Luke 12:22-34
Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to Luke’s Gospel to chapter 12. Today our reading
is verses 22 to 34. Somebody asked me before the
service if my sermon was going to be short, and I said, I don’t
know. That’s my usual answer, because I just never know. But
a little warning, it may not be all that coherent. A week
with a funeral, a death in the church is very exhausting, and
then a funeral right before Sunday is extremely exhausting. So I’m sure I’ll hear at lunch
from my kids what I said. that pray for God’s blessing.
It’s a it’s a wearying week when you have events like this. And so we just keep on and trust
the Lord. Let’s hear God’s word together. This is Luke’s gospel, chapter
12, beginning at verse 22. These are the words of Christ.
And he says, he says to his disciples, 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 is more than clothing. Consider the ravens. They neither
sow nor reap, and 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 they 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? Oh, you of little faith. And do not seek what you are
to eat and what you are to drink or 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 to 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 money bags that do not grow old, with treasure that is in
heaven and does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth
destroys. For where your treasure is, there
your heart will be also. Let us pray together. Lord, as
we always ask, Give us eyes that see, give us ears that hear,
give us hearts that perceive and understand, and especially
give us hands and feet that will leave this place today and do
your holy will. All by your grace, we pray and
for your great glory. And we ask it through Jesus Christ.
Amen. I’m not sure where I heard this,
but I think it’s a good rule. And the rule goes something like
this. If you’re reading through your Bible and there’s a bad
character in the Bible, You are that bad character. And if you’re
reading through your Bible and there are more than one bad characters,
you’re all of them. We, because we live in this wonderful
narcissistic world where our mamas told us how wonderful we
are and we got trophies for participating and all the rest. We like to
read the Bible and read the good character and say, oh, that’s
me. And then we look at the bad characters and we say, no, not
me. I’d never do that. Well, I want us to think for
just a moment about a couple of occasions in the Bible where
someone did something that illustrates exactly what Jesus is teaching
in the passage today. First of all, think about Peter.
When Peter got out of the boat and walked to Jesus, as long
as he kept his eyes on Jesus, he could walk on the water. But
when he took his eyes off of Christ, he sank. He failed and
faltered. And what do we say? Oh, if I
had been Peter, I would have kept my eyes on Jesus. I wouldn’t
have sunk a bit. Well, yeah, right. You who are
super spiritual, we don’t believe that a bit wrong. What about
Abraham? in the promised land. A little
more to the point of our passage today. Abraham, when God called
him out of paganism, he called him out of Ur of the Chaldeans.
So Abraham and Sarah, his wife, their nephew Lot, they packed
up all their belongings. They left Ur of the Chaldeans.
They went to the land of Canaan where Abraham pitched his tent. They built an altar and worshiped
the Lord. God came to him several times during that sojourn and
said, I am the Lord, your God. Walk before me and be blameless.
Uh, this land will become the land of your offspring. If you
walk before me and be blameless, I’ll bless you. Your offspring
will outnumber the sand of the seashore. Uh, your offspring
will outnumber the stars and the heaven. And so Abraham went,
he sojourned, he worshiped, uh, he became, uh, wealthy there,
but as you would know it, the stock market went down. The coronavirus
popped up. Well, no, those things didn’t
happen to Abraham, but there was a famine in the land and
it was a serious famine. And you who are super spiritual,
you’re already saying, well, God can provide. I would have
stayed put. But what did Abraham do? He went down to Egypt. He
went down to Egypt, he sought help, not from Yahweh, but from
pagans. And in the scriptures, this is
a significant spiritual misstep. In fact, several places in the
Bible, I think of Isaiah 31 in particular, God says, woe to
you who go down to Egypt for help. Now, this is a spiritual
warning that God gives. Don’t look for help outside of
Israel. Don’t look for help outside of
Yahweh. Well, when Abraham got hungry. He went down to Egypt
and he thought to himself, they’re going to think my wife is a beautiful
woman. And so I better, uh, concoct
this little plan, uh, to have her tell them that she’s my sister,
which she sort of was. Remember they married half sisters
back in those days. And so Abraham’s wife was his
half sister, but tell, tell, tell the Egyptians that, um,
You’re my sister. They’ll deal well with me. And
so Abraham went down to Egypt. He got wealthy because of his
beautiful sister. She ended up in Pharaoh’s house.
