This transcript was generated automatically and may contain minor errors.

Good morning. If you got your bibles, you would turn to Matthew chapter six. Matthew chapter six will be beginning in verse 19 in just a few moments. If you're visiting with us this morning, we're thankful you're here. You're our honored guest.

We just ask that you would stick around afterwards for this given opportunity to get to know you. Again, echo what Sean said. If you hear anything that sounds different or something that you maybe you wanna learn a little bit more about, please feel free to ask any one of us. We if we don't have an answer, we can point you in the right direction, especially towards the scriptures to help you reason with them as well. We're glad you're here with us today and thankful for all the words and the thought that's went into the service this morning for Dave picking out songs.

He texted me, like, Wednesday, like, hey, you know what you're gonna preach on? I was like, not yet. So so let me get back to you. So he was ahead of the game and the thought definitely came through, I think, this morning with the songs he chose and Reagan's thoughts to the table and the prayers that have been offered. I will say we can add another prayer leader who has fallen on the sword of saying, you know, instead of trying to say, please pray with me.

Yeah. Wade, man, you're not the first one. There so there's plenty of people who said, please play with me. And you're like, that's not we're not so what we're doing here. For some reason, it's a tongue twister.

So I wanna start this morning talking about kingdoms as we get into Matthew chapter six this morning. Everybody here this morning, here in the world is building the kingdom. Some people build kingdoms based on their physical looks, their family, maybe the career that they have. Maybe they build a kingdom based upon their personal success, the legacy that they're trying to leave behind or the materialism and the possessions that they own. Maybe some people build their kingdoms based upon their personal security.

Maybe it's lust or just fun in general, entertainment. And all the kingdoms that people in this world erect, really, they're centered around our desires, our hopes, and our fears, and we really build them because we're seeking fulfillment and purpose and safety. But the real problem with all these kingdoms that we try to build is that none of them ultimately will last, and none of them can really give us what we so desperately want and desire. In these kingdoms, because they're temporary, they really require constant monitoring. They require constant protection.

And whatever we feel responsible for, it's ultimately gonna produce some sort of anxiety or worry within each and every one of us. And so we end up spending our lives propping up these kingdoms in which we've intertwined our identity. And in building them, initially, we thought we are the ones in control. That's why we are building them brick by brick. But eventually, we realized that they've enslaved us.

And that's because when you build the kingdom, you ultimately fall under the rule of its king. And we may have intended from the beginning to be king or queen, and we quickly realized they were nothing but a slave to the king of greed, success, lust, or whatever it may be. And we fall under the rule of these kings, these kings are really oppressive rulers. But the problem that we wanna talk about this morning isn't so much that the problem isn't that we have and the direct desire or seeking of the kingdom itself, but the problem is that we've been building imitations of the real thing, the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ. This is where we ought to be seeking, a kingdom that we don't have to build, one that is already standing.

As Matthew chapter six in verse 33 says, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Jesus says we're gonna see this morning, he doesn't just simply here in Matthew chapter six in the sermon on the mount. He doesn't just simply teach us to stop worrying and leave it at that. He does teach us that, but he also invites us to live within an entirely new kingdom and to live under an entirely new king. So that's what we wanna talk about this morning.

We're really just gonna follow the flow of the text in Matthew chapter six starting in verse 19. And so let's talk first about seeking first the kingdom. Of course, this passage that we just read in chapter six verse 33, it's one of the probably most well known statements in the sermon on the mount. It's probably one that you can quote yourself really easily. But even though we might be able to quote it's probably one of the most challenging admonitions for us to live out.

And why is that? Why do we have such a struggle following in a in living out this very simple command, it seems? Well, Jesus ultimately tells us why. These kingdoms that we build, they really tend to place obstacles in the way of our seeking of God's kingdom. And rather than aligning ourselves with God's kingdom, they end end up misplacing our values, our ambitions, our allegiances.

And so Jesus will try to show us these warnings. He's gonna try to deliver these warnings about why we struggle so hard to follow this simple yet powerful command to seek first the kingdom. The first one comes in Matthew chapter six and nineteen through 21 where he says, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So the comparison here is is really simple.

Right? Every kingdom has a treasure, and that's the kind of the guiding metaphor in this one is treasure. It's really about where we ultimately place our value in our lives. But the treasures that are described here as comparisons being made really isn't a comparison because one of these treasures is temporary and the other is eternal. One can be destroyed, it can be stolen, but the other is indestructible and it can't be lost.

