Mark Clark [00:00:00]:
Hey everyone, welcome back. Mark Clark Podcast. Someone was asking me the other day if you were to try to explain some of the things that the Problem of Life book that is, that is coming out in February. What is it about? It's the third book that I've written and I kind of gave them a couple different images I talked about, like, what if Richard Dawkins, J.K. rowling and Serena Williams walked into a bar? What would happen? And what do they agree on versus disagree on? And they're like, what do you mean? I'm like, wait a second, what about what if? I could say that Your view of SeaWorld is directly connected to the level of anxiety that you have in your life? And maybe I don't understand. And what if a ballistic missile aimed for Hawaii had everything to do with your life? These are like three of the images of 100 images and stories that I talk about in the Problem of Life. And I take them all and show what they have to do with you, your life in the real world. So some of those things I want to read about that if that interests you or people, you know, the Problem of Life, you can go over to Amazon and pre order it now and it will be at your home on February 18th.
Mark Clark [00:01:17]:
I am super excited about it. And today we are talking about one of those topics we just said, the issue of worry and anxiety, one of the great things that we all face in life. Amazingly, Jesus had a lot to say about worry and anxiety, especially in Matthew 6, where he gets real about the things that stress us out, from money to relationships to even the future of the world and your life within it itself. So this message is all about practical steps to keep anxiety from taking over, showing how God's love and providence provided deeper peace than we might even think. So if you're ready to find real strategies for living fear free, this episode is for you. This is Sermon on the Mount, Part 6. Hopefully you're enjoying it. Let's jump in.
Mark Clark [00:02:00]:
One of the great issues of our time, we got a lot of content to get into. This is probably less a sermon and almost just like a teaching. Because the topic I want you less to be like, oh, that was a great sermon. And more like, I got stuff, strategies and practical things that I can go home with and actually carry out in my life on the everyday and have a perspective of strategies, of ways to deal with what we're talking about tonight. Because this week Jesus talks about something super practical and something that is true about all of our lives. This is why I love the Title of our series, the God Day talked about everything. The Day God Talked about everything. Because Jesus talks today about worry and anxiety.
Mark Clark [00:02:43]:
And, you know, raise your hand if you've ever had worry or anxiety. Right, exactly. So this is what I love about Christianity, is that Jesus is super practical and he wants to hit a whole bunch of stuff that is super practical for all of us. So Matthew, chapter six, or if in your notes as well. Let me just actually read the text for us right off the bat, because I think it's important enough. It's almost a sermon in itself. It's like. It's weird.
Mark Clark [00:03:09]:
It's weird preaching after Jesus preaches because he's the greatest preacher of all time. And then I just feel like a loser. I'm like, why am I commenting on what he said? That's the sermon. But they don't pay me to just read, you know, what Jesus said, and then I go home. But I feel like some weeks I should do that. Cause it's too good. You can't improve on the words of Jesus. But anyway, let me put it all in front of you just so you have it.
Mark Clark [00:03:32]:
And if this is all you get, this is. This is the best stuff you can get. Matthew, chapter six. Listen to what Jesus now says. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns. And yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Mark Clark [00:04:09]:
Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon, that great king of old, in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith? So do not worry saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the pagans run after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. And all these things, they will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. That's a sermon.
Mark Clark [00:05:22]:
That's it. I just, like, go home. I mean, that's it, man. What does it say? The power of this text, man. My non Christian friend called me up one day and he said, I'm going in for a root canal tomorrow, and I'm super nervous. Like, I've got this surgery. I don't know what to do. Can you give me some passages from the Bible? They're gonna take away my.
Mark Clark [00:05:43]:
My anxiety and my worry. And I just sent him that text without comment, and he was like, oh, my goodness. This just changed my whole life, changed my whole perspective. Thank you. Jesus clearly cares about me, and he doesn't want me to be anxious and nervous and worry, and it's such a beautiful thing. So let's jump into this worry and anxiety. I got a bunch of stuff for you. All of us worry.
Mark Clark [00:06:02]:
It's an epidemic, though. In our world today, unlike we've ever seen, worry is a way of life. There's the mental illness aspect of worry, where it's a mental health issue. I'm not really talking a ton about that. Today we're actually doing a series starting in August. August 13th, we're doing three weeks on mental health, and then we're taking a little break for a few weeks and then coming back. So we're doing six weeks in total in the fall on mental health. Anxiety, depression, burnout, isolation, all of those things.
Mark Clark [00:06:33]:
So make sure you're there. Make sure you bring friends and family there. So I'm not getting too much into the mental health aspect of it, but just a couple stats for you. About 40 million Americans live with the diagnosis of anxiety disorder. People go through, of course, anxiety attacks. I went through an anxiety attack for the first time in my life a couple months ago. I remember I was sharing with you about my grandfather passing away. I had a lot of pressure, a lot of crazy things going on at work and life, and I had to fly to Toronto.
