1st Make Things Right with Your Neighbor

Matthew 5:23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First bereconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Our first priority is to make certain that our fellowship is right with our brother before we endeavor to worship God. The Lord Jesus said if you come to church and you are about to give an offering, which is a part of worship, and you are convicted there is a breach in fellowship between you and some brother or sister in the family of God, that you ought not to make that offering until you first act on the relationship

Jesus said, “Leave it.” The church can’t take it, but you can’t take it either. It’s tainted money.

This says if someone has something against you or who so far as you know who is harboring ill feelings toward you, go try to correct it, then come worship.

2nd Seek God First, Then Everything Else

Matthew 6;33 But seek you first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

This is one of the great promises of the Bible. This verse is God’s cure for fear and it is God’s key for prosperity. Jesus does not want “a place” in our life, or “prominence” in our life. He demands first place. Many modern Americans put things first and God second. The sin of worry is just another way of saying that things are first.

When We Worry, We are Sinning

Worry Is Needless

Matthew 6: 25 Jesus said, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought, that literally means, harbor no anxiety for your life. We don’t have to worry. We have His absolute assurance that He will take care of us.

Worry Is Illogical

Matthew 6:26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?

Do you think there was a farmer who was listening to Him who would feed his chickens and let his children starve? It is logical to trust God.

Worry Is Useless

Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? Matthew 6:27

The best thing you can say about worry is that it does no good.

Worry Is Faithless

Wherefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Matthew 6:30.

Worry is just the opposite of faith. Worry says, “God, you’re lying. You say you will take care of me, but I don’t trust you, so I will worry about it.”

Worry Is Inexcusable

For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. Matthew 6:32

Jesus is saying that when we worry, we act like pagans. That’s the way an ungodly man lives. He is so concerned about things, he puts things first and God second.

3rd Examine Yourself First, Then Help Others

Matthew 7:5 Hypocrite! First remove the log from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye!

The Lord is not saying that we ought not try to help get a speck out of our brother’s eye. We ought to love and help one another. However, He is talking about the folly of being a hypocrite and judging someone else before we first of all examine ourselves for sin and deficits in our lives.

There is something about the hypocrite sinners. They can never see the sins in their own lives. All they
can do is see the sin in their brother’s life. The sin of the hypocrite blinds them. He was talking to the
Pharisees, and murder wasn’t their problem, pride was—the pride of not seeing their own sin.

The Inside Controls the Outside

Matthew 23:26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

When you just clean up the outside of your life, that’s reformation; but when you clean up the inside of your life, that’s regeneration. When we try to help people, we always seem to start on the outside. We think that if we can start with environment, food, clothes and education that we will change the person.
It simply cannot be done that way.

Do we really think that man’s problem is environmental? It was in the Garden of Eden, a perfect place, that man got into trouble in the first place.

Don’t try to be “good” without being born again. Don’t try to grow up before you get born. First, ask Jesus to change your inside, then the outside will follow.