Putting God First

Do you think prices will go up or down in the future? I ran the video for the women’s bible study yesterday and they discussed prices, especially the price of eggs. I have heard a lot of people speculating on the price of gas and what if will be. The interest rate is up and housing costs more than it did when we bought our house, the same house is valued for more and the loan to buy it costs more in interest. The tummy bug just went around again. Kids these days. The government. How tariffs will effect us. There are a lot of things to worry and wonder about these days.

Are you a worrier. Do you think about these things and wonder about them? If so, how much time do you spend thinking about these things and how much energy is spent on them. I am not a worrier. I do think about and wonder about what I should do about some things but usually if I decide that I can’t do anything about it I just stop thinking about it pretty quick. I read something years ago that made a lot of sense to me and I have tried to stick with it.

You can do anything you want if you are willing to give up everything else. The idea is that you can accomplish almost anything if you want it bad enough and put enough effort into it. Now I know that if you were born a without arms or legs you probably cannot be a basketball star. But if you have most of your working parts you can still play ball.

If the one thing you want to do is play basketball there are literally millions of opportunities out there. There are pro teams and amateur teams. There are school teams and teams at the YMCA. There are basketball courts in church parking lots and in driveways all over America. If you just want to play basketball there are almost unlimited opportunities. If you were born without legs there are wheelchair teams and if you only have one arm you can learn to compensate. If all other avenues are closed down to you you can work hard and earn enough money to install your own basketball court and invite others to play at your place.

Of course if you start adding things to it then it makes it harder. If you want to play basketball well then you need to practice and keep in shape and eat right. If you are willing to give up soda and chocolate and only eat healthy foods, if you are willing to exercise and study the game to learn new skills if you are willing to give up everything else then you will probably be successful. Of course having a social life, or another hobby, or a romantic relationship may get in the way and for each of these things that you devote some of you time you will probably have to give up a little bit of performance on the basketball court.

This idea is very close to a biblical idea

Matthew 6:25–34 NASB95

“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Now this phrase “do not be worried” means to take no thought of or pay no attention to. Then there is a list of pretty important stuff. Stuff like food clothing and shelter. Take no thought of these things and pay no attention to them. If we are not to think about food, clothing and shelter then surely we are not to take notice of gas prices, the government or anything else.

The solution according to Jesus is

Matthew 6:33–34 NASB95

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

ζητεῖτε δὲ πρῶτον τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεο

Seek first the kingdom of God. In other words put all of these other things on the back burner and seek out the kingdom of God. The βασιλείαν τοῦ θεο, or kingdom of God is not a place where God is but the things that God rules over. the authority of God, the word of God. You seek out God and do what he says, put yourself in his hands, let him decide and let him figure it out. You don’t have to understand what the king says to obey him, you don’t have to analyze his words or his decisions, you don’t have to determine if you agree with him or not, you don’t have to have it all figured out, you just have to seek out God and his kingdom, his authority, his rule and do what he says. Then let him worry about all of the other stuff.

Now if this was a worldly king or a president that would be ludicrous. No earthly leader is worthy of that kind of trust, but God is. What this passage is saying is that God is in control, it is his job to run the kingdom not ours. It is our job to do what God says and it is his job to make sure that when we do what he says we are doing the right thing.

In a movie called City Slickers Billy Chrystal ran into an old cowboy who shared with him the secret of life. They were talking about women and the cowboy talked about a woman he saw in the distance once and how beautiful she was. He never talked to her and never met her but he called her the love of his life. Billy asked him why he never introduced himself to her. The cowboy said he was a cowboy and that kind of life was not for married men. Then he held up one finger and said the secret of life is this, one thing. You put all of your time and effort into one thing and everything else just doesn’t matter. (not an exact quote). Bill asked the cowboy what the one thing was the cowboy said that is what you have to figure out. Each person has to figure out what is most important to them and stick to it.

I think that is exactly what this passage means. Don’t get caught up worrying about a multitude of things. God designed you to love him and to obey him. It’s not your job to fix the world or to control everything, that is God’s job. Quit trying to do God’s job and do your job. Our job is to listen to God and do what he says. If he wants you to preach.......preach. If God wants you to teach.....teach. If God wants you to wax floors.........wax floors. If God wants you to treat sewage.........treat sewage. It is God’s job to make sure that when you are doing what you are supposed to do everything works out in the end. He promises us that it will in heaven. He does not promise that it always will on earth. A lot of things are messed up down here, God knows that and we know that. It is his job to fix it and it is our job to follow him and obey him.

When your life is focused on following God and obeying God you are like this wheel. God is in the center of your life and all of the other things that people worry about and wonder about are on the outsides of the wheel. As long as you keep focusing on God and keep him in the center of your life all of the other things that are not in the center of the wheel will keep turning. You may not know where it is going or how it is going to turn out but that is OK because it is not your job to steer, it is your job to keep god in the center of your life and keep on pedaling. You have to keep God in the center because he designed you that way and he designed the world to work when he is in the center of it. If he is not in the center it does not work as designed. You have to keep peddling because God is steering. You can sit on a bicycle and turn the handle bars all day long and nothing important will happen until the bike starts to move. Without movement steering does nothing. An observant person will also notice that there are no handle bars on this wheel, that is because you are not supposed to be steering, God is.

These two wheels represent two ways to live your life. When you put God in his proper place, the center of your life, the wheel turns smoothly and evenly just like it was designed to do. With God in the center your life works like it should, all of the pieces fit together and everything else can fall into place. All of the stuff that is not in the center turns with smoothly with the wheel according to God’s master plan.

Now if you are like the cowboy in City Slickers and put something in the center of your life other than God it will still work better than having nothing in the center. With nothing in the center your peddling doesn’t do anything, but, If you put all of your effort into one thing, like being a cowboy, then all of your peddling will work toward that goal. You may even make a lot of progress toward that goal because God designed a system where your peddling, your effort makes the system go. In the passage in Matthew this is the seeking. Seeking is not just looking around it is a concentrated effort to find and follow the God. It is more than just looking, it is the sum total of all the effort you put in throughout your life to find your way, or to shape your life. Jesus tells us to put that effort into seeking the kingdom of God.

The problem is that if you put the wrong thing in the center the wheel just doesn’t work like it was designed. You my friend, are in for a bumpy ride. When you put anything else in the spot God designed for himself, the center of your life, everything about your life is out of balance and nothing seems to work quite right. The wheel doesn’t turn right so it takes a lot more pedaling and effort to make the thing go. Some parts of your life are closer to the center, to all of your efforts and desires than they should be and some are farther away. God is steering you to where you need to be but your wheel is lopsided o you travel in jerks and starts.

Have you ever felt that you were trying and trying and never getting anywhere? Have you ever felt like you were trying your hardest but just not making any progress? Have you ever felt like you were just spinning your wheels? Maybe the problem is that you are pedaling as hard as you can but without God in the center of your life most of your effort is wasted. Your wheel is lopsided and its hard to make any progress. Did you figure out that the further from God your center is the worse your wheel turns, the harder it is to make progress.

Put God in the center of your life so that you only have to pedal a little bit to get a lot of results. Don’t waste your effort pedaling in the wrong place, working yourself to exhaustion and getting nowhere. It could well be that it is not the effort you are putting in but where you are putting in the effort that is the problem.

Matthew 6:33–34 NASB95

“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.