11-13 Anxious Free Living

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Hello, my name is Paul and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God is government called your daily bread Taken from Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew, chapter 6, verse 11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting scripture, but scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s focus discussion will be on anxious free living. Luke 12, verses 22 to 34 he said to his disciples, for this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life as to what you shall eat, nor for your body as to what you shall put on.

For life is more than food and the body than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, for they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them. How much more valuable you are than the birds. And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single cubit to his life span? If you then cannot do even a very little thing, why are you very anxious? Why are you anxious about other matters? Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. But I tell you, even Solomon and all his glory didn’t clothe himself like one of these.

But if God so arrays the grass in the field which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will he clothe you, O men of little faith. And do not seek what you shall eat and what you shall drink, and do not keep worrying for all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek. But your Father knows that you need these things. But seek for his kingdom, and these things shall be added to you. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.

Sell your possessions and give to charity. Make yourselves purses which do not wear out an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Believe it or not, this passage is about where your heart is. In verse 22 Jesus said, Do not be anxious. In verse 29 he said, do not keep worrying. In verse 32 he said, do not be afraid. And the ability to respond to that is a matter of where your heart is. If your heart is fixed on earthly matters, it’s very hard to fulfill those commands.

It’s almost impossible. If your hope is only in the resources in this world and in this life, if you are dependent like the man in the earlier story on barns that contain all that you need for the future. If you have to rest on your own resources, take care of yourself, because nobody else will, then it’s reasonable to be anxious and it’s reasonable to worry and it’s reasonable to be afraid because circumstances in this life just are not that secure. It’s a very troubled world that we live in and things change rather rapidly and we’re certainly not in control of everything.

So this idea of anxiety free living that Jesus is talking about, this, this command to stop worrying, stop being anxious and stop being afraid, wouldn’t really make any sense if your heart was set on things in this life. Because frankly, as the Bible says, man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. And even Jesus said, in this world you’ll have trouble. That’s the way life is in a fallen world. How then is it possible to have anxiety free living? How is it possible to be free from worry? How is it possible to live a life that knows no fear? Well, the answer is it’s a matter of where your heart is.

It all depends on where your heart is. In the midst of life with all its issues, one can become completely overwhelmed if one’s focus is on this world. If all your investment is here, if your concerns and your preoccupations are here, because everything changes. But if your hearts are in heaven, nothing changes. And the promises of God are all fixed and unchangeable and guaranteed and secure. So it really is a heart issue, this matter of anxiety free living. And Jesus offers sinners anxiety free living, but it demands a transfer of their heart from earth to heaven.

And while salvation certainly has to do with eternal life, that is to say rescuing us from eternal hell and taking us to eternal heaven, while the primary benefit of salvation is deliverance from the wrath of God and everlasting punishment, there is also the promise that salvation gives us in this life freedom from anxiety and freedom from worry and freedom from fear. Now, we’ve been going through this text already for a couple of weeks. In our articles tied to our study in Ephesians, we looked at the fact that worry is a failure to understand divine priority. In verses 22 and 23, we looked at the fact that worry is a failure to understand divine provision.

In verse 24, we looked at the fact that worry is a failure to understand divine privilege or prerogative. Only God has determined the length of your life. You can’t add to your own life by anything that you do. That’s his privilege. We looked at the Fact that worry is a failure to understand divine preference. You certainly are more valuable to him than lilies, and he takes good care of them. Worry, we saw also is a failure to understand divine paternity. The fatherhood of God. Verses 30 and 31. All these things the nations of the world eagerly seek, of course.

People who have no invisible means of support. People who have no relationship to God, people who have no heavenly father. People who are of their Father, the Devil, have no one providing for them. The devil is a thief and a robber and a killer. And so they are on their own to make the best out of life that they can. For every reason to be filled with stress and. And anxiety and worry and fear. There’s nobody there. There’s no invisible means of support. All you’ve got is the visible means. But for us to worry about that is a failure to understand the fatherhood of God.

The nations of the world live like this. We don’t. Because your Father knows that you need these things. He knows the clothing you need. He knows the food you need. So just seek his kingdom. Just put your heart in heaven and he’ll add everything you need. We’ve talked about if you worry and if you’re anxious and if you’re afraid, it’s because you don’t understand divine priority, divine provision, divine privilege, divine preference, divine paternity. And one final if you worry, you fail to understand divine pleasure. Do you ever ask yourself the question, or have you ever thought about it? What gives God the most pleasure? Well, I could have taken you through a lot of passages in the Bible to say it pleased the Lord to do this, and it pleased the Lord to do that, and it pleased the Lord to do the other thing.

