If you haven’t been with us over the last several posts, we are getting ready to celebrate Christmas here at The Life Project, and we have been doing so by reviewing some of the reasons that Jesus came to earth, as found in Matthew chapter six. We’ve seen up to this point that He came to show us what humility is, and to teach us that we should be humble and  selfless, that we should pray selflessly with God’s priorities in mind, and that in all we do, we should be doing it to bring glory and honor to God, and not to ourselves. In this final passage of Matthew six, Jesus shows us a sort of culmination of these things, and we’ll begin our review of verses 25 ff. now. In this post, I’d like to focus on 25-27:

“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? 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? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

Matthew 6:25-27

In the NIV, this section comes beneath a heading that says, “Do Not Worry.” Certainly Jesus tells us this several times in the text, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that this passage is about considerably more than worry. You’ll notice that it begins with the word “therefore” and if you’ve been following this blog, then you know that whenever a passage begins with “therefore,” we must look at what came before to see what it’s there for. In this case:

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Matthew 6:24

It would appear that Jesus is still talking about money and following two masters when He jumps into this section, saying that we should not worry “about your life.” In short, Jesus is talking about material possessions, including wealth. Food, drink and clothing are the bare essentials of our physical lives. Without food, we die of starvation, without water we die of dehydration, and without protection from the elements, we die from exposure, so what does Jesus teach us about these things?

Don’t worry about it!

Yet in truth, we do worry about it. Even in affluent societies we worry about these things, only in affluent countries we may be thinking in terms of finances, for with enough cash, you can always find food, drink and clothing… and shelter too. Yes, that’s how this ties in with the previous section about the money. Notice that verses 26 and 27 teach us that God has provision for these things without our constant worry; Jesus is trying to tell us that we need to place our faith and confidence in God alone.

Isn’t that what He was telling us all through the first 24 verses of this chapter?

Yes, I think that was exactly what He has been getting at all along.

How much time and effort do we spend worrying about money and financial matters? How much destructive anxiety is generated over finances? How many marriages are torn apart by financial matters? How much resentment is generated by financial matters?

OK, I’m sure you get the idea. How easy it is to wake up and realize that we have become slaves of money and material things!

There is good news, dear reader, Jesus came that we might know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.  In the next post, we will finish up this text and see the good news that Jesus has for us.