Mark Clark [00:07:03]:
And I got in a plane, which I don't love doing anyway, and I was sitting in the plane, and all of a sudden it was like they were getting ready. They were going to tell us about the seatbelts. And I just started, like, hyperventilating. I started freaking out. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. And I text Erin. I'm like, I got to get off this plane.
Mark Clark [00:07:17]:
And she's like, I think you're having an anxiety attack, a panic attack. I'm like, I don't know what I'm having. I just got to get off this plane. And so this lady is, like, doing, like, you know, when you meet people on the plane and they just kind of do your little introductions. Where are you from? I'm from Ohio. Blah, blah, blah, potatoes. And I'm like, this lady's talking. I'm like freaking out.
Mark Clark [00:07:31]:
I'm like, what's going on? Why? Of why? The walls closing in on me. And I like stood up and I just started grabbing myself. I'm like, yeah, really, Ohio, that's great. And I just started walking in the front of the plane. And the people like, what are you doing, sir? I'm like, I'm leaving. They're like, what? And they're about to close the doors. I'm like, yeah, just give me a sec. And I just got off.
Mark Clark [00:07:46]:
Like, what do you mean? Give me a sec. And I just got off the plane. I sit in the airport, I'm like, I'm not going. I freaked out. Only time in my life that's ever happened. But some of you have this, that it kind of occurs in your life. Anxiety and panic rises up in you. You don't know what to do.
Mark Clark [00:08:01]:
And everything kind of tunnels in. 40 million Americans say that they live with a diagnosis of these things. 20% of America or 20% of the country, that is so it's the most prevalent mental illness in the United States. Anxiety rose among college students by 110% between 2013 and 2021. 90% of doctor's office visits are for stress related symptoms. 90%. So we don't tend to go to the doctors because we have a broken arm, we've got a broken, like soul. A little bit like we're having anxiety, it's stressful and that's why we go.
Mark Clark [00:08:44]:
So the American Psychiatric Association 2019 did a public opinion poll and said that we as a society are growing in anxiety and worry in five major areas. You can write these down, cause these will be helpful for you. The first is health. How many hypochondriacs do I have in the room, right? Just like you watch a show and they talk about a disease and you're like, yeah, yeah, that's me. I got that. I have that. That's what I've got, right? That's the hypochondriac. They're worried about their health.
Mark Clark [00:09:13]:
I read this week about a guy who put on his tombstone, I told you I was sick. All right, that's the hypochondriac. Just like constantly thinking he was right that one time. All right, so health is an issue and then safety is an issue, right? We're worried about Our kids, we're worried about our friends. We're texting our kids. Our teenagers are driving. They're getting their driver's license, but they've got these phones that we didn't have growing up. And so we're telling them not to text, and we're texting them not to text while they're driving.
Mark Clark [00:09:44]:
We're worried about safety. We're freaking out. Third is finances. We're worried we're going to end up living in a van down by the river. All of us are a little nervous. The finances are going to run out. Are they going to be good? What's going to happen with my money? Is it going to disappear? The stock market's going to crash. All my money is going to disappear.
Mark Clark [00:10:03]:
Am I going to have enough to pay the bills next week? Right. Finances. Fourthly is politics. Right. Politics are stressing us out. Crazy anxiety. You got two. You got the left and the right.
Mark Clark [00:10:15]:
You got Republicans, you got. You got Democrats. And it's not like a lot of the people running for office right now are going to end up on Mount Rushmore, to be honest with you. I mean, I'm just giving you the Canadian perspective here. All right, you guys are in trouble down here. All right, there we go. We got some fans. You're European.
Mark Clark [00:10:34]:
Perfect. So we're worried about politics, man. Where is this country going? What's happening? Are these people? What are they doing? No one seems to, you know, be doing stuff. And then the last one is relationships, the drama of our parents and our siblings and our friends, all of these things. And I think my theory is, and I'm not a psychologist, but I think one of the issues is we have technology and the world has shrunk and we see more stuff than any culture has ever seen. And we're just, you know, we can just scroll Twitter, whatever social media. We see every murder, every flood, every stabbing. You know, I was literally scrolling a news story the other day, and this video popped up about this guy getting eaten by a shark in Egypt.
Mark Clark [00:11:16]:
It just, like, jumped right on video. I'm like, oh, my gosh. And I'm never going in the water again. I'm literally. I watched a dude eat my shark. I'm like, I'm done. Take me back to the 80s, right, where I just open up a newspaper and it's like, I don't know. This happened yesterday.
