Today we ask ourselves: How can the truth, revealed by the prophet Ezekiel, that God is Jehovah Shammah –the Lord who is there –be related to our daily living? It is important to know that all belief must affect our character and our behavior, so what practical application can we make of this? We need to see clearly that being concerned about what may happen tomorrow will make us unable to rise and meet today with confidence and joy. So let us try to always be contented and concern about today and not worry about tomorrow so that we can have a full enjoyment of today! On one occasion a Christian said to me, ‘I can get through today all right but what I am afraid of is that I will not be able to get through tomorrow.’ All of us at one time or another feel like that. In my teens I was extremely apprehensive of the days that lay ahead. But then a man took me aside and gave me this advice: ‘Think of your life as an hour glass. There are thousands of grains of sand in the top of the glass and they all pass slowly and evenly through the narrow neck without impairing the glass in any way. Take life a grain at a time and let the grains pass the day slowly and evenly. If you do not take them one at a time then you will impair your own physical and mental structure (your body/life).’ That guidance had a profound effect upon me and completely changed my mind set about life and my life as a whole. And I have practiced that simple philosophy/principle ever since: ‘One grain of sand at a time.’ ‘One grain of life at a time/each day’! If you are fettered by fear of what will happen tomorrow and you are living on what someone termed ‘a diet of fingernails rather than a diet of faith’, then surrender tomorrow into the hands of Jehovah Shammah, the God who is there, and go out to live joyously, effectively, and abundantly today. And you will find that tomorrow will blossom with joy because you have lived –really lived –today, leaving the cares of tomorrow in God’s hands to take care of for you.

Now let us read Matthew 6:24-34; 24 No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise and be [s]against the other. You cannot serve God and mammon ([t]deceitful riches, money, possessions, or [u]whatever is trusted in). 25 Therefore I tell you, stop being [v]perpetually uneasy (anxious and worried) about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink; or about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life greater [in quality] than food, and the body [far above and more excellent] than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father keeps feeding them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27 And who of you by worrying and being anxious can add one unit of measure (cubit) to his stature or to the [w]span of his life? 28 And why should you be anxious about clothes? Consider the lilies of the field and [x]learn thoroughly how they grow; they neither toil nor spin. 29 Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his [y]magnificence (excellence, dignity, and grace) was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and green and tomorrow is tossed into the furnace, will He not much more surely clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry and be anxious, saying, What are we going to have to eat? or, What are we going to have to drink? or, What are we going to have to wear? 32 For the Gentiles (heathen) wish for and crave and diligently seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows well that you need them all. 33 But seek ([z]aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness ([aa]His way of doing and being right), and then all these things [ab]taken together will be given you besides. 34 So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble.

This sermon on Matthew 6:24-34, urges listeners to trust and believe God for their needs instead of worrying about them. This Scripture or rather Gospel emphasizes that seeking God's kingdom and its righteousness comes first, and material concerns will be provided for as a result. The sermon cautions against the pursuit of wealth and having anxieties about the future, highlighting the importance of faith in God's provision. When you put God first in everything you are doing, behold everything will work out fine and good to the joy of your heart! Think about your most average days; you get up at your usual time and run through the regular rhythm or activities of your day to prepare yourself for what is ahead. Those mornings and moments can become like muscle memory in that we shift thoughts (having thought-chains) without thinking about them. We are all creatures of habit, and the rhythms of this routine and the movements of those habits often reveal much about who we are and what we live for and what we believe in. I wonder if someone were to watch you go through your morning routine and then enter into the rest of the day what is it they would learn? What things might they soon discover that you value and live for? It might be routine and mundane, yet the shape of our everyday life is defined and influenced by what gives us value or worth in our lives. This is why we must be very careful of the things that give us value or worth; we should make sure that all that gives us value or worth is always centered on