Let's turn to Luke chapter 12. Luke 12. While you're going there, our Lord says something to Nicodemus
on the night that he came to him that I think is relevant
here to our text. He said, if I have told you earthly
things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you
of heavenly things?" I'm speaking of earthly things. How are you
going to believe the heavenly things if you don't
even believe the earthly things? Now this brings us to verse 22. This passage, in my mind, is
something we all need to hear. And it's about putting us in
mind of what we all stand in need of. It's an adjustment to
our perspective of really, more than that, it's a complete change. It's a complete change. It's
a new birth. The old things don't apply here. These are new things of which
our Lord speaks. And he says in verse 22, he said
unto his disciples, therefore, I say unto you, take no thought
for your life. What ye shall eat, neither for
the body, what ye shall put on. You think about that for a moment. comes to you and tells you, don't
worry about food. Don't worry about your clothes.
It's a very intimate place where our Lord is going here. Food
and raiment. Food and raiment. Who's accepted
of that? Who doesn't need to eat? Who
doesn't need to put on clothes, at least some amount of clothes
on their body? None are accepted. None are accepted
of that. We all, this touches every single
one of us. Our Lord had just been pointing
out, he had just been speaking to the Pharisees, right? And he took them to task. He pointed out all their hypocrisies. He pointed, he just dressed them
down and shamed them before everyone. pointing out all their hypocrisy,
showing that all their labors, all their works were wicked works. No, they're not righteous. They're
wicked works. They're evil works. And the people
saw that and thought, wow, this is wonderful. He just took care
of them. And then some dope in the crowd
cries out, Lord, tell my brother to split the inheritance with
me. And our Lord then points out the folly of looking to earthly
riches and seeking to find ease and comfort in the riches of
this world, and gave us a parable of the rich man and showed how
this man had no thought of the kingdom of God, had no thought
of eternal things, but made these investments in the earth and
they were prosperous. They began to bring forth so
much so that he had an overabundance of these things. And again, it
just turned his mind back to the earth And then no sooner
did he have a thought of the next thing that he was going
to do, but that the Lord called him from this body to stand before
Almighty God on the throne of judgment. This man was called
into judgment, into eternity, right then and there. And the
people, yeah, now he's taking care of the rich folk. Good,
good. He's beating them up, taking
them down, telling them what's what. And they were all into
that. And now he says to his disciples, he speaks to his disciples,
therefore I say unto you, I say to you, take no thought for your
life, what ye shall eat, neither for the body, what ye shall put
on. And that touches every single
one of us. You could say, well, I'm not
a Pharisee, so that doesn't apply to me, even though we are. We're
all Pharisees by nature. You could say, I'm not rich,
and yet we all get caught up in the things of this world. And we might think, that doesn't
apply to me. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. But if you don't
think so, understand this. We all need food, and we all
need clothing, and Christ says, I'm speaking to you, to you all. And he uses earthly things, but
I tell you, he's speaking of heavenly things. I was thinking
about this passage, and he specifically says, take no thought for your
life what ye shall eat, nor what you shall put on your body. what clothes you shall wear.
Just think about that. Why those two things? We know
that it touches everybody. Why those two things? And it
takes us right back to the garden, doesn't it? We go all the way
back to the beginning. And because of Adam's sin and
rebellion, the Lord said, cursed is the ground for your sake. You're going to work that ground
for your food, and it's going to produce readily for you thorns
and thistles. That's what's going to grow.
In my garden, I am constantly, as I'm walking through, ripping
out some weed or something like that. Plus, I have two maple
trees, so that just is an affair throughout the summer that there's
always some maple tree springing up somehow. But anyway, that
just comes up easy. I don't have to give it water.
I don't have to give it fertilizer. I don't have to think about it.
It just comes up very easily. And it has to do with our food.
Cursed is the ground for your sakes. And then what did they
say when the Lord called them? Well, we hid from you because
we were naked, naked. Who told you you were naked?
And the Lord slew two animals, shed their blood for their sins
to cover their nakedness. Their nakedness. The Lord here
is saying here we're all sinners. Every one of us is a sinner.
We're all sinners. We all stand in need of the forgiveness
of God. We've made God our enemy. He's in our hearts by nature,
God is our enemy. We with Adam were running. When
we heard his voice coming in the cool of the day, we ran to
the trees to cover our own nakedness with fig leaves. And so this
encompasses us all. It's not just the Pharisees.
It's not just the religious guy. It's not just the rich people.
It's you and me, the common people. We're sinners. We're sinners,
and we need salvation. And that's what our Lord is making
us to consider, to include ourselves, to open our ear to hear Christ
speaking to me. Not the other guy, but to me.
