Seek First the Kingdom of God

While delivering the Sermon on the Mount Jesus told His disciples not to worry about their needs of material things - food, drink and clothing. These are the things the Gentiles seek after. Jesus' disciples are to place God's Kingdom first and to live with faith that God will provide all their needs.

Jesus said, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you" (Matt. 6:33, NKJV, emphasis added).

In other words, God will supply all your needs including those things that Gentiles seek after. But, you must, above all else, seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Notice that there is a condition attached here - any Christian who fails to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteouness, God might not supply all his needs!

The first thing Jesus commanded us to do is to seek. To seek something requires effort. It involves diligent search and persistent work. We do not sit back and wait for God to drop it in our laps.

Every Christian knows that we are all saved by grace through faith and not by work (Eph. 2:8). But we start to work toward a goal in our Christian living after we are saved. This goal is two-fold - To seek the Kingdom of God and God's righteousness. These are the priorities of the Christian life.

Seeking the Kingdom of God

Christians need to understand that only believers have the desire and ability to seek the Kingdom of God. An unbeliever will never seek the true God, (please refer to my ealier posting "Who seeks God?" - 25th Feb. 2005) let alone His Kingdom. Being a descendant of Adam he is a fugitive from God since the Fall. The natural inclination of the un-regenerated man is to run from God and to hide from Him. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). The natural man seeks after the benefits (happiness, peace, freedom from guilt etc.) of God and not God Himself. The natural man's sin is just this - He wants the benefits of God without God Himself. He does not know that when he has God, he also has all the benefits of God.

Jonathan Edwards was right when he said, "Seeking after God is the main business of the Christian life". The seeking of God begins at conversion and it is a lifelong pursuit. If you are not in the enterprise of seeking God and His Kingdom then you are barren and not doing the right business for God!

Do you know the last question the disciples asked Jesus before His Ascension? Well, it was, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Jesus' last words with a command was, ".... you shall be witnesses to Me ...." (Acts 1:8). Common sense tells us that the last words of any dying person are the most important. More so in the case of our Lord!

We seek the Kingdom of God by bearing witness to the Kingdom. All Christians are commanded to seek to show the world what the Kingdom of God looks like. This means every Christian is called at least to do personal evangelism work if he is not called to the Mission field. If he does this he helps God to build His Kingdom on earth.

To seek God's Kingdom is to fulfill the last command (the most important) of Christ as well as the petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven". In other words, the Kingdom comes on earth where God's will is done on earth. Jesus links the coming of the Kingdom with doing the will of God.

Seeking the Righteousness of God

Why do Christians have to seek the righteousness of God? The Scripture clearly says that all believers have already received the righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus:

"God made him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21, NIV, emphasis added).

The righteousness of God is imputed to the believer when he accepts Christ as his Lord and savior by faith. Christ becomes our righteousness when we are born again (1 Cor. 1:30). In other words, God sees our righteousness through our faith in Jesus Christ. That means, no faith no righteousness! Our righteousness entirely depends on our faith in Jesus.

The righteousness of God that Christians are expected to seek is actually the fruit of righteousness. A fruit, like the fruit of the Spirit, takes time to grow. We take time to seek and to grow in righteousness in our Christian walk - a walk that is commonly called the process of sanctification (Please refer to my earlier posting, "Christians Do Sin" - 10th Oct 2005).

Seen in this light, righteousness is doing what is right in the sight of God. To be righteous is to do everything that God calls us to do. The demands of true righteousness are so great that no Christian is able to claim that he achieves it perfectly. It involves following the whole counsel of God.

Examples of Righteousness that we seek after

Here are just some examples that come to my mind. You'll probably know more.

1. Righteousness according to Jesus:

"And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise" (Luke 6:31).

This is what many Christians call the Golden Rule. Many Sunday school children have no problem in reciting it. But, rules are rules and to make it work in our daily living needs some self control or self discipline.

For example, no body likes petty criticism. No body enjoys the company of judgmental people. Our response to petty criticism is often to retaliate in kind, instead of in kindness. This is where the Golden Rule touches life. Here is where Jesus spoke of not returning evil for evil, but to "overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21).

2. Righteousness according to Micah

Micah the prophet said, "He (God) has shown you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8, emphasis added).

There are three things that God demands from His children - Justice, mercy (or kindness) and humility.

God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6 or 1 Peter 5:5). The "kindness" Micah spoke of comes from the Hebrew word for "loyal love". It is the kind of love (agape) God has for His children. It is the kind of love that last and endures in all circumstances. God loves us even when we fail. We need to show the same kind of love for our own children. My children need not earn my love. They can fail me, frustrate me, disappoint me or even anger me, but their failures do not disqualify them from my love.

Our attitude towards kindness and mercy is what makes it possible for us to keep moving on in spite of our sin. Notice that "kindness" is part of the fruit of the Spirit and it takes time to grow.

