Behold Your God

Note: What follows is adapted from a message originally delivered to the Chapel Downtown in Winchendon, MA on August 13, 2022. This post is written from the outline of that message and may not be exactly what was said in person.

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Screenshot from "To Beep or Not to Beep," Warner Brothers, 1963. Sourced from Wikipedia.

My dad has, a few times, told me a story from when I was a kid, no older than 4. I was apparently laying on the floor watching Looney Tunes while he was sitting on the couch reading the newspaper, when something about watching Wile E. Coyote fail again to catch Road Runner stood out to me.

"Dad," I asked, turning to him, "if the coyote can buy all this stuff from Acme, why doesn't he just buy food?"

Now, as my dad tells it, he'd never thought about that before, and wasn't sure what to tell me. So he simply replied, "I don't think you're supposed to think about that." I accepted that answer and went back to watching the cartoon with no further objections.

Dad usually tells that story to highlight the way that I've always thought about the world in a different way than he does, but I want to highlight something else. Because in that moment, that word from my dad was all I needed. All of my concerns, about plot holes and the show's structure and whatever limited understanding I had of money at that time, were completely overshadowed by the trust I had in my dad and his explanation of the experience I was supposed to be having. This isn't a strictly personal thing; it's personal to each of us, of course, but it's fairly universal that kids tend to trust their parents simply because of who their parents are in relation to them, unless and until they are given sufficient reason not to. The default state of kids toward their parents is trust.

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For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, [as to] what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, [as to] what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and [yet] your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a [single] hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is [alive] today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, [will He] not much more [clothe] you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, "What will we eat?" or "What will we drink?" or "What will we wear for clothing?" For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Matthew 6:25-34 (NASB)

Jesus calls His followers to absolute trust in the Father; to the point that even our absolute necessities have no power to weigh us down. Now, there are two primary ways I've seen this passage put into practice. First, by taking it as a means of condemning anxiety as a whole. This approach treats worry as a sin and emphasizes what is treated as a command in verse 34, "do not worry." The second seeks to comfort those worrying about things, by focusing on the promises of provision and the comparisons to birds and grasses and, through this, treating the passage as fundamentally a reminder that God will provide.

I submit that both approaches miss the point precisely because they call for a self-focused application. That Jesus was not, in fact, calling His people to look at their worries and handle them in a specific way at all. Consider the statements that bookend this passage and give it definition:

"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, [as to] what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, [as to] what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?...But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Matthew 6:25, 33 (NASB)

The "for this reason" at the beginning is calling back to the previous statement, in which Jesus told His disciples to serve God and that they cannot serve worldly concerns and wealth in the process. That is, that statement, and indeed this whole section, is an expansion on what Jesus means when He tells the disciples to focus on God in all things. In both verses 25 and 33, Jesus is emphasizing the need to look beyond our worries to see the Father working in our lives. So this passage isn't concerned with how we look at our worries at all! it's concerned with the need to stop focusing on our worries and turn our gaze to God. And to explore that, I actually want to set this passage aside for now and look at the example of Thomas.

I've always liked Thomas. I felt he got a bad rap when all we focus on is his doubts about the resurrection, especially given that he voiced (what I believe to be) reasonable concerns. Unfortunately, the Bible doesn't say a whole lot more about him than that story. In the Synoptic gospels, he's only ever mentioned as one name in lists of the disciples. He doesn't really come up directly in Acts. But in John, we get four stories in which he's specifically brought up. The last, in John's final chapter, lists him as one of the few disciples fishing with Peter and John when Jesus cooks them breakfast. But the first three all give Thomas the chance to speak; and it's what he says, and how Jesus responds to him, that I want to dwell on here.
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Facing Death

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John 10 ends with an account of Jesus narrowly avoiding death at the hands of the Pharisees on charges of blasphemy. It's the kind of encounter that would make most people lay low for a while, and sure enough, Jesus and the disciples leave Judea entirely. But they're not laying very low; chapter 11 finds them performing public ministry at the Jordan River and receiving word that a close friend, Lazarus, is sick. So Jesus assures the disciples this is all part of the plan, stays two days, then calls on them to head back to Judea with Him. The disciples, reasonably, point out that Jesus is talking about just walking right back into a place filled with people who want to kill Him. There's some confused discussion until Jesus outright tells them that Lazarus is dead and He has work to do, and then comes verse 16.

Therefore Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to [his] fellow disciples, "Let us also go, so that we may die with Him."
John 11:16 (NASB)

Now, this seems pretty worst-case-scenario thinking. Thomas seems to fully believe they're walking straight to the gallows, and he's not the only one with concerns (see verse 8). But he is the one who puts to words that this threat is not, in the end, his ultimate concern. He's expressing a concern, and may very well have worries about that concern, but it isn't his focus. His eyes are on Christ; and if Christ is leading him to the slaughter, then he's just going to walk right into the slaughter. And Jesus doesn't address that. We have no indication in scripture that Jesus told Thomas or the others that it wasn't quite time for His death. We have no records of Him assuring Thomas or the others that when He does die, they won't die beside Him. We have nothing to suggest that the danger they perceived was softened in any way. What we have is this statement that shows Thomas had his eyes fixed on Christ rather than the danger ahead, and that the disciples (including Thomas) walked with Jesus right back into Judea.
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The Way

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John 14 is part of the Upper Room discourse, in which Jesus talks to His disciples during and after the Last Supper, leaving them final instructions, clarifying issues He wants them to understand, and looking forward to the path ahead of Him and them. Jesus has, by this point, told the disciples that one of them would betray Him, watched Judas leave into the night, told them to love one another, and prophesied Peter's denial of Him. Chapter 14 opens with Jesus assuring the disciples that they don't need to be troubled, for Jesus was going ahead and they knew the way to follow. To which "Thomas said to Him, 'Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?'" which leads to Jesus' famous reply that He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:5, NASB).

