“So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat? ’ or ‘What will we drink? ’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Do you really know who God is? How well do you know Him? Do you know what His character is? Those are all questions you may answer instinctively if you’ve been around the church long enough to be programmed to answer them in a certain way, or they may prompt a bit more reflectiveness in you. I’d like you to really give it some thought today. Yesterday at camp we talked about having a trusting heart. This is a heart that has a grasp of God’s character that goes beyond the surface. There are several places in the Scriptures that call us to have this kind of a heart. Here’s one we talked about yesterday.

This has long been one of my favorite passages. I always perk up when I hear it. This passage comes out of the middle of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The first part of the sermon deals with the standards of God’s kingdom. The middle part (chapter 6) focuses on our relationship with God. It begins with the worthlessness of religious acts as a means of getting right with God. It closes with a call to trust in Him. These two verses come from the end of that call.

Jesus talks through several things that are common sources of worry, telling us each time to not do that. Here at the end He gives us the reason in two parts. Let’s start with the second one. We’re not to worry about things like what we will eat or drink or wear because God knows we need them. This is an important thing to realize, but it comes with the need for a bit of knowledge.

God’s knowing we need these things doesn’t by itself preclude our worrying about them. His knowledge only offers up a solution to worry (my Bible titles this section “a cure for anxiety”) if we also understand that God is gracious and compassionate and kind. He is good enough to want to meet our needs and powerful enough to be about to do it. Because He knows what we need, we can count on His willingness and ability to meet those needs.

This is a point Jesus had already emphasized in the verses before these two by making a logical argument from the lesser to the greater. He told His audience to consider the various flora and fauna of the world. God faithfully provides for the rest of His creation. Why would we imagine that He wouldn’t provide just as faithfully for us? Jesus assured us that we are of far greater value to God than anything else in creation. His care for it points firmly toward the reasonableness of our expectations of His care for us.

But what about people who die of starvation and dehydration and exposure around the world every day? Isn’t that evidence that we can’t really trust God for all these things? Not at all. Such deaths are a tragedy, but they are the result of sinful mismanagement of the abundance God has provided us, not a sign of the lack of His provision. He doesn’t interfere with our freely made choices even when those choices hurt the people around us. And, much of His provision comes through the efforts of His people faithfully obeying His command to love like He does. If you are concerned that there is someone whose needs are going unmet by God, that very well could be a sign God is calling you to work on His behalf to see them met.

See how that works? It’s almost like He designed it that way…

This brings us back to the first part. Jesus said we shouldn’t worry about these things because that’s what the Gentiles do. What is gay supposed to mean? It sounds a little pejorative if you think about. It’s certainly a bit of stereotyping. Well, this was an example of Jesus’ meeting His Jewish audience where they were before moving them to where He wanted them to go. There was also a bit of truth to this as well.

How? Because of who the Gentiles were. Gentiles were (and are) non-Jews. At this point in history, God hadn’t revealed Himself to the Gentiles the way He had the Jewish people. That was about to change, but the Gentiles didn’t know Him as the good, gracious, compassionate God He is. And when you don’t know who God is, you are stuck with all the other gods we have invented to help us make sense out of life. The trouble here is that those gods are not good and gracious and kind like He is. They are cruel, capricious, and uncaring. The Gentiles couldn’t rely on them to provide for them. Because of this, getting their hands on what they needed to get through life depending on them and what they could do. Well, we can’t do much on our own, so all we can do is worry. Thus, Gentiles worry about these things.

Do you see the implications of what Jesus is saying here? They’re not terribly comfortable. If you worry about things instead of trusting in God, you are behaving like someone who doesn’t have any idea who God is or what He’s like. Worrying is simply not something a follower of Jesus does. Worrying is what someone who has no relationship with Jesus does. If you would claim to be a follower of Jesus, but are worrying about things, you are acting like you aren’t. Stop doing that.

Instead, go beyond the surface in your relationship with God and develop a trusting heart. Learn to take Him as He is: someone you can trust completely. He will never fail or forsake you. His action toward you may not take the form you want or expect, but if you will take Him on His own terms, you will never lack for anything you need.