Group Guide








Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.



































TranscriptGood morning. My name is Mike. Do I look that nervous? Last time I came up here, I said I was about to walk right out the back. This time I was about to walk right out the back. So here I am. Nevertheless, my name is Mike. I’m an elder in training here, and I’m thankful for the opportunity to be able to open up God’s Word with you today.We are going to pick up where Isaac left off last week in Matthew chapter 6. If this is your first Sunday, or last week was your first Sunday, you are witnessing a little bit of an anomaly, because Isaac and I don’t regularly teach on Sunday morning. If, however, you would like to hear us teach more regularly, you can find our podcast on Apple Podcasts. No, we don’t actually have a podcast. Isaac did, but he did not invite me to be on it, and that doesn’t bother me. I’m okay with that. But acknowledgement, or even an offer, would have been whatever.Over the last few weeks, we’ve been going through our GIVE series, at a time of year where there is frequent messaging from modern companies directed at us with the intent of getting us to believe that more stuff equals more joy. We pause and we open up an ancient book that teaches us that God alone is our source of joy.In 1999, Brian Johnson, a student at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, founded a small startup company that sold cell phones to students on campus. He used the commission he made on the sales to pay his way through college. In subsequent years, he founded an e-commerce company called Braintree, which exploded in popularity and eventually became so big in the e-commerce space that they acquired a mobile payment app called Venmo. Being that it was one of the first companies to bring the ability for people to send money to each other electronically by an app, they did extremely well. In 2013, they were acquired by PayPal. Brian Johnson, the college student who at age 22 sold phones out of his dormitory, walked away with $300 million from the sale at the age of 36.Here’s a guy with great success in business, resulting in significant wealth at a young age. When we hear that, we say, “Wow, that’s the American dream. That’s terrific. That’s everything we could possibly want.” While he does have an incredibly impressive résumé, it’s not these specific accomplishments that he’s best known for.In 2021, he started Project Blueprint, which was a campaign against aging. This was an experiment he did on himself in which he started eating a vegan diet, taking approximately 54 supplements a day, exercising about one hour every day, doing red-light phototherapy, and doing electromagnetic abdominal muscle stimulation. In addition to that, he was receiving plasma infusions from his own son.When he was interviewed by a reporter from The Guardian in 2023 about his ultimate goal with all of these endeavors and what he really planned to accomplish, he gave this incredibly insightful, inspiring, and impactful quote: “Don’t die.”Interestingly, he’s not the only one to pursue this. Other people with this same goal include Peter Thiel, billionaire tech entrepreneur and one of the first major investors in Facebook; Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and a man involved in the creation of ChatGPT; and Jeff Bezos, the man who transformed his idea for an online book marketplace into Amazon, one of the richest and most influential companies on earth.These are men with yachts, sports franchises, rockets—just about everything on your eight-year-old son’s Christmas list. Men with everything at their disposal. And what do they get from it? Anxiety. Anxiety about their life.So here we are today in Matthew chapter 6, with Jesus saying that where your treasure is, your heart will be also, and you can’t serve God and money. You seek after what you desire, but ultimately desiring both God and money equally is not possible.We pick up today in verse 25. Before we do that, I’m going to pray and ask for help.Father, I come before you as a desperate man, knowing that you’re a God for desperate people. I pray for your help this morning, and I pray that our hearts would be changed by the good Scripture. In Jesus’ name, amen.Open up your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 6, verses 25–34. This is on page 474 in the blue Bible underneath the seat in front of you. If you don’t have a Bible, you can keep that Bible.“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?” (Matthew 6:25, ESV)He starts off with a “therefore,” which means “for this reason.” Because of what I just taught you about where your treasure is, now I tell you this: don’t be anxious about your life.Why does he go there next? Why would he presume that correctly applying his previous teaching could result in anxiety, such that he would immediately give a command against it? To answer that, it’s helpful to think about who was in the audience.In the crowd would be his disciples, mostly tradesmen and fishermen. Alongside them would be other craftsmen, farmers, shepherds, day laborers—many who were making just enough money to live. The group of people Jesus is talking to are not people seeking money to show up their neighbors; they’re seeking money to survive. Jesus knows that when he tells people who seek money just to subsist to now not seek money, they will inevitably be anxious.One of his disciples there was Matthew, the one who recorded this account. Matthew was a tax collector, which potentially means he had enough money to provide for himself. So there was likely a mix of people—some living paycheck to paycheck and others with some excess. Jesus thinks all of them need to understand that they should not be anxious about their life.We can treat this passage as a standalone commentary on anxiety, filtering it through what’s going on in our lives—tense relationships, conflicts with spouses, concerns about our kids. The Bible does speak to those things, but that’s not the specific subject here. Today we’re talking about anxiety that comes from storing treasure on earth.Back to verse 25. Jesus says not to be anxious about your life—what you eat, drink, or wear. These are basic human needs. Jesus says, “Don’t worry about those things.” That’s a high bar. Will I have what I need to live? Jesus says no—don’t worry about that.What do we worry about? Hot latte or cold latte? Dunkin’ or Starbucks? What if I have to drink lousy Keurig coffee again? Should I wear those jeans? Are they flattering? Do they make me look cool? How silly are some of the things we worry about. Often our anxiety comes from being overwhelmed by nearly limitless choices.Jesus asks, “Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” The answer is yes. Life is more than calories, more than fabric. We know that.Then in verse 26, Jesus makes it practical.“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?” (Matthew 6:26, ESV)The birds are fed. They’re provided for. They don’t plant, harvest, or store. Jesus doesn’t say, “You don’t have to worry because you can plan.” He says, “You don’t have to worry because you are valuable to God.”Some of us struggle to believe that. Maybe because of recurring sin, or because someone taught us we’re not valuable, or because we struggle with self-worth. At some point, nearly everyone wonders what makes them valuable to God.David says in Psalm 8:“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.” (Psalm 8:3–5, ESV)God says you have value because he made you in his image. When Jesus asks, “Are you not of more value than the birds?” the answer is yes.Verse 27:“And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Matthew 6:27, ESV)This doesn’t advocate neglecting your health. We should be good stewards of our bodies. But anxiety over life cannot prolong life. The answer is no.Verse 28:“And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” (Matthew 6:28–29, ESV)Solomon had unimaginable wealth, yet it didn’t compare to the beauty of the lilies God made.“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?” (Matthew 6:30, ESV)Worry over life betrays small faith because it comes from faith in earthly treasure.Verse 31:“Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” (Matthew 6:31–32, ESV)God knows your needs because he made you. No one knows you like he does.If everything is stored here on earth, then death becomes the greatest enemy. Laying up treasure on earth results in perpetual anxiety.Verse 33:“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33, ESV)“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:34, ESV)Seeking the kingdom of God starts with the cross—repenting of sin, trusting in the gospel, and being transformed. Over time, our focus shifts to unseen things that glorify God.You cannot serve God and money. Don’t be worried about your life. God will provide exactly what you need.Let’s pray.Father, we thank you for your Word that corrects us when we’re tempted to believe everything depends on us. Help us leave that behind and seek the kingdom of heaven. In Jesus’ name, amen.Would you stand and sing with us?

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