GREATEST OF ALL TIME | Week 5 | Full Service

So we've been in this series that's called the greatest of all time. What does that mean? Well, we're looking at the greatest teaching of all time. It's found in the book of Matthew, and it is most commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. It is Jesus' most famous teachings and Matthew,

the author of the book has just wonderfully crafted the teachings of Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount into this beautiful sermon that we've been walking through.

And what's crazy about the Sermon on the Mount is it really is like Jesus' manifesto for life in the kingdom of God. He is continually talking about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God, and he is calling followers of Christ to live in that kingdom.

But when you read the Sermon on the Mount, there's a part of you that kinda feels like, man, this is utopian at best. It almost feels like life that Jesus is talking about, the kind of new humanity that he is ushering in, almost feels impossible. But to Jesus, this wasn't only just not impossible,

it was very much so within the realm of possibility and expected of followers

of Jesus. And so what we're looking at is how do we, if you're in this room and you claim to be a follower of Jesus, enter into the kind of kingdom living that Jesus talks about? And if you don't know Jesus and you're on that journey of figuring it out, this is what life in the kingdom looks like. That is what we are talking about, is Jesus is introducing

a new way to be human, and we're gonna continue that. Some of the teachings are hard to swallow. Some of the teachings are very counter cultural to the time that the teachings were given, and they're very countercultural

today. And we're gonna continue to see how Jesus takes what is commonly referred to as normal and the culture of its day, flips it upside down and says, no. I have something so much better than you could ever imagine.

And so that's what we're gonna continue today. I I have a daughter. I have two daughters. One is almost three. The other one's about 10. The oldest, her name is Nora.

Nora's super sweet. We love her a ton and she's so fun. And one day I had come home from work and my wife was telling me the story of something that Nora did while she was at home.

And so she's telling me the story and Nora had kinda been running around the house. She's almost three, so got tons of this new freedom. She thinks she gets to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, and we're just going to bend over and do that for her. Or she just does it herself.

So Alex had heard a door shut. Whenever you hear a door shut with a three year old around, you kinda like, oh, what was that? And so Alex started looking for her, and she found her inside of the pantry just sitting on the ground munching on a rice cake while holding the bag of rice cakes. Just like, what are you doing?

And my wife finds her she's like, Nora, what are you doing? And me thinking the story's gonna go like, get out of the pantry. Like, you just stop it and give me that food. Put it away. That's probably what I would have done. But my wife then proceeds to tell me this amazing interaction she has with our daughter.

And she gets down on her level and she goes, Nora, what do you if you're hungry, I will feed you. And I was like, woah, babe. That was like next level.

Like right? But isn't that us when it comes to our relationship with God that we often find ourselves having to take things into our own hands or thinking that we do, and that we need to go grab at things that we think we need. But in reality, we have a heavenly father who loves us so much, who desperately wants and desires for us to go to him

and get what we need from him. Because what my daughter doesn't know is that if she would have gone over to, Alex, her mom, and said, mom, I would like a rice cake,

my wife would have put it on the table in the light because the pantry is pitch black. She would have put a plate down. She would have put the rice cake on. She would have put peanut butter on it because Nora loves peanut butter. She would have put a drizzle of honey on it because she's really enjoying that right now. She would have had water so that she could wash it down. All of that could have been Nora's reality

had she asked. Had she gone to her mom? And I think that is such a decent picture of what we do with our relation with God is that we tend to take things into our own hands. But when we do that, it introduces a kind of life that involves sneakiness,

it can introduce worry and anxiety because we take on a burden that was never meant to be ours. Because being our needs being taken care of, if you're a follower of Jesus, the holy scriptures make it explicitly clear that our heavenly father loves us dearly and he will take care of us.

And so we were never meant to carry that burden. And so my big idea for us today is this, it's that worry is a signal to worship. That worry is a signal to worship.

