We're going to have arithmetic
lesson. We're going to study math this morning. We're going
to have arithmetic lesson. It's going to be spiritual arithmetic. Spiritual arithmetic. You know,
all of us know the basics. That's one of the first things
we learn. And I was even teaching Riley this morning how to count
to five. Been trying to teach her how to count to five, recognize
digits. But all of us know the basics
of mathematics. You know, you start with one,
then two, then three. You learn to count to ten, and
after that, it becomes pretty easy. Then you learn how to add. Add. One plus one makes two. Two plus two makes four. Then
after that, you learn your multiplication tables. You learn how to multiply,
2 plus 2 is 4, 4 plus 4 is 16, 16 times 16, on and on. So you go on and on, you learn
these things. Some of us do. Some of us just born smart, actually
never got over it. But we were taught these things,
you know, elementary things. And we're taught these things
to make life easier for ourselves, to know how to count. For us to keep from cheating
anyone when we make change or count money, you know, and we
go to bank, how to balance a checkbook. There's all these things. There's
so many reasons. And some have great, great abilities
with numbers than others do. Some have a greater interest
than others do. I just wanted enough to get by with. And other
folks, have a great, great ability in mathematics. I know some. Our great, our grandson, Aidan,
Doogie's son, he is just a whiz in mathematics. I mean, boy,
he is just taking accelerated classes in it. Very good in mathematics. But I want to talk about spiritual
arithmetic. Not one plus one, two plus two.
I want to talk about spiritual arithmetic. Start with the first,
number one. The first things first. And we
find the first things first there in verse 33. Matthew 6, 33. We're going to do the first things
first. Spiritual arithmetic. Start with
number one. Start with number one. Seek ye
first. There's number one. Seek ye first
the kingdom of God and His righteousness And you want food, you want clothing,
you want a place to live, you want to be dressed? Seek ye first the Kingdom of
God and His righteousness. You know, a philosopher once
said that if a man knew he's only going to live 30 years,
30 years, he'd be a wise man if he spent 20 of those years
in mapping out a plan of living. putting himself under some rules,
under some discipline. For he'd do more with those ten
years well arranged and focused on than with the whole thirty
years lived at random. You see, a man must have some
aims, he has to have some object in life. If you're not, it's
like shooting a gun without aiming. And you know, to have too many
aims, we call having too many irons in the fire. To have too
many aims, too many objects, is the same as not having no
aim at all. You live in your life half-passionate.
No structure, no aim, no goal, no purpose. That's why Paul says,
this one thing I do. I want one thing to do. Putting
everything behind me. One thing I want to do, one thing
I'm going to do. Putting all objects behind me.
Putting everything behind me, this one thing I do, I press
toward the mark for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. That's what I'm aiming at. That's
my goal. That's my purpose. And thank
God. And He says, if you don't understand
this, may the Lord make you understand it, is what the Apostle said.
And it's a blessed thing to know what we're living for. What are
we living for? What's our purpose to be here?
What are we living for? We can't just Randomly live our
lives with no aim, no goals, no objects in our lives. And
oh, beloved, it's a blessed thing to know that we're living for
a worthy object. And live that life with undivided
energy. Undivided energy. So that when
we're going to all come down to the end of our lives, and
maybe some of us will have an opportunity while we lay on our
deathbeds to look back over our lives. And not just leave here
like that, and we'll wonder, can we say we've lived to some
success? What's our lives amounted to?
What is it amounted to? How's our life affected ourselves,
our children, our homes, our husbands, our wives? What if our lives, have we lived
to any kind of success? Has my object been a right one? Have I lived for a right purpose,
for a right end? Has my life been wisely lived? You know, they say people go
through these midlife crises. That's what it's about. What
in the world am I doing here? What's my purpose? Do I want
to continue doing what I'm doing? What will I be like in five years,
six years, ten years, twelve years, twenty years? Where will
my life, what will it amount to? And that's what we're talking
about here. And if we will look at this spiritual
arithmetic as starting with first things first, and that's what
he says, seek ye first the kingdom of God. And look with me here
in this chapter here, let me just look at a few things. Anxiety
seeks ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. You
know, our anxiety is absolutely needless. He says, look at that.