Every kingdom has a treasure, and what your where what your treasure is ultimately reveals what kingdom you're seeking, what kingdom you're building for. You know, we all know that adage, you know, you can't take it with you when you go. But there's so many people in our day and age that are living like they just don't believe that that piece of wisdom, that maxim, you know, to be true. The world, it seeks and seeks after promotions, higher paychecks, bigger homes, newer cars, you know, a better retirement plan. I mean, it's just exhausting.

Right? The effort we go to seek all of these different things in our lives. And now these treasures that we try to gain and obtain, they don't last. We maybe get that promotion, but maybe we get demoted at some point to where somebody beats us to the next promotion. Maybe we get fired from our job.

We don't get that higher paycheck. Maybe we have no paycheck now. A flood hits your home. A newer car comes out. Someone's embezzled your four zero one k.

If you store up treasures on earth, you're ultimately gonna be trying to fill a hole in your heart with stuff. And God has made you to be more than just a collector of perishable goods. He goes on. Jesus says in Matthew chapter six and verse 22 through 23, the second warning is really about where he fixed our eyes. He turns from the heart to the eye.

He says, the eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness? See, also Jesus warns us.

He says, not only does every kingdom have treasure, but every kingdom has a vision as well. The comparison here is maybe a little bit more complex. There's a lot of images that are kind of being at play here. There's the eye, the lamp, there's health, there's body, there's the light, there's darkness. All these things are working together in a very short span of scripture.

But the meaning really is similar to that of the first parable we read, that this is about where ultimately we fix our eyes. And since the eye serves as this lamp, this guide, if it's fixed properly, well, then our lives will ultimately fall in order. Every kingdom has a vision. And so where you direct your sight, it really determines your direction in life. If all we focus our eyes on is success or popularity or money, our life's gonna move towards those things.

And how often do we just run ourselves absolutely ragged, chasing empty goals, not even enjoying the journey itself in our attempt to try to obtain the very thing that we desire? You know, high schoolers, euchrestos students, this is something you'll begin learning in I'm hitting my ten year reunion this year. Oh, man. Makes me feel old. But I had to learn I know all the old people and oh, sorry.

The agent, the experience of the wise people in the room saying, you're not even 30 yet. So my knees are already starting to hurt. I it's not gonna bode well for me by the time I'm 60. It's gonna be bad. But so many of you guys maybe are are already beginning to learn these things having been in high school and now are are finishing, and maybe some of you that are in college now can attest to these sort of things that you're so often unfairly judged by the level of your ambitions.

You know, how far are you willing to go and getting good grades, making a certain score in the ACT, SAT? I remember I was at a football camp in my senior year, and I was going around some colleges. And I visited Yale, and I was just, like, blown away because all the kids, they were you know, they weren't dumb jocks. They were smart jocks. And I remember listening to all the kids and the coach's first question because they can't give athletic scholarships.

They're like, what's your ACT score? And these kids are like, 36. And I was like, man, the first time I took it, no lie, was at 18. Like, the lowest you can make, I think. It was really bad.

So I was like, I know. I'm not going here. So but they were being judged initially in that moment about their ambitions, their grades, and their value is wrapped up in that moment in their grades, not only their talent and sports. And we think not only for our kids' talents and sports, but extracurriculars, the may the amount of friends, relationships, the boyfriend, girlfriends they have, things like that, whether or not by their peers or by their other pay other parents or their own parents themselves. But, you know, again, whether or not you make that highest grade, maybe you don't win that game, whether or not you get the award, you get the girl.

So often in chasing and pursuing after these things, we let our ambitions absolutely crush us in the process. And we don't even enjoy the very thing we're trying to attain as we come and realize that ultimately, once we have obtained it, we've gone all this effort. We struggled to get it, and it was a temporary goal in the first place. You know, thinking again about my time in high school, I spent so much time playing football. I love football.

It was fun. I worked so hard. I spent hours throwing footballs, working out all these different things. You know, I worked so hard. And the greatest thing that I feel like I did in high school, I was second team, all state quarterback for, you know, only, you know, one a school, so not that impressive already.

But that was, like, the best thing I did. And you know what? Everybody in the room is thinking right now, I don't care. And you know what? No one did care.

I think it made, like, a this much space in our county newspaper, and it's immediately forgotten. Right? I worked four years. I worked so hard. And, of course, I learned some really good things along the way about discipline and hard work, and I made some good friends.

But that was a very temporary goal, and I worked so hard and realized that it was totally ephemeral and pointless at the end of the day. And I haven't thrown a football in, like, ten years. And if I did, my shoulder would probably fall off. But if you distort your vision, your fixations are slowly gonna shape ultimately who you become as a person. And God, he has bigger plans for each and every one of us than simply our ambitions.

