-Transcript-
00:27 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:30 Welcome to the Cafe. Pastor Clark Covington here with another episode of KJV Cafe. So glad you joined me today.
00:37 It’s a beautiful day outside. I’m just glad you’re here with me today as we dive into God’s Word. Why do we call it KJV Cafe? Because it’s, think of going to a cafe when I was younger, especially school-aged, you know, college or whatever it was, I’d always go to a cafe to study, if I could, Amen.
00:57 Love that environment, you know, kind of that white noise, as they call it, and I’d get into my book and read and so forth, and I’d gain knowledge, and most importantly, try to gain a good grade.
01:06 How much more so should we dive into God’s Word and study it to gain these true riches, these true, I’ve heard it compared to gold and silver and diamonds, but truly it’s better than that to gain these true riches in God’s Word. So hopefully you’re ready to dive into God’s Word
.01:20 We’re in the third part of a three-part series, and don’t worry if you didn’t hear the first two parts because I’ll summarize it, on not worrying. Take no thought, the words of Jesus on worrying. Take no thought, the words of Jesus on worrying, that’s the title of this series here.
01:36 The idea is God made all things. He made you, and guess what? He made your emotions. This includes the emotion of worrying.
01:44 Have you ever thought about that? You know, if God made everything, and some people say, well, how do you know God made everything? Well, John 1:1-3, in
01:57 The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
02:04 And we understand the Word is a capital W, the Word being Jesus Christ. The Word was made flesh, Jesus Christ. We understand that He made everything, and that’s kind of difficult because sometimes we kind of compartmentalize and think God the Spirit, the Father Spirit made everything, but no, Jesus, He made it all.
02:22 That’s what our Bible tells us. And without Him, nothing was made. And so if you take that statement literally, as I do, as I take the whole Bible, you know that He made worrying.
02:31 So we all can kind of identify with that, but here’s the good news. God made a remedy to worrying. So we all inhabit the person who God made us, one that can worry.
02:41 We all probably admit that we worry, you know, if we’re honest, but we don’t all have the remedy to worrying. The reason why is a lack of focus on God and faith in His Holy Word, a lack of focus on God and faith in His Holy Word. That’s the end of the message at the beginning here
02:56 If we were to focus on God and have faith in His Holy Word, then we wouldn’t have to worry. You know, Jesus is very serious about this. He addresses worrying in the Bible at length.
03:07 In a very important part of the Bible, here we are in the Beatitudes, Matthew 6:25, Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body, what you shall put on.Is not the life more than meat and the body more than raiment or clothes.
03:26 Now what we see here is in Matthew 6:25, that Jesus Christ is telling us, don’t even worry about it. And he’s going to go into details.
03:41 And in the previous episodes we’ve discussed at length, don’t worry about food, don’t worry about clothing. Okay. And we’re going to talk about kind of the crux of why today, this is kind of wrapping it up, putting a bow on it, if you will.03:48 And I want to say that food and clothing are important. First Timothy 6:8, Paul writes, and having food and raiment or clothing, let us be there with content.
04:01 And this is kind of like, you know, the idea that, look, the previous verse says, for we brought nothing into this world, it is certain we can carry nothing out.04:10 And having food and raiment, let us be there with content, but that they, that we’ll be rich following a temptation and a snare into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drowned men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil. On and on and on.
04:25 Paul’s writing to Timothy, his protege, one that he loves so much, Paul and his great wisdom is saying, just be content with just the basics. If you have food, if you have clothing, be content with it. And there’s so much that can be preached on that subject alone.
04:38 But now I want you to kind of contrast it with, comparing scripture to scripture, what Jesus is saying. Therefore, I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body, what you shall put on is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment or clothing. So Jesus is saying, take no thought of it.
04:56 And so we have Paul saying, it’s important to be content with it. And Jesus is saying, don’t worry about it. And those things actually go perfectly hand in hand.
05:03 What Paul is saying is be content with what you have and don’t get into coveting, right? That’s kind of, I think the big theme of that, that passage of scripture is be really careful you don’t covet.
