Father Stephen De Young: “But woe to you Pharisees!”

We’ve talked before about woe, not to stop a horse [Laughter]. But woe in this parlance is sort of the equivalent of cursing today. Okay, I’m not going to curse, but that’s the effect, right? Woe is the opposite of blessed. It’s the opposite of blessing someone. So this isn’t blessed are you, Pharisees, this is cursed are you, Pharisees. That’s probably the politest way to put it.

“For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.”

You do this tithing. You tithe all your herbs, but you pass by justice and the love of God, which is more important? The reason he talks about tithing herbs is that this is one of the more picayune things, right? This isn’t 10% of your income. This isn’t 10%. He’s saying you go to the point that when you grow herbs, in your little herb garden, you go and pick 10% of the herbs, go and give those to the temple, right? You’re so fastidious about all these little rules, but you’re not worried about justice or the love of God. Which is more important that you pluck 10% of your mint leaves and bring them to the temple, or that you practice justice?

And notice, as I just mentioned, right? It’s not that you shouldn’t tithe. You should tithe, but you also need to work justice. You should be as fastidious about justice, you should be as fastidious about the love of God, you should be as fastidious about the love of your neighbor as you are about your herb garden.

Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.

You always want to be right up front, right? Why? Not so you can hear better. You want to be right up front so everybody sees you there. Everybody sees you there and sees how pious you are, right? You love it when people come up and greet you in the marketplace as a holy man. Oh, it’s one of the Pharisee.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them.”

Meaning you’re dead. You’re dead. And people don’t realize it. You don’t even realize it. Right? Now, keep in mind what’s our setting as Jesus says this?

Interlocutor: His house.

Fr. Stephen: He just got invited to this Pharisee’s house, sat down at his table, and the Pharisee hasn’t actually said anything to him. Jesus knows what he’s thinking, but he hasn’t actually said anything. And Jesus lets rip, because he knows what he’s thinking, and starts cursing him out. Literally, he’s cursing him, telling him that he’s accursed.

Then one of the lawyers answered and said to Him, “Teacher, by saying these things You reproach us also.”

[Laughter] So one of the teachers of the law is sitting there, right? Because of course, Pharisee’s house, he invited over his cronies to all be there while he hosts Jesus, right? And so the teacher says, “Hey, I’m not technically a Pharisee, but I think you’re insulting me too!”  And does Jesus say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you!”? No.

And He said, ìWoe to you also, lawyers! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.”

You come to people and you tell them all the rules and you laden them down with it. “Oh, you can’t do that, can’t do that.” Do you do anything to help them? Do anything to assist them? Are you trying to help them live better and more Godly lives? No, just making sure all those rules are enforced.

Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.

Because at this time, this was the time when there were a lot of building projects where they’d go to the tomb of a prophet and they build a little shrine there for people to go and pray. They said, oh, you think you’re so wonderful because you go and you build these beautiful little shrines to the prophets and you go there and pray… and you’re such a spiritual?  Your fathers are the ones who murdered them. That’s why they have tombs in the first place, right?

In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs.

You build the tombs, doesn’t show you’re pious, it shows you’re just like them. Just like them.

“Therefore the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’ that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.”

So again, generation here, this is genos, this is people, right? You’re the teachers of the law, you’re the Israelites of Israelites. You’re the ones who have all the traditions. Keep all the traditions. Well, I got a tradition for you. You have a tradition of murdering all the prophets God sends to you. It’s the blood of every prophet who was slain starting with Abel, that’s the first murder there was, up to Zechariah. Now, who is this Zechariah? You will sometimes hear people who will say, “Well, this is everybody from A to Z.” Unfortunately, zeta is not the last letter of the Greek alphabet, so that doesn’t work here. Omega is. Now, if it was everyone from Able to Hosea, which starts with the Omega in Greek, you might have a case. So, A to Z doesn’t work here.

Some people will say, well, Zechariah is close to the end of the Old Testament. Well, it’s not the end of the Old Testament, and it’s nowhere near the end of the Old Testament. Again, in the actual Bible they were reading at this time, right? Assuming they were reading the Hebrew text, Second Chronicles was the last book. Assuming they were reading the Septuagint, Daniel was the last book. That doesn’t work either. And so our understanding from history is recorded in the church, fathers. This Zechariah who was cut down between the altar and the temple, it literally says the altar and the high place, meaning the Holy of Holies in the temple was St. John the Forerunner’s father, who was murdered, and who was murdered at the time that Herod was killing the infants because he was trying to protect John. And that’s when John escaped into the wilderness. That’s why he grew up out in the desert, because he had to flee.

