Perfect Pursuit for Your Whole Life-Matthew 6:25-34
Perfect Pursuit (video). Perfect Persuit (powerpoint). Themes recently covered were anger, lust and marriage. Today it is worry and our life trajectory: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness (make your top priority God’s kingdom and his way of life), and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). Put the world first and you’ll lose both God and the world. Put God first, and you’ll get the world thrown in.
Life saver for thirty eight years. 38 years ago when I became a Christian in 1980 my mentor recommended Matthew 6:33 for my new life. I loved the verse immediately. The word “first” enabled me to set the priority and trajectory of my life. It simplified my life. I no longer felt confounded as to what to do “first.” For the last 38 years Matthew 6:33 was my go-too verse whenever I was in a pinch. When my pastor introduced me to Christy in 1981, I saw clearly that she was a godly Christian. Though I didn’t know her I decided to marry her as my resolution and expression to seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness. It was the best decision of my life, next to accepting Christ as my Lord and Savior. Though I surely failed too many times to count over the last 38 years, nonetheless my heart’s utmost desire is to always seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness. This has never failed me. This is entirely God’s grace to me.
Has it ever stuck you what a basically happy person Jesus was? Jesus had a strong lively sense of the sheer goodness of his Father, the Creator of the world, who has filled the world with beauty, wonder and mystery, and who wants his human creatures to trust him, love him and enjoy life. When Jesus told his followers not to worry about tomorrow (Mt 6:34), it is obvious that he led them by example. Jesus was never anxious about the future. No. He lived totally in the present, giving full attention to the present task, celebrating the goodness of God here and now. This is the recipe for happiness. And he wants his followers to do the same.
Trust God during life’s difficulties (untidy structure)
- Prohibition (Mt 6:25, 31, 34a): Do not worry
- Illustrations (Mt 6:26-30): Birds and flowers
- Reasons (Mt 6:32, 34b): Pagans, provision, wisdom
- Resolution (Mt 6:33): Seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness
Don’t worry, be happy (Worry is not a weakness; it is wickedness
- Think of his greatness
- He provides for even the birds and flowers
- Trust in his graciousness
- He knows what we need
- Thrust into his goodness
- You have only one thing to do
Anxiety is a barometer of one’s God. Those who worry about life worship Mammon, while those without anxiety worship the providing God. Such teachings fall hard on the emotions of those who are more prone to worry than those who are careless, while the same words of Jesus are easily absorbed by shirkers. Jesus’ words are misunderstood by both: some need to learn to trust while others need to be more concerned in a proper way.
Theists or deists? God is our Creator and Sustainer. The Christian faith affirms that all of life in the entire cosmos is from God and is sustained by God. God, then, is actively at work in all of life. But often we believe like theists and act like deists. We say we believe in God, trust God and are sustained by God. But in our actions we do everything for ourselves, trusting in ourselves and anxious about the providence of God, which unravels our theism.
What about the poor? The standard criticism of Jesus’ vision is well expressed by Ulrich Luz (Matthew 1-7, 341): “It is said that every ‘starving sparrow’ contradicts Jesus, not to mention every famine and every war; that the text gives the appearance of being extremely simpleminded; that it acts as if there were no economic problems, only ethical ones, and that it is a good symbol of the economic naivete that has characterized Christianity in the course of its history; that it is applicable only in the special situation of the unmarried Jesus living with friends in sunny Galilee; that it is also ethically problematic, since it speaks of work ‘in the most disdainful terms’ and appears to encourage laziness.”
Trust God for provisions. These charges fail to connect to the real world of Jesus and what he is teaching in his context. Jesus assumes a world in this teaching in which his followers–while they will not have a bounty–will have enough for sustenance. His teachings assume the ordinary provisions for life, and he instructs his followers about how to live in that kind of world. Jesus is seeing the world through the eyes of a 1st-century Galilean whose followers have access to provisions. He is talking to 1st-century Galilean disciples who have access to provisions in their Galilean context. Or Jesus is speaking to mission-sent disciples with access to provisions or to others who can provide for them. In these contexts Jesus urges them to trust God and not to focus on securing their provisions for their future. This is not a strategy for the starving. What Jesus is saying is not insensitive to many who pray for food and starve to death. He would say something else to that condition.
Pursue kingdom and righteousness. Jesus’ strategy for the disciple is to pursue two things: God’s kingdom and righteousness. When Jesus says “righteousness,” he is using a common term in the Jewish world: it describes God’s will, and those who are “righteous” are those who do that will. It means behavioral conformity to God’s will, now made known in Jesus. This is central to the Messianic ethic. Both “kingdom” and righteousness” are about God’s will: the first focused on the story of Israel’s hope coming to completion and realized in Jesus, and the second on that kingdom’s ethic. We connect these two terms as we pray for God’s kingdom and God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven in the Lord’s prayer (Mt 6:10).
Not legalism but gospel-drenched. For kingdom and righteousness the disciple of Jesus is to “seek” or “pursue.” The idea is to focus on, to want, to plot, and to act in a way that keeps one aimed at the goal (Phil 3:14). Thus whoever follows Jesus and looks back is not fit for the kingdom (Lk 9:57-62). This word of Jesus is NOT legalism ramped up to the highest level, but confrontation with the messianic King, who offers his citizens the way to live the gospel-drenched life of the kingdom. It’s not “you better” or “have to” but “want to with all my heart and life.”
VIM strategy. How do we “seek” the kingdom and righteousness? Dallas Willard is well-known for his “VIM” strategy in spiritual formation: Vision need to prompt in us Intention to accomplish that vision, and then we need the proper Means to get there. We need to seek, pursue and aim at behaving and living the way of life that marks out God’s people (and allow God to provide for food, drink, clothing and “all these things.”) The Means necessarily includes regular committed church community life and personal dedicated daily habits of prayer, Bible reading, meditation, contemplation, solitude and ourreach to family and friends.
What do you value most? Jesus is probing into the heart of his followers to ask them if they value life more than kingdom and righteousness. Jesus doesn’t call us to be care-less about provisions but to be care-free. Some find in this text an excuse to be lazy, or an opportunity to give away everything in a reckless or unwise manner. Jesus isn’t encouraging his disciples to be reckless, but he’s calling them to follow him and to see that following him by seeking first his kingdom and righteousness reshapes what we value most. Money matters. Provisions (food, drink, clothing) matter. But what is our central ache or yearing? Is it for God, for God’s kingdom, for God’s righteousness? Money and provisions do matter, but the kingdom matters even more.
What is the secret to a carefree existence that lives out what Jesus teaches here? To live under Jesus as our Lord means sacrifice. The summons not to be anxious is a summons both to trust and to entrust a life of solidarity with others, from our church to global needs, to the caring Father. Ron Sider writes in his book (Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, 102-5): “What 99% of North American need to hear 99% of the time is this: ‘Give to everyone who begs from you,’ and ‘sell your possessions.'”
