The Cure for Anxiety

Matthew 6:25-34

November 17, 2002

 

The ancient Greeks thought of anxiety as worrying and tormenting cares that belonged to human life, such as sorrow and suffering. They could rarely conceive of a life lived without such cares, robbing them of sleep, and driving them to drown their cares in love or drink, hoping against hope that they would become numb to anxiety's blows. Yet the only way to be free from anxiety in their thought was death [TDNT, IV, 589-590].

 

It seems that times have changed very little. Anxiety has become as much a part of life as inhaling and exhaling. Scores of books have been written to help people cope with worry. Seminars offer techniques to face the stress coming from anxiety. An array of drugs is taken by the tons in the Western world in hope of dulling anxiety's effects. Many advertisers prey upon anxieties to increase their sales. Newscasters foment anxiety by trying to find the most fear-inspiring possibilities current in our world.

 

What is missing from all of this is a right view of God and his providential governing over all his creation. If the omniscient and omnipotent Governor of the universe is missing, then there is great cause for worry!

 

But Jesus declares that it is different for kingdom citizens. Our heavenly Father is not in absentia but faithfully exerting his might to demonstrate the glory of his name in every detail of life. We need not be anxious if we known God as Father.  Anxiety's cure is found in the confident trust the believer places in his heavenly Father. Can we really live differently than the world in relationship to anxiety? Consider how Jesus Christ assures us of the Father's care.

 

I. A higher value

 

Our text is not disconnected from the previous paragraphs. "For this reason I say to you," throws the focus of our interpretation upon the claims that Jesus has already made. Here he sets forth the most practical application to daily life based upon the foundation of his explanations concerning single-mindedness of kingdom citizens. If the eternal treasures in heaven far outweighs the temporal treasures of life (6:19-21), if the vision of the heart (or "eye") will deceive one's understanding and moral direction unless enlightened and purified by the gospel of the kingdom (6:22-23), and if the choice must be made to serve God or wealth (6:24), then the values of the kingdom must be the focus of your life. And since kingdom values are your chief concern, you must not worry about the things that the world deems to be most important. The previous contrasts between kingdom citizens and the citizens of this world demonstrate that being a Christian calls for distinctly different ambitions, values, and desires. The world worries about things for which the Christian need not worry.

 

Having said that, we all know that life has plenty of worries. Several news alerts just this week have pointed to possible terrorist attacks. Is it okay for us to worry about those possibilities? What if these attacks have an impact upon the economy or the food supply or the price of fuel? Should we worry about these things?

 

We can conveniently state that the first century did not have terrorist organizations to threaten their way of life. And perhaps that is true on one level. But they knew what it was to suffer under the hand of criminals, and to experience famine due to crop failure and water shortages, and to have unemployment with no governmental subsidy, and to face the ravages of disease with no antibiotics or vaccines, or healthcare, and to live as slaves with no hope of deliverance. They had no idyllic life but suffered greatly as a way of life. It was in this setting that Jesus commanded kingdom citizens, "For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"

 

1. Life or things?

 

As Jesus has already explained, the basic problem facing all of us is how we view life. Do we look at life in relationship to God as Father? Or do we look at life in relationship to satisfying desires and craving material things? We've already considered that the nature of humanity is that we do live in a material world and we have the necessity of certain material things for subsistence. But what Christ has shown through the metaphors of treasures, lamps, and masters is that kingdom citizens view life from a God-oriented point of view, and consequently they live in a God-directed way. So Jesus commands, "Do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on."

 

Everyone has to eat, drink, and wear clothes. That's part of the human existence. But that is not life. We are not to live for eating, drinking, and wearing clothes. Jesus quizzes us, "Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" I can really think of nothing that is more appropriate for our day. Jesus distinguishes life and food, the body and clothes, not to suggest that we have no need for these things but to insist that things are to be our servants not our masters.

 

Eating, drinking, and clothing drive our society. If you do not believe this just take a quick look at the advertisements in any popular magazine. They compel us to feel an intense need to eat and drink certain products, and dress in certain ways. If Jesus could use eating, drinking, and clothing for people that barely eked out an existence, how much more so for us that stand in front of the pantry agitating over what we'll have for dinner or in front of a closet worrying about which outfit we will wear. Things control us far more than we would like to admit.