You want to worry about, you know, He said in verse 25, He
says, you worry about what you're going to eat and what you're
going to drink or what you're going to put on your body? He said, look at
the birds. They don't sow. They don't reap.
They don't put anything in the barn. Yet your heavenly Father
feedeth them. Are you not much better than
any bird? And which of you think and thought? And I'll tell you,
it's useless. Which of you, by thinking and thought, can add
one cubit to his stature? It's useless to be anxious. You can't change anything about
your life right now. You cannot change your stature.
You cannot. God is so interested in our lives
that He even numbers the hairs on our head. And that's what
he says, if you wanted to change, change right now. Why can't you
change about yourself? It's your height, your weight,
your hair color, anything. Why can't you change about yourself?
Can you make yourself more wealthy? What can you do to change your
stature to the people sitting beside you, to the world, to
your husband, to your wife? What can you do to change your
stature, your standing before other people? What can you do?
And, oh, beloved, then it's heathenish. Look what our Lord said here
in verse 32. Why do you take thought for these
things? The priest said in verse 32, for all these things do the
Gentiles seek. That's what heathens are after.
That's all heathens care about. You know, and I'll tell you why
they do it. Because, first of all, they have no God. You know
why the heathens, that's all they're interested in? And that's
why America's such a heathen nation. All they're interested
in is what, what, what, what, what. What's mine? What's mine? What can I get?
It's a selfish, selfish nation we live in. Selfish people that
we know. It's only what is good for me. It's only what I can get out
of it. And they have no God. That's why they do that. They
have no providence to provide for them. They don't have the
grace of God to go before them or to preserve them. They try
to be their own providence and provide for themselves. And then
when they think they've done a good job, they brag about what
an accomplishment they've made when it all said and done that
they haven't accomplished anything. But they're going to come to
the end of their way, and God hasn't been first. God hasn't
been second. God hasn't been third. God hasn't
been at all. And I'll tell you what, it's
our nature, I know it's our nature to worry and have care and be
concerned for the future. But God help us to turn it to
our good and be careful about the kingdom of God first. Seek
it first. Get up in the morning and say,
Lord, this is your kingdom. This is your world. And I'm yours. And I need you today. I don't
want to worry about things today that I need to provide for until
I have to take care of you. Lord, listen, I'm going to get
up and I'm going to do what you called me to do today and I'm
going to leave the rest in your hands. I'm not going to lay awake
all night tonight worried about this, that, or the other. Oh,
listen. God has promised us. Look what
He says there in verse 32. For all these things that the
Gentiles seek. For your Heavenly Father knows,
He knows, that you have need of all these things. And God
has promised us what we need. And then surely not any of us,
not one soul here this morning, would want anything more than
what they need, would they? Do you want more of what you
need? Uh-oh. Everybody's looking very strange
this morning. Surely we don't want more of
what we need. And I'll tell you another reason
why I seek ye first the Kingdom of God. Everything we've got,
God give us, and we're just stewards of what He gives us to do. We're
just stewards of it. And you know what a steward is?
That's somebody that gives something into your hands to take care
of until he gets back. We're just stewards. And let
me show you. Let me look over to Luke 16 with
me just a moment. Luke chapter 16. Let's look at
this together. That's why Paul said it's counted
in a steward that he be found faithful. And I'm a steward. I'm a steward of the gospel.
