Priority of the Kingdom

This world is a fog, and if you try to make it in this world, it's going to distort your perspective. Dr. Tony Evans says the only way to clear up our vision is to keep first things first. And the only way to make it today and not be all shook up about tomorrow is that the Kingdom has been put in place. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. For too many people, faith is the last resort when all other solutions fail. Today, Dr. Evans explains why the opposite should be true as he begins a series called The Kingdom Life.

Let's join him. Jesus says in Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 these words, But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. The word I want to focus on is the word first. God and His Kingdom demand to be first. Not to be one among many, but to be first. The problem in most of our lives is that God and His Kingdom are not first. He's there. He's in the vicinity.

I got a lot to do, and He's one of the things I've got to do. But He's not first. Kingdom is rule. Righteousness is the standard God requires for people to be rightly related to Him. It's God's standard that He requires, because His Kingdom has standards, rules, and governing guidelines by which we are to operate under the King. That's righteousness, His standard.

In other words, if you are a Kingdom Christian and you want to know the right way to go, think, act, perceive, view something, react to something, relate to someone, that's righteousness. And He says, seek that first. Don't go to your girlfriend first unless you know your girlfriend is going to give you my view.

Don't go to your girlfriend first unless you know your girlfriend is going to give you my view. Because my Kingdom operates by my rightness, by my standard. But we have been duped. It's like the mischievous boys who went into the department store and they took all the tags off of the expensive clothes and put it on the cheap clothes, and took all the tags off of the cheap clothes and put it on the expensive clothes. So folks were paying a lot of money for junk and a little bit of money for the good stuff, because the tags had been switched. What the devil has done is switch tags on us. So we go to the world thinking it's got the best answers for us, only to discover that that's cheap clothing over there.

And we wonder why it's not wearing right and why it's shrinking and why I keep having to buy something new all the time, because the enemy has switched the tags. And he's made God's view look cheap. He's made God's view the answer, the Biblical worldview, the Kingdom view. He's made that look like, oh, that's just religious stuff. So we put that aside because he flipped the tags on us, not knowing if we would have gone to God's view first, the dynamic would have changed because we would have seen that which is most valuable in operation.

But he has peripheralized us to man's way of thinking, to the world's way of thinking, with a little Jesus sprinkled on top to make it look like it's okay. Have you ever had a colonoscopy? That ain't fun. Colonoscopies aren't fun. First of all, you got to drink this nasty stuff that makes you want to vomit.

You got to drink this. So that is not pleasant. And then you got to get rid of what you drank. And that ain't pleasant either. It is an uncomfortable process. But the process is necessary so the doctor can see clearly whether there's anything growing in the colon. So he sends you through this uncomfortable process, this nasty process, so he can see clearly, so he can fix if something is wrong. The process of switching from the world first to God being first can be an uncomfortable process, especially if you've been living in the world's framework for an extended period of time because you've gone so long between colonoscopies. There has been an accumulation of unrighteousness, and it can be accumulating to the point where it is uncomfortable.

But if you will let God do His work because you put Him first, He can address the things that are growing in our lives that need to be removed so that we can experience Kingdom reality. A lady one time was sitting with her husband at a filling station, a full service filling station. A man came up to clean the window. He told the man, come back.

You didn't do a good job. The guy cleaned it again. He said, man, I don't know why you can't clean this window. He came back and did it a third time. The wife reached over, pulled off his glasses, took a Kleenex and wiped it off. Now he had a clean window because he thought the problem was out there when the problem was right here in his face.

Dirty glasses. See, we think if they get right and he changes and they change and this gets better and we elect him and we do over there, then things are going to be clear, not if you're the problem. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. It must be first.

He must be the standard by which righteousness or what is right is determined. In baseball, if you miss first base, it doesn't matter whatever else you did. If you miss first, but you touch second, you touch third, you touch home plate, everybody congratulating you and they're cheering you, you out.

Because when you miss what's first, it doesn't matter that you got what was second and third and that you hit home plate. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God. Notice what he says in verse 22. The eye is the lamp of the body. So then if your eye is clear, 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 that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? No man 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 mammon, wealth, or secular treasures. He says the lamp, watch this, of the light is in the eye. In other words, your eyes give you the ability to do everything else. See, you can walk where you're walking because you can see where you're going.

You can know what you're grabbing because you can see yourself getting it. Your ability to do everything else is tied to your sight. Because the eyes are the lamp for the rest of you to be lit, for the rest of you to be illuminated. But if the light goes out, that is you lose your eyesight, then the rest of you loses the ability to function properly and normally because you can't see from the one thing you need that gives you the ability to do everything else.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Now you've got light. So that you know which way to go, which way to turn, which way to move, which way to act, which way to think, which way to walk, which way to talk, which way to relate. You know what to do because the light is shining. You lose that perspective, no wonder you're running into things, tripping over things, falling over things, because that which is light is now dark and you can't see.

