all out on the playground like this, it reminds me of the way God wants us to live. He wants us to go all out, giving our lives to him, seeking him first, and letting him take care of the details of our life. A loving parent anticipates what their child needs and provides it for them before they even ask. The parents' forethought and love give their child room to develop and to enjoy life. And for a healthy child and a loving family, being carefree comes naturally and they live life to the fullest. Some of them run so hard and they're so content that they literally walk until they drop in exhaustion.
God wants us to live like this. He wants us to live like well-cared for children that are deeply loved and who can enjoy our lives to the fullest because he provides everything that we need.
What We Treasure Guides Us
And this leads to the conclusion, and it's the third point, and that is that what we treasure the most guides our lives. What we treasure the most guides our lives.
As Jesus is teaching his disciples in this section, he had given them two direct exhortations. First, he says in verse 22, "Don't worry about your life." And now he concludes this section by saying, "Don't be afraid, little flock," verse 32.
Jesus knew that his disciples felt vulnerable. They were being marginalized by the Pharisees and the scribes who were flexing their political muscle. They were trying to trap Jesus, and the disciples were a part of that. The disciples were not naive followers who simply thought everything would be okay. They were frail humans like you and I. They were worried. Like, what if they catch Jesus? What if they stop him? What's that going to mean for us?
And you even see Peter's panic when Jesus has been arrested and a little teenage girl says, "You're a Galilean. I think I've seen you with Jesus." And what was Peter's response? "I don't know him." He denied Jesus three times.
You see, Jesus knew that the disciples felt helpless. So he says to them, "Little flock." This is meaning, men, you are completely dependent on me. You're like a small group of sheep that have been cut off from the larger crowd. But what's even more is they have a good shepherd who cares for them more than all of the other sheep combined.
So Jesus told these men not to fear for their lives. This was another way of him saying, "Don't be anxious." On the one hand, "Don't worry," but on the other hand, "Don't be anxious about what's going to happen." Jesus acknowledged his disciples where they were, and he knows where we are and what our particular struggles are.
And Jesus knew that the antidote was the heavenly father's provision. That God, his father, could provide everything that they needed. And he had done that up until this point, proving himself faithful, and he would continue to do that moving forward. And then ultimately, he says, "Your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom." In other words, God the Father has given you the best thing of all, the promise and the assurance of eternal life. So yes, he's going to provide for you until you realize that eternal life.
While the world chases more and more possessions, he says in verse number 30. Jesus was exhorting the disciples to be rich toward God, verse 21. Christ's followers cannot be owned by their possessions. The pursuit of riches prevents dependence on God. Wealth can often become a barrier that undermines an abundant life in Jesus. This is not to say that it's a sin to be wealthy or that we should not be rich, but it is to say Jesus doesn't make that the focus.
This is one reason among many that we would reject a health and wealth gospel that says you can have your best life now, because Jesus taught the opposite throughout his ministry, that you may actually have a difficult life now, that where you ought to invest is in eternity, because that is assured. Wealth now is not assured.
The apostle Paul echoes the exact same thing in 1 Timothy 6. He says, "Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this same way, they will lay up treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life."
To test our relationship with wealth, Jesus challenged his disciples and he challenges us. He says, "Sell your possessions and give to the poor." Jesus is not commanding the disciples to take a vow of poverty or requiring them to be poor. Instead, he's teaching them what mattered most. Their possessions, as important as they may have seemed at the moment, would one day go away. So they needed to put their confidence not in what they could measure and count now, but what was immeasurable and coming in eternity.
What they treasured the most would guide their lives, and it would allow the disciples to be loyal to Jesus even after Jesus was crucified and raised again. It would allow the disciples to proclaim the name of Christ when it brought embarrassment to them and shame to them, and would allow most of them to die as martyrs for Christ because they knew what was coming next.
The disciples could either store up what they had now, which would ultimately go away when they died, or they could invest in this kingdom for eternity, which would be theirs for all of the future. Thus, Jesus said, "Your treasures in heaven will never fail." Investing in the kingdom of God receives an eternal dividend. And he says, "Thieves cannot steal it and moths cannot destroy it."
When I was a kid, I had a couple different experiences that relate to what Jesus is saying here. Often, my family would go and visit my uncle and aunt and my cousins and my grandma and grandpa, who lived about an hour away on a farm in Kentucky. My dad and my mom were both raised on the farm. When they graduated high school, they went to college and they said, "We don't want to live on the farm."
But they continued to take my brother and I back there so that we would know our family and know where they had come from. As we went to my grandmother's house in particular, it was an old farmhouse. It was small. It was creaky. When the wind blew, you knew it on the outside because you heard it and you felt it on the inside because it was a very modest house.
