This year we are learning to “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33
I have spent a lot of time trying to define what it means to seek first the Kingdom of God and the righteousness of Christ, on how we get Kingdom aligned. If you weren’t here Wednesday, I encourage you to listen to the message because it dealt, in part with what it meant to seek first the Kingdom of God. I think we know what it means to seek righteousness, or to seek to live right before God, but I’m not so sure we understand both the cost and the exhilaration of being Kingdom people. Today, I want to focus on the second half of Matthew 6:33. What are “all these things” that are to be added unto us?
Matthew 6 is a passage that covers a lot of territory. It talks about how we give in response to a need because it is the right thing to do, rather than giving to be seen and applauded. It is about how we serve to glorify God and not ourselves. It is a passage about prayer and how the focus of our prayers should be the will of God. Our prayers need to include confession of sin and Christ-like forgiveness for others. Again, the goal is not that we get what we want in prayer, but that God gets what He wants from our lives because His is the Kingdom, and the honor and the glory and power forever. The passage goes on to address the spiritual discipline of fasting and how that effort is to promote an intimacy between you and God. It’s not something other people need to even know about. He will give us what we need to sustain us as we fast in our pursuit of Him. The next section is about not living for treasures here on earth, but seeking to acquire treasures that can be stored up in Heaven, like winning people to Jesus. It talks about the allure of money can be a big fat trap. You know that “he who dies with the most toys still dies,” right? Just keepin’ it real.
The last section of Matthew 6 is where we find verse 33. There we read that we don’t have to live worried about the basic needs for life. I didn’t say we don’t need to be concerned about buying clothes and having shelter and food, but we aren’t to live worried about those things, IF we are seeking first the Kingdom of God. When we are in a right relationship with God, when our prayers are aligned with His will, when our goal is to be servants in His Kingdom, when our focus is on drawing closer and closer to Him, and when our desires are fixed on that which is eternal, and as we learn to live free from the love of money and material stuff, we will have what we need. We will have what we need because God will see to it. In other words, God is our Provider. One of God’s names in the Old Testament is Jehovah Jireh, which means, God, Our Provider.
God knows what we need to get through tough times. God knows what we need to endure the days of our lives. God knows what we need to keep us growing spiritually. God knows what our minds and bodies need. God knows what we need to experience and pursue in order to stay close to Him. He knows what we need when our hearts are burdened. He doesn’t withhold what we need. Look at Psalm 84:11, For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The Lord will give grace and glory; No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.
If there is something you have your heart set on, and you are seeking first the Kingdom of God, and you aren’t seeing it happen in your life, it is because God knows it ultimately isn’t good for you or it isn’t good for you right now. I stand on that because no GOOD THING will God withhold from the person who is walking with Him.
We have just begun singing a song about God’s provision, and it presents a great opportunity to talk about this Matthew 6:33 principle. Let’s revisit the lyrics:
There’s honey in the rock, water in the stoneManna on the ground, no matter where I goI don’t need to worry now that I knowEverything I need You’ve gotThere’s honey in the rock
I want you to know Pastor Mandy doesn’t just pick songs because they sound cool or because they have a good beat or because other churches are doing them. We are super selective about the content we expose you to in our worship services. The reason this song is being sung is because it is biblical. The truth of these lyrics doesn’t emerge from someone’s emotions, but it comes straight from the Word of God. Let me take you to the Word. Deuteronomy 32 describes how God provided for the Israelites during the time that He was leading them through the wilderness in order to take them to the Promised Land.
Deuteronomy 32:10-14 10In a desert land He found him, (the people of Israel) in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; He guarded him as the apple of his eye, 11 like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft. 12 The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him. 13 He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him with the fruit of the fields. He nourished him with honey from the rock, and with oil from the flinty crag, 14 with curds and milk from herd and flock and with fattened lambs and goats, with choice rams of Bashan and the finest kernels of wheat. You drank the foaming blood of the grape.
