Chase what Matters: Jesus Kingdom Priorities

Are you feeling stuck chasing things that don’t really satisfy? What if there’s a way to live with deeper purpose and eternal significance? In this encouraging message, Pastor Chris Teien unpacks the transformative truth of Luke 9:23-25, showing how denying yourself, boldly carrying your cross, and pursuing eternal rewards can lead to the peace, joy, and fulfillment that only Jesus can provide. Through relatable stories and practical insights, Pastor Chris invites you to step into the life God created you to live.

“Chase What Matters” Message Series 2 of 4

Outline

1. Step Up by Denying Yourself DAILY (Luke 9:23a)
   Pastor Chris explains how surrendering daily to Jesus enables us to live beyond self-centered goals and align with God’s greater purpose.
2. Step Up by Carrying Your Cross BOLDLY (Luke 9:23b)
   Living out our faith courageously, even when it costs us, is essential to advancing God’s kingdom in a world of opposition.
3. Step Up by Trading Loss for Eternal GAIN (Luke 9:24-25)
   True life is found when we let go of earthly pursuits and prioritize eternal rewards.

Personal Stories and Illustrations

• Dog Chasing a Frisbee: Pastor Chris shares a story about his dog’s relentless focus on chasing a frisbee, comparing it to how we often chase temporary things in life.
• Beanie Babies in Haiti: A mission trip turned a collection of beanie babies into a blessing for children in need, showing the value of using resources for kingdom purposes.
• Tim Tebow’s Bold Witness: A reference to Tim Tebow’s unwavering faith and commitment to Christ, encouraging us to boldly represent Jesus in our own lives.

Notable Quotes

1. "True life begins when we live beyond ourselves and step into Jesus’ kingdom priorities."
2. "When you seek God’s kingdom first, you’re not just adding Him to your life—you’re centering your life around His purpose."
3. "The things we chase in life might seem significant now, but only what we do for God’s kingdom will matter for eternity."
4. "God has given each of us unique skills, time, and resources—how are you using them to build His kingdom?"

Actionable Takeaways

1. Reflect on one area in your life where self-interest may be competing with God’s priorities and surrender it to Jesus.
2. Commit to taking a bold step this week to share your faith or serve others for God’s glory.
3. Pray daily for a kingdom-focused perspective and trust God to provide for your needs.
4. Memorize Luke 9:23-25 as a daily reminder to prioritize Jesus’ call to discipleship.

Scripture References

• Primary Passage: Luke 9:23-25
• Supporting Verses: Matthew 6:33, Colossians 3:1-2, Romans 14:17

Keywords

Christian priorities, kingdom of God, discipleship, surrender to Christ, spiritual growth, Luke 9:23-25, faith in action, following Jesus, living for eternity

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Pursue WELL Faith: Worship. Encourage. Learn. Love. Learn more at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.church 

