#S4-001: What Does Priorities in the Kingdom of God Look Like? [Podcast]

What are our main priorities in life. Is it God or money?

There’s no better verse on the subject of priorities than Matthew 6:33, Seek first the kingdom of God. Here are some quotes which echo the thought that priorities will help us to live spiritually successful lives.

Lewis Sperry Chafer, referring to a friend who was devoting most of his time and energy in pursuit of an insignificant matter, said, “He reminds me of a bulldog chasing a train: what’s he going to do with it if he catches it?” ¹ When Charles E. Hummell was going into the ministry, a businessman gave him an excellent piece of advice. “Be careful that the urgent doesn’t crowd out the important.” ² Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: Put second things first and we lose both first and second things. ³

Let’s take a look today, in this week’s Light on Life, at what God says our priorities should be when it comes to the Kingdom of God.

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You can view a basic transcript of this podcast at the bottom of this section.

Accept the Challenge

Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put into operation.
This week’s call is:

The top spot in your life should be, must be, ought to be the Kingdom of God. It must be number one among all other priorities. If you desire to put the Kingdom first, then you must constantly make choices between things which will try and compete for the top spot.

Join the Conversation

Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony. Testimony is vital to a believer’s life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11).
This week’s question is:

Question: How do you show the Lord that He is first in your life? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 40 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 35 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate it on Stitcher Radio and leave a review. If you have a suggestion for a Bible topic you would like to see taught, or if you have a question, please e-mail me at emery@emeryhorvath.com

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Podcast Notes

The Priorities of the Kingdom of God

Matthew 6:33 (NKJV) — 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Let’s start out by defining terms.
The Greek word ‘seek’ means to try to find something, to look for.
It means to try to obtain or to try to get.
Almost every believer in Jesus has heard this verse at one time or another.
Even though this verse is well known, context is everything in understanding scripture.
If you want to know the context for seeking first the kingdom, back up to verse twenty-four.

Matthew 6:24 (NKJV) 24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

So because you can’t serve two Masters, because you can’t serve God and money (that’s what Mammon is) seek first the Kingdom.
In other words, the Lord is saying, ‘Allow me to help you with your priorities.
If you are confronted with a choice between me and money, allow me to help you with that choice. Choose me, choose the Kingdom.’
That’s what God is saying.

Defining Terms: Serve

It always helps to know what words mean in their verse setting and in their cultural setting.
The word ‘serve’ here means to be a slave to, to be owned by another.
Jesus said, ‘No one’ that means it’s not possible, it can’t be done, ‘No one can be owned by two Masters.’
We can only be owned by or give our allegiance to more than one owner.
Then Jesus makes His case about this fact.
The reason why you can’t be owned or give your allegiance to more than one is that you can only supremely love one Master at a time.
You will either supremely love God or you will supremely love something else.
In these passages, the ‘something else’ is money.
By default, if you love one Master, you will automatically hate the other.
Either God is the Master who lays claim to us or money is.
Jesus furthers his case by saying not only can you only supremely love one, but you can only be loyal to one master at a time.

Defining Terms: Loyal

The word ‘loyal’ is a verb meaning devotion.
It means to give oneself entirely to a specific person, activity, or cause.
You can only be loyal to one Master at a time.
Any other Master you will despise; the word ‘despise’ meaning to look down on with contempt.
Husbands and wives listen up.
There’s a reason why God set-up one man – one woman as the marriage standard.
Adultery, fornication, illicit relationships are not the God standard.
They don’t work.
Love and loyalty can only be expressed to one partner.
Jesus said so.
So, you have love, hate and you have loyal and despise.