One more verse about honey from the rock…“But I would feed you with the finest wheat. I would satisfy you with wild honey from the rock.” -Psalm 81:16
These verses are a metaphor for the way God cares for us. Honey is sweet. Deuteronomy 32:13 called it nourishing. Psalm 81:16 says it is satisfying. I love the image of something sweet being nourishing. I know sweets bring satisfaction to my soul! There is nothing more satisfying than a big bowl of Private Selection Chocolate Extreme Moose Tracks ice cream! What the writers of these verses are testifying to is the real way God sustains and keeps and refreshes and helps and encourages His people even in the tough moments. Honey coming out of a rock would be a miracle, right? Here, is a picture of the miracle-working power of God. He can do that which is impossible. Honey doesn’t come from a rock, but if He decides to bring it forth, it will be done.
To really capture the full scope of what the writer of Deuteronomy means when he declares that God nourished them with honey from the rock, we need to back up a few verses. Look at Deuteronomy 32:3-4 3 I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! 4 HE is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he. WHO is the Rock? The Lord is the Rock! He is the faithful God who does no wrong. He is the One who won’t withhold any good thing from His children.
Y’all, it isn’t just that Christ ensures He will give us what we need. The reality is He gives us Himself, and He is all we need! He feeds us with honey from the rock, but He is the Rock. That means He gives us Himself to sustain us and help us through life. He is the sweet, nourishing and satisfying presence of God. He is the solid rock upon which we can build our eternal hope and our earthly existence. He is the wonder-working God who is still doing miracles among His people today!
Can I tell you something else? Honey doesn’t spoil. I read that there are three “foods” that never really expire. One is salt, one is honey, and the third is Worcestershire Sauce! Now you know. Don’t throw out that two-year-old bottle in the back of your fridge! It’s still good, just like your honey will last forever, just like the Word of the Lord lasts forever, just like Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever! There’s honey in the Rock, and it is the rock that will not crumble or fall. It won’t spoil or fade!
The next line of our new song says, “There’s water in the stone.” Again, think of the wilderness wanderings of God’s people. For 40 years, they were headed from Egypt to the Promised Land. They were no longer slaves, but they hadn’t made it to the Promise Land yet. Those in-between places in our lives are hard, aren’t they? We know when we have left something difficult behind, and we know when we are traveling to a good place, but those in-between moments can be a big time of the testing of our faith. God had rescued His people from a bad place and was taking them to a great place, but they were in an in-between place where they were going to have to fully rely on God to sustain them and get them to that Promised Land experience. God proved Himself faithful time and time again.
Just as the honey in the Rock represents how Christ was with them in that in-between time, the water from the rock also represents the way the Lord provided for them. Look at I Corinthians 10:1-4: For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.
Jesus was the rock from which the honey was said to come, and Jesus was the rock from which water flowed to His thirsty people. Yes, there was actually a moment when God provided water from a rock for the Israelites to drink. Here is the background for the story in Exodus 17. God had provided, daily provided, guided them literally with His presence as He portrayed Himself in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. He was always with them. They could physically see Him leading! What an incredible experience that would have been. The Lord had supernaturally delivered them from slavery in Egypt. He had supernaturally parted the Red Sea so that they could escape Pharoah’s army that was coming after them. He had supernaturally provided food for them to eat, but rather than be grateful, rather than have an attitude of thanksgiving, they crumbled and complained. One person I read said that complaining and grumbling is a sign of a lack of faith. I have to concur the same. It is difficult to understand how they could lack faith after all they had seen God do, but I suppose the same could be said of us today. Haven’t we seen many miracles? Haven’t we received answers to our prayers? Haven’t we been cared for in ways that reminded us God was blessing us? But often, at the first sign of a difficulty, we panic. We complain. We forget we can exercise in the God who won’t fail.
Well, the Israelites were led by God to camp at a place called Rephidim. There was no water at Rephidim. God knew there was no water at Rephidim. Now, let me just stop and make this point clear. If God led them to a place with no water, it was because God wanted them to experience a dry place. There was something He wanted to teach them, something He wanted them to experience. He didn’t take them to a dry place to cause them to be dehydrated and die. He took them to a place where they would need to fully rely on Him. He knew they needed water. Before He could reveal Himself, they started demanding water from Moses.