Transcript

Chris T 0:00

Chase what matters most. You see a dog chasing the ball. I know a lot about that because I was blessed by a great frisbee chasing dog. So he's older now, and I don't have him chase the frisbee as much as he used to, because I'm afraid he's going to hurt himself because he'll just go crazy to catch that ball or that frisbee. He'll jump through the air. He'll like, I'm afraid he's going to throw his back out. When he's focused on getting that ball, it's just all or the frisbee, you know, it's just all he wants to do. He'll look at you, he'll look at he's just so intense on chasing that. And when I saw, I was looking for uh a picture for the series, Chase What Matters Most, and I had a hard time finding a picture. But in my experience, that's pretty good. And you and I, we spend our lives chasing after things. So maybe we've chased after um goals, dreams, careers, financial wealth, accomplishments, kids' accomplishments. I noticed one of my neighbors um had their car warming up on my way to church today with a hockey stick leaning up on the car. So I guess that kid's going to play hockey on Sunday morning. Collections. I don't know what you people collect. I saw a man that connected or collected heavy duty equipment, tobacco, bulldozer, all this stuff, and he used it for ministry purposes too, but it was a collection. I remember when people thought that they were going to build their retirement and their wealth, beanie babies. One of my friends' churches had a beanie baby collection. Said, hey, you know what? We don't think your beanie babies are as worth as much as you think. But there's probably some kids in Haiti that would love them. So why don't everybody just bring their beanie babies to church on their next missions trip to Haiti? We'll bless them with beanie babies. So they had a bunch of beanie babies that they got. Sometimes we pursue fitness, so we chase after fitness or good looks, or so I just wanted to say that when I got the electric hat, it warmed my head, and then it all my hair fell out. So I probably warned against that. No, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I never was blessed with an electric hat. So just weird genes from my grandpa. Genetics, not genetics. Sometimes we chase after youthful looks, sometimes we chase after significance. There's even people that collect Bibles and will pay a ton of money to get an old Bible they don't have already. But people chase after things. People chase after things, and they chase after things that just might not matter when they come to the end of their life. They might spend a long time trying to get what they think is significant and then just miss out. Every now and then you collect something and it's oh, that is so wonderful. Like a baseball card that's worth thousands of dollars. And so you cash it out, and then you do something to further God's kingdom. That is pretty cool. But my question today, I'll show you a little video clip too to start out. But the question that you can grab the lights too, Jerry. But because it's New Year's, it's time for basically we're still starting the new year, is how can I seek God's kingdom first? Watch this and I'll be right back.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

The year ahead will certainly be filled with all kinds of blessings and trials, challenges and opportunities. But this year, we are resolved to trust God no matter what the circumstance, and to follow Jesus wherever he leads us, to forgive those who've wronged us and to bless others with the words that we speak. Resolved to pray without ceasing, and to study God's word with diligence, to be the first to serve and the last to complain, to live at all times, to work unto the Lord and to be generous with all that we have. Resolved, to spirit the beauty all around us, to spread joy in our community, to walk in the spirit and not in the flesh, to live in faith and not in fear, to exemplify humility, integrity, and gratitude, to honor price with our time, to regret, entitlement, to make a difference with our lives and to give glory to God in all things. This year, we are resolved.

