So we're in Matthew chapter 6,
and I just want to read from 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 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 moral, for the moral shall take thought for the things of
itself. Sufficient unto the day is the
evil thereof. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
these few verses. The Lord Jesus Christ in this
chapter has been speaking to his disciples about committing
their needs and their concerns into God's hands and trusting
in his love and care and provision. He's been warning against becoming
anxious about temporal, earthly matters. because to do so is
incompatible with having faith in our loving God. And here the Lord Jesus Christ
is protecting his disciples against anxiety by pointing them on where
to place their thoughts. What he calls here taking thought
or dwelling excessively on matters that cause us to fret and worry
is to be displaced by seeking first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness. And our verse comes in a section
of our Master's Sermon on the Mount, shortly after what we
call the Lord's Prayer, where Jesus encourages his followers
to commit all their needs into the hands of God, even down to
the supply of their clothes and their food and their drink. Indeed,
The Saviour's words are very comforting when he says, And the implication, I think,
is if the Lord takes interest in such mundane matters and deals
with the little things like food and drink and provisions, that he has given us power to
manage for ourselves to a greater or lesser extent. He's also to
be trusted for the larger things as well. The things that we can't
control. The fears before which we feel
powerless and vulnerable. If he can take care of these
mundane things, then he can take care of the bigger things too. And the Lord's guidance to his
people is, prioritise your spiritual needs. The answer to your problem
is in the gospel. Seek first the kingdom of God. And I'm going to suggest to you
that this message is the antidote for anxiety. And it is a suitable
subject to be reminded about today. Now I want us to remember
when we read this passage, these verses, we're in Matthew 6, verse
33 principally. I want us to remember that the
Lord is speaking to believers here. He says, This is not an
evangelistic text, although it's often used like that. It's not
a text about getting saved. The Lord's not recommending unbelievers
to seek salvation here. He is speaking to saved men and
women about the foundational truths that undergird and support,
let me say, sweeten our lives in this world. Your faith is not an aspect or
an element of your life, but it is the heart of life to you. It is foundational to who you
are. The gospel and its message is
the lens through which all else in this life is to be viewed. And when the Lord tells his disciples
to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, he
is speaking of gospel truths of grace, mercy, peace, love
and acceptance with God that are the panacea, the remedy for
all the anxiety and the worry in life. And let me remind you of these
gospel truths, that when understood and believed, they must direct
our worship, they lift our spirits, they strengthen our hearts, they
banish our worries, and they bring us peace. These are directions
to the Lord's people to experience the care and comfort and encouragement,
the love and the goodness of God in our lives day by day. They are our portion, our spiritual
nourishment and help. So here's a couple of things
that I want to draw your attention to with respect to this little
verse. We're talking here about the gospel and about gospel doctrines
because it's the gospel that is meant when the Lord speaks
about the kingdom of God. The gospel is likened to the
kingdom of God because it teaches us of a sovereign king who rules
in his kingdom and commands in absolute power. and also because
it brings us, his people, into the blessings of kingdom citizenship. The United Kingdom has been crowning
a king this week, but although Charles III takes the title sovereign,
his power is indeed very limited. True sovereign power rests with
God alone. And our Lord Jesus Christ as
King rules over his people, providing for our every need, wisely guiding
our paths, protecting us from our enemies, sustaining us for
good through troubled times. So that when the Lord says, seek
first the kingdom of God, he is telling us to learn more about
God's gospel provision and its fulsome supplies of grace, day
by day, that he gives to all he loves and cares for. So that's
the first point I want to draw your attention to. This kingdom
of God to which we are directed, seek ye first the kingdom of
God and his righteousness, is the gospel that teaches us about
God's sovereignty and Christ's kingship in our lives. The second thing that this little
verse directs us to is that the gospel is called the kingdom
of God because it teaches us of God's divine purpose and a
completed work. We often mention God's covenant
because it's under the terms of this covenant as believers
we find our confidence in the unconditional goodness of God. Now if our peace If our peace
and our well-being was a contract made between us and God, whereby
good things happened when we were good and bad things happened
when we were bad, life would be motivated by a mere carrot
and stick based on human will and ability. it would soon become
unbearable, as we learned how incapable we are to please God
