Priority of the Kingdom (1 of 4)

Mike Connell

Page 7 of 10
Now who is - do we know who the Lord is first of all? Who's the Lord there? The Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ, right. The kingdoms of this world have now become the kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ, so who's His Christ? His anointed body, the body of Christ, so from beginning of the Bible to the end the Bible makes it very clear the destiny of the people of God is to advance His kingdom right through the world, every part of society; not by force and might and using a sword, but by the power of the Spirit of God. You're all thinking about that. This is only just the introduction - you say we have to see that. So now there's heaps of scriptures like this and we could talk a lot about this area, so I just want to just get it touched on today. We need a revelation of the kingdom because that's what Jesus came to talk about and came to restore. I want you to go and have a look with me in Matthew 6:33. Let's go back there again.

I want to just look at a few things in Matthew 6. We'll pick it up there. Now you notice Jesus said seek first the kingdom of God, seek first the kingdom of God. Now let's have a look at the context He's talking about. He's talking - chapter 5 and verse 1 - He's talking to His disciples, in verse 3 He says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. He's talking about the kingdom and this is all the way through Matthew 5, 6 and now we get here and we'll pick it up at verse 24-33. Now no one can serve two masters; he will either hate one and love the other, he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot, you cannot serve God and money. It doesn't say there you can't have money and you can't have heaps of it; it says you just can't serve it, so it's impossible to serve it.

So you notice here He points out that money demands us serve it, in contrast to serving God. I'll explain what I mean in just a moment. Now therefore I tell you - so He's saying now listen, don't worry about your life. Don't be in a place of anxiety about what you'll eat, what you'll drink, nor your body, what you'll put on. Life is more than food and drink and clothing. The purpose of life is much more than just that. Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you more value than birds? So He says which of you by worrying can even get one inch taller? Why do you worry about clothing? Look at the lilies of the field. They grow, they don't toil and they don't have to work to do it, and even Solomon in all his glory wasn't arrayed like these. If God clothes the grass of the field which is today and tomorrow is gone in the oven, how much more shall He clothe you, o you of little faith? Therefore - He repeats it again - don't worry.

Three times He says don't worry - or like they say don't worry, be happy. Don't worry - here it is, verse 25, don't worry. Verse 31, don't worry. Verse 34, don't worry. If He says it once it's important; if He says it twice He must really want us to get it. If He's saying it three times in the space of a few verses - don't worry! Stop worrying! Listen - DON'T WORRY! Everyone worries. I looked at these people on the ship, I looked at them - so many sad people. We're just having a ball you know? All around us they hear the noise and the laughter you know, and other people just look serious and they're worried about this and worried about that, anxious about all kinds of stuff. You know we just used to go ashore and all these Americans would have their own kind of - they'd arrange these tours. It would cost them heaps of money, and we'd just go ashore and wander ashore and see if we could find a train or a bus or something. They said aren't you worried you'll get lost? I said we'll get lost, we'll find our way around it again, don't worry if we get lost. We're not going to worry about that.

Well aren't you worried about this - and in the end it boiled down, they were bound by fear and couldn't do things that would have really enlarged their life - because of fear. They were just worried - what if? My mother used to worry something terrible, aye, aye, aye, worry, worry, worry. It says verse 32, for all these things the Gentiles seek after and your Father knows you need those things, so seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and these things will be added to you. Therefore don't worry about tomorrow, [tomorrow the evil is sufficient for tomorrow but today - it says 00.32.38] tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Okay, let me just give you a few scriptures here. Clearly Jesus is talking about priorities. Now priorities are really important. Anyone who's done any motivational stuff understands priority is setting first things first. Prioritising is when you look at all the things you need to do, you've got to decide what really counts - so a priority means most important thing.