{"id":7816,"date":"2026-04-28T09:57:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T16:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/?p=7816"},"modified":"2026-04-28T09:57:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T16:57:57","slug":"joey-sampaga-sermon-anxiety-free-living-luke-1222-34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/2026\/04\/28\/joey-sampaga-sermon-anxiety-free-living-luke-1222-34\/","title":{"rendered":"Joey Sampaga Sermon: Anxiety-Free Living, Luke 12:22\u201334"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><em>Delivered by Pastor Joey | East Valley International Church | Gilbert, Arizona<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\nText: Luke 12:22-34 (ESV)<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Abstract and summary of the pastor&#8217;s sermon:<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>Setting the Context: From Greed to Worry<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The sermon picks up where the previous two weeks left off \u2014 first the rich fool parable (Luke 12), then Pastor Terry&#8217;s message on evangelism. The pastor frames this as a natural transition: Jesus moves from warning against <em>greed<\/em> (laying up earthly treasure) to addressing <em>worry<\/em>, the spiritual cousin of greed. Both stem from misplaced trust in material security.<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>The Diagnosis: What Worry Actually Does<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Working from Luke 12:22-34, the pastor unpacks the Greek <em>merimnao<\/em> (&#8220;to be pulled in different directions&#8221;) and notes the English &#8220;worry&#8221; derives from a German root meaning &#8220;to choke or strangle.&#8221; He illustrates with a striking image from a Bureau of Standards study: a dense fog covering seven city blocks contains less than a single glass of water, yet it can paralyze an entire community. Likewise, a small cup of fear spread across the mind can blind believers to God&#8217;s goodness. He&#8217;s careful not to scold listeners \u2014 anxiety is a real human experience (he shares his own coffee-induced bout) \u2014 but identifies it as a <em>symptom<\/em> of eyes locked on the storm rather than the Savior.<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>The Antidote: Three Pictures of Provision<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Jesus offers three commands \u2014 <em>do not be anxious<\/em> (v.22), <em>do not keep worrying<\/em> (v.29), <em>do not be afraid<\/em> (v.32) \u2014 supported by three illustrations:<\/p>\n<p><strong>The ravens<\/strong> demonstrate that if God feeds creatures without eternal souls, He will surely provide for His children. <strong>The span of life<\/strong> reminds us that no amount of worry adds an hour to days already written in God&#8217;s book (Psalm 139:16). The pastor candidly references his father&#8217;s suicide here, modeling submission to divine sovereignty even amid grief. <strong>The lilies<\/strong> show that if God clothes grass destined for tomorrow&#8217;s oven, He will far more clothe the bride of His Son.<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>The Reorientation: Seek the Kingdom First<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The practical break from worry comes through reordering priorities (v.31). Unbelievers strive desperately for material security because they have no Heavenly Father; believers can pursue God&#8217;s kingdom knowing their needs are already known. The &#8220;little flock&#8221; language (v.32) uses the Greek <em>eudokeo<\/em> \u2014 God <em>gladly delights<\/em> to give the kingdom. This isn&#8217;t prosperity gospel; the kingdom Jesus promises is &#8220;righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit&#8221; (Romans 14:17).<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>The Radical Call: Where Your Treasure Is<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Verses 33-34 issue a hard challenge \u2014 sell possessions, give to the needy, store treasure in heaven. The pastor clarifies Jesus isn&#8217;t commanding universal divestment (as He did with the rich young ruler) but exposing whatever idol holds first place \u2014 money, career, relationships, even family. He cites Corrie ten Boom: <em>&#8220;I have held many things in my hands and lost them all. But whatever I have placed in God&#8217;s hands, that I still possess.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>The Application<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The sermon closes with the central question: <em>Where is your heart?<\/em> Anxiety-free living isn&#8217;t passive \u2014 keep sending r\u00e9sum\u00e9s, keep working \u2014 but do so resting in the Father&#8217;s care rather than strangled by what-ifs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZwptftFSitU?si=BA_YzWQ0Otp87umY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<details class=\"collapsible-quote\" open=\"open\">\n<summary><strong><span style=\"color: #003366;\">Here is\u00a0<span style=\"color: #003366;\">the full transcript<\/span><\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong>\u00a0[<span style=\"color: #993300;\">Click HERE to close]<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/summary>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But you know, that&#8217;s okay because the Lord is with us and sometimes the world just throws these things into our lives and we just need to be okay with it. We just need to smile because what this world has for So, I first of all wanted to welcome Jessica and Mia back. Thank you for coming tonight. And a reminder to the leaders, we are going to meet after service and we&#8217;ll meet at the office. So, leaders, remember to stay. Okay, so last week we looked at the story of the rich, or not last week, but two weeks ago, we looked at the story of the rich man. Last week we talked about evangelism, having the heart of God, right? So Pastor Terry was talking about how we have to emulate God&#8217;s heart, how we have to have the desire for the lost, whether it&#8217;s going out to the world, whether it of Gilbert or sharing it, sharing the gospel at work or with your coworkers or That&#8217;s what sharing the gospel is. Sharing the gospel doesn&#8217;t mean just going out and doing street evangelism. I know some of you can&#8217;t make it to that, and if you can, that&#8217;s okay. But I do encourage you to try. And also whenever we&#8217;re doing things like feeding the homeless or packing food bags, I would encourage you to do that as well. Because we&#8217;re here about the kingdom. It&#8217;s about God&#8217;s kingdom and not this world&#8217;s kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, so two weeks ago, we did talk about the story of the rich man where Jesus was teaching. And so there was a man who, while Jesus was preaching, he interrupted Jesus and he demanded that his brother divide the family inheritance with him. He&#8217;s saying, Jesus, since you&#8217;re a rabbi, since you&#8217;re what&#8217;s known as a rabbi who takes care and judges all of these things, you need to tell my brother to give me my half. So Jesus, he warned the crowd against greed, against being greedy. And he told a parable about a wealthy farmer who built larger barns to hoard his massive crops. So that very night, God required the man&#8217;s soul, meaning that he was going to die that night. And all afforded wealth was left to someone else. So we learn that we must choose between laying a treasure for ourselves or being rich for God. Are we laying up treasures here on this earth that is not going to last, it&#8217;s not going to come with us to heaven? Or are you building the kingdom for us? While we&#8217;re still here and we do that by sharing the gospel, by being obedient to God&#8217;s word. Now today we continue right where we left off in Jesus. He transitions from warning about greed to a profound teaching about worry. And we live in an incredible anxious culture. We&#8217;re so worried about things going right and things happening the way they&#8217;re supposed to happen and we&#8217;re all so busy planning. Now there&#8217;s nothing wrong with planning, there&#8217;s nothing wrong with preparing. But if things don&#8217;t go accordingly or according to plan, let&#8217;s not worry about it. It&#8217;s not life and death, okay? Jesus is going to transition from a warning about greed to profound teaching about worry.<\/p>\n<p>And we, again, live in an incredibly crazy world that brings us anxiety and worries every day. And this is the most lavish and comfortable society in history, if you think about it, especially here in the United States. Yet people are absolutely consumed by stress. industry even that&#8217;s dedicated to diagnosing and medicating our anxieties and our stress. There&#8217;s so much medication out there that&#8217;s being prescribed to people to lessen the stress. And the best the world can offer is to help you manage your stress. He doesn&#8217;t just want you to endlessly cope with your fears. God invites us to rest so deeply in his sovereign care that our daily anxieties are replaced by his perfect peace. I know that sounds easier said than done. To turn to God and say, Lord, just take away my anxieties and my stressors. You know, I remember there&#8217;s people telling me that all of a sudden they&#8217;re feeling anxious. They&#8217;re feeling anxiety. And now I personally haven&#8217;t felt that, at least not at the level that they&#8217;re talking about. Okay, where they say, oh yes, this anxiety came over me and I just can&#8217;t do anything because I&#8217;m so anxious. And one day when I was in class, only prior to that, for an entire week, I was feeling anxiety. I was feeling anxious. And I was wondering what the heck is going on. Maybe this is what people are talking about where you just worry about everything. Okay, because your brain is continuing to go and go and go and it won&#8217;t stop. And I was wondering what went on. And then I started to have more compassion for those who go through anxiety. And then a couple weeks later, or actually the following day, I realized that the reason why I was feeling anxiety was because I drank too much coffee. It was espresso. You know how powerful espresso is? That&#8217;s why they only give you a shot. Well, I was drinking the espresso like it was coffee. And then I realized, oh, maybe that&#8217;s what it is, and I stopped drinking that espresso.