June 7, 2026 | Solomon's Question, Jesus' Answer

Solomon's Question, Jesus' Answer | Matthew 6:25-33

Matthew 6:25–33

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? 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? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 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. 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? 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. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (ESV)

In “Solomon’s Question, Jesus’ Answer,” Jed Gillis shows how Jesus speaks compassionately to anxious people in Matthew 6:25–33. Anxiety often comes from realizing we are not in control while still trying to hold our lives together through effort, withdrawal, or paralysis. Jesus answers that fear by reminding us that life is more than food, our value is greater than the birds, and our future rests in the care of a Father who knows what we need. Instead of seeking safety, worth, and beauty through our own anxious grasping, Jesus calls us to seek first the kingdom of God. The path out of anxiety is to remember what the King says, pursue what the King loves, and trust the King’s heart, because the Father delights to give his people the kingdom.

Transcript of Solomon's Question, Jesus' Answer | Matthew 6:25-33

Fight, Flight, or Freeze

Jed Gillis: How many of you have ever been tubing, like behind a boat? Not the kind where you float down the river, tubing behind a boat. Okay. And, uh, especially if you've ever been tubing in a context where the person driving the boat wasn't necessarily trying to keep you on the tube, you know what that's like. You know how you take your muscles and you grab the handles and you clench and you just try to hold on as long as you can.

And we all know the boat wins eventually, right? You might hold on for a long time, you might, whatever, but your muscles start to get tired, and before long, your arms slide out a little bit more, and before long, that whip across the, the wave or maybe it rolls you over, who knows. But however it is, you get to a point where I can't hold onto this anymore because your muscles are not in fact designed to continuously hold like that against those pressures.

In many ways, we have the same kind of emotional response sometimes. It might be something we label as anxiety or something like that, where our souls are trying to desperately hold on, trying to make sure that we don't fly off and get hurt, a- and we kind of clench everything we can to try to control what's going on around us. And maybe you can do it for a little while But we know that experience, eventually you are worn out. You say, "I just can't do it anymore." And so then we run to all kinds of, of other things.

Now, this morning we're not going to be in Ecclesiastes, but we're going to talk about what Ecclesiastes has been talking about still. So we're gonna be in Matthew chapter 6, if you wanna turn to Matthew chapter 6. This morning we're gonna talk about anxiety because Jesus says, "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."

Now, before we do that, I wanna say a quick disclaimer at the beginning. There are physical realities about anxiety, and there are physical treatments. Sometimes what you really need to do is take time to breathe, take a nap, drink some water, go outside, right? All of those things are really good things, and they help deal with some of the physical realities of anxiety. I'm not really talking about the physical side this morning.

What I wanna do is talk about our inner life, our inner self, the motion of our soul, the kind of clinching that feels like it's just exhausting and eventually you go, "I just have to let go 'cause I can't keep holding on like that." That kind of motion.

So when Jesus says, "Don't be anxious," in order to hear his cure the right way, we need to know what symptoms he's trying to treat so when I say anxiety, here's what I mean.

I mean your soul's recognition that you're not in ultimate control of something combined with a really deep desire, say I want something good and I don't think I can really control that I get it. And so our soul squeezes harder and harder and harder to hope that I can maintain control.

And the response to anxiety can look like a lot of different things. You've probably heard a phrase like fight or flight. And really, I'd say we'd probably add a third one and say sometimes we freeze. So anxiety is, it's what happens in our soul, and it's kind of like, it's like an alarm that goes off, but it doesn't tell you how to respond. The responses we have could fit in those categories.

You could freeze. We call it, like, paralysis. Things seem out of control in your life, so you wanna shut down and do nothing. Like I can't do, I can't do anything. I don't know how it's all gonna work out, so you freeze. This could be a kind of overthinking. We all know people like that. Of course, none of us would actually do that ourselves, right? I'm sure none of you overthink things. I do. We know that feeling of I don't know how this is all gonna work out, so you sort through every potential conversation and com- and how those will work out, and everything you're gonna say, and everything you think they're gonna say. I don't know about you, but what I find is when I get into that conversation, they say things I haven't thought of. That's how it works.

But we have this kind of paralysis. You make a mistake at, at work, and instead of just dealing with it and going and, and fixing the problem and saying, "How do we move forward?" You, you make that mistake, and instead you just go, "I can't seem to do anything." You freeze. That comes from an emotional response inside, an anxiety.

