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[0:00] Good morning, church. Let's open up our Bible to Matthew 6. As we continue to preach through the Sermon of the Mount. Today we're in Matthew 6, verses 25 to 34. It's a beautiful passage.

[0:19] Of course, as always, if you are in need of a Bible and would like to use one and keep one, feel free to raise your hand and one of our members would be happy to give you a hard copy.

[0:35] Let me pray for the reading and preaching of God's Word. Heavenly Father, you are a good, good Father to those of us who were spiritual orphans, left alone, needing to fend for ourselves.

[1:03] But through the power of the cross, through the giving of your Son, you have adopted us into your family. So that now, though we were once poor, we are now infinitely rich in you.

[1:18] And I pray through the preaching, through the reading of your Word, you would convince us once again of that fact. Of how rich we are in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

[1:30] Give us eyes to see, ears to hear, that you will take good care of us. Help us to have faith, grow our faith today.

[1:43] For your glory and for our good. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. To honor the reading of God's Word, won't you stand if you are able.

[2:00] It's Matthew 6, verses 25 to 34. Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body what you will put on.

[2:19] It is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

[2:30] 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 clothing?

[2:44] Consider the lilies of the field, 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 of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

[3:05] Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows you need them all.

[3:20] But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

[3:34] Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. This is God's holy and authoritative word.

[3:46] You may be seated. If you've been following the news, you know that there's been a surprising topic of conversation this past year.

[4:00] One that seems like a very innocuous thing, but has actually struck fear into the hearts of many Americans. And that's egg prices.

[4:10] Because of various factors like inflation or the bird flu, we have seen an all-time high in egg prices at our local supermarkets this past year, with an all-time high this coming this past March at $6.23 for just a dozen eggs.

[4:30] That is an 80% increase from the prices that we saw in March of 2024, and a whopping 285% increase compared to the prices two years ago.

[4:44] It's no wonder, then, that prices have notoriously become a symbol of a lot of American insecurity, strife, anxiety about our money.

[4:56] Okay, well, maybe no more omelets for breakfast for a bit. But that's not the only expense that has gone up. According to a report by JPMorgan Chase, right now, housing affordability is at its historic low.

[5:15] Since the year 2000 to now, the median household income has roughly doubled, but the median home price has tripled, meaning that housing costs are increasing more and more and more each and every year, but our income levels aren't keeping up with that cost.

[5:37] And that gap between our income levels and the housing costs are just increasing more and more each and every year. I hope this doesn't spark a mass exodus away from the greater Boston area, but you guys know this, living in Boston is very expensive.

[5:59] Boston's living expenses like rent and groceries are twice the national average. And in fact, in 2024, according to Nomeo's Cost of Living Index survey, Boston ranked fifth most expensive to live in, not just in America, but in the entire world, behind Geneva, Zurich, New York City, and San Francisco.

[6:23] So, if you're anything like me, you're probably squirming a little bit in your seats, feeling nervous, feeling a little depressed as you hear me rattle off this news.

[6:34] We feel the constant bills and the increased cost of living squeezing in on us, don't we? The landlord is asking for more money next year.

[6:47] The car just broke down. The daycare rate just went up. And even the eggs are getting so expensive. Even if you're blessed not to have to worry about your next meal, we all worry about something, don't we?

[7:06] Whether it's your marriage, your relationships, your health, or maybe it's just the overall fear of death, which undergirds all the other fears.

[7:17] To all our anxiety, Jesus speaks peace to the raging storm within us. When he says three whole times in our passage today, do not be anxious.

[7:32] And he reasons with us. He gives us four different reasons today about why we shouldn't worry. Because worry is unspiritual. It is unnecessary, unproductive, and unfaithful.

[7:48] But the most important reason of all why we shouldn't worry is because we have a Heavenly Father who promised to take care of us.

[7:59] That's the main point of my sermon today. Jesus opens our passage today with the word, therefore, logically connecting this passage with the one that we heard from last week.

[8:10] Because in that passage, Jesus addresses a love of money for those who had it and are storing it away in earthly places where moth and rust do destroy.

