Seek First God’s Kingdom…
Introduction
We live in a world consumed with worry, anxiety, and strife. Everywhere we look we see people driven by the “what if’s.” What if this happens? What if this doesn’t happen? What will we do if this doesn’t happen? What will we do if? Much of what we call depression, is actually the physical response of worry and anxiety. We worry and our bodies react by shutting down and we call that shut-down depression. We’ll get back to these things in a few minutes. What I want to talk about now is what Jesus said when he said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”
Text
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. (Mt 6:33)
Seek
Seek- Present active imperative: Keep seeking (continuing obligation). Other translations say, “strive for,” “set your hearts on,” “set your mind on,” “be concerned with,” “seek to obtain,” etc.
Jesus said the same thing, when later in the same sermon he said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7). That is, keep on asking, seeking, knocking.
And he explained how to seek when he said,
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Mt 13:44).
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Mt 13:45–46).
When talking about wisdom, God says similar things:
My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, And find the knowledge of God.
For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly; He guards the paths of justice, And preserves the way of His saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice, Equity and every good path. (Pr 2:1–9)
And,
Happy is the man who finds wisdom, And the man who gains understanding; For her proceeds are better than the profits of silver, And her gain than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, And all the things you may desire cannot compare with her. Length of days is in her right hand, In her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, And all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, And happy are all who retain her (Pr 3:13–18).
And,
Receive my instruction, and not silver, And knowledge rather than choice gold; For wisdom is better than rubies, And all the things one may desire cannot be compared with her (Pr 8:10–11).
In the same way that we should seek after wisdom from God, we should also be seeking the kingdom of God.
God’s Kingdom
Typically, kingdoms are tied to kings. Wherever the king lives or has power or control is his kingdom. If a kingdom doesn’t have a king it really isn’t a kingdom and if it was once, it won’t be for long. The kind, or quality of the kingdom is corelated to the character or quality of the king. If he is godly, wise and loving, the kingdom will be characterized as these things. But if he is evil, conniving, and hates his people, the kingdom will be that kind of kingdom.
This imitation or reflection of the king comes about by simple relational connectedness and it comes by conscious purposeful imitation. So, what we have in the kingdom is primarily people who get along with the king or people who are in rebellion against the king.
God’s reign is over everything. He created it all (Gen 1:1; Jn 1:1), he created everything good (Gen 1:31). He is God and nothing else is. This means that everyone has an obligation to submit to him and to serve him.
What would the world look like if everyone submitted to him and intentionally sought to imitate him? To know the answer, we need to know what God is like. The Bible tells us that God is righteous, kind, loving, merciful, gracious, peaceful, joyful, and holy. He laughs, he cries, he sings, he exults, and any number of other wonderful things. And if we seek him out, we will become like him.
So, God’s kingdom covers everything. He rules it all, everything: the mountains, the hills, the lakes, the roads, the cars, the relationships we have with one another, our jobs, our hobbies, our play, our work, our joys, our tears, our sadness, our happiness. God is over all. He is God.
So, when we seek the Kingdom of God, we are really seeking, striving after, chasing (as we’ll see in a minute, hungering and thirsting after) the character and nature of God.
God’s Righteousness
Jesus used the term righteousness several times in the sermon on the mount. The first place is in 5:6 where it says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.” Which sounds a lot like our text.
The next place is in 5:10 where he said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Here it appears that righteousness means something related to living out the character and nature of God in such a way that others notice and are affected by it.
Then in 5:20, “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Here again, it appears the word has to do with how we live our lives. We need to live in a way that reflects who God is accurately.
But these all have to do with what we do with God’s righteousness, not what it actually is. God’s righteousness is essentially his rightness. He is right in every way. He is holy, he is pure, he is perfect in terms of morals, he is wise, good, joyful, hates all the right things, he is faithful, just, and on and on. It seems like many, if not most of the references to our righteousness have to do with our being saved and changed and being given his righteousness. But at the end of the day, being right seems to be at the center. And being right is defined by what he says is right.
So seeking his righteousness means studying him by being with him, in his presence, studying him, and obeying and imitating Jesus.
Seek First
What did Jesus mean by “seek first”? There are a couple of ways we can understand the word, first. First, it can mean when hard things come, instead of worrying about them, change your mind and seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness first. With this option, you might go along in your life like you’re the king of the world and then when hard things come, things you can’t handle on your own, you call out to God for help. He’s the big sugar daddy in the sky. You aren’t really interested in submitting, you just need help from time to time and you’re unusually quick to call on him for help. You’ve learned to call him first before all the other things that don’t work, and hope he’s listening.
There are a couple of problems with the first example: first no one can be that quick to think, “Oh, I’m in trouble, I need to stop doing it myself and all of a sudden trust and rely on God to help me out.” The world doesn’t work that way. And second, most of our troubles are made worse by the way we handle them. In other words, many of the situations we find ourselves in were brought on by the fact that we weren’t walking with God in the first place. We trouble our troubles and suffering our suffering. Because we aren’t walking with God to start with, we create our own trials.
Second, this is an attempt to live in God’s world in a way that he didn’t create us to live. The world is a hard place all by itself. We don’t need to work at making it harder. Instead, we need to get with the program and submit ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
First can also mean primarily. Jesus may be saying, make the kingdom of God the first priority in our lives. Make seeking the kingdom of God and is righteousness the main thing in your life.
Jesus is teaching that we need to make seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness the first priority in our lives above all else. In Matthew 10 Jesus said, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it (Mt 10:37–39). This saying has two crucial elements in it: The love we have for Jesus must excel the love we have for everything else in our lives, and the primary application of that love is that we need to die in order to call ourselves Christians (take up our cross and follow him). These two things illustrate what kind of seeking Jesus is talking about in our passage.
When we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness everything changes.
Practical Expressions of Seeking
Our passage is found after a section where Jesus is addressing people’s attitudes concerning for money, property, food, and clothing. God knows that we need these things. They aren’t bad or evil in themselves, but when they get in the way of our worship, of our commitment, our friendly relationship with God, they get in the way of life. And Jesus said that if we will take our eyes off the immediate surroundings of our lives, and put them, keep them on him and his kingdom, God will fill our cups to overflowing. We need to make our lives (our loves) about God’s kingdom and his righteousness and trust that what he said about us is true. All these things will be added to us.
In a larger context, this is true of every area of our lives. When we focus on how we are giving Glory to God, on how we are pleasing God, on how we are reflecting God to others, on our relationship with God as shown in our rejoicing, gratefulness, kindness, mercy and grace, God blesses us with every spiritual blessing.
One last thing
The next verse says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Mt 6:34). As I said before, life is hard. If life has been hard for you and you feel like you are buried under a load of trials and worries and you feel stuck with the reasons for your anxiety, let me ask you a few questions: Has worrying about these things helped? Has making yourself sick over them done anything to make your trouble easier? Has being anxious about your pile of cares alleviated the suffering? No? Then give them to Jesus. Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and let him have your load. Remember, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Mt 11:28–30).
On a practical note, if you have a pile of gunk in the middle of your life do what Jesus said, take it one day at a time. Do what you can with what you’ve got. Start at one side of the pile and work your way through it. As you do, seek him, trust in Him, cry out to him, praise him, and rejoice in him.