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The Rewards of Citizenship

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Download:  Sermon 1- The Rewards of Citizenship.rtf

 

TITLE: The Security for Citizens of the Realm

TEXT: Matthew 6:25-34

THEME: Making God’s kingdom your first priority assures that your real needs will be met

 

OPENING

SENTENCE: One night, a group of thieves broke into a jewelry store. But rather than stealing anything, they simply switched all the price tags

 

INTRODUCTION: The next day no one could tell what was valuable and what was cheap. The expensive jewels had suddenly become cheap, and the costume jewelry, which had been virtually worthless before, was suddenly of great value. Customers who thought they were purchasing valuable gems were getting fakes. Those who couldn’t afford the higher priced items were leaving the store with treasures.

 

Sometimes I think we might be a little bit like that as a people. Sometimes we forget what is really valuable and important and we often get distracted with those things of lesser importance.

Several years ago, construction workers happened upon a corpse outside the ancient city of Pompeii, where many people died when a volcano exploded. The evidence surrounding this corpse (a woman) was interesting. Apparently, she had been fleeing from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Overtaken by the molten lava, she died in the hot ashes. The corpses revealed hands that were clutched around jewels. The jewels had survived, but the woman had not. (SermonCentral)

 

TRANSITION

SENTENCE: I am convinced that spiritually we are very much like that woman. 

 

TRANSITION: We are clutching onto the things of this world and refuse to let go- even if it to present detriment and eternal demise.  We live in one of the most affluent times in history yet we live in fear that we cannot maintain our high standard of living.  Even when we have much we seemed to be concerned that we do not have enough.  We want newer or better clothes, newer or better homes, newer or better cars and RV’s and lives in fear that we may lose it all.

 

I was impacted like millions of others at the Great Recession in 2008 and saw many productive people living very comfortably lose their homes, cars and retirement accounts.  Stress and depression ran high and I experience first-hand what it was to lose our material possessions.  I understand quite well what it means to put in a position where you have to trust God.

 

SAY WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SAY: This morning I want us to see what we should value the most to get us through life.  I want us to look at the question, “Why should you seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness first?” and give three answers. First we will see that it directs our focus away from the temporal things that cause us to worry.  Second we will see that it removes the reasons for which we should worry about these things.  And finally we will see that it assures us that our real and eternal needs will be addressed.

 

TEXT: Matthew 6:25-34

 

THEME: Making God’s kingdom your first priority assures that your real needs will be met

 

Why should you seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness first?

 

I.  It directs our focus away from the temporal things that cause us to worry. (25)

 

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes?

 

  1. Do not worry about your life.  That’s a pretty broad statement.  It implies that even death itself is not something to fear.  This pretty much covers our worst fear.  Everything else should be a walk in the park.  Yet Jesus lists other things we should not worry about yet tend to obsess us.

 

  1. Do not worry about what you eat or drink.  This means that food and drink, the basic requirement we have, should not be a thing of concern.  Now for us who live with an overabundance of food and drink we may wonder why it should even be mentioned, Yet, we must be reminded that for many throughout the world this basic necessity does not always appear guaranteed.  For us who live in abundance the message should be we have even less to be concerned about.

 

  1. Do not worry about your body (health). Our health is often a cause for concern and certainly we should do what we can to guard it.  Yet, even our health is not something we need worry about. 

 

  1. Do no worry about what you will wear.  Now for me, like most men, clothes are something we use to cover up our hideous nakedness and if necessary we need some element of style- for that I need my wife.  But we are reminded again even something as basic as clothes can be a cause for concern.  Style is the least of concerns.

 

ILLUSTRATE: “It was an all-you-can-eat buffet at the bank. An army of termites munched through 10 million rupees ($222,000) in currency notes stored in a steel chest at a bank in Barabanki, a town 20 miles southwest of Lucknow, the Uttar Pradesh state capital, said police in northern India. The bank manager discovered the damage when he opened the reinforced room in an old bank building.

 

Police officer Navneet Rana told The Associated Press, "It's a matter of investigation how termites attacked bundles of currency notes stacked in a steel chest." The money was put in the chest in January, 2011. In the past, termites had damaged bank furniture and documents. The police have registered a case of negligence against the bank officials. (Associated Press, "Termites eat millions of Indian rupees in bank" (4-22-11); Submitted by Timothy Liu, Virginia Beach, Virginia)

 

APPLY: Termites.  That is the problem with worrying about temporal things.  There are also termites or something to come in and eat away at the things you value.  Thing things that really matter in life cannot be destroyed by termites.  If we focus on the kingdom of heaven we are focusing on something that will last so that even death itself need not be a cause for worry.

 

THEME: Making God’s kingdom your first priority assures that your real needs will be met.

 

Why should you seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness first?

 

II. It removes the reasons for which we should worry about these things. (26-30)

 

26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

 

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

 

  1. We see that life is more than these things.  We live in a very materialistic culture and the possession of things is our measure of well-being.  We are obsessed with the latest phone, or computer, or TV or RV or home, etc.  The one who has the most, the biggest, the newest or the best is considered the most envied.  Yet how many have all these things and still find themselves depressed and hopeless.  Live is more than these things.

 

  1. We see that we are more valuable to God than the birds he feeds.  For those less privileged than ourselves we still see that God values them.  If God is concerned about the birds and provides for them how much more is he concerned for you or the one less privileged than you?

 

  1. We see that we are more valuable to God than the flowers he clothes.  Just as he values us more than the birds he provides for He makes a similar point by talking about how God clothes in beauty and majesty the very flowers of the field.  In comparison we are of far greater value and significance.

