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SEEK FIRST!
I mention this to illustrate one incredible truth; the truth about the interconnectedness of things. There is no such thing as isolation in our world. The world is literally sutured together by a vast, almost incomprehensible network of computer systems. And to think that such a seemingly insignificant thing as the way a single date is programmed into and interpreted by computers could throw the world into chaos - such a thing - is almost beyond belief! For the premise is that one wrongly placed or one wrongly interpreted piece of information could have profound ramifications, even catastrophic global implications. Have we created a monster beyond our ability to control? We hope and we pray not! And I suppose we will find out in about 8 weeks!
Using this "millennium bug" as an analogy, I now to turn to something Jesus says in our Gospel this morning.
In Matthew 6, which is a portion of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is talking about the issue of wealth and material things as it relates to a sense of personal security - and he talking about the tremendous investment: emotional, financial and otherwise, that we place in things to satisfy our incredible need for a sense of security. Now He doesn't use the word "security" in His sermon. Instead he talks about "worry." Six times in a few verses he mentions "worry!" Listen!
- "Do not worry about your life, and what you will eat, or what you will drink... Or what you will wear..."
- "Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?"
- "And why do you worry...?"
- "...do not worry saying, 'What will we eat... drink... wear "
- "do not worry about tomorrow... tomorrow will bring worries of it's own."
"Worry" is the word Jesus uses, but security is the issue, because the only time I "worry" and the only time you "worry" is when we are feeling in some way insecure. So the issue is personal security.
Now Jesus wraps up this whole little part of his sermon by saying,
"Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these other things will be
will be given to you as well."
In other words, paraphrased, Jesus says, "Don't worry! Seek the things of God... seek the ways of God... seek the will of God before you seek anything else, and all these other things, these other security issues that you worry so much about , and that you invest so much therein - well, they'll take care of themselves. Seek first the things of God..."
So what does all of this have to do with Y2K and the "millennium bug?" Well, in seeing and understanding so clearly, that one small seemingly insignificant piece of computer programming could literally throw the world into chaos; so it is with you and me in that one small seemingly insignificant piece of commitment misplaced and allegiance given to one-thing over another, can literally throw your life and my life into no less chaos!
"Seek first," says Jesus "the kingdom of God, and all these other things will take care of themselves."
But is that how we live most of the time? Is that how you live? Is that how I live? Is that the order of the priority of things in your life right now? Is that how you have things lined up in your life at this very moment? Either you do, or you don't!
Let's say you get tangled up in a conflict with someone at work, or at home, or a friend. Maybe you were wrong, maybe they were wrong, maybe you both are wrong. But the question is when it happens, do you "Seek first, the kingdom of God" perhaps through prayer; or through an effort to create dialog, or to build a bridge; or an apology offered; or in forgiveness given?
You're involved in a business deal that has some moral and ethical ambiguities and gray areas, but it could be very lucrative deal indeed! What do you do? Do you "Seek first the Kingdom of God" by perhaps exposing the ambiguities and asking your questions, and in so doing perhaps risking the whole deal or even your job? Or do you just brush it off - after all that's what everybody else does - it's just business tactics!
An apartment burns to the ground and suddenly several dozen families in your community are homeless; a hurricane devastates a culture and thousands of peoples lives are in ruin. Do you feel impacted in any way whatsoever to "Seek first the Kingdom of God" and try to do something; even if it's just a little something of love and compassion - or is it just another news story that you don't have to read - or do you merely change the channel so you don't have to see and listen?
A peer stands before you and challenges you to help build a house, give food for the hungry, or to inform you that you will be receiving some things in the mail this week and he challenges you to consider them as very significant. Will you "Seek first the kingdom of God" in this matter. Or will you write if off as that part of the annual church calendar that you merely tolerate once again.
"Seek first..." Says Jesus! Wait a minute! You see, there's a lot at stake here! A lot is at stake!
- For what's at stake is, "In what do I place my trust?"
- What's at stake is "How do I line up my priorities? What's first? What's second? What's third?" If I say that God is first, am I willing to "put my money where my mouth is?" The stakes are high, because if we take Jesus seriously then one wrongly placed priority; one misplaced allegiance can mess up the whole system: a whole life; an entire family.
You don't believe me? In my family my father placed his need to drink above everything else - and our individual family members, each in their own way, have been unraveling the chaos it created ever since!
You don't believe me? I had man sitting in my office some years back in tears; emotionally disintegrated! He told me how he had come from a wealthy family; how he had everything he ever wanted given to him - except he wasn't sure about one thing. He wasn't sure his parents really loved him. They sent him off to boarding school; he hardly ever saw them! Oh, they bought him things - everything! But he never felt really loved, accepted, and cherished. And now he was in the midst of his third divorce, and he had finally come to the despairing point where he admitted that he didn't have a clue how to love a wife or keep a marriage going because nobody had ever really modeled love for him. The only thing that was ever modeled for him was how to make money, and put himself first! Shaking and sobbing from the depths of his soul he choked out the words, "Pastor, I don't care about the money, I just want to know how to make a marriage work! I want to know that someone can really love me!"
The stakes are high my friends. "Seek First..." says Jesus "the kingdom of God.. and all these other things - well, ..."
Misplaced priorities and misdirected allegiances and their implications is what this is all about. The stakes are incredibly and eternally high for where this all ultimately takes us; where this road finally leads is to the issue of the person Jesus Christ himself!
Where does Jesus line up in the priorities of your life? Is he first? or is he merely an addendum that you occasionally include when it's convenient.
For as we stand before God, Jesus is the real issue! Not family values. Not ethics or morals. Not being good and decent persons? Not being a republican or democrat. Not being "pro" this or "con" that! But Jesus Christ is the issue and his kingdom! And we the church, the people of faith are the keepers of the kingdom; we have been given the "keys to the kingdom of God."
It is our mission and our purpose to carry into the world the heart of Jesus, the mind of Jesus, the soul of Jesus, the life of Jesus.
"Seek first the kingdom!" Are we going to be a church that seeks first the kingdom of God? If we are then we have to be more than we are! There's ministry to be done! There's staff to be added! There are programs to be developed. There are people who need to be touched in word and deed by the good news of the gospel.
We need to pray for and encourage one another this week as each of us in this congregation wrestles with what it means to "Seek first the kingdom..." when it comes to our financial commitments for next year!
For some of us it will mean tithing and beyond...
For others it may mean setting a percentage of income as a goal to reach...
For others, it may simply mean disciplining yourself to give on a regular basis.
For all of us it will mean COMMITMENT... to trusting one of the hardest promises Jesus ever made... trusting that by "Seeking first the kingdom of God.. all other things will be added unto you."
In the last couple of years hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent and millions of man-hours have been logged toward computer compliance; toward seeing to it that one piece of wrong information strategically placed won't cause a cascading collapse of society's infrastructure.
I pray that we as Christians would show as much commitment of resource and energy toward "Seeking first the kingdom of God!"
spiritualtrails.com
The Website of Pastor Joseph Holub
Aurora & Buena Vista, Colorado