So this is from the beginning of time until just recently, is what Jesus is saying. That’s the Abel to Zechariah, the person who was just killed a few years ago, all the way back to the beginning of time, that’s all on you. That’s all on this people. That’s your actual tradition. That’s what your fathers did before you, the tradition of your father’s, that you’re continuing.

“Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.”

So, they’ve spent all their lives sitting there studying the Torah, studying the law of God, but they don’t understand it. Not only do they not understand it because of the way they teach it, they’ve kept everyone else from understanding it too, from understanding what it was really about. They’ve led people to become like them instead of leading them to God. So it’s like someone who has the key to a door and they take it, they get rid of the key to make sure not only can they not go through the door, but nobody else can either.

And as He said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to assail Him vehemently, and to cross-examine Him about many things,

Again, the only thing that has been said is the lawyers going, “Hey, you’re kind of insulting us too.” No one else has said anything, right? And Jesus has just cursed pretty much everyone whose invited in this house. Everyone there’s except his own disciples. So we need to keep this in account because every once in a while this is more common in Protestant circles than Orthodox circles, but every once in a while someone will say something that comes across as a little harsh and people will say, “Oh, that’s so un-Christlike. Why do you have to be… can’t you be more like…. Jesus was gentle and kind to everyone and compassionate. Can’t we all just get along? Right? We should just say nice positive things.” Okay, well, this is how Jesus talked to someone who invited him into their house for dinner. Because it was the truth, right? Because it was the truth and it was what they needed to hear, whether they wanted it or not.

So the scribes of the Pharisees, as he says these things they begun to assail him vehemently, they get upset, shockingly, that Jesus has cursed them.

and to cross-examine Him about many things, lying in wait for Him, and seeking to catch Him in something He might say, that they might accuse Him.

So they’re mad… “Oh we’re going to get this guy. This guy thinks he’s so smart. This guy thinks he’s so holy, we’ll show him.”

Beginning of Chapter 12:

“In the meantime”, Now again, I keep making a point of these transitions because again we tend to, it’s sometimes helpful to read sort of one story, one unit by itself and understand it. But we also have to keep in mind how they relate all the things Jesus says relate to each other. So, “In the meantime”, so while Jesus is having it out with the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, inside the house, outside the house:

an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together, so that they trampled one another,

So Jesus now comes out of the house and this huge crowd has gathered because they found out what Jesus had been doing and saying and that, oh, he’s in that house, right? So they’re all out there waiting for him. It’s such a big crowd. They’re shoving each other, they’re stomping on each other’s feet. Jesus comes out,

He began to say to His disciples first of all,

So he comes out and rather than addressing the huge crowd first, he says to his disciples who just came out of the house with him, right? They’re just walking out of the Pharisees house.

Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.

So why does he use the example of leaven?

Yeast is one of the paradigmatic things in the Old Testament Law that is unclean, right? You have to clean it out of your house to purify your house. So he talks about the leaven of the Pharisees. He’s really saying the uncleanness of the Pharisees. What’s another thing leaven does? Expands and spreads, right? So if you let a little bit of this get in, right, it’s going to fill everything. And what is that leaven? It’s hypocrisy. It’s hypocrisy, which is exactly what he was just talking to them about, Cleaning the outside of the bowl, keeping all these little rules where people can see them, and not changing your heart, not working on your heart. On the outside, you’re this wonderful holy person who’s going through all the motions, doing and saying all the right things, but inside you’re completely wicked, right? Just faking it.

And why does he say to beware it? Well, because there is nothing covered that will not be revealed nor hidden that will not be known. Just as Jesus already knows, because he’s God, what it is that’s going on in their hearts. Not only does God know, but also to be revealed, he’s talking here about the Day of Judgment. Ultimately, he said, the day is coming. You may think you’re getting away with it. You may think you have everybody fooled into thinking what a great guy you are, what a holy person you are. But God isn’t fooled, and they’re not going to be fooled forever. The time is going to come when the truth will be revealed. And everything that you’ve spoken in the dark, everything you’ve said when you’re by yourself and there was no one there to hear, right? Everything you’ve whispered in someone’s ear that you thought nobody knew about, that’s all going to be revealed. That’s all going to be made known.

