Message Information
- Key Scriptures: Luke 12:22-34, NASB
- Series: Luke (2025-2027), no. 44
- Date: Sunday, December 28, 2025 (Morning)
- Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Speaker: Jared Byrns
- Audio File: Open/Download
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When Anxiety Comes to a Head
As I’ve been walking around this morning visiting with people, I’ve lost count of how many times somebody has made a variation of this comment, “Well, we made it.” We made it through last week. It’s pretty common for us to feel anxiety, for us to feel worry, for us to feel stress. But some parts of the year, and you may be different, but as far as when that is elevated for you, but certain times of the year seem to elevate it for us. For a lot of us, the last few weeks were kind of an elevated time of anxiety.
Kristie knows how much work went into the live nativity. Many of you had already scheduled other things, and even events we are glad to participate in add one more responsibility that has to be worked around. We dealt with some of that this week while trying to schedule family activities. I love my family and enjoy visiting them, but I have told you before that I hate having to leave Comanche County. Recently, I have had to travel to Oklahoma City far more often than I would prefer.
Talked with somebody this week who was experiencing anxiety over having to spend Christmas alone, or the prospect of having to spend Christmas alone. So it doesn’t matter whether we’re going to be surrounded by people, and how am I going to deal with cousin so-and-so, or how am I, Lord, give me strength to deal with aunt whoever, you know, or whether we’re going to be alone, there’s cause for anxiety there. Or did we did we pack up all the presents did we remember to get everybody presents did we bring all the food did my food get put out we have things that we stress about as we’re coming into a new year sometimes we stress about those things what’s going to happen in the new year like we have to have the whole thing figured out before it even starts we got done with all the meetings about the church budget in November or early December, I think, that time kind of runs together. And I thought, oh, good, now I don’t have to think about these things anymore.
And then it was time to work on our household budget. So I’ve been spending time working on that and handling the usual year-end financial planning and paperwork. And it’s all, this time of year, I’m just about ready to pull my hair out. What little is left?
Because I know some of you were going to go there in your minds, right? It’s a stressful time. But in reality, there’s more than enough stress for us any time of the year. This is just when it seems to come to a head.
And I don’t think it’s by accident that in our study of the book of Luke, we come to today’s passage where Jesus talks about anxiety. And Jesus offers answers for anxiety. And that’s what we’re going look at this morning how Jesus would answer our anxiety. If we were sitting down across from Jesus and just pouring our hearts out to him about all the things we’re stressed about, whether it be holiday related, whether it be end of the year related, new year related, whether it be just stuff going on in life, what would Jesus tell us about the things that we worry about?
That’s what we’re going to look at this morning in Luke chapter 12. And But here’s what it says. And he said to his disciples, For this reason I say to you, do not worry about your life as to what you will eat, nor for your body as to what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.
The Father Feeds the Ravens
Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap. They have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them. How much more valuable you are than the birds.
What Worry Cannot Accomplish
And which of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life span? If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters?
The Father Clothes the Lilies
Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will he clothe you, you men of little faith? And do not seek what you will eat and what you will drink, and do not keep worrying.
The Father Already Knows
For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek, but your Father knows that you need these things.
Putting the Kingdom First
But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
The Father Gladly Gives the Kingdom
Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.
Living with Open Hands
Sell your possessions and give to charity. Make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Jesus Speaks to Our Anxiety
And It’s an appropriate passage for a time when a lot of us feel anxiety. But I have to tell you, I came to this passage and thought, can I not have a week off? What I mean by that is you all have no idea how often, how frequently I’m preaching to this guy as we’re going through Luke, and he’s straightening out his disciples, and he’s straightening out everybody. And when it comes to worry, I may be the, I don’t know if I’m the chiefest of sinners, but I’m certainly up there.
When Jesus told them this, it’s a continuation of what we talked about two weeks ago. If you can think back way, way back two weeks ago in your mind to what we talked about. Jesus was telling them the story of the farmer who was so worried about his barns and he didn’t have enough barns. He had too much stuff.
He was too wealthy. Like this was the worst problem in the world. And so I’m just going to build bigger barns and then I’m going to take my ease. I’m going to be happy all the time, not realizing he had an appointment with God.