I'm a steward of my home. I'm a steward of my body. I'm a steward over my wife, over
my children, my grandchildren. I'm a steward over you. God's
given these things into my hands to take care of, and they're
His. They're not mine, they're His. And He gives these gifts
to be stewards over these things. And He gives you jobs, He gives
you money, He gives you homes, He gives us cars, He gives us
all these things, and we call them ours, but yet they're just
gifts that God gives us, and it's how we deal with those gifts,
and how we handle them. And look here in Luke 16, verse
1. And he said also unto his disciples,
there was a certain rich man which had a steward, and the
same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. Not
the steward's goods, the rich man's goods. The steward didn't
have any goods. He didn't have anything. And
he called him and said unto him, How is it that I hear of this
of thee, given account of thy stewardship? For thou mayest
no longer be steward. And I'll tell you what, that's
what God's going to give us. If we had to give an account
of our stewardship right now, and Simon Peter says this, that
we're stewards of the manifold grace of God. All the many gifts
of the grace of God that He gives us, we're stewards of it. And
if we had to give an account this morning to God Himself of
all the gifts that He's given us, of all the things that he's
given us, would he say, you've wasted what I've given you? You've
wasted your life, you've wasted your time, you've wasted your
body, you've wasted your money, you've wasted the grace of God
that I've given to you by acting ugly and mean and cruel and envious
and jealous? Huh? And I'll show you over here in
Luke chapter 9. Turn back to chapter 9. Let me
show you this. And listen, I'm telling you something.
I'm not, you know, I'm not getting on you. I'm not, you know, this
is, these are things, seek ye first. We're just having this
arithmetic, we're having a mathematical lesson this morning. Spiritual
arithmetic lesson. Seek ye first. Look what it said
here in Luke 9.57. Talking about stewardship, this
is why seek ye first the kingdom of God, what God has given us.
And it came to pass that as they went in the way, a certain man
said unto him, Lord, I'm going to follow you wherever you go.
How many times have we all said that, Lord, whatever you will,
whatever your will is, that's what I'm going to do. Will you
lead me? I'll follow. Now watch this. And Jesus said
unto him, foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but I
don't have a place to go to bed tonight. I'm going to go out
here on the mountainside, and I'm going to pray all night,
because nobody said, would you go home with me this evening?
I've got a bed, and I'd like to fix you supper. And he said
unto another, follow me. But he said, Lord, now listen
to this, suffer me first, first, to go bury my father. He didn't
put the kingdom of God first. He put his dead family first.
Dead in their trespasses, dead in their sins, dead in their
unrighteousness, dead in their godliness. And that's what that's
about. And our Lord said, let the dead
bury the dead. Let the world take care of the world. But you
go and preach the kingdom of God. Then another said, Lord,
I'm going to follow you too. All you've got to do is just
show me the way. Go on. I'll be right behind you.
But let me first He didn't put the kingdom of God first. He
didn't put the righteousness of God first. Let them go tell
everybody in my house, I'm going to go work for Jesus. I got saved. I'm going to go serve with the
Lord. No, no. And Jesus says, no man had he
put his hand to the plow looking back spit for the kingdom of
God. Huh? That's some folks that didn't
put the kingdom of God first. They didn't know anything about
spiritual arithmetic. Do you know anything about spiritual
arithmetic? Seek ye it first? Look back over in Matthew 5.
Let me show you another. Talking about first things first,
dealing with just Matthew 5.24. He said in verse 23, Therefore, if you bring your
gift to the altar, you bring what you're going to bring to
the altar. You're going to bring your sacrifice to the altar. And when you get
there, you remember that thy brother hath ought against thee.
Leave thee thy gift before the altar. Don't offer it. And go
thy way first. Be reconciled to thy brother.