Mark Clark [00:11:31]:
It doesn't even matter. I don't need to know. Every guy who gets stabbed in a 711 between here and Pennsylvania, Right? Like, why? No wonder we're all stressed, and we start to then wear that as human beings in a psychology that. As if we're supposed to do something about it, as if it impacts our life, because that's the necessity. The ego is that everything that's happening somehow strings back to us, right? And so we wear the stress and the strain of this. And so Jesus now talks about worry. And the best explanation for that, it's like, worry is that thing in our life. It's like the constant Jaws theme that's playing under our whole life.
Mark Clark [00:12:13]:
And we're at the grocery store and we're just trying to get some tomatoes. And somewhere in the back of your brain, it's like, you're, like, looking for the fin, and you're like, what's happening right now? You're just trying to get a tomato. But all of life is, like, set with this background noise of Jaws theme of stress and anxiety. The next thing is going to happen. Watch out. The next thing is going to happen. And we're waiting for the floor to fall out, right? My buddy, literally, he run this company, got millions and millions of dollars, and he got a check for it, put it in the bank. I called him up.
Mark Clark [00:12:58]:
I'm like, congratulations. He's like, ah, it's probably gonna be gone, man. Real soon. It's gonna be gone. I gotta figure out what to do with it. Like, bro, can you enjoy the millions for one day? The guy's already thinking, oh, the other shoe's gonna fall off. We're probably gonna get cancer tomorrow. I know it.
Mark Clark [00:13:12]:
Things are going too good. Like George Costanza philosophy, right? Everything's too good. And that's how all of us kind of function. And it leads to ulcers and hypertension and high blood pressure and all of it. Where we get the word worry is from a word that means to choke. To choke. And that's what Jesus is coming against. He's going, I don't want you to.
Mark Clark [00:13:35]:
I don't want you to live a life where you're getting choked. And so he says, therefore, I tell you, do not worry. This is the big topic of the day. Do not worry. He says three times, actually, through the text, he says it, do not worry. Do not worry. Do not worry. Now, the first thing that kind of rises is how does anyone have the audacity to command us not to worry? It's not like any of us got up in the morning and said, I want to worry.
Mark Clark [00:14:01]:
And if someone would have just told me not to worry, I would have stopped. That's not the way it works. Right? That's not the way. It's like when my best strategy is looking at my wife when she's getting mad and I say these magical words, just calm down. That works every time. Because immediately she goes, you know what? You're right. I'm glad you told me that. You're totally right.
Mark Clark [00:14:24]:
I shall calm down. Nobody in the history of time has calmed down to someone saying, just calm down. So Jesus isn't telling us like that. Like a drill sergeant, calm down. I read the story of a pastor whose wife got depressed a few years into their marriage. They were in the 20s. He said, My strategy was to walk in every morning and say, buck up. I'm sure it'll get better.
Mark Clark [00:14:54]:
That's not what Jesus is doing here. What Jesus is doing here in starting this by saying, do not worry, he's saying, I want to. I'm not. I'm not telling you like a drill sergeant. What I'm doing is inviting you to listen to everything I'm about to say. Because everything I'm about to say is going to help to solve your worry. Everything I'm about to unpack for you is going to help solve your worry. And so that's what he's talking about.
Mark Clark [00:15:19]:
So three big strategies to fighting worry. Here's the first one. It's not. Here's what I need you to do. If you got your notes, take them out, slash the what is the kingdom of God? Because I'm not going to get to that one. Not even close. Here's what I want you to do. The kingdom of God is amazing.
Mark Clark [00:15:36]:
It's the reign of God and the rule of God. All right? If you really like those type A's, like, you have to tell me, you have to tell me what is the kingdom, reign and rule of God until you have it in your life. But here's the first strategy I have for trying to figure out worry and anxiety. First, here's what Jesus is gonna say. He's gonna say, God exists. Thus, we are not alone. Here's what he does. He looks at this issue of anxiety and he says, you're worried about your life and what you're eating your drink and so on.
Mark Clark [00:16:03]:
Look at the birds of the air. They do not so. And then he hones in here and he says, yet your what, Heavenly Father? So he starts out with the assumption that God exists. How many of our problems in our life, in our culture happen because we begin with the assumption, the secular assumption, that God doesn't exist. He doesn't exist. There's no morality, there's no truth, there's no judge, there's no father. There's no structure. And so our lives tend to fall apart at that point.
Mark Clark [00:16:33]:
That's why Jesus says the Gentiles or the pagans actually live like that. And here's the practical reality of what then happens if you live a life where you're an atheist, and maybe that's you, and you're here and you're exploring Christianity. Awesome. That was me growing up. And maybe that's been your philosophical idea. I don't believe in God. And the problem with that is the implication practically on your life. For that is all the pressure of everything in the world will come dropping on you because you don't have a transcendent person to put it on.
