First Things First

I came across an account of a man who was attending the superbowl with some friends. Beside him was a woman, in her late 60’s who was decked out to the nines in her teams gear. She had on the team toque, the jersey, the scarf and the gloves. She even had the long blow horn which she frequently blasted during the first half of the game. But the man was surprised to see an empty seat on the other side of her. At halftime, before the big show started, he leaned over to her and remarked how surprised he was that there was an empty seat there. "It was my husband's," the woman explained, "But he died." "Oh, I'm very sorry," said the man. "Yet I'm really surprised that another relative, or friend, didn't jump at the chance to take the seat reserved for him." "Beats me," she said. "They all insisted on going to the funeral." 

Today, I want to talk with you about the importance of priorities. Author David Jakielo says, “The most important thing in life is knowing the most important things in life.” ― David F. Jakielo.

Too many of us get bogged down in our lives doing the secondary things, and we neglect the things that should be primary. We pursue money and wealth - we pursue the Pinterest house, the Instagram life, but we neglect the more important things, like sitting and being with Jesus. We pursue power, but we neglect mercy. We pursue entertainment and neglect the word of God and prayer. We make ourselves busy and neglect family game night. In the fast-paced life of 21st Century Canada, it's really easy to get our priorities jumbled.

Did you know that even Jesus had to wrestle with what the priority in his life was going to be?

Last week we started a new series where we are journeying with Jesus through the gospel of Luke. In today's passage, Jesus chose to make the first things first.

Luke 4:38–44 NIV

Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them. At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah. At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

Pray.

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Our story is set in the city of Capernaum. It was a city that sat on the northern edge of the Sea of Galilee, and it was the hometown of Peter, Andrew, James and John, and it becomes a city where Jesus does quite a bit of his ministry. This passage, which is also found in Matthew and Mark, gives us the only hint that any of the disciples were married. Here, Simon, or as he is called in Greek "Peter," invites Jesus and the other disciples to his home after church one Saturday. At his house, Peter's mother in law is suffering from a high fever - one of those fevers that keeps you in bed all day binging Netflix romantic comedies. You know the ones. Well, they ask Jesus to heal her, and he does. And what happens next: She gets up to serve them. You see, moms are the same everywhere: you bring your friends over, and the first thing they do is feed them. It's a compulsion. Something about being a mom means you are responsible for feeding everyone all the time. So out comes the hot pockets, and they eat.

Then at sunset, everyone brought out their sick to Jesus. They waited until then to finish observing the Sabbath, which ended at sundown. Jesus healed every person who came to him. This shows us not only the faith of the people at Capernaum who believed Jesus could heal the sick, but more importantly, it shows us the power and the compassion of Jesus as he healed each person not to get something from them, but because God so loved the world.

The passage also says that some of the people who were brought were possessed by demons. Jesus, unfazed by this, cast them out. I have always wondered why, in the New Testament, when Jesus casts out a demon, he commands it to be quiet. Well, it's not because he didn't want people to know who he was. No, the reasons that Jesus didn't want the demons to declare he was the Messiah were:

1) He didn't want people to think he was aligned with demons - that his ministry was evil disguised with good deeds

2) He wanted people to believe he was the Christ based on his words and deeds, not the testimony of demons.

So, most of the night, Jesus is healing people and casting out demons. When I hear that, I think that Jesus would have been happy but spent. Kind of like me after church. I love worshipping God with people and visiting and preaching but I tell you, Sunday afternoons, I am wiped out and in desperate need of a nap. But instead of a nap, when it daybreak happens, Jesus goes for a bit of quiet time with God.

He doesn't tell anyone where he is going or when he is going to be back. There is no clock, no pressure to be somewhere at some time. Jesus is fully present to his Father, and I think there is an important life lesson there: the importance of being alone with God. In this solitary time with His Father, it is here that he re-examines his priorities and brings his ministry to the Father with open hands. Every one of us has a fuel tank, a reservoir of energy. And when we expend all that energy and don't re-fill the tank, we can, at best, coast on fumes.

And I think some of you have been coasting for a while. But if you would turn back to Jesus, carve out time to be with him by yourself, you would re-fuel and be able to go where the Lord is calling you to. Isaiah 40:28-32 says,

Isaiah 40:28–31 NIV

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Our spiritual energy comes from our connection to God, and so does the ability to hear God clearly. In the gospel of John, chapter 10, Jesus uses the analogy of a shepherd to talk about his relationship to his sheep, us - the people of God. And in that chapter, he says that the sheep listen to the voice of the shepherd. He calls them by name and leads them out.