And the point of Jesus telling his followers and those that were around him that story was for them to understand that it’s not our possessions that are the issue. It’s how we handle those possessions and what it reveals about our relationship with God that is at issue. And in that story, he’s telling them, you’ve got to think differently about the stuff you have. Because in many cases, and the problem is not when we have stuff, but when stuff has us.
In many cases, their stuff had them. Like the rich young ruler, that’s the reason why Jesus told him, give away all your stuff. That wasn’t a command to everybody at all times. It was a command to that man because he was saying, I’ve kept the commandments perfectly.
He was trying to argue that he was sinless before God. And Jesus, like a laser, pinpointed the place in his heart where he had idols. Because one of the commandments is, you shall have no other gods before me. So what idol was he worshiping?
What God was he worshiping? It was his stuff. That’s why jesus said okay, if you want to be perfect go give your stuff away and come follow me And it diagnosed the problem in the man’s heart. He went away sad because he had many possessions And we might argue that his possessions had him As jesus is telling them you’ve got to think about your stuff differently If we’re there in that day and we’re hearing that A lot of us would have a similar answer.
I think my answer would be, but Lord, I’ve got to plan ahead. I’ve got to be responsible. I’ve got to save. I’ve got to invest.
I’ve got to do all… As a matter of fact, the scriptures teach us that we’re supposed to be responsible with what God has given us. We’re supposed to put it to good use. We’re supposed to invest it in his kingdom.
We’re supposed to invest it for the future. We’re supposed to save. We’re supposed to be responsible. These are not bad things.
But the issue is the condition of the heart. And sometimes we’ll use those things to justify worry and hoarding. And so Jesus moves on from that to now addressing the worry that would cause us to put more emphasis on our stuff than we need to.
The Warning Light of Anxiety
And what we see in the beginning of this passage is that anxiety reveals misplaced priorities. Whenever we find ourselves anxious about something, it’s sort of like a warning light that goes on. You’ve seen your check engine light, I’m sure. Never a welcome sight.
Many of us at this time of year have that little light that looks like a tire that’s deflated that we can’t get to go off no matter how much air we put in the tire. These are warning lights letting us know something’s wrong. When we feel anxiety, as followers of Jesus Christ, when we feel anxiety, it’s like one of those lights going on, one of those warning lights, letting us know something is wrong. And it’s not necessarily the circumstances.
It’s not that there’s a problem with the circumstances and so we’ve got this warning light. It’s a reminder that there’s something going wrong in our hearts, that we have allowed ourselves to become anxious. As we look at verses 22 and 23 here, Jesus discusses with these people around Him their focus on food and clothing. And I think we would agree that food and clothing are necessities.
Now, we can go overboard with them in terms of luxury. I’ve seen an Instagram page that rates preachers based on the expensive sneakers that they wear. All my shoes come from Academy or Atwood, so I don’t know anything about that. Clothes are a necessity.
We can go overboard with them. Same with food. We need food to live. We don’t need the most expensive stuff from wherever necessarily.
But we do need these immediate necessities in order to live every day, Especially in their day, the list of necessities was a lot shorter. If we took and made a list of all the things that we think are necessities, and then we were somehow able to compare that with somebody that lived in first century Judea, I think they would think our list was funny. Because our list of necessities is a lot longer than theirs. But Jesus is looking at their list of necessities, which was much shorter than ours, And telling them, don’t worry about what you’re going to eat or what you’re going to wear.
Don’t worry about even those most basic necessities there in verses 22 and 23. Don’t worry about it. There’s more to life than that. Now, is Jesus telling us to be reckless, to be careless?
That’s not what he’s teaching us at all. But he’s teaching us not to have anxiety about those things. And it applies to us as well in the things that we would consider to be necessities. Don’t worry about those things.
Don’t get yourself into a position where you are overwhelmed by anxiety instead of seeking the things of God and trusting God in dealing with this. He says, in fact, we’re not supposed to worry about our lives at all. And just to be clear, I’m not telling you this morning because I’m really good at this. I’m really bad at this, and I suspect a lot of us in this room are really bad at this.
And yet it was important enough for Jesus to teach his disciples and important enough for them to record for us. And so it’s something that we need to hear and be reminded of and put into practice. But to worry about our daily necessities is a normal thing. It’s something that pretty much all humans do.