Mark Clark [00:17:03]:
If we are all there is, if the secular worldview is to be believed, philosophers have told us that we in the Western world are the worst culture to deal with suffering because of the secular worldview that says there is no God. Because if there is no God, we don't know how to frame the meaning of our suffering. So when you get cancer, when you get that diagnosis, when someone in your family dies, when that tragedy hits you, you don't have any way to frame it because there is no grander story. There is no God. So all is. It's you. It's. There's no meaning to your suffering.
Mark Clark [00:17:41]:
And one of the great things religious thinking does all through history is tries to frame and bring meaning to suffering. It says you are part of a larger metanarrative, a larger story that your life is actually a part of. And even your suffering and even your pain brings that out, and it brings meaning to it. So I think the same is true about worry. I think we're so bad with worry and anxiety because we've removed God. Every disease, every war, every challenge we see, we're left on our own. And so some of you are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I don't want to believe in this Heavenly Father because I haven't been convinced of the evidence yet. I kind of look around, I live my life, you know, I've never seen God.
Mark Clark [00:18:23]:
Ergo, I don't believe in God. And of course, that's a faulty logic. That's like saying, I can't smell the color red. It's a paradigm category mistake. And I'll give you an example of this. Okay, I want you all to shut your eyes. Everyone close your eyes. I can see you up here, so I'll judge you if you don't.
Mark Clark [00:18:38]:
Okay, close your eyes. I'm just gonna do a quick thought experiment with you. I'm gonna put a image up on the screens, and there are two lines, and I need you to. Right when you open your eyes, tell me which line, what center line is longer. Okay? So when it gets up on the screen, I'll tell you. Okay. Open your eyes and shout it out. Okay, well, yeah, yeah.
Mark Clark [00:18:59]:
All you people, like, they're all the same. Quiet. All right. Yes, of course, the fact that I asked you was setting you up. But those are the exact same length, those center lines. And this is a classic experiment that Germans do and psychologists do. First year of psychology. You do this because here's the reality.
Mark Clark [00:19:16]:
Sometimes you can't trust your eyes. The reality in life is sometimes you actually can't trust your mind and all of your rational, reasonable thinking. Sometimes the truth, you try to figure it out through only logic and only rationale, and it messes you up because sometimes you have to go behind what you see and understand that there is something, even if you can't see. A heavenly father. Jesus is saying he is there. And it's a category mistake philosophically to say, just because I can't see him, I can't believe in him. There's many rational reasons to believe in God. And I went through this when I was becoming a Christian when I was 18.
Mark Clark [00:19:52]:
I started exploring the history and the philosophy and the science and realizing science is pointing toward God. The deeper we go into DNA strands, we realize it's the logic of God. The reason I got green eyes is because there's literally a language built into my DNA. And matter doesn't create mind. Mind has to create matter. Matter, over time, left unto itself, can't create mind. And we know this. The deeper we go into space, the deeper we study science and dark matter, the deeper we study philosophy and we realize that morality is true.
Mark Clark [00:20:22]:
Right and wrong, that's a moral thing. If you're here and you're like, hey, listen, I've been reading Kierkegaard, and I know that there's no such thing as right and wrong, just go to the county fair, which I went to yesterday. Very interesting people watching at the county fair, by the way. My kids had a blast. It was super fun. But those lineups, those lineups will just be a great little experiment for you, because just cut into one when you're in line for the Gravitron, just walk up in front of a bunch of people that have been standing there for two hours, and then See, if there's such thing as an absolute moral law. And when they go, bro, what are you doing in line? I go, hey, don't project your values on me, bro. All right? I do what I feel is right.
Mark Clark [00:21:08]:
You do, you do you. I do me. What's the problem? Oh, you don't like that philosophy now? What is there? Truth? And it gets really existential for them, especially when they got their apple and they're like, I don't know, bro. All right? So it's like. But the point is. The point is there's all kinds of rational reasons to actually believe in God. But here's the point. The reality is this.
Mark Clark [00:21:34]:
When we get into the less psychological issue and more of a philosophical issue of when you remove God, you begin to feel like the universe might be a little chaotic. And there was a German word for this back in the day, and it was basically that we. We feel like we've been thrown into a story that has no rhyme or reason for anything. And we get scared because we're scrolling our news feeds and we see every shooting and every flood and everything that happens. And we begin to go, there's no reason or rhyme to these events that are taking place. There's nothing that they mean. And so we begin to have a philosophical problem. Not a psychological one, but a philosophical one, where we begin to go, I don't know.
Mark Clark [00:22:17]:
And here's Jesus going, actually, guys, listen, God exists. Which means he's writing a story and everything that happens is part of his story. Because if there is no God, sure, it's chaos, it's randomness. And so he. But not only does God exist, here's what that means for you and me. It means, listen to this. Here's the beauty at 2 o'clock in the morning when you wake up and you're like, all the world starts to flood into your life. You know those mornings, right? Your finances.