Or maybe you have had difficult personal relationships with others around you, so you just don't put much out there to others. You're like, "I'm not gonna get hurt again, so I'm just gonna keep it all right here. Play it all close to the chest." You don't really isolate. You still talk to them, but you don't really share anything deep with anyone. It's like freezing. So when you freeze, it looks like paralysis.

When you fly, so fight, flight, and freeze, when you fly, it looks like resignation, right? At some point you say this anxiety, this I'm desperate to make sure life turns out a certain way and I, I clench up and my muscles get so tired and you go, "Forget it. I'm just gonna give up. I can't control it anyway. What's the point?" And so you avoid or you procrastinate or you do all these things that come from an inner response of anxiety.

Now probably if I were to ask you just we were having a conversation over coffee, I say, "What does anxiety look like?" You might name those two. It can look like I paralyze, it can look like I withdraw. But the same thing can also give us a, a fight response, if you will, which could be actually fighting against someone or just saying, "I'm driven to work super hard." We don't always make that connection. Sometimes the person who's so driven to work really hard, they're actually have so much anxiety that's pushing them to do it.

So for that person, their soul is so desperate for safety and value to guarantee that that's true, so they go, "Well, I'm gonna be better. I'm gonna work harder so nobody can question my value

The same motion in our soul, the same posture that looks at something we can't control And says, "I try to control it anyway." It's like the guy on the tube. You can't control where that tube goes, I don't care how hard you pull on it. But we clench the muscles 'cause we go, "I have to make sure I stay on." And our soul, this posture of I'm not in control, I'm not God, but I desperately have to make sure I guarantee my safety or my worth or my value, our soul just clinches in and tries to grab.

You see, this is the exact same thing Solomon has been talking about, although he didn't use the word anxiety. What he did is he keeps saying, "It's frustrating. It's vanity. It's fleeting." If you try to grab it, he uses a picture for it. Instead of using the word anxiety, he says you're trying to grab wind.

This same sensation produces very different responses, fight, flight, or freezing. And I think often what happens is the person who tends to be really driven, they go and talk to the person who tends to just try to fly and get away. Like, "You need to do more. You need to do more." The person who tries to fly and get away talks to that person, "You need to do less. You need to do less." And we do all of these, like, coping strategies instead of getting at the root of the problem.

Which is what Jesus does in this text. He doesn't say, "Here's how you fix your productivity problem. Here's how you fix your paralysis and overthinking." He doesn't say directly how to do that. He says it comes from something underneath, anxiety. Let's talk about that.

Reading Matthew 6:25-33

Jed Gillis: So let's read what he says. "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? 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?" And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

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 of his glory was not arrayed like one of these 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?

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. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Jesus' Heart of Compassion

Jed Gillis: I don't know about you, but when I feel anxious and I read that text, I tend to read it like a textbook. "Don't be anxious. Consider the birds, consider the flowers. Are you not of more value than they?" And unsurprisingly, that doesn't really help me.

But I think in that moment, if you could hear Jesus talk to you, if you heard him speak it, you wouldn't hear it like that. When Jesus looked out at those people who weren't, were anxious and worried and he said, "Aren't you of more value than that bird?" It wasn't a textbook. He was speaking his heart of compassion to them.

See, if we read it like a textbook, it almost sounds like the, the stop that method of counseling. You're anxious, so stop it I remember there was an old Bob Newhart sketch about that. You can look it up. It's funny. You're like, "Thanks a lot, Jesus. If I could just stop it, I would stop it."

But Jesus doesn't leave us with that. He gives us more than just, "Stop it. Don't be anxious." He gives us reasons.

What We're Often Anxious About

Jed Gillis: So he says first, "Don't be anxious about your life." Now think about what he uses, what you eat or drink, and your clothing. Think about your food. If you don't have food, you can last a little while, but not that long. If you don't have something to drink, you can last a little while, but not that long.

When you eat, it nourishes you, it sustains you, it protects you from starvation, it protects you from dying of thirst So Jesus says, "Don't be anxious about the thing you absolutely must have to survive Right? He's not saying, "Don't be anxious about a little thing out there somewhere that you could have it, you could not have it." He's like, "No, the thing that protects you from starvation, the thing that sustains you, don't be anxious about what protects you. Don't be anxious about your safety. Or the thing that makes you thrive, that gives you the energy to actually accomplish what you're trying to do in life, don't be anxious about that."

