Now I want to introduce somebody very special to you tonight.
I don't want to offend any of the ladies that are here
but my wife is the most beautiful woman in the
entire world. Rebekah I'd like you to come here so everyone
can meet you. Would you say hi to my beautiful wife?
We have been married for almost eleven years now.
We have four beautiful children and then this other
child, no just joking. We have four wonderful children and you know
I'm an Evangelist. That means that I do a lot of travelling don't
I? I travel all over the world and I preach.
And I do what God has called me to do and the
truth is that what God has called me to do would
actually be impossible if God hadn't given me a wife
who shares my passion for Evangelism and ministry. I know many preacher's ministries have actually
been cut short because they married the wrong woman.
But I'm so thankful that the Lord gave me a wife
who I believe is the perfect fit for me. Now you might think that in order to find
such a wonderful woman, I had to search high and
low. But the truth is I wasn't even looking for
her when I met her.
I was actually in Bible school. I was there in obedience to the call of God.
My heart was set on serving the Lord. I was seeking God's Kingdom and as I was
moving towards the Kingdom, I stumbled across a treasure.
One day it happened, I fell in love, and I found a
wife. God gave me a wonderful wife, thank you sweetheart.
And I think. . . Amen. I think that this is often how discovering
God's will works.
As we follow him daily, seeking his Kingdom, he adds
to us blessing after blessing and every need that
we have, physical, emotional, even financial needs
are taken care of. Now I think a word of caution and clarification
is due at this point because there are many people
who have terribly misunderstood Jesus' promise. They view Him and they view His Kingdom as
a means to an end. They see it as a tool to get what they want
in life. They come to Jesus because they see Him as
a way to become healthy, wealthy, and wise. They believed a humanistic version of the
gospel that emphasizes just the last word of Matthew
6:33. All these things will be added to you.
They think it's all about them, they think it's all
about their happiness. They think it's about their success.
And although there are indeed wonderful fringe benefits to serving God.
If those benefits become our primary motivation then we have missed the point completely.
God isn't looking for spiritual gold diggers who use
His Kingdom to get rich, or popular or powerful. In fact on the contrary, God is looking for
people whos eyes are so focused on him that all the
things in the peripheral are not even in view. And it's to those consecrated ones to whom
he says don’t worry, I'll take care of everything
else you need.
My friend that's what Jesus was talking about when
He said seek first the Kingdom and all these things
will be added to you. So yes seeking God's Kingdom first will give
us fulfillment and purpose in life.
But having said that we don't seek God's Kingdom primarily for the sake of becoming fulfilled
or having a sense of accomplishment or as Maslow would
say becoming self-actualized.
It's true that as we see God's Kingdom all of our
material and financial needs will be met. But we don't seek God's Kingdom primarily
because of the financial blessings.
In fact let me take this one step further. It's obvious that seeking God's Kingdom results
even in eternal rewards. But those eternal rewards, even they are not
our primary motivation. We don't seek the Kingdom because we love
its benefits.
We seek the Kingdom because we love its King. And when our love for the King becomes our
paramount primary incentive, then and only then do we
have things in the right order.
The only way a person can be truly committed to
the Kingdom of God is to be consumed with a love
for Jesus Christ. If we're driven by some philosophy or ideology
or the desire to see a new order established or
even just by a desire to make the world a better place.
Then our ambition falls into the same category as
communism and Marxism and socialism and any other 'ism.
But seeking the Kingdom of God is in a category all by itself because it stems from a fountain
deeper than any motive in this world.
Divine, supernatural love for the King. This love is the foundation and the driving
force behind the Kingdom of God that will endure
long after every other Kingdom has crumbled to
dust.