Borrowing Trouble From Tomorrow

I invite you to turn with me this evening to Matthew chapter 6.  Matthew 6 is one part of a long sermon that Jesus gave on a mountain in Galilee, it’s a sermon that calls for lots of sermons.  A responsible preacher would probably offer you about a dozen.  But I think there’s a mountain size message in this chapter and to see if we have to stand back and try and look at the hole and that’s what we will do this evening.  Matthew chapter 6.  Let me begin with a word of prayer.  Let’s pray together. 

Gracious Father, we ask tonight that this text would reveal its treasures as we approach it with the key of prayer.  Your own name is the watchword that opens the vaults of heaven.  So, shower us with blessings tonight we pray by your Spirit and we ask this in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Matthew chapter 6 beginning at verse 1. 

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

² “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. ³ But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴ so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

⁵ “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. ⁶ But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

⁷ “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. ⁹ Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.^[a]
10 Your kingdom come,
your will be done,^[b]
    on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread,^[c]
12 and forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from evil.^[d]

¹⁴ For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, ¹⁵ but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

¹⁶ “And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. ¹⁷ But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, ¹⁸ that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

¹⁹ “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust^[e] destroy and where thieves break in and steal, ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

²² “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, ²³ but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

²⁴ “No one can serve two masters, for 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 God and money.^[f]

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?^[g] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹ Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. ³³ But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

³⁴ “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

This is the Word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.

It often happens that men make sacrifices not so much to God, as to themselves, so said a 16^th century Protestant reformer named John Calvin as he read Matthew 6 and observed the city in which he lived.  In saying men make sacrifices to themselves, he wasn’t suggesting this was principally a male problem rather than a female problem, or more of an adult problem than a child problem.  What he meant was that people and all kinds of people make sacrifices not so much to God as to themselves and perhaps you can immediately begin to think of examples of how this is true, ways we do religious things, offer sacrifices more for us than for our Lord.  Here Jesus mentions just three.  He summarizes it as blowing a trumpet while helping the needy or praying on a street corner or making yourself look half dead when you miss breakfast and decide after the fact to call the fast.  A modern equivalence that I’ve seen include enlarging a photocopy of a check given to charity, so the media won’t miss what’s happening, standing up and offering a loud and long prayer of thanks for a meal in McDonald’s, and repeatedly sharing with co-workers that you’re watching your blood sugar levels today because you’re fasting.  Jesus calls these kinds of showy practices of righteousness trumpets in verse 2.  What a good term.  We’re playing the trumpet when we do an act of kindness because we know we’ll be noticed.  We’re honking our own horns when we’re more careful about our public acts of piety than our private ones.  We’re blowing the brass when the quality of our Christian service corresponds with the number of people who will set it rather than doing our best to the glory of God.  You see it often happens that men make sacrifices not so much to God, but as to themselves.  Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking we’re blowing the trumpet quietly. 

In middle school after a series of failures I was permanently assigned the trumpet, I was not a natural, which is a way of saying my teacher promised me a passing grade if only I would never play in a school performance, but I did learn by sitting quietly with those who were playing in these performances something about trumpet playing and that is it takes a lot of skill to do it quietly.  Usually, our trumpet blowing is not nearly as subtle as we think it is when we’re trying to score a little praise, people have no trouble hearing what we’re really doing.  We might be attempting some quiet trumpet play when we drop a comment about a ride we gave or a meal we made.  Elders and decans might have trumpets on our lips when we mention how busy we are, so others that can be cued to admire our commitment to the church.  You can hear trumpets again when we brag about our Bible reading, or when a parent offers more thankful prayers for food, not because it’s better than usual, but because guests are present.  Of course, in these sorts of things we’re, not always, but often looking for praise, and of course it is healthy for Christians to praise one another, to encourage each other for the good they do.  The problem isn’t with their praise, it’s with our motives and that’s what Jesus addresses here.  I say it’s a problem, you kind of know it’s a problem, why do we know that?  Well, we know it’s a problem because Jesus himself always did the opposite.  When Jesus helped people in need, he routinely told them to keep quiet about it.  When he fasted or prayed it was in deserted places where only his father could see and hear him.  And we know it’s a problem because of how Jesus talks about showiness right here in Matthew chapter 6.  As Jesus introduces this topic in verse 1 he says, “But where”, or “Look out”, as though showing off was some kind of a monster that could eventually consume us.  Beware Jesus says of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. 