05:13 Because coveting leads to like this lustful desire, which leads to temptation, which leads to sin when you give into it and you’re living into, you know, you’re going to have all kinds of problems.
05:22 You just think of someone that like gets wrapped up in a get rich scheme and how many problems.
05:27 And I know a family that bet their mortgage on a get rich scheme and it was something that haunted them for decades. It’s so sad. And so here’s what we do.
05:36 We focus on God. We put our faith and trust in God. We understand that he is telling us not to worry.
05:41 We understand that this is part of the Beatitudes there in Matthew, red letter text, Beatitudes. I call it a point of view, a new point of view in the New Testament age for God’s plan for mankind.
05:57 And the reason why I say that is if you read the Beatitudes, they challenge the disciples and those there to not just love your friends, but to love your enemies, to not just not get divorced, but to don’t even look upon another with lust.
06:09 You know, all of these very important points, you know, the Lord’s prayer, how formally to prayer, to pray. Because again, remember the Jews were under the law previously.
06:19 So they were living a life that was completely under the law, right? That’s why there was so much friction with Jesus and the Pharisees.
06:27 They’re accusing him. What can you heal on the Sabbath day? And Jesus is saying, is it not good to do? Is it not good to do good on the Sabbath day?
06:35 And they’re getting into these disputes over the law, right? And Jesus we know came to fulfill the law and overcome the law. There’s nothing wrong with God’s law.
06:42 Last night I was talking to our congregation about how God doesn’t change. So God’s law is good in and of itself, but we’re no longer under the law. And Jesus is saying, look, here’s how you pray.
06:52 Really pray. You know, don’t do these vain repetitions. Here’s how you really pray.06:56 You thank God, the father, you recognize his holiness, his deity. You ask for your daily bread. You forgive others of their sins as you want and their debts as you want to be forgiven of your debts.
07:07 Right. And we can compare those to sins. Amen.07:12 And on and on. So we have the Lord’s prayer there. We have the definition of true riches there in the Beatitudes, not to store up treasures here on earth, but to store up treasures in heaven through rewards that we do by the work of the Holy Spirit here on earth.
07:23 All of this great information right there in Matthew. And then in Matthew six, Jesus says, okay, and guess what? I don’t want you to worry. I don’t want you to worry.
07:35 I mean, think about that for a minute. The biblical real estate here, the place that it is put, it’s not by coincidence. It’s on purpose.
07:42 It’s by design that a very challenging and yet powerful and potent statement by Jesus Christ Himself, God in the flesh, is telling us here today not to worry. Think about what good comes from worrying. Nothing.
07:57 Nothing good comes from worrying. When I think about worrying, I’ll think about losing sleep and then I’m just a mess the next day if I don’t get enough sleep. When I think of worrying, I’ll think of anxiety.
08:13 I’ll think of eczema. You know, I have allergies and eczema, and guess what you do when you’re all worried and nervous? You start scratching, eczema and so forth. It just gets worse.
08:19 If anyone’s had that, they know. You know, worrying doesn’t produce anything good. I mean, physiologically speaking or physically speaking, and I’m not a scientist or a doctor, you get stress, right? When you worry, you’re stressed out.
08:28 What does that lead to? Cortisol, which I think manifests itself into like fat or something. It doesn’t sound good. High blood pressure, right? You can deal with problems.
08:43 I’ve heard of jobs that are so stressful that people get these problems like in their liver and they get ulcers and all kinds of things, diartriculitis or whatever it may be where their liver is almost rupturing because they’ve been under persistent stress for so long. I heard Adrian Rogers preach a message once about psychosomatic illness. It’s a big word.
09:05 It means something very simple. Something starts in your mind and it comes out in the body, and that’s a whole message on its own. But the point is, nothing is good about worrying.
09:13 God knows that you worry, and you say, well, Brother Clark, if God made me and he made all things and he made worrying, why would he do that? Well, if the worrying draws you back to him and you recognize his power and you seek him more and you devote yourself to him more, then is that worrying necessarily bad if it did that?
09:32 As we see here, Jesus says, take no thought for food. Behold, the fowls of the air. He’s talking about birds here.
