I'm just going to read the last
few verses here, beginning in Matthew 6, verse 31. Matthew
6, verse 31. Therefore take no thought, saying,
What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or wherewithal
shall we be clothed? For after all these things do
the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth,
that's the title of our message, your heavenly Father knoweth,
that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be
added unto you. Take therefore no thought for
the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of
itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Now our
Lord, we're told in Scripture, loves a cheerful giver. And prior
to this passage, beginning in verse 19, prior to verse 19,
He had been teaching us about almsgiving, which is providing
for the poor. It's a privilege a believer has
to have a heart to want to provide for the poor. But so often whenever
we hear of giving because of the sinfulness of our flesh,
we have a tendency to act as if the things that we have are
all our own, as if they're our things. And our Lord here has
given us a word of caution, a word of warning against covetousness
and against worldliness. He said there in verse 21, He
said, For where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also. Then look there in verse 23,
He said, If thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full
of darkness. Now it's pretty clear, brethren,
that when we set our affection, when our hearts are set on things
on this earth, proportionate to the joy that we get from whatever
it is that we've called our treasure on this earth, proportionate
to the joy that we get from that, we have an equal amount of worry
and fear that it's going to be gone. And by that, we'll be turned
to looking at those things and to be more concerned about how
to keep those things and hang on to those things. And it turns
us from our Lord. And so our Lord reminds us here
about the sort of like what He did when He gave the parable
of the sower of the seed. And He said that that seed that
fell among thorns The cares of the world and the deceitfulness
of riches choked that believer so that he couldn't, or that
sinner, so that he didn't continue in the word. He fell away. He
wasn't a true hearer. And so he warns us about that.
But when we hear these words, immediately we begin to realize
who of us is not covetous? Who of us is not full of this
worldliness and full of this covetousness? And we begin to
look into these things and it's a rebuke to our own heart, to
our own flesh, because that's what we are by nature. That's
what we are in ourselves. Let me give you something that
I think will help you. When you read in Scripture where it sounds
like it's a condition for the believer, Or it sounds as if
it's a warning like this, or it is a warning like this, but
it sounds like it's a condition. Read it and heed the warning.
Heed the warning, but read it remembering the promises of our
God. Where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also. Do you notice he doesn't say,
where your heart is, that's where your treasure will be. He says
where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be. You
know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. You that's been born
of God, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. How that
for your sakes, he that was rich became poor, that through his
poverty you might be made rich. You know that. You know that. We know that by his obedience,
by what he did, he fulfilled the law. This law is dealing
with the law of covetousness. And we know by what he did when
he came to this place and became obedient even unto death, he
faithfully obeyed the law in every aspect and thought, word,
and deed. Look at Luke chapter 4. Hold your place here and look
over at Luke chapter 4. If you remember when he was tempted,
Luke chapter 4, it says in verse 2, "...being
forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat
nothing." Went forty days, didn't eat anything. "...And when they
were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him,
If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread."
You know, it doesn't take but anybody to appeal to our pride,
our sinful pride. If somebody said something like
that to us, if we had the power to do it, we'd say, well, let
us show you. I show you I can do it. This one was hungered,
and yet there was no sin in him. And look what he said. Jesus
answered him saying, it is written that man shall not live by bread
alone, but by every word of God. That's what our Lord's teaching
us back in our text. Look, verse 5, And the devil,
taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms
of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him,
All this power will I give thee in the glory of them, for that
is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore will worship
me, all shall be thine. We just see a little something. And we, well, I wish I had that. This one saw all the kingdoms
of all time in a moment of time. And look what he answered. Jesus
answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan, for it
is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only
shalt thou serve. And he wasn't just talking. This
is who he is. This is the holy God, the God-man. This is Him who never had a sinful
thought, never had a sinful word, never had a sinful deed. And
here He is as the representative of His people, standing before
this law of God, being tempted as He was, and He wasn't turned
from faithfulness, from trusting God. And then He went to the
cross, and this One who knew no sin, God made him sin for
us, for those that God put in him, and even made him the sin
of all the covetous thoughts that you ever thought, and I've
ever thought. Made him the sin of those, that
sin of our covetousness, and gave it to him, put it on him,
made him to be sin for us. And he bore that sin away. He
put it away as he did all our sin. He not only was faithful
to the precept of the law, but even unto death he was obedient.
