Order of Operations - Week 1

Everything has an order of operations. There are certain orders in which we do

things. And over the next this week, in the next two weeks,

we're gonna just kind of take a look at those orders of operations in our

lives. We're going to today talk about the order of operations in our spiritual

or our God connected life. Come on, somebody, Then we're gonna take

a look at the order of operations and our family connected life. And then

we're gonna take a look at the order of operations and our financial connected life.

They're all spiritual issues, and we need to get the order of operations

right in each one of them. If you got a Bible, go to

Matthew chapter six, Matthew chapter six, starting in verse thirty three. Matthew

six thirty three. If you're there, say amen, and not oh my,

all right, Ohm's read along on the greens. But seek first,

say first, but seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and

all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about

tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient, for the

day is its own trouble. Let's pray, Father, we thank you for

your word, and Lord, we We thank you for the opportunity to gather

to hear your word and to have it impardoned into our lives. And I

pray that today your word is buried at the very fabric of our soul,

the foundation of our being, that it would grow into a harvest that revolutionizes

our walk with You and our connectivity to humanity. Lord, I love you,

and I thank you in Jesus. Now, Amen, amen, and

amen, seek ye first the Kingdom of God. Now listen we how many

have you ever heard this passage of scripture before? Seek ye first, the

Kingdom of God. First things first in the order of operations. Seek ye

first, the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. And if you do those

things, all these things shall be added to you. Well, what are

those things? Let me read the passage of scripture right before. Let me

read the verse of scripture right before we get there. In verse starting in

verse thirty one of Matthew six, and says, therefore, do not worry.

Huh, I'm not asking. I'm not gonna ask for a show of

hands. Therefore, do not worry saying what shall we eat, or what

shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For all these things the

gentiles seek he had Americans figured out back then, come on, somebody,

for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. He says,

seek first the Kingdom of God. So let's talk about the Kingdom of God.

Let's let's talk about what that means, and and who seeks the Kingdom

of God and who is the Kingdom of God. See, there's there are

people seeking the Kingdom of God. Or let me say it this way,

there are people that should be seeking the Kingdom of God, some that are

seeking the Kingdom of God, and then there are people who are part of

or in the Kingdom of God. When we read scripture, there's a there's

two phrases that people use simultaneously that shouldn't be used simultaneously or interchangeably. A

lot of times you'll read something and it talk about the Kingdom of God,

the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God.

And when it's talking about the Kingdom of God, it's talking about the influence

in life of God through believers right here right now God, and say Amen,

like you believe that. So I'm gonna say it one more time.

The Kingdom of God is God working through believers to influence, shape, have

authority on the world right here, right now. The Kingdom of God is

now now. When you read Kingdom of Heaven, that is then, that's

when the Lord comes back and we move over there. But the Kingdom of

God is now, Kingdom of Heaven is then. And when we read those

things interchangeably, a lot of times we get really confused. Come on,

somebody, it's easy to read that and say, well, this says kingdom

of Heaven, and I don't feel I don't feel like that because we're not

there yet. The Kingdom of God is about dominion, it's about authority.

It's about taking those things which the enemy has tried to hold back from you

and steal from you. So when we talk about seeking the Kingdom of God,

we're talking about someone who's not in the Kingdom of God that needs to

be in the Kingdom of God. In John chapter three, verse three,

it says Jesus answered and said to him most assuredly, I say to you,

unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.

Unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus

said to him, how can a man be born when he is old,

can he enter a second time in his mother's womb and be born? Jesus

answered most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water

and the spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That which of

born is flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit.

Do not marvel that I said to you. You must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it,

but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is

everyone who is born of the spirit. It's just mysterious. We can't really

explain it. You can't really see it. It just happens. And if

you have accepted Jesus as your savior, repentant of your sin, you have

been born into the Kingdom of God. You are a Kingdom citizen. Come

on, somebody, now, let me go ahead and tell you, because

this is order of operations. First things first, this is the parentheses.

This is the first thing you have to solve. Are you in the Kingdom

of God? Have you surrendered your life fully to Jesus? Hey, have

you made him the lord of your life? Repented of your sin? And

receive the forgiveness that can only come from Heaven. That is being born into

the Kingdom of God, translated out of darkness into light. You once we're

not a people, now you're the people of God, a holy priesthood.

