In this video, we explore an insightful passage from the Gospel of Luke. Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke discuss the theme of worry and anxiety, offering a fresh perspective on how to navigate these challenges in our lives. They delve into the importance of trusting in God’s providence and seeking the kingdom of God above all else. Join them as they reflect on the invitation to surrender our worries and find comfort in God’s care. This thought-provoking discussion will empower you to live a life of faith and let go of unnecessary worry. Don’t miss out on this inspiring conversation!
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Transcript
00:00:00:37 – 00:00:25:59
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for being back with us on this Thursday. Who calls out the week in the Gospel of Luke? A fun passage today in probably I don’t know. Some people wouldn’t find this passage enjoyable. Maybe. But I think, you know, Michael, we’ve been kind of all over the place. Luke has led us in a lot of directions here in Chapter 11 and 12.
00:00:26:04 – 00:00:57:45
Clint Loveall
I think this is this is almost straight devotional. I think today’s passage is just one of those that kind of convicts you every time you read it. It’s encouraging. It’s it’s challenging. I think there’s a lot here. It to give you a little preview. Friends, it’s subtitled in the Bible. Do not worry. And so it’s not exclusive to Luke, but Luke does some interesting things with it.
00:00:57:50 – 00:01:16:01
Clint Loveall
So let let’s dive in here, will read for a while, and then we’ll come back and talk it through. He said to the disciples, I tell you. Therefore, do not worry about your life. What you will eat or about your body. What you will wear for life is more than food. The bodies, more than clothing. Consider the ravens.
00:01:16:03 – 00:01:36:49
Clint Loveall
They neither sow or reap, but they have neither storehouses nor barn. And yet God feeds them of how much more value are you than the birds? And can any of you, by worry, add a single hour to the span of your life? If then you’re not able to do a small thing like that, why worry about the rest?
00:01:36:54 – 00:02:04:19
Clint Loveall
Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. But I tell you, even Solomon, in all his glory, was not clothed like one of them. But if God so close the grass of the field, which is alive today, tomorrow, thrown in the oven. How much more will he called you? You have little faith and do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink and do not keep worrying for.
00:02:04:19 – 00:02:31:28
Clint Loveall
It is the nations of the world that strive after these things, and your father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for the kingdom and these things will be given to you as well. And maybe we take a break there, Michael. So convicting words, I’ve we’ve said I’ve said this before in other contexts. I don’t consider myself generally to be a worrier.
00:02:31:33 – 00:02:56:45
Clint Loveall
For whatever reason, my personality makeup is just not one that kind of dwells on things and expects the worst outcome. I’m lucky in that regard, probably has struggles in other places, but that’s not one of mine. And so I always feel for the worriers among us when they get this. Counsel do not worry, because I imagine the response is, Well, how do you know?
00:02:56:56 – 00:03:28:30
Clint Loveall
Well, how do you. Yeah, just. Okay, I’ll just stop worrying. And if you’re a worrier and if you’ve practiced worrying many, many times, then clearly it’s not as easy as just stopping doing it. And so Jesus then goes on to say, you know, look at the world. God governs the world. God oversees the world. And if God is doing that, God is certainly going to care about you because you’re more important than birds and lilies and things like that.
00:03:28:35 – 00:03:52:45
Clint Loveall
The father cares for them and cares more for you and you can’t. And the other you know, this sort of practical word here then, is worry doesn’t accomplish much. It doesn’t do much good. When you worry. You can’t really change things. You can’t affect things. Worry is wasted energy. Most psychologists will tell us that. And, you know, it generally is true.
00:03:52:46 – 00:04:27:49
Clint Loveall
Most of the things we worry about don’t come to pass. And therefore we’ve spent energy on something that didn’t need it. And then finally, Michael hears this word strive. Don’t strive over worrying. Don’t strive over things of the earth, strive after the kingdom and the rest will be a part of the package. So there is, I think, a nice sense here in which Luke is encouraging all of us to throw ourselves on God and saying that if we do that and as we do that, we need not worry.
00:04:27:53 – 00:04:44:24
Clint Loveall
And I hope that’s a comforting word. I know, again, if you’re a person that’s prone to worry now, you have to worry about not worrying. But but this is if we read this correctly, I think it’s invitational. And I think Jesus is giving us a chance to see a better path.
00:04:44:29 – 00:05:01:17
Michael Gewecke
There’s a little bit of a road here that I don’t want to miss that road. So I think let’s make sure that we get our context. Remember that in yesterday’s study and if you haven’t got a chance for that, it’s maybe a bit of a strange parable, but I think it’s an important parable to understand what we’re talking about today.
