Kingdom Crew

Matthew 6:19-7:12

 When Paula and I lived in Virginia, we occasionally saw the Georgetown crews rowing on the Potomac. The rhythm of the oars and their boats gliding through the water was a captivating site.

 Mick Spracklen, an international rowing coach whose teams have won several gold medals, says:

Three factors determine the speed of the boat. They are:

 1. Power - How fast the boat travels each stroke

 2. Length - How far the boat travels each stroke

 3. Rate - How many strokes are rowed.

  If a crew rowed at maximum capacity in all three of these components at the same time, it is doubtful they could row 10 strokes before technique withered and boat speed faded. The number of strokes required to complete 2000 meters is from 200 to 250 and clearly, an equilibrium of power, length and rate must be achieved. Rowing is basically a power endurance sport, but it requires a high level of skill. [1]

  Kingdom people strive to please God and love the people around them. Living a righteous life like that is also a power endurance sport. And like rowers we tend to whither and fade and pretty soon our boat is not gliding. It’s listing to one side and going nowhere but in a circle.

 Like any good coach Jesus gives us winning techniques. Think of a righteous, Christlike life as a boat gliding through the water. The skills that Jesus teaches in this section of the Sermon on the Mount are the ones that keep us afloat and moving in the right direction.

 Matthew 6:19-7:12. 

19 “Do not store up riches for yourselves here on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and robbers break in and steal. 20 Instead, store up riches for yourselves in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and robbers cannot break in and steal. 21 For your heart will always be where your riches are. 

22 “The eyes are like a lamp for the body. If your eyes are sound, your whole body will be full of light; 23 but if your eyes are no good, your body will be in darkness. So if the light in you is darkness, how terribly dark it will be! 

24 “You cannot be a slave of two masters; you will hate one and love the other; you will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. 

25 “This is why I tell you: do not be worried about the food and drink you need in order to stay alive, or about clothes for your body. After all, isn’t life worth more than food? And isn’t the body worth more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds: they do not plant seeds, gather a harvest and put it in barns; yet your Father in heaven takes care of them! Aren’t you worth much more than birds? 27 Can any of you live a bit longer by worrying about it? 

28 “And why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow: they do not work or make clothes for themselves. 29 But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers. 30 It is God who clothes the wild grass—grass that is here today and gone tomorrow, burned up in the oven. Won’t he be all the more sure to clothe you? What little faith you have! 31 “So do not start worrying: ‘Where will my food come from? or my drink? or my clothes?’ 32 (These are the things the pagans are always concerned about.) Your Father in heaven knows that you need all these things. 33 Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what he requires of you, and he will provide you with all these other things. 34 So do not worry about tomorrow; it will have enough worries of its own. There is no need to add to the troubles each day brings.

  7:1 “Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you, 2 for God will judge you in the same way you judge others, and he will apply to you the same rules you apply to others. 

3 Why, then, do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye? 4 How dare you say to your brother, ‘Please, let me take that speck out of your eye,’ when you have a log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. 

6 “Do not give what is holy to dogs—they will only turn and attack you. Do not throw your pearls in front of pigs—they will only trample them underfoot. 

7 “Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks will receive, and anyone who seeks will find, and the door will be opened to those who knock. 

9 Would any of you who are fathers give your son a stone when he asks for bread? 10 Or would you give him a snake when he asks for a fish? 11 As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! 12 “Do for others what you want them to do for you: this is the meaning of the Law of Moses and of the teachings of the prophets.

  We are a Kingdom crew. As we row through life, our coach reviews the techniques he wants us to perfect?

1. Jesus wants us to store up treasures in heaven. We do that through obedience and through the pursuit of holiness. He wants us to set our hearts on his kingdom not what we can get for ourselves here on earth. We need to think about implications of eternity not just the here and now. 

The Apostle John wrote; Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world (1John 2:1516). 

Storing up treasures on earth is a foolish as a member of a crew deciding to row to shore in the middle of a race. 