Defining Terms: Masters

The third word we should look at is the word ‘masters’.
A master is a person who has general authority over others (slaves or subjects); often as an owner as well as an authority figure.
When a master speaks, the slave or the subject responds because the master has the authority.
Jesus then identifies for us who these two masters are whom He refers to, God and money.
Jesus said, ‘You cannot do this.’
You cannot love or be loyally devoted to God and have the same loyal devotion for money.
It can’t be done.
If it can’t be done, you have to quit trying to do it.
You cannot be loyal, you cannot be devoted, you cannot give yourself entirely to two masters who have authority over you.
It’s either God you are loyal to or money you are loyal to.
The sense you should get from all of this is like unto a man who looks into the sun.
Have you ever looked directly at the sun?
When you quit looking at the sun when you pulled your eyes away from it, what did you see?
Things are blurry and out of focus and darkish gray and you see spots everywhere.
The sun you were looking at was so bright, it makes looking at everything else just weird.
That’s the way loving God is.
You can love Him so much that when you look away from toward someone else that it just seems weird and out of sorts.
The thought of someone trying to come between you and God is utterly abhorrently hateful to you.
Because you are so devoted and so in love with Jesus.

The Link Between Verse 24 and Verse 33

Then in verse twenty-five comes a most important word: the word, therefore.

Matthew 6:25–32 (NKJV) 25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry 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? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

The Spiritual Logic of Jesus

So, all of this from verse twenty-five to verse thirty-two is protection against allowing money to come between you and God.
Jesus is saying follow this spiritual logic.
Life is more than anything so don’t worry because when you worry about money, you are allowing money to come between you and God.
Look at the birds.
Look at the flowers.
They don’t worry.
Their connection to God is not severed by worrying.
God takes care of them.
And, He will take care of you.
Therefore…
- Because it is impossible to have loyal devotion to God and money
- Because God can and surely will take care of you
  - Seek first the kingdom.
In the very idea of priority, we have a safety net.
Seek first the Kingdom is a safety net against losing second things.
Remember the quote we started with.
If you put second things first, you risk losing both first and second.

The Will of God is that His Kingdom Is Number One Among All Priorities

What is the will of God?
Put the Kingdom of God first.
How do you put the Kingdom first?
You have to choose it.
And, do so constantly.
You have to choose it daily.
It must be number one among all other priorities.
You can be successful at life and still be a failure if you are successful at the wrong thing.
The right thing is the Kingdom.
Your personal success should be Kingdom success.
You must constantly access how your activities connect to the Kingdom, and further the Kingdom.
If you can’t find the connection, your priorities might be wrong.
You might want to reconsider the activity.
So, money can get in the way of you loving God supremely.
Is there anything else that can get in the way?

Priorities and the Parable of the Great Supper

Luke 14:15 (NKJV) — 15 Now when one of those who sat at the table with Him heard these things, he said to Him, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

Jesus responded to these words with a parable.
So, this parable is a Kingdom parable.

Luke 14:16–24 (NKJV) 16 Then He said to him, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, 17 and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ 18 But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ 20 Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ 23 Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’ ”

The Great Supper and the Great Excuses

Look at these examples in this parable.
You have many people invited to take part in a great supper.
All the people, with one accord, begin to make excuses.
There is no doubt Jesus is referring to the nation of Israel here.
Israel, as first invitees into the Kingdom, made excuses.
Jesus relates three excuses as examples for all the rest.
Look at the first one: ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’
This person buys ground before he sees it.
Would you do that?
Buying ground has to do with money.
This is an agricultural society.
Land is king.
This man in effect says, ‘I have to go and see about my money.’
So, this first man put money ahead of the Kingdom.
The second person does the same as the first.
He buys five yoke of oxen and he says I have to go and test them out.
Would you do that?
Would you buy something and then test it out?
The oxen were for plowing land.
Five yoke of oxen would plow an extremely large piece of property.
Most people had maybe one or two oxen.
This gentleman had five so this is a rich man making this excuse.
Again, the issue is money.
He has to go and see how his money is doing.
The third man said, ‘I cannot come to the feast because of the wife I just married.’
This man’s excuse was in a second area, the realm of family.
This man put family above the Kingdom.
In next week’s podcast, we are going to look at the Kingdom of God and family.
What should our priorities be when it comes to this area?

__________
References:

Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 291. ↩
—The Tyranny of the Urgent ↩
—Wayne Martindale, The Quotable Lewis, Charles R. Swindoll, The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart and 1501 Other Stories (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2016), 468. ↩

emeryhorvath.com

Equipping people to pursue God's glory

#S4-001: What Does Priorities in the Kingdom of God Look Like? [Podcast]

The Kingdom of God Series

by Emery Horvath

Listen to the Audio