This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you back to day five, our last day of looking through the
second part of Matthew chapter six. We're going to look at verses 31 to 34
today. This has been a great passage to think about our possessions and how to
manage our possessions, just to hear what Jesus has to teach us, His decisions
in these most important questions of life.

Where do I put my treasure? Jesus says the investment decision is you put it in
eternity. How do I see my possessions?

Jesus says the interest decision is you become interested in others and you
give. Who will I choose as master? That's the management decision.

You can only serve one, so you serve God. How do I let go of worry? We talked
about this yesterday, the contentment decision.

Larry Burkett once said, "One of the greatest mysteries of Christianity is
contentment. At least one must presume it's a mystery because so few people have
found it. " So if you struggle with contentment, join the rest of us.

We struggle with this. So what's the secret? How do you begin to find more
contentment with your possessions?

Well, the secret is in this fifth decision. The question behind this one is what
is most important to me? And the decision is the kingdom decision.

This decision is actually the antidote to worry, the path to contentment. And
Jesus, as He's teaching about things, at the end of this passage, there are two
things He tells us to do. Number one, you put God first.

Number two, you live one day at a time. First, you put God first. Put God first
in every area of your life.

Verses 31 to 33, Jesus taught, "So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat? '
or 'What shall we drink? ' or 'What shall we wear?

' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that
you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these
things will be given to you as well. " Did you notice, as Jesus taught, He talks
about two ways to live life?

The running life and the seeking life. The running life. He's talking about,
"What do we eat?

What do we drink? What do we wear? " Pagans, He said, "They run after all these
things.

" This is called the rat race, the running life, that I'm running after these
things, trying to get them for myself. Every day is about running harder and
harder and turning the wheel faster and faster. The running life.

And Jesus says, "Pagans," that's a word for those who don't believe in God, who
have no belief in God in their life. They're involved in the running life, and
in essence, Jesus is teaching us here that worry is practical atheism. Worry is
practically saying, "You don't believe that God exists.

" Christians are not to worry because it's a poor advertisement for an almighty
God. It's acting like an unbeliever. God's never worried.

Can you imagine God saying, "Oh, I'm worried that the sun, is the sun going to
come up today? " No. He's created.

And out of that creation comes everything that He is. And He wants us to be like
Him, to be like Him. There's this running life that too many of us are caught up
in.

And Jesus says, "God did not make you live that kind of life. " So He talks
about a second kind of life, the seeking life. There are some who have stopped
running to start seeking.

Start seeking who God is, who they are, what life is really all about. Now, this
seeking life, there are some who are in the seeking life, but they're seeking
the wrong thing. They're seeking self-actualization.

They're seeking making themselves a God. They're seeking all kinds of things
that have nothing to do with the real God. Just because you're living a seeking
life doesn't mean you're living the right kind of life.

"What are you seeking? " is the question Jesus says. And He tells us what to
seek.

Seek first God's kingdom, His righteousness. All these things, they'll be given
to you. You want to have energy for living, you want to have a sense of purpose,
you want to be able to focus on what's important in life, Jesus says here's how
you do it.

Seek first God's kingdom. Make that number one in your life. Now, we talked
about this a couple of weeks ago, God's kingdom.

God's kingdom is where God is king. Your will be done. Your kingdom come.

Worry in essence indicates mixed up values. In any area that I'm worrying, one
of the things I think in the back of my mind is, "Okay, God, how am I not
putting you first in that area? " Because the fact that I'm worrying means I'm
taking the burden on my shoulders.

It's become all about me. So how can I put you first? The priorities that Jesus
is teaching here, they simplify life.

You have less to worry about. You have nothing to worry about in the end if you
seek God first. By the way, Jesus says, "If you seek God first, all these
things, they're going to be added to you.

" Now, he doesn't say how much of them or if you're going to get exactly what
you want, but he says, "God's going to meet your needs. " Contentment is never a
matter of more things. It's a matter of applied faith.

Epicurus said it long ago, "To whom little is not enough, nothing is enough. "
So contentment isn't about having more. Day after survey, when people are asked,
"What will it take to make you content?

" It's always 20%, 30% more than I have right now, whatever you happen to have.
Contentment is not a matter of more things. It's a matter of applied faith.

Contentment is not a result of my situation, but of my Savior. Contentment is
not a matter of what I have, but of whose I am. Put him first, God's kingdom
first, God's kingdom, God's righteousness.

Righteousness is understanding you've been made right with God by his
forgiveness, that you can live right for God by his power, so that you can be
right with the people that are around you through the good news of Christ,
sharing it with them and living it together with them. So God has made you right
so that you can be right so that you can live right, the righteousness of God.
So Jesus says first, you seek first God's kingdom.

When you're worrying, you ask, "What are my priorities? " And you say, "How can
I make God the first priority in a greater way? " But then Jesus says, "Here's
the second thing you do.

You live one day at a time. " I love Jesus. He goes from the highly spiritual to
the immediately practical because they both fit in this situation.

In verse 34 he says, "Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will
worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Each day has enough
challenge in it for me to seek God first.