Now, this can also be misinterpreted. Jesus saying, well, if you’re rotten, don’t act holy, just act rotten. This is how I typically use it, right? I don’t want to act holy because I don’t want to be a hypocrite. So I’ll just let everybody know what a louse I am, right? See, at least I’m not a hypocrite, right? That’s not what he’s saying. That’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying what he said to the Pharisees. You should devote the same attention to the reality, if not more to the reality, who you are in your heart and your soul as you devote to how people see you and how people look at you. And in fact, as he said, if you’re clean inside, then everything is clean to you. If you actually become holy, if you actually become pure, if you actually become loving, if you’re doing good out of your heart, you’re not going to have to worry about how people look at you. You’re not going to be concerned about what people think of you.

“And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!”

This is building off that we tend to be afraid of what other people think of us, right? Or what other people might do to us. Well, if I say that or, or I do that, they’ll get mad at me. They’ll get mad at me or they won’t like me. They don’t care about me, not just something bad to me. He takes the extreme example, they might kill you. Jonah going to Nineveh, right? That’s pretty much what he expected to happen, was he was going to show up and say, Yahweh’s going to destroy the city, and they were going to kill him. And he was so afraid, he ran in the other direction. We’re always worried about what other people think about us, what other people are going to do, how they’re going to react, how they’re going to respond, right? Jesus is saying you shouldn’t be worried about that. Who is it who has the power to kill and then cast someone into hell? God. You should fear God. You should be worried about what God thinks of you, is what he’s saying. You should be worried about what God thinks of you when he looks at you and he’s not fooled. That’s who you should be worried about. That’s whose opinion, that’s whose judgment you need to care about, not people. The worst people can do to you is kill you. That’s about the worst thing. They could kill you.

Well, if you have eternal life, if killing you sends you into the kingdom of God, what have they really done to you? But if you’re wicked and God knows you’re wicked, that’s something you should be afraid of. That’s something you should worry about. That should concern you.

“Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God.  But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

This, again, gets quoted a lot out of context. This is one of those passages that people use to say, “Well, nothing bad will happen to you, because God loves you, so He’ll make sure nothing bad ever happens to me.” I used to get this a lot as a kid. Anytime as a kid, I mentioned something bad that might happen. I got told, “Well, don’t you have any faith?” As if faith was believing that God would never let anything bad happen. Well, if that’s what your faith is, I don’t think anybody here is young enough to have not had that faith dashed several times. Bad things will happen to you, right? That’s not what faith is. That’s not what this verse is saying.

This is talking about, again, Jesus is building off of what he just said. What he just said. Yeah, these people can kill you. These people can fire you from your job. There’s various bad things that these people can do. But if you’re living in the love of God, you don’t need to worry about those bad things that they might do to you, right? God isn’t going to forget about you, and just leave you to these people, right?

Interlocutor: What does it mean they’re not forgotten?

Fr. Stephen: Well, it’s meaning that God is aware of who they are. Now, there are people who we’re going to find out, are going to be forgotten by God. That’s why we pray memory eternal, right? There are people who are going to say at the judgment, “Be gone, I never knew you.” But the point is that God is not unaware. There are also people who get mad about this passage nowadays, believe it or not. I read by a supposedly Christian author how terrible this verse is because it implies that animals are less valuable than people, which again, aside from being silly, is colossally missing the point. That’s not Jesus’s point. Jesus’s point is you buy two of these birds for two cents, right? They’re a penny apiece. That’s how important in the eyes of the world they are, right? But God created them, God knows about them, God cares about them. So, importance in the eyes of the world is a very different thing than importance in the eyes of God. So, that’s the point here. It’s not to devalue God’s animal creation or whatever else we might want to go off on a tangent about. The point is that value is not commensurate between the way the world looks at things and the way God looks at things.

“Also I say to you, whoever confesses Me before men, him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God. But he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God.

