We are going to turn to God's Word. We're continuing our series in Luke chapter 12. We're in the Gospel of Luke in a series called Kingdom Come, and we are in specifically Luke chapter 12 this morning. We're going to be looking at verses 22 to 34. If you don't have a Bible with you, the words should be on the screen as well. If you do have a Bible with you, I'd encourage you to read along in your own Bible. Hear God's holy and authoritative word.
And he said to his disciples, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body and what you will put on. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek His kingdom, and these things will be added unto you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The word of the Lord. May He write His truth upon our hearts.
Now, it's no coincidence that right on the heels of a message and a parable that Jesus gave, a message we titled last week about the fact that our possessions can possess us, right on the heels of that parable and that teaching, Jesus now tells the disciples and tells us this morning not to worry.
On the one hand, you can be possessed by your possessions, and on the other hand, knowing that, don't be anxious. When we find ourselves in the habitual grip of covetousness and greed, what we saw last week, we'll often find ourselves being in the grip of anxiety. The two go hand in hand. And the reasoning is really simple: the more stuff that we long for, The more anxious we are about how we're going to accumulate those things and the more things we become convinced that we need for happiness, the more likely panic is to set in when we don't have those things. Ironically, even when we accumulate those things that we think will make us happy, the so-called needs, our worries often only increase because now we have to concern ourselves with how we will keep them and how we will maintain them. So it's no coincidence in a society like we live in where a lot of people have a lot of possessions that worry is a very common problem.
We can be chronic worriers. You think of modern parenting, right? Modern parenting has become this long exploration of all the new ways we can find to worry about our kids. Are they eating too much sugar? Is it the wrong kind of sugar? Is it overly processed sugar? Are they in enough activities? Are they in too many activities? The term helicopter parenting is really just another way of saying anxious parenting, worried parenting. Can't let them out of our sight. What will happen? You think of going to the doctor for your yearly checkup. You find out your blood pressure is too high or your cholesterol count is out of whack. The fact that some of us know the difference between HDL and LDL says everything, right? The doctor says, 'You should really be exercising more consistently.' And then you leave and you're driving home and it brings to the next question, 'Man, if all of that's true, do I have enough life insurance?' It seems wise to listen to your doctor, so you start working out, and then that bulky knee starts acting up, and now you're worried, 'Do I have to have surgery? How much is our deductible again? Isn't it like 3 times what it was 4 years ago? I can't remember what my plan was. It's changed 4 times over the last 4 years.' You start thinking about that, and now you're all of a sudden worried about, 'Man, all these government regulations, and what does it say about the American economy? What about our growing national debt?' The worries just pile up and they spin out of control. And if the economy's this way, what does that look like as we save for retirement? How do we do that? Are we saving enough? How do we do it in a way that's wise? And it goes on and on and on and on.
We can be chronic worriers. But we reason, at least we're not anxious. Because anxious, being anxious, doesn't that sort of have a clinical sound to it? It's one thing to worry. It's another thing to have anxiety problems or anxiety attacks, right? The reality though, it's not that worrying is human and anxiety is evidence you need some sort of medication. Scripturally, biblically, the ideas are synonymous. It's the same problem with the same root causes.
6 · The preacher identifies Jesus' command as authoritative and names anxiety as sin, acknowledging both its commonality and its debilitating power over believers
Today's passage in Luke 12 is a famous passage about anxiety and worry. And at 3 different points, Jesus calls us to question our tendency to worry. At the outset, He flat out commands us, 'Do not be anxious.' Command of the Word of God. 'Do not be anxious about your life,' which is just a really all-encompassing way of saying, 'Don't be anxious about anything.' And the reason Jesus gets to direct us about our worries. The reason he's concerned about anxiety is because worry and anxiety, as much as they are common, are also sin. Some people feel utterly trapped by those sins. They know what it is to look over and see the clock at 3 AM for the fourth night in a row, tossing and turning gripped by worry, anxious about yesterday's cares and tomorrow's unknowns. It can be debilitating.
7 · The preacher announces the good news: because worry is sin, Jesus provides both forgiveness and power to overcome it, diagnosing the condition and prescribing the cure in this passage
The good news for all of us, though, regardless of the severity of your worry, regardless of how badly you worry, because this is more than just a social tic, because this is actually a sin problem, Jesus has real solutions for us in the Word of God. Jesus himself is the solution. Christ has taken on flesh to purchase our forgiveness from every sin that hinders us, right? Worry included. To secure our release from worry and to empower us to overcome worry. So for the worrying mom or the anxious student, the hand-wringing businessman, The hand-wringing whomever. Luke 12 is a passage where Jesus takes aim at our hearts. The Great Physician isn't just commanding us to stop worrying, he's diagnosing our condition and he's prescribing medicine.