00:05:01:17 – 00:05:19:55
Michael Gewecke
So I do recommend you jump back and listen to that if you have no ready. But just for context, we have this this individual who’s been given a great craft, a story adopted, and this is the end. God says, you’re fool, it’s very night. Your life is demanded from you and the things you prepared. Whose will they be?
00:05:20:00 – 00:05:42:53
Michael Gewecke
Store up your tribe. Don’t stop your treasures for yourselves. They’re not rich toward God. Right. Okay, so then this is very carefully constructed. Luke says this very clearly. Therefore, therefore, what? Therefore, because of this idea, those who are storing up the treasures of life are not making themselves rich in God. Therefore, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or your body or what you’re worth.
00:05:42:54 – 00:06:06:00
Michael Gewecke
I think Clint, the temptation of a text like this is when we read this very devotional text about Do not worry, we take it out of context and we make this a small, shallow word. We say something like, you know, don’t worry, because worry doesn’t benefit anybody. It’s just not good logical thing to do. Okay. Well, that’s true, but that’s not what Luke is trying to tell us.
00:06:06:00 – 00:06:37:55
Michael Gewecke
Jesus said no. What he’s saying is there’s no sense in worrying because God is at the center and make it very clear that God is the whole thing upon which this teaching spins. It’s not worry, just is a psychological burden. And so therefore we should do it. It’s no worry is an expression of not trusting God. Worry is taking upon ourself a responsibility that we can only have truly and rightly held in our trust for God.
00:06:37:58 – 00:06:57:25
Michael Gewecke
God is the one who gives life in the previous parable. God is the one who takes life and God is the one who gives us earthly blessings. God is the one who we trust to provide the blessings that we need, not just the blessings that we want. And if you look at a parable or a teaching like this with that context and perspective.
00:06:57:25 – 00:07:20:34
Michael Gewecke
Clinton I think what it does is it helps shield us from of some of the self help and some of the prosperity bent of the gospel that we can sometimes fall prey to. It’s not this idea that if one is a Christian, there’s nothing to worry about. The idea is in a life that’s full of cares and anxieties, one should practice faith and trust in God.
00:07:20:34 – 00:07:32:18
Michael Gewecke
And when we do that, we discover there was no reason to worry because God is great enough for all of those worries. In fact, he’s so great. It’s beyond any measure of greatness we could comprehend.
00:07:32:29 – 00:08:04:30
Clint Loveall
I think that’s an important point, Michael. What this doesn’t say is that Christians should be totally unconcerned with the world and the details of their life. This is instead a teaching that shares with us that worry, particularly obsessive compulsive kind of worry, is a counterbalance, and it’s antithetical to faith. It is the opposite of trust. To trust God is to have less worry.
00:08:04:35 – 00:08:34:24
Clint Loveall
And and if we claim to trust God, and yet we worry over all the various details of life, then our our trust has not sunk deep enough into our spirits. And I don’t think this is saying there’s nothing worth being concerned over. Obviously, that’s not the lesson here. The lesson is that in a life of faith, we move out of our worries into trust, and that’s a graduated scale.
00:08:34:24 – 00:09:11:46
Clint Loveall
Nobody does that perfectly. Nobody does that constantly. But that is the invitation here. And so I hope if you’re one of those folks who would call yourself a worrier, I hope you what you hear in this passage is not criticism, but invitation. What would it look like to give those worries over to God? What would it look like to spend less energy, afraid of what might happen and more time trusting that God is at work, leading and guiding you and Luke?
00:09:11:51 – 00:09:37:50
Clint Loveall
And this is unique to Luke. We get this beautiful summary here in verse 32. Luke says, Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure and pleasure to give you the Kingdom. Those are, I think, some of the most pastoral words spoken in the gospel, this idea of little flock. And it’s the father’s good pleasure.
00:09:37:55 – 00:10:08:39
Clint Loveall
Do not be afraid, little flock. It is your father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. So if God is seeking to give us the Kingdom, God is not going to be unconcerned and unaware of the other aspects of our life. And so again, I hope that you hear in this a wonderful invitation to to surrender some of our worries and put them on God’s shoulder instead of ours.
00:10:08:43 – 00:10:28:41
Clint Loveall
Clearly, that’s a struggle in some moments of life, but it is the struggle of faith. And the more we can embrace that, the more we can live into that, the better able we are to receive God’s comfort and strength and surrender our fear and our worry.
00:10:28:46 – 00:10:50:47
Michael Gewecke
So, Clint, I think you mentioned this word, and I want just pause as we look at this text from that devotional lens. I think that there’s some really deep meaning here. Verse 29, This is the prohibition or this is Jesus saying, do not do this thing. Verse 29, Do not keep striving for what you’re going to eat, drink, and to keep worrying.
