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, September 17, 1989.
About this sermon
Christ builds Matthew 6 in triads, and that structure reshapes how 6:19-34 reads, with 6:33 as the dominant verse the rest serves. His rhetoric works like a boxer’s combinations, each blow setting up the next. Anxiety left unchecked breeds sin and quietly abandons the cross.
Sermon transcript
This morning, we are again in Matthew 6, verse 25, to the end of the chapter. This is Matthew 6, verse 25. Hear the word of God. 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 me and the body and Raymond? Behold the bowels 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, neither do they spin. And yet I say to you that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of 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 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 morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Pray with me now. Our God in all humility, we would come before you, realizing that before you we are as nothing, yet you have made us to be something, and that by your grace. Your word is at work to convince us afresh of the truth about yourself, about ourselves, and about this world in which we live. We do ask you, our God, that as you teach us from your word, we may be found to be willing to receive it and to live in keeping with what you have said. Build us up, then, Lord, we ask by that word. For Jesus’ sake, amen.
In this part of Jesus’ sermon from the mount, he has resorted to the use of triads. He has resorted to the use of threes. Things are coming in sets of three. That’s the way it is. for the sixth chapter of Matthew throughout. Not only are there three sections for this chapter, but each section is divided into three parts. So everything is coming up in threes.
The sections are verses 1-18, verses 19-25, and then verses 19-24, and then 25-34. I’m going to help you if you have a Bible in front of you this morning. We note how Jesus has ordered his message at this point. As I said, things are coming up in three. The first section of the chapter, verses 1 through 18, is structured around the so-called three pillars of piety. Remember? Almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. There’s the three. Now you move on to verses 19-24, and once more you find the triad. This time in terms of three images given to you.
First, the image of the treasure. There are two kinds of treasure here. Treasures in heaven, treasures on earth. The image of the treasure. Next, the image of the lamp, or the eye. the lamp of the body is behind. There are two kinds of lamps. There is a good eye that is clear, and there is an evil eye that is not. So you have the image of the treasure, the image of the lamp, and finally the image of the master. There are two kinds of masters. There is the master called Mammon, and there is the master, God.
Now we come to verses 25 through 34, and once more we have a triad. And this triad is obvious to us because of the repetition of a particular phrase. And note, verse 25, your version may be different than mine. Mine happens to be the New American Standard Version, and I think that it’s very helpful at this point, because it translates the words I have in mind exactly the same in each instance in which they occur. But, in verse 25 now, the words are these.
Do not be anxious. Do not be anxious. In the King James, it comes across as take no thought for. Do not be anxious. Verse 25, the first occurrence of those words. Note again, the words occur in verse 31. Do not be anxious then. Or take no thought for. And finally, occur in verse thirty-four. Therefore, do not be anxious for tomorrow. Three times those words appear in this section. So we have, once more, a triumph.
And you will note Now, with regard to this triad, you can put the verses respective to each part of the triad in parallel columns. For instance, in a piece of paper, to the extreme left, you could place verses 25 through 30, because that’s the first segment. In the middle of the page, you could place verses 31 through 33. And to the extreme right, you could place verse 34.
Now these are put in parallel columns because, you see, they are actually saying the same thing. This means that you can read each section in light of the other two. Jesus is saying the same thing, using different words, conveying his idea, his message, in a different way, but that message is singular. That message is one. And of course, since he repeats himself three times, there’s no mystery as to what the message is. Do not be anxious. All right.
You have the triad, the parallel column, that Jesus is saying the same thing again and then again, three times in succession, but with different words. But note the beauty of how Jesus has ordered his comments. It takes him a relatively long time to communicate his message in the opening part of the triad, verses 25 through 30. Here you have six verses all told.
You can now construct a diagram that works. in tandem with the diagram that I’ve given you concerning the parallel columns. This time, write the number of the verses across the top of the page. Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. Now let’s see what he does. What he has taken a relatively extended period, running twenty-five to thirty, he now compresses into verses thirty-one through thirty-three. So what was six verses is now down to three. See what’s happening?
