Tuesday, October 01, 2019

Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Oct 1


1 October 2019

Text: Matt 6:16-34

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

“Do not be anxious,” says Jesus.  His words are often distorted into a stern command.  Sadly, I have heard people who are worried about the health of a loved one, or someone who is struggling with very real terrifying concerns, being scolded, because worry is a sin.

Dear brothers and sisters, is this what you take away from our Lord’s sermon on the mount?  Should we beat down people who are hurting or struggling with threats from God’s law?  What is our Lord teaching us about His kingdom?

When He says not to be anxious, He is catechizing us.  He is guiding us to understand the kingdom of God – which does not work like the secular world.  To an unbeliever, a financial crisis needs money, a sick person needs health care, and when it comes to death, well, there is nothing to be done.  But God’s kingdom is different.

Listen to the comfort that the Lord gives us: “Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  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?”

Similarly, He points us to the plants in the field which God “clothes” with beauty.  And He asks us rhetorically if we are worth more to God than grass.

Jesus doesn’t scold us for worrying, but rather gives us comfort and teaches us that the Father loves us.  He encourages us to pray.  And He teaches us how we can move away from worry and trust Him more: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”  And He even gives us a little ironic humor: “Tomorrow will be anxious for itself.” 

Dear brothers and sisters, our Lord invites us to leave behind the world’s fixation on passing things and to focus on that which is eternal – the love and care of our heavenly Father, the Son who not only instructs us, but dies for us, and the Holy Spirit who calls us into the eternal safety of the kingdom. 

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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