If you have your bibles, I'd love for you to open up to the book of Matthew. That's where we've been. We've been sitting here for a while. Matthew chapter six is where we're at. If you don't have a bible, after the service, please ask one of our ushers or someone with a lanyard that says Rock Point. They will give you a bible. I believe in the power of the word of God in front of you, so get the word of God. If you got the phone, bible app, all that, just have the word of God in front of you and allow it to do what it does and transform you and work

miraculously in you. Matthew chapter six and we're gonna start in verse 25.

Matthew chapter six verse 25.

Are we there? Perfect. Enough for me. Where are gonna go?

Matthew chapter six verse 25 says this. It says, that is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life. Whether you have enough food and drink or enough clothes to wear, isn't there more to life than food and your body more than clothing? So stop right there. Verse 25,

right at the beginning in my translation, it says, that is why I tell you. You might have a translation that says, therefore. Whenever you come across a statement of like, that is why or therefore, you should be thinking, why is it saying that? Because it's usually an indication to what has been said before.

So Jesus had just said something before in the sentence or the paragraph before that he was referring to here. And this is where scripture, you gotta be careful because if you just sent someone verse 25 and was like, hey, don't worry.

It it it doesn't exactly help us understand what's happening in the text. And so we're gonna go back to verse 19. We're gonna see why is Jesus saying that is why I tell you or therefore.

It says this in verse 19, don't store up treasures here on earth where moths eat them and rust destroy them and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.

Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is unhealthy,

your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is. And verse 24, no one can serve two masters, for you will hate one and love the other. You'll be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.

This is the paragraph that Jesus had just taught and now we have a that is why or therefore. So there seems to be in the kingdom of God that Jesus is making a connection between where we put our value, our value system, and our worry. There seems to be a direct connection between

our treasures in the language of the New Testament and worry. That should get you to start thinking, okay, Jesus is about to tell us something.

Jesus just kinda laid out some of this. He's talking about what we treasure and what we value and that if we value certain things, our heart will take us to it. And if we value our money or our possessions or our status or what how people perceive us. Is that if that's our highest value, that is where our heart will go.

And he makes a definitive, you cannot serve God and be enslaved to money. He's making it very clear this is not something you try to just figure out. It's like, okay, I really want to, like, make a ton of money and do everything I can to do that and cross,

maybe compromise on character and all that stuff for the sake of getting there, and I'm also gonna serve God. He's making it very clear, you don't do that. As a follower of Christ, if you are gonna be a disciple of Jesus, there is no world where that works.

And he says, that is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life. You see, when I was 11 years old,

I really I played soccer a lot and I loved video games. And so I got to the point where I had a PlayStation two and I really wanted FIFA seven. FIFA seven if you know anything about FIFA, if you ever played, it is one of the even if you don't like soccer at all, you love FIFA.

And so I really wanted FIFA seven, and I told my parents, like, hey, can you take me to GameStop to get FIFA seven? And they're like, yes, we will take you, but

you have to pay with it. Pay for it with your own money. I was like, oh, 11 year old, $60 for a game? But I was like, okay, I want the game. Let's do it. I have the money. Let's go. And so we get in the car. They take me to GameStop. And that experience of walking into a GameStop,

grabbing your game, taking it to the front desk, the clerk giving it to you and all this stuff. And then you walk out and you got this brand new game, and it's all wrapped in plastic. And we went home, and I opened it up, and I took that discount, and I put it in my Playstation two and I sat down in my chair and I had my controller that still had a cord attached to it.

And I was so excited. And I play a couple games and after a couple games, I'm not kidding you, I get hit with something weird. Instant regret. I I regret this purchase entirely.

All I'm thinking about, I get overwhelmed and consumed with, I want my $60 back. And that's all I could think about. And so, obviously, I went to my mom and I said, mom, will you please take me back? I have to return this thing and don't tell dad. And

so my mom, so gracious, so loving, she's like, okay. I will take you. So we go back to GameStop. I go in. I give them the game. I gotta return it. GameStop's return policy is interesting. So not only am I freaking out about not having my $60, I lie to the guy and tell him the game doesn't work and he gives me that $60 back

and we go home. We're home for maybe an hour and I'm kinda chilling, not really doing anything and I think to myself, man, I wanna play FIFA. So again, I go to my mom and I'm like, mom, no. I actually do want the game. I just like, I needed this to happen to really decide like, do I want this thing?

