Sermon Notes

6 24 “No one can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the gentiles who seek all these things, and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.34 “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today. (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition, NRSVue)
6 24 “You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both.25-26 “If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds. 27-29 “Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. 30-33 “If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. 34 “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.
(The Message, MSG)

Last week’s lesson kicked off this quarter’s theme, the “Enduring Beliefs of the Church,” with a discussion of scripture as a foundation for exploring the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This week’s lesson explores the divine attributes of God the Father through the lens of the Gospel of Matthew. By viewing God as the Matthean writer views God—as a just, gracious, and loving God who always reaches out to humanity—contemporary Christians have an opportunity to enter into the story of God’s love as enfleshed and lived out by Jesus the Son.
As we explore what Jesus preached about God the Father as the Divine sovereign, it is important to note that God’s power and dominion as sovereign always takes the form of love and is exercised in love. That is what Christianity says about who God is, and what the authentic nature of God’s character is. The dominion of God’s love is not a “top down” control mechanism. Rather, it is a sense that there is no circumstance where God’s love does not dominate and does not seek us out. Therefore, we have no need to worry about the things/issues/matters of this life, because God’s love will take care of our needs. Further, it only makes sense to choose God as our master, because any other choice is a selection for a master that does not originate in Divine love, nor operate in Divine love.

While the Gospel of Matthew is named after “Matthew,” the disciple who was a tax collector, it was likely not written by that person. This title is an honorific designation reflecting the literary customs of ancient Greco-Roman culture and the styles of writing from which it emerges. Like all four gospels within the New Testament, Matthew’s Gospel reflects the social, political, and religious concerns of its late 1st century context. Because Matthew references the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the gospel reflects a post-70CE context of conflict between Jesus-followers and the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Jewish leaders of synagogues. Jesus envisions a new kingdom of God that the Matthean writer calls the Church (ekklesia in Greek)—a community of Jesus followers who reshape society by their radical relational way of being with each other and their care for the “least of these.”
Matthew’s Gospel consists of six major divisions and the lesson text for this week, 6:24-34, emerges from the second section (4:17–11:1) which includes Jesus’ most well-known teaching—the Sermon on the Mount (5:1–7:29). In these chapters, Matthew presents how Jesus’ ministry begins to incarnate God’s salvation for the world through announces God’s reign, calls disciples, teaches on the kin-dom of God, and heals people of diseases and demons. All of these combined activities gave 1st century Jews a picture of how life in the kin-dom should be lived out. For people who were born and lived under the oppressive Roman Empire, the teachings of Jesus would have been radical. His declaration that the people should, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” would have been received as a revolutionary rejection of Roman imperialism and its dehumanizing systems.
The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ first speech in Matthew’s Gospel, and at 109 verses, Jesus’ longest teaching moment. He teaches on the character and practices of disciples who are committed to establishing and maintaining the kingdom/kin-dom of God. Seven times, he refers to God’s kingdom/kin-dom (5:3, 5:10, 5:19–20; 6:10, 6:33; 7:21) making it clear this is its central theme. And eleven times in this chapter, Jesus refers to God as “Father,” indicating the significance and importance of that human/heavenly relationship. For Matthew, the establishment of God’s kingdom/kin-dom occurs when people work to alleviate oppression anywhere and reverse injustice everywhere.
Further, the writer of Matthew emphasizes God’s being—or the Divine attributes—as just, gracious, and above all else, loving. God’s core being as love necessitates that God is a just, gracious, and loving sovereign. However, God’s reign is rejected by many in the world, it is an eschatological reality—meaning it has been announced and established by Jesus, but it has yet to be fully realized. At the end times (eschaton in the Greek language), Jesus will ensure God’s rule is implemented over all of the cosmos. Therefore, according to Matthew, the empire of God is “already” here and “not yet” here at the same time.
Jesus opens the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 5 with The Beatitudes, which characterize the “blessed” as those who experience suffering and those who mitigate suffering by embracing and producing God’s justice. In chapter 6, additional works of justice—almsgiving, prayer, and fasting—are noted as the primary activities of those who authentically embrace God’s kin-dom by working to eradicate injustice. In verses 19-21, Jesus challenges the disciples by posing the question, “where is their treasure?” He essentially interrogates them if they are captive to things that are temporary, or do they invest in things that will last permanently? In verses 22 and 23, Jesus says the wanton pursuit of earthly riches blurs our vision. It’s impossible to see God correctly when we are focused on those things. This is where the printed lesson text picks up.