00:10:50:47 – 00:11:13:44
Michael Gewecke
Do not do these things. And if you’ve had any time spent trying to stop bad behavior, one of the worst things to do is to make your sole goal. Don’t do it any more. There’s that famous psychological saying Do not under any circumstances right now, think about an elephant balanced on a trapeze, right? Like the moment that someone says don’t do a thing.
00:11:13:53 – 00:11:35:00
Michael Gewecke
That’s what our mind fills in. So Jesus says, do not worry. And yes, that’s that’s a good command. We should seek to do that. But what Jesus does, I think, just amazingly, is he replaces that with what we should strive to do. It’s not just don’t do this thing. It is then do this thing, fill in that gap with this.
00:11:35:00 – 00:12:08:12
Michael Gewecke
So if you’re a worrier, pay attention to verse 31. This is for you. This is Jesus reaching down, leaning in close, whispering in your ear, strew five for God’s kingdom, and these things that you worry about will be given to you as well. This is an incredible gift because it gives us an opportunity to focus all of our faculties on something positive, to have to focus on what Jesus came to do, and that is to proclaim the kingdom.
00:12:08:16 – 00:12:36:14
Michael Gewecke
Luke has made it very clear for us in this telling of Jesus’s life that that kingdom was central to Jesus’s understanding of who he was and what his mission in the world was and what was true for Jesus is true for every believer who calls himself Christian, who bears the name of Christ in their life and their work, your goal should be you strive after kingdom work and that should mean that you serve like Jesus serve.
00:12:36:28 – 00:12:59:04
Michael Gewecke
You give as He gave that you seek to practice humility as He was humble, that you practice grace as he gave grace even to those as they crucified him. I mean that the depth of the kingdom, the upside down this of the kingdom is so life changing and revolutionary that we all have every breath that we take that we need to to apply towards striving after those things.
00:12:59:04 – 00:13:12:21
Michael Gewecke
And if we’re able to do that, it gives the warrior not just a thing to refrain from, but a thing to reach towards. And that’s a really substantial gift that that’s an invitational response, to use your words.
00:13:12:23 – 00:13:44:15
Clint Loveall
I would say that it recaptures a sense of the present. Michael. I mean, the the danger of worry is that our concern of the possible future steals the current moment from us. It fills that with something that may or may not happen. And we miss it. We miss out on the presence. And so remembering that the good father seeks to give us his kingdom and do not be afraid.
00:13:44:15 – 00:14:08:36
Clint Loveall
Little Flock is a beautiful invitation. And it Luke takes this in an interesting direction because Luke cares about money and possessions. Because, as we’ve told you, that’s one of his key themes. Luke mashes a couple of things together here that in other gospels are separate. But then Luke goes from there to say, Sell your possessions and give arms.
00:14:08:36 – 00:14:42:58
Clint Loveall
Make purses for yourself that do not wear out and unfailing treasure in heaven where no thief comes near and no mouth destroys for where your treasure is there your heart will be also. Now this is, I think, a very good bracket to the parable that we looked at yesterday, the rich fool. And here we have this temptation. You know, worry over stuff and acquiring possessions and money are for us a constant worry, a constant battle.
00:14:43:03 – 00:15:09:41
Clint Loveall
But on the other hand, look what Jesus says here. Sell your possessions, give alms, make purses for yourselves that don’t wear out an unfailing treasure. In other words, hold what you have loosely and not worrying allows us Trust allows us to do that, that we are able to invest what we have in the kingdom then and then these convicting words.
00:15:09:41 – 00:15:49:30
Clint Loveall
But I poetic words where your treasure is, there’s where your heart is. And so this is, I think, convicting phrase. Michael. It asks us to examine if I could look at the center of my heart. What is it that’s there? What are my worries? What are my fears? How am I doing in giving those things over? How am I doing living with open hands and holding loosely what I have so that I could live without it or give it away, or have this unfailing treasure, Unfailing treasure it.
00:15:49:35 – 00:16:05:27
Clint Loveall
I think. Luke it’s a quick transition, but it’s a pretty good transition going from Devotional Invitational to the challenge. And I think there’s a great takeaway at the end of this passage.
00:16:05:34 – 00:16:33:57
Michael Gewecke
I don’t think that this is tacked on. I don’t think that this is in any way a divergence if you’re able and willing to see the implication that at the end of the day, one of the core things that demands our worry is the stuff of life, the perseverance of our life. And so this idea that if you are willing to give up your possessions to give alms, make yourself persons that don’t give out.
00:16:33:57 – 00:17:06:58
Michael Gewecke
In other words, don’t be putting so much into the stuff and storehouses of your life that they’re bursting over. Keep your needs light. Then in the midst of that, then you will be constantly investing your treasure in a place that you want it to be in the heavenly kingdom and not your own worries, anxieties and fears. This is maybe one of the most counterintuitive, and yet wise counsels or prescriptions that could be given to a worrier.
