The Tyranny Of Worry; The Freedom Of Faith

Text: Matthew 6:24-34

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.

I was recently talking to a young man. He told me that he had opened his weather app on his smartphone to check if he should wear a sweatshirt or a t-shirt for a trip. But as he scrolled, right beneath the forecast, a news alert flashed across the screen: 

"Three people died in a flood overseas."

He said it shook him a bit – not in some dramatic way, but just enough to feel the weight of it. He said, 

"I opened the app to check the weather, but instead, I ended up carrying grief for strangers an ocean away." 

You see, his words weren’t dramatic or emotional – they were honest. Something wasn’t quite right about this burden he bore. And guess what? He’s right. You and I are not meant to be little messiahs carrying the sorrows of the whole world in our pockets.

Sit up in your pews; don’t let this point escape. you: we open our phones to do something mundane – to check the weather – and suddenly we are burdened with global tragedies. These notifications are not just stories in a newspaper we pick up once a week, but they are notifications delivered straight to our minds all the time. 

You see, our smartphones are little anxiety-producing rectangles in our pockets. With one touch on these smartphones, we are bombarded with calamities from across the world. 

Now, I know all of you are not cold or uncaring, so please hear me when I ask this question to drive the point home: 

Are you supposed to carry every calamity that unfolds on the planet every day in your pocket, especially when you just want to decide whether to wear a t-shirt or a sweatshirt?

It’s a serious question: were we designed to bear the weight of global grief? Were we designed to hear endless streams of bad news from around the world all the time?

The answer is complex, but Jesus helps us today. He speaks to us in Matthew 6 – a Gospel reading that cuts through a thousand news notifications. Jesus says,

“Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on."

To make sure we understand this, Jesus isn’t talking about a nervous feeling before a job interview or a test. The Greek word used here for "anxious" carries the sense of being pulled apart – divided. Jesus is talking about a mind yanked in a hundred different directions by fear, doubt, and endless what-ifs.

Let me put it this way: have you tried to look in ten directions at once while also trying to walk forward?   If you do this, you will trip, you will fall, and your eyes will never focus. And so, Jesus is calling you and me away from this fractured, frenetic way of living. He knows that when the mind is scattered, we do not do well.  

So, Jesus does something that no iPhone ever will: He invites us to undividedness – to seek first the Kingdom of God, to focus on the One thing needful.

Let’s be honest, though. We don’t want to be divided. We just are. And it’s not because we’re all ADD or neurotic. No, our culture feeds us worry as if it were virtue. Just scroll through your smartphone: wars, economic troubles, climate change warnings, storms, political breakdowns, supply chain problems, health alerts, death, disease, terrorist attacks, trending opinions. Add to this, we can add our personal lists – blood tests, retirement accounts, children's futures, aging parents, house repairs, job pressures, and so forth. Our lives are like a dam with a thousand leaks – and we try to plug each one with a toe, a finger, or an elbow.

But mark this: our minds were not made for this kind of divided attention. We are not all-present. We are not all-knowing. Only God is.

And so, Jesus speaks.

“Look at the birds of the air...”

He doesn’t say, "Look at your investment portfolio," or, “Check the latest trends and posts on TikTok.” He says, "Look at the birds." The birds are not watching CNN. They are not on Snapchat. They’re not tracking their sleep patterns on an app on their wings. And yet they eat. They fly. They nest. And God cares for them.

Dear friends, please hear this clearly: Jesus is not telling us to be careless or to hide from the world. Instead, He is calling us to single-mindedness – to trust. You see, the birds don’t worry, and they are not in their nest with buried heads.  They are not fearful or lazy because they know, by design, that they aren’t in control. And neither are you.  Hear that again: you are not in control. 

But here’s the danger: when Jesus tells us not to worry, we can wrongly think He is saying, 

“Just don’t care.” 

We confuse Jesus’ words with a superficial slogan, 

“Don’t worry, be happy.”

But that's not what Jesus is saying. He is not telling us to throw away responsibility or concern. He is not saying that Christians must check their brains at the door. 

Rather, Jesus is saying, 

“Do not let your mind be divided into a thousand fearful fragments.” 

He is teaching us to be whole, to be grounded in the care of our Father.

You see, when the mind is divided, sleep is lost. When the mind is scattered, a person can drink to escape. When the mind is stretched across the unseeable future, anxiety festers. Furthermore, we often worry about things that aren’t even real or possible; we worry about future problems that have not yet materialized.

Let me be blunt this morning: what percentage of our worries fall into this category? I would venture to say that 90% of the world’s problems that we agonize over are above our pay grade – things we cannot fix, influence, or even rightly understand… and they are problems that have not even happened yet.  They are just possibilities.  

Think about it this way: in generations past, people didn't know about disasters until they were long over. They didn’t wake up to videos of carnage across the world before their first cup of coffee. Today, though, we wake up to brokenness instantly piped into our bedrooms, and then we wonder why we’re anxious, overwhelmed, and scatterbrained as a society.

Baptized Saints, we were not created to live like this.

Instead, Jesus points us to a better way – a peaceful one:

“Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Notice what Jesus says: He doesn’t say that food, drink, clothing, or shelter are unimportant. He just says that they are not first. The Kingdom is first. Christ is first. His righteousness, His gifts, His promises – they are first.

You see, when the Kingdom is first, worry is displaced. When Jesus is first, the mind is gathered together and focused. When the Lord is first, the rest of life is put in its proper place.

Baptized Saints, please hear this loud and clear!  The Kingdom of God – His holy church - is not another thing to be anxious about – it’s the antidote to anxiety. In the Kingdom of God, we do not have a tyrant demanding our attention; instead,  we have a King who gives. A King who serves. A King who bleeds, dies, and rises.

It is true that this world is like a cracked dam – always needing more of you. 

But Jesus? He doesn’t need anything from you. He comes not to be served, but to serve – to give His life as a ransom for you. And that includes ransoming you from the tyranny of worry.

So what does this look like?

It means every day, you pray your prayers, plan your plans, and check your apps – and then you rest. You know that your Father in heaven sees. He knows. He cares. And He will provide for you.

It means you stop trying to be God. You stop trying to hold the universe in your mind. And you let the words of Jesus shape your day: 

"Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

It means you live today – not in denial, but in trust and assurance.

It means you live every day in repentance.  Why?  Because you and I worship the idol of worry. We have acted as if God’s promises aren’t enough. We have believed the lie that if we don’t carry everything, it will all fall apart.

Baptized saints: you are not god.  But you already have a God, which means that you are not alone. You are not forgotten. You are not abandoned. 

The Father who feeds sparrows has given you the Bread of Life. The God who clothes the lilies has clothed you in Christ. The King of the Kingdom has marked you with His name, so that you may not be divided but be at peace. 

Today, return to the waters of your baptism; return to the promises of the Catechism;  return to the altar where Jesus feeds you not with calories, but with peace, with forgiveness, with Himself.

Come, dear friends. Rest in the single-mindedness of Christ, who is for you.  And then fear, love, and trust the Lord as you daily walk through this vale of tears, serving faithfully in your vocations, while letting tomorrow be anxious for itself. 

In the name of Jesus. Amen.