Seek First

Introduction

Greet Everyone

everyone greet everyone/whole camp prayer

Talk about ground rules for camp:

I don’t waste your time, you don’t waste mine. I don’t want you to just come and LISTEN to the preaching. This camp is about RESPONDING to God, letting God do a work in you.

Let’s not “warm up” let’s just get straight into it. Typical camps get going last night but that’s way too late.

In a weird sense - we’re like this with life, we want to mess around first, play around because we believe that we’ve got all the time later.

And this is why we don’t see revival and resurgence in the church. Becaue nobody is willing to pay the price for it NOW, everyone’s waiting until later. Because nobody wants to get serious with God FIRST. Man honestly - nowadays nobody wants to seek full stop.

But I believe that at this camp God wants to call a generation BACK to Him, a generation that wants to seek, that wants to get SERIOUS that wants to get REAL with God. A generation that will ACTUALLY take up the mantle and do great things for Him.

Let’s pray.

Seek First

Matthew 6:33 “33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

This is a part of the Sermon on the Mount and comes in the context of a section that talks about worrying and about worldly needs.

And we take this phrase to be so simple “Seek First” without understanding the implications of it.

SEEK FIRST is not about the order in which we are to seek God, it’s not a timing thing. It is a matter of IMPORTANCE.

It’s not like Seek God first AND THEN you can seek whatever you want

No - it’s about SEEK GOD FIRST AND ONLY and trust Him to provide for what you need.

It’s not a competing goal amongst a list of other things that you’re trying to seek it comes ABOVE EVERYTHING.

And this is why I think that it’s scandalous about how we cry out for change in our lives and change in our city when this verse quite literally STARES us in the face.

Because nowadays we somehow read this passage as “Seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you” but we are leaving out what is perhaps the OPERATIVE, MOST IMPORTANT Word: FIRST.

We seek God but it’s tucked away amongst the many other things that we’re seeking. Happiness, Relationships, Work, Studies, Popularity, Money; not all of these are BAD things but the point is - we’re not SEEKING FIRST.

I have always maintained that seeing God move is never complex. We make it a complex affair when we don’t pay attention to the Word. Seek FIRST.

Seeing God move in our lives may not be EASY but it certainly is not complex, it’s so SIMPLE.

But you may ask: why is the word “FIRST” important - I mean as long as we’re seeking God somewhere isn’t that ok? Doesn’t that still produce Christians, which at the end of the day is the goal?

Let me show you why it’s important.

Seeking God and Seeking Self

Mark 7:6–9 “6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!”

In this passage the Pharisees are calling out the disciples for not honouring tradition - but Jesus calls the Pharisees out for something far worse: Replacing the commands of God with their own traditions.

The Pharisees allowed their own insights and preferences, their own rituals and routines to overshadow their RELATIONSHIP with God.

Bear in mind - this got so bad to the point that they didn’t even recognise or they REFUSED to recognise the Messiah even as He was standing in front of them.

This is what happens when we don’t seek FIRST the Kingdom - we pollute the Word of God, we corrupt our faith, we weaken our dependence on God with the things we are TRULY seeking, in this case greed and power.

Seeking God just becomes “another thing” it becomes “expendable” we slowly stop giving God the WEIGHT or the WORTH that He is worthy of.

this is called COMPROMISE. And it is a Faith KILLER

Our faith becomes a routine that we just have to get through, it becomes a well rehearsed performance that we put on during the weekends before we go back to our real lives during the week.

You know why? Because you CANT seek God wholeheartedly when you’re also trying to serve yourself at the same time.

And then we complain when we want God to move and He doesn’t, we accuse Him when He’s not doing a great work in our lives or in the city.

YD I need you to listen to me today when I say this next sentence: Jesus Christ is either Lord of all OR Not at all. What He can’t be is Lord of SOME.

ILLUSTRATION: Searching for something else

Like let’s just imagine for a second that [insert name] has a severe allergic reaction and is in desperate need for his epipen which he has lost on the campsite. And it’s desperate, they’re sick - they’re struggling, they need medical attention right now. And so we gather the entire campsite here and I announce to everyone “Guys [insert name] is very sick and needs to get home as soon as possible. We all need to scour the campsite…for his strawberry scented body wash.”

What do you think will happen? Are you expecting someone to turn up with his epipen? No! Somebody’s going to rock up with his strawberry scented body wash - why? Because NOBODY is looking for the epipen. We’re SEEKING the wrong thing from the get go - and you get what you search for. [insert name] is not going to get the healing that he’s looking for.

It sounds ridiculous but the same logic stands for what we seek for in life doesn’t it? We know that we are sinners, we know that we have a condition that ONLY God can fix, we’re struggling, we need God’s power to come into our lives right now. And what do we do? We go seeking happiness. We go seek pleasure. We seek money. We seek fame. And then when we DON’T see God move in our lives, and when we DON’T find the deliverance we need, or the freedom we want, when we DON’T see the miraculous happen, when the fire inevitably goes out - should we be even remotely surprised?

We’re SEEKING the wrong thing from the get go - and my friends, you get what you search for.

Releasing the World in exchange for the Word

Pay attention to Jesus’ main criticism of the pharisees in this passage from Mark. Jesus says: “these people honour me with their lips BUT their HEART is FAR.”

Jesus actually even acknowledges the attempt at worship “these people honour me with their lips” and yet He still levels the criticism that their heart is far.

In other words you CAN be saying all the right things and doing all the wrong things.

In other words you can say you’re seeking God while absorbed with seeking the things of this world.