09:39 They sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are you much better than they?
09:47 So he’s saying, look, you know, these birds are doing nothing to earn their keep. Again, they’re not fulfilling the law, quote unquote, and yet they’re fed.
09:55 Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit or measure to your stature? Again, worrying is no good.
10:04 He’s talking about helpless birds, and God feeds them. How much more does he care about them? We don’t know where the bird goes when they die.
10:08 We do know where we go when we die, one of two places, heaven or hell. We know that we have an eternal, never-dying soul, and that Jesus says here, your heavenly Father feedeth them. That idea that Jesus Christ is mentioning our heavenly Father.
10:21 When we’re born again, we become a child of God, and God will take care of his children. I think of my children as my priority every day to care for them, to make sure they have what they need.
10:32 We went out this morning for breakfast, for homeschool, a little special day, and I said to my son, you’re going to need a sweatshirt.
10:39 It’s cold outside. I care for him. I want to make sure he has what he needs.
10:46 He goes, I don’t know where it is, Dad. Okay, let me go find it. I’m the dad.10:49 I’ll go find what he needs. If me, being sinful man, being evil sinful man, can provide us the clothes and the food that my child needs, how much more so can God, the heavenly Father, provide us everything that we need? You just have to have faith to believe.
11:00 Speaking of clothing, Matthew 6:28-30, Why take ye thought for raiment or clothing? Consider the lilies of the field. Those beautiful flowers. I love those pastel colors.
11:12 They’re absolutely breathtaking. How they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin, as in they don’t spin, they don’t work like a weaver, like a weaver’s wheel, right? It’s not spinning. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon, that’s King Solomon, in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
11:33 Wherefore if God so clothed the grass of the field, which is today and tomorrow cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
11:35 Here Jesus is pointing out, obviously, the temporal nature of flowers, they’re beautiful and God makes them beautiful and clothes them beautifully, goes into his heavenly resources and makes them look as they look. That is God that did that, Amen.
11:52 And would he not then provide what we need? And I’ve given examples in past episodes about how God provides, oh, how he provides for what we need, Amen. And Jesus is rebuking them saying, ye of little faith. Think about this, what does this all come down to? Little faith, this is a matter of faith
12:12 The key to not worrying is faith and focus on the kingdom of God. You want to know how not to worry? Have faith in God and focus on his kingdom, Amen. He says so much here, Matthew 6:31-33, kind of capping off this statement, therefore take no thought saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed, for after all these things do the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of all these things, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and hisrighteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. Now, I love the context we have for that verse now.
12:45 Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and that is what we are to do and all these things be added unto you. What things? Food and clothing, Amen.
12:58 What Paul says is the only thing you really desire to have. So the things that Paul is saying we should only desire to have and not covet after these other things, Jesus is saying here in Matthew 6, God’s going to give it to you.
13:09 You just seek his kingdom and that is where I think the friction happens. That’s where the problem happens where most people say, I’m not willing. I’m not willing to study my Bible.
13:19 I’m not willing to have faith and take my hand off the steering wheel, so to speak. I’m not willing to spend time in prayer and to go to the church house. I’m not willing to believe in a real literal living God that will deliver by his hands the necessary food and clothing for me, Amen, for me.
13:35 I’m not willing to believe that. And that’s where you have to stop and pray to God and ask for bigger faith. The Bible tells us that faith cometh by hearing and hearing the word of God.
13:43 So we know that we get faith from reading God’s word, but we know also that God must make us discerners of his word by the working of the Holy Spirit.
13:52 So we must be saved and we must seek God and ask him to give us the faith that we can believe on Him fully and totally to be dependent upon Him. And then we won’t have to worry about these things.
14:06 And now that you don’t have to worry, think about what else you can do with all that time and all that energy. You can spend time with God and you can pray to God and you can serve God and you could just love your life and not have to worry. It’s amazing what God will do with a repentant sinner that turns to him wholly and completely.
14:23 It’s amazing what he’ll do, including eliminating worrying in their life. Thank you for listening. Take care.
14:28 Tune in next time. God bless. Amen..