04.016. The First Great Thing

The First Great Thing Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness Matthew 6:33; comp. Php 3:13-14.

Taken together, these teach us one of the supreme lessons of God.

“But be seeking first the kingdom and its righteousness; And all these things shall be added unto you.”

“One thing, however! The things beyond forgetting, And the things before eagerly reaching out unto, With the goal in view,

I press on! For the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

I. The Command--These are strictly parallel passages. They teach essentially the same lesson. There is but one thing to be put first; all else is to be secondary and subordinate; and, in fact, so thoroughly secondary and subordinate as to be practically lost to view. The word “behind” means not only of the past, but what is voluntarily left behind as something unworthy of a disciple--what has been counted loss and dung for Christ. This saying of Christ teaches us what is to be habitually sought first. Be constantly seeking--a continuous present--the Kingdom and Righteousness of God. In other words, to be holy and to make holy. Righteousness for oneself, the spread of the Kingdom in the conquest of others. This may be the “high” or upward calling. The calling is holiness; the upward calling is usefulness in making others holy. The first marks a goal, the other a prize.

II. The Promise--“When the great bargain is concluded before God, between God and the soul of man, He throws in the good and needful things of this life as unworthy of mention in so great a transaction”--Dr. Mark Hopkins.

God’s principle of dealing is this: When we put first what belongs first, He adds the secondary to the primary, without our seeking the lesser good; but when we put first what belongs second, we forfeit the primary altogether, and we have not even the assurance of the secondary, for there is no promise ever given of secondary good except when kept in its normal relation to the primary, comp. 1 Kings 3:9-14.