Matthew 6: 24-34

I was reading through a medical bill that came from my insurance company.  Down towards the bottom there was a charge for me receiving what was called Neuromuscular re-education.  What on earth is that?  Did my physical therapist really do that?  Maybe he should have asked me first.  I’m not so sure I wanted my neuros to be reeducated.  Well I found out what it was.  It actually was something that helped with my back pain. Something simple with a fancy name.   How about that!  Neuro re-education.

Well here Jesus was teaching his disciples.   Once more in the Sermon on the Mount.  He came to them as he comes to us today in his Word.  Here Jesus looks to do some reeducation.   But not my nerves and muscles.  Rather my heart, my way of thinking and looking at life.   And even if you or I have been Christians a long time, we need Jesus’ words again and again.

Something like our cars.  We drive them and sooner or later we notice.  My car doesn’t go straight.  Let go of the steering wheel and it veers one way or the other.   Not good. So we have to keep bringing it in to straighten the wheels.

You and I are like that.  Not our wheels, but our hearts.  Again and again we need Jesus to do some reeducation, some heart realignment.  For how easily this world and our own sinful hearts throw us off.  How easy it is for us to look at what we have as all important.  How easy it is to get all caught up with having or not having.  So let Jesus’ word speak to your heart.  Let it reveal your heart, evict any greed or worries, and settle into a quiet trust in the Lord.

²⁴ “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.  A husband and wife take their dog to the park.  They let the dog off the leash.  One walks behind.  The other ahead.  Then both call the dog.   Whose voice does he obey?  Who does he run to?  He can’t run to both.  Only one.

It’s the same with God and our money and possessions.  If you are devoted to one, you can’t be devoted to the other.  If you make one important to you, you make the other unimportant.  So Jesus is warning us here.  He is challenging us to look into our hearts and see.  To who or what does my heart belong?  Am I fooling myself by thinking I can have it both ways.  It’s not a  both…and.  It’s an either… or.  You cannot serve both God and Money.  And if it’s money, if that’s the love of your life,  that love will leave you empty and abandoned.

Of course someone might say that’s not my problem.  I don’t have much of anything.  Jesus’ disciples were like that.  Like so many people today these Galileans lived from day to day on the little they had.

But the problem is not what someone has in his hand or his garage or bank account.  The problem occurs  in our hearts.  Where are we looking for life?  Where do we place our confidence?

We may say to ourselves, I’m trusting in the Lord.  But then something comes along that says something different.  Worry.  Now don’t misunderstand.  We’re not talking about the concern we sometimes have for others.  We may even say, I’m worried about my children’s education.  I’m worried about the neighborhood you live in.  It seems unsafe.  But that’s a concern born out of love.

This worry is born out of something else.  A heart that is forgetting or ignoring what it means to call God our Father.  You and me sometimes.   ²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Let’s be clear.  Jesus is not talking about opening the refrigerator or closet and saying I just can’t decide what to eat or wear.  He is talking about worrying that you might not have something to eat or wear.  Will I have a place to live when I lose my house?

Those seem like big things. They are not.  We eat to live not live to eat.  Life is so much more than what our body needs.  Yet we can let those worries consume our hearts when we don’t know where it’s coming from.

But we do know.  We know who it’s coming from.  Jesus says: ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.?

It’s kind of interesting the way Jesus talks to us here.  He could have just said.  Stop worrying. Instead he gently schools us.  He has us consider how God provides for even the birds. Think about it.   I like to hang a finch sock full of seeds on a tree out back. They don’t need me to do that.  I do it because I enjoy seeing those finches.  Whether I hang the thing or not, God richly provides for them.  So here’s the question for you when you let your heart well up with worry.  Jesus asks you.  Are you not much more valuable than they?

What answer does Jesus expect?  Yes, you are. Some animal lovers would disagree, but you are so much more valuable.   Start with this world.  Our Father in heaven made this world in all it splendor for us.  He spent six days getting everything ready before he created mankind.  But that’s not even the half of it.  Look at the cross.  That reminds us.  You are so valuable that God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all.  And what he did for all, he did for you.  Jesus took your sin, your guilt and gave his life for you.  He suffered your death.  He won your forgiveness.  Then one day in your life, God came to you in the gospel.  You didn’t come to him.  He came to you,  gave you the Holy Spirit and made you his believing child.  You are THAT valuable to the Lord.