What is this? Well, why would someone not confess Christ? Remember, this is a passage that St. Luke thought was important to include for his audience of Christians 30 years later. Well, because they were going to get killed for confessing Christ, right? They’re going to be tortured and possibly killed for confessing Christ. And so they might shrink back out of fear of human beings and what they’re going to do to them. But he says, if you confess me before man, then I will confess you. I’ll remember you before the angels got in heaven.

This person who has done this will be rewarded by God, will be remembered by God. This is the flip side of what he said. He said, don’t fear men, fear God. This is the flip side. The person who doesn’t fear men doesn’t have to fear God, is remembered by God. “But he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.” If you’re more afraid of men, than you are afraid of God, then you’re going to have cause to fear God.

“And anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but to him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven.”

This is one of those things, another one that gets taken way out of context. What is the unforgivable sin? What is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Okay, well, this is where all of those conjunctions become important, right? Because we talked about some of the things that St. Luke uses as a disjunction where it will say, “and it came to pass”, or “and it happened”, where it stops one story and begins another story. We’ve been seeing a different we’ve been seeing, “meanwhile”, right? Or “just then, while he was speaking” all the way through. Since when? Since the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer. So this is all one, if we’re doing modern book chapters, this would all be one chapter, right? This has all been continuous.

So in that context, who is there who has spoken against the Holy Spirit? We read it tonight, it’s since the Lord’s Prayer. Remember, Jesus cast out the demons and some of them said what? He was demon possessed, that the spirit in him was a demon. What spirit is in Christ? The Holy Spirit.

We’ve had sort of an interregnum here, where Jesus, he spoke briefly about those people, but since then, he’s been talking about who? He’s talking about the other group that was waffling in between, the neutral group, the group that wasn’t committed, the group that heard his word but didn’t do what he said. Even the Pharisees, are a version of that. They spent their lives studying the Torah, they spent their lives studying the word of God, but they don’t do it. They don’t do it, right? And they are the ones asking for a sign. Now, we come back to those people, those people who pointed at the Holy Spirit and said, that’s Satan. That’s the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. It’s to point at the Spirit of God to say, that’s Satan.

And so what is Jesus saying here? You want to say something about Jesus, that’s one thing. But if you call the Spirit of God the spirit of the devil, if you call what God is doing Satan, that won’t be forgiven you. Why? You can’t, right? It can’t. If you say God is evil and you hate God, how could God welcome you into his presence for all eternity? You wouldn’t want to be there, right? Being in the presence of God for all eternity and hating Him is called hell. That’s what hell is. Definitionally, it’s like a married bachelor. It doesn’t exist. You can’t have it.

Well, what does he mean by speaking against the Son of Man, then? Who’s Jesus talking to? We were just told his disciples when he came out of the house, he’s talking to his disciples. What are all of them going to do? They’re all going to run. They’re all going to deny Jesus in one way or another. Either betray him, publicly deny him, run and hide. That can be forgiven them, even that. Even that can be forgiven them. But if they treat God as evil, if they abominate God and want nothing to do, there’s no forgiving there, right?

Because what’s he been talking about? He’s been talking about the Day of Judgment, everything he said relates to The Day of judgment. Everything that’s hidden will be revealed. That’s the Day of Judgment, right? Who should you fear? You should fear the one who end your life and cast your hell. That’s a day of judgment, right? You confessed me before man, I will confess you before the angels of heaven. That’s the judgment. He’s still talking about the Last Judgment.

You get to the Last Judgment, you’re not going to be able to go, oh, I guess Jesus was God after all, my bad, right? Too late, at that point, everyone’s going to realize that. But if you’ve lived a life of rebellion and wickedness, at that point, it’s too late. And so that’s not going to be forgiven you, even in the age to come, in the world to come, right? There’s no purgatory. There’s no place where it’s like, okay, you’re going to go to hell for a little while, but then we’ll let you off the hook if you come around.

That’s it at that point.

“Now when they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and authorities, do not worry about how or what you should answer, or what you should say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

This is continuing about not being afraid of men, right? Don’t be afraid of what they’re going to do to you, because God will remember you, and what’s important is his judgment, not what may happen to you at the end of his life. And not only should you not worry about what they’re going to do to you, you shouldn’t worry about, what do I say? How do I handle this? The Holy Spirit will show you how to handle it.

Interlocutor: Is this Scripture about martyrs?