You ever gotten soap in your eyes, both of them in the shower? You lose your balance, you lose your equilibrium. Because when the eyesight goes, everything else is in trouble. Perspective is lost. No, he says, I want you to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, His standard, because when you do, don't pull up to a pulling station and put diesel in your car. You ain't going nowhere. You aren't going anywhere, and the reason is your engine has not been made for that kind of fuel. If you're a Christian, your engine has not been made for this world's point of view. See, but we keep pumping the world into our image that's been recreated in Christ and wonder why we're bumping along. You're bumping along because you're putting fuel in a system that the system rejects. See, the system rejects that. The Spirit of God in you, if you are a believer, rejects the world's point of view when that point of view is different than God's point of view, and we wonder why we're sputtering. Because we're putting something in that the system won't accept, that God's kingdom won't cooperate with.

Only one thing, but it affects everything. Seek ye first. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment with more thoughts about the effects of seeking God first. One of the things that sets Christianity apart from all other faiths is that it didn't begin with us seeking God. It began with God seeking us. You can learn more about that miracle with the help of Tony's booklet called The Grace of God.

It talks about the new nature the Lord is building within us and explains how appreciating this unbelievable gift can help you finally break the failure cycle that keeps so many Christians trapped. Right now, for a limited time, we'll send it to you as a way of saying thanks when you help support our work here on the air and around the world by making a contribution to Tony's ministry. When you do, we'll send you the booklet along with CDs or digital downloads of all six full-length lessons in his current series, The Kingdom Life. Just visit us at tonyevans.org to get the details and make the arrangements before time runs out. Again, that's tonyevans.org, or call our 24-hour Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222. That's 1-800-800-3222.

I'll repeat that contact information for you after part two of today's message. Once again, here's Tony. Now notice verse 32. For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, for your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

He says they're always seeking for stuff. Look at what you have done to seek success. You've gone through at least 12 years of school and most, at least four more years of college. So you've spent 16 years, if you've gotten a bachelor's degree, seeking the ability to make yourself employable so you can earn money. You have prioritized education because you're seeking these things. You're seeking a job, a career, and gainful employment because that's important. You've got to earn a living, so you've got to qualify for whatever it is you do to earn that living.

But look at the energy. Some have now gone further. You've gone with a master's degree or a doctor's degree, or you've studied something online, or you've gone to another trade school, seeking to make yourself more employable, more beneficial, so you can earn more money. Okay? You've done that. Look at what you've done to do that. Now, you've done all of that to be a success in the world's eyes, to be a success for whatever it is that you do. And that's fine. That's fine to want to do what you do the best that you can do it. That's not the point.

The point is what's first. I've got time to make myself a successful career person. I don't have time to make myself a victorious Christian.

I've got time to make it so that the world likes me, want to employ me, and want to pay me. I don't have time to make it so God is proud of me. I have time to read my school book. I don't have time to read the Bible. I have time to talk to my friends. I don't have time to pray.

I have time to serve my career. I don't have time to serve the Kingdom of God, because that's just my first. He says, all these things the Gentiles seek, they go after it. But then he says in the end of verse 32, but your Heavenly Father knows you have needed these things. He doesn't say their Heavenly Father, because he's not talking about them. They're not Christians.

He says they go after it, but your daddy, your daddy, knows what you need. Now, don't misunderstand me. It's not wrong when you're doing something for the glory of God. You want to give it your best. What's wrong is when God is removed out of the equation of being first while you're doing it.

That's what's wrong. You're not to be like the Gentiles that pay me a little homage every now and then. Go to church on Eastern Christmas, or maybe they go every week and give me a living room experience. You're not to be like them because you don't belong to their kingdom. But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

And then he closes with verse 34. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Do you know that today is the tomorrow you were scared about yesterday? In other words, you never run out of tomorrows.

There's always a tomorrow. And the only way to make it today and not be all shook up about tomorrow is that the Kingdom has been put in place. The rule of God has been established. The authority of God has been positioned. And you are a Kingdom Christian, because the King is first. I would like to challenge you to change one thing and watch that one thing change everything else. The only successful victorious singles I know are singles who have put God first.

And it's changed how they operate singles. Couples, unless a man is willing to place himself under Kingdom authority, he will always be living in conflict. Because he's going to the miserable brothers who are just like him to get advice on how to be happy and how to make this woman submit or whatever it is.