 

Again, Jesus is not commanding us to refrain from eating, drinking, and wearing clothes. Those are necessities of life. But that is just the point. So much of our worries involve the basic necessities of life. Typically, we are not interested in necessities as much as we are comforts, compliments, and compulsions. We want to feel well, attract attention, and satisfy desires. So we worry about consuming certain things or dressing in certain ways or owning certain products or achieving a certain status. All the while we forget our relationship to God.

 

Life is more valuable than food and clothing. By "life" Jesus refers to the whole of our existence - it is life in relationship to God through Christ. Even the natural order has a better handle on this than does humanity. "Look at the birds [that is, give them careful thought, take the time to look and ponder] of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" It is not that the birds are not actively involved in pecking seeds or digging insects or nibbling on the carcass of a dead animal. They must have food just like we must. But it is our Father that cares for them. He does not care for them as their Father but as the God of providential rule. The value of a human far exceeds the birds and other creatures. If God cares for them that will perish and go back to the dust of the earth, much more so he will care for you whom he values enough to redeem you through the blood of his Son. So look at the birds - consider how God feeds them. Martin Luther makes the point in a charming way.

You see ... he is making the birds our schoolmasters and teachers. It is a great and abiding disgrace to us that in the Gospel a helpless sparrow should become a theologian and a preacher to the wisest of men... Whenever you listen to a nightingale, therefore, you are listening to an excellent preacher... It is as if he were saying "I prefer to be in the Lord's kitchen. He has made heaven and earth, and he himself is the cook and the host. Everyday he feeds and nourishes innumerable little birds out of his hand" [quoted by John Stott, Christian Counter-Culture, 164].


The same is true of the wild flowers instructing us. "And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these." In the late sixties I traveled with some relatives to Europe. My cousin, George, and I hiked all day in the mountains around Zermatt, Switzerland. I still remember the scene as we came down from one mountain toward the valley, when suddenly we happened upon a field of wildflowers. I gawked in amazement at the beauty all around. Even for a fourteen year old it was far too beautiful to ignore. Solomon had nothing on these wildflowers! But all of that God-given beauty clothing the flowers does not last. In the ancient world they were gathered, dried, and used to ignite a quick, hot blaze for the clay ovens that baked their bread. "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you?" Flowers do not live into eternity yet God provides them with such beautiful clothes that manufacturers are still trying to copy them to make silk and artificial flowers. Will a God that gives so much attention to the detail of his creation fail to clothe you? No wonder that our worry about the things of life brings the rebuke, "You of little faith!"

 

2. God's care

 

The essence of worry is two-fold: (1) we exert mental and emotional energy for things outside our control. "And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?" There's some question about whether the Greek means adding a cubit (about 18 inches) to one's height or extending the length of one's life. Worry cannot do either. The Lord can add an hour to one's life or a week or years, and he certainly adds a cubit between childhood and adulthood [as Stott points out, 163]. But worry cannot help you.

 

But worry also (2) acts as thought God will not provide - which is unbelief. That is why Christ chides such folly as an example of little faith persons [Gk., oligopistoi]. Worry means that we do not trust the Father to care for us as his children. We do not believe his promises or trust in his power to provide or rest in the abundance of his compassion toward us. Jesus wants us to see that worry is not merely about us - it is about God, and our deficient view of him as heavenly Father.

 

The emphasis in the Sermon on the Mount is that God is "your Father" (5:16, 45, 48; 6:1, 4, 6, 9, 15, 18). He is not a distant, cosmic Being of some power and ability (as in Deism and some forms of modern liberalism). He is not a force that operates within the universe (as in New Age theology). He is not a disinterested deity that tolerates our existence while he humors himself (as in the Greek pantheon of gods). He is "your Father" that feeds the birds and clothes the wildflowers, and who cares infinitely more for you as his child. If he cares for temporal things how much more for you that are made in his image, and redeemed by the blood of his Son? As a child of God you have a higher value than the temporal elements of creation, and therefore you have the assurance that the Father will "much more" care for you.