So why is trumpeting our pious moments such as danger, what’s the real problem with performing for other people?  In fact, why does Jesus go so far as to say in verses 2 to 4 that people should give so slyly with their one hand that their other hand barely knows what’s going on.  Why does He tell us to offer our personal prayers in private, why does He call us in verses 5 to 15 to replace hyped up repetitive prayers with simple thoughtful prayers such as the one He gave to His disciples.  Why does he tell us in verses 16 to 18 something like when you’re fasting you should splash a little water on your face, maybe use a little Old Spice or get something from Bath and Body Works so people do not suspect that you’re fasting and humbling yourself before God in an intense season of prayer and intercession.  Well perhaps praise seeking is dangerous because it’s addictive.  Unfortunately, once we taste a little praise we develop a huge appetite for more.  Perhaps praise seeking is dangerous because it makes us too sensitive to criticism.  Once we become sponges for the opinions of other people, critical comments that should probably bounce off us get absorbed by us.  I can think of other reasons why praise seeking and trumpet blowing is problematic, and I suppose you can too.  As it happens, the Lord gives us His own answer at no less than three places, or at least he gives that same answer three times.  We see Jesus’ explanation of the danger of trumpet type righteousness in verses 1 and 4, then in verses 5 and 6, and then again in verses 16 and 18 and here’s what our Lord says, “When I do something for you to see and praise, that’s all I get.  Your approval is my full reward.” 

So, if I came here this evening to hear someone say thank you at the end of the service, if that was my purpose for preaching, that would be my reward.  A sort of one to two second buzz and then it would be over.  Maybe, what an amazing sermon pastor or preacher.  I get a four to five second buzz, but that would be it.  Maybe some flatterer would say, I haven’t heard such a good sermon all week.  That would give me a 10 second buzz until I noticed their nursing scrubs and figured out, they had to work during the morning service.  But if I’m serving for your praise, Jesus says to me again and again, that’s all you’ve got, that’s your full reward.  And with all due respect, that’s not very much.  But what’s worse is that we get the 1 to 10 second buzz in exchange for something else.  If you’re a Christian serving God with a humble gratitude for the salvation that He’s purchased and secured in Christ, your gifts, your prayers, your fasting are seen by your Father in heaven and your gracious Father who sees what you do in secret will reward you, and that’s a good reward.  But if, as Jesus says in verse 1, we’re doing it for others, we have no reward from our Father in heaven, what’s our Lord saying?  It’s this, every time we purposefully perform our good deeds for the praise of other people, we’ve given up the praise of God.  We are substituting what God can give for what people can give.  We’re like Esau selling our inheritance for a bowl of stew.  It’s obviously a bad exchange and yet we do it.  We do it often, to different degrees, but in all kinds of ways, so why, why do we do this?  Well surely, we often blow our trumpets because we are restless for reward, we’re impatient for praise.  Now we know that getting reward from people is a poor substitute for a reward from the Lord, but we convince ourselves that we’ll blow the trumpet just this once.  After this I will be content with the reward that God gives.  I’ll get the praise of my peers this time and the praise of my God other times.  We’re restless for reward. 

But we also blow our trumpets because we worry about tomorrow.  The reward of praise gained today seems more secure then that which is promised in full on the last day. A cookie in hand just seems so much better than two in the jar.  Whatever the reason for what we do, Jesus is surely right to warn us, beware of practicing our righteousness before other people.  The point is that each public performance, each quiet attempt to steal a little praise, each toot of the trumpet weans us away from the Lord and the true value, the eternal value of what He has to offer that leads us to look for rewards in the wrong place, and there’s nothing innocent about that because it tutors us to live horizontally rather than vertically.  Living to be seen by others blinds us to the fact that we are to live before God.  What seems like a little innocent trumpet blowing is often a symptom of a serious spiritual problem and unless we repent and ask for forgiveness and trust that God has more to give, it could end very poorly.  That’s why He tells us to be patient for His reward.  God is good and our Father who sees in secret will respond to His children in a way that will leave us very satisfied.  Beware our trumpets.

Well Jesus warns us natural trumpeters in verses 1 to 18 not to be too restless for rewards, it makes sense that in verses 19 to 24 He would tell us not to be too impatient for treasure.  The truth is that treasures on this earth don’t last longer than rewarding words.  Worldly possessions and rewards have a real value to be sure.  A warm home, a warm word of praise, these are good gifts in this world.  But it is no wiser to live for the house than it is to live for that praise.  Treasures in this world don’t last.  There are no moving vans behind hearses.  When we went to live in England, I left two decent suits and one vehicle in Philadelphia.  What did I return to a few years later?  Well, the moths made my suits so full of holes that they looked like they had been pinned up for NRA target practice and in spite of the wonderful caretakers of my truck, and in spite of the more important fact that it was a Ford truck, a rust was having the last word there too.  Well, if it’s not the moths and the rust, it’s the mice and the rats.  That’s what Martin Luther called the thieves that Jesus talks about in verse 20, in words that could have been penned in perhaps any American city in the past half year.  Luther writes that in the cities there are not only the people who break into a citizen’s house, but also the ones who cleverly and secretly suck out a city’s resources with their usury and their swindles in the market and wherever else they can, wherever people live together in the world it is full of such rats and mice.  Of course, what our Lord commands instead in verse 20 is the reward that only God can give.  Lay up for yourselves our Lord urges us, treasures in heaven, where moth and rust and mice and rats don’t have a place.  Store up treasure in heaven that’s weighty, that’s durable, that’s worth the wait however long that wait may be, no matter how much faith that wait may cost, no matter how hard it is not to be anxious.  Why, why is it so important to do so, well because this is what Jesus did.  He despised every privilege on earth in order to win us a place in heaven, that’s where His own heart was set and because of what Jesus said where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