When we fail to connect deeply with God, when we live with a shallow faith, then not only do we miss out on having spiritual power in our lives, we also miss out on hearing the voice of God. The sheep learn the shepherd's voice when they are alone together, not when they are around other flocks and shepherds. In the same way, learning to hear the voice of God leading you in life is only found when you are quiet and alone with him.

For Jesus, being alone with God helps him reset his priorities. He has just had a night of wonderful ministry: healing people and exorcising demons. But in his alone time with God, he hears that his mission isn't to heal people - it's to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Jesus realized that he had to give up something good (healing the people of Capernaum) to do what was right (bring the gospel to the rest of Israel).

I wonder how many of us if we were to spend some significant time in solitary prayer with God, would hear his voice challenging us to reset our priorities as well.

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This decision to re-prioritize has consequences. The passage in Luke says that "The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them.”

Luke 4:42 NIV

At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them.

They wanted Jesus to stay. They wanted this miracle worker to remain local and continue to heal them. The people were more interested in the miracle than the mission. And that describes too many Christians these days. They want God to heal them, financially care for them, and give them all their desires, but they don't want the sacrifice that following Jesus entails. They don't want to participate in the mission of Jesus, to proclaim the good news. They are content to keep Jesus in the church and to themselves. But Jesus' ministry has never been defined by the buildings we worship him in and has never meant to be kept to ourselves. That's why even this pandemic has not stopped the cause of Christ. Jesus is still meeting with people - he's meeting with them online, in homes and coffee shops and elsewhere. The doors to the church have been flung wide so that the good news of Jesus can go forth to those who need it.

The people of Capernaum wanted Jesus to stay there. But God called him everywhere. And I think, if I were one of those people, pleading with Jesus to stay with us, I would be pretty disappointed when he says that he has to leave. And there is another great life lesson from Jesus for us: If we live according to our priorities, we will most likely disappoint someone. Just as Jesus disappointed the people of Capernaum by resetting his priorities, so too, you will disappoint some people in your life if you live out your priorities. Suppose you prioritize your family over your job. In that case, you may disappoint your supervisor and their teachers when you take a personal day to build a snowman with them on a Wednesday morning instead of going to work and school. If you prioritize your integrity over your popularity, you will disappoint co-workers and school friends.

I remember once I got told by another employee to stop working so hard because I made them look bad. But they didn't know I was working for the Lord when I was working at that roofing supply store, so I told them, too bad, I'm paid to work, not to laze around.

Following your priorities will inevitably lead you into some form of conflict, but at least you can enter into that conflict with confidence, knowing that you are doing the right thing. And for those of us who are followers of Jesus, doing the right thing means that we live differently than those around us.

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Jesus entered our world, knowing that it was full of sin and brokenness. And he came to offer us a different way: a way that is entered into by faith in his death and resurrection and marked with a love for God and a love for others. Jesus came to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of God has come. He proclaimed it with his words, his character and his decisions And for you and I, we are called to do the same thing. The apostle John said if we claim to live in Jesus, we must live like Jesus did.

1 John 2:6 NIV

Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

That means the priority for our lives isn't our jobs, our friends or even our families. The number one priority for our lives is the glory of God, and so we must, like Jesus, become proclaimers of the good news of the Kingdom. We need to proclaim the Kingdom to our kids, our co-workers, our families, our friends, and our enemies. We need to proclaim that there is a different way to live because of Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection. So how do we do that?

Proclaim the Kingdom with your Words

Jesus understood that the call on his life was to preach about the Kingdom of God. So let’s start with understanding what the kingdom of God is. The Kingdom is God’s rule and reign on earth and in theology, we talk about the kingdom in terms of already/not yet. In one sense, the kingdom of God has already come. Jesus himself says so in Luke 17:20-21.

Luke 17:20–21 NIV

Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

With the advent of Jesus, the king has come, and the Kingdom is wherever Jesus is. So in that sense, the Kingdom is the spiritual sovereignty of Jesus Christ in the hearts and lives of every person who puts their faith in Jesus. That's the already aspect of the Kingdom. But there is a future fulfillment of it as well: when Jesus returns. That's the "not yet" aspect. In Luke 19: 11-12, he tells a parable about a noble going away to a distant country, so he gave each of his servants ten minas. Jesus told this parable to demonstrate the need to work for God's glory until the return of Jesus in the fullness of his Kingdom. 

