Daring To Be Committed (To What Matters Most) Series

Daring to be Committed (to What Matters Most)

Series: Daring Faith

Brad Bailey – September 30, 2018

Intro

Let me begin with two questions that may help us hear God’s call to us today:

Do you understand that some things matter more than others?

Do you understand that your earthly life is that which can be given to the source and center of eternal life?

These are the questions which God wants us to engage today. And if we are honest…I think many of us would pause and sense that such an understanding is perhaps only so deep. Some of us want to understand. Some of us understand these conceptually… but are not fully living in such an understanding. God wants to speak to us.

We have begun a Fall focus entitled Daring Faith.

And as noted in previous weeks…faith can be described as the connection between the finite and infinite. …how we live in relationship with the infinite.

This is all about knowing the WHY of life. One of the aspects of our current culture… is that we are notably focused on the WHAT and avoid the WHY. We have become increasing intense about what we do and how much we can do…but avoid the WHY of it all.

Whatever aspiration we begin with, as the years go by… they often elude us… we may accomplish some things….but a sense of deeper purpose seems to elude us.

Our culture is learning to master pace more than purpose. Everything is focused on what we can do and how we can do more…but never on why. We have proudly defined our American Lifestyle as 'life in the fast lane.' We are driven to get devices that will allow everything to work faster… I can get on the fast track…to get my fast food… while I instant message my network all about it. [1]

Pace has replaced a sense of purpose…

Max Lucado wrote:..

“Complacent to purpose. How in the world can a person be born, be educated, fall in or out of love, have a job, be married, give birth, raise kids, see death, retire, and die without ever, ever asking why? Never asking, "Why am I here?" - Max Lucado [2]

That is the reality which Jesus brings to us.

Into a world of futility… he pulls back the curtain… an reveals the source of true and everlasting life.

It’s the larger reality of the infinite that enters the finite…and the finite enter it by faith…by trust.

Faith is that which allows us to enter a larger reality of life…one of profound and powerful value… that matters more than anything known only in this world.

In fact… when people try to identify… what was so powerful about Jesus… they will often think of his moral teaching… or how he changed the world, But…

What made Jesus so powerful and profound… was that his life was rooted outside this one… that he lived for and into an eternal identity and destination… something that mattered more.

Jesus didn’t live for himself…not for the audience around him…including religious popularity.

He lived for the heart and home of heaven.

I have shared a few times how struck I have been by one of his final prayer before his death and resurrection. His closest disciple John records his prayer to the Father in heaven…and he says…

“I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” John 17:4 (NIV)

Those are quite profound words. At the age of just 33 earthly years… he spoke of completion.

I never feel I have finished anything. .I can feel like life is a “to do” list that never seems done… add a bucket list…and it seems even more unclear.

What should be equally fascinating…is that Jesus knew such completion amidst a world that was still filled with needs not yet fully met.

What does his life reflect?

Jesus lived out a life defined by priority. (…an ability to know and commit and fulfill what mattered most.)

He lived into a priority.

The key to a “faithful” life is priority… knowing and choosing what matters most.

When we say that someone is faithful… we often miss what it really means.

We often think of someone who just follows what is expected by others… and not necessarily any particular others.

We might think of a faithful guy as passive.

“He’s a faithful worker.” …implying he just does his job…whatever he is told.

“He’s a faithful husband.” …implying he never cheats…he never looks for anything more.

What we need to understand is that the Bible understands a very different dynamic when it speaks of being “faithful.”

The faith-full one is one who lives not with passivity…but with a profound and powerful grasp of priority.

The faith-full life is one who both knows and lives to complete what matters most.