00:17:07:03 – 00:17:31:48
Michael Gewecke
Instead of trying to combat worry with more positive self-talk, maybe we should combat worry with more intentional giving to reach out and to give of the very thing that we’re worried of not being able to have enough of. The wisdom might be that in God’s economy, when we are willing to give, we’re given back more than what we could have ever imagined.
00:17:31:48 – 00:18:03:07
Michael Gewecke
Maybe not the same type, maybe not in the same quantity. Maybe we’re surprised by God’s divine generosity. But the promise here is that if we see the connection between worry and the kind of holding for ourselves, and then we we respond and to Jesus’s invitation to let go of those worries and to let go of the stuff that there is a kind of treasure making that is divine and beyond the human source of treasure, how stuffing.
00:18:03:07 – 00:18:14:29
Michael Gewecke
And that’s a that’s a deeply spiritual and I think very cohesive theme, even if other gospel writers may put them in different places. Luke wants us to see that aspect, I think, in Jesus’s teaching here.
00:18:14:43 – 00:18:43:12
Clint Loveall
Well, because Luke, like all the gospels, is concerned about worldly ness. And it it’s no surprise that when he says don’t worry, he says, don’t worry about your life, what you eat or what you wear. In other words, don’t be too attached to the things of the earth. Don’t be too attached to your worldly life, because those concern does get in the way of your spiritual life, of your heavenly life.
00:18:43:17 – 00:19:22:46
Clint Loveall
And so as we put our feet in the kingdom and as we try to move the focus of our life to following Christ, we find that we have less to worry about in regard to our earthly situation. And that’s again, that sounds like pressure. Maybe it sounds like critique, and it can be for all of us, but it is at first, I think, a beautiful, wonderful invitation that all of us have to move away from worry and to move toward faith and this is a this is an extremely powerful, rather short passage.
00:19:22:46 – 00:19:34:14
Clint Loveall
And I think if we listen to it, we we do find ourself convicted, certainly. But I think if we give it a fair hearing, we also hear our self encouraged clean.
00:19:34:17 – 00:19:58:31
Michael Gewecke
I’ll be very, very, very brief. It is easy if you know worry for this to really hit you like a truck but if you maybe have been a person who is able to be more laissez faire in life, maybe you hold things more lightly by personality. We want to make something very clear at the end of this text, this is not permission.
00:19:58:33 – 00:20:26:49
Michael Gewecke
This is not Jesus saying live life saurus all that. We can abdicate responsibility and that our actions don’t matter. If you’re a warrior, you don’t need to walk that ground because you likely take more responsibility that is due. But this is also not Jesus saying, Hey, listen, we should care about doing the right thing or being people of character or standing up for things that matter or doing hard work.
00:20:27:00 – 00:20:48:04
Michael Gewecke
That’s not the point. The point here is very simply, invest your treasure in things that don’t rust and things that aren’t stolen and things that will accompany you in the life beyond. And and there’s maybe just a word of caution there that depending upon what perspective you come from, a devotional text like this. A text I have something to say about our life and our values.
00:20:48:09 – 00:20:57:21
Michael Gewecke
If you come at it from a different perspective, this isn’t a kind of permissiveness to to check out. Jesus is clearly not making that claim throughout this whole time.
00:20:57:21 – 00:21:17:52
Clint Loveall
No, absolutely not. The preceding passage was about a guy who had more than enough, and he said, I’m going to take it easy, eat, drink and be marry. And God told him he was a fool. I mean, you can’t you you you can’t walk out of this passage with that understanding. And it’s not you would it’s not in there.
00:21:17:56 – 00:21:18:46
Michael Gewecke
Don’t make that mistake.
00:21:18:46 – 00:21:36:54
Clint Loveall
No, it’s not in there. I think the I think the I heard an illustration once that the people who read the end of the book, you know, you get to a part in a book, in a novel where you’re worried about a character and you flip back and you see their name on the last page. MM It changes something.
00:21:36:54 – 00:22:04:30
Clint Loveall
Yeah. You know, now, no matter what happens, no matter how bad it looks, you know, that they’re going to be okay. And you read with a certain confidence and you read with a certain lesser amount of worry. And the pastor, using the illustration, said that’s essentially the kingdom. You know that in the end you are God’s beloved child and that God cares for you deeply and that changes things.
00:22:04:30 – 00:22:07:01
Clint Loveall
And that’s the invitation of the passage.
00:22:07:06 – 00:22:20:36
Michael Gewecke
So I said, I hope you can hear that. I hope that’s true for you today. We’d love to see you tomorrow like this video, if you find it encouraging, helps others find it. And we look forward to continuing the study together as we continue on Monday. See you.
00:22:20:36 – 00:22:21:00
Clint Loveall
Monday.