Then come and offer your gift. Do you know this is the same
thing our Lord Jesus Christ said? He says, when you stand praying,
forgive them that trespass against you, or your Heavenly Father
will forgive you your trespasses. And that's what He's saying,
you see, beloved. This is our prayer. Look over there in Matthew
6, in verse 10. This is our prayer. Be you reconciled. And I'll tell you, if any man
hath ought against any brother, God hath for Christ's sake forgiven
you. And oh my, this is something
that I find so hard, but yet we have this flesh, and we get
offended, and we get hurt, and we see somebody say or do something,
and it just stays like something fixed in our brain. And we've
got to, by God's grace, that's got to come out, that's got to
be dealt with. And that's what he says here in verse, let this
be our prayer, in verse 9. Our Father, after this manner
therefore pray, Our Father which art in heaven, how holy is your
name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread,
and listen to it now, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors. Boy, if you've got awe against
anybody right now, that's what he's saying, this is the first
thing you do. You just can't say, well, they really made me
mad, and they really upset me, and until they make it right,
I'm done. He didn't say, they make it right. If you're the
one that's got something, I don't care who you are, You take care
of it. Isn't that what our Lord said?
First, be reconciled. First. And now, for reconciliation,
there has to be some enmity. There has to be some friction. And I tell you, it don't hurt
anybody to say, I'm sorry. Has it ever hurt you to say,
I'm sorry? We do it with the Lord all the time. We say, Lord,
forgive me. Forgive me. So why couldn't you
do it to somebody else? It surely couldn't be because
we're too proud. It surely couldn't be because
we think that we deserve to be treated better. Oh my, what if God treated us? You know, the basis of our forgiveness
is because we ourselves have been forgiven. Paul told the
Galatians, he says, if you see a brother, overtaken in a thought. Ye, now listen to it, ye which
are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering
yourself, lest you also be tempted." What is love? What is love? Love is slow to suspect. slow to suspect. What is love? It's quick to trust. What is
love? It's slow to condemn. What is
love? It's quick to justify. Not yourself,
others. What is love? It's slow, slow
to expose something wrong with somebody. What is love? It's quick to shield. put a shield around people you
love. What is love? It's slow to demand. What is love? It's quick to give. What is love? It's slow, slow
to resent. What is love? Quick to forgive. What is love? Slow to belittle. What is love? Quick, quick to
appreciate. Oh, give me love. And all you're
getting, give me love. Let me show you another verse
here. Look in Matthew 7. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God. Don't say, Lord, let me first go bury my father. Let
me first go tell everybody goodbye. And if you have ought against
a brother, be first reconciled. Don't even come and offer a prayer
to God until you first be reconciled. And look here at Matthew 7, verse
1. Judge not that ye be not judged,
for with what judgment ye shall be judged, and with what measure
ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest
thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest
not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say
to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and
behold, the beam is thine own eye? Now listen, thou hypocrite. First, first, cast out the beam
out of your own eye. Then thou shalt see clearly to
cast the mote out of thy brother's eye. First, cast out your own. Your own. You know what a mote
is? That's just like if you did just
a little piece of dust in your eye. Just a little piece of dirt. You know, you just... But a mote,
A beam is something really big. And he's talking about a big
thing. In fact, it's got your eyes so
filled up, that beam, that you cannot see anything clearly.
And I particularly know people like this. I told somebody the
other day, I said, Take care of that beam before you start
looking at everybody else's mood. There's folks that ain't got
nothing but it, and I tell you, you get that beam and you just
go around and all you see. But you see what they said, you
see what they done, see what they did. I get that, that's not right.
You know? And most people can't see clearly
because they're too busy looking at others, looking at others.
But I want you to see this over in James chapter 1. And it's easy, I tell you, it's
easy to get in these, and I call them moves. We get in these moves. Y'all ever get in moves? You ever get in these gears? And everything's wrong with everybody
else. And you wonder why in the world
you know why you stay so frustrated, so aggravated, and so vexed.
Well, just stop. Get that beam out of your eye. Things will start to see clearly.