But that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. When we worry, it reveals that our priorities are not in line with God’s. And as we continue through this passage, we’ll see why. Because it’s not that God doesn’t care about our necessities, and so we shouldn’t either.
It’s that we don’t have to worry about our necessities because God does care about them. But usually when I find myself anxious about something, at the root of that is fear. At the root of that is fear of what’s going to happen. What if an unforeseen need happens and I haven’t prepared for it?
Okay, unforeseen needs have happened all the time, and God has always taken care of it. Needs, not wants. God has always taken care of it. But in the back of our minds, that anxiety is driven by fear, and it’s usually fear that I’m not going to be able to handle this, and I’m going to have to handle it on my own. And so it reveals that something is off kilter when it comes to our relationship with God.
Because of Who Our Father Is
And as we come to verse 24, we see that we never need to worry because of who our Father is. That’s why Jesus is able to say, don’t be anxious about these things. Not because they don’t matter, not because they don’t matter to God, but because of who our Father is, there’s no need to worry. And we shouldn’t worry.
And each of them have to do with God’s care for us. Each of them is rooted in the nature and the character of God. When we come to verse 24, he says, consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap. They have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them.
How much more valuable you are than the birds. We’ve talked about this before when Jesus refers to birds. He tends to refer to birds that are not expensive and not worth anything from our standpoint. He talks about other birds that are sold three for a nickel, something like that.
If you want ravens, you can probably just go out and find ravens. There are some birds that are expensive, and it’s because of the benefit they provide us. These are not them. Nobody’s going out and collecting raven eggs.
Nobody’s hunting ravens for their meat. From our standpoint, they’re worthless. But to God, they’re valuable. They have value to God because they’re His, because He created them.
And the same thing is true of you. Say, why would God care about me? Because you’re His. And not only that, but he created you in his image, where he didn’t create that raven in his image.
And that’s why Jesus says, how much more valuable you are than the birds. This exclamation here to those who are listening, do you not know how much more the Father cares about you than he does about these birds? And he feeds them, and he takes care of them, and they produce nothing, they work for nothing, and yet he takes care of them, and you’re so much more valuable. We do not have to worry when we know who our Father is, because He cares far more for us than He does for the ravens. Then, in verse 27, Jesus says, “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.”
We came across a passage like this during adult VBS last year, and Tommy and Lisa were excited to explain what it meant. I had always pictured ponds in southeastern Oklahoma covered with lily pads. They pointed out that Jesus was talking about lilies growing in the field—beautiful flowers more like Easter lilies.
I’d never made that connection before. And Tommy thought it was the coolest thing that they taught me something at VBS. Happens a lot. But these beautiful flowers, Jesus says they just grow out in the field.
They don’t spin. They don’t weave cloth. They don’t do anything fancy. And yet God clothes them in this radiant splendor.
These beautiful flowers. How much does God care about you more than these flowers? And he goes on in verse 28, if God so clothes the grass in the field, if He clothes the plants, and they’re alive today, and tomorrow they’re thrown into the furnace, meaning they’re not much worth, they’re not much value economically to humanity, and yet God cares enough about them to clothe them, how much more can we rely on God to clothe us? And when he gives these two examples, he gives them not because these are the only needs that God will meet.
He gives these examples because these are two of the most basic necessities that they would have been thinking about on a daily basis. His lesson here is that God takes care of the needs of all of His creation, and out of all of His creation, you and I are the most valuable part. And if He cares for the birds and He cares for the plants and He cares for all of it and His providence oversees all of it, how much more should we be able to trust that He’s going to take care of us because of His love for us? And He points out that it’s silly even to try to worry about these things.
And when you really understand what Jesus is saying here, we read over it and we’ve gotten familiar with it, if you’ve spent much time in the scriptures at all, but when you really take to heart what he’s saying here, it’s mind-blowing in its simplicity. Verses 25 and 26, which of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his lifespan? Can we worry our way to a longer life? Can all of our stressing and our anxiety and our planning make our lives any longer?
They can’t, not even by an hour. As a matter of fact, I would argue that anxiety does the opposite. I’ve made myself physically ill just from worrying. I know it’s taken time off my life.
He says, who of you, by worrying, can add even an hour to his life? And an hour is not a long time. It should be a simple task. I know people through diet and exercise, they try to add years to their lives.