Luke 19:11–12 NIV

While they were listening to this, he went on to tell them a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once. He said: “A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return.

So if the Kingdom is the "already, but not yet" rule and reign of Jesus, then we are called to proclaim that reign. We are to tell people why the current and the future reign of Jesus gives us hope. In 1 Peter 3:15-16 it says,

1 Peter 3:15–16 NIV

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

Even in Luke’s writings, Jesus sent out his disciples to proclaim not salvation, per se, but the kingdom of God. Luke 9:1-2 says,

Luke 9:1–2 NIV

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point, North American Christians seemed to become either fanatic about telling everyone about Jesus, whether they knew them or not, and never speaking about it to anyone, afraid that the other person will think less of them for some reason. But the Kingdom is good news, and good news needs to be shared. We have all already had our fill of bad news. Here we are, less than two weeks after one of the most challenging years in the last century, and we are already getting reports of bad news from our neighbours to the south. We need more good news, and the best news is that our Savior king has come, that he invites us to dwell in a relationship with him in the Kingdom of God and that he will return to heal the earth.

So, let me ask you the hard question: if you believe that the Kingdom of God really is good news, what keeps you from telling more people and having more conversations about it with others? Are you afraid of something? God is challenging us to set our priorities around being like Jesus and bringing glory to God. He calls us to confront our fears about sharing our faith and proclaim this good news to the people in our lives.

We are called to proclaim the good news of the kingdom and one of the ways we will do it by actually telling people; by proclaiming it with our words. Another way we need to proclaim the good news of the kingdom is with our character.

Proclaim the Kingdom with your Character

The Kingdom is more than just what we say; it's about what we do. Maybe nowhere has that been so clearly shown than by the recent storming of the US Capital by supporters of Donald Trump. As you can see from the images, many of these individuals were waving "Jesus Saves" signs. For them, this election is a holy war, and because of them, the name of Jesus has been dragged through the mud and for many people, it is now associated with racism, sexism and now, terrorism. And I admit that it breaks my heart, that it angers me and that it disappoints me. Because of their actions, the followers of Jesus have to work that much harder to bring glory to God. The only way to do this is not just by talking about Jesus, but by living like Jesus.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans says,

Romans 8:28–29 NIV

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

The goal of our Christian life is Christ-likeness - that we would become like Christ in our character and our causes. We have spent so many years trying to blend into our society as Christians so that we live just like everyone else, and it is time we reclaim pursuing Christ-likeness as a priority in our lives.

So what does Christ-likeness look like for you and me? It looks like we abstain from anything that hurts our reputation as followers of Jesus in the eyes of those watching us. It means we love others extravagantly, just like how Jesus loves us, even if they don't look like us, think like us, vote like us or disagree with us. It means we forgive others quickly and repeatedly, just like how Jesus forgives us for every sin and mistake we make. It means we don't tolerate religious hypocrisy in our lives, but we seek to realign our lives to the teachings of Jesus in the Scriptures. It means we live and work with integrity because we live and work for the Lord.

Your character will either validate or invalidate your message. People will either respect you and God because you have lived a life that, to the absolute best of your ability, emulates Jesus, or they will disparage you and dismiss Jesus because of your hypocrisy. If we look again at that verse in 1 Peter, notice what the second half says.

1 Peter 3:15–16 NIV

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

Peter challenges us to keep a clear conscience - so that people struggle to say bad things about you, and if they do, they see that what they are saying isn’t true. Peter helps us see the deep connection between proclaiming the kingdom with our words and proclaiming the kingdom with our character. Jesus took this a step farther. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus said,

Matthew 5:16 NIV

In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

People who don't believe in God will give praise to God when we live a Christ-like life. We have to use our words to proclaim the gospel, but our message will be empty, meaningless and offensive if our character doesn't align with what we say. I would daresay that the hypocrisy of not living out the Kingdom while still proclaiming it has hurt the church's reputation in the west more than any other thing. When we incite riots on government buildings in the name of Jesus, we destroy our witness and the witness of others who are doing their best to follow Jesus and share him with others. It is just as important to proclaim the Kingdom of God through our actions as it is to proclaim with our words.

Finally, we need to proclaim the kingdom of God with your decisions.