One that jumps into your mind is a little phrase. It was well pleasing in his sight. We know the Bible says it pleased the Lord to bruise Christ. God found pleasure. Can you imagine? God found pleasure in the death of His Son. And the Son himself found pleasure in dying. He did it for the joy that was set before him during the cross. What does please God? Where does God find His pleasure? Where does he find his delight? Amazingly, that takes us down to verse 32. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.

He didn’t say he’d give you something out of the kingdom. He doesn’t say he’d give you resources from the kingdom. He says he’ll give you what the kingdom your Father has chosen gladly. Eudo Kiyo. To delight in, to take pleasure in. And that’s a wonderful translation. He’s chosen gladly. What delights God is to give you everything you need, every resource in his kingdom. And in Romans 4017, it says, the kingdom of God is righteousness and joy and peace in the Holy Spirit. Everything that brings about righteousness and joy and peace. Every resource in the kingdom your Father delights to give to you.

What would you worry about? What would you fear? Why would you be anxious? In verse 31, just seek the kingdom and everything you need will be added. Why? Because it’s your Father’s delight to give you the kingdom. Not to, as I said, to give you something out of the kingdom. Not to sort of dole out small elements of the kingdom, but to give it all to you. That language is reminiscent of the fact that Romans 8, where it says, we are joint heirs with Christ, everything that he inherits in the kingdom becomes ours as well. I mean, giving us the kingdom is a staggering reality.

When you become a believer, all that the kingdom is of righteousness becomes yours. All that it possesses of peace and joy becomes yours. And of course, the scriptures talk about this over and over again. Jesus in the great Olivet discourse in Matthew 25 says, in verse 34, Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. All of God’s righteousness, all of God’s peace, all of God’s joy, all of God’s glory that makes up the reality of his kingdom becomes ours.

We literally become co inheritors of the kingdom with Christ. Listen to Luke 22:29. Just as my Father has granted me a kingdom, I grant you. My Father has given me the kingdom, the domain of salvation with all of its riches. He gave it to me, Jesus said, and I give it to you. And you will eat and drink at my table in my kingdom. And you will sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel, the Bible actually says, will sit on Christ’s throne and rule and reign with Him. There are aspects to the kingdom. There is an eternal aspect, that’s the heavenly kingdom.

There’s a millennial aspect, that’s the earthly kingdom. But there is an immediate aspect, and that is the spiritual kingdom and all of its privileges we immediately inherit. We enter into the joy of the kingdom, and it’s the joy of the Lord. It’s called within Scripture. Enter in to the joy of your Lord. We enter into the love that exists between the Father and the Son, as Jesus in his high priestly prayer in John 17 prays that we would be bound up in this eternal love. And Jesus also says, I come to thee, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy made full.

In them we receive his peace, his joy, his his righteousness, his glory. That’s what Paul means in Ephesians 1, verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. In Christ we are blessed with all spiritual blessings. That is of course purposely a statement without any limits, because there are no limits to the blessings. If he has given us his son, Romans 8:32 says, how will he not also freely with him give us all things? If he already gave us his Son, he’ll give us everything that his Son has earned for us by his sacrifice.

Peter says, we have all things that pertain to life and godliness. Paul says, my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus we have no lack in eternity, we have no lack in the millennial kingdom, and we have no lack in the spiritual kingdom of which we now are partakers. I think it’s so wonderful, the language here in which the Lord says, not that he’ll give us something from the kingdom, but he says, you, Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom, and whatever it is that we now need from the resources of that kingdom will be given to us in 2 Corinthians 9:8.

God is able to make all grace abound to you, that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed. You know, the superlatives in that verse are almost relentless. God is able to make all grace abound to you, that always having all sufficiency in all things, you may have an abundance for all good deeds. It’s all just over the top resources. So what are you worrying about? What are you fearful about? What are you anxious about? There’s no reluctance on God your Father, and that celebrates the intimate love that the Father has for his own has chosen to give you gladly the kingdom.

And by the way, see the phrase little flock, do not be afraid, little flock, do not fear. There is bound up in that phrase, I think, a recognition of our vulnerability. I mean, to start with, there are not many noble and not many mighty, and we are the lowest of the low and the base and the nobodies and the nothings. And it’s easy for us to feel overwhelmed in this world of God rejecters and Christ rejecters, saints through the ages have always been beleaguered and despised and rejected and persecuted and martyred. And Christians have lost their jobs and they’ve lost their access to resources.