Well, look what it says here in James 1.21. Wherefore, lay
apart all filthiness and superflity of naughtiness, and receive with
meekness the ingrafted word which is able to save your souls. But
being doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your
own selves." Now here's what we're talking about, about the
beam and the moat. For if any be a hearer of the
word, and not a doer, he's like a fellow comes in here, and he
looks in the glass, and he comes in here and hears the gospel,
he comes in here and hears the truth. And he holds, and he's
not, he's natural, he ain't spiritual, he just sees his natural face.
And he walks back out of here, and he goes, and he bows, and
goes his way, and straightway, he forgets what manner of man
he is. Huh? Forgets it. Forgets it. But,
oh, listen, we don't want to forget. That's why the gospel's
here, to remind us of these things. Show us, first, seek the kingdom
of God. First, be reconciled. First,
cast out the pain. And then 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy, Chapter 5. Talking about
spiritual arithmetic here. And you know, it's as much for,
you know, you think, boy, the preacher's preaching at me. No,
I'm preaching to myself. And of course, I have to be preaching
to you. You're the only one here. But I read a little article Paul
Mahan put out yesterday. He said, you know, he said, it
really bothers me when the preacher calls my name. And he says, well,
the Lord Jesus calls His people by name. He said, Mary, Peter called him Saul, Saul of Tarsus.
And if you ever come to a service and you don't hear your name, you reckon that's right. If you heard your name, I hear
my name. Oh, I hear my name. I hear my
name. 1 Timothy chapter 5 and verse 4. Verse 3, look what it says. Honor
widows that are widows indeed. And a widow indeed is somebody
that has absolutely nobody, nobody to take care of them. But look
what it says next. But if any have, any widow have
children or nephews, let them learn, let them learn first,
first to show piety at home. And in the margin, that piety
means kindness. And to requit or take care and
meet the needs of their parents, for that is good and acceptable
before God. Now, you know, you've heard this
old saying, charity begins at home. Well, that's not what the
scripture said, but piety begins at home. Religion begins at the
house. Religion don't start here. Religion
is at the house, and if what you have at home ain't what you
have here, it ain't worth it. It ain't worth
it. It ain't worth it. As Scott would say, spitting
on the ground over. You know, religion is the place. Home is
the place to manifest and show true religion. The hypocrite
goes home and takes off his religious garb and puts on his other garb.
But a public profession ain't worth a nickel if you don't have
private devotion. If you're not what you are at
home, if you don't honor Christ at
home, what makes you think you're honoring Him? If you don't take
care of your mothers and your fathers and honor them and train
your children, what good is it? And let me tell you something
about training your children. And listen to me. I want you
to really listen to this. Because a lot of you got a lot of kids,
you're going to have more. You know whose responsibility it
is to train your children? Yours. And let me tell you, let
me give you a little illustration of how to train them. You know,
kids pick up on what we say. Riley, right now, everything
we say, she repeats it. She repeats it. Whatever we say,
she repeats it. And so when you're with your
children, whether you're in your car, whether you're at home,
if Christ is your conversation, and the husband treats the wife
right, and the scriptures your conversation, and you're honest
at home, and you let Christ be what you talk about, and the
scriptures be what you talk about, not people, but things, things
of spiritual matters around your children, And bring God's name
before Him as often as you can, Christ's name as often as you
can, verses of Scripture as often as you can. And that's just a
while your children will start remembering what you taught them.
And it'll stick with them and stay with them. That's how you
train up a child. It's what you teach. You know,
we send them off to school to train them how to learn so they
can learn something. But if they don't learn anything about God,
don't learn anything about Christ, don't learn anything about the
Bible, don't learn anything about grace and love and kindness and
how home runs and how men treat women and women treat their husbands,
that's learned at home. And ever, you know, do it in
your car, do it at the house. And I tell you, oh, if God would
let me go back, Just let me go back and get another shot at
this. But I can't. My trial's been
told in that respect. It's over, done with. I can't
do it. And Mary does an excellent job
with writing, teaching her about God, about Christ. It started
raining this morning. She said, God's there in His
glory. That rain's coming from God. God's in His glory. God's
in His glory, she said. And that's why we're piety. Let's
show first piety. Let's show it at home. A man's
wife and children ought to know. Ought to know. And I'll commend some of you.