I need food and I need clothing. He's speaking to me. And he tells
us in verse 23 that the life is more than me. And the body
is more than Raymond. And it does. This goes much,
much deeper. Much deeper. We've got a sin
problem. We're all sinners. We're all
sinners. And we need the Savior. And this Savior has been promised
from the beginning of the book, and now he's come, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he's speaking to us. When
God raised this man from the dead, he declared to us that
this man, Jesus of Nazareth, is both Lord and Christ. He's more than just a man. He's
the God-man mediator whom the Father sent to save his people
from their sins from their sins and so now he's he speaks of
earthly things and he says in verse 24 consider the ravens
consider the ravens for they neither sow nor reap which neither
have storehouse nor barn and god feedeth them how much more
are ye better than the fowls You think about the raven. Apparently, this raven was a
common bird. It was very common. It was very
numerous. And it was a worthless bird. Before the law, God told them
in Leviticus and then in Deuteronomy, he said that this raven, the
raven is unclean. It's an abomination. Don't eat
it. You can't even eat the thing. It's an abomination. It's a filthy
bird. Before the law, the raven is
filthy. Do you know anyone else who,
before the law, is filthy? That's me. And that's you. We're filthy before the law.
We're unclean before the law. And yet, God careth for them. He takes care of them. He provides
for them. what they have need of and and
you know it says in Job even speaks of these things Job says
that they cry out to him what is it Job I think Job 38 verse
15 if I'm not mistaken it's when the Lord is speaking
to Job Job thought that he could speak
to the Lord Maybe it's 39 or 40. 41. No, it must be earlier. Maybe 37. Anyway, I'm sorry. But it speaks
of what the Lord does for the ravens. The ravens, they cry
out. Their young cry out. Who takes care of them? Who feeds
them? He asked Job. The Lord does. The Lord does.
And that's what he's saying to us. It's the Lord that gives
us food. It's the Lord that feeds us.
It's the Lord that provides for us. And in verse, I think it's
29 here. Yeah. Look down at verse 29 in
Luke 12. And seek ye not Seek not ye what
ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye doubtful
of mind. And that word has to do with
something like, don't let your mind be carried away with these
things into the clouds. By nature, we're worried about
these things. It has to do with our sinfulness. It has to do with our fallen
nature, that we are corrupt. We're under the curse. Everything
we do is a labor and a hardship. And so one thing, it speaks to
us who are anxious about these things. We're troubled by these
things. I got to eat. I got to provide. I got to be
a provider. I need a house. I want a family. I've got to provide for my family.
And we get anxious about these things and troubled about these
things. And he's saying, these are the things that this world
worries about. You don't need to be worried
about that. The Lord provides people to worry about those things
so that you don't have to. He'll put the scaffolding around.
He'll provide the government. He'll provide things where they're
troubled by those things. That's their business. They're
going to be all worked up, and there's going to be chaos, and
there's going to be politicization about these things. You don't
need to get all caught up in those things. These things is
what man does, pot shirt, striving with pot shirts, fighting against
one another, accusing one another, calling one another names. Attacking
one another, it happens all the time, throughout ages, and you
and me are not going to change that. It's going to be. So don't
be anxious about these things. You've got something more important
that you need to focus on and worry about. Or be concerned
with, I should say. The Lord. I'm a sinner before
a holy God, and one day, like that rich man, I'm going to be
called to stand before the Lord. Lord, what do I need? What do
I need to stand before you perfect and faultless and accepted of
you? How might I be justified? And
so we get anxious. Some of us also get ambitious. We get a little taste of some
success. We get an education. And then we think, well, I know
something now. And I'm going to go do something
with that. I'm going to do something very profitable. I don't want
to eat scraps. I want to eat something better.
And so we start getting ambitious. And we start pursuing things
that we know are going to pierce us through with many a sorrow.
as there's a saying in the world, more money, more problems, right?
I think it's more money, more problems. But it's true, right? Nothing changes. You think about
us in America, we're probably the richest nation in the world
currently, definitely one of, but maybe even the richest. And
what have we done? There's times when man spent
most of his day striving for food and clothing. There's been
seasons and points in history where, and in some people's own
lives, where every day was just spent trying to find food, enough
calories and clothing, and then We go home now, and we have servants
in the house, don't we? We have tons of servants in the
house. You got your clothes washer. Hey, I'm going to give you the
clothes. You wash these clothes, and I'll come back and check
them. And then, hey, you over there, as soon as he's done with
the clothes, you're going to dry them. We'll take them out
and put them on the clothesline, as it were, and then put them
in the basket. We do that now by just putting
them in the dryer, and the dryer does it. We just walk away and
come back an hour and a half later, and they're all dry. You
go to the oven. Hey, I'm going to give you food,
and you're going to cook it. I want it to be 400 degrees.
