Seek First God s Kingdom Matthew 6:25-34 Seven Laws For Spiritual Living: An Epiphany Series

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1 Seek First God s Kingdom Matthew 6:25-34 Seven Laws For Spiritual Living: An Epiphany Series Rev. Michael D. Halley February 8, 2015 Suffolk Christian Church Suffolk, Virginia Fifth Sunday After The Epiphany ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Matthew 6:25-34 New International Version (NIV) Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. The Word of the Lord: Thanks be to God! 1

2 Page 2 During these weeks of the Epiphany season we are continuing to think 1 together on what I am calling Laws for Spiritual Living. These laws may help us as we fine-tune our spiritual life and bring our hearts more into concert with the heart of God. As a reminder, the first law was this: God is God and we are not. We are not in charge of anything, God is. The second law was that we desperately need God. Desperately is a deliberate choice of words, for we are totally separated from God because of our sin and our inability to meet God s standard of holiness. The third law is this: Whatever God demands of us, he will supply for us. The ultimate gift God gave to us was his Son, Jesus, who died for our sins. Today we will consider what we do after receiving God s wonderful gift of salvation: Seek first God s kingdom. Everyone is seeking something, aren t they? It s in our nature to always be seeking something. Money, power, pleasure, self-validation, a better job, a bigger house, a nicer car, marriage, children... the list could go on and on. And if we could get all this stuff that we are seeking, would that satisfy us? There is a simple test you can give yourself to discover what you are seeking: look at how you spend your time and your money. Your calendar and your checkbook do not lie, they will tell you what is important to you and what you are seeking in your life. There was a man who looked at his life and decided that he was a bit like 2 the professor on Gilligan s Island. He said, The professor knew how to turn banana peels into diesel fuel and he could take algae and make chocolate fudge, but he never got around to fixing that hole in the boat so he could get off the island. Same as me. I spent my life learning to do amazing things that

3 didn t matter, and I ignored the hole in my boat. And that s why I m stuck where I am. 3 Page 3 What we seek we will find. Jesus said, in Matthew 5:6, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Righteousness means a right standing before God. 4 Is that what you and I are seeking in our life? Are we seeking after God in our life or something else? Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, Jesus said. What does that mean? The kingdom of God was the central theme in the teachings of Jesus. By that phrase Jesus meant, simply, the rule of God. The kingdom of God is 5 the reign of God. What does that mean? The kingdom of God comes into our life when we allow God to rule in our life. If God is on the throne of my heart, then I am not. Remember the first spiritual law? God is God and I am not. If God reigns in my life, then I cannot reign. And my calendar and my checkbook is a very accurate measure of who is on the throne of my life, isn t it? What we seek, we will find. Seek first God s kingdom and God s righteousness. The word righteousness probably scares us a little, don t you think? We may be a little fearful of that term because we so often hear it used in the sense of self-righteousness, and certainly nobody wants to be guilty of that. But righteousness is our standing before God, the extent to which we align our lives with the will and the purpose of God. And, again, our calendar and our checkbook will be a very accurate indicator of that.

4 Page 4 So, if we are to seek after God, then we must ask ourselves, Am I a Godseeking person? That s a hard question, isn t it? This question is not asking how many offices do we hold in the church or how much do I give each week. This question goes to our very personal relationship with God and how we are shaping and conforming our life with how God wants it to be. Saint Paul said it this way: Don t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God s will for you, which is good and 6 pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:2, NLT ) 7 Some people don t want change. The late comedian Grady Nutt told of a man who bought a new radio, brought it home, placed it on the refrigerator, plugged it in, tuned it to WSM in Nashville (home of the Grand Ole Opry), and then pulled all the knobs off! He was tuned in to all he ever wanted or expected to hear! 8 But, if you want to change your life and be a God-seeker, where would you begin? How can a person change their life to conform more closely with God? Let me share with you a few suggestions. First, you cannot change until you first admit to yourself that you need to change and want to change. If you are happy with things as they are, then you can stop right here. But, if you are tired of turning banana peels into diesel fuel while your boat has a hole in it, then admit, to yourself and to God, that you need to change your life and be a God-seeker. Second, cry out to God. That sounds simple enough, doesn t it? But I really mean we need to cry out and bring our hunger and desire for change to God. Let God know the desire of your heart. Make it a part of every prayer you pray. Third, surround yourself with God-seeking people. They aren t hard to spot. You know who they are because of how they live. Be with them. Go

5 Page 5 where they go. Read the books they read. Do the things they do. And if you want to know where they are, you will most likely find them within the body of Christ, the church. Fourth, learn to wait on the Lord. This may be the most difficult step, because we are not very fond of waiting, are we? We want it now, don t we? 9 My daily devotional book, Seeking God s Face, encourages me every day to be silent, to ponder the Scriptures, and wait before the Lord. 10 Psalm 119:2 says, Blessed [fortunate, happy ] are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart. Are you hungry? Come to the Bread of Life. Are you thirsty? Come and drink of the Water of Life. Are you guilty? Come and be forgiven by your loving heavenly Father. Are you far from God? Come back home to him. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things -- all these material things we have been worrying about; all of them! -- will be given to you as well. What you seek, you will find. Let us pray: O God, may our heart s desire be to seek you and your righteousness. May we hunger and thirst after you. May we make our life s purpose to seek your heart, that we might live as you want us to live... loving those whom you love... serving those whom you want us to serve... and showing forth Christ in our lives for all to see. Amen.

6 Page 6 Amen All Scripture references are from New International Version, NIV, copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc., unless otherwise indicated. +==+==+==+==+==+==+ Sunday Sermons from Suffolk Christian Church are intended for the private devotional use of members and friends of the church. Please do not print or publish. Thank you. Suggestions for sermon topics are always welcome! 1. I wish to thank the Rev. Dr. Ray Pritchard, of Keep Believing Ministries, for the inspiration of his insightful writing on this topic. His website may be found at 2. The show aired from September 26, 1964, to September 4, Professor Roy Hinkley was portrayed by actor Russell Johnson. 3. Quoted by Ray Pritchard, in He s God and We re Not: The Seven Laws of the Spiritual Life, Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2003, p Contained in the translation of this verse in the Amplified Bible (AMP), copyright 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987, by The Lockman Foundation. 5. Quoted from Kingdom of God, by Fisher Humphreys, in Holman Bible Dictionary, edited by Trent C. Butler, c Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2007, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. 7. Grady Lee Nutt ( ) was a Southern Baptist minister, humorist, television personality, and author. His humor revolved around rural Southern Protestantism and earned him the title as The Prime Minister of Humor. (From Grady was the Alumni

7 Secretary at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary when I enrolled there in He was tragically killed in a plane crash on November 23, 1982, at age From Change, 9. Seeking God s Face: Praying with the Bible through the Year, by Philip F. Reinders, copublished by Faith Alive Christian Resources and The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, c and Page The Greek word is makarios (mah-car-ee-ohs), and it means fortunate or happy. See the late Dr. Roy L. Honeycutt s article, Blessing and Cursing, in Holman Bible Dictionary, cited above. Dr. Honeycutt served as President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1982 to He died in December, 2004.