 

II. A nobler ambition

 

It is one thing to acknowledge God's care as Father, and the need to no longer worry, but quite another thing to apply all of this to daily life. Jesus instructs us on how to deal with worry in our lives so that we live like kingdom citizens.

 

1. Recognizing misplaced priorities

 

Why is worry such a problem anyway? Again our Lord repeats his command to not engage in worry. "Do not worry then [i.e., in light of God's care for creation and your higher value to him], saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?'" He uses a verb tense that intensifies the sense of anxiety. You can almost hear someone running around the room, repetitiously crying out, 'what will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear for clothing?' Those that do not know God as Father have a reason to be frantic about these things. For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things." That is the norm for the "Gentiles" or "peoples," a term used to refer to the unbelieving world. They have no heavenly Father to care for them so they must resort to the futility of worry. Worry characterizes the unbelieving - but not the kingdom citizen. Worry in a Christian detracts from the reliability of the gospel; it makes kingdom life appear to be no different from the way unbelievers live.

 

The unbeliever spends his time thinking about how to satisfy his desires. His priorities revolve around himself. He may indeed do some worthwhile things in life but ultimately he pursues life without submission to God's rule. He prioritizes his comforts, compliments, and compulsions. But he has no heart for the Kingship of Christ over his life, and no trust in God as his heavenly Father. So he must go it alone - and that involves worrying about satisfying every whim.

 

This is where the kingdom citizen stands in sharp contrast. His priorities are set on heavenly things rather than earthly. The light of the gospel directs his heart - he views life in light of the cross of Christ. His loyalty is to one master - the Lord. In a word, his priorities are set on living like a kingdom citizen under the rule of his King and care of his Father. Where are your priorities placed?

 

2. Believing that the Father knows

 

The Christian turns from worry as he believes and understands that God is his Father. "For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things," Jesus assures us. It is not just as the omniscient God that he knows - though he does, but he knows our needs as "your heavenly Father." The Greek construction is emphatic, "For He knows - He that is your Father, the heavenly One, that you have need of all these things." There is a double implication here. On one hand, because he is our heavenly Father he is able to know precisely what we need and through the normal means that he has set in motion in life he provides those needs. So however the provisions may come your way - whether through work, investments, retirement, gifts - the heavenly Father knowingly provides for you.

 

But on the other hand, because he is "your heavenly Father" you can ask for provisions that you need. There are those times that God will order needs in our lives so that we might seek his face, and be reminded afresh of the abundance of his grace toward us. When we have a need either the heavenly Father will provide through some means according to his good pleasure or he will show us by denying that provision that what we perceive to be a need is a want, and unnecessary for us at that point in life.

 

Faith in the Father's knowledge and care for us does not mean that we are to be passive in dealing with the issues of life. The whole context of the Sermon on the Mount points against that. Nor does it mean that we are to equate not worrying with being carefree and unconcerned about life's needs. As Don Carson has expressed, that person "needs to hear something about discipline, self-sacrifice, and hard work, and he needs to have illegitimate worry differentiated from these" [The Sermon on the Mount, 84]. Trusting the Father's care does not mean that we are unconcerned about life. For Jesus has already taught us that we are to pray about daily needs, "Give us this day our daily bread."

 

We must also be careful that we do not construe not worrying with waiting for God to provide without wise planning and diligent work on our part. Martin Luther said it best, "God wants nothing to do with the lazy, gluttonous bellies who are neither concerned nor busy; they act as if they just had to sit and wait for him to drop a roasted goose into their mouth" [quoted by Stott, 165]. Not worrying also does not mean that our physical needs are unimportant. They are important but they are not most important. They are to serve us; not be masters over us.

 

3. Applying the right focus

 

Instead of being like the unbelieving world that worries and carps about what they do not have, the kingdom citizen has a different focus. "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." The way to what you need is not found by wrapping life around things, and selfish ambitions. It is found by applying your mind, energy, and priorities to seeking the Lord and his righteousness.