[8:24] But in our passage today, which is almost like a part two, Jesus addresses the same issue, a love and trust of money, but only in a different scenario for those who don't have money.

[8:36] For there is an organic connection between greed and anxiety. Because the root issue ultimately is the same. It's a love and a trust, an idolatry of money, just appears differently under different lights, under different circumstances.

[8:56] They're simply two sides of the same coin. And we easily flip back from greed to anxiety very quickly. In their hearts, the homeless can be just as greedy as the Fortune 500 CEO.

[9:11] But the opposite is just as true. The CEO can be anxious over his money just like the homeless. Because even the wealthy are not immune from anxiety.

[9:23] You might expect their crazy high net worth or their mansion in Hollywood Hills to give them some kind of sense of security. But have you ever noticed that sometimes it's really the richest in this world that are actually oddly most anxious about their money?

[9:43] Psychologists have even coined this term for it, calling it loss aversion, which basically means that the more you have, the more you feel that you can lose. So it leads not to greater security, but to greater anxiety.

[10:00] Hollywood star actor Jim Carrey once said, I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything that they would want to do so that they can see that it's not the answer.

[10:12] If you are anxious today about your money, about your finances, getting rich and famous is not the simple answer to get rid of our anxiety.

[10:28] Instead, Jesus holds out for us a better way. For us not to be anxious. And we'll see how Jesus reasons with us. So let's get into the first reason that worry is unspiritual.

[10:44] Jesus says in verse 25, Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? What does he mean by this? Literally, the day after, I kid you not, the day after we moved into our new home, Christine and I, we found in our finished basement, in the center of our hallway, about a half inch of water.

[11:07] And after getting some help, getting some plumbers to come over, we identified that it was from this clogged sewage pipe in this tiny unfinished side room that we barely even use today.

[11:21] Though that water was clear on our basement water, we realized that was sewage water. And for a long, long time, until the issue was resolved, my entire life was in that little room.

[11:39] Because that's all that I thought about. I forgot about all the other problemless, livable space that I had in my room because my life, all of my thinking belonged into that tiny side.

[11:49] As Pastor Marshall Siegel shared a similar story, and he preached, anxiety can make it seem like one worry is our whole life.

[12:01] The difficult relationship is our life. The long jaw search is our life. The wait for a spouse is our life. The battle with chronic pain or illness is our life.

[12:12] But it's not. Isn't life more than whatever you're most worried about right now? There even might be times in your life where the budget is super tight, and you're really anxious about that next meal.

[12:33] But even then, when it feels like your next meal is your entire life, life is more than food and clothing. In other words, when we excessively worry about these things, we miss out, miss out on the more in life.

[12:53] Universally, humans have pondered philosophical questions like, what is the meaning of life? Why am I here on Earth? And there have been lots of different answers, lots of different stats at that question.

[13:07] Take Charles Darwin, the scientist who developed the pivotal theory of evolution, and hear his answer, his take on this. That everything about us, everything we do, is only about surviving to procreate, to pass down our genes to the next generation.

[13:25] That's it. Just physical survival. When we excessively worry, we think and we operate like Darwin.

[13:36] We reduce life only down to physical survival. But we know, as children of God, with people who have the Spirit of God living within us, that there is more to life than just food and clothing.

[13:49] For God's children, our lives have deeper spiritual purposes, like glorifying God, enjoying our relationship with Him, to live in the grace that He alone provides.

[14:06] Worry shrinks our world down just to the physical, making us forget about all the deeper, spiritual, eternal truths that give our life ultimate meaning. So in that sense, worry is unspiritual.

[14:23] But while life is more than food, at the same time, Jesus doesn't mean that food and clothing aren't important. The ultimate purpose of our lives is, yes, spiritual, but at the same time, Jesus is not agnostic, who thinks that the spiritual is all that matters, and the physical doesn't matter at all.

[14:43] But He goes on to say that He is going to provide for us. He doesn't say, you should be content with starving, with going cold, but promises, I'm going to take care of you.