<\/p>\n<p>Now, not to say that that&#8217;s what anxiety is all about. Anxiety is all the time. But it does come from the world, right? An espresso is of the world. So, we are going to be in Luke chapter 12. So, if you have your Bibles, get there. And we&#8217;re going to start in verse 22. In this passage, Jesus gives three specific commands about anxiety and about worry. In verse 22, he says not to be anxious. In verse 29 he says not to keep worrying. And then in verse 32 he says not to be afraid. Now living in a broken and unpredictable world like we do, feeling the weight of anxiety is an inevitable part of human experience. As we&#8217;re living in this world, we&#8217;re no matter what going to get worried and we&#8217;re going to have anxiety. It&#8217;s a very real struggle for every single one of us, but Jesus is lovingly inviting his followers to step out from underneath that crushing burden. While feeling fear is a natural human reaction, allowing worry to consume our hearts, it reveals that we have either lost sight of who our Heavenly Father is, or we&#8217;re struggling to fully trust His promises in the moment. Jesus is going to gently show us exactly why, even in a frightening world, resting in God&#8217;s sovereign care, makes a life of constant worry completely unnecessary. When you lift your burdens up to the Lord, He starts to give you the peace that only He can give you.<\/p>\n<p>All right, so let&#8217;s go to Luke chapter 12, and I&#8217;ll start from verse 22. We&#8217;ll go all the way to 34. 34. It says, &#8220;And he said to his disciples, &#8220;therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, &#8220;what you will eat, nor about your body, &#8220;what you will put on. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens. They neither sow nor reap. They have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Oh, how much more valued are you than the birds. And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span? If then you are not able to do a small thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you or you of little faith? And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father&#8217;s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with the money bags. With money bags, then do not grow old. With a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thieves approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s open in prayer. Lord God, Heavenly Father, we thank you that you would instill we&#8217;re going to study today. Help us to understand how rich and wonderful your promises are. Lord, we ask that you would set us free from worry, fear, and anxiety. Teach us to trust you completely and to seek your kingdom above all else. Father, I ask that you reveal your truth to us. our spiritual ears and our spiritual eyes and our souls to be open. Seal your truth to our hearts today. And Father, fill us with your Spirit. Allow the distractions to stay out of our minds as we learn about your Word so that when we leave this place today, we can retain it and we can put it into practice. Father, I ask that you fill me with your Spirit. Use me as your vessel to share your Word. In a way that only each of our hearts can understand. Father, allow your words to speak through me and not my own. We thank you, we love you, we praise you in Jesus&#8217; name. So living in a broken and unpredictable world, feeling the weight of anxiety is an inevitable part of the human experience, and it&#8217;s a very real struggle for all of us. Now I&#8217;m not trying to downplay it, I&#8217;m just letting you know that it&#8217;s there. It&#8217;s there, but we can overcome it. So when Jesus says, do not be anxious, he isn&#8217;t scolding us for being human. He knows we live in a world where things go wrong and bodies break down, bank accounts run dry, people want to sue us for any little thing just so that they can gain something. Maybe we have troubles at work. Maybe we have troubles at school. But Jesus wants us to realize that our worry is just a symptom. We&#8217;re consumed by anxiety and it just means our eyes have locked onto the storm instead of on our Savior.<\/p>\n<p>So Jesus is gently, what he&#8217;s doing is he&#8217;s lifting up our chins to turn our gaze away from the scary waves and reminding us to look up at the Father who loves us. Let&#8217;s look at verse 22, and it says, And he said to his disciples, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. So Jesus, he uses a very specific Greek term. which is marimneo. Marimneo literally means to be pulled in different directions, to be distracted, or to have your mind divided. When we&#8217;re anxious, our minds are all over the place, right? Our brain continues to just keep going and going and going. Now, the English word worry actually comes from the old German word vorgang, which means to choke or strangle. So worry fractures our focus. It pulls our minds away from the promises of God and strangles our joy with the what-ifs of tomorrow. So there was actually a study done by the Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. a number of years ago that perfectly illustrates how worry works. They concluded that a dense fog covering seven city blocks, 100 feet deep, is composed of less than one single glass of water, which was divided into 60,000 million drops. So if you think about it, that&#8217;s not a lot of water. Think of a glass of water. When it&#8217;s in the air the way it was, it covered seven city blocks. But when it&#8217;s suspended in the air, this water can completely blind and paralyze the entire community. We don&#8217;t have much fog here in Arizona, but when I used to live in California, it was foggy in the morning, especially by the ocean. And sometimes the fog would be different. I remember fog was just up to my waist, and you can see fog that low. It&#8217;s kind of weird. And that&#8217;s exactly what worry does to a human heart.<\/p>\n<p>A cup full of fear spread out over our minds can completely blind us to the goodness of God. When we allow these worries and these anxieties to cover our eyes and our brains and our minds, it can blind us from seeing who God truly is. But Jesus gives us the antidote in verse 23. He says, for life is more than food and the body more than clothing. So this is God&#8217;s priority. You&#8217;re more than just a physical body that needs food and clothing. God brought you into his family for a specific reason. And if God has a purpose for your life, he promises to supply everything you need said need not want he&#8217;ll supply your needs now to prove this Jesus points to the sky in verse 24 he says consider the Ravens they neither sow nor reap they have neither storehouse nor barn and yet God feeds them oh how much more value are you than the birds now if you think They don&#8217;t save money. They don&#8217;t build storehouses. Yet God makes sure that every day they are taken care of. If the God of the universe takes care of the birds and scavengers that don&#8217;t even have eternal souls, how much more will he take care of you, the child that he sent, Jesus? this beautiful command in 1 Peter chapter 5. He says, &#8220;Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.&#8221; So you can cast that heavy burden on Jesus, on God, because His provisions for your life is completely secure. He has a plan for your life, and that plan is going to fulfill itself, because when God has a plan for your life, it&#8217;s going to be fulfilled.<\/p>\n<p>And then the second thing, in verses 25 to 28, Jesus, he moves from our past. It says in verse 25, which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? So we live in a culture that is utterly obsessed with prolonging life. We spend billions of dollars on supplements, diets, and treatments, and trying to seize control of our own mortality. I know I also spend that much money, too, buying all these supplements just to be healthy. Now, it&#8217;s good to be disciplined and to take care of the physical bodies that God has given us because it&#8217;s the Holy Spirit. So we&#8217;re to take care of our temple, or God&#8217;s temple that he&#8217;s given to us to take care of. But Jesus is reminding us of a deeply comforting truth here. Determining the length of your life is a divine privilege that belongs only to God. God will take you, take your life from this world when he is ready. Right, we have to remember that. There&#8217;s nothing we can do to extend our life past what God has planned for us. Because there are healthy people out there who work out every day almost, and they end up dying because they&#8217;re, when they&#8217;re young. Right, they can&#8217;t control their mortality, only God can do that. Right. know God had a plan for them and maybe that&#8217;s they ended their life at that age and that&#8217;s It&#8217;s bad to think about that someone can take their own life. And I have experience with that because my father, he committed suicide. And of course, going through all of that, I got angry at him and I blamed him. But then when I truly understand the sovereignty of God, well, things happen according to me. Okay, would that be the way that I want my father to go? No, but it happened. And I just have to trust that God knows what he&#8217;s doing.