To Meet Your Needs, Don

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To Meet Your Needs, Dont Seek Them First

• PARADOX Series 3
• Matthew 625-34

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PARADOX JESUS COUNTER-INTUITIVE TEACHINGS

• Paradox is truth standing on its head
• and waving its legs to get our attention.
• G. K. Chesterton
• Paradox 1 To find your life, you must lose
  it.
• Paradox 2 The way up is down.
• Paradox 3 To meet your needs, dont seek them
  first.

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PARADOX JESUS COUNTER-INTUITIVE TEACHINGS

• Paradox is truth standing on its head
• and waving its legs to get our attention.
• G. K. Chesterton
• Paradox 1 To find your life, you must lose
  it.
• Paradox 2 The way up is down.
• Paradox 3 To meet your needs, dont seek them
  first.

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Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
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• Purity of heart is to will one thing.
• Søren Kierkegaard
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WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SEEK FIRST THINGS FIRST?

• 1) What seeking first things first does NOT
  mean
• But seek first the kingdom of God and his
  righteousness, and all these things will be added
  to you.  (v.33)
• To be lazy about my responsibility.
• To be preoccupied by religious things.
• To neglect my daily needs or self-care.
• To appease God to get second thingswhich is
  what I really want.
• To compartmentalize first things in the
  spiritual lifeas opposed to the
  normal/regular life.

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WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SEEK FIRST THINGS FIRST?

• 2) What seeking first things first means
• But seek first the kingdom of God and his
  righteousness, and all these things will be added
  to you.  (v.33)
• To seek Gods kingdom rule and Gods
  righteousness way in all areas of life.
• To make Gods rule and righteousness as the
  ultimate priority of life.
• To seek first Gods rule globally as well as
  personally.
• To will ONE THINGthe will of God.

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WHAT WORRY REVEALS ABOUT US

• Worry reveals your preoccupation. (v.25)
• Worry reveals your self-reliance. (vs.26-27)
• Worry reveals your distrust in God. (v.30)
• Worry reveals your worldliness. (v.32)
• Worry reveals your wrong priority. (v.33)

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A Radically Different Kind of Ambition

• Once again our Lord simplifies the issue for us
  by reducing the alternative possible life-goals
  to only two. He puts them over against each other
  in this section, urging his followers not to be
  preoccupied with their own security (food, drink,
  and clothing), for that is the obsession of the
  Gentiles who do not know him, but rather with
  God's rule and God's righteousness, and with
  their spread and triumph in the world.
• - John Stott

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HOW DO WE SEEK FIRST THINGS FIRST IN EVERYDAY
LIFE?

• 1) Discern what firs things are in your life.
• 1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the
  mercies of God, to present your bodies as a
  living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God,
  which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be
  conformed to this world, but be transformed
  by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you
  may discern what is the will of God, what is good
  and acceptable and perfect (Romans 121-2).
• Discern what God desires (wills) vs. what people
  desire.
• What God desires is often different from the
  conventional good desires of our loved ones.
• What God desires is ultimately best for us.
• Ask yourself What does God desire to see?in
  all areas of your life?

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First Things First

• When I have learned to love God better than my
  earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest
  better than I do now. In so far as I learn to
  love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and
  instead of God, I shall be moving towards the
  state in which I shall not love my earthly
  dearest at all. When first things are put first,
  second things are not suppressed but increased.
• C. S. Lewis

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HOW DO WE SEEK FIRST THINGS FIRST IN EVERYDAY
LIFE?

• 2) Seek God-centeredness in all things.
• "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your
  name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on
  earth as it is in heaven. (Matt 69-10)
• God-centeredness requires our surrender of the
  center.
• God-centeredness involves our holistic view of
  life with God (vs. a compartmental view of life
  for God).
• God-centeredness is to seek Gods glory, Gods
  honor, and Gods will in all of our everyday
  life.
• Ask yourself Do I seek G0d-centeredness in all
  areas of my lifesurrendering my center to God?

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HOW DO WE SEEK FIRST THINGS FIRST IN EVERYDAY
LIFE?

• 3) Trust that God will meet the needs of your
  second things.
• 9Or which one of you, if his son asks him for
  bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for
  a fish, will give him a serpent? 11If you
  then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts
  to your children, how much more will your Father
  who is in heaven give good things to those who
  ask him! (Matt 79-11)
• Trust in who God is to you ABBA!
• Trust in what God is like his grace, goodness
  and power.
• Trust in what God will do for you (much better
  than what you can do for yourself).
• Ask yourself Do I trust in Gods care and
  goodness for merefusing to be preoccupied by
  worry?

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THREE PRACTICAL QUESTIONSFOR OUR EVERYDAY LIFE

• How do I recognize any wrong preoccupations in my
  lifeto stop worrying about them?
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• 2. What must be changed in me to discern what
  first things are in my life?
• 3. What is my first step in seeking first things
  first this week?

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