Right verses thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three under the column that you have at the top of the page, with verses twenty-five through thirty. And finally, at the very bottom of this inverted triangle, you have verse thirty-four. What he has been saying in six verses and then reduced to three, he now reduces to one. so you have something of a funnel effect as Jesus brings his message down to but a few words compressing it and thus increasing its impact You might…
I was looking around for an illustration to get this idea across. The best I could do was this. It says, if Jesus were an expert boxer… I know you haven’t heard that term well before. It says, If Jesus were an expert boxer who takes two-thirds of the round to size up and bulk, it is a punt.
As the two-thirds mark of the round comes, Jesus, in effect, delivers a punch. The rest of the round remains. Jesus again stops the opponent, so that as the last minute of the round approaches, he delivers yet another blow. But then, just before the bell, enough time, of course, to get the ten count, he delivers the knockout punch. So the force and the impact of the order here is to deliver repeated blows. Of course, these blows are not intended to deck us. Rather, they are intended to build us up. to keep us standing. Well, that is the structure of the passage broadly considered, but let’s look at it once more, a little more in detail. Let’s go back to our parallel columns, and note how these various sections developed themselves. Each section begins with a negative statement.
Verse 25, do not be anxious. It is repeated, verse 31, repeated again, verse 34. But note, after the negative statement, you have Jesus giving to his audience, to his disciples, a rationale, the reason why they should not be anxious. So the negative statement followed by the reason, and that’s the general structure that you find throughout. Negative, statement, then reason. There is, however, another dimension. And I think that you can anticipate that. For if there has been the negative statement, do not be anxious, you may well be waiting for the positive statement.
If Jesus doesn’t want us to do this, then what does he want us to do? Well, if you look in verses 25 through 30, you are not given a positive statement. All you have there is the negative and the rationale. Also, in verse thirty-four, you are not given the positive statement. What you have is the negative statement plus the rationale. However, in verses thirty-one through thirty-three, the positive statement is given.
Do not be anxious about these various things, because these are precisely the things that for which the Gentiles are anxious. In fact, your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things. There’s the rationale given afterwards as to why you shouldn’t be anxious. But verse thirty-three gives to you then the positive state. Instead of being anxious, seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things shall be added unto you.”
Now, why do you think that Jesus has that positive statement, stand there in such solitary form? Why should there be but one positive statement as he moves through this triumph. Because you see, he wants all of your interest, all of your attention, to focus precisely there. That is the one comment that stands out uniquely in the way in which Jesus has ordered his words. And that’s where he wants the emphasis to be. It is not without reason then, you see, as this portion of the Bible has been read, or the Sermon on the Mount has been reviewed. This verse stands out so starkly. We have the structure of the passage before us. in terms of its broad considerations, but also now some of the details.
Let’s look at verses 25 through 30, and the meaning of the words that Jesus has for his people, for his disciples. We have already made comments about the conjunction or connective, but therefore, with which he begins this verse, that is to throw us back to verses 19-24, so that this section functions as something of a conclusion as to what he has said before. You dare not enter into these verses unless you have understood what Jesus was saying in verses 19-24. And just by way of reminder briefly as to what he was focusing on there, two words, heaven and cross. Verses 19 through 24, heaven and cross.
If you understand the focus as heaven, if you understand the life of the disciples The life of the disciples is to be one of conformity to Christ himself, that laying up treasures in heaven, in effect, means taking up Christ’s cross herself and following him.
Then you have understood what Jesus means. The conclusion of those thoughts now moves us on into the present session. If, in fact, you grasp hold of these things, you need none. The end. 25, then places before us an exhortation. Now, I praise it that way deliberately, for you could understand what Jesus is saying here as a command, an imperative, an unencumbered, unblurred command, directive. Do not be anxious. And you can almost hear in some people’s understanding of those words, a bit of a severity, a sternness, if you will. Do not be anxious, it is a commandment. But you see, I have spoken of it as an exhortation, because I believe that Christ is content here. It is not meant as bare command, it is meant as exhortation or as encouragement. It is pastoral. It is as much a plea and an appeal as it is a command, an imperative. He is appealing to us.
Now don’t you be anxious. Jesus is shepherding here his own. and the emphasis is falling upon his gentleness, upon his love for his own. Now, don’t you be anxious. There’s no reason for it. If heaven has been granted to you, If your call is to the cross and you know the end of that road is resurrection, don’t you be anxious. Don’t you worry. It’s all right. It’s all right now. So imperative, yes, but not dare to command, not dare to command.