We can go through all those scriptures, but the realization is, if you

don't have this one, nothing else we teach over the next few weeks is

going to matter because you don't have the first thing right. Listen, You're

never gonna have your finances right until you get this right. You're never gonna

have your marriage right until you get this right. You're never gonna have parenting

right until you get this right. Because there is a missing foundational principle,

the thing you have to solve first. There is only one way into the

Kingdom of God, and that is through Jesus Christ, the only Begotten Son.

That's it. That's it. Now, hold on to that principle because

we're gonna come back to it in just a minute. So let that y'all

clapped, So let that resonate in your heart. But it stick right there

in your heart. So he says, okay, seek he first the Kingdom

of God and his righteousness. So you're You can't be righteous until you're first

in the Kingdom of God. Righteousness is something that comes as a result of

a benefit of being in the Kingdom of God. I put both hands up.

That means extra loud. Yeah, one, two. I know it's

advanced learning today, all right, So he says, listen, seek you

first the Kingdom of God, get saved, get right, or get left.

Amen. Now you know we don't preach like that anymore, do we?

We need to righteousness? Righteousness Mark twelve, verse twenty eight. Then

one of the scribes came, having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that he

had that he had answered them well, and asked him, which is the

first commandment of all? What do I need to do to take the next

steps? Righteousness is about taking steps from the initial grace collision with Jesus.

We're made righteous, and what that means is we have a contractual opportunity to

live in all that God has for us. Let me say that again.

You have a contractual opportunity to live in everything that God has for you,

all of it. You know, I've heard me break it down this way,

So I'm gonna go quick. I have a contract, says I own

my house. I can live in the fourier if I want to, and

only the fourier. There's also some bedrooms. There's a living room, and

there's a basement, and there's a laund room. I don't go in there

very much, but there's a laundry room. Right. There's a back deck.

There's a backyard. I got some chickens out there, all kinds of

cool stuff, rabbits and quail and just it's like a man sanctuary. Come

on, somebody, it's just it's just awesome. But I don't I don't

have to go out there, but I can go out there. The contract

says I can't enjoy at all, but I don't have to. And sometimes

we think that because we get saved, Jesus makes everything happen for us.

But righteousness says, we have opportunity to have every principle of God. But

we walk into the fullness of that contract. We walk into those things that

He has given us access or the ability to have. Seeky first the Kingdom

of God and his righteousness. Then one of the scribes came, having heard

and reason together, proceeding that he had answered them, he asked, well,

which is the first commandment of all. And Jesus answered him and said,

the first of all, the first commandment is I want to make sure

it's right up there. Mhmm. You know, most of the time when

we quote the Great Commandment, we jump right into love the Lord your God

with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And that how

you hear it most of the time. Did you know that this is actually

a quote from the Old Testament. Jesus is actually quoting the Old Testament out

of Deuteronomy chapter six, and we're gonna get there in just a minute.

But he's actually quoting a portion of the law that was written thousands of years

prior. And he starts, because he understands how hard mankind struggles with hearing

and doing it, starts by saying, here, oh Israel, the Lord,

our God. The Lord is one. There's one of him. He's

triune, but but singular. The only place you can get God is in

that one place. There are not many, there are not others. There

is only one. But I want to hypothesize and propose to you today that

people in this room. I don't think I'm going out on a limb here,

because I've talked to some of you and hear. The things that you

wrestle with serve many. You may not call them God, but your actions

call them God. Remember when it said do not worry. Remember when we

when we use that phrase, do not worry. I made a joke and

said, uh huh. See, if God is the singular God, if

he's the focused God, if we really believe he's the one and of that,

Listen, somebody's gonna clip that off the Internet and say that I'm doing

the aussy and ether. That's not what I was doing. My hands just

happened to do that. I can just see it going viral right now.

That's not what that was. That's just I don't know what to do in

my hands, and they do things. There's only one God, and we

have to live our lives like he is the one true God. The reality

is that many of us, when we talk about god things, we talk

about natural, finite things in the place of God. When we talk about

provision, the first thing we think about is our job. Come on,

somebody. When we talk about acceptance, first thing we think about our family.