Fr. Stephen: Yes. That’s who it’s talking about, right? That’s exactly who it’s talking about. And remember, when St. Luke is writing his Gospel, there have been martyrs and there are continuing to be martyrs. So these words of Jesus became particularly important because what he said came true. They were hauled in front of the synagogues and in front of the authorities and all these things. So all these things happened. And so the point was not if you have faith and trust that nothing bad will happen to you, it’s that if you have faith and trust in God, when these bad things happen to you, you’ll be delivered through the other… God will care for you, God will remember you, and you’ll see you through the other side, and you’ll have your reward.

Then one from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

So we go from the theological to the practical, right? He said, “Jesus, I got this no-good brother. He tried to take all of our inheritance. Tell him he should give me half. You’re a rabbi, you’re important. You go tell him to straighten up.”

But He said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?”

He says to him, why is it my job to probate your dad’s will?

And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for oneís life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.”

Because Jesus has just said a whole lot of very important things. And what has this guy been thinking the whole time, “Man, that no-good brother. I’m going to wait till he stops talking and I’m going to tell him about this no-good brother of mine.” That’s sort of a constant affliction for me and probably some other people, is that when other people are talking, you’re more thinking about what you’re going to say next than what they’re saying. That’s what this fellow is doing, too, right?

What’s Jesus point here? Jesus’s point isn’t that I’m not a judge. His point is, why is this your overriding concern? I’ve been talking to you about the kingdom of God, and you’ve been ignoring it because this is all you’re thinking about. What does that reveal about you? That reveals about you that the thing that’s most important to you, the most concerning for you, is money, in this case, money that you didn’t even work for, that you’re just inheriting. And so he says, look, he already said, beware of the letters of hypocrisy. You need to beware of covetousness, you need to beware of greed.

One’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses. What is life? Life is to know God, trusting God, not to have a lot of things, not to be rich.

Interlocutor: That reminds of a bumper sticker I saw a few years ago, “He who dies with the most toys, wins.”

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, no. There was an Internet meme that went around that had… it showed a picture of two graves right next to each other. And it says, no matter how much money and wealth you have, we all end up living in the same place. Somebody posted a rejoinder. They posted a picture of a grave, and a picture of one of the pyramids to make a funny point. But even the guy in the pyramid is still dead. Still dead. So it’s not helping him a lot.

But the point Jesus is making when he says this about one’s life, He’s still in the frame of mind of talking about the judgment. When we get to the end of our life and our life is accounted for, what’s going to set one life apart from it? This person lived a successful life. This person lived a good life. This person did not. What’s going to be the judge, the arbitration? What’s that going to be? Is that going to be the one who is the most successful in the world’s terms, had the most possessions, had the most wealth, who lived a good life, right? Or is that going to be the person who lived a good life? Those are two different things. Those are two different things.

And so, Jesus is tying it back to the point he was making. Well, you’ve been sitting here worrying about money, right? I’m talking about you standing before God, your Creator, and giving an account for your life on the day of judgment. And he’s not going to care about who got your father’s inheritance. That’s not going to be the concern. Who had the most money, who was the most prosperous.

“Then he spoke a parable to them.” So now again, this is immediately after he makes this point. So this parable he’s about to tell, this story he’s about to tell is going to be to illustrate that point.

Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’

“So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

So this guy is, from the world’s point of view, a smart, successful guy. One year he has a bumper crop. He says, “Man, I got so much grain, I don’t have any place to store all this gray.” He said, “You know what I’ll do? I’ll tear down the grain storage I got, build bigger.” This was life growing up in southern California, everything gets torn down and built bigger. There’s no building more than 20 years in old southern California at any given point in time, unless they make it a national monument to force them to keep it. Otherwise, you’ve got to tear it down and build a bigger one. Every few years he tears them down, builds bigger ones, stores all the grain. He says, “You know what? I got so much grain stored, I don’t have to work the rest of my life. I could just retire, kick back and take it easy. This is great. I’m brilliant, I’m sharp, I’m living the good life.” God says to him, “You fool, you’re going to die tonight. Who’s going to eat all that grain? Not you. Your sons will probably be fighting over it like this guy.”

So is the person who lays up for himself treasures on this earth. When all your focus is on this earth being so here and you don’t care about heavenly things. You’re a fool. You’re a fool.

Then He said to His disciples, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing.”