And so my mom's so kind, she takes me. Because I couldn't ask my dad. Right? He'd be like, didn't you just buy the game? He doesn't know I returned it. And so we go back, we buy the game, I go through the whole process again.

Now that's fine when you're 11 years old. Right? You're kinda learning this stuff. It's not fine when ten years later, I'm 21 years old, I'm engaged to my wife, and I go buy an Xbox at GameStop. I take it home. I open the thing up. I take all the plastic off and everything. I plug the thing in, and I go, oh, man. I want my $500 back.

And so I put the whole thing back together, and I take it back to GameStop, and then I get my money back. And I'm talking to my fiance at the time about it. And then the next day, I realize, no. I really do want the Xbox. So I get my car and I go GameStop and I get the Xbox.

So it just seems to be that there's this interesting thing that you and I have with money because in reality, the the money, the $60 or the $500 was like security. But you don't get a lot of happiness out of just having some security.

And so the game or the console or whatever it is you fill in the blank becomes the thing that, like, with the means that I have, I can have some joy and happiness. But then, that joy and happiness does not satisfy

the desire that you thought you had and all you sit with is like, oh my goodness, I don't have the security that I once had and I'm not getting the joy that I thought I would get. And that seems to be the vicious cycle of the human condition when it comes to money.

There's a man named Rockefeller. He was the first billionaire in The United States, and he was like an oil tycoon. And in an interview with a reporter, they asked him, how much is enough? And he calmly looked back at the reporter and said, just a little bit more.

Isn't that the condition of our day? Isn't that the cultural waters you and I swim in? Just a little bit more.

And is that what the kingdom of God looks like? Is that really the life we're just supposed to like sit in it and deal with it? I'd venture to say no. That Jesus actually has a way of life on offer for you and for me that just does away with all of that. So let's keep reading.

In 25, it says, that is why I tell you not to worry. Some translations might say anxiety. The the Greek word here is merim now. Everybody say merim now. That was good. I'll take it. You spoke Greek today, and it translates to be concerned with.

So what I want you and I to try to avoid is sometimes we hear this kind of stuff and we're like, oh, you know, I don't worry or I don't get anxious. That's the translation. But what I do know to be true about all of us is we do find ourselves in moments of concern, that we get concerned with things,

that we get concerned with the life we live, that we get concerned with what other people think of us, that we get concerned with if we are gonna fit in or people are gonna accept us. We get concerned with.

Jesus is not just going after like, oh, man, the people who, like, get really anxious or really worried, this is for you. He's saying, this is a part of humanity, the fallen broken world that we tend to lean towards being concerned with. And Jesus is introducing

a amazing new way of living where we don't have to live with that concern. We can get out of the cycle. We can experience what is called contentment. And so he continues and he says this. He says in 26, oh, the wind.

Look at the birds. They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns for your heavenly father feeds them. And aren't you more valuable to him than they are? So Jesus, he's gone. He's like, let me explain something to you. So don't worry, don't worry about clothes, don't worry about status, don't worry about food or drink or anything, don't worry about those basic needs, I got you.

And then he says, for instance, look at birds. Okay. Think of a bird, everybody. Did we think of pigeons? I did. They fly around, do their thing,

and they seem to fly around with zero worry and where their next meal's gonna come from. We don't even like, I don't know what they do. Like, they don't sit around the dinner table and go, alright, mom, what are we having for dinner tonight? They they just somehow get their food.

And Jesus is making a connection here that this is what your heavenly father does for the birds. And how much more valuable are you? Jesus double Jesus double downs. He keeps going. In verse 27, he says, can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

This is like that, just super true statement that is almost not helpful, but like you know it's true. Like if someone says, hey dude, stop worrying, like it's not gonna do anything. You're like, don't tell me to stop worrying. It's like one of those things. But Jesus is making a point here. It is an explicit truth. It is you hear it and you don't have to prove it. You're like, yeah. I know. It's not gonna my worrying does nothing for me. In fact, not only does it not add days to your life, we know twenty first century medicine studies,

all of that, that it actually can reduce your life. To be tormented by worry and concern for things, possessions, the material world, tomorrow, the future, what's to come, the uncertain.