Jesus continues Matthew chapter six and verse 24. And this is the third warning, and it's really focused about where we place our devotion. This is where he really gets to the crux of the issue. Says no one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Again, the comparison's clear. It's about devotion here. Being far removed from the concept of slavery, I think it's maybe we may read this text when we think about it in terms of a job. Right? And there's probably many of you here to this morning that that work several jobs.

And so you can split your time between jobs. Right? And so maybe we read this passage and think in those terms and think, well, you know, I can serve two masters, a kind of, but I won't give too much time to that other master besides Jesus. But that's not the image that's going on here. Hear Jesus' words again.

He says, you cannot serve God and money. And how many times have we read this verse and we still not heeded Jesus' warning? And maybe we didn't, you know, fill in and replace money and fill it in with whatever it is, this other master, this other kingdom that you're trying to follow. But every kingdom has a master and we can't serve the master of two different kingdoms. This is really where Jesus, I think, makes the motivation of the first two parables.

So the underlying motivation behind the first two parables is really clear. At the core, really, the issue is about allegiance. Rather than submitting to Christ, we try to take things into our own hands, and we leave him behind for false hopes, for false promises, and false masters. Every kingdom has a king and whom you serve ultimately determines where your allegiance lies. I think so often we my myself, I think I can build on the kingdom of self and then I can turn around and I can start seeking the kingdom of God, but Jesus is trying to tell us something here that that is not possible.

If we attempt to be in the keyword here to divide our allegiance to Christ, we immediately reveal that it doesn't lie with him. We might convince ourselves that we're seeking God's kingdom. But if we're not seeking it first, Jesus tells us we're not seeking it at all. So this morning, which kingdom are you actually seeking? Based on the way you're living today, who or which king are you serving?

This morning, if you've come here, if you are a Christian, if you're not a Christian, don't worry. It's not invitation just yet. I know it sound like an invitation. Alright. This morning, if you're coming and you have maybe misplaced values distorted vision, maybe half hearted service, well, Jesus is inviting you to have faith in him and also to live for a higher calling.

Because while the false kingdoms and the kings of this world, they offer you empty promises, Our father in heaven, he provides for his children. Jesus calls us in Matthew six and verse 25. He says, therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. What you will eat or what you will drink nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

See, Jesus calls us to replace the anxieties we have in our life with faith and to trust ultimately in the heavenly father. He calls us to revolt against the kings who sit on the very thrones of our hearts. Jesus, he calls us to seek his kingdom, a kingdom that doesn't need us to prop it up because it's a kingdom that's eternal in the heavens. Our heavenly father, he doesn't want us to be consumed with worry over food and drink and clothing. We're made for more than just some anxious chase after a full stomach and some nice clothes.

And to make this point, Jesus, he turns to creation. I love this is one of my favorite images I think Jesus is Jesus uses. It's a it's one that I get reminded of every day when I see a bird or a beautiful flower here in Texas. Says, look at the birds in the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin.

Yet, I tell you, even Solomon and all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so closed the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, oh, you of little faith? You know, something as small as a bird, something as finite as a flower can be taken care of by god. Well, Jesus says that god can take care of his children. The birds and the flowers seem to be able to trust god.

Why can't we? Do our lives attest so that we ultimately do believe this promise here, or do we live as if we've been made made merely for consumption or adornment? Christ has given us a higher calling. He's taught us to have a higher dependence on our heavenly father. In God's kingdom, we're meant to have a greater purpose than just fulfilling our basic needs or looking beautiful.

We exist ultimately to live under God's kingdom and to do his will on earth as it is in heaven. And if we're going to accomplish this very mission, we have to give him our all, And that requires us to trust and submit to God and Christ and to seek first God's kingdom. Says here in our faithful submission that Jesus is talking about here, he doesn't rule over us like our former kings. Really, what he's trying to do here in the section of scripture is to really show us a better way to live. He's teaching us to receive the gifts from the father that we once formerly have tried to control, and he's trying to help us restore our desires to the proper place.

In chapter six verse 31 through 34, he says, therefore, do not be anxious saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things and your heavenly father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

I was in Seattle when the preachers kinda referred to that last verse as borrowing trouble. Right? We borrow from the future, borrow trouble from the future, and we're trying to use it today. But Jesus really, in this text, I think, is trying to help us see that he does want you to have purpose. He wants you to be fulfilled.

He wants you to feel secure, but he doesn't want you to have these things at the cost of your very being. He doesn't want you to have these things if it requires you make requires you making these things a very center of your life. That's how the Gentiles, the unbelievers, he says, that's how they live. They're driven by the temporal, the unhealthy. They're driven by the oppressive kingdoms of the world because they can't ultimately see that God has a greater purpose for them.