Now, again, these verses that get taken out of context, what’s the context? There’s a “therefore” there because of what I just told you, right? Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat, or about the body, what you will put on, because that’s not the thing that’s really important. That’s not the thing you should be concerned about. “I guarantee you that if you have faith, you will always have enough food to eat and you will always have nice clothes.” That’s not what he says. He says you should not worry about those things because ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, they aren’t important.

If you spend the rest of your life skinny, barely eating enough to survive and clothed in rags, but die and enter the kingdom of God, you’re going to be better off than the Sultan of Brunei if he dies and goes to hell. That’s why you shouldn’t worry. That’s why you shouldn’t worry about these things.

“Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds?”

Uh-oh, there goes that humans are more valuable than animals thing again.

And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest?

So he’s saying if one of you could make yourself taller by sitting around wishing you were taller than you could justify to me sitting around and wishing you had money and wealth and all this stuff, you can’t.

So again, his point about the ravens, not having barns and storehouses is not again, “You’re always going to have enough food, you’re always going to have… God feeds the ravens. Who feeds you?”

God feeds you. You don’t feed yourself. The reason you have food, the reason you have clothes, the reason you have everything you have, is not because you worked so hard and are just so darn smart, because you couldn’t have worked that hard or been that smart if God didn’t give you health and give you smarts and have you be born in the place where you were born at the time you were born. There none of that would have been possible. It’s not you. And since it’s not you, why sit there and worry about it? It’s not you.

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith?

Because you don’t understand that it’s God who’s doing this. Rather than worrying about it. Rather than building bigger barns. Rather than worrying about getting that money from your no-good brother, from your parents’ estate. You should be thanking God for all the things he’s given you and trusting Him to continue to care for you the way he always has. Because it’s not you who did it so far, and it’s not going to be you who does it tomorrow.

“And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things.  But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.”

This is another thing that’s quoted a lot out of context. This doesn’t mean if you’re seeking the kingdom of God, you’ll get a new car and a new house and a good job. This is continuing what Jesus has been saying. He says, look, you look at all the nations, all the Gentiles out there who don’t know God. The people who don’t know God, spend their whole lives chasing after, what? Money? Possessions, the good life, fun, right? They spent their whole lives chasing after these things, and where does it get them, the Gentiles? They’re bunch of heathens, right? It doesn’t get them anywhere. So why do you think it’s going to get you anywhere? Why do you think it’s going to get you anywhere? So why are you seeking these things, but instead seek the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you.

How do you seek the kingdom of God? By confessing Christ. By hearing his word and doing it. Because again, as he’s been saying, if your heart is pure, if your heart is clean before God, you don’t need to worry about any of these other things. Not that none of the bad things are going to happen, but you don’t need to worry about them. Because ultimately, when this life is over, eternal life, versus a few years on this earth, right? The grass is here for two days and thrown in a fire, right? The Psalms say all our days are as grass, right? As a flower of the field, so we flourish, right? We’re here for a little while and then we’re gone.

Compared to eternity, compared to eternal life, whatever we suffer in this life pales in comparison. And so, if we’re seeking the kingdom of God, if we’re seeking to have a pure heart before God, if we’re seeking forgiveness from God, if we’re seeking justice and the love of God, as he said to the Pharisees, these other things will take care of themselves, because they’re far less important. They’re far less important. Not that you’ll never go without food, but if sometimes you have to go without food, you’ll get through it. You’ll get through it with God’s help. There is a reward waiting for you that’s more important.

“Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Fatherís good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

So he’s saying not only should you not worry about this, but you know what? Go take all that stuff you’ve already accumulated, go sell that and give the money away. Why? He talked about giving alms earlier. Remember to the Pharisee? Said “You wash your hands, you don’t give alms.”

Getting rid of those possessions is purifying yourself. Cleansing yourself, of what? Of greed. Of covetousness. Wash yourself of covetousness. That’s more important than washing yourself of dirt. When your heart is pure before God, you’ll have treasure not in a money bag sitting at your waist that somebody could steal from you. That’s going to be gone when you die, one way or the other. But you’re going to have a treasure that lasts forever and eternity. When that time comes, and it is now time, to… I’ve rambled on enough. So we will gather again next week and pick up here in chapter 12, verse 35. So thank you, everybody.