When we talk about loneliness or not being alone, the first thing we

think about our friends when we talk about healing, the first thing we think

about. Some doctors, we talk about security, the first thing we think

about. God's all those things. If he's not the answer, if he's

not the foremost thing, then we're still working on this righteousness part. Doesn't

mean you're not saved. It simply means that you haven't figured out the righteousness

part of it yet. And very few of us have. There are still

areas that Listen, he's still polishing off some splinters on me too. Come

on, somebody, I don't have it all together. So matter of fact,

that's the great thing about Cornerstone. We're just a church filled with broken

people who don't fit. I don't have it all figured out yet. So

matter of fact, if you're perfect, this is not the church for you,

amen, because we're still in progress. We're still working on figuring out

walking in the fullness of that covenant. And he says, listen here,

because the Lord, our God is one. He's not your he's not your

your bank account, he's not your boss, he's not your wife, he's

not your kids. He's not your husband. He's not this, he's not

that. And as a matter of fact, if you think he is those

things every time one of those things let you down, you usually get mad

at him. Your kid does something and you say, why would God do

this? You get fired and you think, oh my gosh, why does

it God love me? God hasn't moved, God has it changed. He

is one, and the situations in the circumstances are irrelevant in the total scheme

of our relationship with him, said the Lord, our God. It's one.

So you have to figure that one out before you can love the Lord

your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with

all of your mind, and with all of your strength. Let's let's jump

over and let's read it from where Jesus quoted it from over in Deuteronomy chapter

six, starting in verse four, says hero Israel starts the same way,

hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall

love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,

and with all your strength. And these words which I commanded you today shall

be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and

you shall talk, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your

house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and

when you rise up. That's all the time. You shall bind them as

a sign on your hand, and they shall be frontlets between your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and own your gates.

He says, I want you to. I want you to talk about me

all the time. Now, I want to. I want to do the

very best I can with this, but it does kind of get confusus.

So stay with me, say I'm with you. See, we read passages

like this, specifically like this, and we think what that means is somehow

it's our beauty to talk about Jesus all the time, that somehow it's our

responsibility to have these conversations with him. And when I go to the grocery

store, I have to talk about Jesus. When I'm sitting there with my

family, I have to talk about Jesus. When I mean, after all,

I mean, that's what we're supposed to do, right, We're supposed

to talk about Jesus, talk about the Lord. And I have to do

these things. And in order to do these things, have to carve this

special system out in my life so that I remember to do these things.

I have an alarm that goes off on my phone. That says, okay,

it's dinner time. Talk about Jesus on my way to work. Another

alarm goes about and saying, when I go to the time block and I

punch in, say out loud so everybody can hear me, thank you Lord

for my job. But I really hate it. We think that this is

somehow, this requirement, but that's not what he's saying. He's not saying

that you have to do these things. He's saying that these things should just

happen because you're in love with him. Let me, let let me,

let me ask somebody, Kathy my favorite college football team, how many of

you agree with her? Raise your hand. I bet your heads down.

You know I didn't sit down with Kathy and say, okay, Kathy,

need you to memorize this. Florida State's my favorite football team. I love

FSU. I just talk about it all the time. It's a well,

there you go. It's just a natural thing that just spills out of my

life. I love my family. I talk about my family all the time.

I just love them, so it just spills out off me. We

need to stop treating the One God like he is a job and a responsibility

and a requirement and get in a relationship with him. He says, Hey,

just include me in life and talk about me and let me be part

of your conversations. That's all I want you to do. It's not this

huge, overwhelming responsibility. As a matter of fact, it's an opportunity to

tell somebody about the person that you love but loves you more. It's a

matter of fact. If you're talking, if you're talking to somebody that is

still seeking the kingdom of God, that's not in the Kingdom of God yet,

they've never had anybody loved them enough to die for them and then come

back from the dead for them. You got something they don't have, and

you should talk about it because it's in you and it's part of you.

You go down the road, somebody pulls out in front of your almost in

a regular Oh Jesus, why because he's in there. I hope I don't

get in the car with you. Somebody pulls out around you scream, oh

bood die right what the islah? I mean? What? No? Because

those things shouldn't be in there. Our response to chrisis Jesus, because we've

incorporated him into every part of our life and we're saturated with him because we

love him and he's in our homes. Listen, he don't literally mean write

the names on your door post. He means that it's there, and everybody

knows that in that home they love me, you know. As a matter

of fact, we learn a lot of these religious principles from the customs of

Judaism. Let me let me read, let me let me read this.

This one part to you says you shall bind them as a sign to your

hand, and they shall be as frontless between your eyes. Those It's where

the principle of the flactories come from in the Jewish faith, where they literally

have a long leather band with a leather box and inside the leather box or

pieces of scripture and part of the law, and they wrap those things around

them and they bind them to their hand. And then they have one that

they bind right to their forehead, right between their eyes. And they have

turned something that is supposed to be lifestyle into something that is ceremonial and religious.