So why worry?  Does it make any sense for one so precious to God?   And for that matter Jesus reminds us it does us no good. What do we gain?   ²⁷ Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Anyone here succeeded?  Of course not, Worry can might even make your life shorter and certainly sadder. Remember that song?  Don’t worry be happy. How’d it go? In every life we have some trouble, when you worry you make it double.

But Jesus is not done with us.  He asks us again.  For some of us are very accomplished worriers. ²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Last season we had some beautiful sunflowers growing in our community garden.  One was so big and beautiful that I wanted to draw a smiley face on it.  Yet God designed them not just for us to admire.  Their God-given beauty was designed to attract pollinators like Honey bees.

Well think about what Jesus teaches us. A  lily a blade of grass or a sunflower last only a season.  But look.  Look how God clothes them.  So then what about you?  You are going to last more than a season.  Much more.  The gift of God to you is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.  So then, Why do you worry.   Jesus asks and answers doesn’t he.  O you and me of little faith.

³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

I remember going out to the garage when I was kid.  I came out with something I had no business carrying.  What are you doing with that? my mom or dad asked me.

What are you doing with worry?  It’s not yours.  Worries about stuff belong to this unbelieving world.  Not you, God’s child.  For you belong to the Father who knows you and cares for you.

And now comes the important part.  If you’ve been sort of listening, now the time perk up and pay attention.  This is where our hearts belong.  Not consumed by what we consume.  But this.  Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness.

Remember the sisters Mary and Martha.  Jesus came to eat with them.  Dear Martha was all worked up and worried about getting supper ready and just right.  She overlooked what was most important.  What Mary was doing.  She was sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to his Word.

You see, Mary had her priorities straight.  She was seeking God’s kingdom and his righteousness.  For God’s kingdom is when he comes to our hearts in his Word.  It’s when he comes to rule in our hearts not with a clenched fist but with an open hand, a hand once nailed to a cross for us all. That kingdom begins with faith in Christ that covers our sin with his perfect righteousness. It begins with faith that wants to serve, honor and obey our Lord who loves us so.  And what will we find. What does our Lord promise us about our basic needs?   Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. When we lived in New Mexico the winds would bring all kinds of tumbleweed our way.  Left alone they would pile up everywhere.  Against the house, the fence, all over.  So what did my wife do.  One by one she dragged them out into the wind and let them blow away.

Can’t we do the same with our worries?  Drag them out and let God’s Word blow them away.  For In Christ, God is your dear Father and you, you are His dear child.

1John 3:1

Lavish.  What comes to mind?  Maybe a scene from someone’s Valentine’s Day.  She comes home from work.  There are some roses and a card.  Nice.  We’re going out to dinner he says, so she gets ready.  But then a limousine drives up.  We’re going some  place special. Lavish, wouldn’t you say?

Yet Valentine’s Day can’t take the place of a consistent, giving love in a relationship.  Real love, love that counts for something is more than a lavish moment.  That love takes time.

We’ve come here today to think about the love God lavished on us.  Time and again, his love for us stands out.  And now the Lord would have us think of the time he gives us in this life.  How do we use it?  You see,

Love Takes Time
I.  God’s time for us, his children (1a)
II.  Our time to grow in His love
III.  Our time for people that do not know him

The apostle John by now is an old man.  He has seen so much in his years as Christ’s apostle.  Some very wonderful things.  But also he has seen how this world can treat those who follow Christ.  Yet even with those painful memories of Jesus’ people put to death and mistreated, even with those continuing threats, John’s heart spills over with this: How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1)

That love that made us God’s children.  That love that counts us as God’s children.  That love took time.  It takes time. God’s time. His time for us, his children

I think about his time in a garden long ago.  Our first parents Adam and Eve had made an awful decision.  To stop trusting in God and believe a lie.  Now instead of peace, they were afraid. Instead of innocence and joy they knew guilt.  And instead of life, they faced death.

And even though this happened long ago, it was like you I and  were there.  For the tragedy of Adam and Eve became ours when the time came for us to be born into this fallen world.

But we see something else in that garden.  God’s time for us, his children. Think about it.  When our Father had every reason to be done with us, he spoke a very special promise.  A promise that would give hope.  A promise that would offer forgiveness and life to dying sinners like you and me.  A promise of God’s time for us his children.

We know what that time would bring. ⁴ But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, ⁵ to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. (Gal 4:4,5)  The life Jesus lived was God’s time for you.  Every moment of every day, was time lived for you.  It was time lived as we should live, but fail.  The Son of God took our place in this life and then stepped up to suffer what we deserve.  He stepped up to make it possible for sinners like you and me to be God’s children.