And he was made sin in the place of his people, and he stood as
the one who had broken this law. And he put the sin away by himself. And when he had by himself purged
our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on
high. And then, if we read Romans 3 in context, and we read it
correctly, and we come to verse 31, and it says, Do we then make
void the law through faith? God forbid we establish it. If
we read it in context, what it means is, if by God-given faith,
trust in Christ, we've obeyed God in thought, word, and deed,
because we've obeyed Him in Christ, who obeyed Him on our behalf.
So that's our strength, brethren, and He's been made our treasure.
Christ has made Himself our treasure, and now we have an incorruptible
inheritance, one that can't be corrupted. We have a pure inheritance
that was obtained by the pure faithfulness of our pure Redeemer,
who's holy within and without. We have an inheritance that won't
fade away, it won't go away, because it's as eternal as our
God, this inheritance is, and it's reserved in heaven for you,
Scripture says. So He makes Himself our treasure,
and where He is, that's where our heart is. And then He says
here in verse 22, Matthew 6, 22, He said, the light of the
body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single,
thy whole body shall be full of light." Now, if you're a natural
man and you read this, you think, well then I need to be turning
myself and it's up to me now to make sure that I see this
light and that my body's full of light. But the believer hears
this word and the believer knows, I was blind. I couldn't see. I had no light in me. All I was
was darkness inside and out, through and through. How is it
then that I have an eye to see? You remember, I think it's in
Luke where they came to the Lord, there was a multitude that came
to Him, and He said, this is an evil and adulterous generation
because they seek after a sign. And He said, no sign is going
to be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah. His journal
was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, so
the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the
earth. And he was telling them what he was saying to them, just
face to face with his own mouth. He was saying, the light and
the sign is standing right here in front of you. He said, no
man lights a candle and puts it under a bushel. He lights
it, puts it out in the room so everybody that comes in can see
it. He's saying, my Heavenly Father has given the light. As
long as I'm in the earth, I'm the light of the world. And He
says, here I stand like a candle out in broad daylight, shining.
And He's saying, the problem is, you don't have any eyes. You're blind. My wife and I went
to, and the kids went down to a cave over in Pennsylvania here
recently. And we were in the cave, and
you know how they do when you go through a tour of the cave
and they turn the lights out? When they turn the lights out,
you can't see anything. I mean, it's black. You can't
see. That's blackness in there. No
light at all. You can't see a thing. What makes
the difference between the seeing eye and total blindness, total
darkness, is light. When the light comes on, you
can see now. You can see. And He said, blessed
are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear, because
He gave it. He gave them. Then spake Jesus
again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world. He that
followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the
light of life. He shall have it. And so we see
that when He turns on the light, when He makes us to see Him,
when He gives a sinner the eyes to see Him, Through the eye of
faith, light fills the whole body. And He says here, and if
your eye is single, if it's been interwoven with Christ the light,
if He's the light of your eye, your whole body shall be full
of light. There's no possibility it won't
be. It shall be. It shall be. Now He speaks here
of the heart and the eye and the body. That's the man. The heart, the
eye and the body. That's who we are. And if He's
the treasure of our heart, and He's given us a new heart, and
He's the treasure of that heart, and He's given us eyes, and He's
the light of those eyes, and He's filled our body with His
light, there's a new man. There's a new creation. And Christ
is the master of that new creation. And so when he says here in verse
24 of our text, No man can serve two masters, for either he will
hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one
and despise the other. You cannot serve God in mammon.
This is fact. You're either under the dominion
of sin and serving Satan and hell and the devil, or you're
under the dominion of Christ and you're serving Him. Now when
you read this, remember the promise. Sin shall not have dominion over
you because you're not under the law but under grace. You
were the servants of sin, but God be thanked. You've obeyed
that form of doctrine that was delivered to you and now you've
been made free from sin and become the servants of righteousness.
