Sermon 11th March 2012

Today, our Curate, Gill Tayleur, preaches based on the reading from Luke 12: 22-34

DO NOT WORRY

A young woman who had just qualified in accountancy, answered a newspaper wanted advert for an accountant. She was interviewed by a very nervous older man who ran a small business that he had started himself.

"I need someone with an accounting degree," the man said. "But mainly, I'm looking for someone to do my worrying for me."

"I beg your pardon?" the woman said.

"I worry about a lot of things," said the man. "But I don't want to have to worry about money. Your job will be to take all my money worries off my back."

"I see," the accountant said. "And how much does the job pay?" "I'll start you at fifty thousand."
"Fifty thousand pounds!" she exclaimed. "How can such a small business afford a sum like that?"

"That," the man said, "is your first worry."

What do you worry about? ...

I wonder if any one of us here, is thinking, “I don’t worry, I never worry.” Really? Never worry about your health? Your job, or lack of it? Money? Your children? Your parents? Your relationships? Your future?

We all worry. Some more than others. Some personalities are more natural worriers than others. And some people do have greater difficulties to face, more to worry about, than others. I’m well aware that some here have hugely difficult and painful situations going on. But I suspect we all worry at times.

Let me recognise here at the outset that some people suffer from so much worry and anxiety that it’s an illness; my comments this morning are not in any way intended to get at them or make them feel guilty. Professional help is needed for the medical condition of anxiety. That’s not what I’m talking about here; I mean ‘ordinary’ everyday worries that we all have, some of, or a lot of, the time.

It has been said that the modern Western world is built on worry. Sometimes you see worry on the faces of people hurrying along the street. You see its burden; see how they’re weighed down with it, bound by it. And we ourselves may know that feeling of burden, sometimes more like being choked. Our worries have us by the throat and our fear of what might happen threatens to overwhelm us.

This world thrives on people setting higher and higher goals for themselves, and each other, so that we worry all day and sometimes all night about whether we will reach them. If we have a job, we worry about getting a better job, pay rise, bigger house, smarter car or smarter electronic gadget. And if we do meet those goals, we set new ones, higher ones. What we have is never quite enough. And if we don’t meet our goals, we feel we’ve failed. Either way, this sense of worry and dissatisfaction. Is this really how we’re supposed to live?

Jesus’ words we’ve just heard, show that much of the world has faced the same problem, for much of human history. The difference is the level at which worry strikes. Many of Jesus’ hearer only had just enough to live on, and there was always the prospect that one day they wouldn’t have even that. Many of them would have had just 1 or 2 spare pieces of clothing, a few possessions, no more. One disaster, like the family bread winner being sick or injured, could mean instant destitution. Of course it’s still like that for many people across the world. And it was to people like that, not to people worried about affording the latest electronic device or foreign holidays, that Jesus gave his clear and striking commands about not worrying over food and clothing.

We now know that worry can itself be a killer. Stress and worry can cause disease, or contribute to it. And so Jesus’ words we’ve heard this morning can be literally life giving, health giving. Jesus says, “Do not worry”.

Why? He gives 2 reasons.

First, because it’s pointless. Worry is futile. Jesus says “Will you live even a little bit longer if you worry?!” Of course not. It won’t change anything.

And the second reason Jesus says not to worry is because our Father God will provide for us, he can be trusted.

Jesus says, look at nature. Look at the birds. God gives them what they need, as they need it. It’s not that they don’t work, they do.

Some birds like domestic chickens, I’m told work very hard. And we should work if we can, sometimes work very hard. But our feathered friends don’t seem to worry about the physical supports of their life, their food & water & shelter. They simply look for it as they need it and take what they find. They don’t save up their food

and store it away for tomorrow. They don’t have barns of food

for their future, for their security. God provides for them. And Jesus says God will provide for you too. Look to him for your security.

Storing up for the future in barns – or banks more likely for us –

can’t keep us secure, keep us safe, anyway. Money can’t keep us safe from the real dangers of life, from serious illness and accidents and tragedies and the things that hurt most like relationship breakdown. Don’t put your trust in money, Jesus is saying, put it in God! Trust in God and don’t worry for your future.

He goes on to say look at wild flowers or lilies, see how beautiful God makes them. The flowers that grow on a hillside can show a radiance of beauty that we can’t begin to match!

People use money to make themselves feel beautiful, to feel attractive, to feel young, to feel important, worthy in the eyes of others, loved and approved of. And we may worry about all those things too. But Jesus says, look to God for your sense of being loved, of being beautiful and accepted in his sight. Don’t put your trust in what makes you feel attractive and important, put it in God!

Trust in God and don’t worry about your clothes or appearance to others.

“How much more valuable you are than birds!” and about the lilies “how much more will he clothe you, o you of little faith!”

It takes faith to trust in God. Faith in his goodness, and in his love.

When we remember, and experience, just how good & loving & kind & gracious & merciful our Father God is to us, and choose to believe it, then we can grow to trust Him. When we hear what Jesus said about God’s love, when we see how Jesus showed it – and best of all when we look at the cross where he died for love of us, died to set us free to know his love and goodness for ourselves, then perhaps we can grow to trust him more.

It’s not easy. (This series is on the cost of discipleship because Jesus warned that it wouldn’t be easy!) Not easy to trust in God rather than worry, because trusting in God doesn’t mean everything will necessarily turn out well.

Trusting in God doesn’t mean awful things don’t happen. We know that. We don’t trust God that he will always stop bad things from happening in this life – although we know that ultimately, in all eternity, all pain and suffering will cease. We trust him now that he is always good and he always loves us and is with us, regardless of what we’re going through.