Why should I be trying to seek God's righteousness, God's kingdom for tomorrow?
In fact, God hasn't given me the capacity to do that. Jesus is saying, "Don't
open your umbrella until it starts to rain.

" You're trying to live tomorrow and the next day and the next day and you're
overwhelmed. Of course you are. You're made to live one day at a time.

There are three days of each week not to worry about, today, yesterday, and
tomorrow. And that old phrase, "Today is the tomorrow that you worried about
yesterday. " Now if you're driving, that might be hard to think through fast,
but it is.

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. You can live that way or you
can live a different kind of way, the way that the book of Psalms invites us to
live. This is the day the Lord has made.

I'm going to rejoice and I'm going to be glad in this day. Now let me tell you
why this is so important, living only one day at a time, why Jesus teaches this
to us. You can see hundreds of reasons, actually, if you looked at this again
and again in the situations and circumstances of life, here's just three of
them.

Number one, in worrying about tomorrow's problems, you're going to miss today's
blessings. How many times has that happened? We are so focused on what you're
worrying about that you're missing the blessing that's happening right in front
of you, that God has just given to you.

The worry you have about tomorrow is spoiling today. So Jesus says, "Live one
day at a time. " Second, you can't solve tomorrow's problems with today's energy
and resources.

Now it's okay to plan for tomorrow. In fact, the Bible says that we should plan
for tomorrow, knowing that it's by God's will, not with a sense of pride. It's
okay to plan for tomorrow, but you can't try to live tomorrow today.

The future can seem so overwhelming. And so God has conveniently divided our
lives into bite-sized 24-hour compartments and we get sleep in between them.
When you think about time and how it passes, if a grandfather clock could think
about how it's going to have to keep ticking and keep ticking and keep ticking,
it would have a nervous breakdown.

That click clock, click clock, two ticks a second, 172,800 clicks a day, 62
million clicks a year. If it tried to think about all those clicks before it had
to click, it would click out. How about you?

Are you focused on today? Are you focused on living this day, the blessings that
God has for this day? In an hourglass, one grain passes through at a time.

What's the grain that God has for you today? What's the blessing that God has
for you today? You can't solve tomorrow's problems with the energy and resources
today.

What are the problems you have to face today? Don't pile on with the problems
that could happen tomorrow. That's what Satan wants to do.

No, you focus on one day at a time. Third truth behind this is what you're doing
is I'm deciding to trust God to care for things beyond my control. When I worry
about tomorrow, tomorrow's beyond my control.

I can't control it. So I have to trust God with tomorrow. The only way to do
this is to trust God with tomorrow.

The only way to live one day at a time is to trust God with today, but also to
trust him with tomorrow and to trust him with yesterday as well, by the way.
Worry and trust are mutually exclusive attitudes. They can't live in the same
house and the same person.

When trust comes in the front door, worry goes out the back door. Someone on our
research team asked about this. They said, "You know, I'm over 60.

I've been a Christian many, many years and I've struggled with worry all my
life. I know these verses, but I still struggle with worry. Is there any hope
for me?

" And yes, there is. There's hope for you. There's hope for every one of us who
struggle with this in realizing we live one day at a time.

Don't let the worries of yesterday overwhelm you. Don't let the worries you
might have tomorrow overwhelm you. Just give the worries of today to God.

There's two very practical ways to trust God today. One, don't panic, pray. And
two, learn and memorize some verses in the Bible.

First, don't panic, but pray. If it isn't worth praying about, it's certainly
not worth worrying about. And second, you learn and memorize some verses in the
Bible so that you can apply those verses when the worry comes.

The Bible is an insurance policy, in a sense, about all the problems that happen
in our lives. The insurance that God's going to give his love, his grace, his
strength in the midst of every circumstance. It's saying, "I am covered for
this, what I'm facing right now.

" And memorization, when you memorize, it means you don't have to frantically
search through the whole policy to try to find that which applies to what you're
facing right now. You know what it is. What I've learned about this, about
worry, I've learned that however bad the circumstance, the more I pray and look
to God's word, the less I worry.

And by the way, I've learned that however good the circumstance, when I stop
praying, when I stop looking to God's word, I can find any reason to worry. So
what has you worried right now? A marriage, a relationship, a job, the economy,
your family, health.

Let Christ make himself real. Trust God as your loving Father right now. Let's
pray.

Father, we just say to you in prayer, instead of worrying, we want to worship.
Instead of panicking, we want to pray. Instead of focusing on ourselves, we want
to focus on you.

So right now, here it is. Here's the thing I'm worried about. I don't just tell
you about that and work myself up more about it.

I worship you in this. I realize that you know, you've promised to take care of
my needs, that you're going to walk with me through this. Make yourself real to
me even through this.

Show me how to trust you even through this. Thank you that you're trustworthy.
Thank you that you love me.

Thank you that your promises are real for me. And I pray that this day, one day
at a time, this day I could live that truth. In Jesus' name I pray it.

Amen. We'll see you next week for chapter 7. Chapter 7 is how do you manage the
decisions and directions of your life?