[14:55] So, not only is worry unspiritual, but worry is unnecessary. What evidence does He show of that? Well, Jesus tells us to look up.

[15:09] Observe the birds in the sky. They neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns. They literally live, hand to beak. But every day still, with nothing in their bank accounts, no rainy day fund, our Heavenly Father feeds them, day after day after day.

[15:29] There are 50 billion birds on this planet, right here, right now. Can you imagine the number of berries, and acorns, and insects that are needed to feed so many?

[15:44] 50 billion birds. And yet, for thousands upon thousands of years, our Heavenly Father has fed them day after day after day. Don't just look at the birds, but look at all the earth.

[16:00] See how the planet is teeming, bursting with life. Because there are not just a hundred thousand, not just a million, but there are 8.7 million different animal species that are on this planet right now.

[16:17] Our God is the source of life. God is not a dull minimalist. When He sets our creation up, He sees, and we see our full display of His desire and His ability to sustain life.

[16:35] And if the Lord is sustaining 8.7 billion different animal species, and we are more important than all of them, based on what we know from the creation narrative of Genesis 1-3, that we alone are made in the imago Dei, the image of God, then how will He not also feed us, protect us, provide for us as our Heavenly Father?

[16:58] So look to the birds, look to all the earth, and see that worry is unnecessary. But when you observe the birds, it's an important fact to see that it's not that the Lord supernaturally sends His angels to spoon-feed each and every bird, but the birds actually have to go out from their nests, leave their trees, and go scour the land for food.

[17:26] So in what sense does our Heavenly Father actually feed them? It seems that Jesus draws heavily from Psalm 104, which we read for our call to worship this morning, where the psalmist extols the Lord as the sustainer and provider for all creation.

[17:44] It's in His sovereign providence that He provides everything that these birds need to live. He grows the trees to give them homes, He plants the bush to give them berries, He causes the sun to rise to wake them up.

[18:00] There are a million things that need to go right for these birds to be able to go out and find food, from the fine-tuning of physical forces like gravity, down to the sustenance, the sustaining of their little, tiny, four-chambered hearts to cause them to beat.

[18:17] So yes, the birds need to go out and find their own food, but it's only because of the work that the Lord has done can they do so. In the same way, our lives are not a banquet where every single blessing is handed down to us on a silver clatter.

[18:36] We wake up early, we labor late, we sweat for that next paycheck, yet how easy it is for us to slip into the illusion that we need to fend for ourselves, that we're alone in this world, that we are our ultimate providers, so we fight tooth and nail anxiously to secure our own futures because no one else is looking out for us.

[19:05] And then when that paycheck does come, we think we did it, we earned it, but the Apostle Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 4, what do you have that you did not receive?

[19:22] If then you received it, then why do you boast as if you did not receive it? What have you done to earn your health, friend?

[19:36] Or your intellect? Or all your financial and educational privileges that literally billions on this planet have no chance of receiving?

[19:48] even the very gift of life, have you earned any of this? So yes, work hard to put food on your plates and clothes on your back, but never think it is done by your strength alone.

[20:05] For as John Piper said, God is doing 10,000 things in your life right now, and you might be aware of only two or three of them. And if the Lord is doing 10,000 more things in your life that you are not aware of, why do you worry?

[20:23] If God is sustaining 8.7 billion or million different animal species, and he promises to sustain you, why do we worry? If God is not worried, why do we worry?

[20:37] If you are not convinced why we shouldn't worry, and also look out to the fields, see the lilies, see how beautifully they are clothed.

[20:49] And while Jesus is making a similar point with the lilies, compared to the bird, he is actually making a more emphatic point of why we shouldn't worry. He does so in three different ways. First, the humble flowers of the field, they are even more transient and seemingly more insignificant than the birds.

[21:10] The average lily blooms only one to two weeks out of the entire calendar year, so it is no wonder that they are here in the fields one day and unapologetically thrown into the oven tomorrow.

