What does First B Jackson teach about seeking god?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on seeking God starts with an honest acknowledgment that the call is not abstract. When Pastor Ray opened the book of Amos, he traced how the prophet's words keep returning to one hinge phrase: "seek me so that you may live." That call came to a nation that was prosperous, militarily strong, and religiously active, and yet was missing the thing that mattered most. Ray pointed out that the indictment in Amos is not aimed at people who had stopped going through the motions of worship, but at people who kept all the forms while selling the righteous for money, trampling the poor, and practicing idolatry inside the very temple meant for God. The discomfort of that picture is part of the point. The Old Testament, grounded in Paul's words from Romans and First Corinthians, was written for instruction and hope for people on this side of the cross, not as ancient history.
Carl's message from Luke 12 approached the same call from a different angle. There Jesus warns his disciples that greed and worry are joy-robbers, not because stuff is evil in itself, but because fixing your eyes on what you have accumulated shrinks your field of vision down to the small kingdom you are building for yourself. The parable of the rich farmer lands the point: God called the man a fool not for being prosperous, but for storing up earthly wealth without a rich relationship with God to show for it. The remedy Jesus offers is not a tighter discipline but a reoriented life, one that floods itself with the things that stir genuine affection for God and cuts away the things that rob it.
Both streams of teaching at First B Jackson land in the same place. Seeking God is not a feeling to wait for or a religious duty to perform. It is the practical, daily orientation of a life that trusts God enough to let His word shape it, rather than bending scripture to where we already stand. Ray named that danger plainly when he opened Amos: the goal is to bend our lives to what the text says, not the other way around. And Carl kept returning to Luke 12:32 as a reason to actually do it: it gives your Father great happiness to give you the kingdom.
Taught from Amos 5:4-6 · Amos 5:14-15 · Luke 12:13-34 · Romans 15:1-7 · 1 Corinthians 10:1-11
The passage taught · 1 Corinthians 10:1-10
1 Now I would not have you ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
2 and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
3 and all ate the same spiritual food;
4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- October 26, 2025 Seek Me So That You May Live Pastor Ray walks through the book of Amos, showing how God's call to seek justice and turn from sin speaks as clearly to us today as it did to ancient Israel.
- October 26, 2025 Seek Me So That You May Live Ray preaches through Amos, showing how God's call for justice and sincere worship speaks as clearly to us today as it did to ancient Israel.
- February 18, 2018 Seek the Kingdom Above All Else Carl preaches from Luke 12 on why seeking God's kingdom above all else frees us from greed and worry, and why God takes genuine delight in giving us that kingdom.
- February 18, 2018 Seek the Kingdom Above All Else A Wyoming pastor explores Luke 12 and why seeking God's kingdom above all else is the answer to the joy-robbing grip of greed and worry in our lives.
Mentioned along the way
- December 15, 2024 From the Cradle to the Cross in Five Days Luke traces five moments where Jesus says "today", from the manger to the cross, showing that Jesus is still actively saving, seeking, and rescuing people right now.
- May 24, 2015 Is It Because There Is No God in Israel Martin Murphy walks through 2 Kings 1, asking where we turn in crisis and how many times God must repeat His message before we finally listen.
- October 21, 2012 Before Philip Called You Jesus knows your past, your present, and your future. A study of John 1:43-51 and what Nathaniel's encounter with Jesus shows every seeker of truth.