Chris T 4:21

So I don't know if you've made any resolutions for the new year. I didn't really make any resolutions that I haven't tried before. I do need to be more fit. And I did start another through the Bible reading plan this year instead of using the regular Bible any year plan where you read the Old Testament and the New Testament and some of Psalms and some of Proverbs every day. This one's just straight through chronological through the Bible. And I've started and I'm a couple days ahead right now. I like the Bible app or the U Version Bible plan, because if you fall behind at the end of the day, it will be like, hey, remember you wanted to read your Bible. Remember, are you gonna read your Bible today? Don't fall behind now. And so if you do fall behind, you can press the catch up button and then you're back on track again. And it is a good thing. But when I think about what's worth chasing after, I wanted to return to Matthew 6.33, a passage that I love, a verse that I love, seeking God first, seeking his kingdom and his righteousness, and he'll provide everything that we need, and trying to figure out what exactly that looks like, because we know that's what matters is God's kingdom. So, what is what does God's kingdom look like? How can I seek God's God's kingdom first? What does that look like? And so we're in Matthew chapter six again. But you probably don't remember anything that I preached on in the past, though I have a list, and so I was thinking this year about what do I have that I could build God's kingdom? What can I do that I already have that's better? And so I was listening to as I scanned the Christian radio stations and stuff. I've been listening, I've heard Jay Vernon McGee on the radio. Have you ever heard him on the radio before? He sounds like a cartoon character, but he's had a great radio ministry, and so I heard him recently on the radio. I'm not sure if it was the International Falls Radio Station or what station I heard him on, but I thought that was amazing because he died in 1988, but he's still got a daily radio ministry. And then the other day I heard D. James Kennedy, and I wish that I had a voice that boomed like his voice. Sometimes I walk around the house like this and tell my wife that if I continue to talk like this, that my voice will get stuck like this. My wife says, knock it off, that's weird. So I just should be happy to be me. And then I was going through different ministries on, I like Spotify and Spreaker and some of those iTunes and stuff like that. And I noticed that Greg Laurie and Chuck Swindell were putting out stuff every day. And so I can see Greg Laurie probably doing that, but Chuck Swindell, he's retired now, he's gotten old, but his earlier messages were just one day after another, and I looked into it and I'm like, huh, they have recycled their messages. Like, that's interesting. So we have put our messages online for quite a while, and so we get some people that listen, and so I maintained my own little audio podcast thing, and so the church had one, and I talked to Ken about it, and so came to the conclusion that it would be best to merge those two together, but I couldn't call it Rockwell because it's not just Rockwell, it's me from the past and me now, and then some of the other people that speak decided to call it the well faith, it's well faith.buzzfro podcast. And so I thought, I wonder how I could recycle messages because technology has changed now. So if you go, if you're I'm not sure if you have to be a premium user of YouTube, I am, but if it just shows up, but there's a transcript now, so of the sermons, it gives you an automatic transcript and it's automatically creating chapter headings and show notes and doing all this stuff. And I can take an audio and I can submit it, and it will give me all the text, and then I can just go through and cross out what I don't want, and it will automatically edit it and stick it back out there again. And so a majority of pastors' messages are pretty timeless. We've been talking about what the Bible says that's been around for like 2,000 years. There are some things that are time sensitive, but there's other things that are just for all time. And so I'm not going to come when you need it, have a message on suicide. I'm probably not going to have it, but I do have one and I've got a bunch of resources and stuff like that. So I thought, what if I started to recycle some of the old stuff, maybe make a blog post on my own ChrisTyan.com thing, have the audio connected into there, but still got the latest church stuff. But why would you listen to it if you were already a church? But if there's other stuff that's being recycled that's out there, I might be able to impact more people. And but it was so strange because I was thinking about it and I was praying about it, and I was trying to figure out how it worked. And this thing popped up on YouTube from this reach right ministry stuff. It's like pastor training and encouragement and how to use technology. And it said the exact same thing I was thinking. It said pastors don't, they don't have a lot of resources often, they don't have a ton of money or whatever. But the thing that they have, or the thing that often churches have, if you keep the same pastor for a long time, is a wealth of sermons. And if you can put those out there and make it easy for people to search, that when they're looking for a message on a certain topic, I mean, there's all sorts of things that they can listen to, but if they trust you and they want to hear what you had to say about it, they could stop by and listen. And the guys just put them all out there. You never know who's gonna jump onto what and which ones people will listen to. I'm doing that. And the reason that I wanted to do it is because I think it can help build the kingdom. And I'm not, I get a list of how many people are listening and stuff like that. And over the years, it's been like 10,000 over the years, but we've been doing this since three or something like that. But not all those messages are out there right now, and I don't think that they all will be. And I know that you would be the first to attest that some of my messages are way better than others. And if