<\/p>\n<p>So worrying about your health or your safety will not add a single hour to the timeline God has ordained for you. Yes, be healthy. Yes, eat right. Yes, exercise, but do it to take care of your body. Because, you know, when you are healthy, you have the energy to do what you need to do. You have the energy to go out and share the gospel with people. You have the energy to do ministry, more ministry. Okay, but it&#8217;s not going to prolong your life in a matter of, you know, us taking care of our bodies. Because we could get hit by a bus one day. So let&#8217;s not worry so much about that. Let&#8217;s just worry about what God is asking us to worry about, which is going out and sharing his word and sharing his gospel with others. Worrying makes no contribution to your life. It only steals your joy when that&#8217;s all you do is worry about it. It&#8217;ll steal your joy. Instead of grasping for control, we can rest in the profound truth found in Psalm 139, verse 16, where it says, your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book, written every one of them the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none so God he&#8217;s already put a timeline for us in this world in this lifetime on this earth okay but remember as children of God we are going to live in eternity with him in heaven And unfortunately, those who aren&#8217;t believers in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, they too will live for eternity, but they&#8217;re going to be feeling the wrath of God in a place called hell. And that&#8217;s for eternity as well. So since your days are saved in God&#8217;s book, you&#8217;re free to stop worrying about your life.<\/p>\n<p>So Jesus, he drives us home in verse 27 and 28. He says, consider the lilies, 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. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you? Oh, you of little faith. in ancient middle east in the major in the ancient middle east people would gather dry dead flowers grass from the fields and throw them into their clay ovens to stoke the fire for baking bread so every single morning they you know they would have a pile of grass dead grass and flowers they&#8217;d throw it in their ovens and they would start baking bread and jesus looks at these fragile, temporary flowers and points out their intricate, breathtaking beauty. If you really look at a flower and how it was created, when you really, really look at it, you will see the beauty even more than just seeing it from a distance. You&#8217;re gonna see it. If you look in a microscope at things like that, you&#8217;ll see the cells and how it&#8217;s all made up, which is amazing. So if God takes the time to lavishly, meticulously clothe a piece of grass that is going to be burned in an oven tomorrow, what does that tell you about his preference for you as a child of God? You&#8217;re the crown of his creation. You&#8217;re the bride of his son. When we allow anxiety to dominate our lives, we&#8217;re acting like people of little faith. We&#8217;re momentarily forgetting how deeply and specifically our Creator prefers and loves us. We have to remember that. We need to be reminded of that.<\/p>\n<p>And then in verses 29 to 34, You know, one of the questions, so how do we practically break the cycle of worry? Well, Jesus tells us in verse 29, do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Right? So the Greek word used here. which means to strongly strive for, to intensely pray, or to demand. So the unbelieving world, those who don&#8217;t know God, those who don&#8217;t know Jesus as Lord and Savior, passionately strive for material security because they believe they&#8217;re entirely on their own. They have no promises from a heavenly father like, you need. That you need them. It&#8217;s not a question of whether God has power to help you. The most comforting reality in the universe is that God has the intimate knowledge of a loving Father. And He already knows exactly what Isn&#8217;t that so comforting to know that God already knows what we need before we even know what we need? Now, knowing this, our pursuits must completely change. Verse 31 says, Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. This isn&#8217;t the false teaching. If you do this for God, God will give you this a hundred times more. It&#8217;s not about prosperity preaching. Jesus preaches, he&#8217;s preaching truth here. This truth that he preached earlier in his ministry on the Mount of the Beatitudes, or when he was teaching the Beatitudes, he says in Matthew chapter 6, Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s your needs. Make the kingdom of God the priority of your life. Seek His righteousness. his people when you make his eternal purposes your priority you can trust that he will faithfully provide exactly what you need for as long as you need it to fulfill the life he has called you to do we have a couple of missionaries who understand that they were making a bunch of money from their jobs they felt the calling to go to the Philippines be missionaries to no longer make the money that they were making and guess what God provided even now God will provide for you just in case you think that God might be reluctant to bless you little flock, for it is your father&#8217;s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. When he says little flock, it&#8217;s a term of endearment. Jesus knows we&#8217;re weak. He knows that. He knows we&#8217;re vulnerable. But he says, The Greek word is &#8220;doukeo&#8221; which means to be well pleased, to choose gladly, to take immense delight in you. So God isn&#8217;t holding out on you. But the kingdom he delights to give you isn&#8217;t about earthly wealth or material possessions. The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 14 that the kingdom of God is righteous. It&#8217;s peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And God takes absolute delight in pouring out those eternal spiritual riches upon his children. And that&#8217;s what he delights to do. You know, some of us, you know, there are people in this world who don&#8217;t have the riches of Please remember that our lifetimes here is just very temporary. It&#8217;s like a grain of sand in all the sand, the grains of sand in the universe. That&#8217;s how short our life is here in this lifetime. Because eternity is going to be in heaven. And we&#8217;re going to experience the type of joy that is, you can&#8217;t even explain it in words. I always say, think about the most joyful time in your life, and then take that and times it by a million. Or not a million, but infinity. That&#8217;s how good it&#8217;s going to feel.<\/p>\n<p>And because of this incredible security, Jesus issues a final radical call in verse 33 and 34. He says, sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with money bags 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. All right, so I know that sounds very radical and difficult. Jesus, God, he doesn&#8217;t call for everyone to give and sell everything that you own. He did with the rich man. Remember that story where the rich man says, I&#8217;ve kept the Ten Commandments. What must I do? How should I be following you? What should I do, Lord? He&#8217;s talking to Jesus. Because Jesus knew his heart and where his priorities lie. His priorities lie in his money and his material things. Right? And his wealth and his riches. He told the rich man, go sell everything and come follow me. And remember what the rich man did. He cried. He left. Maybe our priorities in our lifetime isn&#8217;t money. Maybe it&#8217;s a person. Maybe it&#8217;s your job. Maybe it&#8217;s your grades. Maybe it is money. Maybe it&#8217;s your bank account. But if you take that and prioritize that over God and your relationship with Him, then you&#8217;re idolizing God. something over God and God says what in the 10 commandments he says you shall have no other God you shouldn&#8217;t have any other idols that should be your first priority and I used to ask the question even over my wife and my family yes Even over your wife and your family and your children and your jobs and your money. Because when you love God, God teaches you how to love others. The right way. The great Dutch Christian, Corrie ten Boom. terribly in a Nazi concentration camp and lost nearly everything she had in this world. She famously said this, she says, I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all. But whatever I have placed in God&#8217;s hands, that I still possess. She also advised, hold everything in your hands lightly and loosely, otherwise it hurts. and God cries it over. That&#8217;s how many was with me. I didn&#8217;t want to let it go. And instead of taking it all, and inadvertently cried my hand over, it still hurts right now. That&#8217;s exactly what Jesus is getting at. Once you truly trust that God is your Father and Provider, materialism loses its grip on you.<\/p>\n<p>into heaven, a place where the stock market never crashes. Things never rust up there, and thieves can never break in. No one can steal your identity. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. If your treasure is safely deposited in the kingdom of heaven, your heart will be anchored in peace. of anxiety-free living is only available to us through the grace of Jesus Christ. You know, when I&#8217;m going to bed and I&#8217;m worried and I&#8217;m anxious, I just lift it up to God. It&#8217;s only when we put our trust in His sacrifice, turning away from the fading things of this earth, that we can step into His kingdom and truly know God is our Father. That&#8217;s the only time. We can have 100% we apply this passage and what Jesus is teaching to our lives today well the answer comes down to one simple question where is your heart right where are your priorities if your heart is fixed on things of this world it&#8217;s impossible to live without anxiety everything on this earth changes and changes But if your heart is in heaven, nothing changes because the promises of God are secure. When your faith and trust is in Jesus Christ, Jesus, He never fades away. We can always turn to Him. His promises are for us, and His promises are always fulfilled. So don&#8217;t settle for just trying to manage your stress. Have him be your number one. Hold lightly to the things of this earth and experience the true joy of anxiety-free living. Amen? All right, again, I know it&#8217;s easier said than done, but let&#8217;s put this passage, let&#8217;s put it into our hearts and let&#8217;s live in that way And then when you do that, you just feel the anxieties and the worries just melt away. Are those problems, are those things still going to be there? Probably. But why worry about it? I mean, work on getting out of it. Do what you need to do, but do it in a way that you don&#8217;t worry about it. Do it in a way that you handle it the way that God would want you to. Now, it doesn&#8217;t mean you just sit idle and do nothing. Like, let&#8217;s say you don&#8217;t have a job and you&#8217;re looking for a job. Just don&#8217;t sit on the couch and watch Netflix all day and just say, well, I trust God&#8217;s going to give me a job. Well, use the things that God has given you, like your intellect and a lot of resumes. Send them out via email with the technologies that God has given you. Any, any, whatever your worries and anxieties are on, keep in mind that you do much better when you&#8217;re at peace. And when you approach it in that manner, you&#8217;re gonna be able to handle it much better than when you&#8217;re worried and you&#8217;re anxious.<\/p>\n<p>Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for being our faithful Father. You created us on purpose and for a purpose. And when we look at how you care for birds and flowers, we&#8217;re reminded of how deeply you love us. Lord God, set us free from the heavy burden of worry. To seek your kingdom first to make you our number one. And to rest entirely in your daily provision. And Lord, place contentment in our hearts. So we don&#8217;t want more than what we know. Because Lord, we know that you will always provide what we need. that we lift up our worries to you. Because you told us that your yoke is light. And that you can carry these burdens for us. And Lord, as we&#8217;re carrying those burdens, and we&#8217;re going through these anxieties, and the troubles in our lives, and these trials and tribulations, we just ask for your wisdom. We ask for your peace. We ask for your calmness. to guide us through what we need to do. And doing it in a way that is glorifying to you. And Lord, once we get through it, we know that there&#8217;s blessings at the end of it. Knowing that you&#8217;ve grown our faith and that you prove over and over again that when we put our faith and trust in you, when we lift up our trials and tribulations and our worries and anxieties, that you will pull us through it every single time. Maybe not take away the trials or the tribulation, but we know that you will be with us every step of the way. And Father, if there&#8217;s anyone here who has that worry of where their souls are going to go for eternity because they have not yet put their faith and trust in your Son, Jesus, Lord and Savior. Lord, I pray that they do that today, knowing that he died for all our sins on that cross. When he died, his body was taken down and was buried in the tomb. Three days later, Lord, you raised him from the dead and he is now seated in the right hand of your throne. And Father, we thank you for that. Father, I ask that you bless everyone here, that you protect everyone and that you keep them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/details>\n<hr \/>\n<p align=\"center\"><em>The following are Supplemental notes generated by AI as a study resource for Pastor Joey\u2019s sermon. Taken from Claude AI, the narrative essay includes Pastor Joey&#8217;s actual quotes woven in at the appropriate segments.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2 align=\"center\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><b>Anxiety-Free Living, Luke 12:22\u201334<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<p align=\"center\"><i>A Synthetic Theological Essay<br \/>\nof the Sermon Delivered by Pastor Joey, April 26, 2026<br \/>\nEast Valley International Church \u2022 Gilbert, Arizona<\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><span style=\"color: #888888;\">Sermon Notes &amp; Bible Study Guide<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! \u2026 Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father&#8217;s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Luke 12:22\u201324, 32 (ESV)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><b>I. The Anatomy of Anxiety: Setting the Stage<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Anxiety is not a modern invention. It is as ancient as the human condition itself, surfacing in the sleepless nights of King David, in the trembling hands of Elijah under the juniper tree, and in the worried questions of a Galilean crowd clustered around a young rabbi on a Judean hillside two thousand years ago. What Jesus addresses in Luke 12:22\u201334 is not a marginal pastoral footnote; it is a direct, authoritative assault on one of the most paralyzing forces in human experience. He speaks not as a therapist offering coping strategies, but as the Lord of creation offering a comprehensive reorientation of the soul.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">And yet, even in the most lavish and comfortable society in history, the problem persists. As Pastor Joey Sampaga observed in a recent message at East Valley International Church:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>We live in an incredibly crazy world that brings us anxiety and worries every day. And this is the most lavish and comfortable society in history, if you think about it, especially here in the United States. Yet people are absolutely consumed by stress. There is an industry even that is dedicated to diagnosing and medicating our anxieties.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Pastor Joey Sampaga<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">That diagnosis is unsparing, and it is correct. The wealthiest civilization in human history has produced the most anxious population in human history. The medications, the meditation apps, the wellness industries, and the self-help bookshelves all testify to a culture that has tools for managing anxiety but no framework for healing it. Into precisely that vacuum, the words of Jesus arrive with disarming force.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The passage opens at verse 22 with a word that demands our attention: &#8220;therefore.&#8221; In the literary logic of Luke, this conjunction anchors the anxiety discourse to the preceding parable of the rich fool (vv. 13\u201321), a man who spent his entire inner life calculating barns and harvests, only to have God announce the termination of his account without warning. &#8220;Therefore,&#8221; \u2014 in light of that cautionary tale \u2014 Jesus turns to his disciples and issues a command that sounds simple but carries the weight of a theological revolution: do not be anxious.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The Greek word rendered &#8220;anxious&#8221; or &#8220;worried&#8221; is <i>merimnao<\/i> (\u03bc\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bd\u03ac\u03c9), and it is far richer than casual fretting. As Pastor Joey notes, the word literally means &#8220;to be pulled in different directions, to be distracted, or to have your mind divided.&#8221; The English word &#8220;worry&#8221; carries a parallel violence: it descends from an Old German root meaning to choke or to strangle. Both traditions converge on the same visceral image \u2014 anxiety is a stranglehold on the soul. And what Jesus offers is nothing less than the key to that stranglehold&#8217;s release.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Before we explore the content of his teaching, it is worth pausing to note something often overlooked in devotional treatments of this passage: Jesus does not dismiss anxiety as a character flaw or a spiritual failure. He does not mock the disciples for worrying. He acknowledges that the concerns are real \u2014 food, clothing, shelter, the material fabric of daily life. His argument is not that these things do not matter but that there is a framework for understanding them that makes anxious striving not only unnecessary but actually theologically incoherent. That framework is the character, sovereignty, and fatherhood of God.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><b>II. Walking Through the Text: A Verse-by-Verse Exposition<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>A. The Command and Its Context (vv. 22\u201323)<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>And he said to his disciples, &#8220;Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.