The Atheism of Anxiety
Introduction: A World Drowning in Worry
We live in what must be the most anxious generation in human history. We have more material comforts, more medical advances, more entertainment, and more information than any people who have ever lived, and yet we are drowning in a sea of worry. We have pills for anxiety, therapists for anxiety, and a 24-hour news cycle that mainlines anxiety directly into our souls. We are told that anxiety is a condition, a disorder, a psychological malady to be managed. But the Lord Jesus Christ, in His Sermon on the Mount, treats it as something else entirely. He treats it as a sin. He treats it as a fundamental failure of faith. He treats it as practical atheism.
Worry is not a personality quirk. It is a theological statement. Every moment you spend in anxious agitation, you are declaring to God and to the world that you do not believe He is who He says He is. You are saying that He is not a good Father, that He is not sovereign, that His promises are not reliable, and that you, from your precarious position, have a better grasp on the situation than He does. Worry is the sin of arrogating to yourself a responsibility that God has never given you, the responsibility of running the world. It is an attempt to be God, which is, you will recall, the original sin. And like all sin, it is not only wicked, it is profoundly foolish.
In this passage, Jesus does not offer us seven steps to a less stressful life. He does not give us breathing exercises. He confronts our unbelief head on. He commands us to stop, and then He gives us glorious, bedrock reasons why we should. He dismantles the logic of anxiety and erects in its place the logic of faith in a heavenly Father. This is not a gentle suggestion; it is a divine command. And it is a command that comes with a glorious promise.
The Text
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 cubit to his life span? 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 all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; 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 worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
(Matthew 6:25-34 LSB)
The Command and the Premise (v. 25)
Jesus begins with a command grounded in the preceding verses about laying up treasure in heaven.
"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?" (Matthew 6:25 LSB)
The command is direct: "Do not be worried." This is not a suggestion for your consideration. It is an imperative from the King. The word for "worried" here means to be anxious, to be distracted, to have your mind divided. It is the opposite of a single-minded focus on the kingdom of God. And Jesus immediately gives the foundational reason. Worry is a failure of priorities. It is a shrunken view of reality. You are worried about the fuel for the engine, but have forgotten about the destination. Is not life more than food? Is not the body more than clothing?
God gave you the greater thing, which is life itself. He formed your body in your mother's womb. Will He not then provide the lesser things required to sustain them? To worry about food and clothing is to insult the Creator. It is like being given a mansion as a free gift and then fretting all night about whether the donor will remember to pay the water bill. The God who breathed life into you is more than capable of providing lunch. This is an argument from the greater to the lesser, and it exposes the absurdity of our anxiety.
God's Kindergarten Logic: Birds and Lilies (v. 26-30)
Jesus then provides two illustrations from the natural world, arguments so simple a child can grasp them, yet so profound they dismantle the intellectual pretensions of our worry.
"Look at the birds of the air... Are you not worth much more than they? ... Observe how the lilies of the field grow... will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!" (Matthew 6:26, 28, 30 LSB)
This is what we call an a fortiori argument, an argument "from the stronger." The logic is airtight. Premise one: God takes care of the lesser (birds, grass). Premise two: You are of far more value than the lesser. Conclusion: Therefore, God will certainly take care of you. To deny this conclusion is not just a failure of faith; it is a failure of basic logic.
Notice the birds. They do not have agricultural programs. They do not sow, reap, or build silos. They live hand-to-beak, and yet their needs are met daily by "your heavenly Father." This phrase is key. He is not just "a god," He is your Father. He has a personal, covenantal commitment to you, His child. Then the devastating question: "Are you not worth much more than they?" If you are a child of God, purchased by the blood of His Son, the answer is a resounding yes. To worry is to live as though the answer is no.
Then He points to the lilies. They do not toil or spin, yet their beauty outstrips the greatest human king, Solomon, in all his glory. God clothes this temporary grass, which is here today and used for kindling tomorrow, with breathtaking artistry. And here comes the punch, the direct rebuke: "Will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!" Jesus diagnoses the problem precisely. The issue is not your circumstances. The issue is your faith. It is small. Worry is not a sign of great responsibility; it is a sign of little faith.