Jesus is saying we can’t add an hour by worrying. It seems like such a simple task, and he asks in the next verse, in verse 26, if then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry over other matters? If we can’t do the simplest thing, like add an hour to our lives by worry, why do we think we can handle the big things by worry? Like I said, it’s mind-blowing in its simplicity to sit there and think, have I ever fixed anything, even a small thing, in my life just by sitting and worrying about it?
Nothing comes to mind. On the contrary, if I look at it, is there any problem that I have seen as so insurmountable that God was not able to handle? No matter how big the problem looked to me, there’s not been a thing that God wasn’t able to handle. He may not have handled it exactly the way I expected or wanted, but He handled it for my good and for His glory.
And so we see from that just the futility, the pointlessness of worrying. And then we jump ahead again a little bit to verses 29 and 30, where he points out that the Father already knows what we need. There’s not a need that you have, there’s not a need that I have that the Father doesn’t already know about. That bill that’s unexpectedly going to come due in the mail, and you think, how am I going to pay this?
God already knew about it. The phone call the diagnosis he knows about all of it and in speaking of our needs in verse 30 Jesus said all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek talking about their daily necessities there’s not one person in the world who doesn’t need these things there’s not one person in the world who doesn’t need something and when he refers to the nations of the world he’s saying even the gentiles he’s speaking this to israel and saying even the Gentiles need these things. And the implication there is God even takes care of the Gentiles. And speaking to Israel, who He’s got a covenant with, the implication is, and He cares even more about you because of this covenant, because you’re His, because you’re His children.
Why would He not take care of you? And I would say the same thing to us as believers under the new covenant. We can look around us and see how God meets people’s needs every day, whether they belong to Him or not. How would we not trust His care for us who belong to Him?
Those of us who belong to Him should be able to rest securely in His care because He already knows what we need. He says, your Father knows that you need these things, and if He meets the needs of the Gentiles, if he meets the needs of the world, and he knows that his children have needs, why would he not meet those? Why would he not meet them for us? And so everything Jesus argues in here between verses 24 and 30 is about reasons why we should not feel the need to worry, and it’s all rooted in who God is.
It’s not based on our performance. It’s not based on our goodness. It’s not based on what we deserve. It’s based on who God is.
And the only reason why we would ever need to worry is if God suddenly stopped being God. And that’s the one thing that can never happen. And so he’s reminding us here that we don’t have to be anxious. We don’t have to worry.
We don’t have to fear over the future because we know who our Father is. Now, have you ever been really anxious over something and somebody told you, just don’t worry about it? Anybody else ever get told that? Just don’t worry about it.
Isn’t that so helpful? Gee, why didn’t I think of that? That’s brilliant. Thanks for that.
Okay, Jesus doesn’t just tell us not to worry. He tells us where our focus needs to be instead Go with me to verse 31 if you would He says but seek his kingdom And these things will be added to you And he tells us don’t be afraid For your father has gladly chosen To give you the kingdom him. He even tells them to go so far as they could sell their possessions and give them away to charity. And they’re never going to be without.
Instead, they’re going to be storing up treasure in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And the lesson that he’s getting them to understand, remember for a couple chapters now, we’ve been in his preparing them to go on mission, particularly his followers, preparing them to go on mission without him when he’s gone. And part of what they were going to have to be prepared to do was put his kingdom first, even when they were anxious about the future.
And so for us here, the lesson is when we put the kingdom first, anxiety loses its power. When we wake up in the morning and our focus is on what God wants us to do, what God’s called us to do, and how to be obedient to him, then all of that other stuff becomes secondary. And we can do that because of the promises He’s made, and we can trust those promises because of who He is. Verse 32 tells us that He’s promised the kingdom to His children when He says, do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.
Everything that He has is ours. Now, that doesn’t mean we have our hands on it now, But our future is secure as joint heirs with Jesus Christ. There’s nothing this world can throw at us that He’s not prepared for. There’s nothing we can lose that He’s not going to more than make up for.
Up to and including the kingdom. When we experience the joy of the presence of God forever and ever. I mean, He’s promised us that. He’s given that to us.
We’re just waiting for its arrival. He’s given us this kingdom as we seek his kingdom, as we seek to be obedient to him and to serve him. He’ll supply all of our needs. That’s why he says, seek his kingdom and these things will be added to you.