[21:24] Yet the Lord adorns them with incredible beauty and care. You know, if you were to direct an animated movie, if you were to build the world from scratch, you just wouldn't pay that much attention to one small part of the background and one small tiny scene.

[21:44] But in the abundant, overflowing care and design of our good Heavenly Father, that's exactly what He does. Secondly, Jesus says that they don't toil or spin.

[21:58] And compared to the birds, they don't even lift a single finger. and yet they are clothed by God. In the ancient Near East, spinning was often the most time consuming chore in the house, requiring hundreds upon hundreds of hours to just generate one single garment.

[22:20] In fact, historical records show that women at the home were constantly spinning thread when they weren't doing other chores or other work. The lilies don't do this.

[22:35] And in fact, they don't even do anything. They do less work than the birds. And yet, God beautifully clothes them. How much more will He sustain you? Thirdly, He makes the astounding comment that even Solomon in all his glory was not fully arrayed like these.

[22:57] Compared to one of the richest men in really all of human history, a man who had a thousand wives, fourteen hundred chariots, twelve thousand horses, and earned and generated thirty thousand pounds of gold.

[23:11] Every single year, the rough equivalent now is one point four billion dollars a year. And yet, Jesus declares these common lilies are more beautifully clothed.

[23:25] This is absolutely a remarkable flex by God. my case in point, in prepping for the sermon, I found out that there was a t-shirt that sold for four hundred thousand dollars.

[23:42] I immediately got upset. And so I looked it up and I got even more upset because it looks like a regular black t-shirt with some diamonds, of course, thrown on it.

[23:58] But if you wore that four hundred thousand dollar t-shirt and walked by me in the street, I wouldn't even bat an eye at you. There is no way that even this four hundred thousand dollar t-shirt could compare to the beauty of the common lily.

[24:13] because if you zoom, you zoom into that shirt, you're going to see still, lifeless threads of cotton. If you zoom into the lily, you'll see the amazing design of our Heavenly Father.

[24:31] We see its dynamic cells bustling with activity, chloroplasts capturing sunlight, converting it to energy, mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell, empowering the processes of life, nutrients being shuttled around by complex networks of membranes.

[24:53] Look inside the nucleus and you'll find in its DNA 36,000 protein encoding genes. in a code so complex and beautiful that we're only just beginning to start to understand it.

[25:08] Do you know that the lily is famous among scientists for having one of the largest genomes out of any plant? In fact, it's actually 30 times longer than the human genome.

[25:23] If you were to stretch out the DNA of a single cell from end to end while a single human cell would contain six feet of DNA, which is incredible.

[25:34] We're talking about a microscopic cell. If you stretch out the instructions of life, reach out to six feet. But a cell from a lily contains almost 200 feet of DNA, almost half of a football field.

[25:52] No room or laboratory could ever replicate this kind of living pathos. truth. With all our degrees, all our money, all our human intellect, this is beyond the best that humans could ever generate.

[26:07] So, why worry? If the Lord feeds billions of birds and He intricately clothes the lilies, if He says that He will provide for you just as He provided for them, worry is unnecessary.

[26:28] In between these examples, we find our third reason of why we shouldn't worry because He asks in verse 24, which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to His span of life?

[26:41] Jesus is saying that worry is unproductive. It doesn't accomplish a single thing. Because even before creation began, the Lord knew the precise day and time that He would enter this world.

[26:57] And He knows the precise day and time that He would leave it for a better one. No amount of worry can lengthen our lives, even just for an hour, He says.

[27:09] Therefore, knowing worrying is one of the most unproductive things that we can do. We should then channel that anxious energy instead through prayer, as the Apostle Paul exhorts us in Philippians 4, when he says, do not be anxious, which is the exact same phrase in the Greek as we find in our passage today.

[27:29] Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. I'm reminded of something from Pastor Mark Detter, who commented that the older he gets, the more convinced he is that his daily time of prayer is the most important time of his day.

[27:56] Because that's the time he's most certain is least wasted. Other things he might do in pastoral ministry might come to not, but that time in prayer is the most productive, least wasted time in his day.

