Seeking First the Kingdom

SERMON: 2007-11-11--sm0738--seeking-first-the-kingdom-part-1 SOURCE DURATION: 00:39:04.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.90 APPROVED: false REASON: All provided candidates contain musical notation (♪) and lyrics consistent with a hymn or music performance, indicating that the entire visible segment is non-sermon material. Since no sermon content was present in the candidates list, I select the final candidate index as per structural requirements. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:36:05.580-00:39:03.260 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, we've been seeing together that the antidote to worry and anxiety about the practical needs of our lives, according to the words of Jesus here in Matthew, Chapter 6, the antidote is to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Notice, again, how the Lord Jesus puts it in Matthew 6:33, "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." The phrase "all these things will be given to you as well" comes from the world of business. And it really refers to a seller's practice that instead of ripping off the buyer by shortchanging him, you try to please the buyer by giving him an extra measure. And I've got a little story to tell you about that from our experience up in Winnipeg. Those of you that know me well know that I seldom shop. My wife is a very good shopper, very thrifty shopper, but it's vacation. My wife drags me out of bed early Saturday morning to go to Sears because they have an early bird special on. The first 100 people get discount coupons. $10 for purchases of $50, and $20 for a purchase of 100. Now, you have to know my wife to appreciate this. So being the good accommodating husband that I am on vacation, she drags me out of bed, and we go marching to Sears. Quarter day in the morning, it's minus six, against the wind, uphill both ways, as they say. And there we stand with a small group of people outside shivering to death, waiting for these doors to open, only later to discover that all the smart shoppers were in the mall in front of a door, waiting for those doors to open. That's where they're giving out the coupons. Now we gotta hustle across the store to get our coupons on time, because remember after the first 100 is gone, they're gone. Well, it so happens that one of the reasons we're shopping, and one of the reasons that she succeeded in dragging me there was that my watch has recently been giving me a lot of trouble, and we needed to buy a new one. So we head over to the jewelry department. And wouldn't you know, the exact same model of watch that I have had for years now is not only there, but it's on sale, 25% off. I'll tell you the price, we're down to $41 now. But remember, the coupon only applies to $50. (audience laughing) You're getting where this is going. So now we shop around for another $10 purchase, because that you get free when you use the coupon, you see. So we find a blanket for Debra, and we're content and happy on our way out the store when we discover they have a 50% off shoe and boot sale going. (audience laughing) Now please understand that I had just wrecked a pair of shoes on the building site, because I should have been wearing my hard-toed boots for those of you that are in construction, but I didn't, and I, anyway. Yes, I repent. (audience laughing) Anyway, to make a long story short, here we are, we end up paying for our purchases with our coupons and our gift cards and our extra bonus for signing up for Sears MasterCard. (audience laughing) Listen to this. We're now paying 32% of the retail price. I'm feeling pretty good towards Sears now. (audience laughing) I want to recommend Sears to you this morning. They added value to my purchase. I had somebody come up to me between the services this morning, and he said, "But you got to remember the airplane trip "that you had to pay for to get there. "You know, it's like you got to remember "the gas you use in your car "when you go chase all these sales around every store." But I said, "Listen, you underestimate my wife. (audience laughing) "We purchased our tickets with air miles." (audience laughing) So there you go. (audience applauding) So seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousnesses, Jesus, and all of these things will be given to you as well. And that raises for us this morning then the question, what does it mean to seek first the kingdom of God? What does this actually look like in the practical realities of life? Well, let's begin by talking for just a moment about what a kingdom is. A kingdom can be distinguished by three characteristics. It is, first of all, a place that has a king. That is to say, somebody who has absolute authority over his subjects and one who not only rules over them, but is responsible for providing protection and making sure that justice gets carried out and that they are protected from their enemies. It's a place that has a king. You can't be a king without subjects, and subjects then not only submit to the authority of the king. I mean, today, kings are just figureheads, but in biblical thought, a king really had authority. So you submit not only to the authority of the king, but what you do is you look to the king then to make sure, again, as I said, that justice gets carried out and that your needs get met. And then a kingdom, and we don't often think of this, I suspect, also involves a constitution. That is to say, a system of laws and regulations that describe both the privileges and the responsibilities of both the king and the subjects. And as I've shared with you before, if in the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments become the constitution of the people of Israel, then in the New Testament gospels, what becomes the