24 “You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both.
In the opening verses of the lesson text, Jesus essentially asks the crucial “priority” question: “Who are you serving?” Jesus says it’s not possible to serve money and God, popularity and God, the crowds and God, our families and God, us and God, anything else and God. We can have only one master. Jesus is challenging the disciples to alter their minds about prioritizing earthly wealth over God. One can’t say they serve God and then allow other things—regardless of what they may be—to be the primary focus in their lives. We must focus on God if we are to be disciples who are about the business of kindom building. Please remember, Jesus is teaching the disciples. He is challenging the disciples make God the singular priority in their lives. Can we say we are actually a disciple of Jesus if we don’t heed his words or do the things that he commands?
25-26 “If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.
In verses 25-26, Peterson’s translation explains how the remaining verses within this pericope fit with the preceding verse. If one chooses God as their master, that selection automatically orders everything else in their life. Here, Jesus encourages the disciples to think their way through the tough times in life, not check their brains at the door of faith. To have faith means one understands—theologically—that if God is our master, the God is responsible for our welfare. Fussing or worry (merimnaó in Greek, which actually means do not be troubled with cares), is antithetical to what it means to be a disciple, and is the antithesis of faith. Worry is the preoccupation of our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual selves with things that are beyond our control. Faith perceives potential problems from the perspective of the fatherly love and concern of God. Worry sees only the obstacles—actual or imaginary—and meditates on all the possible disastrous possibilities, while neglecting the fact of God’s divine care and control in our lives.
Worry is evidence of materialism because it distorts our values and reveals our misplaced priorities. When we worry about daily necessities, are we really worrying about necessities or are we worrying about the lagniappe of life? Materialism, at its base, places the temporal above eternal things. It is short-sighted and misses the long view of matters. It is “this world” centered. Jesus calls upon us to rethink our priorities. Which is more important, life itself, or the food we put in our mouth? Which is of higher value, our body or the clothing we put on it? Worry is preoccupation with matters of lowest priority (materialism) which often distracts from the pursuit of God’s kin-dom. Again, Matthew reminds us that we cannot serve God and money.
Worry is also a failure to see things as they really are. Worry flies in the face of everyday life. Even by instinct, sparrows live their lives in thoughtless dependence upon God. Has God failed to care for them? If the Lord cares for birds, which Matthew says are of a lesser value to God, won’t God care for us? Worry does not see matters clearly because it obscures our vision of God as the heavenly Father who will always providentially care for us.
27-29 “Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.
Jesus goes on to say worrying is a waste of time and energy. It is the most unproductive use of our time. It accomplishes nothing but unbelief, doubt and fear. It distracts our attention from matters of higher priority and paralyzes us from doing what is needful at the moment. It fears what could be rather than follow what should be done at the moment. We cannot, by worry, add to our life’s span. In fact, all the evidence would indicate that all we can do by worry is to shorten life and undermine our health.
Worry is also an act of unbelief. The issue is more than one of mere lack of knowledge; it is lack of faith. Worry causes us to doubt the goodness and the integrity of God. It questions God’s sovereignty, knowledge, power, love and care for us. Worry is a kind of blasphemy. It completely forgets that God is our Heavenly Father.
30-33 “If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
In these verses of the lesson text, Jesus reminds the disciples that preoccupation with food and clothing was the characteristic of the non-Jew, or those who do not know God. Jesus said that when we worry about what we will eat or drink or wear, these are the things which dominate the thinking and the striving of people who don’t know God. That’s what the worldly minded people do. When we become preoccupied with these things, then we are just like unbelievers. We have ceased to think, act, and live like disciples who are grounded in seeking God before anything else.
Instead of worrying, Jesus says we should focus on seeking the kingdom/kindom of God first. We should immerse ourselves in God’s reality, God’s initiative, and God’s provisions for us and this world. Eugene Peterson’s Message translation offers a theologically astute perspective on why we should not worry:
• God-reality—things are not actually what they look like. Fear and lack of faith has distorted our view.
• God-initiative—what looks like a problem has been initiated by God to teach us something, grow our faith, or maneuver us into a position of better favor.
• God-provisions—God is always looking for ways to take care of God’s own in numerous and awe-inspiring ways. God does not have one provision, God has limitless provisions.
It is in God’s nature as Heavenly Father to take care of God’s own. When we doubt that God will take care of every one of our needs, we are saying that God is not who God purports to be. If God is I Am, then we can be sure that God will be everything that we need. If God is Jehovah Jireh, then we can be confident that God will provide for every human need that we have. If God is Jehovah Nissi, then God has already won the battle. We just have to wait patiently, fearlessly, and faithfully for God to act.
34 “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.
In the final verse of the lesson text, Jesus admonishes the disciples to focus on what going is doing right in front of our eyes, not the things that distract us from seeing God at work. We cannot be concerned about tomorrow because tomorrow will have its own set of issues and stressors. We should review what we know about God’s character as our Heavenly Father and rely on that. While some of us have endured terrible earthly fathers—those who did not provide basic physical necessities, social and spiritual guidance, or love us unconditionally—God is not like that. God will always take care of us, helping us to manage every single “little” thing that could possibly arise in our lives. When we focus on God’s agenda, God’s kindom, then our Heavenly Father will help with all things.