And they felt tremendous pressure and tremendous hostility from time to time and place to place through the history of the church. And so little flock sort of captures that. The phrase is a way to express that the Lord knows that we’re weak and feeble and small and overwhelmed, but this is not the survival of the majority here. It really doesn’t matter that we’re nobody. It really doesn’t matter that we are few. It doesn’t matter that we are small. The eternal God of the universe is our Father and he has chosen gladly to give us the kingdom and all that is in it.

Do you want anxiety free living, worry free living, fear free living. Come into God’s kingdom and you never need to be anxious again. He’ll feed you and he’ll clothe you to the end of his purpose for you in this life. And as you fix your heart on heavenly things and let go of earthly things, you will be providing for yourself an eternal reward in heaven which you will enjoy forever and ever. Does this sound appealing? It should. I don’t know that I could even imagine somebody who just heard that much of it saying, oh, I’m not interested.

Personally, I would. I really enjoy my stress. I have sort of an affinity for fear and worry and anxiety is something I really like. No, nobody likes that. No, if you just offer it that way and say, jesus wants to take all the anxiety out of your life. Jesus wants to take all the worry out of your life. And Jesus wants to take all the fear out of your life. And Jesus wants to introduce you to God the Father, who will give you all the riches of his eternal kingdom now and forever, and you never need to worry again because your loving Father knows everything you need and he’ll make sure you have it, That sounds pretty good.

I really can’t imagine that at least at that point anybody is going to say, well, I’d rather be on my own than have the eternal God caring for me. Nobody in their right mind would say that. Well, you say, then why don’t people respond? Why don’t people embrace the kingdom? Why don’t they rush? Why don’t they storm the gates? Why don’t they plead? It sounds so appealing. All of God’s care now. All of God’s care in the glorious millennial future and all of God’s eternal blessing in the new heaven and the new earth eternity. It’s an amazing offer.

And Jesus knows that, and you know that. And that brings us down to verses 33 and 34. And here’s the hook, here’s the catch, here’s the invitation. At this point, probably the buzz through the crowd to whom Jesus is Speaking. Remember now, 12, 1, 13, 9 is one discourse Jesus gave to a crowd, a very large crowd, tens of thousands of people. And the buzz through the crowd would be, wow, this is pretty amazing stuff here. And then Jesus tells them what to do. You want to enter the kingdom? Verse 33. Sell your possessions and give to charity.

What, you want me to take care of you, Then give up everything. Now, if you were going to Bible college and the professor gave you a question, and the question was, how do people enter the kingdom of God? And you wrote, by selling their possessions and giving to charity, you’d get it wrong, right? What are you talking about? That’s not how somebody gets into God’s kingdom. What is he talking about? And then he goes on to say, make yourselves purses which do not wear out an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief goes near, nor moth destroys.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. What in the world is he saying? Well, this just seems really radical. It seems almost unchristian. It sounds almost contrary to the Gospel. It’s very much like Matthew 6:19. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So Jesus had said this before. If you want to come into my kingdom, you’re going to have to let go of your possessions.

It’s exactly what he said to the rich young ruler recorded in Matthew 19:21 and in Luke 18:22, two accounts of the same incident. You want to be in my kingdom? Sell everything you have and give it to the poor. I mean, this just does not seem right. Go over to chapter 14 of Luke for a moment. Luke, chapter 14. And I’m going to show you that this is not an isolated incident with Jesus. This is pretty much the pattern. Verse 25, another multitude of people. And he turned and said to them, and here comes this same kind of invitation if anyone comes to me.

So you want to be in the kingdom, do you? And doesn’t hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters? Yes, and even his own life. He can’t be my disciple. What is that? He was talking about giving up your money. Now he’s talking about giving up your family and even giving up your own life. And that’s reminiscent of Luke 9:23, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, which means even in death. And he says it there in verse 27, whoever doesn’t carry his own cross and come after me can’t be my disciple.

You’ve got to count the cost. He says, I’m offering you a kingdom. But to come into this kingdom, you must abandon everything in this world that is precious to you. Be willing to abandon it. He says, you know, it’s like somebody going to build a tower. He has to first sit down and calculate the cost, see if he has enough to complete it. Otherwise he’s going to build a foundation and then become a ridicule when he can’t finish it. Or a king who goes to battle has to know the strength of his men, the number of his troops, to know if he can win or else he tries to negotiate.