You have a few hundred thousand dollars lying around, not a typical problem, but just work with me.  You could build a cottage in the mountains or a house at the shore or at least get a start on it.  You get to draw up the plans, you get to chose the right materials, but you’d have to make sure the plans were actually followed and are considered sort of artistic concepts for the architect.  You’d wanna make sure inferior materials weren’t substituted for the proper ones.  You get to choose the cabinetry and the trim, but you’d wanna be around to answer all those little unexpected questions that come around the corners and the edges, you’d get to decorate, but you wanna make sure the paint looks right in the light in the evening.  You’ve gotta protect the place just in case something goes wrong when you’re not there and the more you put into the house the more your heart would be there.  Not just because you’re proud of what you’ve built or scared about what you’ve spent, not just because you’re looking forward to vacations there eventually, but because you made a commitment of time and money and emotion and attention that you wanna respect and protect.  Where your treasure is, that’s where your heart will be also. 

If you had a few hundred, or thousand or hundred thousand dollars in the bank you could give it to foreign missions.  You’d suddenly follow with a renewed interest the opening of new fields that were not able to be visited before by missionaries.  You’d be keen to know the names of those who are servicing and the people that they’re helping.  Of course, if there are mission efforts of your church that were threatened in some way you’d be more fervent in prayer.  You wouldn’t want those resources and the resources of others to go to waste or be misappropriated.  For in the field where our treasure lies, that’s where our thoughts and cares tend to roam.  Where your treasure is, our Lord says, there your heart will be also.  Another way of saying that as Jesus says in verses 23 to 24, it has to do with perspective.  The challenge is to see clearly.  Good eyes are needed to see well, you process sights around you if you’ve got good vision.  If you can’t see well, if you’re blind, the opposite is true.  If what’s meant to let in the light only offers darkness, how great is the darkness.  Even though many blind people cope astonishingly well with their lack of sight, the observation holds true that people tend to stumble in the dark. 

Jesus talks about good and bad sight, light and darkness, it’s a metaphor for the way in which we understand this creation and the creator.  The way in which we see people and God, if the eyes of our heart are clouded and darkened, we won’t see what’s most important, we won’t understand where our priorities lie.  And of course, that applies to the way we see rewards and treasures.  We need clear spiritual sight in order for us to see where our own hearts are and which master we serve because as Jesus goes on to say, we cannot serve two masters.  Now that’s hard for us, I think there are thoughtful Christians who find it hard to take to heart what Jesus is saying about the heart.  We hold out the possibility that just maybe we’re special and maybe we can give the whole two masters thing the old college try, and it will work out in our case.  After all, God and money are both masters, but don’t we all know that they’re hardly equal.  Money, possessions exists in God’s world, it’s part of His plan for it to be there.  It can be used well and often is.  But let me be clear as our Lord was, it’s not so much that God and money are the rivals, it’s the love of God and the love of buying power, financial security, net worth, and the artifacts of every kind of success, these are the true rivals and why is this so important, how do we know, well it’s at least interesting to see how far Jesus stayed away from such rivalry himself if we can speak this way because he left the treasures of heaven to live with poor peasants.  And if it’s important to see what Jesus did, it’s important too to see what He said.  Jesus said that the one who loves God will think so little of money and its charms that He will despise them and Jesus said that the one who loves money will think so little of God that he will despise Him.  Our Lord is surely right when it comes to the mastery of God and possessions.  We cannot serve them both.  I don’t know about you, but I feel the pull of what we can get now.  It seems more sure, we can hold it in our hands and see it with our eyes, but God is good, and He has reserved a treasure for His people that is worth waiting for.  In fact, it has been bought with us at a great price by the one who gave us the Sermon on the Mount.  Why be satisfied with less, let us be patient for His treasures.  Rewards from a Father in heaven, treasures in heaven, these are the promises in part of tomorrow and we find tomorrow is difficult.  We worry about them because we’re anxious about so many things. 