&#8221;<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Luke 12:22\u201323 (ESV)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The command is addressed specifically to the disciples \u2014 those who have already made the foundational commitment of following Jesus. This is not evangelistic advice but pastoral instruction. The assumption is not that anxiety is impossible for believers but that it is inconsistent with the worldview that faith in God is meant to produce. The disciples, who had left fishing boats and tax tables to follow an itinerant rabbi with no fixed income, had every natural reason to worry. Jesus meets them precisely there.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">His opening argument is a priority argument: life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. This is not a trite observation. It is a pointed correction of how anxiety distorts perception. Pastor Joey illustrates the point with a striking image drawn from a study by the U.S. Bureau of Standards:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>A dense fog covering seven city blocks, one hundred feet deep, is composed of less than one single glass of water. So if you think about it, that&#8217;s not a lot of water. But when it&#8217;s suspended in the air, this water can completely blind and paralyze the entire community. That&#8217;s exactly what worry does to a human heart. A cup full of fear spread out over our minds can completely blind us to the goodness of God.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Pastor Joey Sampaga<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The metaphor is exegetically apt. When we are gripped by anxiety, the lesser things \u2014 the immediate, tangible, measurable things \u2014 balloon to fill our entire field of vision. The urgent crowds out the eternal. A glass of fear, dispersed across the mind, blinds us to the surrounding goodness of God. Jesus is recalibrating the disciples&#8217; sense of proportion, urging them to see that the very gift of life and the very fact of embodied existence are already greater miracles than any meal or garment could supply.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>B. The Argument from Nature: Ravens and Lilies (vv. 24\u201328)<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! \u2026 Consider the lilies, 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.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Luke 12:24, 27 (ESV)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Jesus now deploys what philosophers of rhetoric call an argument from the lesser to the greater, known in rabbinic tradition as <i>kal wa-homer<\/i>. If God in his providential governance of creation supplies the needs of ravens \u2014 birds regarded in Levitical law as unclean and therefore of minimal ceremonial worth \u2014 how much more will he provide for those made in his image and redeemed by his Son? The logic is not merely sentimental; it is theologically rigorous.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Pastor Joey lands the application directly:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>If the God of the universe takes care of the birds and scavengers that don&#8217;t even have eternal souls, how much more will he take care of you, the child that he sent Jesus to die for?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Pastor Joey Sampaga<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The raven does not plant. It does not harvest. It builds no granaries. And yet the ecosystem God designed and sustains delivers its daily bread. This is not an argument for passivity or laziness \u2014 Jesus will make no such endorsement. Rather, it is an argument about the ultimate source of provision. The raven&#8217;s lack of anxiety is not born of stupidity but of alignment with the order God has established. The disciple who trusts God is invited into that same alignment, though at a far deeper level of dignity and relationship.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The lily argument extends the logic into the aesthetic realm. Solomon, the wealthiest and most celebrated king in Israel&#8217;s history, commissioned the construction of a temple laden with gold, cedar, and bronze. His personal wardrobe would have been the envy of every royal court in the ancient Near East. And yet, Jesus asserts with stunning confidence, not even Solomon at the apex of his splendor matched the glory of a common wildflower in full bloom. In ancient Middle Eastern households, dried grass and dead flowers were gathered each morning and thrown into clay ovens to fire the day&#8217;s bread. The very things over which God lavishes meticulous beauty are tomorrow&#8217;s kindling. If God invests such artistry in vegetation destined for the oven, the disciples&#8217; concern about their own appearance and provision reflects a fundamental miscalculation about the nature of their God.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Verse 28 delivers the implicit rebuke with surgical precision: &#8220;O you of little faith!&#8221; The Greek is <i>oligopistoi<\/i> \u2014 those of scant, undersized faith. This is not a condemnation but a diagnosis. The disciples&#8217; anxiety is symptomatic of a faith that has not yet fully grasped the scope of God&#8217;s fatherly care. The medicine is not more willpower but more knowledge \u2014 a deeper, more experiential understanding of who God is and what his posture toward his children actually is.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>C. The Futility Argument (v. 25)<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Luke 12:25 (ESV)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Here, Jesus introduces a pragmatic argument alongside the theological one. Anxiety is not only spiritually misaligned \u2014 it is practically useless. The rhetorical question is devastating in its simplicity: name one person who, by worrying intensely enough, added a single cubit to his stature or a single hour to his lifespan. The answer, of course, is no one. And yet we pour incalculable psychic and physical energy into an activity that accomplishes nothing it sets out to accomplish and frequently makes things worse.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Pastor Joey presses this point with a sober honesty rare in the contemporary pulpit:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>Determining the length of your life is a divine privilege that belongs only to God. There&#8217;s nothing we can do to extend our life past what God has planned for us. There are healthy people out there who work out every day, and they end up dying when they&#8217;re young. They can&#8217;t control their mortality. Only God can do that.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Pastor Joey Sampaga<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Modern neuroscience has validated what Jesus stated from intuition and divine knowledge: chronic anxiety degrades immune function, disrupts sleep architecture, accelerates cellular aging, and contributes to cardiovascular disease. Anxiety is not a neutral holding pattern \u2014 it is actively destructive. Jesus is not simply offering spiritual comfort; he is offering liberation from a self-imposed prison whose bars are made of nothing more substantial than imagined futures.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>D. The Pagan Contrast (vv. 29\u201330)<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Luke 12:29\u201330 (ESV)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The contrast Jesus draws between the disciples and &#8220;the nations&#8221; \u2014 the Gentiles, those outside the covenant \u2014 is not ethnic but theological. The nations worry because they have no Father. Their religious frameworks offered a pantheon of capricious, unpredictable, and often malevolent deities who required constant appeasement and could never be fully trusted. Within that framework, anxiety is not a pathology but a rational response to a universe governed by indifferent or hostile powers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">But the disciples of Jesus operate within a completely different cosmology. They have a Father \u2014 a Father who is not distant or distracted, not exhausted by the demands of seven billion people, not limited in knowledge or power. The word Jesus uses elsewhere is the Aramaic <i>Abba<\/i>, the intimate familial address that signals not merely a formal relationship but a warm, attentive, personal connection. And the Father, Jesus declares, already knows what his children need before they articulate it. Pastor Joey captures the comfort of this truth simply: &#8220;Isn&#8217;t that so comforting to know that God already knows what we need before we even know what we need?&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>E. The Kingdom Priority (v. 31)<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Luke 12:31 (ESV)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">This is the hinge verse of the entire passage, the positive command that gives content to the negative prohibition against anxiety. Do not seek food and clothing \u2014 seek the kingdom. The kingdom of God in Lukan theology is not an ethereal future realm but an active, present reality breaking into history through the ministry of Jesus and the life of his community. To seek the kingdom is to orient one&#8217;s whole being \u2014 desires, energies, decisions, relationships \u2014 around God&#8217;s reign and its priorities.