[28:12] And when we pray, the peace of God, as Paul writes, the peace of God will guard our hearts and our minds. The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, he says, will guard our hearts and our minds.

[28:30] In Christ Jesus, our Lord. So let's learn to humble ourselves before him, casting our burdens, throwing our burdens onto him. Why?

[28:40] Because he cares for us. Then skipping ahead to the end of the passage, Jesus urges his disciples not to worry about tomorrow.

[28:53] He says, tomorrow will be anxious for itself, making tomorrow grammatically the subject, the doer of the action. And this shift is significant.

[29:04] We're no longer the doer of the action, but Jesus is inviting us to step out of the driver's seat, let go of our need for control, and let tomorrow drive itself.

[29:16] Let tomorrow worry about its own anxieties. For just as Corrie ten Boom has powerfully stated, worry does not empty today, worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow.

[29:31] It empties today of its strength. How unproductive is worry. Of course, Jesus is not denigrating all future planning.

[29:44] It's often good and wise of us to exercise the sermon that God has given us to plan for the future. But once you set a plan, why worry?

[29:57] The Lord has promised us new mercies for each and every new day. tomorrow's mercies will rise to meet tomorrow's troubles.

[30:09] Next week's mercies will approach and conquer next week's troubles. worry not even in the midst of hardship because all that it does is zap you of the strength that you need today.

[30:26] And we need all the strength that we can get, don't we not, because life is hard and each day is filled with its own trouble. The rest of this passage, it strikes a remarkably optimistic tone, but this verse is important.

[30:43] This verse 34 grounds us back to real life, reminding us that for Christians, we are not immune from all trouble. In fact, there are those who do struggle financially and they lack food and clothing even to the point of death.

[31:03] But that doesn't mean that Jesus is being unfaithful to his promises, but that we can throw this passage all together. Because the point of what Jesus is saying is not for us to think that will never suffer or never even die.

[31:17] That would stretch his promises way too far. But the point of this passage is for us to live with the absolute assurance that our good Heavenly Father will take care of us.

[31:33] That he, as we just said, will work all things for our good. God will not live with a childlike confidence that we will not go a day without food unless the Lord wills it.

[31:49] That we will not go cold unless the Lord wills it. That we will not die a second sooner than God wills it.

[32:01] No amount of worrying can change any of that because worry is unproductive. We come to the final reason of why we shouldn't worry because worry is ultimately unfaithful.

[32:17] At the end of verse 30, Jesus gently rebukes his disciples for worrying for their little faith. When he addresses them, oh you, oh you of little faith.

[32:30] About five times in the Gospels do you find Jesus gently rebuking his disciples using the same exact phrase. You see, Jesus has never, ever rebuked his disciples for their lack of ability or intellect or resourcefulness or preparedness.

[32:49] But he has rebuked them for their little faith. For their lack of trust that God can and will provide and protect his children.

[33:01] even after they've witnessed supernatural miracle after miracle, they've seen with their own two eyes Jesus turning water into wine, feeding 5,000 plus with five loaves and two fish, and then doing it again by feeding 4,000 plus with seven loaves and a few fish.

[33:23] Yet they doubted. They questioned if God can protect and provide for them. Are we not in the same boat, brothers and sisters?

[33:37] We do well to believe that Jesus Christ has provided for us the spiritual bread of his flesh, the drink of his blood, the clothing of his righteousness.

[33:50] But often when it comes to actual physical food and clothing, we struggle to believe. That's exactly what Martin Lloyd-Jones observes when he says, I once heard a man use a phrase which affected me very deeply at the time and still does.

[34:10] He said that the trouble with many of us Christians is that we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, but that we do not believe him. He meant that we believe on him for the salvation of our souls, but we do not believe believe him when he says such a thing like this to us, that God is going to look after our food and drink and even our clothing.

[34:34] How easy it is for us to lack faith that God will provide for us. If we lack faith, we'll be like the Gentiles. As verse 32 goes, for while the Gentiles seek after all these things, your heavenly father knows that you need them.

