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Bryan Howard continues The Vue’s Sermon on the Mount series with Matthew 6:25–34. He explores what Jesus teaches about worry, how the Father cares for our needs, and what it looks like to seek God’s kingdom first and bring our worries to Him in prayer.
Bellevue Baptist Church College Ministry
Amen, thank you guys. What a great way to start the night. I just love worshiping with y'all. I love hearing y'all sing. I love coming before the Lord and just telling him how much we love him, talking about how powerful he is. So thank y'all. Hey, if you are just joining us, if this is like your first week in a couple of weeks, we are walking through a sermon on the, or a series on the Sermon on the Mount, which is like the most powerful sermon to ever be. It's when Christ gathered all the people and talked about all the things that Christians should look like. And so we're continuing that series. Our guide for tonight is gonna be Matthew 6, verses 25 through 35. And that's gonna be the guide for tonight. And tonight, I think Jesus is gonna be talking about a topic that every single person sitting down in this room would be dealing with in some way, shape, or form. It's on, in big words on the screen, it's anxiety. I think every single one of us in some way, shape, or form, whether people we know or us personally, struggle with anxiety. And so full disclosure, I have been very anxious to preach on anxiety, ironically. I think it's just like the spiritual warfare of it. I think I've spent double the amount of time trying to figure out what to preach to you guys on this sermon than any of the other sermons. I was up till, you don't know this, I was up till like 1230 at night trying to figure out like, what am I gonna say? And I got all these words on paper, but I don't know how to preach it. And so I was just working through this. I was anxious. I was worried about how to bring a topic like this to y'all. And so I think the reason I was so worried about it was because anxiety is a hard topic. It's hard to talk about. It's so layered. It's like psychological, and emotional, and physical, and spiritual, and medical, and all the different dimensions of anxiety. And we wanna steward it well. And when you come into this room, we want you to hear truth. We want you to hear what is accurate. And if we're gonna give a very general definition to what anxiety is, it would be that feeling of worry or fear about the unknown. The feel or the feeling of worry or fear about the unknown. But anxiety is not just like that emotion. It also reveals where we place our trust. So in scripture, it defines anxiety as the act of not trusting the Lord. The act of not trusting the Lord. Not trusting that he's in control or not trusting in his character. Now, anxiety can mean a couple things. It can mean worry, but it also can mean care. Can also mean care. Many times, worry comes from genuine care that is just acted upon in unhealthy ways. And God gave us these minds. Every single one of you sitting here, you've got big brains. And God intentionally designed them to think deeply, to consider outcomes, to make wise decision, to care about life. That planning is a good thing that we should do to steward our minds. But planning cannot replace faith. Planning cannot replace faith. And I think it's worth noting that in the most powerful sermon in the Bible, Jesus takes a reasonable amount of time talking about anxiety. Talking about anxiety. This is a hefty passage we're gonna read tonight. And many of you, you really don't need a definition of anxiety because you live it every single day. You know that psychologists have labeled you as the most anxious generation to ever exist. Do y'all know that? You have that title. Congratulations. Studies show that people 18 to 25, the rates for anxiety have more than doubled in 10 years. The National Institute to Mental Health says about 20% of US adults, so 18 and over, that's five in one people sitting in this room, are clinically diagnosed with anxiety disorder. In other words, what I want you to hear is that anxiety is super common. It's super common. So if you're in this room and you struggle with anxiety, you got a lot of company in the room. You are not alone. It is the most human response we can have to worry about the things we care about, right? Anxiety is normal. So if you struggle with anxiety, that does not mean that you're broken. It just means you're human. So welcome to the club, guys. Welcome to the club. I think it's important to define the different definitions and dimensions of anxiety. You can see up on the screen, there's that emotional side of anxiety. That's where the fear and the worry of the unknown comes from. We've got the spiritual side of anxiety. That's the act of not trusting God. But I think one of the parts that we leave out all the time, especially when we preach on anxiety, is that biological part of anxiety, that there's genetics in brain chemistry at play. That anxiety, it can be situational with stressful environments. It can develop from bad habits. It could develop from a trauma that you went through or because of your genetics. Your brain might just be wired in a certain way that you're more susceptible to worrying. And that's okay. I wanna clarify before we get started, the difference between general anxiety and what psychologists would call anxiety disorder. So normal anxiety, it's something that