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Pastor Joey illustrates this with a contemporary example from his own congregation:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>We have a couple of missionaries who understand that. They were making a bunch of money from their jobs, and they felt the calling to go to the Philippines, to be missionaries, to no longer make the money that they were making. And guess what \u2014 God provided. Even now, God will provide for you.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Pastor Joey Sampaga<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The promise attached is breathtaking in its scope: &#8220;these things&#8221; \u2014 all the material provisions about which the disciples are tempted to worry \u2014 &#8220;will be added to you.&#8221; Not as the primary goal, but as a secondary consequence of pursuing the right primary goal. This is the great inversion of anxiety-driven living: when we make provision our god, we never find enough; when we make God our provision, we find that material needs are met in ways that often surprise and exceed our expectations.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>F. The Father&#8217;s Good Pleasure (v. 32)<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father&#8217;s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Luke 12:32 (ESV)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">This may be the most tender verse in the entire Lukan travel narrative. Jesus addresses the disciples with the diminutive &#8220;little flock&#8221; \u2014 a term of endearment rather than condescension, evoking the pastoral imagery of a shepherd who sees his small band with warmth and protectiveness. They are not a mighty army. They are a small, vulnerable group of ordinary people in a vast and often hostile world. And precisely to them, the Father is delighted to give the kingdom itself.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The word translated &#8220;good pleasure&#8221; is <i>eudokia<\/i> \u2014 the same word used in Luke 2:14 when the angels announce &#8220;good will toward men&#8221; at the birth of Jesus. As Pastor Joey explains, the underlying verb <i>eudokeo<\/i> &#8220;means to be well pleased, to choose gladly, to take immense delight in you. So God isn&#8217;t holding out on you.&#8221; God does not give the kingdom reluctantly, under pressure, after the disciples have sufficiently earned it. He gives it with joy. This single verse, properly internalized, has the power to dissolve anxiety at its root.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>G. The Treasure Command (vv. 33\u201334)<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>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.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Luke 12:33\u201334 (ESV)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The passage closes not with a meditation but a mandate. The antidote to anxiety, Jesus reveals, is not merely a change of mental attitude but a reorientation of economic loyalty. The person whose treasure is stored in earthly accounts has a legitimate reason for anxiety \u2014 earthly accounts are vulnerable to thieves, market collapses, inflation, and death. Pastor Joey draws the contrast in language that lands instantly with a modern congregation:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>Store your treasures in heaven \u2014 a place where the stock market never crashes. Things never rust up there, and thieves can never break in. No one can steal your identity. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Pastor Joey Sampaga<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Selling possessions and giving to the poor is not a salvation mechanism \u2014 it is an anxiety mechanism. It is the practical means by which the disciple dismantles the financial scaffolding that competes with God for the position of ultimate security provider. Every act of radical generosity is an act of faith \u2014 a declaration that God is more trustworthy than the account balance, that the kingdom is more durable than the portfolio. And where that treasure is located is precisely where the heart will follow.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">This does not mean Jesus is universally commanding poverty. Pastor Joey clarifies the principle by anchoring it to motive rather than method:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>Maybe our priority in our lifetime isn&#8217;t money. Maybe it&#8217;s a person. Maybe it&#8217;s your job. Maybe it&#8217;s your grades. Maybe it is money. Maybe it&#8217;s your bank account. But if you take that and prioritize that over God and your relationship with him, then you&#8217;re idolizing it.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Pastor Joey Sampaga<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The diagnostic question is not how much we own but what owns us. The treasure we cannot release is the idol we have not yet recognized.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><b>III. Theological Synthesis: What Anxiety Reveals and What Faith Restores<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Having walked through the text with exegetical care, we are now in a position to draw together its theological threads into a coherent portrait of what anxiety-free living actually means and how it is practically achieved.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">First, anxiety is fundamentally a theological problem before it is a psychological one. At its root, anxiety represents a failure of the imagination \u2014 specifically, the imagination&#8217;s failure to conceive of God as genuinely good, genuinely powerful, and genuinely attentive. The anxious disciple is not simply stressed; he is operating, at least functionally, with a defective doctrine of God. When we worry about our material futures as if God either doesn&#8217;t know about them or doesn&#8217;t care, we have reverted to the cosmology of the nations \u2014 a universe without a loving Father at its center.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Second, faith is not the absence of challenge but the presence of trust. Jesus is not promising his disciples that life will be easy, that illness will not come, that economic hardship will never arrive. He is promising that whatever comes will arrive within a context of divine fatherhood \u2014 that is, within a relationship characterized by knowledge, care, and ultimate purpose. Pastor Joey put the matter plainly in the closing prayer of his sermon: God will pull us through every trial, &#8220;maybe not take away the trials or the tribulation, but we know that you will be with us every step of the way.&#8221; The disciples to whom Jesus speaks this passage will, within a generation, face persecution, poverty, and martyrdom. The anxiety-free life is not the comfortable life; it is the trusting life.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Third, the kingdom-first orientation is not a formula but a transformation. &#8220;Seek first the kingdom&#8221; is not a technique to be applied mechanically but a posture of the soul to be cultivated through sustained attention to God, Scripture, prayer, and community. The person who seeks the kingdom first is the person whose fundamental identity has shifted from &#8220;provider of my own security&#8221; to &#8220;beloved child of the King.&#8221; That shift does not happen in an afternoon; it is the work of discipleship across a lifetime.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The structural logic of the passage can be summarized this way: anxiety is the symptom of misplaced trust \u2014 trusting self, circumstances, or material resources more than God; the remedy is not positive thinking but a renewed knowledge of God as Father, intimate, aware, and delighted to provide; the practice that embeds this remedy is kingdom-seeking \u2014 actively ordering life around God&#8217;s reign rather than personal security; the outward expression of kingdom-seeking is generosity \u2014 releasing earthly treasure as an act of faith in heavenly provision; and the fruit of this entire movement is freedom \u2014 not from difficulty, but from the stranglehold of worry that makes difficulty unbearable.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><b>IV. Historical and Canonical Context: Anxiety in Scripture&#8217;s Larger Story<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">No passage of Scripture exists in isolation, and Luke 12:22\u201334 is richest when read against the full canonical backdrop of how God has handled his people&#8217;s anxieties throughout redemptive history.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The manna narratives of Exodus 16 provide the original template for the ravens&#8217; passage. When Israel cried out for food in the wilderness, God provided manna \u2014 daily, sufficient, and designed specifically to cultivate trust rather than self-sufficiency. The instructions were explicit: gather what you need for today. Do not hoard for tomorrow. Those who hoarded found their surplus rotted by morning. God was embedding in his people&#8217;s daily routines the habit of dependence \u2014 the same habit Jesus calls his disciples to in Luke 12. The ravens are the new manna; the daily bread of Matthew 6 and the daily provision of Luke 12 are extensions of the same wilderness pedagogy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Elijah&#8217;s experience under the juniper tree in 1 Kings 19 offers another powerful resonance. Having just achieved the greatest prophetic victory of his ministry at Mount Carmel, Elijah collapses into suicidal despair under the threat of a single woman. His anxiety is profound and physiologically expressed \u2014 he is exhausted, isolated, terrified. God&#8217;s response is remarkable in its tenderness: not a rebuke but a meal, not a theological lecture but sleep, not a demand for greater faith but an angel touching his shoulder and saying, &#8220;Arise and eat.