[34:51] God is unfaithful. Again, worry is unfaithful because it's the behavior of godless Gentiles. Worrying is to be expected from the spiritual orphans in this world.

[35:08] Worrying is uncharacteristic of the child of God. Every time that I've met up with my parents these past three years, they without fail give my wife Christine and me two dozen baked eggs.

[35:27] I made the silly mistake of saying out loud that I like them three years ago, which somehow translated in their minds that I will always like them and I will always never get sick of them.

[35:40] But because of their love for us, every time I see them rain or shine, whether the egg prices are through the roof or not, they're always greeting us with two dozen baked eggs.

[35:57] And those eggs are just a small part of the strength I get from the support of my loving parents. They don't get to visit a ton, but when they're home with us, even when I feel like life is crazy and I feel like there's just so many things to do and so many things to worry about and I feel anxious and distracted, I feel a sense that everything is going to be okay.

[36:27] Like I'm not alone in this big scary world, but I have people that are on my side to support me, cheer me on, root for me. I know how privileged we are to have the support of loving parents and I know that some of you don't have that opportunity and that blessing.

[36:50] But this church family, brothers and sisters, we all share in a greater love, in a greater protection and greater support from our heavenly Father, Father, a Father who does far more than just bake off two dozen eggs, but a Father who provides lovingly every single thing that we need.

[37:17] So knowing that you have this kind of heavenly Father, don't be anxious, but instead seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

[37:29] We come to the pivotal verse 33 in our passage. Do you notice how much of what Jesus is saying today is about our vision?

[37:41] Continuing that theme from last week. Look at the birds, look at the lilies, and unlike the Gentiles who only look after their food and clothing, you look, seek for the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

[37:56] In fact, the central verb in this passage, do not be anxious, in the Greek, it literally means not to be double-minded, but it means to be single-minded, undistracted, focused on just one thing.

[38:15] It's the same word that Jesus uses when he addresses Martha in Luke 10, when she's troubled about many, many things. Remember there, Jesus and presumably his 12 disciples drop by Martha's house.

[38:31] Some of us get stressed when one person drops in randomly, but let alone 13, not just any 13, but the very Son of God, and his super-important capital-A apostles.

[38:47] No wonder Martha feels the need, then, to cook the bread. Cut up fruit. Offer clean water to wash. Sweep the floor.

[38:58] Tidy the main room. Arrange the seating. Add oil to the lamps. Oh, there's so much to do. But out of the corner of her eyes, she sees her sister Mary.

[39:11] And she's just sitting there, chilling with Jesus. As her chamber fills and builds, she then pumps off and vents to Jesus.

[39:25] Lord, do you not care? Do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. Jesus gently corrects her.

[39:42] Martha, Martha, you are anxious. You are anxious. In trouble about many things. But one thing is necessary.

[39:56] Jesus today sees how anxious, distracted, busy-bodied we are. The company is starting to make layoffs.

[40:08] My kids need money for college. The rent is getting higher. My parent is sick. School loans are due. The roof is leaking. And the eggs are so expensive.

[40:23] Lord, do you not care about me? Hear Jesus speak to you. Child, child, you are anxious.

[40:36] In trouble about many things. but one thing is necessary. That one thing should be to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

[40:51] At the risk of this merely becoming a slogan, let's talk about what this phrase actually means. We already read an example of this a couple passages ago in the Lord's Prayer.

[41:05] Where the prayer starts not off with, give me my daily bread. But how does it start? It starts with, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.

[41:17] Your will be done. So we are to prioritize first not food and clothing, not our physical survival, but to seek first living under the kingship of God.

[41:34] of course whether you like it or not, we all live under the sovereign reign of the king. But seeking first the kingdom of God means to live in a way that you recognize, rely, rejoice, and revere God as your king.

[41:54] Then we live out then the fifth beatitude to hunger and thirst for righteousness. And we make it our deepest wish to be holy, to be righteous, to grow in obeying all of his commandments.