every single one of us in the room deals with. This is temporary and manageable. It flares up in stressful situations, but you can still function just uncomfortably, like what I'm doing right now, okay? Preaching about anxiety. I've got the anxiety. It's here. It's in me. But anxiety disorder, it's different. It's not temporary. It's persistent. It's like six plus months of random and constant worry that is always on your soul. And it is disruptive, so much so that it interferes and inhibits the work that you're trying to do and relationships that you have in your life. And so I think it's important that we talk about that. And I just wanna give a really, really, really big asterisk to this conversation, that some of us experience anxiety because you make bad decisions. You procrastinate or you're in stressful situations or you have a learned behavior, but some of you have been clinically diagnosed with anxiety disorder. And if that's you, let me just talk to you for one second. If that is you, I want you to remember that the passage we're reading tonight, every single word that Jesus says about anxiety is still true for you. But it is important to remember that faith does not mean that you refuse treatment. Okay? I'd argue that those clinical treatments are actually the way that God gives grace to us. And accepting treatments is actually a way that we can trust in him. So having faith does not mean that you don't take medication. It does not mean that you don't go to counseling. It does not mean that you don't have other ways that people come alongside you to help you experience the freedom that God promises in his life abundantly. So I just want you guys to understand that there's multiple sides of anxiety and it's hard to encapsulate it in one phrase. And when Jesus talks about it here in the passage, he's talking more so about general anxiety, things that we all struggle with. And I don't want the people in the room who have the chemical makeup that they're just more prone to, to feel called out. You can be a faithful believer in Jesus Christ and struggle with anxiety. That's okay. That's a normal thing. We can't control if we feel anxiety, but we can control how we respond to it. So if you have your Bibles, open up to Matthew chapter six, we'll be in verses 25 through 34. And I told you it's a hefty passage and it is. So I'm gonna have to take some breaths in between. I'm gonna start reading in verse 25. Jesus says this. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap or gather into barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about your clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. And yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? Oh, you of little faith. Therefore do not be anxious, saying, what shall I eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after these things. And your heavenly father knows that you need them all. Verse 33, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all of these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. And the first truth I want you to see that Jesus is trying to point out here is that anxiety tries to control the uncontrollable. Anxiety tries to control the uncontrollable. We see it in that very first verse. We look back at verse 25. Jesus says, therefore, I tell you, do not.
be anxious about your what? Your life. Your life. Do you see where anxiety comes from? It comes from trying to control your life. Who in here has had a perfect life that they've planned? No one. Not one of us. Because you're not in control. We can't control how our lives turn out. And I want you to see that Jesus is getting, what Jesus is getting to in this passage. There's obviously like this physical and material side to this that we need food and water to survive. Yes, the Lord knows that. We need clothes to wear so we don't get arrested for public nudity. Like the Lord knows that. He says that in verse 32. But Jesus is getting to something deeper than physical needs. Look back at verse 25. Jesus says this, is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? And Jesus is hinting at this truth that food and material gain, they cannot satisfy your souls. They are insufficient for fulfillment. Look at the examples he gives. Verse 26. He says, look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more value than they? Look at verse 28. And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you? Do you see what Jesus is saying? He says, look at the birds. God provides everything they need, not just to survive, but to flourish. Look at the lilies that God has clothed them in beauty beyond our imagination. Are you not a hundred times more valuable than birds and flowers? Of course you are. Are you not the creation that he said it is very good? Are you not the creation that he made in his very own image? And if he provides like that for birds and flowers, how much more will he provide for us? Don't you know who you are? Child of God. We can so easily get caught up in this earthly provision that we forget that what we really need is spiritual provision. We can easily get caught up in this outward beauty that we forget what we really need is this inward beauty. We can just get so consumed by the worries of the world that I have to get the best grades, to get the best degree, to get the best job, to get the best pay, to get the best house, to get the best car, if I could just get the best looks to get the best hair to