constitution of the new kingdom? It is the Sermon on the Mount. And as I said when we first began this study a number of months ago now, if you wanna find out how God wants you to live as a subject of his kingdom, if you wanna understand what the Christian life ought to look like, at least ideally, then you read the Sermon on the Mount. And that's why we're spending time trying to discern together what life in Christ is supposed to look like. So the kingdom of God then is the reign of God. Now listen carefully. It is the reign of God over all creation. And as you know, diagrammatically, we can present it in this way, when God first created the world, made Adam and Eve, he wanted to be at the center. He wanted to be the one to whom they looked for all other needs and to whom they bowed in obedience. And as a result, they lived in paradise. The blessings of God flowed. There was unity between God and them, and there was unity in all of creation. Then along comes the fall. The serpent tries to break off that relationship by casting doubt on the character of God. He says, "Has God really said that you shall not eat from any of the trees of the garden?" God didn't say that at all. God only said, "Don't eat from this one, because if you eat from it, it's gonna kill you." The woman doesn't know any better, begins to distrust God, disobeys his very explicit command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, gives to her husband, and the rest, as they say, is history. And that circle on the left-hand side, then, represents what I would call life in the kingdom of the world. God separated from us. We're under Satan's dominion. We've become selfish. Life begins to spiral down in confusion and pain, and from that day to this, most of the nations of the world and most of the people in the world both refuse to trust God the Father and they refuse to obey him. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. And the purpose of the gospel, and please hear me on this, the purpose of the gospel is not just to get our sins forgiven, not just to get us to heaven or to make life easier for you and for me. No, the purpose of the kingdom, the reason Jesus came into the world was to translate us from Satan's kingdom into the kingdom of God's beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Scripture puts it this way. He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And in Ephesians chapter one, the apostle Paul says that God has purposed in Christ to unite all things in him, in heaven, and on earth. In other words, God's intention is to take this rebellious creation that is at odds with him. And by the time the curtain falls on history, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. All of life will again be yielded to his authority. And everybody that refuses to yield to his authority, guess where they end up? In the lake that burns with fire. Now, the kingdom of God is the primary, one of the primary themes of scripture. The phrase occurs close to 150 times in the New Testament. And when Jesus first begins his public ministry, according to Matthew and Mark, guess what are the first words that he utters publicly? Repent, why? For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And likewise, the disciples, when they get sent out on their first mission, when they first become apostles, what is the message they are told to preach? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is at hand. And later on, when the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon the church and the apostles spread out over all the world, what is their message? Their message is the good news of the kingdom. That is to say, God's determination in Christ to solve this problem of rebellion, to solve this refusal, this inability, this unwillingness to trust God the Father and to again bring us into harmony with God and harmony with all creation. As I said, by the time the curtain falls on history, when the lion lies down with the lamb, so to speak, and the shalom of God again covers the whole earth, every injustice, every brokenness, every bit of rebellion will have been removed and God will be all, indeed all. That's what God's after. And so to seek the kingdom of God then is to seek the rule of God in every area of my life. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, please hear me when I say that it isn't just about feeling good. It isn't just about knowing that God's there for me or my sins are forgiven and one day when I die, glory hallelujah, I'll go to be with him. No, it's about doing the will of God in the here and now. Remember the prayer of Jesus, our father who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so as we sort of launch into this next phase then of studying the Sermon on the Mount, particularly these closing verses, what I wanna try to do is break out four practical areas of life and look together with you at what living and seeking the kingdom looks like. And the four areas that we wanna look at together are first of all, our personal lives. What does it look like in my own personal life to seek first the kingdom of God? Then my family life, what does it look like when my family life seeks the kingdom of God? Then what does it look like in the church? And then what does it look like in broader society? Now clearly we can't possibly cover all of that in depth this morning, but let's make a beginning and start by looking at our personal life. What does it mean when in my personal life, I seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness? Well, it means first and foremost that I seek to enter the kingdom, does it not? That is to say, I must enter into a relationship with God whereby again I begin to trust him and where I again begin to learn obedience. Now, for those of us