you ever find one that's just really bad, let me know so I can get rid of that one. But that's just something that I was trying to think about that I could do different to build God's kingdom because we want to fill these seats with local people, but we also want to reach people all across the world. We want to reach people anywhere at any time. So I'm not sure if it was church leaders or church answers or Tom Rainier or somebody sent out an email. It was really depressing. It said, in 2025, we think that 15,000 churches will close, and 15,000 churches will no longer be able to afford a full-time pastor. And so that's he said that's 30,000 churches that will basically go under this year, and it will take much longer to get replacement pastors and they have to go by vocational or whatever. And I noticed with my messages when I started putting the outlines out there and made it clear that I don't care who uses what, that more people are accessing them sometimes on Saturday nights. And if that's a way to build the ministry too, that is a good thing. But my question to you is what can you do to build the kingdom of God? What can you do with the resources that you have, the talents that you have, the skills that you have, the time that you have to help more people find Jesus, to help more people connect into the kingdom of God as we seek God's kingdom above all else? Because Matthew 6.33, Jesus says, Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So in Matthew 6, Jesus first talks about giving to the needy in verses 1 through 4. Then he talks about prayer in verses 5 through 15, then he talks about fasting in verses 16 to 18, and then he teaches about money in verses 19 to 24. And then in this passage, he's actually talking about don't worry, don't be anxious, don't be overly concerned, that when you seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, he will provide everything that you need. So what's interesting is you have to realize that when you come into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, you are bought and paid for by Jesus. He owns you and you want to serve him. And when I committed my life to ministry and to serving Jesus, I did not commit my life to a certain church. I didn't say, Oh, I, Jesus, thank you so much. I commit my life to this. I commit my life to going wherever God wants me to go and doing whatever he wants me to be. I was at the last place for 20 years. I didn't want to leave too soon, I didn't want to stay too long, and I'm committed no matter what. And I might be here for a really long time, or I might not be. I don't know. And I don't even know how you feel about that. Maybe you'd be like, oh, I'd be glad. But nonetheless, if you get that mindset that says, I am about building the kingdom of God locally, I want to see this church grow. I want to see these people grow. I want to see this grow, but I also want to see us impact people. And we pay missionaries out and about to do ministry. And that's cool, and we should, and that's wonderful. What can we do to impact the world from where we are? What skill, what resource, what is it that you have that you can use to build the kingdom of God? A lot of my pastor friends have different skills that I don't have. Some are really good at certain sports, one had a race car, one, a couple actually, were really good at coaching. I had a pastor friend in Grand Rapids that was a referee, and he told me that he was doing the basketball game and he made a call that was questionable. And he wasn't even really sure. He wondered about the call. And the parents were really upset. And so he said, So that was like Friday. Then I started preaching on Sunday, and I looked around and I saw that kid and his parents visiting our church, and they're like, that's the referee. And so he says, I don't know if refereeing helps ministry or not, but it does help me connect with the community. And so you only have so much time, you only have so many resources, you only have uh so many skills. But what is it that you can do to build the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God, Psalm 103 19, the Lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all. So his kingdom is universal. His kingdom is anything that God is doing in the universe to accomplish his purposes and will are part of the kingdom. The spiritual, the kingdom is of a spiritual nature. John 18, 36, Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world. If it were my servants, would fight to prevent my arrest. So God's kingdom isn't confined to earthly systems. I mentioned around Christmas time that I wonder how much is going around, going spiritual things go on around us that we can't see. It's not within our vision range or whatever, angels and demons and all that stuff. Some good movies have been made about that. So there's a present and future reality to the kingdom. Kingdom Luke 17, 21, the kingdom of God is in your midst, signifying that his reign begins with the hearts of those who submit to him. Revelation 11, 15, one day the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever. So in a Romans 14, 17 about kingdom values, it says, The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. So God's kingdom. And when we come to Christ, we are part of God's kingdom. A Bible commentary pointed out that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God is revealed in four different stages throughout history. One, there's the spiritual kingdom that is at hand. It's present right now. The present kingdom refers to God's rule and reign and authority in the lives of believers. The present kingdom is offered to the world and to men in the person of Jesus Christ. The present kingdom must be received as a little child. The present kingdom is experienced only by the new birth in Christ. The present kingdom is entered now and must be received now. The present kingdom is a spiritual life-changing blessing, and the present kingdom is to be the first thing sought by believers. That's what we're supposed to be seeking, and that's what we're supposed to be pursuing. And I know that we all know that, but it's easy to lose focus. It's easy to lose focus on what that important thing is that we are supposed to be prioritizing. And