get the best skin, to get the best abs, to get the best clothes, to get the best shoes, to get the best boyfriend, to get the best spouse, to get the best kids, to get the best dog, to get the best family and on and on and on. And this is what we pursue. And guess what? You can't control any of that. You can't control any of it. And we are so consumed by it. And as we desperately pursue what we cannot control, we are filled with fear and worry and distress. And it makes us anxious people. It makes us anxious people. And Jesus is pretty clear about anxiety's role in the life of a Christian. There isn't one. Do not be anxious. Jesus says that three times in ten verses. Anxiety has no place in our life. And let me tell you why. Look at verse 27. Jesus says, and which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? The answer to that is you can't. Jesus is saying that anxiety does not fix your problems. It magnifies them. In other words, anxiety is full of empty promises. It solves nothing and it takes everything. It pretends to be the solution while only making things worse. It forces you to focus on the future, the unknown, which you have no dominion over. That's God's domain. Don't you get that? Which leads us to our second truth that Jesus points out, that anxiety, it misplaces our trust. It misplaces our trust. Is anyone dating anyone right now? Raise your hand. I won't say. You don't have to say who, but is anyone dating someone? Listen, if you really like that person, you're going to want to marry them, okay? And if you want to marry them, you're going to have to go through this horrible season called engagement. It's the worst. There's people in this room who are engaged and they say they're happy. They're not. It's a terrible season. It's not fun at all. They think it's happy. Guys, think about the season of engagement. You are planning a wedding, the most expensive party you will ever put on with not your money. It is a party with all of your fraternity brothers and Uncle Bob and all your new in-laws. And while you're trying to figure out who's coming and who can't come, who's going to sit where and who's going to talk to who, you're also going through premarital counseling and you're fleshing out all your childhood trauma and why you're so messed up. And you're learning about why your new future forever roommate is so messed up. And while you're doing all of that, you're also trying to buy a house, the most expensive purchase that 99% of you will ever make with zero dollars and horrible interest rates. And then you have to get furniture for that house. And then you have to fill the house. And then you have to plan a honeymoon. All while you're not allowed to live together or sleep together or have any authority or ownership over each other's life. Engagement's awful. We had a long engagement. This is terrible. Have a short engagement. And engagement, I think, is the most difficult season in a relationship because you have all the responsibilities of marriage without any of the benefits of marriage. Does that make sense? In the same way, anxiety makes you take on all the responsibilities of God without the power of God. It forces you to trust in your ability, your wisdom, your power over God's. You know, the spiritual sense, anxiety is the act of not trusting God. It's not trusting either His character or His capability. That you're either worried that God cannot handle the future or you're worried that God doesn't have your best interest at heart. And if you ever doubt God's character, I want you to read 1 Peter 5, 7. It says, cast your anxieties on Him. Why? Because He cares for you. He cares for you. If you ever doubt God's capability, read Psalm 55, 22. It says, cast your burdens on the Lord and He will what? He will sustain you. So scripture tells us that for the person who is consumed by anxiety and worry and fear, God cares for you and He's strong enough to do something about it. And that's good news. That's the God we worship. He longs to help you. The final truth I want you to see tonight is that anxiety cannot be removed. It must be replaced. Anxiety cannot be removed. It must be replaced. And if you're worried or fearful about the unknown, what should you do? What are the next steps? And again, you can't control if you feel anxious, but you can control how you respond to it. And we have two options. When we feel those feelings, you can either respond in faith or fear. Faith or fear. And one leads to hopelessness and one leads to peace. I want you to read verse 32 and 33. Jesus says, for the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So Jesus says that the solution you're looking for is seeking the kingdom of God. That seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness, it reorients what you value. That when we value and seek money and power and possessions and acceptance, you experience anxiety because you're relying on yourself and your own strength. You're trusting yourself over God. But when you value and seek God and His word and His church and His ways, you learn to trust Him and rely on Him and depend on Him, and you experience peace. Do you see the comparison Jesus makes here? That the Gentiles, the people who do not trust God, they seek, they pursue earthly things. But you, child of God, if you seek the heavenly things, God will then provide the earthly things. I want you to notice that Jesus does not simply say what to stop, but what to do.