God Almighty! This is why the Word of God advices us to First Seek the kingdom of God and its righteousness and all these things shall be added unto us! When you get centered on God, He will guide your heart/mind by His Holy Spirit so that you will not make the mistake of chasing things in life that are just routine and mundane, things that does not have divine value or worth, things that lacks real interest or things that are dull, with no divine excitement, things that are of this earthly world, that are not heavenly or spiritual! This is just the reason why we have our God, why God is for us, guiding us in life His Holy Spirit! The person who desires to be an athlete for instance will rise early in the morning to stretch, exercise and work out before heading to/for their athletic job; they may be conscious about what they eat and how quickly they get to sleep at night – every aspect of their day will be shaped by their desire to become the idealized athlete they have envisioned to be. Every element of their day is affected by that thought and desire to excel in their athletic performance. Or think about someone you know whose life is marked by their career; they long to rise/raise the scales of the company they have given themselves to. So they wake early to get to work early, forsake social occasions to stay late, and when you see them, all they can talk about is their work/job and how their climb/rise is going. With these few examples you can now understand how the things we believe in or the things that our heart/mind is centered on rules us or determines our decisions and actions daily in life, which is why God wants us to always make sure we place our heart/mind on the right things of worth and values and God also made us to know that this right way of life can only be well placed if we first seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness. There are so many different types of people, yet the thrust of their day reveals the same things – the idols of their hearts, their reason for living. What we live for shapes how we live and think about living. Timothy Keller captures the reality of our hearts and its effects on our lives when he writes: “The true god of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention.” Do you hear that? So now can you sincerely use Timothy Keller’s phrase to evaluate yourself and know if you are being hypocritical in claiming to be for God, whereas in reality your god is different, where you actually places your heart/mind is not in/on the Almighty God! This is not to say that it is a bad thing to have goals in life or the desire to have a career. These are good things, but the challenge that we are highlighting here is when these thought-chains move from a good thing to something deeper, something more sinister – they become our thing and does not have any tie to God. They become the lens through which we begin to correctly identify ourselves and see our own worth and know if they are Real Worth. They become an idol. So What! Yes what if doing my own thing my own way becomes my idol! You might be thinking, what has any of this got to do with this lovely passage about not worrying? There is no mention of idolatry here, no mention of the danger of falling into the vices of putting other things first before God. So why the need to consider what it is “we live for?” Definitely this is the type of mindset people have these days! See what the Heart Values (24): It is simple – the grounding of our peace flows from that which our heart beats for. Do you notice that before we get to the cuddly peace and call to be free from worry, there is a rather blunt warning in our passage? In terms of context, we are in the middle of Lord Jesus’ great Kingdom ethical sermon – The Sermon on the Mount, where Lord Jesus teaches what it is to know Him, live for Him and live within His Kingdom. It is a sermon that displays an order-worldly ethic and moves people from the normal of the broken world we live in into the beauty of the Abnormal Kingdom ethic. A place where all are equal by faith and live by way of the Cross, a place where neither possession, position, nor personal achievement matter. In the Kingdom, all that matters is Lord Jesus, and our hearts, minds, and lies should be for Him and be shaped by Him. Do you understand why the word-lies is used above? Lord Jesus is drawing our attention and making us to know and realize that soon we will begin to see the Lies of putting our trust in created things rather than in the Creator Himself and when that happens to us, He wants us to leave the situation for Him to handle because is only Him who can correct it for us and re-establish us again to move on with life without being depressed! Thus, we can still enjoy the good things of this world: Sports, careers, family, and possessions – but rather than being defined by them/these things or allow them/these things to control us; we define them within the Framework of our Kingdom call as avenues to know Lord Jesus more and make Him known to others. Did you get the message, we as true Christians are to be involved in virtually all normal things of life but while being involved in things, you are to be in control of them in Christ and not them being in control of you carnally, and you are to use your