Things didn’t go well for Pharaoh. They came to Abraham. Would it
be done? You’re a liar, right? We’re cursed. Here, leave. Kind of sounds like the Exodus
later, doesn’t it? Go down to Egypt, get oppressed. Plagues come on the house of
Pharaoh. They send God’s people out with riches. Well, that’s
what happened. God sent Abraham back out of Egypt and he was
blessed with more livestock. He became rich. In fact, so rich.
The next story in the account of Genesis is that Lot and Abraham
had so much they had to separate and Lot moves towards Sodom.
Abraham goes towards the promised land, but it was a great sin.
It was a great sin for Abraham to go down to Egypt for help. He didn’t trust in the promises
of God. He didn’t believe that God was
able to provide even in the midst of a severe famine and drought. And isn’t it that way in our
lives? We trust Jesus for our salvation. We rest in him alone
for our hope of glory and forgiveness of sins. But we work, we stress,
we get anxious, we complicate life by worrying and worrying
and worrying and worrying. And so, see, in fact, after all,
we’re just like Peter, aren’t we? We take our eyes off Christ
and we begin to sink. We take our eyes off of Yahweh,
our great provider, and we go down to Egypt. for our provision. We seek help not from God himself,
but from pagans. And so what does Jesus teach
us today? What is he teaching his disciples
in this passage? I want you to think for just
a moment about the greater story of Luke. You can’t just isolate
this story out of the whole of the Bible, and you for sure can’t
isolate it out of where it is placed in the story of Luke.
Remember, Jesus and his disciples are slowly making their way towards
Jerusalem, where Jesus will give up his life for his people. He will live on a perfectly obedient
life. He’ll die at the hands of the
wicked rulers, both of Rome and Israel. But he’ll do so for the
benefit of salvation of his people. But on the way, Jesus is teaching
his disciples the values, the way of living in the kingdom.
And there’s the Pharisees entering in the stories here and there.
They’re picking at Jesus. You got it all wrong. The way
we do things is best. You’re a new guy. You don’t know
what you’re talking about. You’re wrong. We’re right. You’re
a heretic. We’re exact. And along the way, Jesus is saying,
no, these are the values of the kingdom. He’s turning their value
system upside down. And that’s exactly what he’s
going to do for us today. He’s going to say when we are
fearful, when we are full of worry, when we’re anxious and
when we seek after things that aren’t eternal. We’re like Abraham
who went down to Egypt, we would rather have the pagans blessing
than God’s benediction. And dear friends, that is a,
that is a serious charge that Jesus gives to us. He gives to his disciples. Do
you trust in the world or do you trust in me? Do you trust
in what you see or do you put all your eggs in the basket of
the world you cannot see? He’s speaking to faithless, fearful,
worrying, anxious, world-seeking people. And in fact, he gives
a pretty strong indictment. He says, you’re like the nations
of the world. Don’t we hate it when people
say, maybe you get into it with your spouse. You’re just like
your father. Or we get into it with, you know, somebody and
they pull the granddaddy of them all. You know, you’re no better
than the world, right? We don’t like to be associated
with other world. Jesus does just that. You warriors, you
anxious people, you faithless people, you’re just like the
pagans. What an indictment that is. But
there’s in addition to this indictment, there is a solution. There is
a solution to the problem that we all have in our hearts. And what is that solution? Well,
that solution is to have greater faith. If Jesus says to you,
oh, you have little faith, what do you think the solution to
having little faith is? It’s having greater faith. And
if you’re Hearts are bent on having things of this life accumulated
and under your ownership. What do you think the solution
to that is? It’s again, just as we studied last week, having
a greater treasure from a greater kingdom. Well, in this passage
of scripture, Jesus speaks to his disciples and he tells us
the worries of our lives. The things that cause our anxiety
are our bodies. what we’ll clothe them with.