Verse six, which we repeatedly cite and point to as it applies to our understanding of salvation, was originally stated as a response to Thomas asking for clarity about the way forward. Jesus responds to Thomas' concern with Himself. "Look to Me. See who I am, see where I go. Look to Me, Thomas!" The statement that Christ is "the way, the truth, and the life" isn't just a statement on the nature of salvation; it is a call to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
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Doubting Thomas

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As mentioned in the introduction, the most famous story of Thomas happens in John chapter 20. Jesus was resurrected in the morning of the third day after His death, and that evening, He shows up where the disciples are hiding. Jesus greets them, but before He continues the conversation, He does something I've too often overlooked. "And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side," that is, Jesus provided the evidence for them that He was really the Jesus they saw crucified, now risen from the dead, before saying anything else to them (​John 20:20a NASB).

We don't know where Thomas was at this point, and we aren't even told he was absent until verse 24. But he was absent, and he returns to the other disciples to hear a fantastic account of their teacher and friend risen from the grave. This is an incredible claim! And while the Bible does later highlight the faith of those who did not see the risen Christ with our own eyes, at this point, Thomas is not only being told that Jesus is alive again but that He provided evidence to the other disciples while Thomas was away. And what does Thomas ask for? He gives his terms as "unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe" (John 20:25b, NASB). Thomas asks for the same evidence the other disciples received, with the addition that he would like to verify the wounds are real.

He has his chance eight days later. Eight days, and despite having nothing more to go on than the claims of the other disciples, Thomas is still there. He hasn't left them, he hasn't returned to his life; unlike the other disciples, Thomas doesn't know for a fact that Christ is risen, and he's still there. And then Jesus shows up, offers the same greeting, and turns to Thomas. In this moment, unique among all the other interactions recorded, He answers Thomas' concern with concrete evidence. He offers His hands and side to Thomas' scrutiny, and Thomas doesn't even take Him up on it. Seeing the risen Christ stand before him, hearing the voice of his friend and teacher, is enough for him. Thomas has, this whole time, been looking to Christ enough that he can recognize his Lord when faced with the wildest claim he's ever heard. He needs only to set his eyes on Christ once more to know everything he needs to know about the dangers and fear and doubts of the last week and a half.

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Fix Our Gaze

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Every time Thomas wants to focus on the negative, every time Thomas doesn't see the way forward, every time Thomas is confronted with frightening or confusing information, he's offered Christ. Never platitudes, not even encouragements; always the person of Christ. Never more, and certainly never less. Which brings us back to Matthew 6. Jesus is not telling us to put on a brave face, to force the worries down, to power through or suck it up or anything of that sort. He isn't focused on comparing us to birds and grass. Jesus is, in Matthew 6:25-33, telling us to look beyond our circumstances to see Him. He's there, He's for us, and He knows what we need. We can bring our concerns to Him and trust that He not only can, but will, meet them. He's turning our attention away from our worries, even away from what we can do about our worries, to fix our eyes on Him. It's the 'who' in those examples that matter. Who feeds the birds? Who clothes the grass? Who lays out the length of your life? In answering these questions, we are turning our eyes to Him.

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
​Romans 8:32 (NASB)

This passage is not, fundamentally, about what we can or can't do. It's about who He is. It's a reminder of who God is and what He does. It's an encouragement to behold our God, to see the truth of His hand working in our circumstances. So don't take this passage as a demand to try and make yourself act like you aren't anxious. It isn't a condemnation calling you sinful for having worries. It isn't a platitude trying to convince you that everything will work out. It's a reminder of who God is, who He is to you, who you are to Him. It's a call to look to Him in all we do, to rest in the knowledge of who He is, and step forward in faith. Even when we're anxious, even when we're afraid, even when we don't have the answers. We go where He goes, we do what He has called us to do, and we do it all looking to Him for our strength and comfort.

A couple weeks before I first preached this passage, a young man was in attendance at our house church gathering after Sunday morning service who had written a song about Psalm 88 (below). This is a psalm of lament, and if I recall correctly, the only one that neither opens nor closes with a declaration of hope. But God put it in scripture anyway. Why? As he discussed why the psalm stood out to him, he noted that there was hope in the psalm; not in the words the psalmist wrote, but in the very fact that he was writing it. That is, the hope in the passage is inherent in the fact that, rather than bottling it up or pretending to be okay, the psalmist is crying out to God.

That's what all this is about. It's all about going to Him. When God is calling us in a direction we fear, we look to Him. When we don't know what God is doing or where He's going, we look to Him. When we feel that God doesn't hear us, that we're being left out, that we aren't enjoying the blessings He has promised, we look to Him. Just like Thomas, just like the psalmist. And in looking to Him, we will find our rest.