You don't move from that spot. You start that fire, and you
get it up to 400 degrees, and you don't let it go down below
that, and you don't let it go above that. You keep it at 400
and cook this roast exactly as I want it. And you've got a servant
to do that, called your oven. You've got, hey, you, keep this
food cool. You get the blocks of ice. You
keep that thing perfectly cool. I want that thing to stay at
33 degrees, not above or below. You take care of that. Get whatever
ice you need. Well, now you've got a servant
that does that, called your refrigerator. We've got all these things. We've
got energy and stuff like that. What have we done with all our
time? Did it turn us to the Lord? No, we just backfilled it with
a bunch more worldly pursuits and things, because that's what
we are by nature. And so we get anxious about these
things, we get ambitious about these things, and Christ says,
you all need to hear that we're all sinners. And the Lord is
making us to know that we're all sinners. Consider the ravens.
How that they neither sow nor reap, right? And what, how does
that speak to us? I can't sow to the law and reap
anything good from it. And I can't be, I'm not gonna
save myself. I'm not gonna provide for myself.
I'm not gonna nourish myself sufficiently to stand before
God, who's on his throne in heaven. I need the bread of heaven, and
God's the one that provides it. We see the sovereignty of God
in this, who's sovereign over providence, who's sovereign over
all things. You know, last Sunday I went
to bed and I woke up when the alarm went off, because I get
up earlier on Sundays especially, and I woke up and I must have
been in the middle of a REM cycle because I woke up all groggy
and just out of it, whereas today I woke up and I must have just
come out of one because I woke up feeling refreshed and fine.
I don't know how to affect that, but God does. He's the one who
controls it all. I can go into one day thinking
I'm going to do one thing, only to have all kinds of problems
and setbacks and something else popping off or breaking, and
it doesn't go the way I thought it was going to go. God is sovereign
over all things. And by worrying of these things
or pursuing these things, we don't add one cubit to our stature,
he said. We don't add a cubit to our stature.
In other words, we can't make ourselves any better than what
he's already purposed us to be. And we're not extending our life
a day more, not an hour more, than what he's already purposed
to give us. And so he's in control. In other
words, put your heart and your mind on the Lord. We spend so
much time focusing on this life, and yet we're not changing or
altering anything when it all comes down to it. Because the
Lord can give success to one, or he can shut one up. And he
does that at any point in time in our lives. He's the Lord. He's sovereign. And so we're
not changing the things that we think that we are changing. This life is more than meat,
and the body is more than raiment. And so our Lord is telling us,
you must be born again. We must be born again. These
are earthly things that are speaking of heavenly things. We're sinners
in need of his grace and mercy, and he's provided that, not through
the law. The law shows us we're sinners,
but in Christ Jesus, he's the one whom the Father has sent
to save his people from their sins. All right? And so that's
what he's saying. Consider you, verse 25, and which
of you, with taking thought, can add to his stature one cubit? So consider the ravens, how They
don't sow, and they don't reap, and yet God provides for them.
They can't lay up by their works anything and store it up, and
neither can we in heaven. We don't, not by our works, not
by what we do, so consider you. You need the Lord, and he's provided
his salvation in Christ. Then he says now in verse 27,
well, let me just read verse 26, if ye then be not able To
do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?"
And the Lord is showing us He's sovereign and He has provided
salvation in the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust Him. Believe Him. He's not talking
about someone else, He's talking about you. He's not talking to
someone else, He's talking to you. To you. Hear him, consider
the lilies, how they grow. They toil not, they spin not,
and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like one of these. On the best day of Solomon's
tenure as king, he never dressed like a beautiful flower of the
field. If you've ever seen a lily, they're
amazing. Various lilies and irises. They're amazing. They're just
beautiful things. And it doesn't have to be in
a garden. That's what he's saying there.
These are flowers of the field. Matthew calls them flowers of
the field. Luke, you have to read the next verse where he
says that they're in the field. But it's, in other words, It's
not tended to by a man. There's no gardener overseeing
it. There's no one to protect it against what nature's thrown
at it. I have things, if hails come,
and I can put certain cloths over some of my vegetables and
protect them, try to protect them. If winds coming, I'm mindful
of that. Are they getting enough rain?
Are they getting enough sun? I'm mindful of those things.
Well, the Lord brings these things forth, and no man tends to them. No man provides for them. No
man fertilizes them. No man does anything for them.
And yet they come forth beautiful. And these are things which are
here today and thrown in the fire tomorrow. And that's, again,
it makes us mindful of, well, what about me? I'm here today,
and tomorrow I'm gone. We have a brief life. Don't forget
that it's our God who has made us for his own pleasure. And
I'm not the one that clothes myself with the righteousness
I need to stand before holy God. He does. He does. Just as the
flower of the field grows and is provided for, he has provided
a righteous garment with which we are robed in and clothed in
that righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one thing
needful, brethren. And that's what he's shown us.