And it shouldn't be religious. It shouldn't be ceremonial. He should be

on the front of our mind and at the ends of our hands, doing

the work that he's called us to do every moment of every day because we

love him. And the reason we get the order of operations and everything else

wrong in our lives is because we haven't fallen deeply, deeply, deeply in

love with him. Alaska, the band could come and get ready. I'm

almost ready to put a bowl on it. I want to show a hand,

So I want you to be honest with me. How many of you

in your home you struggle with keeping a regimented sit down at the table with

your spouse and your children, or your grandkids, or just your spouse or

whoever is in your home. You have a hard time keeping a regimented planning

devotional time where you sit down and you do those things. Raise your hand.

Do you know why we told you you're supposed to do that? Because

it's not happening naturally. Let me break down church life for you just a

second. Do you know why we schedule greeters because friendliness doesn't happen naturally?

Do you know why we while we do ministries like food bank, because we

don't seek out the herd and the broken and meet those needs unless it is

a regimented thing that we do. The modern church. Listen, I want

you to hear me. The modern church is broken. And it's not broken

because anything is wrong with the church. It's broken because we've left our first

love because we don't treat him like he's the only one true God. This

is coming from a broken person. Listen, when my head hurts, the

first thing I do is take tyl at all. I can't remember the last

time I've gotten a migraine, and my first action was, Lord Jesus,

I feel like I'm dying right now, but I know you can heal me.

And I repent to you because the reality is that part of my life.

It was very deep down here that would be the first thing I did.

So my action say, tyling All is stronger than God for a headache.

Now, when I saying doctors are bad, I said, tyler All

is bad here, always real. Stop looking for the controversial parts of what

I say. Here what I say we have to get back to our first

love where we run into his arms and we find ourselves broken and incomplete and

insufficient in all of those things. Because He is our completeness, he is

our sufficiency, He is our all in awe and listen, it doesn't matter

what I teach you from now on. Doesn't matter what you hear. If

you don't get the parentheses right, the order of operations is always going to

be wrong. You're going to try to have a better marriage in your own

power. You're gonna try to be a better parent in your own power.

You're gonna try to work your finances out in your own knowledge, in your

own power. You're gonna try to get a raise under your own power.

And you're going to botch things up because broken breed's broken, but righteous breeds

righteous complete produces complete, Whole produces whole. So today every single one of

us could respond to this altar call, every one of us, because listen,

I know y'all. None of y'all got it all together. Send me

your emails and I'll point out the areas of dysfunction. The order of operations

starts with being part of the Kingdom of God. And if you're not here

today, I mean that was done. Let me gather myself for just a

moment. If you're not here today, it don't matter if you're here today.

If you're here today and you've never asked Jesus to be the lord of

your life, you've never repented of your sins. You're not in the Kingdom

of God. Don't matter how many times you come to church, you're not

in the Kingdom. It doesn't matter how good you are, how much money

you give, if you're not in the Kingdom of God. And listen to

the invitation for you has been offered. Happened two thousand years ago, where

an innocent man was called guilty. He shouldered the instrument of his death,

and he walked through those dusty, crowded streets of Jerusalem, with everybody screaming

and hitting him and spitting on him. He walked up the incline of this

hillcall cavalry. He stretched himself out on an old, rugged cross, and

he gave his life for you. And with his arm stretched wide on that

cross, he said, come all who are weary and heavy laden, whosoever

will may come, And it's an invitation to you. Don't leave without knowing

him this morning. If you have any doubt, I'm talking to you,

seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. If you're here and

you just don't have it all figured out yet, you want to be more

passionately in love with him than you've ever been, I'm talking to you.

Also, do everybody stand with me all over the building. Our altered team

will come and get ready. People are gonna come and surrender their lives to

Jesus in just a moment. They're gonna come and cry out, fall in

love with him, fresh and new all over again. This is your moment.

This is your time to put all of that behind you and running to

run into his arms on the count of three. If you don't, if

you've never asked him to forgive you of your sins, you never repented of

those sins, and ask him to be the lord of your life. If

you're hearing you say, hey, I want to be more in love with

Jesus than I've ever been before. I want to experience righteousness like I've never

experienced it before. On the count of three, I want you to step

out and make your way to the front, and don't wait. Move