that have gone to church for many years, that may sound rather self-explanatory, but it really isn't because as well as I do by nature, we neither trust him nor do we obey him. The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Ephesians chapter two. He says, "Among these, we all once lived in the passions "of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, "and so we were by nature children of wrath." Notice he isn't talking about some kind of a gross sin necessarily. No, he's talking about following by nature the desires of body and mind. That is to say, instead of being controlled by the will of God as revealed in scripture through the Holy Spirit and through the ministry of the church over all the ages, now instead I live by my own thoughts, by my own wants, and by my own desires. And the result of that is that by nature, we are all children of wrath. That is to say, we're under the judgment of God because we don't fundamentally accept him as Lord and master over our life. And this is as true of the gross sinner such as the tax collectors and the prostitutes in scripture as it is of the refined sinner, the Pharisee who looks like he is all religious, but his heart is far removed from God. And so to enter into the kingdom of God, I must first of all repent. The word repent means to change my mind. It means that my life was going this way. Now I make a U-turn and I start going the other way. Formerly, I did not trust God. I did not obey him. I just follow the longings and the desires of my own life. You know, maybe I turned to God when I needed him, but it wasn't about God, it was still all about me. And to repent is to come to the acknowledgement that, you know, I may have called him Lord, but I haven't done what he wants me to do. I have neither trusted him nor obeyed him. I have lived for myself, my own purposes. I have driven the car of my own life. I have been led by the desires of body and mind. And that's why my life is not meshing and I'm not in tune with God and I don't ever really feel satisfied. And so repentance means that I turn my back on that. I come to God through faith in Jesus and I accept Jesus not only as my savior, but also as my Lord. And please understand with me, there is a difference between the two. And while they can happen at the same time in somebody's life, for many of us, there can be a space between the one and the other to accept Jesus as your savior, is to understand the reality of sin. It's to know, it's to listen to that small, still voice of the Holy Spirit on the inside that says God's mad at you or you're estranged from God because you're not living the way that God wants you to live. And it's to say, "Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross "so that all of those sins could be forgiven "and I receive forgiveness." And a lot of us, we've known the reality, haven't we, of that tremendous burden being lifted off our souls and having the Spirit of God bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. It's what being born again is all about. But it's not only accepting Jesus as savior, it's also accepting him as Lord. That is to say, thank you not only for forgiving my sins but because you have died for me in order to forgive my sins, you now own me. I have become, in the words of Paul, a bond servant to Jesus Christ and you now own me and you can tell me what it is that you want me to do. And I believe just as surely as in our lives, there must come this time and this place where we cross the line of faith in accepting Jesus as savior. There's also that place where we need to make sure that we have accepted him as Lord. And my experience from my own life and that of many others is that very typically that takes the form of something very concrete. I'll never forget, you know, I was a young man in college studying for the ministry. Some friends of mine with the student organization called the Navigators had led me to a deeper commitment to the Lord Jesus. I knew what it was now to own him as savior. They had begun to disciple me and teach me about his Lordship and his claim on my life that he wanted me to live for him. It'll be hard for you to appreciate this perhaps but I can still so clearly see me. I'm lying on my bunk bed in our dorm room at Calvin and I'm looking at the shelves where I have stored the two most valuable possessions of my life. One is an old aircraft radio receiver and the other is an old television without a picture tube. Now you say Visser, what in the world was the matter with you that you valued that so highly? Well, you gotta remember my earlier electronic interest and this was part of my life and I remember lying there looking at those and saying to myself, Lord, if you want me to give those up for you, am I ready to do that? And I'm willing to bet this morning there have been times in your life where the Holy Spirit comes along nudges at your heart and he says this relationship that you're in, this particular scene that dominates your life, this particular goal that you have for your life, this desire, this ambition that you've had since a child. Are you willing to put that on the altar and trust me that what I have for you is better than what you have for yourself? That's Lordship and when it comes to that question of Lordship, it doesn't matter what else we are willing to bargain with, what else we are willing to give him, the question is in this place, will you allow me to be the Lord and the master of your life? Those become defining moments in the road to discipleship because in those places where we say no, we find ourselves drifting away from Jesus. In those places where we receive grace to say yes, we discover that we grow closer and dearer in our walk with him. We need to surrender our lives to him by entering