Take your Bibles with me again and turn to Luke 12. Luke 12. This morning I'm doing part 2 of a sermon I started last week. So I want to go right ahead and jump into reading the text.

[!bible] Luke 12:22-34 - KJV 22. And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on. 23. The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment. 24. Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls? 25. And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit? 26. If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest? 27. Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith? 29. And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind. 30. For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. 31. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you. 32. Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33. Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. 34. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Last week I started a two-part message on anxiety and worry from Luke chapter 12. If you weren't here, let me catch you up real quick.

We talked about how worry and stress have become like water to fish—so common in our culture that we don't even notice we're swimming in it. The statistics are staggering: three-quarters of Americans report being so stressed they can't cope, and anxiety is literally affecting our health and our lives.

But this isn't a new problem. Two thousand years ago, Jesus addressed it directly in Luke 12.

Last week, we looked at the wrong way to live—worrying over earthly things. We saw that worry is:

• Distracting - it keeps us obsessing over food, clothing, and temporal things instead of God's kingdom
• Delusional - it doesn't actually help us; we can't add a single inch to our height or a single day to our lives by worrying
• Disbelieving - worry is essentially practical atheism, saying "God won't take care of me"
• Defining - when we live in constant anxiety, we show the watching world that we live like people who have no God

Jesus said "Consider the ravens" and "Consider the lilies"—God takes care of the birds and the flowers, and we're worth far more to Him than they are.

But here's what I want you to see this morning: Jesus didn't just tell us to stop worrying. He told us what to replace it with.

Verse 31 says: "But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you."

That word "rather" is key. Jesus is giving us the alternative. The antidote. The better way.

This morning, we're going to see that Christians should replace selfish worry with a focus on God's priorities, a faith in God's intentions, and a generosity that reflects God's generosity to us.

When we live this way—seeking God's kingdom instead of our own comfort—that's when we find real peace. That's when anxiety loses its grip. That's when we experience the abundant life Jesus promised.

Let's pray, and then we'll dive in.

Before we get into our outline this morning, I want to give you two introductory thoughts:

First, the Bible teaches us a consistent truth: You can't just stop doing bad things without replacing them with good things.

Jesus actually taught about this in chapter 11:

[!bible] Luke 11:24-26 - KJV 24. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. 25. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. 26. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

When you just try to get rid of something bad, without replacing it with something good - you are setting yourself up to be into something worse.

You can't just sweep the house clean. You have to fill it with something better.

So that's the first thing we have to understand as we go into these verses. A second thing I think we need to understand about worry is that the answer isn't just for us to turn our brain off.

Sometimes people will be anxious and filled with worry and some well meaning person will say "you are thinking too much." The truth is, your mind is going to be focused on something. Your mind is going to think about something. So the answer isn't to stop thinking, the answer is to think about the right things.

It's a matter of focus. Your brain isn't the problem, it is what you are pointing your brain at that is the problem.

So with those two things in mind, I want us to look at this text and see the three things Jesus wants us to focus on instead of worry.

The first thing Jesus tells us to focus on is

1. We need to focus on God's priorities

Look at verse 31:

[!bible] Luke 12:31 - KJV 31. But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.

What does it mean to seek first the kingdom of God?

Seeking the kingdom means asking in every situation: 'What does God want here? What would advance His purposes? How can I align my life with His will?' It's making God's agenda your agenda.

Your priority shouldn't be "how can I get a nicer house?" or "how can I make more money next year?" Your priority must always be "What does God want me to do?"

In Matthew 6:33 it says "seek ye first the kingdom of God." It's not enough for us to just tack on this question after we have done what we want to do. We have to ask first, before everything else, "what does God want me to do?" And we have to do this constantly.

So our focus has to move from us and what we want (what we worry about) to God and what He wants.

Let's look at hos this works out in real life:

Let's say you are considering a new job. Now how would a lost person approach that. What questions would they worry about?

• Will I make enough money?
• Will I have enough benefits?
• Will I enjoy the work?

A Christian understands that those aren't bad questions. But we have to start by seeking God's kingdom, we have to start with this question:

• Is this what God wants me to do?

Well, how do we figure that out? We ask more questions:

• Is this new job going to increase my witness or decrease it?
• Is this new job going to take me out of church?
• Is there anything about doing this job that will tempt me to be disobedient to God's commands?
• Can I do this job well and be a consistent Christian?

For a Christian, we aren't to worry about us - we are to worry about God and what He wants. That is our primary focus.

And when we focus on God and what He wants, God promises to take care of us. The last half of the verse says "and all these things shall be added unto you."

If our primary focus is on God's will, God promises that He will take care of our earthly and temporal needs.

Another way of saying this is that if we worry about God, then God will worry about us, and He has far more resources and far more control than we do.

That brings us to the next verse:

[!bible] Luke 12:32 - KJV 32. Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

So we need to focus first on God's priorities. I think the second thing we need to replace worry with is

2. We need to focus on God's good intentions

Listen, we have a good God. He is good. All the time He is good.

One of the things I've come to see the more I've studied the Bible is this: the devil's main tactic is to get you to doubt God's goodness.

Isn't that what the serpent did in the garden? He got Eve to doubt that God really had good intentions. "Hath God said...", "God knows that...", "Ye shall not shurely die..." The serpent painted God as someone who was a liar, who was holding out on them and making false warnings. He got Eve to think that God did not have good intentions.

And I'm convinced that one of the main reasons we sin is because we forget that God is good and that God wants good for us.

Teenagers often leave church because they swallow the lie that there is something out there that they need to have to be happy, that they cannot have if they are faithful to God.

But this is a lie! And it leads to worry. After all, if God isn't looking out for you - then you have to look out for yourself.

Look at how this verse destroys this false idea:

"Fear not little flock." We are God's flock. He cares for us. He takes personal ownership of us and He doesn't want us to be afraid.

"It is your father's" - God isn't just our good shepherd, He is our father. Most father's love their children more than anything and want to see them do well. Father's hurt when their kids hurt.

"good pleasure" - Again, what God wants for us is good things. God isn't out there with a cosmic hammer ready to ruin all of our fun and take away all of our joy. He is good and He delights to give us good things.

I'm nowhere near as good a father as God is, but I delight to give my children good things. That's a natural thing that reflects our good God.

to give you the kingdom - God has big and beautiful plans for us. Plans that include giving us the kingdom. He gives us eternal life. He gives us Himself.

Do you see what Jesus is doing here? He's telling us that God's heart toward us is GOOD. He cares for us, He's our Father, it delights Him to give to us. So when we worry, we're believing a lie about God's character.

Now there is one more thing we need to focus on...

3. We need to focus on generosity.

Look at verses 33-34:

[!bible] Luke 12:33-34 - KJV 33. Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. 34. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

This might be the most controversial thing that Jesus said here, but it's important. If we are going to defeat worry, we have to replace getting with giving.

What is the ultimate way to show we aren't worried about material things and that we are trusting in God? It is to give away our material things.

Now, I want to be clear, I don't believe that Jesus was literally commanding us to sell everything we own and give it away. We know this because in the New Testament, when people came to Christ - they didn't do that and were not condemned for it.

For instance, when Annanais and Saphira pretended to do this - they weren't struck down because they didn't give all they had. Peter said they could have kept it and been fine. They were struck down for lying about it and being hypocrites.

This isn't a literal command, but it still needs to be figuratively applied. What do you have that you wouldn't be willing to give to God? Do you have that thing, or does it have you?

When we give our material things, we are doing to things:

• First, we are showing our allegiance is to Christ. That we love Christ more than anything we own. Christ is our most precious possession.
• Second, we are showing that our trust is in Christ. That we believe that Christ will take care of us. That he can provide us with the earthly things we need.

Now, what happens when we live generously - Jesus says we are filling up our heavenly bank account. We are laying up treasure in heaven.

Treasure that isn't affected by the stock market or by wars or natural disasters.

And here is the key: where our treasure is, there will our heart be also.

If we are concerned with earthly treasure. Then that is where our heart will be, but if our treasure is in heaven, then our heart will be in heaven.

And this is a key to defeating worry. We worry because our heart is on the treasure of this earth. If our heart is set on heavenly things, then worry will go away.

This isn't a one and done thing. It's not like you give and poof, your worry goes away. But as we grow in grace, as our heart is set on Christ and things of heaven more and more, as we grow to trust Christ more and more - our worries will go away with it.

Conclusion

Maybe you are sitting here thinking, this all sounds great, but I'm drowning in anxiety right now.

God has an answer for you, it starts by understanding how bad and useless worry is, then we have to change our focus on the things of this earth to the things of heaven.

Christians should replace selfish worry with a focus on God's priorities, a faith in God's intentions, and a generosity that reflects God's generosity to us.

So are you worrying today? Ask yourself:

• Where are your priorities? Are you putting God's will first in your life?
• Do you believe that God is good and wants to take care of you?
• Are you being generous?

Here is what I want you to do this week. Right now, I want you to take a second and write down your top three worries. Then each day this week, I want you to review it and ask these questions:

• What does God want me to do with this worry?
• Am I trusting God's goodness here?
• Does God want me to show generosity to someone instead of focusing on this worry?

Make these a matter of prayer. And then do one more thing - think about Christ.

You see, Christ is our ultimate example of what it means to seek the kingdom of God. He always did what the Father asked Him.

Christ is our ultimate example of generosity. He gave Himself for us on the cross.

And Christ is the ultimate reminder of God's good intentions. God loves us so much He sent His son to die for us.