Nov 25 - Matthew 6:25,26

Jesus said,

Do not worry about your life …

Is not life more than food,

and the body more than clothing?

Matthew 6:25-26

 

Thousands of years ago, God provide! On the top of Mount Moriah, he Lord gave Abraham a ram/a lamb to serve as a substitutionary sacrifice for Isaac. That was yesterday’s story. We said that Abraham renamed this spot Jehovah-Jireh, which means, “God provides.”

 

But this was not the final time this Mount would play a significant role in Israel’s history.

 

About a thousand years later, through King David (and through God’s direction, of course) God's people would claim Mount of Moriah as the city of God. Jerusalem! And on this precise spot, God’s people through King Solomon would build the Temple.

 

So think of the significance … On the exact same spot where God provided a substitutionary sacrifice for Isaac (a lamb/ram), the people of God, from the time of Solomon and for the next thousand years, would bring daily sacrifices of lambs (and oxen and doves). This was God’s command. This was God’s provision. So that God’s people would know the literal cost of sin, God granted Old Testament forgiveness through the substitutionary sacrifice of … a lamb.

 

Then, another thousand years later, the chief priest and elders plotted from this same Temple Mount to put Jesus-the-Son-of-God to death. The first time John the Baptist met Jesus, he called him … the Lamb of God. And again, God used a substitutionary sacrifice – this time, of his Son – to eternally effect the forgiveness of sins.

 

In Matthew 6, Jesus acknowledges a very real human anxiety. How will we provide food for our families? Money and finances are a first and obvious human concern in the passage we’ve been studying for three days from Matthew 6.

 

But then Jesus points to a more transcendent point. But, he says, “isn’t life about more than food, and … clothing,” … and money … and things of this earth. Jesus is pointing us beyond this world. He’s pointing us to heaven. When we worry about money, we are pointing down and wondering how we will provide for our family’s wants and needs. Jesus wants us to look up! He invites us to depend on Jehovah-Jireh to provide us ultimately with food and clothing … and so much more!

 

God does provide … in earthly terms. There is and will be enough food in this world to go around. (The problem: Humans are greedy and gluttonous. We don’t always share. If we all just trusted in God, part of Jesus’ Sermon on Mount point, we wouldn’t have to worry.)

 

But our life on this earth is short!

 

So why, really, are we focused here. On this Mount of Moriah, God provided a substitutionary sacrifice … for the forgiveness of sins. In the shadow of the Temple, Jesus paid the price for our sin and provided an opening to the door to heaven … where there is no hunger and worry. And the quicker we embrace this Kingdom perspective, the sooner we quit worrying so much about earthly things!

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who wonders

if we ought to have lamb

for Thanksgiving

(Hmm. Does lamb have tryptophan?

Then maybe I can stay awake

for Black Friday madness!

Except isn’t it strange that

on Thursday, we give thanks

for what we do have,

while on Friday we rush out

to buy more stuff?

I wonder how this fits with

Jesus’ words in Matthew 6?)