into the kingdom of God. And one reason so many people have so much trouble living in the kingdom is because they've never entered into the kingdom. And so I ask you this morning as you examine your own life, have you received Jesus not only as the one who saves you, that is to say, the only one who can make this transformation happen in your life because nobody else in all of the universe can make us take up our cross and follow here. And then has he given you grace in those places where he has spoken to you of the kingdom? Has he given you the grace to say, I don't know how I'm gonna do this, but in as much as you help me, I want to live for you and I want to obey you. That's how you enter into the kingdom. And then having entered the kingdom of God, of course, we need to learn how to live it out. And living it out involves two areas, I think in particular, we need to grow in faith. That is, we need to grow in trusting God. You know just as well as I do that just because we have become citizens of the kingdom of God, we've given our lives to Jesus, we have received forgiveness of sins, we have received him as the authority in our lives. That doesn't mean that we have learned to trust him in all the areas of our lives. In fact, many areas of our lives, we still do things the old way. We've learned how to trust ourselves, we've learned how to figure out how the world works and how we know how to manage it. And that's okay, except the Lord comes along now and he says, I want you to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus. And so here's typically what will happen. The Lord will take us as his children. He will place us in situations where our own resources are no longer sufficient. You've been there, I'm sure I've been there. Places where your own cleverness, your own previous way of trying to figure out life, all of a sudden, it doesn't work anymore. And you say, Lord, where are you? I mean, one of the things that the memorial service for Wayne yesterday was the pastor who led the service talked about the book of Job and he said, you know that in the book of Job, there are 330 questions asked by Job and by his friends, most of which get never answered. What do you do with a very committed Christian who kills himself? Throws your whole idea of what it is to be a Christian and how to live the Christian life for a loop. And so there'll be those times in your life and in my life where God puts us in a situation and all the previous answers no longer work and we wonder, God, where are you? But you know, it's in those valleys, in those moments of doubt, in those moments of questioning that God eventually comes through, reveals himself and helps us to know him better and faith more than anything is a function of knowing God. It isn't just how many Bible verses you learn. It isn't just about trying to figure out, well, you know, this is who God is and this is what theology is, no, no. It's all about God, who are you? Do I know your character? And can I trust you and can I trust your character? That's how faith grows. And the more we walk with him, the more by times he'll stretch our faith because he wants us to know him more intimately and to know him deeper. And so that's where prayer comes in. That's where Bible reading comes in. That's where gathering in the context of collective worship like this comes in so that we can talk about who God is. We can share stories of how God has answered our prayer and how God has demonstrated his love. And we learn to go out of places like that, strengthened in their spirit, determined all the more that even if the sun doesn't shine, God's still on his throne. He still loves me and he is still determined in Christ to bless me with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. It's to grow in faith. And then, of course, it's to grow in obedience. Paul puts it this way. He says, "As obedient children do not conform "to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. "But just as he who called you is holy, "so be holy in all that you do." To be holy is to be separated from sin and to be dedicated to God. God is holy, and just as our children are reflections of our nature and our character, and we can see our likeness in them, all the bad qualities coming from the other side, of course, and the good ones coming from our side, so God wants to see his character reproduced in your heart and in my heart. That means our lifestyle is to reflect the values of the kingdom. One of the reasons Christianity in North America for all its professing Christians is not making a lot of impact on society is because too many Christians separate their life on Sunday from their life on Monday through Saturday. And it's one thing to spout spiritual realities in a place like this. It is quite another to live in in my everyday existence before the world. And part of the challenge of Christ in you, the hope of glory, is to allow him to transform my thinking, to transform my emotions, to transform my inclinations so that more and more I learn to be led not by my own passions, not by my own thoughts, not by my own feelings, not by my own woundedness, not by my friends all around me, but rather by the will of God. And so a growing Christian is a Christian who is learning to put off the old and learning to put on the near. The New Testament always summarizes it this way. We grow in loving God and loving our neighbor. And I discovered many, many years ago that whenever I get confused about what it is that God is calling me to do, and whatever it is that he wants me to emphasize in terms of my own life or my own ministry, there's ultimately only one thing that counts, and that is to present to him a people who love God above all and who love their neighbor with wisdom and discernment, even as they