by our own actions. And this is what the law was
actually designed to teach the Jews, that it couldn't bring
any righteousness, that they needed something else, they needed
someone else. And it's the gospel that teaches
grace and mercy. Grace and peace came by Christ
in the gospel. It points us to the Lord Jesus
Christ, to whom the everlasting covenant of grace and peace,
or with whom the everlasting covenant of grace and peace was
made. And it points us to him who fully
accomplished and satisfied every contractual obligation laid upon
him in the covenant on our behalf. So the gospel, the kingdom of
God, tells us of a covenant fulfilled. A covenant ordered, established,
settled in all things, and sure. and it brings to us what Isaiah
calls the sure mercies of David. Let me just rephrase that little
statement, the sure mercies of David. I'm gonna rephrase it. Note that it's plural. These
are the promised goodness of God for his people. the assured
outcomes of Christ's accomplishments, the definite salvation that we
now possess and is laid up for us in heaven. And again I say
to you, the antidote for our worries, the antidote of our
anxieties in this world is the Gospel. Because in the Gospel
we learn that all covenant promises of love and grace and goodness
and peace are unconditionally fixed and certain. They are our
sure mercies. And the third thing that I'll
draw your attention to just briefly is to say, the Lord says, seek
the kingdom of God and his righteousness. That is, deepen your understanding
of the gospel. Take that as a challenge to read,
to meditate, to dwell upon it, to hear preaching, to reflect
on that preaching, to listen to it again if that's what it
needs. deepen your understanding of the gospel and your wisdom
in holy heavenly truths. The kingdom of God and his righteousness
are inextricably linked because the gospel, the message of the
kingdom, reveals to faith that we are and how we are acceptable
to God. It reveals to us that we are
acceptable and how we are acceptable. It reveals that we are clothed
in righteousness, that we are adorned in holiness, that we
are robed in perfect righteousness before God. Now actually, that's
a tautology. Because there's no such thing
as imperfect righteousness. We really don't need to say perfect
righteousness. We either say perfect or righteousness. We don't need to say both. But
I say it to emphasize that in Christ we have a righteousness
given by God himself. It is the finest, the best, the
greatest, the most glorious. It is the righteousness of God.
and let it be agreed amongst us here today, the righteousness
of God is sufficient righteousness, is acceptable righteousness.
It is righteousness that pleases, that satisfies, that honours
God because it is Christ's righteousness given to his people, Christ's
perfection, Christ's obedience in life and in death imputed
to you and to me. So do you see how the gospel
gives us grounds for confidence? It gives us peace and it gives
us assurance because it shows us that Christ is the king in
his kingdom. It shows us that he has a sovereign
dominion over all things. It teaches us, by contradicting
our doubt and our anxiety and our fear, so that to be constantly
reminded of our gospel blessings, our rights and privileges as
kingdom citizens, our family inheritances, brings us comfort
and teaches us how properly to interpret the sometimes perplexing
experiences that we have in life. The why this question and the
why me question. And I want to just make an application
here in closing. This that the Lord speaks of,
seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. This
is what it means when we say we believe the gospel and that
we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believing the gospel is a practical,
hands-on, day-by-day exercise of faith in the teeth of contrary
evidence. And I want you to think about
this learning Christ as a means of preparation for the big trials
of your life. And if you're not experiencing
them now, you will. And I want you to realize that
as you're tried in mind and body and soul, it is this very trying
experience that the Lord has taught you about under his sovereign
rule, in his covenant purpose, and dare I say it, by his perfect
righteousness. This isn't about how good or
bad you have been. It's about deepening our relationship
with Christ. It is about bringing us closer
to him. It is about tightening his grip
and embrace around us. Your Heavenly Father knoweth
that you have need of all these things. The Lord doesn't bring
hardship and trials to his people maliciously. He does not do it
because he's powerless to prevent it. He does not do it because
you have not been good or as faithful or as holy as you should
or could have been. He does it, He brings us to and
through trials benevolently to teach us more about His love,
His grace, His mercy and His goodness. And no matter what
the Lord has in store for us in the days ahead, I tell you
this, if you're a child of God, you will own it to be true. that the Lord has supplied all
your need according to his riches and glory. And if you can't do
it now, you will do it someday. It is true that we must, through
much tribulation, enter the kingdom of God. But it is also true,
he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
shall with him also freely give us all things. Amen. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us.