I'll commend some of you. Some of you have done... It's
amazing how God has blessed you with your families, with your
children. And I give thanks for it. I bless God for it. All your
children, they seem to be interested in Christ and the gospel. They
pay attention when they're in the services. And I give thanks
for it. I give thanks for it. I give thanks for it. All right,
let's do one other one here. Let me show you another one here.
So let's show first Piety at Home. Look with me in Luke chapter
14. Our Lord said here in verse 25, Luke 14, 25. And there went great multitudes
with him, and he turned and said unto them, If any man come to
me, and hate not his father and his mother, and his wife and
his children, and his brothers and his sisters, yea, and his
own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth
not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple."
And then, look what he says, this is what it's going to take.
He says, now which of you, which of you intended to build a tower,
set it not down first, and count the cost, whether you have sufficient
to finish it? Every one of us has built something
in our life. We've built homes, we've built
cars, we've built lots of things. And every one of us sat down
and counted how much it would cost us and whether we could
afford it or not. Is that not right? That's what our Lord said
about it. If you're going to be my disciple,
count the cost. That's what he's talking about
here. He says the wise man, he's the
fellow that's laid his house on the rock. He hears these sayings
of mine and doeth them. And nothing he's saying here
says you shut down and count the cost. unless he's able to
finish it and everybody begins to mock him. And that's what
happens. If your profession ain't real, and you ain't counting
the cost, there will be no time for you. And this is what preachers
are so despicable for doing, promising Christ to be everything
to them, but what He is, the Savior and the Redeemer. Jesus
will make every, you know, he's an issue as possible. Christ
himself said, if you're going to be my disciple, you're going
to have to deny yourself first. Hate your own life first. And
count the cost. What is there about my life that's
worth anything outside of Christ? All I had was sin. I walked like
a pig in the mire. I was like a beast. I wouldn't even lift up my head. We was working yesterday evening,
and Gary come over, and I've got some real sewer problem.
He dug out, and all that old sewer coming out of there, and
oh, it smells, it's awful. And I was just waking and shoveling
and going over there, and we seen that, and I says, and Bill
and Gary was there, and there was all that stuff, and I says,
you know, that's, all this right here is what our righteousness
is, trying to stand up on our own. It's worse than this. And that's what it is. If we
come before Christ with anything of our own, it's like getting
down in that sewer and covering up with it and trying to approach
God with it. And you wouldn't even let me
into your presence with sewer all over me. Unless you had sewer
all over you and you didn't know any difference. And that's what
our Lord said. He says, you know, you're going
to have to turn on yourself. You're going to have to turn
on your righteousness. You're going to have to turn on your faith. You're
going to have to turn on your ability. You're going to have
to say, my life has absolutely got no value other than Christ. My righteousness is nothing.
My strength is nothing. My ability is nothing. My goodness
is nothing. I have no merit. And you sit
down and you count that cost. Do I want to be a dog? Do I want
to be nobody? Do I want to be a nothing? And
Christ to be everything? That's what he's saying here. You know, that's why that one
fellow, he come in, you know. The devils went out of him. He
went and got religion. His house was swept and it was
gardened. He'd dressed it up. Got him some
crosses, got him a Bible, got him some religious preachers
and joined the church and says, boy, I want everybody to know
that we're outstanding with Jesus. I'm a King James Version only
Bible-believing premillennial fundamentalist, and I want you
to know that. Well, after a while, them seven devils come back and
they said, boy, that fella's as empty as he was when we left.
Those seven devils just Went right back in. And you know what?