Listen, it is often in the dry place where God wants to bless you. It is often in the dry place where your faith grows deep roots. It is often in the dry place where you get to see who God is, what He can do, and how much He loves you. Israel was in a dry place, but God had led them there! God is up to something in the dry places!
The Israelites didn’t go to God in prayer, but instead they went to Moses to complain. Complaining changes nothing, but prayer will change everything, even when nothing changes. I don’t have time to unpack that or explain how that is possible. I just know it is true! Moses knew he didn’t have the answer for their physical thirst. He cried out to God, “What am I to do with these people?” At least Moses knew where to go when help was needed. God instructed Moses to go to the rock at Mount Horeb. Once there, he told him to strike the rock with his staff and that when he did, water would come out of the rock. Listen, God is never without resources. A rock becomes a life-giving resource when God commands it to obey Him.
When we are aligned with Jesus, everything we need to have our thirst quenched, everything we need to be refreshed, everything we need to be satisfied will come from our relationship with Jesus, our Rock and our Redeemer. He promises living water to those who come to Him with their thirst, John 7:37. In John 6:35 Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” The water from the rock reminds us that Jesus can quench our thirst and sustain us in the driest of places.
Maybe your marriage is a dry place. Jesus has the water you need. Maybe your workplace is a dry place. Jesus has the water you need. Maybe your health is creating a dry place for you. Jesus has the water you need. Maybe you are in a dry place due to loneliness. Jesus has the water you need. Maybe you feel like everyone else is succeeding and moving on with their dreams and plans and you are just watching your life pass you by. Jesus has the water you need. In the most unlikely and harshest of circumstances, He can cause life-giving water to flow.
Jesus can provide honey from a rock, water from a stone, manna on the ground. What is manna? Also during their wilderness wanderings, God provided quail for them to eat at dinner time. Quail literally began to fill their camp at dinner time, and a bread-like substance called manna would appear on the ground in the mornings. Manna actually means, “What is it?” It was something unusual, something they had never seen before. It was a heavenly bread. The Israelites were instructed to take enough manna for that day and to trust God to supply it again the next day. God was teaching them to depend on Him for their “daily bread.”
Jesus as Jesus was the Rock that the honey came out of, just as He was the Rock the water came out of, Jesus IS the bread that came down from Heaven. He equated Himself with the manna that was given to the Israelites in the wilderness in John 6. Look at this passage beginning with verse 28: 28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[c]”
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” 35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Just like the manna that was supernaturally provided for every Israelite, Jesus is the Living Bread who has been supernaturally provided for us. Born of a virgin, He lived a sinless life. He died a criminal’s death in our place on the cross. His death paid the price for our sins. He rose again, defeating death, hell, and the grave, and offers to deposit His life inside the life of anyone who will put their trust in Him.
The Israelites couldn’t just pick the manna up and display it in their homes and benefit from it. They couldn’t just pick the manna up and investigate it from every angle to see if they could logically explain exactly what it was or how it came to cover the ground. In order for the manna to accomplish the purpose for which God sent it, it had to be ingested. Church, the same is true with Jesus. We cannot be nourished and fed by Him just by believing He has come or by trying to pick Him apart and make sense of how God could come as a man or how a virgin could have a baby. At some point, you have to take the plunge and consume Him, to take Him in by faith, and as you do, that is when Who He is will become not only clear, but that is when you actually get nourished by Him.
“There’s manna on the ground no matter where I go” because Jesus promises to never leave me or forsake me, Hebrews 13:5. Everywhere I go, He goes, and my heart’s desire is to go where He leads. He knows where He is taking me. He knows what I need to eat and drink. He knows what I need to thrive where I am. He knows what it will take to sustain me in the wilderness. As I seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, ALL these things will be added unto me.
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