This is a sermon that I preached on Sunday, 06/28/26, at Berkeley Friends Church. The scripture reading for this sermon was: Matthew 6:19-34 & Romans 6:12-23.
If you have one takeaway from what I’m going to say to you this morning, I want it to be one word: Fearlessness.
The gospel is a message of fearlessness. It’s a victory announcement, a messenger running to us from a battle that has been won, joyfully proclaiming to us: “Victory is ours.”
The gospel isn’t a new set of rules, a set of religious strictures that we must conform to. The gospel is a declaration of freedom – the freedom that we find when a God who truly loves us and calls us sons and daughters has conquered sin and death and is bringing light to our darkness.
Jesus’ words to us from Matthew 6, right in the middle of his Sermon on the Mount, are core gospel teaching. It’s easy to misunderstand them when we’re reading in a religious mode. When we think that Jesus is teaching us a new set of regulations that we have to follow. When Jesus says, “don’t worry about your life,” the religious mind says, “Got it, Jesus. No worrying. I will do my best to keep this rule!”
But freedom from anxiety isn’t something we can simply choose to have. It’s not a behavioral change that we are in charge of. What we can choose is obedience – who we will serve. The fearlessness that follows is not something we manufacture; it’s what grows on its own once the root is in the right soil. This radical freedom is rooted in the gospel, the victory announcement of God. The end of worry and anxiety is a fruit of seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
What is the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is not a land with a castle and knights on horseback. It’s a relationship – a direct relationship between God and his people. The kingdom of God is the reality that, in one of the favorite phrases of early Quaker George Fox, “The power of the Lord is over all.” We enter into the kingdom of God when we embrace that power, embrace that relationship, embrace the priority of God in all things. The kingdom of God has arrived when we allow the Holy Spirit to fill and direct our daily lives.
This is the good news: We don’t have to control the course of history. We don’t even have to measure up or provide for ourselves. Instead, we can become like birds of the air and flowers of the field, relying on our heavenly Father for food and clothing and everything we need to get through each day. We become fearless, knowing that we’re not in control, but that we’re the children of the one who is.
I’ve said that we’re not in control, but we do have choices to make. Each day, we choose which master we will serve. Will it be God, or something else? Jesus warns us against serving wealth rather than God. This warning is at least as important now as it was when he first preached it; money is a powerful force in our world. It promises us fulfillment, security, and control. Wealth promises us an end to anxiety, an assurance that we know that tomorrow is taken care of.
But wealth is lying to us. Wealth doesn’t control anything, ultimately. Fortunes are lost all the time, and everybody dies. Even Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos are going to learn: the kingdom of God has come near.
Wealth is a liar. It promises freedom and security, but the more we serve it, the more constricted and fearful we become. Wealth doesn’t just fail to live up to the hype; it actually gives us the opposite of what it promises. Rather than being set free to engage with life as an adventure, we end up walking through life with our fists clenched, scanning the horizon for threats to the security that we hope to achieve or fear to lose. Serving wealth impoverishes us.
Choosing God as our master is completely different. In the kingdom of God, all the threats and challenges of this life are put in perspective. Our bank account is in heaven. Our 401(k) is the Holy Spirit. We have bread that this world doesn’t know about. Manna from God. When God is our master, he gathers us into communities of mutual aid, where there is always enough to share, and no one gets left behind.
Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Hear the word in your heart – where is God leading you? Follow that. Dwell in that. He will provide you with everything that wealth falsely promised you – and in the age to come, eternal life!
In his epistle to the Romans, Paul wrestles with this central challenge of the Christian faith: What happens when we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness? What happens when we choose God as our master, rather than all the other things that vie for our allegiance? Rather than abandoning ourselves to sin and lawlessness – the false “freedom” that leads to death – what happens when we embrace the righteousness of God, and the abundant life that comes with it?
Just like Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, Paul makes a sharp distinction between these two paths. We have to choose. There is no middle ground. You are a slave of whoever you obey. Not might be. Not could become. Already are. There’s no version of you that belongs to no one.
It’s a matter of authority: Who are we going to trust and obey: Our own passions, judgment, and personal wisdom – our own power? Or will we submit ourselves to the wisdom and power of God?
It’s hard to release control, and focus only on today and the works of love, mercy, and righteousness that the Holy Spirit leads us to. It’s hard to be defenseless in this world that has taught us that protecting ourselves is absolutely essential. But Jesus teaches that our greatest safety is in fearless participation in God’s reign.
This isn’t just theory; we know this from experience. Paul challenges us to examine our own personal histories: Remember when you chose to follow your own wisdom rather than God? Remember when you chose lawlessness over submission? Remember when you embraced the darkness rather than the light? How did that go for you? What was the outcome of that?
But if the story of our lives tells of the disaster that comes from going our own way – worshipping wealth, or power, or any other idol of this world – we also have come to know another story, which is guiding us to a much different end. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Many of us here know from direct experience what that free gift of eternal life looks like in our daily lives. We know not only the terror, heartbreak, and darkness of going it alone – we also know what happens when our eyes become healthy and we allow the light to shine into our darkness. We know what God can do in our lives when we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. We can tell stories of hopeless situations transformed, anxiety relieved, abundant life experienced, healing and transformation received. We can testify to the fearlessness of a life lived for God.
They don’t call it the gospel for nothing. This is good news. The victory announcement of God. Victory over all the confusion and addiction and compulsion that held us back and distorted our personalities. Victory over fear and anxiety. Victory over the darkness that filled us. Arise, shine, for our light has come!
We have been found by a God who loves us and will take care of us. We are turning our lives over to him, piece by piece, as our eyes are made healthy and his light fills the whole body.
Jesus invites us to receive this good news and seek his father’s kingdom. Paul exhorts us to offer ourselves up to the life of freedom, power, and abundance in community that God offers us. The Holy Spirit is present to make this life real in each and all of us. Jesus is present to lead us, and the Father is trustworthy to fulfill his promises.
This is an invitation to fearlessness. Don’t let anything hold you back from the promises God has made to us.
Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. The rest will follow. We don’t have to worry about tomorrow; today is the site of our faithfulness. It is here and now that we trust God, obey his leading, and discover his word spoken among us. Now is the time when that hidden power of God springs into the fullness of life, grace, and peace in our lives – overflowing into the world around us.