[42:10] So seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And then all these other things will be added to you. Just like the king Solomon, he prayed for wisdom and all these other things came along with it.

[42:23] If we seek first the kingdom of God, all these other things will be added to you. But what's the greatest evidence of this? We already see evidence of this in creation, in the lilies, in the birds, but the greatest evidence we have of the care of our heavenly father is in the giving and sacrifice of his only son.

[42:50] In another lesser to greater argument, the apostle Paul writes in Romans 8.32, He who did not spare his own son, but graciously gave him all.

[43:02] How will he not also graciously with him give us all things? If our heavenly father has given his very own son, he's done the hardest thing possible, sacrificing his son, how will he not also with him graciously give you all that you need?

[43:22] If he's already proven his generous love for you, how will he not also give you the lesser things like food and clothing? For the good news of the gospel is that though Jesus Christ was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you, you, by his poverty, might become rich.

[43:48] This is one of the greatest one-verse pictures of the gospel finding scripture. That though Jesus was king in heaven, he humbled himself by becoming flesh, not by being born as royalty, but as a carpenter's son in a manger.

[44:08] And then though he did not deserve this at all, because he never sinned, but he was mocked, spit upon wit, and nailed to the cross. For the forgiveness of our sins, for those of us who were spiritually bankrupt, he were dead in our sins, that we were unfaithful in our doubt, in our worry, he took our place.

[44:33] Because unlike the birds, he went hungry. Unlike the lilies, he went naked, so that poor and wretched sinners like you and me might be clothed and fed in this life and more fully to the life to come.

[44:50] Do you see, brothers and sisters, how incredibly rich you are? Satan, he tries to make you feel poor.

[45:02] He does. By squeezing you tight with the bills in life, by making you compare your life with other people in this world, by depressing you with news, by how expensive the eggs are.

[45:15] But if you think that you are poor, Satan has convinced you of a lie. Because, brothers and sisters, you are unimaginably rich.

[45:29] You have been blessed with every spiritual blessing by the power and the glorious riches of his grace. You are adopted into his family, set to receive an unfathomable inheritance and have you.

[45:47] Though you have nothing else in life, if you have Christ, you are unimaginably rich. The inverse of this is true.

[46:01] If you don't have Christ, you own the world, you, my friend, you are of the poorest. If you're here today and don't know the riches that are found alone in Jesus Christ, consider this a free invitation to become rich.

[46:22] Oh, so rich, richer than you could ever imagine. Once you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and treasure, you will have enduring riches that go beyond any life circumstance, any financial season.

[46:39] Because the rest of the world, they get high when things go well. But they plummet to the depths when things are tough. Augustine rightly said, fear is a response of the human heart when it's one thing is threatening.

[46:57] But if Christ is your one thing, if you make it your one thing to seek after the kingdom of God and his righteousness, then we can find this rare jewel of Christian contend, as Jeremiah Burroughs writes, though I have not outward comforts and worldly conveniences to supply my necessities, yet I have a sufficient portion between Christ and my soul abundantly to supply me, satisfy me in every condition.

[47:36] If I have but Christ with me, I have enough, he is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, health to the sick, and life to the dead.

[47:53] Let me have Christ and I can want nothing. He is all in all, and in him I have all. Christ is your one thing.

[48:08] If you seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, then whatever season you go through right now or in the future, this good portion will never be taken away from you.

[48:21] From this time forth and forever more. Brothers and sisters, let us not be anxious because we have a good heavenly father who will take care of us.

[48:34] Let's pray. Lord, we believe help our unbelief. Lord, we believe help our unbelief.

[48:47] We want to do all things in faith. No matter what season that comes, no matter what obstacles are in our way, we know that we are stupid rich in you, Christ.

[48:59] We are unimaginably rich, set to receive a glorious inheritance. thank you, Lord, that you have reversed our entire lives, our fortunes, by giving us the greatest blessing of heaven.

[49:15] There is nothing more for you to give. We look to you, we depend on you, and we seek you first. In Jesus' name we pray.

[49:27]  Amen.