Anxious Mind? Look Here!
Matthew 6:24-34
September 13, 2026 anno Domini
Anxiety is a problem of the eyes and of the mind.
Immediately before the text Jesus preaches, “the eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.”
The eye is the lamp of the body. What your eyes shine on directs your body. Your eyes, if you will, are the headlights of your body. If they shine on what is true and good and right, then your body will be full of light. If they shine on what is false and evil, then your body will be in darkness.
Jesus links your eyes to your mind when He says, “Therefore… because your eyes are the lamp of the body … I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.” That word anxious literally means to have a divided mind. Isn’t that an accurate definition of anxiety? That your mind is bouncing here and there and is divided.
Jesus prescription for anxiety, for your divided mind, is to shine your eyes on four places – the birds, the lilies, the Kingdom of God, and tomorrow.
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?
Luther liked to call the birds the little saints of creation. They go about singing God’s praises all day long without a worry and are fed by God day by day. There are two things you should see about the birds. First, they don’t have what you have – they don’t have a fridge, and stove, and deep freeze, and Kwik Trip, and Aldis, and Coborns, and yet your heavenly Father still feeds them.
And that’s the second thing to see — your heavenly Father feeds them. If God is your Father, then you are His child. Is not a child of God more valuable than a bird?
Of course you are. God did not form the birds of the dust of ground and breath into their beaks the breath of life as He did man. God did not put the birds in charge of the Garden of Eden and love them uniquely by giving them marriage and the gift of creating actual children for Him as He did Adam and Eve. Birds are not made in the image of God, but you are. You are the most valuable of all creatures – that is why all human life, from conception to natural death is precious and holy and to be protected.
God’s Word tells us we lost that valuable place through sin. Hence all the troubles we have every day that lead us to anxiety. Will I have enough money? What will my test results reveal? Will my daughter’s marriage survive? Sin broke and battered every good gift of God – our bodies, our lives, our families, our work, our peace. All of that comes because we walked away from God and lost our place as His children through sin.
Yet, Jesus speaks of God as our heavenly Father, and that reveals your double value before Him. Your Father in heaven sought you as His child a second time through His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus bore the sin of the world in His flesh to the cross. He suffered the greatest curse our sins deserve – He was cast off as God’s Son so we could once again be God’s sons and daughters. He endured our hell. Three days later He rose again and that is where your double value begins. By baptism into Christ’ death and resurrection you are born again. You are God’s child through faith in Christ. You can look at a bird in the tree and see your value as God’s foremost creature. But when you look at Christ on the cross, you see your true value to God – the holy and precious blood of His only begotten Son was shed for you. See God as your heavenly Father.
Next shine your eyes on the lilies, and remember, these aren’t giant Easter lilies, but little wild flowers hidden among the grass. Look at 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.
There are two things to see in the lilies. One, they don’t do anything and two God clothes them beautifully. Flowers are passive. The wind and birds and rain carry seeds and drop them wherever. They cannot choose whether they land in a beautiful flower garden or a cow pasture. They are entirely dependent on God for their lives and clothing.
This is not Jesus telling us it’s okay to do nothing. It’s Jesus telling us we don’t do anything ultimately to provide for our clothing and shelter. We are passive in receiving His gifts. He gives us clothing and shoes, house and home, without our prayers, even to all evil people, without any merit or worthiness in us. God is actively providing for you – don’t worry.
Second, learn that God clothes these flowers beautifully, even while they are only here for a moment. Today the flowers are alive and tomorrow they will be thrown into the fire, or if you’re in Minnesota they will freeze. And you are not here for a moment and then thrown away. God created you for eternal life. Through faith in Jesus, you are not destined for temporal death and eternal punishment. With the forgiveness of sins comes life and salvation. Has He not clothed you with much more than the lilies? He clothes you in Christ’s righteousness, adorns you with a heavenly robe washed clean in the blood of the Lamb, so you can stand in the company of heaven forever.
In seeing the birds and the flowers Jesus is really directing you to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. See in the birds how God provides food to the littlest creatures. See in the lilies how He robes them with splendid majestic clothes. In showing grace and love to these littlest insignificant creatures, you see how much more He values you – because you are human, created in His image, because you are righteous, justified by the death and resurrection of Jesus, because you are His child through baptism into Christ.
When Jesus says, “Seek the kingdom of God” that means you should be able to see God’s kingdom, that there is something visible, so that you know – The King rules here. The King makes people into subjects, rebels into children. The King puts an end to death here, clothing you in eternal robes of righteousness. Do you know where you will see and find such a kingdom? Where infants are being baptized into the name of the Triune God. Where the Lord’s Supper is confessed and given as the true and real body and blood of Christ. Where God’s Word is preached as true – that the world was made in six days, that Noah did float his boat, that Moses led a couple million Israelites out slavery, and ultimately that the death of one man on a cross outside of Jerusalem forgave the sins of all the world, including yours, and that His resurrection was as certain as you sitting here this morning. Seek those things and you will find the Kingdom of God.
The final focal point of your eyes, the lamp of your body, is tomorrow. Tomorrow is a great source of anxiety. And Jesus has an interesting take on tomorrow – Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Now one old Lutheran preacher had an interesting explanation of this teaching. It’s almost like that riddle – what is always coming, but never arriving? Tomorrow. If you wait to worry until tomorrow, when will you worry? Well, you won’t because tomorrow never comes. When you get to tomorrow it will be today, and tomorrow will be the next day.
I think there’s another explanation for Jesus telling us to wait for tomorrow. The other reference to tomorrow in the text is about the lilies who are “here today and tomorrow thrown into the fire.” Being thrown into the fire sounds like judgment day. That is a tomorrow Jesus wants us to fix our eyes on so our minds are at peace. We who believe in Jesus will not be thrown into the fire, but will be delivered from this valley of sorrow, fear, and anxiety. Our divided minds will be created anew so that our eyes will be fixed on Jesus only. That tomorrow promises the end of anxiety – clothed in Christ, no more hunger, no more thirst, no more tears.
I know you’re anxious (trust me I’m an expert in anxiety) so shine your eyes on the birds, the lilies, the Kingdom, and that great tomorrow, looking forward to the end of our anxiety because God is our Father in the name of His Son. Amen.