My grandma kept some of her most valuable possessions in the attic of this house. Every time it seemed like, she would take my brother and me up into the attic and she would tell us about this thing or that thing. She would pull it out of storage containers that were lined in linen and filled with mothballs. Every time she opened the door into this unfinished attic, the awful smell of mothballs almost knocked us over. It was gross smelling.
I remember the first time seeing that. "What are those little white things? They're horrible." And my grandma used them to protect the valuables that she was storing in the attic.
After my grandmother died, my dad and I went into this attic. It still smelled like mothballs. Her cherished possessions were mostly intact, but they were ruined by the strong odor of mothballs because she never took any away. Some of them dissolved, but she just kept adding more all the time. As I've thought about that over the years, I've thought about how some of our lives smell like mothballs.
Avoiding the Scent of Mothballs
We're running after the cares of this world, just piling mothballs upon mothballs, trying our best to preserve our best lives now, but it reeks in the nostrils of God. Because God doesn't care about your best life now. He cares about you having eternal life with him later.
I would say it this way: Heaven does not smell like mothballs. Heaven is the presence of Christ, and we want to be with him and what matters most. This is why Jesus concludes, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." What we treasure the most now guides our lives. If we simply want to have a bigger and better house, that can consume us. If we want to have more position and more reward in our employment, that can consume us. If we want to have the best student-athlete, that can consume us.
Where we spend our time, our money, and our efforts reveals what we value the most. And some of us are investing in mothballs. We're investing in those things that are temporary and even reeking in the presence of God. If we only give God our leftover time, a tiny amount of our money, and an afterthought of our talents, then we're ultimately saying we don't trust God; we trust mothballs.
Jesus was teaching his disciples to trust him above all else. He was saying, "I will give you everything you need to accomplish my will. Believe me, trust me, put your confidence in me."
When Miles was almost four years old, Crystal and I had a yard sale. We were downsizing, getting rid of some things, preparing to move ourselves overseas to live in Scotland. Among the different things we sold, we sold some prized possessions in that yard sale. And one of them was a rideable Tonka truck that Miles absolutely adored. I think we bought it for him before he was even born, and he rode that Tonka truck everywhere. And this was not the metal Tonka truck, which he had that too, but this was a plastic one that he could straddle and zoom around everywhere. And he adored that truck.
But we in that yard sale had decided, "It's too big. We'll save some toys, but this truck needs to go." Miles loved it. He hated for it to go away. He asked us several times, "Why do we have to sell that truck?" And we told him, "Miles, it's time for another kid to enjoy this truck." And he very graciously, even at that young age, when another family came and showed interest in it, he let them take it as their child was now excited about that truck.
But we told Miles that while that truck might be going away, we would get him different toys when we moved and new things that he could enjoy. And you know what he did? He didn't pitch a fit. He didn't complain. He didn't shake his fist or stomp away. He simply trusted us. He let that truck go to another family. And we did buy him other toys that he was able to enjoy.
The point is, his life was not obsessed with this yellow, rideable Tonka truck. His life was invested in his parents providing for him. And God wants the same for you. Some of us are riding around holding on so tightly, we don't want anything to threaten what we think is most important. And yet God is saying, "Let it go. It might be time for someone else to enjoy that. It might be something that you don't need. It could even be something that's crushing your soul."
Trusting God's Kingdom Promises
So seek first my kingdom. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And God wants us to trust him. Jesus promises kingdom dividends when we trust him. It's the best investment plan ever: that if we confess our sin and we trust Christ for the forgiveness of sin, he promises to give us eternal life and we'll be with him in heaven with houses he's prepared for us on streets made of gold.
So where is your treasure? What are you trusting? What keeps you up at night? What worries you? And where is your heart placing its hope? I pray that it would be Christ and not mothballs.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, guide us this morning as we are convicted, wrestling with a passage like this. All of us, myself included, worry about things that are outside of our control, things that we cannot change or do anything about. And yet we so easily allow them to overwhelm us, to upset us, and even distract us away from you.
So help us this morning to renew our commitment to you, our vision of your provision of eternal life. And Father, help us to seek your kingdom first, and then all these things will be added unto us.
So if we're here this morning and we don't trust you for salvation, I pray that we would confess our sin and that we would ask your forgiveness. And Father, if we are Christians who have done that, but we're struggling to trust you with our children or our jobs or our retirement, or we're failing to trust you with our relationships or with whatever it is, help us to lift our gaze to heaven. Help us to see all that we have in Christ and watch as you work out all the other things as we follow you.
God, we commit this to you. We ask for your help because we're helpless. And it's in this I pray, Jesus' name, amen.