Aren't those some of the things we're most tempted to be anxious about? That's what I am. I, I wanna guarantee that I'm gonna be safe and that I'm gonna have the energy to do what I want to do. Jesus says, "No, those things, what you eat or drink, don't be anxious about that."

And then he says clothing. And we might also think of this like it's protective, like gives us shelter. But notice the way Jesus uses it in verse 28 and 29 when he talks about the lilies of the field. And he says, "Don't be anxious about your clothing. Think about the flowers." The point isn't that the flowers are clothed in a way that protects them. The point is that they're beautiful They're, they're worth something because you look out and go, "Wow, those are great."

When Jesus says, "Don't be anxious about your clothing," let's put it this way, not only don't be anxious about what keeps you safe, but don't be anxious about what gives your life beauty or worth, about what crowns your life.

These are the very things we tend to be anxious about when we feel like we're not in control of our safety, "I don't know how I'll have the money to pay the bills next week."

That feels dangerous to us and our soul tends to go, "Oh no!" That's what Jesus is talking about. Because in an agricultural world where Aldi and Sam's Club and things like that aren't available, when you say, "Don't be anxious about what you're gonna eat," I mean, they go, "I don't know if I'll eat sometimes next week." If the harvest doesn't come in and give us good food, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do.

When we feel like we're not in control of our safety, we get nervous and our souls wanna clench and, "I'm gonna fix it." When we feel like we're not sure our life will thrive, we'll have the energy to do what we need to do, "I'm gonna fix this." That's our tendency. When we think, "I want my life to be valuable, to have something that people can look at and say, 'Yes, he lived a good life. He lived a productive life. Her life was the kind of life I want to have.'"

Life is More than Food

Jed Gillis: Jesus says in those moments, those are the kind of things that make us want to fight or flee or freeze. In those moments, Jesus says, "Don't be anxious." Well, why not, Jesus? First, because life is more than food. There's more to this life than the physical things you can control.

We all know it's possible to look good on the outside and be broken and falling apart on the inside. There's more to life than the food and clothing you can see. And unfortunately, often churches are some of the worst places where we look good on the outside, but we're falling apart and broken on the inside.

That shouldn't be. We should be able to talk to one another and say, "I am broken, but God is good, and walk with me so that I can be healed. Jesus says life is more than food. There's more than the physical thing that you can control.

So think about the birds, and many of you have heard this passage. I want you to think one specific phrase that struck me differently this time through.

When he says, "Look at the birds," his setup, his story is just imagine the birds are out there. Now, they don't sow or reap or gather into barns. They don't manipulate the seasons, right? They don't say, "Now's the time to grab all the worms and put them in the nest so I can eat them later." They don't say, "Now I'm gonna go," I don't know, "plant worm seeds." That doesn't really work like that. They don't do that.

They operate the way God designed for them to operate. He gave them instincts. They go out. If you've ever been out near a sidewalk after a rainstorm, and you see the worms that all come out, and you see the birds come over. How do they know to do that? Their heavenly Father feeds them. They operate the way He designed for them to. They don't sit here and worry about, "Oh, I don't know if the worm population in Knoxville is quite strong enough to support us." They, they don't do that.

They're not anxious trying to control that. They go and eat the worms when they're there. They come back to their nest. And they don't hoard for themselves to say, "See, I've got enough worms stored up that if God stops being good, I'm good for the rest of my life."

Sometimes we talk about, you know, savings like that I'm gonna save up enough so that if God stops being good the rest of my life, I can handle it. And yet Jesus says God feeds them. Of course, they fly out, they get the worms. God doesn't drop the worm in their mouth. Don't hear Jesus say meaningful work is not a good thing. You should just sit and wait for God to do everything for you. He's not saying that. What he's saying is, don't be anxious. Don't have this kind of soul posture that I'm gonna solve this problem no matter what God does.

Are You Not of More Value?

Jed Gillis: And so Jesus asked them this question, "Are you not of more value than they? If your heavenly Father feeds the birds, won't he feed you?"

Now, Solomon in Ecclesiastes has been asking this over and over, "What is really valuable? Is life under the sun really worth anything? If it's all fleeting and frustrating, what's actually worth it?" And Jesus's answer is you are.

That's not what I would have said this text says before this time through. I would have said Jesus says, "The kingdom's worth it." That's true. He does say that. I would have said Jesus says, "God's worth it." That's true. He says that too But he says, "Think about the birds. Look at all of them. Aren't you worth more than that?"

