What is the most important thing in your life?
Now, the temptation is going to be to say “God” or “Jesus”
or something similar simply because we’re in church and we know that’s the
thing we’re supposed to say. And for some of us I’m sure that is the
answer--my purpose in asking this question is not to criticize anyone’s
faith. And I’m not asking you to give the answer out loud or anything.
But I’d like you to really think about it. What is the most important
thing in your life? And here’s the second question: does the way
you live your life show that what you said is the most important thing in your
life actually is?
There’s an old saying that you can tell what a person truly
values by going through their check register. These days it might be
their credit card or debit card statement. But the point is that the
things we spend money on are one reflection of the things we value.
There are certain things we all have to spend a certain
amount of money on, of course. Food is one--we have to eat. Shelter
is another--we have to have a place to live. We also have to keep the
lights on and the water running. And around here, at least, we need to
have some form of transportation.
But the fact is that most of us--myself included--spend
more on those things than the bare minimum that we would have to spend to get
by. And don’t get me wrong--I’m not saying it’s sinful to spend more than
the bare minimum. But again, what we spend money on is one measure of
what we value.
It’s not the only measure, of course. Time is another
measure. You could say that what we spend our time on is a reflection of
what we value. But of course, that’s not perfect, either. If we
want to have money to spend on food, and shelter, and utilities, and
transportation, we need to work. Our work may or may not be important to
us, but even if it’s not we still have to spend a substantial amount of time on
it. That’s just the way life is. But on the other hand, if we say
something is the most important thing in our lives, we should at least spend some
time on it, even if it’s not as much as we’d like. It would be pretty
hard to claim something was the most important thing in your life if you never
spend any time on it at all.
The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, says
that the most important thing is knowing Jesus Christ as Lord. In fact,
he says more than that. He says that everything that this world has to
offer is garbage compared to the joy of knowing Jesus Christ as
Lord.
That’s a man who knows what the most important thing in his
life is. In fact, Paul would say faith in Jesus is not just the most
important thing in his life, it’s the only thing in his life. Yes, of
course, Paul had to eat and drink and do all the other stuff that human beings
had to do. But I think Paul would’ve said that everything he did, he did
so he could continue to spread the good news about Jesus Christ. “I’m
eating and drinking so I can maintain my strength so I can spread the
gospel. I found shelter for the night so I could sleep and refresh myself
so that the next day I could get up and share the gospel. I found some
transportation so I could go other places and spread the word about
Jesus.”
Everything in Paul’s life other
than faith in Jesus was secondary. In fact, everything in his life is
meant to serve the goal of spreading the gospel in some way. If there was
something in his life that did not serve the goal of spreading the gospel, he
got rid of it. Even if it was not a bad thing, even if it was a neutral
or even something that most people would’ve said was a good thing, if it did
not serve the goal of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, Paul got it out of
his life. It was garbage to him. It was completely worthless,
because the only thing in his life was knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and
spreading that knowledge to others.
Can you imagine being that
devoted to the Lord? Being so devoted to the Lord that everything you did
had to be connected to spreading the gospel in some way, or you were going to
throw it out of your life?
Can you imagine what our world
would be like if Christians all did that? Can you imagine what the world
would be like, if everyone who considers himself or herself a Christian was so
devoted to the Lord that everything we said or did was connected to spreading
the good news about Jesus Christ in some way? It’d be pretty awesome,
don’t you think?
Maybe that’s kind of what
heaven is like. I mean, there’ll be no need to spread the gospel of Jesus
Christ in heaven, but maybe in heaven everything we say or do is connected in
some way to serving the Lord. Nothing else, no matter what it might be,
has any place in heaven, nothing but serving the Lord. Can you imagine
that?
Now, here’s the thing.
Can you imagine what your own life would be like if you did that? Can I
imagine what my life would be like if I did that? What would your life be
like if everything you did or said had to be connected to spreading the gospel
in some way, or you were going to throw it out of your life? What would
my life be like if everything I did or said had to be connected to spreading
the gospel in some way, or I would throw it out of my life? Can you and I
imagine that?
Now, two things. One, I’m
not saying that we won’t go to heaven if we don’t do this. Heaven would
have a pretty small population if that was the case. We don’t receive
salvation and eternal life by the things we do or by how single-minded we
are. We receive salvation and eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ as
the Savior.
Two, Paul said that he had not
completely done this himself. He said he was still working toward that
goal. So we don’t have to be too hard on ourselves if we struggle with
it, too. But the question is: What was holding him back? What
holds us back?
Well, Paul never said,
really. But at least part of what holds us back is, quite simply, the
world we live in. It seems to me that, in order to make spreading the
gospel of Jesus Christ the only thing in our lives, to the extent that
everything we do or say is connected to doing that in some way, we need to keep
our eyes focused on Christ. And that means we need to take our eyes off
of the things of the world.
That’s a really hard thing to
do. I certainly have not done it. And again, in saying this, I’m
not saying that the things of the world are all bad things. Some of them
are, but some of them are not. Some of them are neutral. Some of
them are things that many of us would consider good. But they’re not
connected to spreading the gospel. And yet, we too often keep our eyes
focused on those things, instead of keeping our eyes focused on Christ.
Again, it’s hard not to.
The world is all around us. And right now, especially, the things of the
world are forcing themselves on us, whether we want them to or not. The
coronavirus. Protests. Riots. Every day it seems like
something new comes along that we’re supposed to be outraged about or scared
of. And of course, the problems of our personal lives and the lives of
our families have not gone away, either. Health concerns, both physical
health and mental health. Financial problems. Relationship
problems. All of these things and many other things of the world force
themselves on us, whether we want them to or not. What can we do? Are
we supposed to just ignore all these things? Would it even be possible to
ignore them, no matter how much we might want to?
Well, a lot of those same
issues, and others besides, were present in Paul’s day, too. And no,
we’re not supposed to ignore them. Again, we really cannot. But we
should not get bogged down in them, either. We should not put our focus
on these earthly issues, no matter how important they may seem to be at the
moment. What we need to do is what Paul tried to do. We need to
connect them, somehow, to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. No matter
what’s going on in the world, we need to keep our eyes on Jesus.
So the question is, how can we
do that? It’s not easy. It’s a challenge. I cannot stand here
this morning and tell you “Here’s how to do it.” There’s not one easy,
standard, all-purpose formula for this. It takes a lot of thought.
It takes a lot of prayer.
But you know what else it
takes? It takes a lot of desire. We need to really want to keep our
eyes on Jesus, no matter what. That’s what Paul is talking about when he
says, “I press on toward the goal.” He says that twice, “I press on
toward the goal.” If you and I don’t have the desire to do this, if we
are not willing to press on toward the goal, it’s not going to happen. No
matter how hard we pray, it won’t happen if we don’t have that desire.
God will help us, but God will not force us. God will push us, but God
will not just override our will. We need to have the desire to do and say
only things that are connected to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ in some
way if we’re ever going to accomplish it. We need to have that desire to
keep our eyes on Jesus at all times, no matter what else is going on.
But God will help us with that
desire, too, if we ask Him to. If we sincerely ask for God’s Holy Spirit
to come into our hearts and give us the desire to get everything out of our
lives except things that are connected to spreading the good news about Jesus,
God will do that.
One more thing. At the
start of our reading for today, Paul says, “My brothers and sisters, rejoice in
the Lord!” If you and I do this, we can rejoice. And God will
rejoice in us, too. Because when we keep our eyes on Jesus, when
everything we say or do is somehow connected to spreading the gospel of Jesus
Christ, then we are the people God wants us to be. And that is always
reason to rejoice!
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