Mark Clark [00:22:51]:
At 2 o'clock in the morning, man, nothing seems rational, right? The world is apocalyptic. At 2 o'clock in the morning, I'll wake up and my wife will be sitting there. It's like sitting up, I'm like, what are you doing? She's like, our finances, it's not gonna work. It's not gonna work, it's not gonna work, it's not gonna work. Like. But it was working at 7:00pm last night. At 2:00 in the morning, when the finances rush into you and your marriage is like, this thing's falling apart and I don't know if I can fix it. And the kids.
Mark Clark [00:23:23]:
I'm nervous about the kids. And what are they gonna do when that happens? Here's what Jesus just said. You have a heavenly father. And it doesn't just mean he exists, it means he's with you. This is one of the big things you gotta take away here. I would love at some point to do a class in like the Gospel of Matthew and just kind of teach through it, like two hour, three hour lectures and just go, go, go. Maybe we'll do that at some point. Here's one of the great things about the Gospel of Matthew.
Mark Clark [00:23:50]:
Just write this down in Matthew chapter one, here's what happens. The angel comes and tells Joseph to call Jesus something. What does he say his name should be? We should remember this from Christmas. I want you to call Jesus what? Emmanuel. Which means what? God with us. Then at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, in chapter 28, the Great Commission, the last words out of Jesus mouth are, I want you to baptize them, teaching them to obey all they commanded, Go and reach the nations. All of that, lo, right to the end of the 8th. And then he says, lo, what? And I will be with you.
Mark Clark [00:24:30]:
Matthew bookends his entire book with this one concept. God is with you. He doesn't just exist, he's with you. Which means man. As I was reading that story about the, the Titan, the Titanic, you know, the submersible that went down to see the Titanic and we didn't know what was going on for three or four days. I was picturing those five people in that little space and I'm just freaking out and I'm just like, oh my, this is literally my worst nightmare. Claustrophobic in there, not knowing, running out of oxygen, and they're dying and maybe they're running out and they're just slowly waiting to die and staring at each other. And I'm just going through and I'm reading all the data about it and I'm sitting there going, man, if you're in that position one day or something like that, there are only two options.
Mark Clark [00:25:18]:
We are dying and there is no meaning to this. And the universe is cold and this is it. Or God is even in that sub with you under the water 10,000ft. It's not just that he exists, it's that his presence can be with you. And when you're struggling with worry and anxiety and you're not sure, he's going, this is one of the things you gotta hold onto. Erin, when she was a kid, she struggled with a lot of anxiety. She was born into a family that worked at funeral homes. Her biggest fear in the world was death.
Mark Clark [00:25:59]:
Awesome. So all her family talked. What did you do today? Well, I buried a guy. I. Blah, blah, blah. I killed him. He's dead. No, I killed him, but he was dead, and they're dead.
Mark Clark [00:26:07]:
And all she dealt with in her life was like, my gosh, she heard death all the time. And so her dad, every day when they would wake up, he would sing her a song. Nothing will happen to me today. Nothing good, nothing bad. Nothing will happen to me today without it going through the Father's hands. That's the concept that Jesus is trying to get into us. He's going, you gotta understand, there is a Father and he really exists. Ray preached on this passage years ago and asked him what he called it.
Mark Clark [00:26:36]:
And he said, my title was why pray when you can worry? Right? And there was 28 points about why you could pray and three sub points under all of them, and it was brilliant. Unbelievable. Why would you pray if you can worry? Right? This is the point, man. You can worry or you can go, okay, there's a God who actually exists. Okay, here's the second thing Jesus says, the strategy. He says, I want you to learn. It's a lesson from the birds. So scratch out what distracts me from prioritizing the kingdom.
Mark Clark [00:27:08]:
Lots of things. And here's your next title, A lesson from the birds, the providence of God. Here's where Jesus goes next with this. If you don't want to worry, here's what he says. Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or stow away in barns. He goes, I want you to look at one thing. So this was number one.
Mark Clark [00:27:31]:
This is number two. I want you to look at the birds, the birds of the air. They do not sow a reap or sow away in barns. And yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? It's the issue of providence. It's that God is not only in control because some of you are like, okay, great God exists, but he isn't good because people get cancer and subs blow up under the water and the world is chaotic. So what does Jesus do now? He says, God not only exists, but he's good. And he gives you the image of a father who feeds birds.
Mark Clark [00:28:04]:
I just want you to have that picture of God for a second in your mind. Because whatever you grew up with, the angry God, the miserable God, the mad God, the impassionate God, if you came over to my backyard. You know what? You would see my relationship with birds. Shooing them away, yelling at them, get away, stupid bird. Stupid bird. Get away. Right? They steal my stuff when I'm golfing. I get a hot dog, I'll put it there, I'll go over here.