So verse 33, you can’t be my disciple if you don’t give up all your possessions. When there were some sort of would be followers of Jesus, who said, you know, we’re going to follow you. And Jesus said, good, you know, follow me. And they said, well, yeah, we are going to follow you, but first we have a few things we. We need to take care of, right? And that, that was that sort of temporary kind of discipleship, that kind of discipleship. Chapter 9 in. In verses 57 to 62, I’m going to follow you wherever you go, but first I’ve got to go bury my Father, and first I’ve got to go home and do this.

And Jesus says, if you ever go that direction, if you’re trying to hold onto that, you can’t be my disciple. It’s the same kind of language again and again and again and again. And you ask the question, why does Jesus say this all the time? Because aren’t we saved by grace, through faith? Aren’t we saved just by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ? Yes, but in order to genuinely put your life in the hands of the Lord, you have to abandon it. Luke 5:11 talks about James, John and Peter. When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Verse 28 talks about Matthew. He left everything and followed him. What Jesus is saying here is consistent all the way through. Consistent all the way through. Salvation is by faith. Salvation is by embracing the Messiah. Salvation is by Turning from your sin. But true faith in Christ, true turning from sin has a kind of desperation about it. This is the way Jesus manifests the genuine desperation of the one who says he wants to be in the kingdom. If there is anything that would prevent you from coming to me, then you can’t come. If it’s family, if it’s career, if it’s ambition, if it’s money, it’s the same thing with the rich young ruler.

He said, I’m not. I’m not going to give away my money. The point is, until you’re so desperate that you would hold on to nothing, you’re not going to be sufficiently abandoning yourself to Christ. It’s always a call from holding on to your life, your will, your material possessions, your position, your power to abandon it all, to deny yourself. So he’s saying to these people, how much do you really want God to be your Father? How much do you really want to be free from all the stress and worry and anxiety and fear? How much do you really want the kingdom? Enough to submit to his absolute lordship? This is about the Beatitudes, isn’t it? Blessed are the poor in spirit, the spiritually bankrupt, those who mourn, those who are meek, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

It’s a level of desperation. It’s real brokenness, real hunger for salvation that holds on to nothing, eagerly lets it all go. So here is an invitation to the kingdom. But it appeals only to the desperate, only to the broken, only to the penitent, only for the hungry and thirsty, whose desire to be delivered from sin and death and hell into the kingdom of righteousness, joy and peace is so strong that they would pay any cost. So Jesus is saying what John the Baptist. Bring forth fruits unto repentance. You say you want to repent. Do you? Are you willing to give up everything? Are you willing to make for yourself purses which don’t wear out? In other words, instead of accumulating everything in this world in earthly barns or earthly purses, are you.

Are you willing to put them in a heavenly purse, to put your treasure in heaven? Are you willing to give up everything in a spiritual investment with God, who will return to you eternal dividends? You will receive in heaven an unfailing treasure where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. So. So here is our Lord’s invitation. It is an invitation to live in his kingdom. It is an invitation to submit your life to the heavenly king and to invest everything into his care, to set your affections on things above, as verse 34 says to put your heart in heaven.

Heart is cardiac. It means feeling, thought, desire, will, the core of life, everything in that heavenly investment. Well, how much do you want God’s kingdom? It’s not about praying, a little prayer. It’s not about adding Jesus to your life. It’s about abandoning everything you are to receive entrance into his spiritual kingdom. And the truth is, the only way that entrance is made available to us is through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. When he said this, he hadn’t died yet. Obviously he wasn’t asking them to believe in his death and resurrection. It hadn’t happened. But like the publican who beat his breast later in Luke 18 and asked God to be merciful, if they came destitute, desperate, pleading, willing to abandon everything.

Because salvation was that important, because deliverance from sin was that important, because deliverance from judgment was that important. Because being in the kingdom of God and under the care of God was that important. If they came that desperately in faith and repentance, God would forgive them on the basis of what Christ would do, even though they didn’t know about it yet. That’s how Old Testament people were saved, by being penitent and trusting in God, who then later provided the offering. So really, this is a passage about where your heart is. If your hearts are in the world and you cling to the things of the world, you can’t come into the kingdom.

But if you’ll give your whole heart to the kingdom, if you let go of everything in this world, and when you. When God gives you all the blessings that he does in his kingdom, some of them are going to be temporal blessings, financial blessings. You always know the purse you want to put them in is in heaven. That’s where you want to lay that treasure. But it starts with putting your heart there and abandoning all your holds to things that are temporal, only possible because of the Cross. And of course, our Lord is moving rapidly toward that in the Gospel of Luke.

Thank you for joining us in this exploration of anxious free living. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com goodbye and may your faith always lead the.
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