Do Not Worry (Matthew 6:25-32)

Do Not Worry

 

Matthew 6:25-32

 

In today’s passage, Jesus says to his disciples, “Do not worry.” Worry is one of the most challenging problems that we people can hardly overcome. And there is nothing more harmful to our happy life than worry. Not only disturbing our happy life, worry (including fear and anxiety) works like a nerve gas, stupefying our soul and leading it to death. Seen the other way around, if we can solve the worry problem, our life will be truly clean, free, and happy. Jesus says to us, “Do not worry!” The Greek word for “worry” has meanings such as “distraction,” and “mind divided into pieces.” When we wake up in the morning, things around us, as if having waited at the bedside overnight, creep into our mind and make it busy. Although we want to have a quiet and peaceful time with God alone, our heart has already become a marketplace busy with urgent cries. We may think that we “first” resolve these worries before having a peaceful time. But Jesus just says, “Do not worry!” Kierkegaard, my favorite Christian believer, said, “A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.” That’s true. When we are physical beings, we admit worry as an essential part of our life. It is because we have to rely on many things outside of us in order to support our life and promote our happiness. We always have to look around. But Jesus says, “Do not worry!” Why must we not worry? Why don’t we have to worry? It is because the source of our happiness is not outside of us, but inside. Therefore, we don’t have to have a distracted or divided heart. We can have “one undivided heart” because we have the most important thing within us.

 

What is the source of happiness within us? It is God our Heavenly Father. And it is our faith in the Father. This is the only way we get out of worries and overcome all of fears and anxieties. In today’s text, Jesus tells us spiritual truths that we must keep in our hearts in order to shake off worries. Let me read verse 25. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” We have what are truly important. They are our “body and life.” Jesus says to us that, for our body and life, we should believe in God instead of worrying about them. He says, “Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothes.” In other words, we are worrying what to eat or drink and what to wear because we have a wrong idea about what is more important and what is less. Food is less than life, and clothes are less than the body. Often, however, “worries” blind us and make us think food is more than life and clothes are more than the body. Then, we are absorbed into what to eat and what to wear, and spend most of our time in thinking and seeking these things. After all, what to eat and what to wear rule and lead our life. They are like baits. Using these baits, Satan can control our life as it wants. When we, full of worries, are dragged after these things for many years, time given to us runs out, and our body and life waste away. It is because we have agonized our body and life with many worries of what to eat and what to wear.

 

God disciplined the people of Israel in the wilderness. They were truly physical beings. God’s training most unbearable to them was that they didn’t have food and drink in the barren land. They often confronted Moses for food and drink. In Exodus 16:3, the people of Israel grumbled against Moses, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” In Numbers 20:3-5 as well, they complained: “If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord! Why did you bring the Lord’s community into this wilderness, that we and our livestock should die here? Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!” When we examine the people’s complaints, we can see that they are talking about “death” very carelessly. Patrick Henry, the founding father of America, said, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” And the Israelites are saying, “Give us good food, or give us death.” For them, their life was nothing compared to good food. Loving and caring their life so much, God sacrificed many paschal lambs in order to redeem their sins, and God became their shepherd in order to lead them to the land flowing with milk and honey. With all these blessings of God’s grace, however, the people of Israel had something they never gave up. It was “good food.” They looked back, and saw that Egypt was truly “the land flowing with milk and honey” (Numbers 16:13). Although they didn’t speak out, they would have missed Pharaoh, king of Egypt, while hating the Lord their God who had saved their life. How did this happen? It was because they valued food more than their life.

 

Jesus says, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” The disciples are valuable beings. It is not because they are rich. It is because God is taking care of them. The birds of the air do not sow or reap or store away in barns. They may look poor beings in our eyes. But they aren’t. It is because they are valuable in God’s eyes, and they are fed by God Himself. God provides them with food, drink, and shelters in time. And Jesus says, “Are you not much more valuable than they?” Yes, we are. We are much more valuable to God. The only way for us to be rich is knowing how much valuable I am in God’s eyes. In the world, there are things that make us feel rich, that is, make us noble. And the first of them will be “large possession.” But Jesus warns us about it. In Luke 12, Jesus tells “the parable of the rich fool.” The rich man stored grain and goods for many years, and said to himself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry!” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” Jesus calls this rich fool “one who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.” He was rich in every way except toward God. And because of this, his last was miserable. Where does our nobility come from? It is not attained by eating good food or wearing find clothes. It doesn’t come from having large possession. It comes only from God. Seeing his children, God admires and shouts, “Look, how great they are!” We find the true nobility of ourselves only when knowing the heart of God our Heavenly Father toward us and dwelling in His love.

 

Worry is useless and helpless, but God “always” gives his children the best things. Jesus says, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” Some other versions of the Bible translate this verse, “Which of you by worrying can add a cubit to his stature?” (NKJV). Worry doesn’t do anything good for our body and life, and rather, it is harmful to them. The face of one with many worries looks like a withered flower, pale and lifeless. But how about God? Jesus says, “Why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.” Jesus’ word is quite poetic, but it is also true. In the yard of our church, we can find many nameless tiny flowers. Although tiny and nameless, their shapes are amazingly graceful. This is how God dresses them. This is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is thrown into the fire tomorrow. And Jesus says, “Will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?” Yes, we have just one problem. It is “little faith.” What we have to take care of are not things around us. It is within us, “my faith in God.” Faith is nothing but “God dwelling in me.” Our faith should be great enough to accommodate true God. It should be large enough to receive God of love who values us so much, and God of might who dresses us with the utmost glory.

 

Worry is a heart divided into pieces seeking things in the world. On the contrary, faith is a heart wholly committed to God. God is good. And out of his goodness, God gives his children the best. And there is one thing God hates. It is “the second best.” We often, out of our unbelieving and our impatience, reserve second bests. It is like Abraham who had Ishmael from Hagar when his faith in God almost ran out after many years’ waiting for a son God promised him to give. But God is good alone, and there is nothing like “second best.” If we hold something as “a spare for rainy days,” it becomes detestable in God’s eyes. It is because God doesn’t yield his glory to another (Isaiah 48:11). In this sense, worry is not only destroying our soul but also disconnecting us from God’s goodness. Jesus taught the greatest commandment, saying “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). When we love God, God wants our whole heart, not divided into many pieces. This means that we can be truly rich only in one way. We can be truly rich only toward God. And this wealth is obtained through faith in God who is good. God is good alone, and there is nothing good apart from God.

 

Jesus concludes, “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” Pagans worry because they don’t trust in God. In other words, if we don’t trust in God, we are living a pagan’s life although we are God’s children. In this sense, worrying is almost saying, “I don’t have father” in front of his father. When we worry about something, we should first worry about how far we are away from God. When we worry about something, we should stop running after it, and examine our inner heart to see if we still trust in God. For every time of worry and anxiety, we should take the same routine so that we have only one heart, which is toward God. Jesus says, “Your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” What a comfort this truth is! With this Father in heaven, we live like a prince and princess, having such a noble heart undivided and unshakable. May the Lord give us this heart!!!