First Things First
Thelegendary coach for the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi, once found himselffrustrated with his football team. They weren’t playing up to their abilities,and had taken some things for granted. At his wits end, Lombardi huddled histeam together, and pointed to an object they all knew, and proclaimed,“Gentlemen, this is a football.” His message that day was clear—they haddrifted away from the fundamentals, and needed to return to the most basic ofthings. They needed to keep first things first.
Thisweek, we begin a series at Abundant Life called, First Things First. We’ll be hanging out in Revelation 2, whereJesus says to the church at Ephesus that they had, “abandoned the love you hadat first.” In His own way, Jesus is holding up the proverbial pigskin andsaying, “Church, this is a football.” They needed to return to the basics…andso do we.
Someoneonce said the problem with life is it’s oh so daily. Now if ever there was atrue statement, that’s it. There are kids to get off to school, errands to run,work attended to, headaches to deal with, people to love, lead and care for,homework to be helped out with, ball games to attend, money to be managed. Onand on we can go and, if we’re not careful, we can wake up one day and realizethat we, like the church at Ephesus, have drifted away from our first love,Jesus. We never made a consciencedecision to put Jesus on the back burner, it just kind of happened.
What’sinteresting, is Jesus doesn’t accuse the Ephesian church of outright neglectingHim, He just says He was no longer first. To the church at Ephesus, Jesus wassomewhere in the picture, He just wasn’t front and center. That hits me rightbetween the eyes.
Weall were born with what I call natural wirings. By no means am I a perfectperson, but when I put my mind to something, I can be pretty disciplined, evenwhen I don’t feel like it, and this sometimes gets me in trouble. I grew up inthe church, and a phrase I heard a lot in my formative years was “quiet time.”Between the pastor, the youth director and my parents, I heard the message loudand clear of how important it was to spend a few moments reading the Bible andpraying every day (preferably in the mornings). This was sage wisdom. The Biblespeaks repetitively of the importance of immersing ourselves in the Word of God(i.e., Psalm 19; Psalm 119), and prayer (i.e., Matthew 6:5–15; I Thessalonians5:17). But the problem I ran into withthe quiet-time culture, is that I was tuning into Jesus for 30 or so minutesa day, while doing my own thing the other 23 and a half hours. Stringenough of these days together and you can see how easy it is for Christ not tobe first.
IfJesus is going to be first He must be constant. Jesus recognized this. That’swhy He said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit byitself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me”(John 15:4). The word “abide,” simply means to remain, or to hang out. What’sin view here is a lot more than a “quiet time,” it’s a constant lingering inthe presence of Jesus. No, Jesus isn’t asking us to quit our jobs and spend allday everyday in meditation and prayer. He expects us to go to school, studyhard, work, love our families well and serve, but to do so with the backgroundmusic of our activities being Jesus. This is how Jesus becomes first, bybecoming constant.
Ifyou’ve ever been in love, you know this idea of constancy. When you fell inlove, you weren’t content with a 15- to 30-minute conversation in themorning. No. You called several times a day, talking for as much as you could. Whenyou hung up the phone, your mind marinated on your beloved. You wrote notes,went out, thought about and talked. This is what it means to abide. And ifJesus is going to be first, the same principles must apply—He must be constant.
Ilook forward to sharing more with you this Sunday as we begin our series, First Things First. Hope you can join usat 10 o’clock!