When we struggle with anxiety, we value ourselves a lot. That's not the problem though. The problem is we forget God values us. That's one of the answers Jesus gives. Don't be anxious. Why not? 'Cause God values you way more than that.

What Does Your Anxiety Do Anyway?

Jed Gillis: Then he asks a second question, "What does your anxiety do anyway? Can you add a single hour to your span of life?" Now, another text talks about you can't change the color of a hair on your head. Modern hair dye notwithstanding. Doesn't last. You can't guarantee that you grow, keep growing hair, as I can look out and see some of you couldn't.

Right? Jesus is doing the same thing in this question that Solomon does in Ecclesiastes. He's saying, "You don't have as much control as you think you do. You can worry about it all day long, and you can't make yourself live longer." In fact, knowing our modern medicine, we could say you might actually end your life faster.

So Jesus is doing what Solomon does to point you to say, when you try with your soul to control all of these things, you actually don't control what you think. Those of you especially you've lived a little bit longer, how many times in your life have you felt really in control? "I've got it all figured out." Probably not many, and if you did, I doubt it lasted long.

Jesus is pointing at that and saying, "Look, you are of more value than the birds." When we get anxious, we think, "My safety's really important. I'm really valuable to me. I have to guard myself." Jesus says the solution's not gonna be you guarding yourself. It's gonna be you remembering that God actually values you more than you think.

And then He says your control's not gonna do anything anyway 'cause you can't add a single hour to your life, not anything of real importance.

God Makes Your Life Beautiful

Jed Gillis: Okay, so then let's look at the second example. How about flowers, the lilies of the field?

Jesus says, "They grow and they don't toil and they don't spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

They grow just like God intended. They take in sunshine, they give off oxygen, and they could have done that without flowers that are pretty, but Jesus said, "I'm not only gonna just make plants that accomplish the oxygen cycle, I'm gonna make them beautiful," for other reasons, too.

You know, when you look around at God's creation, he didn't have to make it beautiful. He could have made it functional. God loves beauty. When you think about your life, God isn't, he didn't save us just so my life can be functional and get to the end and be like, "Well, I guess I made it." No, in fact, Jesus died for his church to present her spotless, blameless- Beautiful.

You see, if I don't believe that, if I think Jesus is just trying to make my life functional, it's too easy for me to feel anxious because I want my life to be more than just functional, and so do you. I want my life to have value and meaning. I don't want it to just, you know, exist and be done.

Jesus says, "You're of more value than the birds." And if God makes the flowers not just functional but beautiful. And they grow for a season, he says, are cast into the oven. They're used for fuel. They grow for a season and then they're gone, and they fertilize the next set of flowers. If God makes those beautiful, how much more you?

See, Jesus looks at the anxious person and what he doesn't do, he doesn't say, "You just got way too high a view of yourself as a human, and God's so much better." That's not how he deals with anxiety.

He says, "You're of more value than the birds. And the flowers only last a little while, but you last forever.

So Solomon had asked this question, "What lasts?" What's not fleeting? Is there anything? And Jesus answers, "Yes, you last."

Don't Seek After These Things

Jed Gillis: So Jesus gives his conclusion. "Therefore," verse 31, "do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or, 'What shall we drink?'" What will keep us safe or what will make us thrive? Or what w- shall we wear? What makes our life beautiful? What crowns our life? Don't be anxious. Don't in your soul go, "I have to figure all this out because nobody else cares for me enough."

Don't be anxious about these things, verse 32, because the Gentiles seek after all of these things. Th- there's a really subtle, there's a subtle difference in, in the Greek words here when he says the Gentiles seek after these things, and what he says in verse 33, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." I'm gonna say it's a hint. I'm not gonna say he's strongly stating this, but I think the hint is he's saying the Gentiles kind of over-seek these things. The Gentiles pursue them not in their right place within God's world, but those who don't believe in God, they pursue things like food and clothing in order to accomplish something those things could never accomplish. So they seek them too much. They're aiming for them in a way that they say, "This is gonna solve my problem."

They're looking to fill something in their lives and they anxiously grasp for it.

Don't we do that sometimes?

We want something in our lives that will fill a desire we have, that will fill a fear we have, and so we reach out for something to fill it that can't actually fill it. That's what anxiety is.

Those who don't believe in God seek after all these things. But your heavenly Father, who values you more than the birds, your heavenly Father, who knows you last longer than the flowers He knows what you need.

And notice Jesus doesn't play the games which we might play. We might say, "Well, I mean, what do I really need? Like, do I need to be safe? Do I need all..." Uh, He's not doing that. He says, "Your heavenly Father knows you need them. He knows that.