8 · The preacher transitions into the sermon's main structure, announcing the first of five reasons not to worry
Here are the reasons that Jesus gives us for why we shouldn't worry. Don't worry, Jesus says, because your life matters to God. The first reason: don't worry because your life matters to God.
9 · The preacher expounds Jesus' logic: life's true value transcends food and clothing
In fact, before we even get on to who you are and why your life matters, it's important to recognize that life itself matters. Part of our anxiety is that we've allowed our priorities to become out of whack. I think back to when I was in middle school. And just, I would get consumed about what I was supposed to wear. And not like overly consumed. I was just a normal middle schooler with the normal middle school concerns about what kind of clothes I was wearing, what kind of label was on the back of my jeans. I specifically remember Z Cavaricci. I don't even know if they make that kind of jeans anymore, which tells you how futile it was to worry about having Z Cavaricci. And they had a special jeans that was the Silk Touch jeans. The Z-Cav Silk Touch, which— I mean, I tried them on and I was like, 'Oh!' It's like, 'Whoa!' You almost like can hardly hold on. And I just thought, 'I have to have Z-Cavaricci Silk Touch jeans. If I have these jeans going into 8th grade, there will be nothing to worry about all year long.' It's really how I felt. Now, that sounds inherently foolish, but it speaks to how we often misconstrue what's important in life. That's not just an issue for 8th graders. How much does it matter how full your life is of fancy things? Surely life isn't measured by the tag inside your shirt or the silkiness of your jeans or the emblem on your car. Or how about the obsessions we have with what we eat? Or the new modern obsession with what our food has eaten and how free our food was in the eating of that food and how happy those chickens were before we cut their heads off. Right? We worry, we have found ways to worry about those things. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food and the body more than Z Cavaricci jeans. Life is far too important for the types of things that often constitute our worries. Even more than this, though, we shouldn't worry, Jesus says, not just because life is important, but because your lives matter to the one who's most important. Don't worry because your lives matter to God.
10 · The preacher unpacks Jesus' raven illustration, contrasting the carefree birds with last week's anxious rich farmer
Verse 24 tells us, consider the ravens. Last week we heard about the rich farmer. Remember this rich farmer who has an abundant crop and he becomes obsessed with building bigger barns so he can accumulate more stuff. And if he accumulates enough stuff, he's convinced he can retire in opulence and ease. But in all of his obsession, read worry, he'd forgotten about the God who blessed him. He was the anti-raven. He wasn't thinking like the birds. Birds don't live like this. More than that, the birds, their value to God pales in comparison to how much every person in this room matters to God. Almighty God enthroned in the heavens cares about each person sitting in this room. To the extent Luke tells us, He has numbered the hairs on your head.
11 · A real-time observation from the preacher's morning becomes an illustration of carefree trust: the birds sing in worship because God provided yesterday and they're free from tomorrow's worry
This morning as I was going through the sermon, the birds were chirping. It's one of the best parts about spring, right? Is you get up early in the morning and the birds chirp and they sing. The birds are chirping and singing because yesterday God fed them. And they're chirping and singing because they are utterly free from worry. It's a song of worship in God's provision from unthinking, inconsequential birds.
12 · The preacher marshals two NT cross-references—Philippians 4 and 1 Peter 5—to reinforce the theme of God's nearness and care
In Philippians 4:5-6, another famous passage on not being anxious, right before Paul tells us, 'Don't be anxious about anything,' he reminds us, 'The Lord is at hand.' In other words, the Lord is near. The Lord is near to help us. And as the Apostle Peter adds, 'Cast all your anxieties on—' The image is to take the anxieties off of your back, which is where worry sits, right? Take those anxieties off of your back and cast them. Cast them where? Cast them on Him. Cast them on your Father. Because he cares for you.
13 · The preacher synthesizes the argument so far: God's love and nearness in Christ Jesus ground our freedom from worry
Don't worry, because your life is of great value to God, who loves you and has drawn near to you in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. In the book of Hebrews, the author makes the connection: because of Jesus, as our High Priest. Because God has drawn near to us in Christ Jesus, we now can draw near to Him with boldness and with confidence, with no worry.
14 · The preacher announces the second reason not to worry, shifting the argument from God's care to worry's futility
Second thing Jesus tells us, second reason not to worry, is because worrying is useless. Don't worry, Jesus says, because worrying is useless.
