This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, August 27, 1989.

The scripture reading this morning is from Matthew 6. We are working our way to the end of this chapter. At verse 19, we will be reading through verse 34. Matthew 6, verse 19 through 34. Hear the word of God. Lay none up for yourselves treasures upon earth. where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thine whole body shall be full of light, But if mine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness, if therefore the light that is in thee be darkness. How great is that darkness!

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. He cannot serve God and mammon. 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. Is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment? Behold, the fowl of the air! For they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them.

Are ye not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit unto his stature. And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, and 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? 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 see 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 morrow for the moral shall take thought to the things itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Push us, Lord, cajole us, Father, pressure us, constrain us, force us, Lord, to your word. Though we may feel as if we are satisfied already that we have been well fed, as if we had drunk deeply from a well. Yet, Lord, though we may even deceive ourselves with respect to such things of this earth that may claim to offer satisfaction, drive us, Lord, beyond them all that we might be found in you. May you be pleased, Father, to hear our prayer as regards the word.

First, that we might be willing with respect to it and obedient, but also, Lord, that servants of yours raised up by your power, by your grace, may be effective they submit themselves to you as your word has power for all the nations you elect being gathered unto the great day that you are convening above in glory as we pray in Jesus name amen Now, there’s no telling how long this is going to take us. Not this morning, but in terms of the series with respect to these latter verses in Matthew 6, verses 25 to the end of the chapter.

We are venturing here into well-known territory. This is our first message these verses. But I judge the way my mind has been working recently. This is the first of many. On the. What about. Have you just. Again, thrilled at the hearing of them? Have there been those occasions in your life when your Bible fell open to these verses and you read them again and you were struck once more by their beauty? How well they seem constructed, how well they flow? and how compelling they are.

It’s almost as if they were a magnet and we are drawn. The subject matter is compelling in itself. Anxiety. Worry. that endless fretting internal and external hand wringing an energy of the spirit and soul that leaves you in a sweat anxiety worry. Subject in itself compelling. Maybe as compelling as any subject matter you might consider. Anxiety, worry, what do you do about it? Jesus has worked here for us.

But what of our experience? Your experience may be more common than exceptional. More the rule than the exception. And while you are drawn to these words, and while you are drawn along by them and their beauty, it may well be that internally and subjectively you feel, when you are honest with yourself, that in these words you have run up against a brick wall. Fine words!

But where is the truth of them? encouragement to cease with regard to our anxiety and our worry and we seemingly powerless to do. Now you might have a habit of mind with respect to scripture that many have. It’s sad to say, when some people look at Scripture, they think the words there are magical.

Here is an automatic cure for my anxious spirit. Here is an automatic cure, in the words themselves, for my anxiety and my worry-filled life. So I sit down to the Word. I read it again. But I discover that reading or hearing or even meditating upon these words produces at best only a fleeting tranquility, a temporary peace. Something that quickly fades.

My worry, my anxiety returns in a fury. leaving me convinced that anxiety is as natural as breathing. It is inevitable. It is irrepressible. It is tragically permanent. And we cannot escape it. The best we can do is accept this fact and cope as best we might. There is a price, however. There is a price that we have paid for this kind of thinking. And that price invariably is extracted internally. It is extracted internally, while we externally carry on in a determined, maybe even historical, expression of our faith and faithfulness.

Where are we on Sunday morning? We’re in church. But where is our heart? Our heart is convinced that Jesus can do nothing about anxiety. We are absolutely convinced internally, despite our external behavior, that Jesus can do absolutely nothing about worry. He’s powerless. Haven’t we been down that road so often? Isn’t that the conclusion that we’ve come to? Escape from anxiety is an impossibility, even through Jesus. So inwardly, we have caved in to a secret distrust. No one else here knows we don’t trust Jesus. That’s your little secret. Internally, we have caved in to a sort of closet disbelief. Jesus can’t help me. He simply cannot help me.

We settle into a life of inner if not depressed resignation. Externally, we’re bright, friendly, we greet the people that pass by, but inside we’re suffering. That inner voice One that we would hardly give expression to publicly says this, my anxiety is inalterable. It is here to stay. Jesus’ words are fine. But I have found them to be unsubstantiated by life. Empty and impossible. So we are divided selves. Outside, it seems as if we believe with all our heart. Inside, we are skeptics. And we dare not tell anyone.

Now the message this morning is merely an introduction to this problem, which I’ve outlined, and to these verses in front of us. And in this introductory message, I wish to establish but one fact. Ah. I won’t have any trouble remembering the point from the service for this only have one point. So all of us can walk away with something this morning. One point. I wish. For us. That we would focus on but one thing then the sadly too often overlooked dimension of Jesus’ words.

