Trace Your Anxieties Back to Your Treasure
Matthew 6:25-34 is a go-to text for Christians (and their counselors) about anxiety. Three times in this passage Jesus commands His disciples, “Do not be anxious” (6:25, 31, 34). He invites us to consider how the Father feeds birds and clothes flowers, encouraging us to trust God will meet all of our earthly needs also (6:26-30). He tells us to turn our attention from tomorrow to today (6:34) and give our first attention to God’s kingdom and righteousness (6:33). There is so much precious and practical help for battling anxiety in these verses! In this post, I want to show you how much help we can get—and give—even from the first word of the passage: “Therefore.”
The word “therefore” means Christ’s teaching on anxiety is given on the basis of the passage that came before it. In other words, Jesus tells us we should not be anxious because of what He said in the prior verses. So the logical flow of this part of the Sermon on the Mount is:
Don’t be anxious about your life because you cannot serve both God and money (6:24).
Do not be anxious about your life because you can’t be devoted to earthly possessions without despising God’s law and will for you (6:24).
Do not be anxious about your life because if you fix your eyes on earthly treasures—instead of heaven’s rewards—that will lead to all kinds of moral darkness (6:22-23).
Do not be anxious about your life because your focus in life should be to lay up treasure in heaven, in the life to come, which will never perish or pass away (6:20).
Do not be anxious about what you will eat and drink and wear and store up on earth, because every earthly treasure and store will perish and pass away (6:19).
Do you understand the connection? You can draw a straight line from the anxiety you feel in your heart, to whatever you are truly treasuring in your heart.
If you think about the nature of anxiety, this connection really does make a lot of sense. You get anxious or worried about the things that concern you. And you’ll be concerned about whatever you really care about. And you care about what you really value. And what you value shows what you truly treasure in your heart.
Christ’s words in 6:21 are powerful: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” But now we see (by way of the “therefore” that begins 6:25) that it is also true: where your treasure is, there your anxiety will be also. Or, to use the language of 6:24, our anxieties grow out of what we are actively serving, loving, and devoted to in our hearts. Our worries come from whatever is functionally “master” of our lives. If you tell me what you are usually anxious about, then you are telling me what you are often tempted to treasure and trust in your heart: whether that’s money, material possessions, the praise of man, your own physical appearance or strength, your reputation at work, etc.
Treasuring earthly things will always tempt us towards anxiety, because, as Jesus explained, they won’t last. They can be lost, ruined, stolen, or lose their value or usefulness (6:19). And if we are treasuring something so uncertain, then of course we’ll be tempted to be anxious! If what you truly treasure is transient and temporary, something that can be taken away so easily, then you’re very naturally going to be anxious about losing it, or not getting it in the first place.
That’s why every earthly thing you could treasure can lead to anxiety, and why freedom from anxiety can come when we start to live for laying up treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal (6:20).
It is very illuminating to see that the parallel passage in the gospel of Luke has the exact same surrounding context.
In Luke 12:22-32, Jesus teaches the same truths he does in Matthew 6:25-33, and there also the teaching begins with “Therefore, do not be anxious,” basing that teaching on anxiety on the passage that came before. In Luke 12, that’s the parable of the fool who lived to build bigger barns for all his earthly goods and stores.
So Jesus’s is teaching there: don’t be anxious about your earthly things because one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions (Luke 12:15). Don’t be anxious because you must not live for laying up treasure for yourself, instead of being rich towards God (Luke 12:21).
Then after His teaching on anxiety in Luke 12, Jesus says, “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (12:33-34).
The wider context of Luke 12 makes the same point as Matthew 6. Both places, Jesus teaches that anxiety over earthly things is rooted in a sinful treasuring, coveting, and trusting in earthly things, in a way that has risen above how much we’re living for heaven.
Christ’s question at the end of Matthew 6:25 pushes us towards the same consideration: “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”
That is to say: Isn’t there something so much more valuable that should be our primary concern in life? Isn’t there something greater, something more, something better that we should value and treasure and seek? There is: God, and the treasures of His heaven. Or, as Christ says later in the passage: God’s kingdom and righteousness (6:33). That should be our heart’s first treasure and concern. And if it is, our anxieties over earthly things will start to lose their grip over us.
To turn the tide in the battle against anxiety, we can’t just learn some surface-level coping techniques that might help us endure the unpleasant experience of feeling anxious. We have to do the deeper heart-work of growing in how much (and how often) we treasure God and His kingdom above all earthly things. We have to do the deeper heart-work of pursuing true worship: actively ascribing worth to God—in our hearts, in our daily lives—above anything else we could gain or keep on earth (Psalm 73:25; Philippians 3:8).
Let the first word of Christ’s teaching on anxiety serve you whenever you are serving those who struggle with anxiety.