But that love took time. It took God’s time, the Son of God’s time, to bleed and die for each of us. It took time, agonizing time for him to pay the price to  set us free.  But that’s what we are in Him.  Free from guilt, free from death. Free to live our lives in hope.

But God’s time for you did not end there.  God’s time for us reached right into our lives. It had to otherwise we would still be lost.  You see, we don’t come into this world as children of God.  But look what God the Holy Spirit took the time to do for you. ²³ For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. (1Peter1) Sometime in your life the Spirit changed your heart to believe what you could not before.  He came to you in the word, the word with the water of your baptism, the word shared with you and gave you a new birth as a child of God.

Now think of what his love takes time to do.  This God over the whole universe has time to hear your prayers as if you were the only one speaking to him.  He has time to be with you every step of life’s way and hold your hand as you go.  And in time, he will bring you to another kind of life.  A life where you won’t have to worry about time.  About your time, or the time of those you love.  That’s God’s love for us, his children.  A love that made us his children.  A love that treats us as his children.  Yes, a love that takes time.

Now we have this time.  He gives us this time, 24 hours in every day. Here I’d like you to think about something.  One of these days you are going to look back and wish you had spent more time with someone.  I wish I had spent more time with my mom before she got Alzheimer’s, before she drifted away into a fog.  For love takes time.

What about the Lord?  Again love takes time.  This is our time.  Will we use it? This is our time to grow in God’s love.  Think of what St Paul wrote to the Ephesians.  And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,

Well how does that happen?  How do we grow up in that love?  How do we begin to stand in awe of God’s love for us in Christ?  That love takes time.  It takes time in God’s Word. For there we begin to realize how lost we were and what we really deserved.  Yet God’s hand reached out to save us.  It reached out to draw us near as his dear children.  But that love takes times.  It takes our time to be in this Word. It takes our time to come to Holy Communion where Jesus comes to us in such a special way.   So take the time.  Our time to grow in God’s love.

Well that love, God’s love, gives birth to another.  John says it this way in chapter 4:1, Dear friends us let us love one another, for love comes from God.   But again that kind of love takes time.

Often we find ourselves pressed for time.  The demand of this life can crowd out the people God has placed in our lives.  Sometimes we have no choice.  A soldier is deployed to the other side of the world.  Some jobs require travel.  But part of that press for time can come from the choices we make.  How do we use our time? We say we love our spouse, our children.  We say we care about our brothers and sisters in Christ.  But what do our choices say?  My choice to spend so much time on the internet, my choice to spend so much time on the job or doing my hobby or playing golf with my buddies. Could that be the reason we have little time for each other? Could that be the reason we have no time for a widow who has lost her best friend.

Years ago, when Karen and I were first married, the Coast Guard offered tuition refunds if you took a college course.  We were barely married when I signed up for a course to begin my master’s degree.  So I would come home from work, eat supper and hole up in my room to study.  What a great way to begin your life together.  I finally wised up. No more of that!  Because you see, Love takes time.  Time to care, time to serve, time to listen. Time to help. That’s time well spent. That’s love that comes from God.

But God wants his love, God wants our love to go out in another direction.  And that love takes time too.  Our time for people that do not know the Lord. Think about what John writes here. The reason the world does not know us (as children of God) is that it did not know him.

When John uses the word know, he’s talking about more than just knowing that there are some folks called Christians who pray to Jesus and call God their father.  Many people know that.  John is talking about knowing Jesus as my Savior from sin and death who has made me his Father’s dear child.  But how can they know unless someone tells them?  How can your friend know? How can your boyfriend know?  How can your apartment manager know unless someone cares enough, loves enough to tell them what Jesus has done for you. How can they know unless you invite them to a Bible class, or a worship service where can they can hear.  For faith comes from hearing the message. (Rom v10:17)

But that love takes time.  Our time for people who do not know the Lord.  For God’s time was also for them.  His time on the cross.  His time to come out of his tomb in victory over sin and death. That time was not just for you.  It was for them.

So now he calls on us to use our time.  For love takes time.  And so here I’d like to encourage you to do just. This next Saturday and Sunday… You see it in your bulletin.  Look at it with me.  On Saturday… On Sunday…(Outreach Seminar…Mission Festival)

I’m looking forward to seeing you there.  It’s easy to say: I love God. I love Jesus. It easy to say we care about the lost.   But remember: Love takes time.  Amen.