involvement/opportunity in them to teach people about Lord Jesus Christ, having yourself learnt something great concerning the way Lord Jesus brought you into being involved in these things knowing that getting you involved in them is for His purpose, people to know about Him! In the section of verses just before (19-23), Lord Jesus was teaching about the danger of finding security or building an identity on created things, trusting them than trusting the Creator. “Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth… for where your treasure is there your heart will also be” (6:19-21). The passage talks about material things, and the rebuke of verse 24 warns about serving money, but we should not kid ourselves into thinking that the warning is limited to the danger of possession or money used to buy them. The rebuke encompasses everything or anything (persons, things or possession) that we might place between ourselves and God, something created or people that we might begin to trust in more than trusting in the Creator of all things. Thus, the warning of Lord Jesus that you cannot serve two Masters is, at its heart, a challenge to consider what it is we live for and the effects it has on our lives. We might think of ourselves as Christians or those who worship God, yet, if someone looked at the rhythm (look at our life’s routines and our thought-chains) of our lives, they might easily see and say that we worship something else other than the true God. It is from these fallen idols (persons, money, material things or possession) that the worry, Lord Jesus calls us to be free from, flows. Verse 25 begins with that Great biblical word “Therefore”, which reminds us that we don’t read this passage in isolation; rather, as we read it, we remember where we are and what Lord Jesus has been teaching about. The Inference is that the worry we are being called to be free from is directly correlated to the false masters (persons, money, material things or possession) that we might find ourselves serving or being enslaved to with or without our knowing. Think about it, even if you consider yourself a true Christian but in your life, your career is more important to your identity than Christ, then when your career stumbles, slows, or something happens to affect your ability to work, you will suddenly find yourself afflicted by worry based on the why, wondering what you can do to change it and reestablish the foundation of your identity and worth. The worry flows from wrong worship, wrong worship of something that you mistakenly or purposefully placed as your god, (idol worship) and know that your idol can be anything, something you place your entire being on trustfully. This is always the reality of idols, of those things that you strongly based your confidence and thrust in, they promise us so much, and for a while, they will give us what their lies whispered until they begin to take more than they could ever give. Now, this is not to say that the Christian life is free from worry, but rather it points to the foundation on which the Christian life is built – a foundation that cannot be shaken and what our lives are designed to be built on – the saving work of Lord Jesus Christ. The Christians are free from the weight of worry because they are those who know that their biggest problem – Sin – has already been death by Christ on the Cross. “Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strengths.” – Spurgeon From the start of this passage, we are clear on one thing: The key to life from daily worry is the right to worship – specifically, the worship of the true God through faith in Christ. We might feel the anxiety of our daily lives, but we can trust them to God in prayer and be those who “know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” because in our everyday lives we live with the certainty of our eternity! The Cross reminds us that in the end, everything will be okay, and in everything, God is at work for our good hence He asked us to give thanks to Him in everything good or bad happening to us. We can join with Job in saying: “I know that You can do all things and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2) The call to consider what Master we might be serving and the worry that comes from it is important even to the Christian because it is so easy to fall back into that which Christ freed us from, the chains and burdens of the world without any sight of eternity. It is in light of the Cross and the beautiful truth that nothing we bring earns for us before God – only faith – that we hear the words of that most comforting command (built and secured on the foundation of right worship): “Do not worry….” Just always try to build and secure on the foundation of right worship of the true God! A Comforting Command (25): Anxiety is the natural result when our hopes are centred in anything short of God and His will for us.” – Billy Graham Worry is a weight; it is something unquantifiable yet definable – we have all experienced it, and if we are honest with ourselves, we have all felt it. Worry affects us because it afflicts us physically: we might be tired, we may find our throats dry, or food difficult to swallow. Worry is more than simply an ill feeling. It is something deep and personal that takes hold