In the middle of this, Jesus points out the utter futility of worry. "Who of you by being worried can add a single cubit to his life span?" (v. 27). Worry is impotent. It is like sitting in a rocking chair; it gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere. It has zero productive capacity. It cannot make you taller, it cannot extend your life, it cannot solve your financial problems. It is wasted energy, a spiritual black hole.
Pagan Fretting vs. Fatherly Knowledge (v. 31-32)
Jesus now repeats the command and draws a sharp, polemical distinction between the believer and the unbeliever.
"Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things." (Matthew 6:31-32 LSB)
This is the antithesis. Worry is the native language of the pagan. The Gentiles, those outside the covenant, are spiritual orphans. They live in a world they believe is governed by chance, or fate, or capricious gods. For them to worry is entirely logical. They have no Father in heaven. They are on their own. But for a Christian to worry is to engage in spiritual amnesia. It is to forget your adoption papers. It is to act like a Gentile.
When you, a Christian, fret about your daily provisions, you are living out a pagan worldview. You are bearing false witness against your Father. The glorious, comforting, foundational truth is this: "your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things." He is not distant. He is not forgetful. He is not unaware. He knows your needs more intimately than you do. Our problem is not that God is uninformed, but that we are unbelieving.
The Divine Reorientation (v. 33-34)
Having forbidden the wrong pursuit, Jesus now commands the right one. This is the central pivot of the entire passage. This is the antidote to anxiety.
"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 worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:33-34 LSB)
You cannot simply stop worrying. A vacuum is not a stable state. You must replace the object of your pursuit. The reason you are anxious about your little kingdom, your food, your clothes, your finances, is because that is what you are seeking first. Jesus commands a radical reorientation of your life's entire ambition. "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness."
This means that your primary goal, the thing that gets you out of bed in the morning, the lens through which you make every decision, must be the advancement of the rule of Jesus Christ in all things, and the pursuit of conformity to His righteous character. It means asking in your job, your family, your church, and your checkbook: "How can I advance Christ's kingdom here? How can I pursue righteousness here?"
And here is the promise that liberates us from worry: when you get your first thing first, God takes care of all the second things. "All these things," the very things you were worried about, "will be added to you." God handles the logistics. You are responsible for the allegiance; He is responsible for the provisions. When we get this backwards, seeking first the provisions, we get anxiety for free, and we miss the kingdom.
Jesus concludes with a call to live in the present. "Do not worry about tomorrow." Why? Because God provides grace on a daily basis. He taught us to pray for our daily bread, not our monthly or annual bread. Tomorrow's grace will arrive with tomorrow's sun. To worry about tomorrow is to try to live on grace that has not yet been served. It is a demand to see the whole map when God has only promised to be a lamp to our feet. Today has its own troubles, its own duties, its own opportunities to seek the kingdom. Be faithful there, and leave tomorrow in the hands of the Father who is already there.
The Gospel Cure for Worry
Ultimately, the reason we need not worry is found not just in the providence of the Father but in the work of the Son. The apostle Paul gives us the ultimate a fortiori argument, the one that undergirds everything Jesus says here.
"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).
Think about this. The Father has already met your greatest need. You were dead in your sins, an enemy of God, deserving of wrath. And at the cost of His own beloved Son, He rescued you. He gave you the most precious gift in the universe. He solved your sin problem, your death problem, your hell problem. After going to such lengths to save you for eternity, is it even remotely conceivable that He will now drop the ball on your rent payment or your grocery bill?
To worry about your daily bread after God has given you the Bread of Life is a profound gospel contradiction. It is to strain at the gnat of temporal provision after having swallowed the camel of eternal salvation. The cure for anxiety is not to try harder. The cure is to go back to the cross. Look at what God has already done for you in Christ. See the lengths to which He has gone to secure you as His child. And then, believe Him when He tells you that He knows what you need.
Therefore, repent of the sin of anxiety. Confess it as the practical atheism that it is. And then, get up and seek first the kingdom. Pour your energy not into fretting, but into faithfulness in the place God has put you. Do this, and you will find that your Father is as good as His word.