Now, that's the strength of the believer's inner man. That's
the strength of our heart. That's how we can read this text,
and even though we see how covetous we are in ourselves, even though
we see how sinful we are in ourselves before God, Darwin, you have
never, ever had a covetous thought in your life. never ever had a covetous thought
in your life. So you can read this now and
with the strength of heart hear what He says. He says this to
us, now listen, watch this, I love this. Verse 25, now here's where
I'm getting to my text now. Verse 25, therefore I say unto
you, therefore because Christ has made himself the treasure
of your heart, therefore because Christ is the light of your eye,
therefore because Christ is your master, Therefore I say unto
you, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what
you shall drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put
on." The believer has no need to worry about our needs. We have no need to worry, to
be anxious over our needs. Did anxious thought put you in
Christ before the world began? God your Father did that. Did
anxious thought purge all your sin and put away all your sin
and redeem you at Calvary's cross? Christ your Lord did that. Did
anxious thought make you come to Christ and trust Him? God
says He wasn't in any of your thoughts or my thoughts. He came, the Spirit blew where
it would and He created life in you and now you believe Him. Is not the life more than meat
and the body than raiment? Our life used to be about nothing
more than our belly. It used to be about nothing more
but about our flesh. What we ate, what we put on,
that's all we thought about. But now, like Paul, we can say,
to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Paul said, I
count all things lost for the excellency of the knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I count, I've suffered
the loss of all things. And he said, but in case you
think I've really lost anything, he said, everything that I've
lost, it's all dung anyway. I didn't lose anything. You who've tasted the bread from
heaven, tasted the water of life, who've been robed in these garments
of righteousness, you can answer this. Yes, the life is much more
than food and raiment, much more. Concerning temporal food, he
says here verse 26, Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow
not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly
Father feedeth them. Are you not much better than
they? You fathers and mothers, you've got your pets. I've seen
Teddy and Baja and Sugar and Penny and they're all, you feed
them, you take care of them, don't you? You ever thought about
going out and feeding those pets and not putting food on the table
of your own sons and daughters? You would never think of that,
would you? Who feeds the fowls of the air? Who feeds the wild, the deers
and the turkeys and the ducks and everything that's in the
wild? Who feeds it? Who feeds them? Scripture says, The eyes
of all wait upon thee, and thou givest them their meat in due
season." He says the Lord opens his hand and he satisfies the
desire of every living thing. Now our Lord says, do you think
your heavenly Father is going to feed His pets and not feed
one of His sons or one of His daughters? Are you not much better than
they? And not only do we not need to worry about our needs,
He says it won't do you any good to worry about it. It won't profit
you anything to worry about it. Look at verse 27. Which of you,
by taking thought, can add one cubit unto his stature? He just
said earlier on in this sermon, you can't make one hair white
or one hair black. He just said, this protection
of your earthly treasure, you can try to protect it all you
want to. And a little moth would come in and just eat it up. Rust
would just eat it up. Thieves would break through and
steal it. You can't prevent that. Worry won't stop that. Worry's
not going to put food on the table. And even if you go out
and you say, well, I'll work. You should. We should. He's not
saying don't provide. He's just saying don't get all
anxious and worked up over it to where you think that's all
life's about. That's not what life's about. But when you put
food on your table, even when you eat it, you know you can't
make it nourish your body. You know who makes that food
nourish your body? God does. He makes that food
nourish your body. You can worry all you want to
that if somebody's got a disease and they're shriveling away,
you can worry all you want to that that food's going to help
them, but only God's going to make that food nourish their
body. So worry and anxiousness and all that, it won't add one
minute to your life. Not one minute. The hour set,
the time set by God in anxious thought, it won't add one minute
to it. My times are in thy hand. That's what the believer said.
Now concerning clothing. Verse 28, he says, Why take ye
thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow. They toil not, neither do they
spin. And yet I say unto you that even
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which
today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much
more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" You know who clothed
Solomon with all those garments? God gave them to him. He gave
Solomon those garments, but those garments were actually, they
were made from materials that God made, but when people's hands
touched those garments and wove those fibers together and made
those garments for Solomon, those were corrupt garments. They were
polluted because man's hand touched them. but you consider those
lilies of the field." He makes them. That's a direct creation
of God, of His hand directly. And He closed them. He erased
them, He says, much more than what Solomon was erased. They
didn't work for it. They didn't do anything for it.