of our being and affects our seeing. Thus, before we consider the command not to worry, we need to be clear on one thing – it is okay to worry. Worry is part of living in a fallen world when the unexpected happens, and we know that at some point, we (or someone we love) will be affected by the brokenness of the world we live in. Break-ins, illness, loss, death, and many other things will come our way or around us in our lives, and because of them, we will find ourselves thinking about them and mulling over their effect on our lives and those who live within our circle. Worry is part of the human experience, and when it comes to a reminder that all is not okay. It is okay to not be okay. Thus, when we hear this comforting command to not worry, we must not hear it as some form of the rebuke of sin; Lord Jesus here is not rebuking worry as if it in itself is some affront before God: Rather, this is a command that calls the children of God to remember the God they worship. The God who in the beginning spoke the world into existence, the God who was not surprised when sin entered the world by the folly of Adam, the God who always had the plan to allow humanity to draw close to Him not by their own striving but by His providing-effectual Grace. We who live by faith if we are living by faith know ultimately that all will be well in the end because we live not simply because of Grace but with the Grace of God at work in our lives through the Holy Spirit as God works to make us into His image. We know and trust that God is at work in our lives every day, sustaining us in the most normal of things, which means even when we enter into the shadow of a deep valley (Psalm 23), we can be assured that God is working amid our valley wandering; or to put it another way, even if we fit ourselves in the pits of despair and deep worry; even there the Christian has the hope to trust in Him! The Cross reminds us that God will use the worst of human endeavor and ingenuity for good, and the Resurrection declares to us the truth each day that He is sovereign over all things, Lord over life and death, King of Kings, and as He went, He will come again, and when He comes again everything that is wrong will be made right. This is the culmination of our faith, not some wishful fantasy that we hope might happen. If we believe in the saving work of Lord Jesus by faith, then our lives and living must be shaped by the Sovereign work of Lord Jesus as we trust that He will not only defeat the cosmic effects of sin on our eternity, but He will one day remove the effects of sin from this world. Suppose our life is marked by the service and worship of God above all created things. Then it is not one of bondage but freedom and trust that, in the end, all things will be good because God is good. Hence, we have not enslaved to worry about material things like food, clothes, or the body because we know that the sum and purpose of life are much more than these. The sum and purpose of our lives are in something we have already – Lord Jesus, and you know Lord Jesus is everything. “The experience of a life without lack depends first and foremost upon the presence of God in our lives because the source of this life is God Himself.” – Dallas Willard The Evidence for Comfort and illogic of Worry (26-30): It was at the bottom of the barrel (belly of fish) that Jonah finally realized the goodness of God; after he tried to fulfill the commission that God had given him his way by literally going in the opposite direction he finally gave in to the goodness of God’s Sovereign plan and purpose, he rested and trusted that God was at work as he had learned the danger of trusting in created things and instead turned anew to God (in which we can join him in declaring) and declared: “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’” With all of these, it is very important for us to learn from Job’s experience when he refused to follow God’s plan and purpose for him and instead did his own plan and purpose his own way and end up being in trouble in a fish belly. And so it is with many people today in the diverse troubles and problems they are in today is as a result of doing things their way instead of God’s Way! Let us learn how to always do things God’s Way for us! After issuing that comforting command to be free from worry and instead build on a right foundation of trust, Lord Jesus then takes a moment to grow that which He said from beyond the abstract into the tangible as Lord Jesus grew the beauty of His command into tangible normality of the world. “Worried about not worrying? Well, look at the world!” Consider the evidence that is before you; if we are talking about it, theologically, we would say look at the providence of God in the simplest of things. For everything true about God, there is something to back it up; we might face difficult situations every day, wondering where God is or how we might even survive until tomorrow. All the evidence of our lives or our context might make the opposite seem true: God does not care for us and does not provide, yet, even then, we are trusted and know as true God’s goodness. Why? Because the evidence for the goodness of God is greater than any misreading our mind might play on us, or the enemy might try to capture us to believe.

