Praise the Lord and welcome to the God of Wonders Radio Program. Pastor Kiruba Stephen, in a message entitled, “Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God”, will examine what it means to put God above all things in our lives and all the blessings that follow when we do.
Tonight’s message is going to be on: Having Right Priorities.
Matthew Chapter 6 verses 24 to 34 24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. 25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
The key verse for today’s message is from verse 33, which says that: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” We’re just going to look at the verses Jesus spoke before the verse 33. Why is he saying that, “butseek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you?” We see from verse 24, God is comparing. Actually, he is saying you cannot serve God and you cannot serve money. You either have to serve God or you have to serve money. So, God is really making clear distinction over here. There is nothing wrong with having money. But there is a big difference between having money and serving money. There is a big difference between just having God and serving God. So, God is really talking about, “Who is our master tonight?” Is Jesus our Master or money is our master? Where is our priority? What are we actually seeking God for? We can even go to God seeking Him, but our priorities might be money. So, we have to really examine ourselves tonight, as we are seeing God’s word - what Jesus is talking here. He is not talking about, not to go after - big houses, not about big cars, or in those days - Jesus didn’t mean to say - don’t go after more camels, more sheep, more gold, more pearls.
But, over here Jesus is talking about the basic need. He is talking about food, He is talking about clothing, He is talking about drink, water. And He is saying how even this very basic needs of our lives such as food, clothing, and water, can actually cause us to serve to become servants of those things rather than servants of God.
So, we have to look at ourselves, what are we actually serving? We work in order to sustain ourselves, but we don’t live to work. You know what Jesus is saying here, we are not eating, because we live to eat; but we are eating, just to sustain our bodies. That is why he is asking, is not life more important than your body? Life is more important. The body is the house, but your life is more important than this. Body is more important than clothing, clothing is just the covering for the body, that we need but we don’t live for the clothing. So we have to really distinguish between that what is our need and even when it comes down to need, what are we actually doing? Is our need actually eating us up, or are we living to meet our Lord’s need? That’s what Jesus is saying over here, “Therefore take no thought for the morrow.” And he is saying, “Don’t worry about - What shall we eat? What shall we drink?” as in verse 31. And what shall we cloth ourselves with? And Jesus is saying after all these things go after the Gentiles, not the people who know God. He is saying, “God already knows your need. He already knows that we need food, He already knows that we need clothing. He knows that that we need water, God knows everything and He is saying, “Why are you going after that, when you know that I know that you need these things?”
Two examples Jesus is using from nature. One is, He is using the birds and the other one He is using the grass of the field. The birds, God is talking that they do not sow, they do not reap, they do not save, they don’t do anything. But God is saying look, “Am I not providing for them? Am I not taking care of them? How much more”, God says, “I will take care of you, when you are my children.” He also talks about the flowers, about the grass. He is saying that how God is clothing the grass and if you look at the comparison what God is making here is, he is not just giving any cloth, he is saying even Solomon with all his glory and with all his riches he cannot compare his clothing with the flowers that God has created. They are so beautiful. God is saying, that if I can do for grass that is perishing that is not even going to stay for a month, today it is and tomorrow it is gone, how much more will I give you. Beautiful comparison here is - It is not that I am giving you anything, it is not I am going to give you the cheapest thing out there, God is saying “I will give you the best.” God will give you the best, God is saying “I will clothe you much better than the grass of the field, which is so beautiful.” God is saying “I will give you much better than even the birds, you are more precious than the birds of the air.” That is what the Lord is saying “and since you are so much valued in my sight, why are you spending your time worrying about what am I going to do tomorrow? What am I going to do day after tomorrow?” Some people worry about what’s going to happen next month, what’s going to happen six months from now? What’s going to happen next year? The Lord is saying you don’t have to worry about anything. The only thing that we need to really be concerned is seeking God and His kingdom first. When we do that, you know the biggest promise is? God does not say, when you seek God and My kingdom first and My righteousness, God does not say “Okay, I will help you to seek after the other things.” No. He says, all the other things that He is talking about the food, clothing, shelter, you know the basic needs, it will be given, it will be added unto us. Like for example, when we go to the store, we have to buy some things, we are going to go buy,say 2 shirts, and on sale they say “buy 2 shirts and the third one is free”, we don’t go looking for the third one, we know when we get the 2, we are going to get the third one free. So our concentration should not be on the addition, our concentration should be on the main thing which is the Lord, seeking the Lord, His kingdom, His righteousness, and God adds the rest. He just adds it. He is the One who says “Okay, bonus!” and he gives it to you; food, clothing, whatever we need and He meets our needs. You know, there is a verse in the Bible, in Philippians 4 verses 18 and 19; how God actually supplies our need But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God. But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