love themselves. And if you're in Christ and the kingdom is growing and expanding in your heart and in your life, then there'll be movement in that direction. I'm not saying we're gonna be there perfectly. I'm not saying we're not gonna fail lots of times, but there'll be movement. There'll be movement towards God, and there'll be movement towards other people around me in lifestyle not only, but also in terms of my life's calling. I'm convinced from a biblical point of view that there is a destiny and a purpose that God has for each one of his children. We are a part of his body. And while it may not always be easy to figure out what that is, as I grow in obedience and as I grow in my relationship with Christ, I will also grow in my life's calling. It'll be an odd combination of the natural gifting that he has given me, the passions that he has placed in my life, the opportunities that he presents to me. And more and more, my life then begins to reflect the purposes that God has for me. And a lot of people think that's a lack of freedom. A lot of people think the word obedience, I remember as a young man growing in faith, the word obedience just turned me off so bad, 'cause I didn't wanna have to listen to anybody. I wanted to be able to do what I wanted to do. But you know, it's like a fish in water. A fish has been created to live in water. And in water, it can prosper and thrive. Take it out of the water, it'll gulp and gasp and die. And you and I, we've been created to live in the kingdom of God and to serve him. And if you've ever been at a time or a place in your life where you have known confidently and clearly that you're walking in the will of God and your wings are catching that updraft of the Holy Spirit, then you know what it is like to fly on the wings of the Holy Spirit. And maybe that'll only happen once, twice, half a dozen times, a dozen times in our whole lives, but those few moments give us a hunger for the glory that is to come because they give us a taste of life in the kingdom. Remember, it was Eric Little or Liddell, however you pronounce it, in Chariots of Fire, who said to his sister, "When I run, I feel his pleasure." And when you're operating in your sweet spot before God and you feel his pleasure, you know, the joy of the kingdom. So we need to grow in faith, we need to grow in obedience. And then very quickly, as I wind up, we need to look for the consummation of the kingdom. The word consummation means completion, coming together, and the consummation of the kingdom means the coming of the kingdom of God in all its glory and all its fullness. You know, just as well as I did, no matter how many times in the here and now, there are those moments when we experience the touch of God. They're only moments, they're only the first fruits, they're only the foretaste of the powers of the age to come. For every moment when we feel the wind of the Holy Spirit lifting us up, there are 10 other moments where we feel the tug of the gravity of sin trying to pull us down. For every life we see change, for every church we see built, for every kingdom activity that is undertaken, we see how in this present age, the kingdom of darkness continues to grow, continues to multiply. It's very easy in moments like that to give up and to say, "What's the use?" Jesus said, "When the Son of Man comes, "will He find faith on earth." And to look for the consummation of the kingdom is to realize that what we see in seed form today, those moments when we meet up with God and those moments when we see the lifting power of His Holy Spirit, when Jesus comes again in glory, all creation will be set free from its travail. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that He is Lord, and in that day, those who have sought His kingdom and have sought it with all his heart and who have looked forward to the coming of the Lord will be on the forefront cheering and rejoicing and giving Him honor because everything that we have ever longed for, everything that we've ever desired in that moment will come to complete fruition. And nobody who has hoped or trusted in God in that day will be disappointed. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness begins with your heart and with mine. Can we do it on our own? Of course not, but if we will bow before Jesus as He gives us grace. He is at work to will and to work within us according to His good pleasure. And He will move us forward on that journey until that grand and glorious day when the kingdom comes in all its power. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:36:05.580; remove through 00:39:04.000] (upbeat music) ♪ For the valley shall ring ♪ ♪ With the sound of praise ♪ ♪ And the lion shall lie ♪ ♪ With the lamb ♪ ♪ Of His government ♪ ♪ There shall be no end ♪ ♪ And His glory shall fail be heard ♪ ♪ May your will be done ♪ ♪ May your kingdom come ♪ ♪ Let it rule ♪ ♪ Let it reign in our lives ♪ ♪ There's a shout in the camp ♪ ♪ As we answer the call ♪ ♪ Hail the King ♪ ♪ Hail the Lord of Laws ♪ ♪ For the valley shall ring ♪ ♪ With the sound of praise ♪ ♪ And the lion shall lie ♪ ♪ With the lamb ♪ ♪ Of His government ♪ ♪ There shall be no end ♪ ♪ And His glory shall fail be heard ♪ ♪ May your will be done ♪ ♪ May your kingdom come ♪ ♪ Let it rule ♪ ♪ Let it reign in our lives ♪ ♪ There's a shout in the camp ♪ ♪ As we answer the call ♪ ♪ Hail the King ♪ ♪ Hail the Lord of Laws ♪ ♪ May your will be done ♪ ♪ May your kingdom come ♪ ♪ Let it rule ♪ ♪ Let it reign in our lives ♪ ♪ There's a shout in the camp ♪ ♪ As we answer the call ♪ ♪ Hail the King ♪ ♪ Hail the Lord of Laws ♪ ♪ Hail the King, hail the Lord of Lords ♪ ♪ Hail the King, hail the Lord of Lords ♪ [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:39:04.000; resume after this marked segment]