Exhortation, encouragement, gentleness, love. Thus the appropriateness of the images that we use. The birds of the heavens, the flowers, the lilies, The pastor is using a pastoral scene. And the images themselves convey the gentleness and the peacefulness of Jesus’ intent.
Now that is not to say that Jesus here isn’t being utterly serious. nor is his view of gentleness free of the nudge, free of the appropriate rebuke. Did you notice verse 30? O ye of little faith. O ye of little faith. Jesus the pastor, the one who is gentle, the shepherd, but utterly serious about the things he says, providing the appropriate nudge, the appropriate rebuke. Oh, ye of little faith. So that’s the tone. That’s the tone. Now what about the content? There seem to be two concerns in verse 25.
One, which Jesus expresses in terms of life. and the other that he expresses in terms of the body. Don’t be anxious about your life as to what you eat or what you will drink. Life. Don’t be anxious either about your body, what you shall put on. His concern is for life and body. But then, before the verse ends, he launches into his rationale. The reason why you need not be anxious concerning life or body. He tells you that life is more than meat. more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Now the question rises as to what precisely Jesus means at this point.
Does he mean to bring nearly into view some sort of quantitative difference between life and meat and body and clothing? If you’re thinking of food, you’re thinking too smallly, too narrowly, too constrictedly. If you’re thinking of clothing, you’re doing the same thing. It’s a quantitative consideration here, or is it a qualitative consideration?
There is a view of life that sees meet as the meaning of life. There is a view of life that sees Raymond’s clothing as the purpose of life. There is that view of life that sets its sights upon the things that are temporary, that perish There is also that view of life that sees things quite differently.
Life and body are for more than service to those temporary things. For those who love God, for those who are citizens of the kingdom of heaven, life and body are more than food and clothes. Because for them, life and body will in fact endure unto eternity. Jesus is not here making a general statement which can be read out upon the face of the earth, applicable in every society in which you might plug it in. Jesus is speaking here specifically to the covenantal community, to the disciples, to the church, to those who serve the Father in heaven, those who are bound to him by faith. And for them, life and body are indeed more than meat and raiment, because life and body will in fact endure unto eternity. It is not a quantitative difference that Jesus is condemning on at the end of verse 25, but a qualitative difference, a completely different view of life than that which places food and raiment at the center.
Having said this, it becomes apparent now that what Jesus is speaking of here is laden with the gospel. For if he is putting before us life and body that endures unto eternity, he cannot do that without assuming the doctrine and the reality of the resurrection. The God who then gives us life in the kingdom, raises and will, in fact, raise our body to dwell in glory. This God who gives us the greater life, the superlative life, will certainly take care of our needs in this world. He who gives the greater will supply us in the lesser. Even the domain of the lesser teaches us this truth, the birds of heaven, the leaves of the field.
Why don’t you take time to look at them? Are they anxious? Are the birds of the heaven anxious? Are the flowers of the field anxious? If they in the lesser are not anxious, how much more you who have the greatest should be without anxiety and pain? Don’t you be anxious. Don’t you worry.
You have eternal life. Your body is destined for it. Now there’s an adjunct here in conclusion that we arrive at by something of an extension of the thought of Christ? You see, Jesus wants us anxiety-free because he wants us peace-filled. But he wants us anxiety-free also because he knows that an anxiety-free, an anxiety-filled breeds the occasion of. An anxiety filled life.
Turns life and body into food and clothes. He turns these things into life itself. Jesus may well have been anxious in the wilderness. Satan says, turn these stones into bread. But Jesus knows Stones turned into bread turns bread into life. And that bread becomes the meaning of life. And that bread symbolizes satisfaction of my desire, satisfaction of myself. and such self-satisfaction forgoes the cross.
It never arrives. It never gets there. For having turned bread and raiment into life, how could you conceivably give them up? An anxiety-filled existence breathes occasionally for sin. Israel had succumbed in wilderness. It wanted bread, as if bread were life.
But Moses had said, you shall not live by bread. but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God and where Israel failed Jesus has triumphed the one in whom we see the eternal end of life and the body that which has been given to us through him and because of that we need not fear nor need we be anxious how great you are our God And would you convince us of the greater things? Of eternity? Of life with you? Of the survival of the body beyond death? Of your intent with regard to our life and our body? and having these things settled within us, O God, may we be anxiety free and may we rejoice
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.