It will be nothing new to you. But when we come to this text, what I am about to say is invariably laid aside and never drawn into the center of what Jesus is saying. Now by bringing this sadly neglected dimension of this passage to your attention, I trust you may be given a fresh angle to what our Savior is saying here. And as well, that the Holy Spirit may renew your hope. that anxiety and worry are not the natural state of affairs but rather abnormal and contrary to faith. So I truly wish this message to be upbeat very positive and that especially for those of you who are very very discouraged in your spiritual life. Let’s first of all then look at the forgotten dimension, and then we’ll take a look at some other passages in the New Testament to help reinforce what we find here. The overlooked dimension of Jesus’ words.

It’s really very simple. We tend to view these verses in isolation. Twenty-five on. These verses are about anxiety and worry. If there’s an answer to be found, I must find them within these verses. And they stand on their own. They are wonderful gems, beautiful nuggets. I must process them and refine them and distill from them. the wisdom that is here. They stand on their own in isolation. They are capable of doing that.

It’s not true. These words of Jesus have an antecedent. They rest upon presuppositions, prior statements by Christ. Do you note how verse 25 begins? In the King James, the word is therefore. In the New American Standard, it is for this reason. Obviously, Jesus is looking back to what he has just said. That’s what’s lost. That’s what’s forgotten. The link is never made. The connection is never seen.

We think we have, in these verses, 25 through 34, the answer to our anxiety and our worry, failing to realize that these verses are constructed as a conclusion. to what Jesus has already said. Therefore, for this reason, I say unto you, do not be anxious. Take no thought for it. Do not worry. This means then that these words about worry and anxiety have a foundation. previously laid out for you.

And that foundation is found in verses 19 through 24. And if you are to understand Jesus’ perspective on anxiety and worry, and how triumph over anxiety and worry are in fact possible, even demanded, you are going to have to understand verses 19 through 24.

All that business about laying up treasures in heaven, as opposed to laying up treasures on earth. All that business about having a clear or single eye, and not an evil eye. All that business about not being able to serve two masters, but only one. You cannot be a person of divided loyalty. That is the foundation. Now you can live the rest of your life overcome by anxiety and worry. You can be content to live that way if you choose, and dismiss what Jesus is telling you here. You can make that choice, you see. But is that really what you want?

If you do not want it, then get busy with verses 19 through 24. Grapple with them. Understand that in those verses, Jesus is making clear to you that you cannot hang on to this world. You hang on to it, you lose. And you lose in more ways than one. Not only with respect to the world to come, but with respect to this world as well. Because your world then becomes fraught full of anxiety and worry. You are worried about holding on to all the things that you have accumulated. You live for yourself. and your end will be the same as a world that lives for itself. You give yourself in service of mammon or riches or wealth for this world, and your loyalty cannot be to God. You want to be free of that anxiety and worry, but simultaneously you want to hold on to this world. Jesus is saying, give it up and worry ends. Follow me. Anxiety ceases.

Now what comes out in those verses 19 through 24 are really two things. One is heaven and the other is the cross. In other words, it is only by root of the part set upon laying up treasures in heaven, the eye that is singly and clearly directed toward heaven, the eye that will not be diverted, the life set upon service to the Father above, that we find entrance into the biblical world of peace. That’s with respect to heaven. With respect to the cross. First of all, we must see Christ himself in relationship to that cross. As Christ laid a treasure in heaven by root of giving selflessly, giving himself for other, not counting his life dear, but expending himself. as he single-mindedly sets his gaze clearly upon the kingdom of his Heavenly Father, and as he demonstrated his devotion and service to the Father in such a way that does not stop short of giving his own life. But the cross is also in view, because you see, Jesus is directing these words to you.

Therefore, when he tells us to lay up treasures in heaven and not upon earth, he is telling us, take up your cross and follow me. When he tells you about the clear and single eye, he is placing before you, in an uncompromised way, the demand of the kingdom and the light of glory from heaven itself that shines upon you and in you, because you have that matter of heaven, its reality, its truth, its ultimacy, all worked out. And the person whose heart is set upon the treasure in heaven is the one who serves God absolutely, and does not attempt to split time between God and them. So it is then the gospel which you must embrace if you are to have the peace and the tranquility, the end of anxiety and worry that is spoken of here in these verses In Matthew 6, you must embrace the gospel, you must have Christ, you must be bound to him. That is the message that is reiterated throughout the pages of the New Testament. If you turn to the gospel…

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