Or she, because she won't submit to the King, is reacting to him and rebelling against him because she won't take her position under God. And so everybody's in conflict and nobody's saying like Joshua, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, because he not first. And he must be first as a single, as a man, as a woman, whatever the situation. He must be first. This is not a request.

This is a demand. But if he is first, guess what he says? And all these things will be added to you. In other words, your daddy got your back. Because he says your Heavenly Father, that means your daddy. Not God, your daddy. Your Heavenly Father has got your back. So you're fighting like the Gentiles to get ahead when your daddy said, if you make me first, I got your back. A lot of us never get to see what God, what it looks like when God has our back, because we out there tangling it up with the Gentiles. You know, it's a dog-eat-dog world, and that ain't no lie.

We tangling it up with the Gentiles, and we never know what it is to see daddy overrule them, because it's a kingdom that has a king. In closing, her name was Florence Chadwick. Florence Chadwick was a professional swimmer. She swam the English Channel. She decided to swim the approximately 26 miles from Catalina Island off the California coast to the shore of the California.

So she got in those chilly waters and began swimming for hours and hours and hours on a very foggy day. She came to a place where she had to give up. She couldn't go any further. She waved the boat over that was trailing her and said, I can't go any further.

I'm done. After she got out of the water into the boat, she was asked, why did you quit? She said, because I couldn't see. It was too much fog, and I got the scariest I couldn't see, only to discover when she got in the boat, she was less than one mile from the California shore. She was almost there. But she was defeated because she couldn't see.

She decided, Florence Chadwick did, to do it again some time later. She got in the water and swam all the way from Catalina Island all the way to the shores of California, nonstop. But when she did it, it was foggier than the first time.

So she was asked, it was foggier this time than the last time, the last time you quit, why didn't you quit this time when it was foggier and you could see less? She said, because from the time I got in the water, I put in my mind a mental picture of the California shoreline. So every stroke I took, I was seeing the shoreline that the fog wouldn't let me see. So I had a vision of the unseen in my mind. And because I had a vision of the unseen in my mind, I was seeing something real that I couldn't physically see, but I created this picture, and every stroke I took, I took with that photograph in mind of where I was going.

This world is a fog. And if you try to make it in this world, it's gonna distort your perspective. But if you can ever get in your mind to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you will find your ability to make it through the fog of this world order and reach the other side victoriously because you're no longer controlled by what you can see with these eyes. You're controlled by what you see with this eye based on the rule of God operating in your life. And you will see even in the fog of this world, you can still reach your destination as a Christian. That's what God has called us to, to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

And all these things will be added. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment to finish up our program with a word of prayer, so be sure to stay with us. Today's message was called The Priority of the Kingdom, and it's available from us if you'd like to review it on your own or share it with your church. It's also part of the series Tony began today, The Kingdom Life.

Here's what he told me about it recently. Well, Dave, it looks at the everyday life of the believer, ultimately focusing on the principles that will lead us in an abundant life full of purpose and power. The life of the believer can be tough.

Often we are surrounded by more of what the world thinks than what the Bible speaks. And this series is designed to clarify what blessings, impact, power, and calling God has in store for you. Remember, we're offering this entire six-lesson series on CD or digital download as our gift when you make a donation to help support The Ministry of the Alternative, along with a copy of the booklet I told you about earlier, The Grace of God.

It's our way of showing appreciation for the continued support of listeners just like you who make this program possible. Get all the details and make your request online at tonyevans.org. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or you can call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help you.

Again, 1-800-800-3222. People think of a blessing as a little extra something we get from God. But tomorrow Dr. Evans will explain why it's really intended to be more of a lifestyle than an event. Right now, though, he's back with a closing prayer. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the opportunity to serve you by serving those who are our friends, who are our listeners. And we know we live in a world today full of struggle, full of pain and pressure, particularly on families. With the divorce rate as it is, Father, with the abandonment rate, with the fatherless rate and all the other social pressures that families are facing, I pray that you will bring families together in a supernatural way to overrule the fraying that the world is trying to impose upon them. I pray for every man that he'll be a kingdom man and that he will lead his family righteously. I pray for every woman that she'll be a kingdom woman, that she will be a full partner in realizing what God wants for the home. I pray for the children that they will follow their parents as they follow Christ and not abandon the faith in their upper teenage years as so many are tempted to do. Then I pray for the single person who is trusting you for a mate but who has to still live for you in this single state, that you will become their mate and their fulfillment until such time as you change their circumstance. So we pray for families that you will knit them together so that they can be strong and solid witnesses for you. In Jesus' name, amen. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.