doing, seeking earthly things, but he also gives you something to start doing, seeking godly things. This is so important. This is vital to understanding, so don't miss this, that anxiety is not overcome by stopping bad thoughts. Anxiety is overcome by starting heavenly thoughts. There's a difference there. One of the leading remedies to anxiety disorder, the clinical one we talked about earlier, in the secular world is actually meditation. It's meditation. It's kind of surprising that doctors have found that when people slow down and they breathe deeply and they collect their thoughts, that it significantly reduces all these side effects of anxiety. Now there's a big difference between Eastern meditation and Christian meditation. Eastern meditation is something you might experience in like a yoga class, right? Has anyone done yoga? I've done it once and it's super hard, okay? But in yoga, it's all about emptying yourself, emptying your mind. In Christian meditation, biblical meditation, it's all about filling your mind. And I love that distinction because emptying your mind, it's good. It's actually a necessary part that the Eastern religions were on the right track. They only got halfway there though. And God knew that if we emptied our minds, it's a good thing, but then they just get filled again with all the worries of the world. God knew that. He created your mind. He hand-formed you. He knows how prone we are to wonder. Therefore, he calls us to not only empty our mind, but then to fill our mind with the things of God. There's a Scottish pastor named Thomas Chalmers. I love Thomas Chalmers. I'm gonna talk about him all the time so y'all better learn the name, okay? I'm gonna talk about him like three to four times a year. I pinky promise you. Anytime I'm thinking of how to overcome sin, this sermon that he preached has been the most influential thing in my entire life, in my entire spiritual development and understanding how we overcome sin, including anxiety. This sermon that he preached is so helpful. It is titled, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. And he's preaching on the topic of how do we kill sin? How do we get rid of the love for this world? And he argues that there are two approaches we can take. Either we can be convinced that sin is bad, or we can be convinced that Jesus is better. Let me say it again. We can be convinced that sin is bad, or we can be convinced that Jesus is better. And those things are oh so different. Just because we're convinced sin is bad, it does not mean we won't choose it. I know with all my heart, with all my big brain science stuff, I know Chick-fil-A milkshakes are terrible for me, and I drink them all the time. I'm probably gonna get one when we go to Chick-fil-A after this. I love them. They're delicious. I know they're terrible for me, and I still choose it. Yeah, I'm gonna say it next week too. It's so bad for me, but what would make the difference is if we found something better. Crossway Books published Chalmers' famous sermon in this tiny, itty-bitty, little cute book. It's very small. This is his sermon. They published it, and it's in like old English. It's from the 1800s. I actually wouldn't recommend it. It's really hard to read, but I love it. I've really struggled through it with all the, you know, dyslexia and stuff. It's really hard to read, but this sermon has been so helpful if you wrestle through it. And why I brought this up here is because when they published it, John Piper wrote a foreword in it, and in that foreword, he gives such a helpful analogy for us to understand our hearts and how prone we are to wonder. And he compares our hearts to a glass beaker like you would have in science class. You know what I'm talking about? I don't have one. I tried to find one. There's none in Bellevue. I don't know where they are, but like a glass beaker, okay? And he asked the question, what is the best way to get all of the air out of the beaker? He says, well, you could try to vacuum it. You could tape a vacuum on top, duct tape it, and try to suck all the air out, but one, that's gonna be really difficult, and eventually that beaker will crush under pressure. It won't be able to do it. Or you could simply fill the beaker with water. Why doesn't the vacuum work as well as filling it with water? Piper says this, because the beaker fights back. It hates to be empty. It demands content, and so it is with the human heart. So it is with the human heart. Friends, do not be anxious. Not by removing fear through willpower. That will not work. But instead, by replacing fear with something better. Someone