Mark Clark [00:28:31]:
Bird takes off with it. What do you just. Dumb people shoot birds. Feel like for fun, duck hunting. And they're in the. Here's a picture of God feet. Like, imagine you came over to my house and I said, come in the backyard. And it was the morning time and some birds came down.
Mark Clark [00:28:54]:
I was sitting there and just. It was so nonchalant. I just had some seeds in my hand. I was like, hey, guys, how you doing? Oh, hello, Tommy. How you doing, Tommy? Go away, Tommy. Oh, come here, Sarah. Yeah, yeah, what you doing? Yeah, how you do, girl? And whatever. You'd be like, you know, he seems a little aggressive on the stage, but this guy's a really good guy.
Mark Clark [00:29:15]:
This guy's a good guy. Like, it would probably change, right? There's no way. You think I'm a bad guy if I feed birds. That's what Jesus is doing here. He's saying, some of you have had this vision of God where he's true and he's right and he's strong and you should obey. But now he's trying to get you to be attracted to him. Cause he's good. He's a good God.
Mark Clark [00:29:42]:
And the word providence, when we talk about Providence, I'm reading a 700 page book right now called Providence, all about the providence of God. And the definition of providence is this. The act of purposefully providing that word providence. Provide. Providing for, sustaining and governing the world. This is what God does. He provides over nature and kings, and he provides all of these things. There's never a time where God goes, oh, shoot, I didn't see that coming.
Mark Clark [00:30:15]:
In your life. Never a time where you go, oh, oh, I did not. Ah, darn it. I didn't see. I was over here doing the. I was bird feeding. And I didn't see the tragic thing in your life. I didn't know it was gonna come.
Mark Clark [00:30:29]:
Cause those are your two options. You can think like the pagans and fate in karma is what rules. Or you can go, even if I don't understand the suffering, even if I don't understand the pain and the complexity of it, there is a heavenly father who knows what's going on. This is the providence of God. So he makes grass grow. The psalms say he makes the clouds rise. He makes lightning, goes where it goes. The world isn't a machine.
Mark Clark [00:30:57]:
God is providentially and meticulously sovereign over everything. Here's a great Charles Spurgeon quote. Charles spurgeon, the old 18th century preacher. I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes. That every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit. The straw from the hand of the farmer is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of a ladybug over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of devastating pestilence. The fall of leaves from a tree is as fully ordained and guided by God as the tumbling of an avalanche.
Mark Clark [00:31:38]:
This is how meticulous he is in providing all things. And this is why the Bible over and over and over again says he's feeding. He's feeding Even birds. He's feeding birds. Now why does that take care of your worry? Because the thing you're worried about is provision. That's what wakes you up at 2am Am I going to have my kids going to eat? Am I going to drink? Are they going to have a house? What about my body? What am I going to wear? All of those things are why you worry. And he just said, if God is good and he's sovereign and he's meticulously providential, that he will provide. Now, is he going to provide the third boat for you? No, that's on you, bro.
Mark Clark [00:32:27]:
You gotta earn that right. Talk about the basics of life and what matters. And he's saying to those disciples at that time, now here's the other thing about this. You know what this is saying? Because how does this solve your worry? Because if he's in control, you are not. That's his point. Look at what he says. Can you, any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life? Can you? Of course. Rhetorical.
Mark Clark [00:32:54]:
You're going to take hours away from your life. You know what he's trying to say? We want to add. We want the power of God. We want to be God. We want to actually be God. And that's why we're stressed. When I'm on a plane, flying, which I do not love to do, as I mentioned earlier, there are moments on that plane. Look at how illogical this is.
Mark Clark [00:33:17]:
There are moments on that plane where I wish, when it's shaking, that I could be in control of it. Why? Okay, so you don't know what you're doing. Nope. But at least I'm in Control, that is your life. Every day. You don't know what is good for you. But I got fired from my job. I know.
Mark Clark [00:33:49]:
And you know what God is going to do in five years? You're going to look back and go, that's why that happened. That's why it happened. I don't understand it. Now you're trying to be in control of something you shouldn't ask for control of. And when you try to control and you try to control, that's when the anxiety and stress. One of the things that stressed me out when I thought about that sub down under the water for all those hours and those days and 96 hours of air. You know what? One of the little details I read that made me kind of shudder when they said that it was bolted shut from the outside. 18 bolts.
Mark Clark [00:34:30]:
I don't know why I grabbed that. And I was driving, I'm like, oh, my gosh. There's another just terrible reason to go down there. Like, because even if I get up out of the water, I still need someone around with a bolt thing to get us out. Which means my fate is in the hands of another person. And I don't trust anybody. It's scary. Bolted from the outside.