And took with him seven more. And you know what? His last day
was worse than his first. Worse than his first. And let
me tell you, beloved, Christianity, being a Christian, being a believer,
being a Christian, is the highest, most honorable profession on
the face of this earth. It's the most, you know, I want
to be a lawyer. I want to be a Christian. And
if God enables me to be a lawyer, that'd be all right. My highest
profession is a Christian. Well, I may be a judge, but my first profession is a
Christian. That's the highest, most honorable profession on
the face of this earth. Ain't that right? And I'll count
the cost. And you know what costs you first?
It'll cost you yourself. It'll cost you friendships. It'll
cost you friendships. And you won't have to break friendship
with anybody. After they find out what God's
done for you and they see, you know, folks will part company
with you. And I tell you, it'll affect
your families. It'll affect your families. He says, they that
are not the mother against the daughter and the mother-in-law
against the daughter-in-law and the father against the son. But you know what you get? You
get Christ. You get Christ. You lose a friend,
you've got Christ. Who wouldn't have been a starter? I've got Christ. What do I need besides Him? Right
now in this world, Right now, in the world to come, what do
I need besides Him? And I know this, beloved, things
follow the path of least resistance. You know, it's their nature to.
You watch a river, and it'll follow the path. That's why rivers
are so winding. They follow the path of least
resistance. And there's a big rock over here to go around that
rock. and take each side of the bank out. And if there's another
thing over here, they'll go right in there. That's what they do.
They take the path. And a tree coming up through the forest,
coming up through the woods, it'll take the path of least
resistance coming up trying to get to the sun. And that's the way we are by
nature. We'll take the path of least
resistance. Unless God, unless God does something
for us in our heart. Seek ye first the kingdom of
God and His righteousness. Let me tell you two things here.
You can't get in the kingdom of God without the new birth.
Is that not right? Except a man be born again, he
can't even see it. And that's something you can't
do. You can't give yourself the new birth. That's why Christ
and His righteousness is not perfect. That's why forgiveness is not
first. That's why counting the costs is not first. That's why
not taking the beam out of the eyes first. That's why it's not first, because
they haven't had this new birth. They haven't had that new heart.
They haven't had that new nature. God hasn't taken out that stony
heart and put in a heart of flesh. He hasn't given them a new spirit.
But if He gives you that new nature, gives you that new spirit,
there'd be no doubt in my mind that you won't seek the kingdom
of God first. You say, well, preacher, you know, I've got
my flesh. I do too. But no matter what
happens, if there's one thing we do, we all turn right back.
Ain't that right? We turn right back. And I'll
tell you something else about getting into this kingdom. Once
you get into it, there ain't but one righteousness, and that's
the righteousness of Christ, and that'll be the only one you'll
seek. You won't ever seek your own anymore. You'll seek His
and His alone. Ain't that right? Ain't that right? And oh, beloved,
if you've never done it, if you've never done it, if you've never
learned spiritual arithmetic, May God teach it to you today. May God enable you, by the grace
and power of the Lord Jesus Christ, submit to Christ. Take up your cross and follow
Him. Don't say, let me first. Say,
Lord, You're first. You're first. You're first. You're everything. I'll be last. That's why our Lord says, they
that are first should be last. And they that are last should
be first. Those that put themselves to be nothing. They'll be first.
When everybody wants to be first, they'll end up being last. God help you to trust Christ
in your heart. Submit to Him right now. And seek Him and His
righteousness. O gracious, gracious Father,
in the blessed name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, thank
you for allowing us to meet here this morning. Thank you for the
truth as it is in our Lord Jesus. Make these words effectual. Make
them powerful. Make them fruitful in my heart,
in my life. Help me not to just be a sounding
brass and a tinkling cymbal. I don't want to be that. And
I know these brethren here today, they don't want to be a sounding
brass or a tinkling cymbal. They want their lives to be real,
to be honest. They want to know God. They want
to know Christ. They seek Him. And I pray that
You would enable us all, by Your grace, to always, always Seek the kingdom of God and His
righteousness first. We ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen.