Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1864
“Seek you first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33.
I shall not trespass beyond the appointed time. However prosy I may be during the time allotted to me, I shall stop when the hour is complete.
HERE IS AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT TRUE RELIGION IS. According to the Words of Christ Jesus our Lord, it is “The Kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Just now I read to you a portion of Scripture, Matthew 6:24-34, and I read it to you that you might note that our text occurs in the midst of a warning against undue anxiety. Undue anxiety is very common among city men and it is not rare anywhere. Certain of us are nervous, timid, doubtful and prone to fear. There are plenty of pessimists about, although they will hardly recognize themselves by that title. To them, evil is always impending—we are about to take a leap in the dark. All their birds are owls or ravens. All their swans are black. If it rains today, it will rain tomorrow—and the next day and the next—and, in all probability, there will be a deluge! Or if it is fine today, it will be dry tomorrow and so on, for months—and the earth and all the meadows that are therein will perish with drought. As to the sun, they observe with pleasing despondency that he has spots. His light they hardly notice, but they dote upon his spots with amiable horror! Minds of this sort—
Find poisons in trees, deaths in the running brook Dirges in stones and ill in everything. I suppose they cannot help it—yet Christian men must help it, for the Lord’s precept is plain and binding—“Be not, therefore, anxious.”
Fretful anxiety is forbidden to the Christian. In the first place, it is needless. Matthew 6:26—“Behold the fowls of the air,” said Christ, “they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?” If you have a Father in Heaven to care for you, are you not put to shame by every little bird that sits upon the bough and sings, though it has not two grains of barley in all the world? God takes charge of the fowls of the air and thus they live exempt from care—why do not we?
Our Lord also taught that such anxiety is useless as well as needless, for, with all our care, we cannot add a cubit to our stature. Can we do anything else by fretful care? What if the farmer deplores that there is no rain? Do his fears unstop the bottles of Heaven? Or if the merchant sighs because the wind detains his laden ship—will his complaining turn the gale to another quarter? We do not better ourselves a bit by all our fret and fume. It were infinitely wiser to do our best and then cast our cares upon our God. Prudence is wisdom, for it adapts means to ends, but anxiety is folly, for it groans and worries and accomplishes nothing.
Besides, according to our Savior, anxiety about carnal things is heathenish—“After all these things do the Gentiles seek.” They have no God and no Providence and, therefore, they try to be a providence to themselves! As for the man of God who can say, “God’s Providence is my inheritance,” why should he pine away with trouble? Let the heir of Heaven act a nobler part than the mere man of the world who has his portion in this life and lives without God and without hope! Our distrust of our God is childish and dishonoring. I was going through these streets one day, driven by a friend in a four-wheeled chaise, and he, being a good driver, must necessarily drive into narrow places where it seemed to me that we should be crushed by the vans and omnibuses. I shrank back in my timidity and expressed my unwise alarms so freely, that with a smile he laid the reins in my hand, and said, “If you cannot trust me, would you like to drive yourself?” From that ambition I was wholly free and I assured him that he might drive as he liked, rather than make me the charioteer. Surely, the great God might well put the same proposal to those who are complaining of His Providence. If we cannot trust Him, could we manage better, ourselves? If we are men in Christ, let us believe in our God and leave the governance of the great world outdoors, and of the little world within our own gates, to the Lord God, our heavenly Father, who will surely cause all things to work together for good to them that love Him!
It is plain that within us there is a propensity to be anxious. Can we not utilize it? Can we not turn it to good account? I think so. Some are naturally thoughtful and careful—can they not transform this tendency into a benefit? We have a tendency to be anxious. Very well, let us be anxious, but let our anxiety run in the right direction. Here is a mental heat—let us apply it to some useful purpose. Our text sets before us the true sphere of Christian carefulness. “Seek you first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Seek that with all your care! Seek that with all your energy. Be anxious about that. Let your whole mind run in that direction with eagerness and thought. You cannot be too careful or too energetic when God and righteousness are concerned.