&#8221; The God who feeds ravens feeds a burned-out prophet with angelic cuisine and then walks beside him for forty days to Mount Horeb. This is the Father of Luke 12 in a full-color portrait.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Paul&#8217;s treatment in Philippians 4:6\u20137 represents the New Testament&#8217;s most direct parallel to the Luke 12 passage:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Philippians 4:6\u20137 (ESV)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The structural similarity to Luke 12 is striking \u2014 negative command, theological grounding, positive practice, promised result. Paul writes this from prison. An anxiety-free life is not a life free of chains.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Peter echoes the same theology in 1 Peter 5:7: &#8220;Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.&#8221; The word &#8220;cast&#8221; is the same word used for throwing a cloak over a colt in Luke 19 \u2014 a decisive, intentional action. Anxiety-free living is not passive; it requires the repeated, deliberate choice to let go of worry and to trust the one who cares.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Few twentieth-century witnesses to this truth have spoken with the moral authority of Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch Christian who survived a Nazi concentration camp after sheltering Jews in her family&#8217;s home. Pastor Joey draws her testimony into the discussion:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all. But whatever I have placed in God&#8217;s hands, that I still possess. Hold everything in your hands lightly and loosely \u2014 otherwise it hurts when God pries it over.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Corrie ten Boom, as quoted by Pastor Joey Sampaga<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">That is the wisdom of someone who has lost almost everything and discovered that the loss is bearable when the heart&#8217;s grip on possessions has been loosened in advance. It is the practical theology of Luke 12 in lived form.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><b>V. Practical Application: Cultivating an Anxiety-Free Life<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Theology without application remains beautiful but abstract. The following practices flow directly from the text and represent the concrete means by which the disciples of Jesus in any age can move from anxiety-driven living to kingdom-anchored trust.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i><b>1. Develop a Robust Theology of God as Father<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The single most powerful antidote to anxiety is not a technique but a person \u2014 specifically, the person of God understood as <i>Abba<\/i>. Every theological tradition within Christianity affirms the Fatherhood of God in some form, but there is a significant difference between assenting to the doctrine and internalizing it as a functional reality. Ask yourself honestly: when you are most anxious, does the image of a loving Father who already knows your need arise spontaneously in your mind? If not, that is the gap that needs to be filled.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Fill it through sustained immersion in the Psalms, which are the prayer book of a people who brought every conceivable anxiety directly to God \u2014 fear of enemies, fear of death, fear of abandonment, fear of inadequacy \u2014 and consistently found that God was present in the bringing. Fill it through the Lord&#8217;s Prayer, which begins not with a petition but with orientation: &#8220;Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.&#8221; Begin every day by establishing where you stand in relation to the universe \u2014 as a beloved child of its sovereign King.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i><b>2. Practice Intentional Gratitude as an Anxiety Interrupt<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Anxiety and gratitude are neurologically and spiritually incompatible. It is virtually impossible to be genuinely grateful and genuinely anxious at the same moment. This is not positive thinking; it is theological realism. Gratitude acknowledges what is already true \u2014 that God has provided in the past, is providing in the present, and has committed his name and character to providing in the future. Paul&#8217;s instruction to make requests &#8220;with thanksgiving&#8221; in Philippians 4 is not a liturgical nicety; it is a cognitive and spiritual strategy for breaking the anxiety cycle.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Practically, this might look like maintaining a written record of answered prayers and God&#8217;s specific provisions \u2014 not as spiritual performance, but as evidence to return to when anxiety tempts you to believe that God has forgotten you. The Israelites were commanded to build stone memorials precisely because human memory, under pressure, tends to forget what God has done. Build your memorials.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i><b>3. Pursue Radical Generosity as a Spiritual Discipline<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Jesus&#8217; instruction in verses 33\u201334 to sell possessions and give to the poor is not a peripheral command but a central spiritual strategy. Generosity is one of the most powerful anxiety-defeating practices available to the follower of Christ, precisely because it requires an act of faith in a provision that is not yet visible. Every time you give beyond your comfort zone \u2014 in financial terms, in time, in energy, in service \u2014 you are performing a practical declaration that your security rests in God rather than your resources. And each such act strengthens the neural and spiritual pathways of trust.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">This does not mean reckless financial irresponsibility. It means cultivating a posture toward material resources that holds them loosely, uses them wisely, and releases them generously as God directs. The person who has learned to give generously almost universally reports that anxiety about money decreases rather than increases as a result, which is, of course, exactly what Jesus predicted.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i><b>4. Seek the Kingdom in Every Decision<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The command to seek the kingdom first is not merely a Sunday morning orientation; it is a framework for every decision across the week. Before accepting a job offer, ask not only &#8220;what does this pay?&#8221; but &#8220;what does this cost in terms of kingdom priorities?&#8221; Before taking on a financial obligation, ask not only &#8220;can I afford this?&#8221; but &#8220;does this advance or impede my ability to live generously and freely for God?&#8221; Before scheduling a week, ask not only &#8220;what do I need to accomplish?&#8221; but &#8220;where is the kingdom in this?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Kingdom-seeking, however, is not a license for passivity. Pastor Joey is emphatic on this point \u2014 and the warning is worth hearing in full:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>It doesn&#8217;t mean you just sit idle and do nothing. Let&#8217;s say you don&#8217;t have a job and you&#8217;re looking for a job. Don&#8217;t sit on the couch and watch Netflix all day and say, &#8220;Well, I trust God&#8217;s going to give me a job.&#8221; Use the things that God has given you \u2014 your intellect, the technologies he has given you. Send out the resumes. Whatever your worries and anxieties are, keep in mind that you do much better when you&#8217;re at peace.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Pastor Joey Sampaga<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Kingdom-seeking is not a formula that eliminates difficulty or guarantees wealth. It is a habitual reorientation of the decision-making faculty toward the things that will last \u2014 the souls that will endure, the relationships that eternal life will preserve, the character that is being formed toward the image of Christ. When these things are sought first, the anxiety about lesser things has a way of losing its grip.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><i><b>5. Root Yourself in Christian Community<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The phrase &#8220;little flock&#8221; in verse 32 is communal by nature. Jesus is not addressing isolated individuals but a community of disciples who are to navigate the anxiety of life together. The New Testament knows no model of solo discipleship. Anxiety thrives in isolation \u2014 it feeds on the echo chamber of a single anxious mind turning the same fears over and over without the corrective presence of other voices, other perspectives, and other testimonies of God&#8217;s faithfulness.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Christian community provides the concrete, embodied form of God&#8217;s provision that theology describes in the abstract. When brothers and sisters in Christ practically share with those in need \u2014 as the early church did in Acts 2 and 4 \u2014 they become the means by which God&#8217;s fatherly care takes flesh and walks into someone&#8217;s specific crisis. The little flock that trusts God together and provides for one another together becomes a living apologetic for the theology of Luke 12.