The question that I want us to answer tonight: Is your heart far from God? Despite what your mouth may say.

Because we are so good at saying that we SEEK God - but beyond saying it, what are we actually doing to SEEK God?

Do you read the Word of the Lord regularly, committing it to memory? How is your prayer life? Do you make intentional time during your day or week to spend with the Lord? What of the great commission in your life? Do your friends know about your faith and how significant it is to you? How prevalent is sin and disobedience in your life and how often are we GENUINELY repenting of it?

Because you see when someone SEEKS FIRST the Kingdom of God, then some things HAS to CHANGE. It is really one thing to SAY that we’re SEEKING FIRST and a completely different thing to actually BE SEEKING FIRST.

It can be so easy to SAY that we SEEK FIRST, when in fact, just like the pharisees - it is lip service, while our hearts remain at a distance.

You know the term “Hypocrite” that Jesus calls the Pharisees? Do you know what the origin of the word was? It’s actually a term taken from Greek threater and was the word that they used to refer to actors. A hypocrite is an actor - someone who pretends to play a role.

This is a terrifying, scathing term to use against the Pharisees - but I think that it may very well apply to some of us here today as well. Is our faith is nothing more than an act? Is everything just a well rehearsed facade? Is church nothing more than the theatre where you perform on Friday and on Sundays but the rest of the week we go back to who we REALLY are?

YD - how can we expect the presence of God to fall in our midst, how can we expect to have families brought to Christ, how can we expect to take our schools, transform our city, how can we even expect our lives to be changed if ALL that we’ve got is an act? If all we’re doing is PERFORMING for Him? If Friday nights are the extent of our faith?

ILLUSTRATION: Kinetic + Amos 5

You know my story about back when i was leading Kinetic and we did these huge encounter nights, very much like we’re trying to do at this camp - 300-400 kids would come to these nights, there would be lights, songs, music, everything was fantastic. This was when Kinetic was the biggest youth group in the state, and things were just going so well for us, we were growing every week - it was incredible. At this encounter night, I remember I was scheduled up next to go and speak, and so I was waiting for the team to finish “From the inside out”, everyone was worshipping and I was praying for a word from the Lord. And He gave me Amos 5:21-24

“I can’t stand your religious meetings, I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I’m sick of your fund raising schemes, your public relations and image making. Ive had all I can take of your noisy ego music. When was the last time you sang to me?”

STOP ACTING. I went up and read that - and a silence fell on the place. The once party like atmosphere dropped to pin drop silence. One by one, kids got on their knees and turned back to God. One person started crying, then before I knew it everyone was on their knees, on their face turning back and repenting to God.

God isn’t after ACTORS - this is why the word says in John 4:24 “24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”” What do you think worshipping in TRUTH means in the context of seeking God? It means He’s not looking for ACTORS, He’s looking for people who are GENUINELY SEEKING FIRST. People who are DESPERATE to meet Him, people who are DESPERATE for an encounter, people who WANT their lives to be changed.

In the passage from Mark - What was at the root of the Pharisees’ distance from God? “you leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men”. In other words they chose to depart from the Word of God the instant they decided to pursue man made traditions.

There is such a simple lesson behind this and yet time and time again we fail to learn it: It is either the Word, or the World - you can’t seek after both.

In order to SEEK FIRST the Word - we must First Release the World.

Time to SEEK FIRST

I’m really worried that you’re listening to me tonight - and you’re thinking “Ok, what Jon’s saying is that I need to be a good person. I need to clean up my act, I need to be better. I need to act better.” That’s how I seek the Lord.

No - that’s actually not what I’m saying at all. Nobody’s perfect - nobody can be perfect, in fact we struggle to even be good. I’m not asking that of anyone here.

God doesn’t expect perfection from you - But He does expect wholehearted pursuit.

SEEK FIRST

You will fall along the way, you will sin, you will be imperfect because we’re sinners by nature - but if you’ve made a decision to SEEK HIM FIRST then when you do eventually stuff up - you will run, fly, walk, crawl your way back to the cross if you need to.

I’m asking you tonight - to re-make a commitment that you may have made a long time ago, and may have strayed from as life got busier and tougher. I’m asking you to relight a fire that may have gone out a while back. I’m asking you to rekindle a love that you may have lost sight of along the path.

I’m asking you, instead of just SEEKing, to SEEK FIRST.

Let’s not waste this camp - you’re here for a reason. Let’s start right now, right here.

Jeremiah 29:13 “13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”

ILLUSTRATION: Jim Denison

I know some of you have heard me tell this story before - but listen to it again from the angle of seeking FIRST.

There’s a pastor from America called Jim Denison who tells a story about when he was in college, he served as a summer missionary in East Malaysia. While there he attended a small church. At one of the church's worship services, a teenage girl came forward to announce her decision to follow Christ and be baptized.

During the service, Denison noticed some worn-out luggage leaning against the wall of the church building. He asked the pastor about it. The pastor pointed to the girl who had just been baptized and told Denison, "Her father said that if she was baptized as a Christian she could never go home again. So she brought her luggage."

Did you bring your luggage my friends? Are you ready to leave what you were seeking before in order to SEEK FIRST?

Altar Call

There are some people here tonight who may not know the Jesus that I’m talking about or why they should even Seek Him.

So let me tell you really quickly. Romans 3:23, Romans 5:8, Romans 6:23, Romans 10:9-10, Romans 10:13.

I’m opening this whole place as an altar tonight - the call is simple: Is there anyone here that wants to make the decision to SEEK FIRST?