Mark Clark [00:34:55]:
That is your life. Because here's what he's trying to say. You were never in charge of your life. Yeah, but when the doctor came in and gave me that diagnosis, I lost control of my life. When my boss told me that I was fired, I lost control. No, man, you were never in control. You never had control. Only God does.
Mark Clark [00:35:26]:
And that's why you gotta go. Okay, okay. So the thing is, then, he's good. And that's what Jesus is trying to say. Because you know what he's trying to do? He's trying to get you to look at the Heavenly Father. Because here's the thing. I could give you all the data in the world. Go read the book the Science of Fear.
Mark Clark [00:35:41]:
It'll make you feel better, right? There's all kinds of information you guys need to read. You know, I got a couple points. In 1980, the US homicide rate was at 10.2 per 100,000 residents. That is more than twice the current homicide rate. We are 50% less to be the victim of a violent crime today in 2023 than we were in 1993. The world is getting safer. It is getting safer. There has never been a time where anything's been safer.
Mark Clark [00:36:19]:
More education, more healthcare. Africa's getting better. Asia's getting better. I mean, we don't hear about this Stuff because it's not interesting to watch the news and things are all getting better. You like to watch the news because everything's going to die. You're going to die. Oh, what? I'm going to die? I need to watch. I need to watch because it sells.
Mark Clark [00:36:39]:
Fear sells. But here's the thing. I could tell you, statistically, you were way less than I today. Statistically, you're going to live longer. Statistically. Statistically. Statistically. But you know the thing? Is that going to help you with your fear? No.
Mark Clark [00:36:51]:
Because you don't need just information. Jesus just. This is why he's saying. You notice when Jesus tries to solve your worry and anxiety? Who. He's not talking about you, he's talking about God. Because the only solution to your worry is to look up. It ain't gonna work. Looking at stats and sociology and philosophy, it's looking up and going, there's a heavenly Father and he's good.
Mark Clark [00:37:21]:
Those of you who know me know that I have grew up with mental illness myself. Tourette syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder. It went through my teen years. My OCD was extreme. I would do all kinds of little habits when things came up so that things wouldn't happen. Bad things. So you would say AIDS or something in a conversation. I'd be like, if I don't do this many things in this many ways, he'll get AIDS or whatever.
Mark Clark [00:37:47]:
And I do stuff. And there was one habit where I had where I would just fall down on my knees, Bam, bam. And I flip my hat up. Then I walk down the street and go, bam, bam. And I flip my hat up. And I was living in Toronto at the time. So there's these big, like, snow, wet knee guy in high school hanging out with all the cool kids with my wet knees. What's up, hobies? I'm cool, too.
Mark Clark [00:38:11]:
And I went through like five, six years of this obsessive behavior. And I would do these things to try to. This was then this. And I remember one day, my cousin Keith, I used to do this little thing where someone would say something and I'd say A, which sounds really Canadian. I didn't mean it like that, but I meant it like something. So I'd say A. And someone say, yeah. And then I'd carry on a conversation, but if they didn't say yeah back, I'd say A.
Mark Clark [00:38:36]:
So it's a cold out, Ay. And they go, yeah. And I go, cool. But if they didn't say yeah, I go, A. And then usually Normal people be like, yeah, I don't know. Why do you ask me twice? He's pretty jacked up about this. But my cousin knew that I had this little thing. So one night, it's like 1:00 in the morning, we're walking around out of town.
Mark Clark [00:38:52]:
I said, some, eh? And he just sat there, looked at me and goes, I'm not doing it. And he just walked away. And he walked away and he's literally like at my house and I'm screaming at 2 in the morning at the top of my lungs, hey, hey. Like, this is my life. This was my life as a 15 year old kid. How did that ever go away? When I met a guy and he taught me about the sovereignty and providence of God and I was healed theologically because I said, I'm not in control of any of this stuff. God is in control of this stuff. That's what Jesus is trying to say.
Mark Clark [00:39:34]:
Now, the second one, the third one, the last one is this. And we'll end with this. Am I seeking the kingdom of God? Yes, you should be. But that's not what I'm going to talk about. I'm going to talk about a lesson. I'm so fired from this place. It's like everyone agreed this was the notes. Everyone agreed in the room.
Mark Clark [00:39:58]:
These are the notes, right, Mark? Yes, I'm there. I'm with you. Okay, the last one is a lesson from the flowers. So if the first one is a lesson from the grass and it was about the providence of God, this one is the flowers of the field really quick. And it's a lesson about the love of God. And he says, your father knows what you need and he loves you more than you can imagine. And I want to say that I remember I was preaching on the love of God during COVID and I walked into my studio space and I preached to a camera in Canada. We couldn't gather again for two years.