 

There is a distinct contrast intended. "For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things," explained Christ. That is, the unbelieving world is consumed with creature comforts, satisfying desires, building earthly treasures, and being right in his own eyes. He just wants to be happy in life. So he eagerly seeks after temporal things. He believes that if he can accumulate enough temporal things or attract enough temporal attention or satisfy enough temporal desires, then he will be happy and enjoy life. But he never reaches that point. Though he may have points that he thinks he has reached the zenith of life, he finds that he must continue to seek more things if he is to be satisfied with life. He has no thought to seek after the Lord. His life is wrapped up in the temporal. So when things do not go as planned or hoped for, he worries and frets. His way of life is one of anxiety.

 

But the kingdom citizen has a different pursuit. Both Gentiles and kingdom citizens are seeking something. One seeks the temporal for momentary happiness. The other seeks the Lord and the kind of righteousness that leads to a holier life. One lives for the moment; the other lives with eternity in view.

 

To "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness" demands that all of life be focused on the Lord. It begins with knowing the Lord and pursuing Him through the Scriptures. If we desire to understand the Lord and what it means for him to be King over all of life, and gracious Ruler over every circumstance of life, then we must go to the Word of God. We know so little of his kingdom when we neglect his Word. Seeking first the kingdom of God also has to do with your obedience to the Word of God. You cannot and will not seek the Lord without obedience. Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out that this command means, "that we are to concentrate upon perfecting our relationship to God as our heavenly Father" [The Sermon on the Mount, II, 142]. That relationship involves knowing and obeying Him.

 

"His righteousness" continues the use of the term that we've already seen in the Sermon on the Mount. It is right living that flows out of being in right relationship to the Lord through the redemptive work of Christ. "He is not telling His hearers how to make themselves Christian," writes Lloyd-Jones, "but He is telling them how to behave because they are Christians" [143]. "Righteousness" has to do with the way you practice the Christian life in attitude, thought, tongue, and deed.

 

It is as though our Lord tells us, 'You concentrate on seeking the rule of God over your life and the practice of his righteousness, and let him concentrate on providing for you': "and all these things will be added to you."

 

III. A better way

 

Instead of worrying about the many details of life, Jesus tells us that we are to concentrate on seeking to know more and more of his rule over our lives, and the practice of his righteousness as we grow in holiness. He is to be our priority and concern. Do you live like that? Or do you give an occasional glance God' way, and then fret about life? There is a better way.

 

1. Leave tomorrow in God's hands

 

Anxiety is really fretfulness over what has not taken place. It is a concern about tomorrow while living in the today. But Jesus commands us, "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." We can be sure that troubles will come our way; that's just part of life. But none of us know what they will be, how intense they will come, or when they will come. To worry over what has not happened is a total waste of mental and emotional energy - and more than that, it is a categorical denial of God as your heavenly Father and His wise, gracious, purposeful rule over your life.

 

So leave tomorrow in God's hands. You will likely have to discipline your thoughts to be able to do this. You will need to give yourself reminders along the way to trust the Lord with your thoughts. Tomorrow belongs to the Lord. You concentrate on seeking the Lord's kingdom and righteousness today.

 

2. Trust today to God's care

 

But what if troubles do come today? "Each day has enough trouble [or misfortune] of its own." You have a heavenly Father that is caring for you. If He cares enough to feed the birds and clothe the flowers, then surely He will care much more for you that He calls His child. He rules over the minutest detail confronting your life each day. Trust Him. Meditate upon His Fatherly care and provision for you. Believe his promises. Seek to learn all that you can about him in the context of today with all of its troubles. And seek to practice the kind of righteousness that Jesus has set forth in the Sermon on the Mount.

 

Conclusion

 

Worry is the undue concentration of your thoughts and energies upon yourself while disregarding the rule of Christ over your life. The cure for such anxiety is found in knowing that through the grace of God shown to you in Jesus Christ, God is your heavenly Father. And since He is your heavenly Father, you are to seek His kingdom as the priority of your life, and seek His righteousness as the practice of life. Be so diligent in seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness that you do not have time for worry. And that's really living like a kingdom citizen.

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