Why Worry?

At our mid-week Prayer & Study group we’ve been working through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. We read a section, talk about it, and use its message to help us to pray for one another. Matthew 6:25-34 was our recent text and many felt it to be very applicable to where their lives are. Worry. Do you do that?

It’s important to see Jesus’ comments on worry in relation to the bigger theme he paints of the kingdom citizen begun in Matthew 5. Specifically, Jesus’ warnings about our tendency to worry follow his reminder that we cannot serve two masters; God and money or material possessions (Matthew 6:24). When our lives are focused on material things, treasures on earth (Matthew 6:19) instead of on spiritual things, God himself, we are subject to worry. Which of us can guarantee worldly wealth whether to achieve it or to maintain it?

What struck me about Jesus’ exhortation in Matthew 6:25-34 about worry was how we get things backwards. What do you worry about? Did you look at the list Jesus gives in Matthew 6:25-31? Its all stuff. Yep, we worry about material stuff. What is missing? In so many conversations I have with people most hardly ever say they worry about spiritual things. I’ll ask, “What happens at death?” The common response is, “I don’t know.” People seem to be entirely careless about a fact that everyone of us will face, death. We just don’t think about it let alone worry about it. We worry about what might happen regarding our stuff but we don’t worry about what we know will eventually happen to us.

This is where Jesus’ answer in Matthew 6:33 comes into play. When we seek God first, when we think about our spiritual need to be right with God, his righteousness and our lack of it, we realize the other stuff gets taken care of. In fact, it has little importance. Putting God first, seeking his righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:22), and loving God for who he is changes everything about life. If you are known by God in Christ Jesus, why worry?