2. Jesus wants us to have good eyes.  In Little League, we used to yell, “Good eye1 Good eye!” to batters if they didn’t swing at a bad pitch. We have good eyes if don’t yield to temptation. Stare at headlights on high beam and your eyes will be full of light.  Fix your on Jesus who is the Light of the World and your whole life will be full of light. In all our years in Virginia, Paula and I never saw a crew team rowing in the dark.

3. There’s treasure in heaven and there’s treasure on earth. There are good eyes and bad. There’s light and there’s darkness. There are also two masters: God and money. And we have a option. We can be devoted to God and despise money and other false gods or we can serve money and do every thing in our power to get it. 

 The rowers in a crew would be ineffective without the coxswain who directs their efforts. Imagine the chaos if there were two. We do have two in our boat: God and money. They both know how to steer us. Both have directions for us to follow. Which one gets your attention the most often? Every day in every situation we need to decide which master we’re going to serve.

4. If we’re pursuing treasure in heaven; if we’re keeping our eyes on Jesus and if we’re serving God and not money, we’re ready to try the fourth skill: not worrying about our life. Worry rocks the boat. Worry detours us back to the darkness. Worry tempts us to serve money and other selfish solutions. 

 You’d think worry had moved mountains and found cures for mysterious illnesses and made millions. But worry never accomplishes anything. Worry is not worthy of the kingdom. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus bans it. We are valuable to God and therefore his kingdom should come first. We should trust God and he’ll take care of the rest.

 Jesus also advises us to pay more attention to our own faults than to the faults of others. If each person did that, it would cut down on hypocrisy and promote Christlikeness. It’s a much more efficient and a kinder way to grow the kingdom. What makes a crew team efficient is when the rowers maintain their own discipline and follow the leader. So even though it seems like we’re being so helpful when we try to assist in removing a plank from other people’s eyes. What we’ve really done is drop our oars in the water.

 Once again Jesus encourages prayer. It’s the last technique he mentions. Last not because it’s least but for emphasis. Prayer and smooth sailing go together. Jesus gives such a simple formula for success: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you (7).  A woman who finally discovered the truth of this verse wrote: Lord, I crawled across the bareness to you with my empty cup, uncertain in asking any small drop of refreshment. If only I had known you better. I'd have come running with a bucket.[2]

  In verse 12, Jesus sums up everything he’s been saying about kingdom techniques: So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

1. Storing up treasures in heaven

2. Eyes full of light

3. Serving God not money

4. Overcoming worry

5. Looking our for sin in our lives

6. Praying

 Everything he’s been talking about is a sub point of love. Nothing keeps our boat gliding through the water like love.

 At first glance these activities seem unrelated, but Jesus groups them together because they help us keep our equilibrium as Christians in his kingdom. There are a lot of forces tempting to throw us off balance: materialism, temptation, money, worry and giving sin free reign.

 Love helps us counter all these forces. And all the techniques like storing up treasures in heaven, serving God and not money, overcoming worry and sin and praying, they in turn help us love.

In a crew race, the movement every muscle counts or and so does the stillness. Winning is good news and we have a coach who knows how to win. We just need to listen and put his winning techniques into practice everyday.

Youth Message

McKingdom

 Do you like McDonalds? What do you like about it? Like the French Fries and Happy Meals. Like not having to wait very long. People do like McDonalds because it’s quick and convenient. But if you had to climb 10 flights of stair and in a room with no tables or chairs and no air conditioning or heat? What if you had to cook your own burgers? We wouldn’t like that so much would we.

 In God’s kingdom not everything is so easy. 

1. We have to look at money differently. It’s not the most important thing in the world. We have to control our desire to have more and more.

2. We have to look at possessions differently. Every time we watch TV or go to the store, we see things we want. We have to learn to say, “No!” to things and “Yes!” to God.

3. Instead of worrying about everything we need to learn to pray about everything.

4. And we need to recognize when we’ve done something wrong or if our thinking is bad, confess that to God and stop doing it.

In God’s kingdom, you have to do things that your friends may not be doing. You have to be willing to be different. And that part isn’t so bad because we are valuable to God and he has treasures waiting for us when we get to heaven. So make sure you have plenty of “Yeses!” on hand for Jesus. Just like Cambridge Honey Grahams.