Sermon Preview: First Things First
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Every book on attaining effectiveness I’ve ever seen emphasizes the establishment of priorities. If everything is important, then nothing is. Or even worse, if everything is urgent, then we never find the time to get around to what is important. That’s why experts in the field of personal effectiveness insist on making lists that reflect what we believe to be of utmost significance.
Jesus did the same thing. His convictions about God’s mission enabled him to focus his time and energy on Kingdom matters, and they also allowed him to turn away from those things that threatened to detract him from God’s holy purpose. This may very well be what the Scripture means when after Jesus overcame Satan’s temptations, it says: “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left (Jesus) until an opportune time” (Lk. 4:13). Distraction is one of Satan’s most effective tools.
As we consider the cost of following Jesus in this latest sermon series, it behooves us to ponder the importance of priorities. Time does not allow us to do everything we want to do. Each day contains hard choices we must make to avoid displacing God’s agenda with our own. While we have perfected our ability to come up with excuses to rationalize (and spiritualize) our selfish choices, if we are truly serious about aligning our lives with Jesus, then we will eventually find a way to bend our wills to his.
So, join us this Sunday as we gather to show how we make worship a priority in our weekly schedule. Experience tells us that when we get worship right, everything else in the week falls rightly into place. But if we get it wrong, then we find ourselves scrambling for excuses to explain how everything in life is a priority ahead of God – a grievous miscalculation that will always rob us of the very life we yearn to know.