He is saying that these people, that took care of Paul’s need and they are actually ministering to the servant of God, and that is one way of showing the Lord that we are seeking him, that we seeking after His kingdom. And when we are doing that what the Lord is saying through Paul, that He will meet your needs, God is saying “you are taking care of my people” so not little by little, he says, BUT according to God’s riches and glory by Christ Jesus He will meet all of our needs, not some of our needs, not a portion, not most of our needs, but he says all of our needs will be met by God Himself. So, God is the one who really meets our needs not us, if we spend our lives looking for how to meet our needs - Okay, we have emotional needs, we have physical needs, we have spiritual needs, we have financial needs, we have material needs, imagine we spent our lives like looking to meet our need, our whole life will be drained. But God says, that, leave it to me, I will take care of that. All we need to do is seek God first. Are we putting God first in our lives? We have to ask that question. When I get up in the morning, what is my first thought in my mind, am I getting up thinking that “Oh how am I going to pay this bill?”, or “oh how am I going to manage tomorrow?” or when we get up we think “how is my child going to be, how is his future going to be, how is his schooling going to be?”, “how is my husband’s job going to be?” or “how is my job going to be?” and all those things God says the gentiles, they worry about. But we as children of God, if we have committed our lives to the Lord, we don’t have to worry about that. It’s a command from God actually do not worry, God is saying. When He says, do not worry, we don’t have to worry, all we need to do is seek God and His kingdom first. It is like this when we go to school, when we have to take our exam, all we need to do is study. We study, we take our exam. That’s what the Lord is saying, we do our part and our part is you know what ? Not to look for food, shelter, and clothing. But our part is to seek God and His kingdom first and then God will do, He will do his addition he is going to do supernaturally, God does it. Does it mean that we don’t go to work ? No, going to work is we are going to work to glorify God. Does it mean that we don’t clean our house? No. We clean our house in order to glorify God. Does it mean we are in bed all the time like sitting and praying? No. Everything that we do, whether we eat or we drink we do it unto the glory of God. But we need to make sure that we are seeking God and His kingdom first. When we seek God and His kingdom first, what the Lord does is, He sets our priority. He tells us morning do this, afternoon do this, evening do this, look for job over here, Or apply over here or wait now, apply tomorrow. God is the one who leads, but when we lose track of seeking His kingdom first, we become people who frantically like get all the applications we want, go knock over here, knock over there and get disappointed and sit down and then think “what’s this, why is this not happening?” Then we try to see and say “okay, let me do 5 overtimes, let me do 10 overtimes, let me see when we will write down all the bills we have so much to pay, what am I going to do?”. But trust God and see, trust Him to be a faithful provider, the day when we have to pay the bills. We have seen that over and over and over again. I know, Stanley’s Dad, he is in the ministry like this, who has seen this over and over again that God has never failed. Anytime we need to pay the bill, God comes right through the very minute, when we need to pay God always provides. So, when we take care of God’s work, He is there to take care of our needs. When we take care of our needs, we can only take care of it so much and so far. But when God takes care of our needs, He does it according to His riches, like how he clothes the grass of the fields. Much more than that, much more in a beautiful way, in a grander way, in a glorious way, God does it in abundance and God does it, not only to our joy or to our satisfaction, to everyone who sees. Like a person who admires a flower. The flower is not just admiring a flower, people admire the flower and they see how beautiful it is, who made this, how beautiful it is, and the glory goes to God. So when people look at our lives, when we seek God and His Kingdom first, our life will become a testimony to the glory of God. When they see us, just like they admire the flowers and the birds, they will admire our lives and give glory to God, that is the whole purpose of God working in our lives is to bring glory to Him. So we are going to see over here, the people who actually sought God and, without them even asking, how God provided for them. God does not only care for our spiritual needs, He cares for our bodily need. He cares for our emotional need, He cares for our physical needs. He cares for our healing if we are sick, the Lord Jesus knows that, and He cares for us. If we do not have a child, God knows that, God cares about that, and God meets our needs. And If we don’t have money, God cares about that and God meets our needs.
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El bethel International Ministries
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Heavenly Father, we praise you and thank you for the opportunity to bring your Holy Word to the people listening. Father in heaven draw their hearts closer to you in Jesus precious name we thank you Lord, Amen.
May God Bless you! Please join us for part 2 “Seek First God’s Kingdom” next time.