3. Righteousness according to James

"Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world" (James 1:27).

In James' days the orphan and the widow were almost helpless in society. But now we have government programs to aid orphans and widows financially. Nevertheless, they are lonely and helpless people and they need the outreach of Christian love. We also need to obey the Golden Rule and have compassion and reach out to the forgotten and downtrodden.

The Importance of Righteous Acts

1. Samuel said to all Israel, "Now therefore, stand still, that I may reason with you before the Lord concerning all the righteous acts of the Lord which He did to you and your fathers: ...." (1 Samuel 12:7, emphasis added).

God's people should love the Lord because He loved them first. Similarly God's people should do righteous acts because He did righteous acts to them first.

2. An angel spoke to John concerning the Bride of Christ and the Marriage of the Lamb:

"Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean an bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints" (Rev. 19:7, 8, emphasis added).

In other words, not all saints (Christians) are qualified to be the Bride of Christ. Only Christians who are clothed with "fine linen" which represents "righteous acts" are called to be the Bride of Christ!

The Righteousness of the Scribes and the Pharisees

Jesus said, "For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:20).

One of the conditions for entering the Kingdom of heaven is to have our righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.

At first glance it would appear that the weakest Christians should have no problem in surpassing Pharisees in righteousness because all Christians have the righteousness of Christ imputed to them. Surely the righteousness of Christ exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees!
But, we are talking about the fruit of righteousness. What Jesus meant was that the fruit of our righteousness must exeed the pretense of righteousness displayed by the scribes and Pharisees. On the surface the Pharisees achieved a high level of righteousness. But, their reighteousness was external; just an outward show. Their righteousness fools a lot of people, but tragically, it fooled the Pharisees themselves!

It is interesting to see how we Christians measure up with the righteousness of the Pharisees:

1. The Pharisees were Evangelistic

They would cross land and sea just to win one soul (matt. 23:15). They were evengelists. But Jesus marked them as evangelists of hell because they would make the convert just like themselves.

In general Christians are not like them. But we must heed Jesus' warning that even though we are in the evangelistic and missionary business, the mere fact that we are involved in such work is no guarantee that we have exceeded the righteousness of the Pharisees. We must have the right motive, and our burden for souls must be genuine.

2. The Pharisees were Tithers

We are told that the Pharisees would not fail to pay their tithes (Matt. 23:23). But Jesus rebuked them for their outward show of hypocrisy. They fell into the trap of majoring in minors. Their priorities were reversed. They exalted minor matters to a high level in order to obscure their failure to be faithful in more important matters.

Christians are not called to tithe in the New Testament Church (Please refer to my earlier posting, "Biblical Giving" - 2nd. March 2005). God's people in the Old Testament were under the Law of tithing; but Christians are under the grace of giving. We are expected to practice free-will offering and other forms of free-will giving - even exceeding tithing. Some Christians use tithing as a guide in their giving. This is OK provided they don't practice the Law of Tithing.

If we fail to give cheerfully but grudgingly (2 Cor. 9:7) and our giving must not just an outward show. If we are found hypocritical in our giving we fail to heed Jesus' advice, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy" (Luke 12:1). Then we are no more righteous than the Pharisees!

3. The Pharisees were Men of Prayer and Fasting

Jesus gave an account of the Pharisees' pattern of prayer in Luke 18:10 - 14. They enjoyed making a public display of their piety. They assumed a reverent posture and offered eloquent self-righteous prayer like:

"God, I thank You that I am not like other men - extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give thithes of all that I possess" (Luke 18:11, 12, emphasis added).

yes, the Pharisees were self-righteous. They heaped up vain repetitions, but they at least went through the motion of prayer and also fasted. Some of us have prayer lives that are so barren that we neglect even the motions of prayer. Some of us do pray and even attend the Church prayer meetings. But, some of our prayers are meerly to "arm-twist" or to manipulate God to grant us His favor. Haven't we forgotten to let God's will be done in any situation or circumstances? Is our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees in the area of prayer and fastings?

4. The Pharisees read the Bible

Jesus rebuked the Jews (Pharisees among them) by saying, "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life" (John 5:39).

The Pharisees were learned in theology. They could recite verses of the Old Testament Scriptures. But, they missed the life-changing power of the Word of God (John 5:38).

At least the Pharisees read the Bible and were diligent in searching the Scriptures. Many Christians seldom read the Bible let alone study the Bible. Even if we do read, some of us read it with a purpose - to prepare to preach a sermon or to share a thought or two in a cell-group meeting. How to be doers of His Word if we fail to hear the Word? Is our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees in the area of Bible study?

I think Christians need to beware not only of the leaven of the Pharisees, but also to beware of judging the Pharisees too harshly - if they fail to judge themselves first!