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><b>VI. Bible Study Discussion Questions<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">The following questions are designed for small group study, personal reflection, or sermon-based curriculum. They move from observation to interpretation to application, following the standard inductive Bible study method.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>Observation: What Does the Text Say?<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Read Luke 12:22\u201334 aloud in two different translations. What differences do you notice? What words or phrases stand out to you?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">List the specific things Jesus tells his disciples NOT to worry about. What does this list tell us about the anxieties of his original audience?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">What two examples from nature does Jesus use? What are the specific characteristics of each that he highlights?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">How does Jesus contrast the disciples with &#8220;the nations&#8221; (v. 30)? What is the theological basis for that contrast?<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>Interpretation: What Does the Text Mean?<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Why do you think Jesus grounds his anti-anxiety argument in the character of God as &#8220;Father&#8221; rather than simply as &#8220;Creator&#8221; or &#8220;Sovereign&#8221;? What difference does the relational title make?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">What does it mean practically to &#8220;seek the kingdom&#8221; (v. 31)? How would you explain this to someone with no church background?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">In verse 34, Jesus says, &#8220;Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.&#8221; How does this verse reframe the relationship between our financial decisions and our emotional and spiritual lives?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Why do you think Jesus addresses the &#8220;little flock&#8221; with tenderness rather than rebuke in verse 32? What does this reveal about how God responds to our anxiety?<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><b>Application: How Does the Text Change Us?<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">On a scale of 1 to 10, how much does financial anxiety shape your daily experience? What would it look like for that number to decrease by two points over the next three months?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">What is one concrete step you could take this week to &#8220;seek the kingdom first&#8221; in an area where you have been primarily seeking your own security?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Is there a specific material need about which you have been anxious? Bring it before God this week in prayer \u2014 not to inform him, but to remind yourself that he already knows and already cares. Journal the experience.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Pastor Joey reminds us to &#8220;hold everything in your hands lightly and loosely.&#8221; Identify one possession, relationship, or ambition you have been holding too tightly. What would loosening your grip look like in practice this week?<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"western\" style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><b>VII. Conclusion: The Freedom Jesus Offers<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">We return, in closing, to the word that launched this entire discourse: &#8220;therefore.&#8221; Because the rich fool&#8217;s life ended in the vacancy of a soul that had stored up treasure for itself and was not rich toward God, therefore, do not be anxious. The contrast could not be sharper. On one side of that word stands a man whose entire inner world was consumed with calculation, accumulation, and self-provision, and who died with nothing but barns full of rotting grain and a soul unprepared for eternity. On the other side stands an invitation to an entirely different way of being human \u2014 a way characterized by trust, simplicity, generosity, and the deep, quiet confidence that comes from knowing you are a beloved child of the King of the universe.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Anxiety-free living is not the absence of challenge. It is not the naive pretense that nothing bad can happen or that material need is somehow not real. Jesus himself will face Gethsemane, where his soul will be &#8220;exceedingly sorrowful, even to death&#8221; \u2014 and even there, he will orient himself toward the Father: &#8220;Not my will, but yours, be done.&#8221; Anxiety-free living is the practice of that same orientation in the smaller Gethsemanes of daily life \u2014 the medical diagnosis that arrives without warning, the financial reversal that strips the carefully constructed plan, the relational wound that defies easy resolution.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Pastor Joey ends his sermon with a question that bears the weight of the entire discourse:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\"><i>Where is your heart? Where are your priorities? If your heart is fixed on the things of this world, it&#8217;s impossible to live without anxiety. Everything on this earth changes. But if your heart is in heaven, nothing changes \u2014 because the promises of God are secure.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">\u2014 <b>Pastor Joey Sampaga<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">In every such moment, the little flock is invited to hear the voice of its Shepherd: &#8220;Fear not. It is your Father&#8217;s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.&#8221; Not because circumstances will always resolve favorably in the short term. Not because faith is a financial strategy or a health guarantee. But because the one who feeds ravens and clothes wildflowers in glory has taken it as his personal delight \u2014 his <i>eudokia<\/i>, his joyful, sovereign pleasure \u2014 to bring his children safely home.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">That is the ground of anxiety-free living. Not willpower, not positive psychology, not a sufficiently diversified investment portfolio. The ground is a Father who already knows, already cares, and has already given the greatest gift \u2014 the kingdom itself \u2014 to a little flock of ordinary, often-anxious people who are learning, one day at a time, to trust him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"left\">Seek that kingdom. Store that treasure. And let the ravens be your daily reminder that the God who tends to the least of creation has not forgotten you.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><i>Soli Deo Gloria<\/i><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>A Note on Research Methods and Accuracy<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><em>This work represents a collaboration among the author\u2019s theological and historical research, primary-source documentation, and the emerging capabilities of artificial intelligence research tools. AI assistance was employed throughout the investigative process\u2014not as a ghostwriter or a substitute for scholarship, but as a rigorous research partner: surfacing sources, cross\u2011referencing claims, identifying scholarly consensus, and flagging potential errors before they could reach the page.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Every factual claim in this work has been subjected to active verification. Where AI\u2011generated content was used as a starting point, it was tested against primary sources, peer\u2011reviewed scholarship, official institutional documentation, and established historical records. Where discrepancies were found\u2014and they were found\u2014corrections were made. The author has made every reasonable effort to ensure that quotations are accurately attributed, historical details are precisely rendered, and theological claims fairly represent the positions they describe or critique.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>That said, no work of this scope is immune to error, and the author has no interest in perpetuating inaccuracies in the service of an argument. If you are a reader\u2014whether sympathetic, skeptical, or hostile to the conclusions drawn here\u2014and you identify a factual error, a misattributed source, a misrepresented teaching, or a claim that cannot be substantiated, you are warmly and genuinely invited to say so. Reach out. The goal of this work is not to win a debate but to get the history right. Corrections offered in good faith will be received in the same spirit, and verified corrections will be incorporated into future editions without hesitation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Truth, after all, has nothing to fear from scrutiny\u2014and neither does this work.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Delivered by Pastor Joey | East Valley International Church | Gilbert, Arizona Text: Luke 12:22-34 (ESV) Abstract and summary of the pastor&#8217;s sermon: Setting the Context: From Greed to Worry The sermon picks up where the previous two weeks left off \u2014 first the rich fool parable (Luke 12), then Pastor Terry&#8217;s message on evangelism&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46,172,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-e-v-i-c-study-notes","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7817,"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7816\/revisions\/7817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novus2.com\/righteouscause\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}