Seek First the Kingdom of God

Jed Gillis: What do you do? Familiar verse we could have quoted. "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."

Now, I don't know about you, but when I'm anxious, my first instinct isn't to go, "Quit thinking about my own kingdom and go seek that one." But that's part of the solution Jesus says. If you struggle with anxiety I've already said there's some physical components to that This doesn't have to look like your neighbor. But if you struggle with anxiety, think how can I turn my focus from whatever that is that worries me to, in a small way to start with at least, seek first the kingdom of God. Not because God doesn't care about you, but because He says one of the ways that you battle anxiety is to seek first His kingdom. To pursue The recognized, treasured rule of your king. To seek first the kingdom. To say whatever all these fears are that swirl around in my head, the thing that's of the greatest value is the kingdom of God. I wanna live and serve my king.

You say, "But, but I won't be in control of my life." Not if you're serving a king. He's in control of your life. But like we saw in Ecclesiastes last week, the king is the kind of king who loves cultivated fields. He's the kind of king who looks at you and says, "And I want you to flourish. I want you to, your life to be beautiful like a flower. I value you more than the birds." Seek first the kingdom of God.

Jesus not only says, "You are valuable and you last," but then he says, "There's something else that lasts. And that's the King and His kingdom. And in fact, we know that's, that's why we have value because we're made in the image of the King, because you were made to know God and to love Him and to reflect Him and to worship Him.

Biblically, humans aren't awesome because they can create artificial intelligence, Or computers, or cars, or put somebody on the moon, or go down in submarines. Those are all amazing things. But biblically speaking, humans are incredible because you can know and love God with your whole being. You were made in His image. That's what you were designed for.

Like birds were designed to go get worms and eat them. Like flowers are designed to come up and put a, a myriad, thousands of different colors and blooms, shapes, and all of these varieties, and flowers were made to do that. And you were made to know God as the greatest treasure in your life and to live like it. That's what we were made for.

Trusting God

Jed Gillis: Now perhaps you get here I was thinking through how I respond when I, when I read this text. When I read this text and I read it here, or I read it sitting in my office and I'm, this is my time to think about God's Word, I read it and I go away and I think, "Yes, wonderful truth. Seek first the Kingdom of God." And often it's not connected to my life.

When I think of this text and it's actually connected to my life, when I feel anxious and afraid and worried, and I think about this text, sometimes it actually makes me maybe feel a little more afraid because I'm, have little faith in that moment. But it makes me feel more afraid because I say, "If I can't trust myself to control my safety, my joy, the value of my life, can I trust that I'll actually be safe? Can I trust that it'll actually be good?"

It can feel terrifying to say, just like if you're riding the tube, "I'm just gonna enjoy the ride. The guy's not trying to throw me off right now. It's okay. I'm just gonna enjoy the ride." Some of you love roller coasters. Some of you hate roller coasters. And if I put two of you next to each other, one of us, uh, I'm not a huge fan of roller coasters. I, I went with a friend of mine who absolutely loved it. He's up there relaxed and just, you know, woo, and screaming, and it was a great time. And I'm, you know, trying not to look scared and kinda clenched up like this, right? The person with anxiety is like me there. I'm riding, my muscles are clenched. It's not changing anything. I gotta get to the end of the ride no matter what.

The person who says, "I trust my king, I wanna seek his kingdom," is riding that rollercoaster and enjoying it. The experience is so different. But very often, we go through this life and we go, if God's the one I have to trust and not me, that can feel scary.

Fear Not

Jed Gillis: So I want you to turn over to Luke chapter 12 'Cause we get through all this, we go, "Seek first the kingdom of God."

What if I don't protect myself, and I'm trying to seek the kingdom, and I don't get the kingdom of God either? What on earth happens to me? Thankfully in Luke you have a very similar statement, almost exactly the same in chapter 12 verse 22. You get down to the verse that we just read, which would be 31 in Luke. He says, "Seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you." And read the next verse, "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

When it feels scary to say, "I don't clench my soul in anxiety and control my life. I don't guarantee my fears won't happen. I'm gonna seek first the kingdom of God. What if that doesn't work out?" Fear not, 'cause your Father loves to give you the kingdom. It's His good pleasure. He delights to.

How to Battle Anxiety

Jed Gillis: So how do you battle anxiety? If we take Jesus' lesson and say, let's, let's summarize. How do you battle anxiety?

