Who Am I? The Gospel According to Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew

April is a big month for me personally.  It is my birthday month so it automatically becomes one of my favorite months.  Is is perhaps the biggest and most important month for me at work. It is also MPA alumni weekend, so I am often privileged with seeing lots of long lost friends.  With all that is going on in this big month, I often am worried about what I am going to wear.  After all, it is my birthday month so it is front and center that I am getting old.  Yet I don't want to look old, but I don't want to look like I'm scared of being old.  I want something new fresh, something to help me feel confident.  Then there is the highschool reunion.  I'm sure you now what that is like.  It drives me to not only find something to wear but also find something that is school colors, appropriate for spring, makes me look young and hip... you get the picture?  

Crazy,  yep.  Crazy!  

READ:  Matthew 6: 25-34

Do Not Worry

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own

Traditionally what have you always heard when reading this passage? Describe what it has always meant to you in one sentence.

What do you worry about?

Be honest...

What keeps you up at night?

Go back to the first verse in this section.  

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?

Now look at your list of things you worry about, check off anything from you list if it is found here in this passage... How much is left?

 Ok so for me... perfectly honest... transparent...

Worry list:

Trying to figure out if I am to stay with the job I am in or look for something closer to home.

Worry about my weight and health.

Worry about how I look.

Worry about having enough clothes, that fit and are appropriate for the events I have coming up.

Worry about....

So if I start checking off how much is left?  NOTHING!

READ again the passage...

I want to challenge you to read this with a different picture in mind.  This is not just speaking about God providing.  I have always seen this as don't worry about where your food is coming from, but can it also be telling us to quit worrying about what we eat... maybe it isn't telling us to  not worry about here clothes are coming from but maybe we should be worrying about what to wear too.  

My grandmother always taught us that we needed to always have something to fill when you take something away. So if I am a worrier.  What do I replace it with?

So what can we replace worry with.

A couple months ago Chris and I were on a trip.  I wanted to get my nails and hair done before heading out across country. It didn't happen.  So with nails undone, and hair a crazy mess we went to some meetings.  I realized that almost the entire way there I was worrying about how people would perceive me with such an unkept appearance.  Then here was the AhhhHaaa moment..   I realized that if I had spent the time praising God for all that he has done in my life, instead of about my hair and how people would judge me, I would have had a completely different experience traveling.  I could have been free...

FRee to see those around me and better know how to serve them. 

Free to see what blessings have been lavished upon me by my heavenly father.

Free to see and share Jesus.

So maybe what this verse is really saying, is.....

Jesus is a jealous God who wants to be with you.  He wants you to know Him and he doesn't want us consumed with our worry list and instead He wishes for us to have time with him, and he wishes that we would trust him, and let him be the one to worry if there is a need.  

Who am I?

I am a worrier who is going to try to switch to a praiser!