Bible Study 8/1

Who’s Kingdom Are You Living For?

This is a question we need to ask ourselves as we read the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5:16 ESV

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Whose Kingdom am I living for?

Anger, Lust, Divorce, Oaths, Practicing Righteousness, Giving, Praying, Fasting

Whose Kingdom am I living for?

Matthew 6:19–24 ESV

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, 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 in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! “No one 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 money.

Matthew 6:19-

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, examples? Why would I do this? Whose Kingdom am I living for?

Why not?

Because moth and rust destroy, thieves steal. Meaning? My Kingdom will not last, these things will not last, all that we see here is temporary, fleeting.

But rather, lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, examples? Why would I do this? Whose Kingdom am I living for?

Why do this? Because these treasures are indestructible, safe, and forever

The eye is the lamp of the body??

Before we focus on the eye, lets talk about what a lamp does.

Illuminates, gives clarity, allows us to see, gives a small area of light and visibility and helps put things in proper perspective.

So, what does Jesus mean when He says if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light?

Living rightly in this world requires the proper perception of reality, understanding whose kingdom you are truly living for. Knowing our great and mighty God who is good, who loves His creation enough to come and die for it. Who cares about you individually and wants you to know Him and make Him known to others, to love Him and love others. Who understands the trappings of this world and how we get off course and live selfishly, we lose sight of what’s really important.

So what are the consequences if we live with the wrong perception of reality, if we are living for the wrong kingdom?

What is one example Jesus gives of this?

Money. He says an indicator of us living in the wrong kingdom, is our serving money.

What does He mean by “You cannot serve both God and money?

The word for serve is douleuo which means to be enslaved to. How many masters does a slave have? 1

Our love of money makes us a slave to it. Our money should be a servant to us, but rather we become a slave to it. It controls us, monopolizes our thoughts and our time, we have some but we want more, and more is never enough. We see others who have more and we become jealous and covet.

How can we live for the kingdom of God, selfless giving of our time and money, focusing our how to spread the kingdom and love other people, if our thoughts are dominated on how to get more money, more things??

Money is one example, but Jesus gives us an indicator that we are not trusting God, that we are living in the wrong kingdom, what is it?

Anxiousness

Matthew 6:25–34 ESV

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:

So what’s the remedy?

Trust-trust in a God who created a world in order where there’s food provided for the birds, they have to work to get it, but the world operates in such a way that this food is provided for them.

Cuba, mango’s, avocado’s, guava, banana’s etc.

What’s different between the world to which Jesus is speaking and the world in which we now live, especially in the US? What’s similar?

Do I really worry about clothes? Or food?

But do I worry about my health? My life span? Does it cause me to live in fear or obsess over what I eat and/ or exercise?

I may not worry about having clothes, but do I worry that my clothes are “cool” or new or that people will like them? Do I care more about my personal appearance and what people think of me than what I can do for them so that they properly know Jesus?

Even in this category can be our careers. Remember, frustrated and anxious in the pursuit of it, fearful and anxious in the fear of losing it, and devastated when we lose it.

Who are Gentiles?

So what’s the remedy?

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

What does it mean to seek? What does He mean by the kingdom of God and His righteousness? What are “all these things”? What does He mean by “added to you”?

Seek—to look intently for or after

The Kingdom of God and His righteousness—living with God as King, living according to His teachings and design, determining to live right with Him and with others

All these things will be added to you—this is in reference to the