Our lives, how we will feed our hungry bellies. He speaks of
our anxiety and worry in the context of our span of life. And he says a really radical
solution to this is worried about clothes, sell it all and give
it to the poor. Worried about food and money
and all these things, give it away. and provide for yourselves
money bags that do not rot and where thief will not approach
and moth cannot destroy.” Well, how do we cultivate this type
of kingdom living in our lives? How do we not worry about clothes?
How do we not worry about food? How do we not worry about the
span of our lives? What do we do if we’re anxious? Well, first
of all, let me point out this. He is not speaking about opening
your closet and being so broke you have nothing to wear. He’s
really talking about to, well, what do we experience? We all
opened our closets this morning. Most of us, I know some of you
are so organized, it was picked out last night. But for the rest
of us, right? You open your closet and there
was so much there and you said, what will I wear? And your anxieties
were, is it in season? Is it fashionable? It’s cold
today. Will I be warm enough in it?
Will they turn the heat on in the church? Will I be comfortable?
On and on and on we go. This is this is anxiety of a
different level. This is this is not where will
my next meal come from? This is my iPhone. Seven’s getting
a little old and, you know, I’m feeling a little out of it because
I don’t have the 11 plus. This is my flat screen TV at
55 inches is not the what do they have now? The infinity size.
You know, it’s got to be curved and, you know, it’s got to have
all this, all the right stuff. This is the anxiety Jesus is
talking about. Remember, this is connected to last week’s passage
about covetousness. This isn’t about being broke
or poor or being worried about where your next meal or stitch
of clothing is coming from. This is about, am I in style? Do I have the latest iPhone?
Do I have the biggest TV? Will people, Well, people love
me and think of me properly. This is worldly anxiety about
worldly things that have nothing to do with eternal matters. And
so Jesus chastises them. Don’t worry about your body and
what you will wear. Don’t worry about your life and
what you will eat. Don’t worry about your span of
life. Who of you can even add another moment to it? So how
do we think differently? How do we How do we have not
little faith, but greater faith? How can that faith be strengthened?
I want to suggest to you a couple of things that are in the passage
that will help us. First of all, get to know your
heavenly father. Jesus says your heavenly father
knows your needs. He knows your needs before you
ask. What do we know about our heavenly father? What does our
theology teach us? What do we learn in our confessions
and catechisms? What have we learned about God by reading
through the Psalms? Who is God, his character? What has God done,
his actions? What are his promises that have
been yes and amen and fulfilled in Jesus and are yet to be fulfilled,
but will be done so before the end of time? Who is God? What is he like? Is he a good
God? Is he a providing God? Our heavenly
father knows our needs before we ask. And so we need not worry
about what we will eat or our bodies or our lives or the clothes
we’ll wear. We need not worry about the span
of our lives for we have a heavenly father who owns everything. Think about this. Our God is
sovereign, we believe that. Our God is the God of providence.