better. Christ. He is the only thing beautiful enough to overcome any affliction, whether that's anxiety, or worry, or addiction, or something in your past. Philippians 4 says this, starting in verse 5, it says, the Lord is at hand. Other translations says, the Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Verse 7, and the what? The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Verse 8, and finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about such things. I love this verse. Why? Because when we stop trying to remove anxiety by willpower, and start replacing it with heavenly thoughts, God promises something that surpasses all understanding. His peace. His peace. It's what everyone in the world is searching for. Friends, the world is not impressed by anxious Christians. You look just like everyone else. Jesus says even the Gentiles can do that. The world is impressed by people who are filled with peace. I'm really not a very anxious person. I've like, haven't struggled with anxiety much until I was writing this sermon. I'm normally pretty calm, cool, and collected, I think, and I've never experienced more anxiety than when I accepted the call to Bellevue. I had been at my previous church for 12 years, and I mean, I was established, and accomplished, and loved, and trusted, and the ministry was thriving, and it was really hard to think about leaving my students. I had a great relationship, great trust with all the students, and the parents, and the leaders, and the thought about leaving them and going to a new city, and a new church, and a new age group ministry, man, it just it filled me with anxiety. It filled me for months. All I could think about were all the what-ifs, and the unknowns, and all the things I couldn't control. I kept asking like, is the student ministry gonna be okay? And who's gonna disciple my boys? Like, who's gonna keep the team healthy? Who's gonna protect the ministry from false teaching? Is the next guy gonna love them as much as I do? What if they love the next guy more than they loved me? Like, are Kendall and I gonna be able to find friends in Memphis? Are there cool people here? We don't know. Is Bellevue gonna love us as much as Dawson did? Will college students even like me? Like my preaching? Like my personality? I don't know. And all these what-ifs, and all these unknowns, man, they haunted me. They made me focus on my ability, and my effort, and my gifts, and you know what it did? It filled me with peace? Absolutely not. Man, it filled me with anxiety. When I finally took a step back, and I remembered what Scripture said, and I cast all my worries, all my fears, all my insecurities, all my heartbreak to the Lord, and do you know what he did? Exactly what he promised to do. He filled me with peace that surpasses all understanding, and he's guarding my heart and mind even now. Friends, if we are not believers, we would have a lot to be anxious about, and if that's you in the room, I want you to come find me afterwards, and I want to tell you about how I found eternal peace. But as sons and daughters of the Most High God, anxiety turns into an opportunity to trust Jesus more, to depend on him, to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, so that all these things, peace that surpasses understanding, will be added to us. Amen?
This is your first week here. Every week, we take 120 seconds. It's two minutes just to think about what the Lord is teaching us. I think far too often, we talk so much about God, we forget to talk to God. And so in these next two minutes, that's what we're gonna do. All of you, when you came in, you found a piece of paper sitting on your chairs. And in the next few moments, I want you to pray to the Lord. And I just want you to ask him to reveal something in your life, something that is causing anxiety, something that's causing that worry, whether it's normal or whether it is more clinical, whatever it is, would you write it down on that card? And I really do believe that there's something powerful that happens when we don't just do something spiritual, but we do a physical act to match it. And so as you write it down on that card, would you pray over it? Would you surrender to the Lord? And then would you fold it up and put it back in that prayer box in the back? That will allow us to know how to pray for you throughout this week. And so for these next 120 seconds, I want to invite you to do what scripture calls us to do by prayer and supplication with the thanksgiving of your heart. Let your requests be made known to God to cast your anxieties on him because he cares for you. Let's pray.