when we prioritize Christ in our life, that might make a difference in our goals or in the way that we do things or in the choices that we make. And so we um uh try to be wise and try to be purposeful and try to be focused, and maybe we even pray and ask the Holy Spirit what it might be. So there are some people in this church that say, my kingdom building is by the way that I teach. I teach children or I teach Sunday school or I lead a group or whatever. I'm building the kingdom of God through my teaching ministry. There's other people in this church that say, I'm building the kingdom through my music ministry. And we practice and we rehearse and we lead the church in worship and all of that stuff. I'm building the kingdom of God through the musical gifts that God has given me. There's people that say I'm building the kingdom of God through my financial generosity, because I know that the kingdom needs to be resourced and funded, and God does that through his people and through generosity, I'm building the kingdom of God through that. Or someone else says, I'm building the kingdom of God through telling everybody that I can contact or see about Jesus and about faith in Jesus and my life in Jesus and thinking about building the kingdom of God. I wanted you to know that I did not take the Rockwell church thing out of my back window because there's any problem with the church. There was a period of, there was a moment where I was gonna trade the truck in and be done with it. I took it to a friend and he encouraged me that it was probably okay for the winter. I'm still driving it, but I am praying and looking for a different vehicle. My thought that I had though is that I think I was much more efficient at building the kingdom of God when my back window said Iamsecond.com than it did when it said Rockwell Church. I want people to come to church, and it'd be great if they came to church. If they're messed up people and they go to IamSecond.com and they see a video about a messed up person like them who sits in a white chair and talks about what their life was like before they came to Christ and how they came to Christ and what their life has been like since, they might get more out of it. But anyway, it was all kingdom building. And what are you doing to build the kingdom? Two, there's the professing kingdom that is in this present age. It refers to people who profess Christianity in every generation. It pictures the imperfect state of the kingdom of heaven or professing Christianity, what professing Christianity is like between Christ's first coming and his return. This imperfect state is what is called the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 13. Number three, this there is the that is future. Is my microphone cutting out or is it just me? I feel like okay. There is the millennial kingdom, but it's future. It is the act of actual rule of Christ or the government of Christ that is to come to this earth, earth for a thousand years. And that will be a trip for believers to be with Christ as he reigns on earth for a thousand years. Then there's the perfect kingdom of the new heaven and the new earth that is future. So those are all things about God's kingdom. And we are supposed to seek it above all else. We are supposed to put it first above all else. We are also supposed to set our minds on eternal things. It's easy to set our mind on eternal or on temporal things, but when we think about eternal things, we are told in Colossians 3, since then you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. If our life is truly in Christ, then we are not only concerned about our eternity, but how can we be concerned about our eternity? Well, when we can make sure that we're saved, we can relish those verses of assurance that we find in the Bible that say when we come to Christ we're truly saved, like 1 John 5.11, that's one. But as we think about that, we also think that there is an eternity for everyone that we know, and we are concerned about where the people around us are going to spend their eternity. And we will go out of our way to lovingly let them know that on the road of life, there's going to be a there's come a point where you're gonna have to, you're gonna die, and you're gonna go be with Jesus, or you're going to go uh be eternally separated from in from him in hell. And so we think about that and we pray about that, and we look for opportunities to share Christ. We maybe watch right now media videos that give us more skills on how to share our faith, or we read books on how to share our faith. I've had some messages actually that you could listen to or watch about sharing your faith. We actually went through a series in the beginning when we were going last year through the book of John on Tell Someone, which was actually a book, wasn't actually I didn't preach the book, but it was based on a book by Greg Laurie that we gave on how to share your faith and how to tell someone and how important that is. But we think about eternity, we think about eternal rewards. So if we are faithful in this life to do the right stuff, we may receive eternal rewards. And number three, we trust God to provide for our needs. We trust God to provide for our needs. So we pray for what we need and we trust that God will provide. It's hard sometimes as we look forward to think about how in the world are we going to pay for all this stuff? How are we gonna move forward? How are we gonna be provided for? But for many, for me, it's easy to look back and see how God has been faithful and surprised me sometimes in the way that God provided for my needs when I was afraid, when I was scared, but I stepped out in faith and I did the right thing. God came through. It always seems like he shows up at the last minute, but maybe that's one way that you know that he really came through. That the God of the universe stepped down from heaven, reached down from heaven to help you in your time of need. As you prayed for healing from sickness, or as you prayed for rent money, or a different vehicle, or whatever. So to trust that he has given you what you need. So Jesus in this same passage before Matthew 6.33 he says, Don't