Don't worry about how he's dealing with that one and dealing with
that one over there. Lord, speak to me. As that man
said, Lord, speak to my brother. No, Lord, speak to me. Speak
to me. I need to hear your voice. I
need to be turned from dead things of this world that cannot save,
that cannot change anything, that have no bearing on eternal
life. I need the one who has all the
bearing on eternal life. the one who can take my life
when it pleases him, and throw my body and soul into hell if
he so pleases. Lord, have mercy on me, because
we all sinned in Adam. And that's really what this is
showing us. We all sinned in Adam. and we're
all under the curse by nature in Adam, and we're all naked
in Adam, and we need the bread of heaven. We need him to feed
us and to nourish us and strengthen us in the new man of his creation. And we need him to clothe us
with his righteousness. Consider the ravens, Consider
the lilies and consider these in terms of you. And if God then,
verse 28, if then God so clothed the grass, which is today in
the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more
will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? And it's a matter of faith. We that believe Christ believe
him by faith. And though that faith is small,
though it's tiny like a mustard seed, you just stay on pursuing
Christ. Seek Christ. Keep looking to
him. Keep asking him, Lord, would
you speak to me? Can I hear your voice? I need
to hear your voice. Lord, give me faith to follow
you. Lord, give me the dew of heaven,
the spirit and your blessings in Christ, because that's what
I need. That's what I need. That's what he's doing. He's
taking us through earthly things to lift our eyes to the heavens
where Christ is seated on the right hand of the throne of God
for our salvation, for our needs, to provide for us. And then he
says, verse 29, seek not ye what ye shall eat or what ye shall
drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. I don't be troubled by
these things. We do. We get troubled. Our head
gets unstable. We get worried about these things.
We can all look at times when we worried so much about something
only to now feel shame for it and realize what? It was just
a waste of my time. I didn't help anything. I didn't
change anything. I didn't do anything by it, except
bad. Lord, forgive me. Lord, cleanse
me. Because that's all we can do.
Forget those things that are behind and press toward the mark. Press toward that which is before,
which is Christ. He's gathered you here this day,
this day, take your heart and mind off of earthly things, fleshly
things, carnal things that cannot save, that you have no control
over, to show you Christ. All those times, all that weakness,
all that falling, all that failure, when I thought I did something
and I did nothing, when I did nothing and I thought I did something,
all those things, it's brought you here. And the Lord shows
you your need of Him and that He is the Savior. He is salvation. He is the Savior of His people. So don't be thinking and worrying
about these things. Forget that. It hasn't done you
any good to this point. It ain't going to do you any
good in the future. Trust Him. Be mindful of Him. You profess
Him. You're His disciple. Look to
Him. Confess it. and lay it before
Him. Cast all your care upon Him,
for He careth for you. And you can't go back and change
those things that you did? Forget them. Just keep looking
to Christ. Keep looking to Christ. That's
what He's doing here. He's bringing us to see Him,
to see that He's sovereign, His hand is almighty, sovereign,
and doing all things which please Him. In verse 30, just as he
says, For all these things do the nations of the world seek
after. All right, that's just heathenism,
looking to this world, looking to what we can or can't do and
be in trouble by these things. That's what the world looks at.
It's for the world, it troubles them. Don't bother yourself with
it. Just keep looking to Christ.
For your father knoweth that ye have need of these things.
In other words, now consider him. consider your father and
what he's done to provide for us, to give us according to our
need, which he's done fully, faithfully, abundantly in the
Lord Jesus Christ, who came as the servant of God, as the Christ,
and fulfilled that office perfectly for us. So that as the Lamb of
God, He went to that cross to be made a curse for us, to deliver
us from the curse of the law. So that the law has nothing more
to say to us. Trust Him, believe Him, walk
by faith in Him. And that's what he says there,
verse 31, rather seek ye the kingdom of God. And all these
things that you're worried about, they'll be added unto you. If
you've got a sickness, don't fixate on that. Confess it to
the Lord. Lord, help me. Lord, remember
me. Lord, save me and keep me. Where
you're going to be happy and find rest and be at peace is
just in pursuing Christ and following after Him and looking to Him.
Prove him in it. Seek him. He said, seek and you'll
find. Ask and it'll be given to you. Knock, the door will be open.
Prove him in it. That's what he tells us to do.
Seek him for it. And he gives it freely, freely,
just as he did it for the ravens who didn't earn it, who didn't
merit it, just as he does for the lilies of the field who didn't
labor for it, they didn't earn it, but he gave it freely. And
that's what he's shown us. We're sinners in need of the
Savior, of salvation, and he's provided it freely. Consider
him. I pray the Lord bless that word to your hearts, brethren.
Amen.