To be honest, I’m still figuring out what it means to trust Father God with the things I treasure most and that I am most tempted to worry about, namely my children growing up. But I’m learning – and for now, what I can say for sure, is that God is always good and he always loves us and is always with us, and that’s what I’m trusting. I’m not trusting that everything will go as well as I want it to, for me or for them. Even when life is painful, we can trust that our Father God is always good, always loves us and is always with us. He can be trusted.

So Jesus said, do not worry, because it’s pointless. Do not worry, because our Father God can be trusted.

So, how do we not worry? What’s the alternative and how do we do it?

Verses 31 and 32 give us the key. “But seek his kingdom” and “Your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”

Instead of focusing on ourselves, what we want, how we might get it, what might happen, what might go wrong; instead of all of that, Jesus tells us to focus on God and his kingdom.

What is it, this kingdom that Father God is pleased to give us, and we are told to seek, to look for, rather than worry?

The Kingdom of God is life with God as supreme King, life under his rule, his will, his eternal purposes. Life under his love & mercy & power. Life knowing his goodness & love & presence. Everyone and everything that lives under God as King God, whether by nature or choice, is living in the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is here and now, as well as in eternity, when everyone and everything will live under his kingly rule forever.

Living for the kingdom of God means every part of our life being surrendered to his kingship, rule, his will, his purposes. And every part of our life being aimed at spreading his kingdom, that is spreading his rule, and the knowledge of his goodness, his love and presence. It means investing our life in what God’s doing, spending our life on what matters to God. That of course means loving God with all our heart & mind & soul & strength & loving our neighbour.

(Thank you Adrian for the enormous challenge last week to see our neighbour as beyond whatever boundary we put down to keep them out.)

Living for the kingdom of God means we’re to devote ourselves to God’s worship and service. We’re to invest time and effort in our relationship with Father God through his son Jesus, to know and trust him better. We’re to care for the earth and delight in God’s creation. And we’re to give ourselves for the good of other people.

And one practical outworking of this living for his kingdom, is described by Jesus in the verses following the one about God giving us his kingdom. “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.”

In those days, for most people, their possessions were their capital, their investments, their savings and their security for the future.

What they earned was needed for day to day living, and maybe they gave a portion of it to the poor or to the temple, to God.

But Jesus doesn’t mention their earnings here, he says sell your possessions! He’s saying sell your capital, your investments, your savings for the future! Be that generous! And that fits with what he has just said about the birds not storing up food in barns for the future.

Are we that generous? Or are we greedy?

Do we think we’re greedy? Or materialistic?

Apparently, in surveys, no one thinks they’re greedy. Everyone thinks people who have more than they do, are greedy. But we can be greedy however much or little we have.

And greed has an inbuilt blindness to it. A few verses earlier in this chapter, in v15, Jesus says watch out and be on your guard against greed. Why does he say watch out for greed? He never says watch out for adultery! That’s because we know if we’re doing adultery (!!), but we might not realise we are greedy.

Greed is deceptive. And we need to watch out for it, be on guard for it, very carefully, to spot it in ourselves. We need to be suspicious, not trust ourselves, to ask ourselves questions like:

Do I really need that? Do I really need more? Couldn’t I live more simply?

Couldn’t I give more of my money away?
In my pursuit of money, do I work for companies, or do deals, or produce products, that are bad for people?...

If we won’t ask ourselves questions like these, we’re refusing to watch out or be on our guard against greed.

Do I really need more?

Couldn’t I live more simply?

Couldn’t I give more of my money away? In my pursuit of money, do I work for companies, or do deals, or produce products, that are bad for people?

If we won’t ask ourselves questions like these, we’re refusing to watch out or be on our guard against greed.

Jesus is saying, be outrageously generous! Be generous with even your savings and investments for the future! Give them away! ....

Could we be that generous? Or do we think we truly need all we have? And that we need to spend more?

Can you imagine saying to a man in a refugee camp in Somalia,

or to one of the freed slaves the Griffiths are involved with releasing in India, people who have nothing, “I can’t afford to give any more; I need all this.”

Living in the kingdom of God, living by God’s rules and purposes, will affect our money, even our savings. God has been so generous to us, giving even his son Jesus, so we’re to be generous to those in need. And trust his goodness and love in the future.

And then this passage concludes with a very telling and challenging truth. “[Build up] treasure in heaven – For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

What we do with our treasure, or money, is very telling. It’s an indication of the state of our hearts. How we spend our money – and our time, our energy, the things we think about and dream of and save for – shows us where our hearts lie, what we truly love and treasure.

Jesus says, instead of building up riches or treasure for the here and now, spend it on God and his kingdom, for what he’s doing, his purposes, are eternal, they last forever. Save your treasure in heaven, where thieves or moths can’t take them, where the forces of nature and human evil can’t harm. Working for God’s kingdom cannot be destroyed; playing a part in God’s eternal purposes has a value that will last forever. Living for and spreading God’s kingdom by loving Him and our neighbour. Trusting in his goodness and love and presence. That’s how we deposit treasures in heaven on a daily, hourly basis.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Doing the Godly thing with our treasure, both reveals a Godly heart, and leads to a Godly heart. And our heart is the centre of our being and directs all we are and do. Thus a heart rightly focused, on God and his kingdom, brings health & wholeness to our whole being.

So the crucial question is, where is your treasure? Where is your heart? Focused on God and his kingdom, his purposes?

Or on ourselves, our wants, our worries?

So let’s pray...