Mark Clark [00:40:35]:
So I preached to a camera, just me and the cameraman for two years. And I remember preaching and I was kind of just. And I said, God loves you. And for some reason out of nowhere I heard like, God, go tell them this thing too. Which I had never dawned on me before to say and I had never said it. And I just looked at the camera and I said, but there's something else. He doesn't just love you, he likes you. And then I moved on with my sermon.
Mark Clark [00:41:00]:
And two weeks later, I got an email from a woman. She said, you'll never believe this, my son and I have Been going through tragedy and pain in our life. We were beginning to wonder whether God exists and whether he is sovereign over us and loves us anymore. And we sat down for breakfast and we said, we'll give church, like, one more shot. And the son said, you know what I want to know about? I don't want to just hear that God loves me. I want to hear that he likes me. I'm not kidding. I cannot make these stories up.
Mark Clark [00:41:27]:
They're too good. I couldn't. I'm not that creative. I want to hear that God not only loves me, but likes me. And that thought was the first and only time that thought struck me ever. And I looked in the camera, I said, didn't think any of the government and this teenager and his mom are watching this thing saying, I'll give church one last shot. Because I want to hear from God. What Jesus is trying to say here is, God not only loves you, he likes you.
Mark Clark [00:41:59]:
And that's the thing that should melt us. Because all the options in the world are the way of the pagans, as he talks about the way of the Gentiles. But this is the way he says. And some of you just need to hear this. If that is how God clothes the grass which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you? That's how much he loves you. He loves you more than grass. And he made grass. He loves grass.
Mark Clark [00:42:29]:
Grass is awesome. Flowers are awesome. But he loves you more than it. Now, let me end this way. Some of you are sitting there because I try to get in the head of people who have a lot of worry and anxiety. And what they might say here is, yeah, well, here's my problem, though. So you got birds and you got flowers. But he just pointed something out that scares me a bit.
Mark Clark [00:42:52]:
Birds still die and grass gets thrown into the fire. So this doesn't help me. And I'll tell you why you feel that way. Because you think it's God's job to just make you live forever and never experience any pain and never get sick and only prosper and never get thrown into the fire. Hear me out. I'm not saying that's your fate. I'm not talking about hell or anything. I'm just talking about dying.
Mark Clark [00:43:31]:
The analogy is dying. Timothy Keller, who's a pastor and a theologian, planted a church in New York City in 1989. A lot of us pastors around here read them, love them, great work. Died two months ago. He had cancer for about four or five years. And at the end of his cancer, he looked at his family and he just said, guys, I just, I want to go meet my Savior. That's fascinating because he didn't say, I have cancer and I'm suffering and it's difficult, ergo God doesn't exist. He said, I'm suffering and I'm going through it and I want to go meet him.
Mark Clark [00:44:07]:
Because every single one of us has our time. The equation is not God exists and he's loving and providential, ergo you're not going to die. It's that God exists and he's providential and loving and you can be safe in dying. You can be safe in dying because you've given your life to Jesus and not even death can touch you. So a couple years ago I was following the blog of a pastor and his wife as they watched. I don't mean to be depressing, but this is the way to end. They watched as their six or seven year old daughter was struggling through a terminal illness and they blogged about it. And for a year or two they tried to get her right and it just didn't take.
Mark Clark [00:44:55]:
And finally she passed away. And he was a pastor and he got up and he preached. The next, the Sunday after his little girl passed away, he got up and preached. And you know what passage he preached a few chapters later? In the Gospel of Matthew, in Matthew, chapter 10, are not two sparrows sold for a penny? They're useless, these sparrows, birds, whatever. Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside of your Father's care. That was the verse he preached. And he looked at his congregation, he said, a sparrow fell to the ground this week, my sparrow. But she went to a caring, loving father.
Mark Clark [00:45:42]:
And it didn't happen outside of him knowing about it, but it still sucks. God's not only providential, he not only exists, but he loves you more than you could ever imagine. And there are worse things than dying, living an eternity without Jesus. So I want to pray for us, Father, that the anxious and worrisome hearts in this room would be overtaken with the three things that we talked about. Not only do you exist and are with us, but you are providential, meaning you provide for us and care for us and love us and the people who will experience pain and difficulty in this life, which is all of us, if we live long enough. There are things that are going to happen in our life that are difficult. I pray that we would take encouragement from this teaching of Jesus and not only would we believe in Jesus, which many of us do in this room, but we would actually, in this instance, believe Jesus that we wouldn't only believe in him, that we would believe him when he teaches us how we're supposed to cope with all of this. And so, as we sing and respond, you would work in the hearts and minds of each of us, in our worry and our anxiety and our lack of trust in you as a good Father who will care for us.
Mark Clark [00:47:18]:
Do that work among us as we sing In Jesus. Great name we pray. Amen. Let's stand together.