He orders and ordains and rules and orchestrates all things to
come to pass for his own glory, yes, but for your everlasting
good. And so you wake up on Monday
morning and it’s maybe not as spiritual of a day as Sunday
and you get to thinking about what you need. Think about your
heavenly father first. He has tailor made every moment
of every day, every need that you have. You know, some of you
are getting to the age where you wonder, will my money run
out before my years? Some of you are wondering what
will become of my health. Some of you are more acutely
aware of the essentials of life. Some of us who are younger, we
think we got the world by the tail. We think there’s time yet
to earn and to be healthy and strong. But for others of you,
you wake up each day and you think about your health. You
think about the provision. And let me encourage you to put
your trust in this God, your heavenly father. who knows your
needs before you ask. You will never outlive his care
for you. And that’s a wonderful thing
to think of. So O you of little faith, strengthen
your faith in your heavenly father. Also think of the word shepherd. The word shepherd comes up in
this passage, maybe not directly, but he calls us his little flock. And he says of the shepherd,
the great shepherd, our shepherd, it is his good pleasure to give
to the flock what they need. Really similar to the understanding
we have our heavenly father, but a different picture, isn’t
it? We love to recite Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. But before we get, I shall not
want out of our mouth, we’re anxious. We’re worried about
our body. We’re worried about what we’ll
eat. We’re worried about what we’ll be clothed with. We’re worried
about the span of our life. We’re worried about this, that,
and the other. And yes, we need to be worried. Yes, we need to
work. Yes, we need to seek to provide for our physical and
other needs in this world, but they cannot be the driving force
in our lives. And we can rest assured that
we have a shepherd. It’s his good pleasure to give
to his flock that which they need. Who has a shepherd? Who
has a father who will not care for his lambs or for his children? Not Christians. We remember the
words of the psalmist, I have never seen the righteous begging
for bread. There’s a third word that ought
to encourage us in this passage, it’s the words kingdom. Seek first the kingdom, Jesus
tells his disciples. Seek first the kingdom and everything
else, the lesser things, will get thrown in. Don’t you think?
And No nasty letters about pastors become a health and wealther.
I haven’t. But don’t you think that if we
live our lives obedient to the Lord and we go to work and we
just do what’s before us and as we seek first the kingdom,
we give to the Lord his tithes and our offerings and we do what’s
required of us. Don’t you think the general principle
is everything else is just going to fall into place? We’re going
to have groceries. Our shoes aren’t going to wear
out. That old furnace is going to last a little longer. The
tires are going to get a few more miles. Isn’t that how God
took care of Israel and Egypt? Their tunics were not eaten by
moths. Their sandals did not wear out. Where were they going
to get bread? There was no 7-11, no Harris Teeter. It came down
from heaven. God knows what you need and he
knows how to provide it. So dear friends, if you are living
a kingdom minded life, And you are obedient to the Lord. I think
the general principle we must understand from what Jesus says
is if you’re seeking first the kingdom, you’re living an obedient
life. I mean, yes, things happen, things come and go. The Lord
chastises us. There are all those sorts of
things. But the general principle is God takes care of his children. And so what reason do we have
to be anxious? Well, coronavirus. What reason do we have to be
anxious? Well, the stock market’s going a little topsy turvy. What
reason do we have to be anxious? Well, I think I’ve got more living
to do and not enough money to do that living on. What reason
do we have to be anxious? You could list thousands of reasons. We could all sit here and start
biting our nails and saying, is it all going to work out?
But there’s a greater principle here at work. Jesus says, you
have a father who knows your needs. You have a shepherd and
it’s his good pleasure to give. And if you seek first his kingdom,
all these things will be added. Well, there’s a little add on
to this passage and it’s one I know you won’t like, but it’s
one that shows where our heart is. And it comes at the end of
our passage after Jesus tells us to trust the father, to rely
on our shepherd. He says in verse 33, sell your
possessions and give to the needy. If you’re a little too attached
to things and they’re causing you anxiety, what does Jesus
say? Sell it. Help the poor, help
the ones who are anxious about where their next meal is going
to come from. If you’re trying to decide which
restaurant to eat at, and you’re anxious about the next day and
the next day and the next day, he says, sell your possessions
and help those who don’t know where their next meal is going
to come from. And then he picks up, provide yourselves with money
bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that
does not fail, where no thief approaches, no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there
Will your heart be also? Let’s look to God in prayer.
Lord, we thank you that our savior is not afraid to stick his finger
into our lives and to show us by the word and spirit where
we are anxious, where we worry, where we are pagan, where we
are faithless. And we pray today that by your
grace, you would strengthen our faith in God, our heavenly father
and our great shepherd, and that we would seek first the kingdom
and that we would be free from all worldly care for the good
of our souls and for your everlasting glory. Help us and hear us as
we make our prayer in the name of Jesus and all God’s people
said together. Amen.