Not only does it not add to your life, it can take away from your life. It can wreak havoc on your mental state. It can wreak havoc on your physical body internally. You can get ulcers and things like that, all from just excessive worry and being concerned with and being dominated by that.

And so Jesus hits him with that explicit truth and then he goes into his next kind of analogy in verse 28. And why worry about your clothing?

Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don't work or make their clothing, yet Solomon, in all his glory, was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

Why do you have so little faith? I think oftentimes we can read that and we can think Jesus because we have this picture of Jesus in our head that like he is perfect. He's living the perfect life and he's giving these teachings so that we can experience the kingdom of God the way life and humanity was designed to be experienced.

And we can almost get in the mindset of like, oh, he's being condescending, or he's kinda looking down on us like, really? You're gonna have like that little of faith? Come on. But when I think about the character of God the father,

I wonder if it's more along the lines of a parent like Alex with Nora getting down on your level and just, hey, I'm gonna take care of you. You of little faith, I got you. Don't worry. And that loving tone and embrace of our heavenly father is welcomed in. That even the the grass, the lilies of the field,

you recognize the beauty that comes out of them and they are just stepped on and walked on as scripture says, they're just thrown in the fire. How much more valuable are you? Verse 31,

it says, so don't worry about these things, saying what will we eat, what will we drink, what will we wear. These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly father already knows all your needs.

I don't know about you, but I read that and it dominates the thoughts of the unbelievers. I'm like, man, I'm a believer. I know that at my core, but I still worry. What Jesus is saying here is I have something for you And for the better part of 14 verses or so, he's coming to a solution.

He's about to give you and me. Okay. So starting at the beginning, don't store up treasures, don't do that, do this, don't serve two you can't serve two gods, you can't serve God and money, then he goes in about not worrying about it because he's got you and he loves you and how much more valuable

are you than these different things. And then he's about to give us the solution. What does this mean for a follower of Jesus? Because through my own experience, and I'm guessing through your own as well, you aren't free of worry just because you're a follower of Christ. You aren't free of being concerned

with fill in the blank. And so Jesus so graciously and kindly in verse 33, it's the linchpin of it all, he says, seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously and he will give you everything you need.

Seek the kingdom of God above all else and he will take care of the rest. Seek the kingdom of God above all else. This is not just put God at the top of my priority list. This is God and his kingdom is interwoven into the very fabric of every type of priority you have in your life. That ultimately,

your life is oriented around seeking first the kingdom of God, and he means that in the context of with what we put our treasure and value in because that is where your heart will go. And the difficulty is in today's culture, what we experience,

I believe it is actually really hard to orient your life around the teachings and practices of Jesus. For example, every day, you see about 10,000 advertisements. 10,000. Every single one of those advertisements is trying to sell you something.

They are trying to not just sell you on getting a product, they're trying to sell you on the thing that their product is gonna solve in your life. And that is what we live in. Could you you're getting hit with 10,000

of those a day. You introduce social media and everything that falls into place with that, and it becomes incredibly difficult to not be concerned with what you have, what you don't have, how much you make, how much you don't make. There was a a study done on a group of people who make

about $50,000 a year. And they asked them, hey. What would you need to live the happy life that you've always wanted to live? And they said about a $100,000 a year. And then they took a group of people who made a $100,000 a year, and they said, how much would you have to make

in order to live the happy life that you always thought you could live or you'd want to live? And they said about $200,000 a year. And so it seems to be, we think that, and I am just just a little bit away, double my income or something, and I will be the happiest person alive. But you and I know that is not true.

