“Therefore I say to you, do not worry 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? “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? (Matthew 6:25-26, NKJV).
Satisfying the needs for nourishment, liquids, and warmth constitute the major stress points of physical life. There’s no way around it. Aside from breathing air, keeping fed, hydrated, and clothed for warmth or protection are the essential foundations for staying alive.
As such, these are the primary targets of anxiety, or as Jesus calls it, “worry.” While fear is immediate and normally elicits the proverbial “fight or flight” response, worry, particularly worry about the future, is a slower, more subtle energy burner. If the stressor is not relieved in some way, or adapted to, the long-term effects are almost always debilitating.
This was not how life under God was originally intended. At creation, all of Adam and Eve’s present and future needs were guaranteed to be met. Instead of anxiety, their days were filled with quiet anticipation of blessing and satisfaction. All the universe was created for their benefit and pleasure, so much so, that at the Fall, the whole creation began to groan and labor in agony equivalent to the labor of childbirth. And it has been so ever since.
The Old Covenant with God, starting after the Flood and proceeding through the Mosaic Law, was the first major step in enabling mankind through its relationship with God to put away this Fall-cursed anxiety about the future. The contract was summarized as “do” these things and live. In other words, rather than the iron-clad, life-sustaining guarantee of Eden, there were conditional stipulations attached.
The Law was also created for the express purpose of acting as a tutor that leads us to Christ. The Law's standard of moral and ethical perfection, as exemplified even in this very Sermon on the Mount, was inarguably impossible for a mere fallen human being to meet. We are miserably helpless to comply with this perfection, and it is only when we realize that this perfection is both impossible AND required, that we fall on our face and thank God for His immeasurable mercy in sending us His Son as Savior. Yet, once we reach that point, and accept that free gift of salvation through faith, we enter unconditionally into a New Covenant with God. This new contract is based not on what we can do, but on what Christ has done for us: fulfilled the Law and died in our place to pay the penalty for our sin – our woeful lack of perfection. Now, in Christ, we are commanded not to worry.
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ (Matthew 6:31, NKJV).
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matthew 6:34, NKJV).
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; (Philippians 4:6, NKJV).
Purely from the perspective of physical survival, this may sound like absurd advice. What do you mean, “don’t worry”? Isn’t that irresponsible? Isn’t it presuming on the grace of God? Doesn’t life in this world demand that we worry?
Well, yes it does – without Christ. I don’t care what any psychologist or self-help theorist may postulate; without Christ, you are a fool not to worry. Anxiety is part of the curse. It is meant to keep us from a false sense of security or delusional contentment. Until, that is, we come to faith in Christ. Then, as an act of worship, we are to cease from worry. This is an incredible gift when you think about it. In addition to being an opportunity to express our trust and reliance on the Lord, it is also part of the down payment of our redemption. It is a step back toward Eden, and it also looks forward to an even more idyllic eternal state.
Christ argues His point by comparing us to birds, most likely common sparrows, sometimes offered as temple sacrifices at some minuscule cost to the penitent. God the Father provides these mere birds with all that is required for life. They don’t work for it ("…for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns…") they just live their lives in obedience to their inherent nature. In return for just existing as birds, God meets their needs. Elsewhere Jesus says that not one of these sparrows falls to the ground outside of the Father’s sovereign providence. Then He capstones His argument with a rhetorical question, "Are you not of more value than they?"
Now some in the world today argue that we are, in fact, NOT more valuable than the “lower” animals. This is a remarkably illogical stance. By citing “evolutionary complexity”, as in referring to these creatures as “lower animals”, they are simultaneously advocating for, and implicitly undermining, their premise. On what criteria is their designation of “lower” based? Functional and physical complexity, adaptability, and survival skill. Who wins in a human versus sparrow gladiatorial contest? I'm pretty sure the bird always loses. Conversely, if these existential relativists somehow manage to perform the intellectual gymnastics necessary to equate human and bird-kind from a moral or ethical standpoint, then birds lose in that arena, too. Morality and ethical integrity must depend on an outside, transcendent standard to have any weight at all. You may want to conclude on some basis that birds have just as much right to share the planet as humans do, but if you were to somehow transpose the ecological dominance of the one species with the other, I don’t think you would get a single bird to agree with you. There’s a reason we call social hierarchies the “pecking order.” Just watch how ethically and morally chickens treat each other.
Christ’s argument, then, is based on the relative value of birds and man to God. If He provides for the sparrow, He will provide equally for the creatures made in His image.
One final point. Previously I stated that the sparrow is given the requisites for life by God as it goes about its avian activity in obedience to its inherent nature. In other words, as it behaves in a bird-like fashion. As children of God through faith in His Son, we are promised the same provision for life by being obedient to our new inherent nature. In other words, as we behave in a Christ-like manner. That's His goal for us - to be conformed into the image of His Son. Jesus trusted completely in the will of His heavenly Father. Repeatedly, He is recorded as saying in the Gospel of John that He only spoke and did what was given to Him by the Father.
It was our Lord, "…who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously;" (1 Peter 2:23, NKJV).
Look, beloved, if God looks after sparrows, He will look after you. There is no point in worrying. If He is for the birds, He will be for you.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31, NKJV).