Many times we find ourselves in places where we choose to be disobedient to the call of God because we think I’ve got to deal with this practical matter first. I’ve got to pursue this need or this perceived need. And so, God, I’ll come back to that later. I’ve got business to attend to over here.
Because we think we’ve got to take care of ourselves, and we fear what will happen if we don’t. But he says, seek first the kingdom, and all these things will be added to you. He says, don’t worry about those mundane needs. You focus on being obedient to what God’s called you to do, and He’s going to take care of all of this.
Just like He feeds the ravens, just like He clothes the lilies, He’s going to take care of us. And when we truly trust God to provide for us, we can freely commit ourselves to walking with Him. See, this all comes down to a matter of trust. We feel anxiety because on some level we’re not trusting God with circumstances.
We’re overwhelmed with anxiety because on some level we’re not trusting God to deal with circumstances. Sometimes we feel anxiety because we’re too overwhelmed by that fear to trust God and walk in obedience. And so we tell Him no or we tell Him wait, and I’m telling you nothing good ever comes from that. I have mentioned before that I did not want to pastor the first church God called me to serve. Even looking back, I would not have chosen that assignment. It was a rough place. To quote Kenzie, it was “the south side of the kingdom.” Those people were not kind to one another, and for a while I told God no.
I said, I’m not going there. I must have misheard you. You know, I’ve got this decent job at the county. I’ve got this house that I’m living in and trying to buy and fix up and all that.
I tell you what, my life became more and more miserable as I tried to take care of everything myself instead of just trusting him. But God, if I go pastor that church, I’m going to be taking a pay cut. So, if I go pastor that church, I’m going to lose my health insurance. So, all the reasons, all the anxieties that kept me, I’m telling you, nothing good came from saying no to God.
And when I finally said yes, as I mentioned, that church was a little unpleasant. But God took care of everything and I’m sure we could all tell stories of times that we failed to trust God because our anxiety got the better of us and so we failed to obey God because our anxieties got the better of us and we were trying to hold things together and it didn’t work when he calls us not to be anxious what he’s really calling us to do is to trust him and to walk in obedience as i used to hear charles stanley say all the time just obey god and leave the consequences to him that’s what we’re being called to do obey him seek his kingdom and leave all the consequences when it comes to all of these needs necessities, all these concerns, leave those things to Him. And if you think about it as a believer, you have already, if you’re somebody that belongs to Jesus Christ, you’ve trusted Him for salvation, you’ve been born again, you’ve already trusted Him in the highest stakes matter of your entire existence, where you’re going to spend eternity. You are willing to trust God with that.
You’re willing to look at the sacrifice that Jesus made for your salvation and trust that was enough to secure your eternity. You’ve already trusted God with the most important thing you will ever face. Why would we not think that he could handle our food and our clothing and our other daily necessities, all the little things that bring us anxiety? If Jesus could overcome death and hell and the grave and he could purchase our salvation, if Jesus could save sinners like us, tell me what can he not do?
What can he not handle? And so if you’re a believer this morning, I want to leave you with that reminder to trust him in the other areas of your life the way you’ve trusted him for your salvation. And on the basis of that trust, let go of the anxiety and walk in obedience to him. And if you’ve never trusted him as your savior the place where that relationship starts that we can have that assurance and we can have that trust in him and we can walk in that obedience and we can leave anxiety behind it begins with trusting him as our savior it begins with recognizing you and i each have this problem that we can’t fix just like so many others but this one is even more impossible to try to fix the sin that separates us from God.
We’re all guilty. Not one of us is immune, and not one of us can fix it. But Jesus Christ came to earth, and He lived a perfect sinless life so that when He went to the cross, it wasn’t for anything that He had done wrong. It was to pay for my sin and yours.
And He was nailed to that cross, and He shed His blood, and He died in our place. To pay the penalty for our sin and to take all the punishment that we deserved so that you and I could be forgiven and go free. If you want a relationship with God, if you want to know Him as Father, if you want to be able to cast all your cares on Him and walk in obedience and Him take care of you, it begins there with trusting His promise that Jesus died to pay for your sin and rose again to prove it and promises eternal life to anybody who will believe and ask for it.