We know that satisfying our desires through material things will not satisfy. And Jesus says, seek first the kingdom of God. And I believe that is the secret. That if we are to seek God's kingdom, to live this way in his teachings, going through the Sermon on the Mount, that's why we're going through it,

that there is a life for you and for me that is far beyond we ever could have imagined that you will never find chasing what's next. And so what does that mean? My my mind always if you've heard me teach before, I get very practical. I like the practical. Like, okay, seek the kingdom of God above all else. How?

Great question. There's a lot of ways. There's a lot of ways we set up our life to seek the kingdom of God first. And for the early Christian, someone who has just given their life to Jesus and still trying to figure this all out, one great way to actually orient your life and take,

more of an approach of God's possessions. Everything we have is a gift and of the grace of God is through what has been commonly referred to as the tithe. And so maybe you've never done that before and the thought of it is like, oh my goodness. And then you're like, oh man, this pastor is talking about tithing again.

But maybe, just maybe, the action of saying, here's money I make and I'm giving it away, is a way that you orient your life to seek the kingdom of God. To not store up your treasures here, but store them up in heaven.

And maybe you fall into more of where I would say I fall into is I've been going to church my whole life. My dad was, it still is a pastor, and, so tithing, just like we we did that, And it was very much so, like, that's what you did when you got a job. So I pretty much been tithing the moment I got a job.

But like I've said before, through my own experience, I still, generally speaking, can get very concerned and worried for the uncertainty of am I gonna be taken care of? Am I gonna be provided for? Does God have my bag? Those kinds of things still are something that I wrestle with.

And so maybe that's you, and you're like, man, I've been tithing forever, and I know the the wonder and the blessing on the other side of tithing because it's there. You experience it. You know God still provides for you. You know God is still there and that he's taking care of you even though you give that every time. It gets to the point where you go, I would never not do that.

But still, what do I do with the fact that I still get concerned and worried? Well, there's this practice, called fasting. And if you're here last week, what did we talk about? It is literally the paragraph of text and teaching immediately before this, prayer and fasting.

I do not believe that Matthew did this on accident. It is the genius of what he is writing, of Jesus' most famous sermons. He's putting it in this beautiful order for you and I to experience and read and hear and be changed by.

And so fasting is interesting because biblically speaking, it has everything to do with giving up food and drink with the exception of water for a period of time, and it's always for spiritual reasons. Nothing else. Spiritual reasons, food, and drink with the exception of water, and giving that up for a period of time.

And there's this wonderful book called, The Celebration of Disciplines by a guy named Richard Foster, And he says this about fasting. More than any other discipline, more than being community, more than praying, more than worshiping, more than fill in the blank of something Jesus did.

Think of it like that. Any discipline is something Jesus did. Being alone, silence and solitude, stuff like that. He says this, more than any other discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us. So maybe you've been tithing forever,

and fasting is something you could do to open yourself up to the spirit of God revealing in you what are the things that still have hold of me. Do I still believe the lie that I will be satisfied when I have this or when I have that or when I reach this paycheck or when I reach this amount?

It will reveal that in you. So maybe it's a twenty four hour fast and you do that once a week. I don't know. It these are things you can go do. Now I wanna talk about something you can do right now and that we are going to do right now.

Because our big idea is worry is a signal to worship. Worry is a signal to worship. I'm gonna nerd out on you for a second on neuroscience. I don't claim to be an expert. Okay? But I know just a little bit and enough to be dangerous. So

there's this thing in your brain called the amygdala. The amygdala is all about your fear response. It's the thing that can make you feel anxious or worried. It's your heart rate elevates and your blood pressure increases and you get that kind of like anxious feeling.

And then there's this other part of your brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus has everything to do with your fight, flight, and freeze response.

And so your amygdala, when it gets stimuli and it begins to invoke that response of like elevated heart rate, blood pressure, you're getting more tense. It will tell your hypothalamus, hey, get ready. We're either gonna, you know, fight, we're gonna get out of here, or we're gonna freeze.