You mean you mean so much more to God than your looks, than the size of your paycheck, the production that you're able to accomplish at work, besides the size of your family or the lack of your family. And if we know these truths, if we know these promises of God, then we can stop seeking all these other things before God's kingdom. As Jesus says, if we if we truly do seek God's kingdom first, Jesus promises that all these things will be added to you. You know, paradoxically, it's one of those things that it's only when we truly give up our control over these different kingdoms that we try to reign over that God ultimately reorders our desires. He gives them back to us once we've we've submitted them to him in the first place.

When we submit them to him, he gives them back to us in appropriate measure, and he teaches us really to use them appropriately as gifts and not to treat them as our gods. Jesus, he's not teaching us that it's wrong to have earthly possessions or that it's wrong to be ambitious. But the point is that whatever we value, whatever we pursue in our lives, it must first be put under the authority of Jesus. And in doing so, we make God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, allowing his rule to permeate all of our earthly pursuits. So how how does that look concretely?

I think, you know, some of you guys going to college. You know, when you seek God's kingdom first, well, why do you pursue a degree in the first place? Well, it's because you wanna grow your passion. It's what you wanna grow your wisdom to help others, not simply to impress other people or to gain social standing, not to live for the expectations of other people. When I seek the kingdom of God first, well, you know, some of you who are married, have families, you invest deeply in your family, in your marriage, but you don't make your family's image or reputation an idol.

Maybe when you seek the kingdom of God first, you push your children to flourish whether that's in a classroom or the ballroom. Ballroom. Ball field. Nobody's doing that in Texas. Yeah.

We'll be watching you if that's the thing you're into. Right? Tippy toeing around here. Right? Yeah.

Wouldn't wouldn't work. Right? But you push your kids to flourish in the classroom or the ball field, but you never lead your children to think that God's love is dependent upon their performance or that your love for them is dependent upon their performance. Maybe if you're a wife or a mother or a husband who's in into interior design as well, again, we'll keep our eye on you. Right?

You make your home beautiful, right, so that it becomes a place of peace, a place of hospitality, but you don't make it beautiful because you need strangers to online to admire photos of it. You save money. You plan wisely. You save for retirement, but you don't place your trust in the stock markets and how they rise and how they fall. You prepare for tomorrow, but you don't panic about tomorrow.

You care for your health. You go to the gym. You exercise, but you don't let the people's other people's validation guide you. You care for your health, but you don't let diagnoses rob you of your hope. And all these things, it's not that we shouldn't save.

It's not we shouldn't work hard. We shouldn't it's not that we shouldn't push our children or ourselves. It's not that we shouldn't make things or ourselves beautiful. It's not that we shouldn't care for our health. But what it's really about, what Jesus is calling us to, it's about redeeming all of these things by submitting them to the rule of God in Christ.

And if Christ is on the throne of your heart, everything is gonna find its proper place. Praise. See, I did it, Wade. I did it myself. Therefore, I don't have to worry ultimately is threatened.

When that kingdom don't that I've set up is starting to shake a little bit underneath me, when it starts to feel threatened, God's kingdom doesn't shake from underneath you. Its foundation stands firm, and it's eternal in the heavens. And Christ reigns on the throne. We don't have have to worry. We're not the ones responsible for protection of the kingdom whenever we feel that it might be threatened.

There's no force. There's no power. There's no other king or kingdom that can overtake the kingdom of God. And so this morning I'm sorry. I left that last slide up there.

This morning, consider in your life today, what what is it that's giving you anxiety? What's giving you worry? And begin to attempt to submit that under Christ's rule. Because if you'll seek his kingdom first by hearing his warnings and trusting in his promises, he's gonna teach you slowly to renounce all of these false kingdoms and kings that have kept you under control, the things you thought you were controlling that have now made you a slave. Because Jesus, you know, he didn't simply want you to just stop worrying.

He's inviting you to live within an entirely new kingdom, and he's asking you to live under an entirely new type of king. A king who treasured humanity, and though he was God, his ambition was to save lost sinners, and he did so by submitting himself to the point of death so that humanity could be forgiven of their sins. But our king did not remain dead. He's alive and well. He is resurrected, he sits now at God's right hand, at the heavenly father's hand in heaven.

And the king who calls us to seek God's kingdom first is a very king who sought his father's will above his own. And so today, Jesus is is inviting you. Seek the kingdom of God first. We seek him first this morning. If that's your desire, we'd ask you to come now as we stand and as we sing.