Reflect The Purposes Of Christmas #1 - "To Preach Good News To The Poor" Series

I’ve had to do it, but it is not easy. Man, I can become a walking disaster area with power tools. Construction workers blow me away. They can look at a bunch of wood and stuff and know exactly what to do with it.

Some of you are able to think analytically and come up with solutions to problems.

Some of you can teach.

Whatever. Use what you can, whenever you can. If you are not sure of what that is, ask God to show it to you.

You can even go the Career Learning Center and they will help you find out what you’re good at.

So use the talents and abilities God has given you.

The next way, and in my opinion, the most important way to benefit from “the good news for the poor” is to…

 Seek His kingdom.

Look back at the passage under the first point in your outline.

Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of

God your primary concern.”

We all need to be reminded of this. It’s not a one-time deal, folks. We all need to be reminded that the kingdom of God is our first priority, even behind making a living.

So how do we do that? How do we seek His kingdom? I want to offer you four actions to take:

 Gain His righteousness.

If you are not a follower of Christ, this is your first step. Call on Christ to forgive your sins and make you a new person, with the guarantee of a home in heaven.

When you do this, God makes you righteous in His sight. This means that when He looks at you, He sees purity, not because of anything you’ve done, but because of what Jesus did for you on the cross, shedding His blood to pay for your sins.

You will still want to sin sometimes, but God sends His Holy Spirit into your life to help you love and obey Him, which leads me to the second action in seeking the kingdom of God,…

 Obey His Word.

You may have noticed that when I talk about Christians, I don’t call them Christians very often. I call them followers of Christ.

I do that very deliberately. Anyone can call himself a Christian, but not everyone can call himself a dedicated follower of Christ.

A dedicated follower of Christ, a disciple of Christ obeys what He said.

Jesus promises that obedience to Him is not a burden, because we will obey out of love rather than duty.

Obedience unlocks the door to the wonderful full life Jesus promises to those who love and obey Him.

Jesus said that He came to give life in all it’s fullness. It comes from loving obedience to Him.

Obey His Word. The third action in seeking the kingdom of God is to…

 Claim His promises.

God makes some wonderful promises in His Word, the Bible.

I’ve mentioned a couple this morning – that He would take care of us as we seek Him, and that He offers the hope of heaven to all who call on Him for it.

He has many other promises in the Bible that are available to those who believe them and act on them.

He promises to give us the right words to say when we are called to give an account for our faith.

He promises to provide a way out from temptation.