And so that's what is happening. Now that's a really good thing in your brain Because if a car is coming at you and you are in the way of that car,

you don't need to go through the process of thinking, okay, car coming at me. I'm right here. Out of the way. By then, you're hit. So your brain does all this in milliseconds. It comes in. Heart elevates, oh my goodness, flight or flight. It's it's get out of there, flight, and you get out of the way. Like, there's story after story of, like, amazing near misses. Like, how did their reaction time was amazing? It's your body doing its thing. Really cool stuff.

When it's not necessarily all that great is when you are getting fearful,

overly concerned of am I going to be taken care of with the things I need or don't need or think I need or think I don't need, and am I gonna have what I am I gonna be able to keep up with the people around me and the friends I have? They make more. So I gotta make more so that we stay friends because what if they're not friends with me and they're only friends with me because we're in the same socio economical class and all this stuff and you get all worried and stressed about it.

That's not good if you're going into fight or flight response in that time. That's generally speaking where I land. Conversations about money in my house, you ask my wife, it's not fun. I'm not a fun person because when you go into that mode, you know what goes out the door? Reason. Empathy, care,

love. Because you don't need empathy, care, and love when a car is coming at you. You just need to move. And so what do we do to down regulate our amygdala when we start to get like that? In a 2018 study, they actually found that there is a really good way to train your brain to not enter into the fear,

the anxiety, the worry, and it was worship and prayer. Like, what? It's as if Jesus, two thousand years ago, the God of the universe, born as a baby, perfect in every way, knew something about how we were made.

That worry is a signal to worship. That worship literally has the ability to do something to you and to me, and that there is concrete evidence of that. It's as if he knew. It brings great clarity to passages like First Peter five:seven that says, cast your anxieties onto God.

It brings clarity to passages like Philippians four:six that can be used in a damaging way if you're not careful. Don't be anxious. Instead, pray about everything. Give thanks to God. It brings clarity to passages like that because it's saying, when the worry comes in, go to God. Seek the kingdom of God.

When the worry comes in, it's telling you check engine light is on. Hey, it's not you were not meant for this. Jesus has something better. You don't have to carry that alone. You actually get to know that your heavenly father cares for you dearly. It's like my wife with Nora. Hey, just come to me.

Just come to me. I got you. Your needs, I have you. That is what your heavenly father says to you and to me. Don't try to take it on yourself. It's not worth it. Don't think you just need a little bit more. No. You need God. You need the Messiah. May we regard everything in this world as nothing compared to knowing our Messiah,

our savior, Jesus.

That's what he calls us to do, to worship. And in Romans twelve one, it says this. It says, do not conform to the patterns of this world, but instead be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Isn't it wild to think that when you worship, you are literally renewing your mind?

The neural pathways of what to do when this kind of anxiousness or worry comes in is being rewrote.

And so I cannot think of a better way for us to, as a community together, than to stand and to worship. That we're gonna lift his name high because there are worries in this room, there are concerns, And he says, give them to me. I got you. He says, I am your shepherd. He says, I am with you. He says, give me your worries.

And so we do not have to fear because we know we have a God who has good plans for us and that we can live in contentment. That we do not need just a little bit more,

but we need to seek the kingdom of God. So will we all stand as I pray, and then we're gonna worship our hearts out. Dear God, I wanna lift everybody up in this room. If there's anybody here who is worried or anxious

or is concerned for the uncertainty that is around them. Maybe it's around their job. Maybe it's around just life. Maybe it is around possessions and thinking they need to buy things in order to be happy. Lord, will that all be given to you now in this moment?

As a community, will your spirit fill this place and do what only it can do? Will you transform us? Will you renew our mind? And when we worry, and when we get anxious, and when we are concerned with things of this life, will it be a signal to us to go to you, to praise you, to worship you, to orient our lives around you?

You are our shepherd. I will not fear. I give you all my worries. In your heavenly name, amen. Amen. Let's worship church.

And church, we know that to be true in Psalms where it says, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So I just encourage you all. Let's put into practice what we heard here today. Turn our worry into worship and declare this out. Come on.

Amen. Church. Well, if you experience worry in your week as you go, would you apply what Caleb talked about today and run toward God and use it as an opportunity to worship his name.

Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.