15 · A humorous personal observation of a man working out with no weight becomes an extended analogy for the futility of worry: activity that accomplishes nothing
Now, there's this guy. I'll illustrate this. There's this guy at the gym. And he is an interesting codger. He comes every time when he works out, and I see him every once in a while. He comes pretty frequently, and he wears dress shoes and like a button-down shirt and sort of fancy sweatpants. It's the strangest outfit you've ever seen. And then to top all that off, he has these like yellow-tinted aviator glasses he wears. And so he comes up and he's not very big. He's maybe 130 pounds soaking wet. And he's got his leather dress shoes on and his dress shirt and his sweet sweats. And he's there to work out. And as crazy as his outfit looks, when you see him work out, it's even crazier. He will go and he will walk over and pick up the 2.5-pound dumbbells, you know, massive 2.5s. He'll get in front of the mirror and just start. Set of 50. Adjust the spectacles and walk back and set them back. And he'll walk over to one of the machines and he'll literally take the pin out of the machine completely. So now there's no weight engaged. You know, he'll sit and he's doing lat pulldowns. Set of 40, you know. Nobody has told this guy that high rep, no weight exercises are completely useless and a total waste of time. He can wear his leather shoes and his dress shirt because in all the times I've seen him there, I've never once seen him break a sweat. But he is consistently working out, man. He doesn't realize he's totally wasting his time.
16 · The preacher unpacks Jesus' rhetorical question: worry accomplishes nothing, adds no time to life, solves no problems
Well, the same can be said of worry. It's as useless as high-rep, no-weight exercises. Which of you, Jesus says, by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? What good does worrying do you? Worry is the worst problem solver of all time. It accomplishes nothing. And even though some of us have convinced it kind of feels good to worry incessantly, there's absolutely nothing that gets accomplished with all the hand-wringing. No one looks back after a time of difficulty and trial and says, 'Man, that period of hardship, it would have gone so much better if I had spent at least 2 hours a day worrying more.' That would have been the solution. It would have been like weeks shorter in the difficulty if I had worried exponentially more. Now, we usually look back and think, 'Man, if I had prayed 10% as much as I worried, what would the Lord have done in my heart in the midst of the hardship?'
17 · The preacher cites Matthew's parallel passage to reinforce worry's futility, then pivots to the positive counter-promise: God's mercies are new every morning, providing fresh grace for each day's troubles
In the sister passage in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus adds, Tomorrow will be anxious for itself. In other words, your worrying today does nothing to alleviate the problems that may or may not come tomorrow. It's worthless. You're not building any more strength than, than Cool Joe with his tinted glasses and no weight on the bar. Your worrying is not helping. Much more important than this, though, is the reality that even If there are more problems tomorrow, if there are more problems coming, God has also promised more grace. Lamentations reminds us, it's that famous verse, right? His mercies, God's mercies, are new every morning. That's just not a neat verse that's like, His mercies are new every morning. That is God in His wisdom and His kindness speaking to finite people who need Him and promising us, speaking grace to us, 'Don't worry, my mercies, my grace is new every morning.' It's an incredible promise. It's a remarkable thing. God has provided grace for today's troubles, and as surely as the sun rises tomorrow, there will be fresh grace awaiting for all that tomorrow holds.
18 · The preacher contrasts our ignorance of tomorrow with Jesus' omniscience and care
When we worry, we're living in fear. When we worry, we find no enjoyment in today. I can't enjoy today, I'm worried about today. And the reality is we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. Some of us worry that we don't know, and you're right. I can't tell you, like, 'Well, if you read the Bible passages, you'll know.' You won't. We had a birthday party yesterday, and nobody was expecting rain, and it started raining in the middle of the birthday party. Didn't the weatherman know? Well, of course not, right? He's a weatherman. But none of us know. The stock market, it might crash tomorrow. The reason why everyone loses money when the stock market crashes is because no one knows. You might get sideswiped going through an intersection. I told you a few weeks ago, my cousin's husband struck while riding his bike, traumatic brain injury. None of us knows what tomorrow will hold. We can worry about what we do and don't know. Or we can look to Jesus. He sees. Jesus sees and he feeds the ravens. He's watching over the birds. He sees and he clothes the lilies. And Jesus knows everything that's coming down the pike. He actually does know what's coming tomorrow. More than that, He knows and He cares. He sympathizes and He extends fresh grace.