worry, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them, but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Anxiety and worry is one thing that will keep you from pursuing the kingdom of God. You may choose to not share your faith because you're terrified that you're going to lose your job or your position or your opportunity. I was reading a news headline article that talked about the college student college football students that were stepping up after they'd win the game or whatever. They'd step up to the microphone and say things like, I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ or talk about Jesus Christ and how this one kid was refused access to another interview after talking about God. When I think about kingdom building in college students, I always think about Tim Tebow. He's really, over the years, really been vocal for Christ. He didn't turn out to be the super athlete that won every football game or whatever. He's had quite a journey. But I see him in different places proclaiming Jesus Christ, being faithful with the gifts that he has and supporting different ministries and stuff like that. And I think his mindset is wherever you want me to go, I'll go. Whatever you want me to do, God, I'll do. Whatever ministry you want me to support and do, I'll do it. And so sometimes people come to the end of their lives and they wish that they would have things done, done, would have done things different. And some people have an opportunity to make a change and say, okay, I've been doing my own thing, pursuing my own will, pursuing my own goals and dreams, and now I want to follow and focus on what Jesus has for me. I want to do what he wants me to do because I want to treasure what God treasures. I want to value what God values. Again, seek his kingdom in Luke, a parallel passage that says in verse 31, seek his kingdom, but these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. And to be able to be part of the kingdom, we don't just get saved like fire insurance so that we can go be with a deity. We get adopted as children of God. We get invited into the family. We get an opportunity to spend eternity with God, with Christ in heaven together. So awesome. And that number five should make us live as a citizen of heaven. Make us live as a citizen of heaven. It says our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me just go back to this again in the moments that I have left. I thought this was an interesting thing. I get to since this is a series, I get to talk more about this next week, so I can skip over stuff and then come back to it. But okay. So the Vikings, I think they play tonight, right? Big game. So everybody's hoping they might go to the Super Bowl again. Super Bowl again. Yeah, they've been a few times, but they haven't won yet. Maybe this will be the year, I don't know. I'm always glad they moved those games to the evening instead of next to church time. But all right. Imagine that the kingdom of God, the comparison of football and pursuing the kingdom of God, okay? So in football, there's a clear goal. And in the kingdom of God, there's a clear goal. So in football, the objective is to move the ball down the field and to reach the end zone to score points. The kingdom of God, our goal is to seek first God's kingdom and righteousness, advancing his purposes in this world and bringing others closer to Christ. So there's teamwork. In football, players must work together, each performing their specific role to achieve victory. In the kingdom of God, believers are called to work together as the body of Christ using their spiritual gifts to advance God's mission. In football, there's a playbook. Teams follow a playbook designed by the coach and the refs to execute strategies to overcome opposition. And in the kingdom of God, the Bible is our divine playbook guiding us in how to live, serve, and overcome challenges through obedience to God's word. Opposition in football, the opposing team actively works to block and tackle, trying to prevent progress and trying to do everything they can to take the ball away. In the kingdom of God, we face spiritual opposition from the enemy, but we are equipped with the armor of God to stand firm and advance. And then there's persistence and focus in football. Success requires persistence, staying focused on the game plan and not getting distracted by setbacks or mistakes. And in the kingdom of God, advancing God's kingdom requires perseverance, trusting God through challenges, and staying focused on eternal priorities. I haven't, I'm phoned share this one. I did one with the restaurant too that talked about comparing the kingdom of God to a restaurant. But I think I'll be done with this for now and come back to it next week. But let me pray. And then the worship team can come forward. But Lord, I just thank you for every person that you brought into this church. I thank you that every person who receives you as their Lord and Savior, every saved person receives the Holy Spirit and receives at least one gift to accomplish your goals, to build your kingdom, to help the church, the local church, and the universal church. I thank you that we all have a part to play. Lord, I know that there's some people in football that are real prominent that you know they're on the field. You see them, uh they're making the plays, they're making it happen. And there's the coaches on the sideline, and there's also uh the people, the trainers uh and the medical people and the people that keep the equipment clean and organized, and the water boy or girl, and everybody that's working together to make it happen. Lord, make this a church of everybody working together to make it happen. I pray that every person in this church would know you as their Lord and Savior. I pray that every person in this church would have some ministry, some place they're serving, something they're doing to build the kingdom of God. Even if they're old and they can't be here, they watch us on video and they're like, my kingdom building priority is praying. Let me know how I can pray, because I'm praying fervently for all of you people and the kingdom of God. But let us be kingdom builders, let us chase what matters. I thank you for this opportunity to share these things in Jesus' name. Amen.