First thing, you remember what your King says. You don't have the control that you wish you did, but you're more valuable than you think. Are you not of more value than the birds? And you are a citizen of an eternal kingdom, so you will last forever.

Take three truths. You don't have as much control as you think, you're more valuable than you think, and you'll last forever. Which one of those do you functionally have the hardest time remembering?

Which one of those do you doubt more often than not? When you feel anxiety and fear and this crippling, paralyzing fear. Which one of those do you not really trust? Remember what your king said.

I'll invite you, I'll give you one specific. You could do this a lot of different ways. I think many times we doubt, does God really value me? 'Cause we go, "I know I sinned this week. I was terrible. Does God really value me?" I would suggest write down the question somewhere, "Are you not of more value than the birds?" Put it where you can see it. And don't just put it somewhere where you can see it, go, "Okay, how am I gonna actually think about this in my life?" When I get to the end of my day and I look back and I go, "I was worried about this situation or this situation. This is hard. My soul's all knotted up about this," take that thing you're anxious about and put it alongside the question, "Aren't you of more value than the birds? Does God value you enough to care about that situation?"

Spend time. Spend time looking out at creation and thinking, "God values those beautiful birds flitting around. God values the flowers. God values the mountains. God values the sunset and the sunrise. He made it all, and then he made you, and you're of more value.

Take what your king says, and remember, you don't have the control that you think, but you're more valuable than you think, and you're a citizen of an eternal kingdom, so you last forever. So remember what your king says.

Second thing, pursue what your king loves. Once you remember these things, then you say, "Seek the Kingdom of God. What does my king love?" I enjoyed this past week watching a whole lot of you minister to kids walking around this building. Your king loves that his word goes forward to little four-year-olds. And 10-year-olds. Your king loves compassion. Your king loves when you show value to them and say, "God's your shepherd and he loves you, and you don't have to be afraid." Your king loves that. Seek first his kingdom.

You seek His kingdom with joy. That's why we teach kids at VBS and children's church and Sunday school. That's why we lead Bible studies or participate in Bible studies. That's why we sing together. That's why we make meals for one another, or encourage one another, or comfort one another, or counsel one another. That's why we build up the body. That's why we pray for one another. We do all of that because our King loves those things. That's not so I feel good about myself. We do all of those things because it's seeking the kingdom of God.

And so when our souls are tired, when we're afraid, when we have this anxiety that threatens to just wear us out, you know, what does my king love and how can I pursue that? Seek first the kingdom of God.

Because the solution to anxiety isn't to grip tighter and tighter and tighter. It's to remember your king loves you and love what he loves. So seek first the kingdom of God. Jesus doesn't want to deal with your anxiety simply by dealing with the symptoms. He wants to deal with the, the actual problem He doesn't want you just to say, "I have all these fears. I need to just hide away from everything in life." He wants you to say, "Yes, I feel these fears, but my king loves me, so how can I pursue his kingdom?"

So I wanna ask you we could say that phrase over and over how will you seek his kingdom this week?

I hope that we don't hear, "Seek first the kingdom of God," and walk out and go, "Great, forget that." I hope that it... And it doesn't have to be huge, doesn't have to be a big thing. It's what does my king love? How can I step into that? Who can I encourage? Who can I serve? Who can I pray for? Who can I comfort? How can I come alongside someone?

Seek first the kingdom of God. How can I tell others who don't know my king how great He is? Seek first the kingdom of God. How can I trust Him for the welfare of my soul instead of my bank account for the welfare of my soul? Seek first the kingdom of God. How are you gonna actually do that this week and next week? And the rest of your life?

That's not because God needs labor to accomplish His purposes. It's because it's actually God's way of freeing you from anxiety. He loves you, so seek first His kingdom. Remember what your king says, pursue what your king loves, and trust your king's heart. It's His good pleasure, it's His delight to give you the kingdom.

We sang earlier, do you believe these words? Those He saves are His delight. God delights in you. If you're a follower of Jesus, he delights in you. So trust Him. And what you'll find, not instantly, what you'll find is the crin- the clenching grip of anxiety that wears you out can be replaced with the joy of your King which is our strength.

So I wanna invite you to take a moment and respond to God. I wanna encourage you, I'll give you 30 seconds or a minute. At least start thinking about how can I seek the kingdom this week? How can I remember these things the king said this week? Spend some time with God. Ask him to show you a way to step forward in that, and then I'll pray.