He erased them. Who made you a new creature in Christ? Who
made you a new creation in Christ? He did. He did. Like the king's
daughter, the believers all glorious within. We're made of wrought
gold, gold that was refined in the furnace of affliction, heated
seven times to perfection by Christ at Calvary's cross. That's
our garment, the garment of righteousness. He's clothed me with garments
of salvation, covered me with the robe of righteousness as
a bridegroom decks with his ornaments and a bride with her jewels. And so like those lilies of the
field, they're in the wilderness out there. They just out there
wild. Not domesticated, wild. But God arrayed you in garments
better than anything. Better than anything. In the
righteousness of Christ. So you don't have to worry your
pretty little head about it, that He's not going to cover
you in whatever clothes you need. Look at verse 31. Therefore take
no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink?
Or wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do
the Gentiles seek out." Did you see the world? Look at the world.
That's all the world's running after. What are we going to eat?
What are we going to drink? What are we going to eat? What are
we going to drink? Never satisfied. For your Heavenly Father knoweth
that you have need of these things. I love that, how he keeps repeating
that. Your Heavenly Father knoweth. Your Heavenly Father knoweth
you. You don't have to take anxious thought. He knows you. He knows when you need to be
fed. You don't have to take anxious thought. He knows when you need
to be clothed. He knows your need of these things.
And He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for
us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things? All things. But he says here,
verse 33, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you. The kingdom of
God, Acts 28.31 says, the kingdom of God are those things which
concern the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 14.17 says, the kingdom
of God is not meat and drink. It's righteousness and peace
and joy in the Holy Ghost. Have you found the treasure of
the hidden field? Sell everything you got, go buy
that for you. You found the pearl of great
price, trade everything you got for that pearl of great price. And provide for each other. That's
what he's talking about. That's what led to this conversation
was when he talked about almsgiving, he went from that into this.
Our Lord loves to see His children providing for the poor because
it's our rejoicing in what He did for us. It's saying, this
is exactly what my Savior did for me. For somebody who couldn't
help themselves, for somebody who was bankrupt, poor, couldn't
do one thing, couldn't give Him back anything in return whatsoever,
and this is what He did for me. And if we have those thoughts,
we have those, that old man starts, you know how it is, when you
start hearing about providing for somebody, giving for somebody,
and you start, well, I need so and so, I need this. What did
Paul tell the Corinthians? Having these promises, brethren. Having these promises. That's
what it's based on. These promises we have. This
heavenly treasure we have. Having these promises. Let us
cleanse ourselves. Let us wash our hands of it. Let us separate ourselves from
that old, deceitful, vain thought that our God won't provide for
us. And let's fear the Lord. Let's
believe that He'll give us these lesser things. I probably won't
get this right, but Spurgeon, I read something he said that
I thought was good. He said, sometimes you need string
and brown paper. And he said, you don't go to
the store to buy string and brown paper, you know. He said, you
can find some of that around the house or what have you. And
he said, but sometimes there's something that you need and you
go to the store to get it and it's a valuable item, it's a
precious item, and when you get it, the string and the brown
paper just come with it. Well, all these other things
is the string and the brown paper. We got the valuable commodity. We got Christ our Lord. We got
the righteousness of heaven and earth. I believe, I believe that
the Lord gave His Son, His only Son, He'll give me these other
things. He'll give me these other things. So he says here, he winds it
up, verse 34, Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for
the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof. Let me just give you Everyday
speech for that. Give your entire attention to
setting your affection on things above right now. Right now. And don't get worked up about
what may be or may not be tomorrow. God will provide for you tomorrow
in the face of evil just like He's doing today. Just like He's
doing right now. And let this be a song. I love
this. Listen. Be still my soul, thy God doth
undertake. to guide the future as he has
the past. Thy hope, thy confidence, let
nothing shake. Everything that's a mystery to
you now shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul, the wind and
waves still know, they still know, his voice who ruled them
while he dwelt below. That's our hope. That separates
us from this unbelief to trust Him. We trust Him. Trust Him. All right.