As Lord Jesus teaches and Matthew records all that He has said, it can be easy to lose sight of the context; Lord Jesus is not standing in a great lecture hall at the cultural centre of His day among the elite minds. Nope, He was on a hill surrounded by everyday people: Farmers, laborers, fishermen, and children. It was there as He declared the beautiful reality of a life of worship with the foundation of trust in God and the evidence. The world around them! You can see Lord Jesus pointing to the birds flying over their heads and the flowers with peeking splendor neighboring them. The point? If the birds have enough to eat and they don’t go out of their way to build barns and store grain, but each day find their needs met by God: then how can those made in the image of God who are children of God by faith find themselves worrying about created things when the Creator of all things is over them. The birds have food, and the flowers are clothed in natural beauty more splendid than all the wealth of Solomon – thus, do not worry, says our Lord Jesus, because the Lord God is over all things. We must place our journey always in the context of eternity and the victory of the cross. We live as children of the Kingdom because we live through the perspective of the Cross, not like the pagans who worry about today because today is all they have to worry about. The disciples of Lord Jesus are to free themselves from worry and instead live to worship. Recommanded and Commissioned (31-33): “The most basic need of our souls is not food, clothing, shelter, health, or security. It is God. We were made to know Him, cherish Him, love Him, and be satisfied in Him. When we don’t have Him, we are empty. When we seek Him for His own sake, we are filled.” – John Piper. When a parent tells their child not to do something, they are at the same time telling them to do something. Think about it, if a parent is sitting with their child and tells them not to take that toy out of a drawer (negative command), they are simultaneously (positively) telling them to leave the toy in the drawer. I think the same rings true in this passage, as Lord Jesus has commanded those listening not to do something – worry – the inference seems to be that there is something else for them to do. In these final verses, we see the favorable commission flowing out of the command that has echoed through these verses. For those who live by faith with a living trust in God through the perspective of the Cross, when they are freed from the weight of worrying about material things because they know God is at work, they are then to act! Specifically, they are to be proactive in their seeking of God, His Kingdom and His righteousness. Therefore, all listening are commissioned to service and worship in the Kingdom of God and for the King as both a cure for worry and a response to what God has done. What Does it mean to Seek First the Kingdom: What Lord Jesus means by His commission to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” in Matthew 6:33 is simple – it is all about Priority Placement. Specifically, if we are those whose lives are marked by faith in God and following on the road of the Cross, then we should be those who seek daily in the rhythm of our normality to make God’s priorities our own. Seeking the Kingdom of God means placing the purpose and will of God above our own devices and desires in every aspect of our life. Simply put: It means that as we grow in our faith and delight in our relationship with God, the natural fruit of it is a desire to seek, know, and obey God and to be part of His work in the world. The ‘Commission to seek God’s righteousness means to pursue the kind of life in accordance with God’s character, heart, ethic and way. Put it another way, It means to be righteous as God is righteous, to live in a way that reflects God’s justice, love, and compassion. Seeking God’s righteousness means aligning our thoughts, attitudes, and actions with God’s will and living in a way that is pleasing to Him. As Micah recorded it centuries before Lord Jesus: “What it is the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) If you want to ground it in the practical everyday normality of our lives, seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness simply means putting God first in the practical everyday normality of our lives. When we are freed from worrying about idols and created things, we are freed to Worship God and live for Him. Every day, God is both our foundation to live and our cause for Living. This involves regularly spending time in prayer, Bible study, and worship and seeking to live in a way consistent with God’s values and principles. It means seeking to live a life characterized by love, compassion, and service to others and actively participating in God’s work of transforming the world until He comes again. “The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” – A.W Tozer

In conclusion, we should take to heart the words of Lord Jesus when He tells us not to worry as He commands it one last time: “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” As the people of God, we can be rest assured that everything will be alright in the end. Why? Because the Cross declares to us that what the world intended for evil, God will use for His good purposes, and the resurrection reminds us that Lord Jesus is alive, ruling and will come again. This doesn’t mean that we won’t face difficulties in life, but it does call us to put everything into perspective. Specifically, the perspective of eternity through the lens of the Cross. When we build our lives on trusting God and live out the Kingdom ethnic of Love empowered by the Holy Spirit, when our hearts bear the fruit of repentance, and our living is marked by Worship rather than worry, those around us will be transformed. Finally, let us focus on seeking His Kingdom and righteousness first, helping others along the way, and continuing to fulfill God’s calling for our lives both in our local communities and beyond.