Some of you will know verses 25 to 34 well even though it was spoken 2000 years ago.  Do you know who worries about things like eating and drinking mentioned in three verses, or health in verse 27, or clothes mentioned in six verses.  Who in our day and age really cares about the last donut, is anxious about what they’re gonna wear to church or about how long they’re gonna live, maybe not you, but even if you can’t relate to any one of Jesus’ examples, I’m sure you still get the main point.  We all worry about something.  To quote a line from an elderly lady from a former church where I pastored, we all borrow trouble from tomorrow.  Will God really provide for my reputation?  What about all the people who don’t seem to like me, the people who ignore me or criticize me, will He really notice my quiet attempts to be faithful when no one else sees me at all.  I think we often have a sneaking suspicion that the answer is no and that is why we try to get praise from the people around us.  It’s why we try to get our praise today.  Has God really provided a place for His people after we die that’s worth treasuring, does God know us so well to make heaven heavenly.  I mean we know it’s better than hell, but is it better than earth?  I think we live with a haunting fear that He won’t or can’t and that is why we invest in the kingdom of this world as though it was the best thing going rather than the kingdom of heaven. 

Has God really such a good plan for us here that we can afford to stop worrying.  I mean will it actually work as Jesus says in verse 32 to trust that our Father already knows what we need.  I think we often have a lingering doubt that He does and that is why we worry even though worrying makes us dysfunctional, unhappy, and less healthy.  Of course, we do not all worry about the same things or in the same ways.  That’s why we have the whole of Matthew chapter 6.  He might worry about what people think, she might be anxious about getting ahead or keeping up.  You might be worried about life and health.  Some of us manage to worry about all of it, we are the experts.  We borrow trouble from tomorrow and Jesus tells us in the final verse of this chapter to respond to this fallen instinct with a touch of kingdom carelessness.  Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.  Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.  Now Jesus is not saying here don’t worry about tomorrow, I’m promising you a bad day today.  No Jesus is saying don’t worry about tomorrow because you’re still learning to trust me for today, take one day at a time.  What our Lord is saying is that we can put down the trumpets that try to rush future rewards into the present because we worry about what tomorrow might not bring.  God is good, let us trust Him with His rewards.  What He’s saying is that we can stop buying our shiny disposable treasures and seeking after our cheap and passing achievements because we worry about what tomorrow’s treasures might not offer.  God is good, let Him supply our treasures.  What He’s saying is that we can stop being anxious about all the details of this life because of what tomorrow just might bring.  God is good, let Him supply our needs.  Matthew 6 calls us to stop worrying about tomorrow, but perhaps God’s Word tonight is also reminding us of our duty today.  Today we must determine which rewards we will seek.  Today we must locate our true treasure.  Today each Christian in this room is being called to trust that our Father in heaven really knows what we need, there’s enough for us to focus on today.  Why should we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness as Jesus says in verse 33 and trust that all these things will be added to us.  Why give up our anxieties? This lifelong carefully nurtured habit of borrowing trouble from tomorrow so we’ll have a bitter supply of things to worry about today.  The answer is that we seek first His kingdom because it’s in that kingdom alone that we find a gracious master who is the answer to all our anxieties.  It’s there alone that we find the one who will forgive through Jesus Christ all those who have looked for rewards from the wrong source.  It’s only in the kingdom of God that we find a master who will pardon us for hunting our treasures in the wrong field.  It’s only in His kingdom that we can find pardon for not trusting Him with our tomorrows and it’s only in seeking first His kingdom that we will ever meet the king, the one who entered the world of moth and rust and mice and rats for our sakes, the one who refused to be anxious about His food and drink and clothes because all his concerns were for us, the one who cared so little to add an hour to His life that He gave up all His years, for in the prime of His life all of our sins were added to Jesus so that His kingdom and His righteousness could be added to us.  It often happens that men make sacrifices not so much to God as to themselves, but Jesus made a sacrifice to God for others for His own children.  It’s because He has done this for us, because He has won for us such a treasure that our tomorrows are secure.  It’s because our crucified and risen Jesus, it’s because of Him that our tomorrow will be a reward for itself, that sufficient for that day will be its own blessings so lets not sacrifice for ourselves in the Christian life, but let us do so for the one who to whom we owe our all until the trumpets blow for the right reasons and the right person at His return.  Let us pray.

O gracious Father, thank you for your Word to us tonight.  You know us better than we know our own selves so help us to lower our trumpets and seek your treasures and put our worries to rest and then add to us by your Holy Spirit whatever you see fit and make us content in Christ until He returns or calls us home.  It’s in His name that we pray.  Amen.