19 · The preacher expands the Lamentations 3 quotation to its fuller context, then christologically interprets it: the Lord who is our portion is Christ Jesus, whose faithfulness never ceases and who now intercedes for his people
The context of Lamentations 3 is even better than the little snippet we normally quote. 'The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness.' 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'therefore I will hope in Him.' And as every passage in Scripture does, Lamentations 3:22-24 is pointing to 'in Him,' in Jesus. The steadfast love of the Lord never fails in Jesus. Jesus' mercies never come to an end. They're new every morning. Great is His faithfulness. He was faithful perfectly on the earth, and He will be faithful now forever and eternity. Part of His faithfulness now for eternity is praying for you, His people, in the thick of lives in a fallen world. The Lord Christ Jesus is my portion. Not worry, the Lord. Therefore, I will hope in Him.
20 · The preacher announces the third reason not to worry, pivoting from worry's futility to its spiritual character
The next reason not to worry, Jesus says, is because worrying is worldly. Worrying is worldly.
21 · The preacher unpacks Jesus' contrast between pagans who worry and disciples who shouldn't
You know who really worries about what they'll eat and drink? Who is consumed by worry about whether they'll still have a job next week or whether that yearly physical will go well? Jesus says unbelievers, the nations, the Gentiles. Jesus says those are the ones who pine away about what will happen in life. Jesus looks at the disciples, right? It says at the beginning of the passage, He basically turns from the crowds to the disciples. Now He's orienting this call not to be anxious to the 12. And He says to them, Why is your faith so small? 'O ye of little faith.' That's what it means. Why is your faith so small? Why is it so feeble? That's a very helpful statement from Jesus. Because that statement helps us to diagnose the problem. The reason Jesus says the pagans worry and believers shouldn't, the world worries and Christians shouldn't, is because worry is rooted in unbelief. You can't worry and be consumed by worry and worship God. Jesus is looking us square in the eye this morning and saying, 'You worry so much, you might as well be an atheist.' It's a convicting statement from the Lord, isn't it?
22 · The preacher contrasts pagan materialism—living as if God doesn't exist—with Christian identity as kingdom inheritors
The nations are the ones who worship the sun and the thunder because they're in constant fear of provision that will or won't come. Unbelievers are the people who anxiously obsess over what they will wear and what they will drink and what they will eat and what they will drive. The sum total of their lives is nothing more than these things. But not you. Not His precious chosen people. Not those who will inherit the kingdom. Surely you don't worry in the same way as them. That's what Jesus says to them. That's what He says to us. Pagans, Jesus says, are the ones possessed by their possessions. They live for their paycheck. They spend money they don't have. They rack up debts that they won't pay. They hoard and save and spend like they do because they assume God doesn't exist, and they assume they have a few decades to squeeze out as much hedonism in this life as they can because then it's over. But that's not us. Paul says if the resurrection isn't true, that's how you should live. If the resurrection's not true, you should be doing that exact thing. Squeeze every ounce of hedonistic pleasure you can out of this life. Be gluttonous, be sensual, be greedy, be covetousness, be covetous. Because the day's coming, you're going to die, and there's nothing else. Except the resurrection is true. And because the resurrection is true, the resurrection changes everything.
23 · The preacher transitions to the fourth reason not to worry, framing it as the passage's central theme: God's sovereignty
Don't worry, Jesus says, because it ignores God. It allows your emotions to rule you. And ignoring God, you forget another great truth, another reason not to worry. Don't worry, Jesus says, because God is in control. That is the massive theme of the passage.
24 · The preacher argues from Jesus' lilies-and-ravens logic: if God controls even the inconsequential, how much more does he control what matters? Worry betrays functional atheism—believing God isn't in control or doesn't care
All that comes to pass for the most inconsequential of things on the earth, the birds and the grass and the lilies, everything that comes to pass is coming to pass according to God's plan. And if the birds and the lilies can count on God being in control, can't we? That's his question to us. The context in Luke 12, right, is about money and possessions and our propensity to worship these things more than we worship God. Building bigger barns and bank accounts and worrywarts who are hoarding treasures on earth because they don't trust God. They don't trust either He's not in control in the functional way they handle their money, or they're convinced He doesn't care. But both of those things are false. God is in control and God does care.
25 · The preacher situates the passage within Luke's larger theme: kingdom people live radically different lives, especially regarding money and possessions
The context is about the way the kingdom shapes people. And how those people shaped by the kingdom live radically kingdom-oriented lives that are radically different from the lives of the world. Luke's Gospel is full of different examples of how this looks. And in Luke 12, it looks like radically kingdom-centered lives handle money and possessions in radically different ways. Radical generosity, a countercultural approach to how they earn and how they spend. To live this way, though, requires faith. Faith that God sees us. Not just that he sees us, but that he knows what we need. That we can be generous because God is going to provide for us in the midst of our generosity.