Matthew 6: 33
Seeking the Kingdom 

I. First, let me speak about "SEEKING" the kingdom in its personal aspect. 

1. Of course, the true Christian claims to have found the kingdom that cannot be shaken and that will exist for ever and ever. But the paradox in Christianity is that we continue to seek. -- not in unbelief but with the sense that we are like the first human explorers on a new continent and we have this vast amount of territory to explore and claim. 

2. We have been given a kingdom -- as last week's text said -- a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And the Christian agenda is to give life-long attention to its care, to its borders, to its influence over our individual lives. One of the biggest mistakes in conceiving of Christianity is the one that sees it in some sense as static -- like a transaction that was signed sealed and delivered ages ago or like an ancient insurance policy. It is not static but dynamic. We are continually applying it more and more to our behavior and to our obedience and to our daily growth in understanding. This is the reason we continually study the Bible and theology to expand our knowledge and that we exhort one another in exhortations and sermons during our life-long pilgrimage. There never should be cessation in our comprehension of the kingdom of God or its application to our lives. Test yourself. On this Oct.10, 1999 is the depth of your Christian life, the depth of your understanding richer than it was on Oct. 10 of 1998? Are you maintaining it better? Are you loving Christ more? Are you discovering new areas in which God's grace is manifested?

1. All too often in America the mentality of modern Christians is that the Kingdom of God is elective. It is something to be dealt with by using surplus and left-overs from the real priorities of life. It is put in the category of one's membership in professional associations and political groups. It is clearly not top priority for most balanced people. There are more important things: Their career, the quality of life, stereo equipment, T.V. watching, sports, vacations, entertainment on weekends, comfortable home; THOSE are the priorities for most people of our class and time. But Jesus said: "Seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you." Surely by the latter he does not mean everything your worldly heart and empty head might think to desire but he probably meant "all these sorts of things in sufficient quantities and qualities will come to you, if you put your priorities straight." 

2. It is very hard to see how God's kingdom, his rule, his agenda in the world could possibly warrant 2nd class treatment by Christian people who are ostensibly citizens of the kingdom. Indeed, it continually receives that second-class treatment at the hands of its caretakers. But what does it deserve? We have been named peoples, servants, ambassadors, fellow heirs of that kingdom. It is of unspeakably more importance than our daily lives for it is an "eternal kingdom that cannot be shaken." 

3. One of the great lessons of the book of Acts and the letters--especially the pastorals -- is the example that the early Christians set for those of us who were to come later. There was apparently no rigid distinction between clergy and laity. The so-called laity did the work of the kingdom, whereas in modern times they sit around in pews writing checks to a professional clergy and office staff. That so-called laity did the work of the kingdom. Aquilla and Priscilla, who went from place to place for the benefit of the kingdom of God, supporting themselves as tentmakers. They were in Corinth and then again in Rome for a time. And then they were in Ephesus. And Timothy, Titus, Apollos, Artemus, Tychicus, Zenus the lawyer, Erastus, Crescens, John Mark, Lydia the wealthy seller of purple, Phoebe the deacon of the church at Cenchreae, Urbanus a worker in Rome, Tryphena and Tryphosa -- described as "workers for the Lord" who were also in Rome. These kinds of people -- most of whom did not seem to have an ecclesiastical title or support from the church -- seem to have been continually about the work of the kingdom. Such service in ancient times was very challenging and very difficult and highly dangerous. Remember that these were not people who worked 35 hours a week and watched T.V. for another 50 hours of leisure time. They were people who in the normal course of things worked 70-75 hours a week and had many domestic duties just in order to live. Their kingdom work must have cramped their lifestyles and budgets and limited their careers. But they were people who had received a kingdom that could not be shaken and had been early recipients of the Lord's command "Seek FIRST the kingdom of God." 

I urge you as an individual Christian who is serious about his trust in the Lord and obedience to him to seek out and identify a ministry that you can accept and accomplish before the Lord. It might be singular or it might be multifaceted with a number of different aspects. Find people in whose lives you might have a ministry for the Lord! Or find a ministry of operation of the church! Or help in the looking after of people. Just the greeting and circulating among visitors here on Sunday morning and carrying that over into the week and seeing how many people you could be spiritually helpful to could be a tremendous ministry. If you would take such a ministry upon yourself and remain faithful, I could imagine you having a great harvest with a sense of great satisfaction at the end of a decade. 

Why is it so rare that Christians are busy about the work of the kingdom? Well for one reason they are addicted to their own comfort and privilege. They are too involved in the present world. And they have failed to see the incredible investment they might make if they were to truly invest their lives in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. Does this speak to you? "Seek FIRST the kingdom of God!"

From the early years in Christianity- perhaps from the time right after the apostles (though we do not know that for sure) there was the phenomenon of people commandeering the kingdom of God and making the structure, the effect, the profit, the outcome one that advanced their own interests, really, their own kingdom. There was, what was in effect, a commingling of private kingdoms with the kingdom of God. Later in history we know that popes, and high clergymen used the offices of the church to advance their illegitimate sons; Kings would prepare their oldest son to inherit their kingdom and the younger sons would be come high clergy and eventually pillage the church. The wealthy classes commandeered the church even while they were doing something ostensibly nice -- such as turning it into a museum or a gallery for art. But they also did it in negative ways. The papacy and every bishopric in Europe was practically, or at least partially, a private kingdom while pretending to be the kingdom of God. After the reformation came about the evil fruit continued and national denominations became extensions of the government and yielded to political pressures and influences. 
 
1. This, my third point, is that we should be seeking the kingdom of GOD and not the one of ourselves disguised as that of the Lord. Increasingly we see people go to seminary to prepare for a church career, presumably because school teaching doesn't pay well enough and plumbing does not have a good enough image. Seminaries are crowded with many times more students than could possibly be needed in ministry if the Lord's people were seeking first the kingdom of the Lord. And even those seminaries are having the tendency to take on the qualities of commandeered academic institutions instead of the kingdom of the Lord. 

2. We see whole denominations which are commandeered for political and social agendas and local churches which are commandeered for social and political ends by political forces, social workers and businessmen. But our Lord said, "Seek HIS kingdom," not our own or ours mixed with his. It used to be that this was a phenomenon of the theologically liberal churches and institutions but it is becoming more and more true of what might be described as the evangelical segment Christianity. 

Francis Schaefer told evangelicals to take their responsibility as citizens and to be involved in secular society. But what they largely did was to politicize and secularize the church. On the other hand, what would the evangelical landscape look like if this exhortation of our Lord were heeded? There would certainly be no shortage of funds in Christ's kingdom work. And there would be no wastage of funds either. And hundreds of religious organizations that have grown up to raise money to support an unnecessary individual in a religious non-profit would soon fall away. God's work everywhere would be staffed. Permanent foreign mission workers would be focused on their work rather than on the comfort and convenience of the missionaries. Missionaries would give themselves to the single life or as married couples to a life that gave up the privilege of children for the sake of the kingdom.
 

The mentality of the first century where Christian service was not a job but a sacred trust would be reestablished. In our church, those who were wholeheartedly seeking the kingdom would increasingly take over the whole operation of the church and persons who had gifts of management, counseling, teaching nurture would find their spot in the kingdom here and our little congregation would increasingly know an effectiveness and a blessing from God that was truly greater than it had ever known in the past. Strangers who came here would be met and confronted and ministered to. The effect of our congregation would be well known all around Athens and even beyond.