Proclaim the Kingdom with your Decisions

Your life is the sum total of all the decisions you have made to this point. You are where you are because of the decisions that you have made. Some of you have made some great decisions, and they have helped you get to a good place in life. At some point, you decided that healthy eating and exercise were going to be priorities for you and so you are physically fit, and you can tie your shoes without getting out of breath. Some of you made some smart financial decisions, and now you can be generous to others, and some of you made the sagacious decision to establish the habits of prayer and bible study in your life, and it has led you to a deeper, more robust faith.

But some of you made other choices. Some of you turned to alcohol to cope with stress, and it ruined your life. Some of you chose to pursue happiness in the arms of a man or woman who isn't your spouse, and your marriage blew up. Some of you decide to return to pornography day after day, and now your soul feels fractured. Some of you choose every month to live without margin - without financial margin or time margin, leaving yourself with no space to breathe, hoping against hope that nothing jumps up and surprises you.

The emotional and spiritual space we are in right now is more about our choices than our circumstances. We love to blame our circumstances, but we choose how to handle those circumstances, and we choose how to prepare for them as well. The choices that we make today impact our tomorrow, so today, and every day, choose to proclaim the Kingdom of God through your decisions. So how do we do that? We begin by developing the habit of asking questions about our decisions before we make them. To help you, here are three questions that we should all be asking:

Does this decision contradict the teaching of the Sciptures? I said it last week and it’s still true this week: Anything that doesn’t agree with Scripture doesn’t come from God. If your choice goes against the teaching of the Bible, then it’s not the bible that’s wrong, you are. For example, Christian couple Rembertus Cornelius Beerepoot and his wife Fanny Alida Beerepoot of Tasmania chose not to pay their taxes for 7 years, which totalled almost 1 million dollars. The consequence was their farm was seized and sold by the local council and they were ordered to pay more than a million dollars each after the court case. In court, they represented themselves and said that their faith means they shouldn’t pay taxes because taxes weakened people’s dependency on God. But Romans 13:1-2 says,

Romans 13:1–2 NIV

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

While many poor decisions happened in this example, the point is that they made a decision that went against the teachings of Scripture and now they are paying the consequences, literally. A great question to evaluate your choices by is, "does this align with what the Bible teaches?"

2. Does this decision help me thrive in the future? Many of us are consumed with feeling happy and content now and we forget that our actions today will set us up for either stress or success in the future. Proverbs 6:9-11 says,

Proverbs 6:9–11 NIV

How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.

This proverb is teaching us to live in a way today that helps us thrive tomorrow. Many of the self-inflicted struggles we experience are because we didn’t ask this question before we made a decision, and so today is a good day to start asking, “Will my decision today help me thrive tomorrow?”

3. How will this decision impact the people around me? It's easy to make our decisions all about us, but we don't live in a vacuum. Every decision we make will impact others, some positively and some negatively. Your choice to engage with prayer and bible study every day will positively impact all your relationships, as God forms your heart to be more like Christ. Your choice to have an affair will affect your wife and kids in a traumatizing way from which they may never recover. Every choice you make impacts others. Therefore, consider what your decision will mean to those closest to you before you make it. When I was deciding if I would move from Calgary to Stratford, Ontario, to plant this church with North Park, I knew that this decision would impact a lot of people, from my family to my church and my youth ministry. So, obviously, Abby and I talked about it extensively. I talked about it with a couple of mentors and with a few youth pastors who were friends. I talked about it with my mother because I knew it would impact her. I talked about it with Rebekah, my oldest daughter, because it would affect her significantly. And those conversations helped us to make this transition as smooth as possible.

If we are called to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom, then our choices are a crucial part of that proclamation. If you choose self-centeredness, you tell others that the Kingdom of God is irrelevant to your life and, therefore, irrelevant to theirs. If you decide to make decisions based on the principles of the Kingdom, then you show people that the Kingdom of God is practical and relevant not only for you but also for them.

The Kingdom of God is more than just a theological concept. It's a way to live where we submit our words, our character and our decisions to the rule and reign of Jesus Christ, our King of Kings. It is a kingdom that can only be entered into by faith in Jesus and whose most prized value is love. When Jesus was early on in his ministry, he was invited to stay and live in Capernaum, healing people and performing miracles. But Jesus knew that he had to keep the first things first, and after spending significant time in solitude and prayer, God clarified his mission: He was to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom all over Israel.

We, too, are called to keep the first things first in our lives. Our priority should be proclaiming the Kingdom of God with our words, our character and our decisions to our spouses, to our kids, to our friends and family, to our co-workers and ultimately, to the world.

Pray.