 

ILLUSTRATE: Sometimes we can learn something about what a person values what they say in their last words.  Listen to these statements from famous people and ask, “Who most like has been seeking the Kingdom of God?”

 

"Nothing matters. Nothing matters."

—Louis B. Mayer, film producer; died October 29, 1957

 

"I'm bored with it all."

—Winston Churchill, statesman; died January 24, 1965

(Before slipping into a coma. He died 9 days later.)

 

"How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden?"

—P. T. Barnum, circus entrepreneur; died 1891

 

"Am I dying, or is this my birthday?"

—Lady Nancy Astor; died 1964

(When she woke briefly during her last illness and found all her family around her.)

 

"Why yes, a bulletproof vest."

—Domonic Willard

(A foot soldier during the Prohibition, just before his death by firing squad. He was asked if he had any last requests.)

 

"Don't let me die; I have got so much to do."

—Huey Long, "The Kingfish," governor of and senator from Louisiana; died 1935

 

"My work is done. Why wait?"

—George Eastman, inventor; died 1932

(from his suicide note)

 

"Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you."

—Mother Teresa; died September 5, 1997 (John Beukema, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; source: www.wikiquote.o)

 

APPLY: I think most of us can agree Mother Teresa got it right.

 

THEME: Making God’s kingdom your first priority assures that your real needs will be met.

 

Why should you seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness first?

 

III. It assures us that our real and eternal needs will be addressed. (30-32

 

30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

 

  1. Our assurance comes through faith in God. (30) Notice at the end of verse 30 how Jesus makes the association of worry with having “little faith.”  The implication is clear, worry is the result of not having enough faith to believe that God will provide.  We need to learn to trust God in the most basic things (food, clothing, etc.) as well as the bigger things (our life and health).  Everything in between is included.  If you are worrying about something ask yourself, “What is it that you are afraid of?”

 

Anxiety can be defined as fear in the absence of real danger.  It is imagined negative results.  It is the believe that if the thing I worried about actually happened it would be awful, horrible, terrible.  The fact is that most of the things we fear happen never do- and if they do happen God is present with us and gets us through them.

 

  1. Our assurance comes through recognizing God knows your needs. (32) Do you not think that God is aware of what you need? Certainly we need to pray but in our prayers we need to be reminded God hears.  God may not answer immediately, he may not answer the way we expect or he may even say no.  But he does know our need.  He not only recognizes our need His track record is quite good that he even provides for them.How many of us in Canada die of starvation, or go without clothes.  We even have free access to health care. 

 

  1. Our assurance comes through seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness first. (33) For most of us the problem is that our focus is on the wrong things.  If we focus on the temporal things of this world we will always have a degree of anxiety and uncertainty.  Financial markets can crash, crops can fail, supplies can be depleted but the kingdom of God will always exist.  We need to keep it first.

     

Notice though, it also talks about seeking his righteousness.  God is Holy and has a holy standard that we are measured by and come up short.  It is for that reason Jesus came to earth.  As God He is the only righteous person and as God he loves us to the degree that He died for our sin.  In doing so He grants us his righteousness so that we can be accepted and treated as righteous before God.

 

It is both things that are required to receive the assurance that all these things will be given to us.  It is not one or the other.  Both His kingdom and His righteousness need to sought after above all else.  We have a tendency to think we can choose one or the other.

 

  1. Our assurance comes from knowing that the future is Gods hand. (34) The passage says that today will have its own set of problems so let’s address those.  Don’t get all wrapped up in what might happen in the future.  Don’t obsess with what you don’t know.

 

ILLUSTRATE: In New York City is the RCA Building on Fifth Avenue. In the entrance of that building is a gigantic statue of Atlas, a beautifully proportioned man who, with all his muscles straining, is holding the world upon his shoulders. There he is, the most powerfully built man in the world, and he can barely stand up under this burden.  You could say, “Now that’s one way to live, trying to carry the world on your shoulders.”

 

On the other side of Fifth Avenue is Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, and there behind the high altar is a little shrine of the boy Jesus, perhaps eight or nine years old, and with no effort he is holding the world in one hand. These two images illustrate the difference between our two choices

 

APPLY: "We have a choice. We can carry the world on our shoulders, or we can say, ’I give up, Lord; here’s my life. I give you my world, the whole world.’"

 

THEME: Making God’s kingdom your first priority assures that your real needs will be met.

 

SAY WHAT YOU HAVE SAID: This morning we looked at the question, “Why should you seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness first?” and gave three answers. First we saw that it directs our focus away from the temporal things that cause us to worry.  Second we saw that it removes the reasons for which we should worry about these things.  And finally we saw that it assures us that our real and eternal needs will be addressed

 

TIE INTO OPENING SENTENCE: The kingdom of God is upside down.  Like the thieves who broke into the jewelry store and changed the price tags that is what Jesus does.  The things that are of value in this world have no value in the kingdom of God.  If we seek His kingdom first the things of this world have no lasting value.  If they are removed our purpose for life remains the same. 

 

APPLY TO SPECIFIC AUDIENCE:

  1. We need to value the things that God values.  If we seek the kingdom first we will get everything else we need.

  2. We need to seek the righteousness that Jesus offers.  By faith in Him we have assurance of eternal life.  Yet event today our lives are impacted.

  3. We spent far too much time in our lives worrying about things we have no control over.  We need to give control over to God over our lives.

 

HAYMAKER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93LY5O7E5bU

 

THEME: Making God’s kingdom your first priority assures that your real needs will be met.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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