In a two-day period of time in New York City, a homeless man, a train maintenance worker and a dog were killed on the subway tracks. Ninety people called the Transit Authority to express their concern about the dog, but only three called about the worker and nobody called about the homeless man.
A young man in a Navy uniform got off the bus in Port Authority in New York City and began to walk, taking in the sites but having no definite plans to go anywhere. He passed by an alley and was hit on the head and knocked out. In broad daylight, the criminal then proceeded to rob him of all his money.
The young man came to with a very bloody head, a bloodied uniform and a young cop kneeling beside him making sure he was okay. There was a crowd around, but they were at a distance of about 15 feet. He found out from the cop later that they had stayed there the whole time, but didn’t approach, because they “didn’t want to get personally involved.” The cop took a report, then took the sailor back to Port Authority and purchased a bus ticket from his own pocket back to the sailor’s base. That is a true story. I know, because I was that sailor.
Is this how America started out? Did all the pilgrims go out of their way to avoid getting involved when others had troubles? Did the early settlers turn the other way when their neighbors came under heavy troubles? I don’t believe that. I think that America had a very loving and helpful heart, but somewhere in the 20th century, we became so self-absorbed that we all but write off our fellow citizens in their time of need.
I think it is plain to everyone that this nation has got her priorities all messed up! But that problem is not just with society in general. It is wide spread in the church, too! The church of today needs to take a very careful look at her priorities.
I heard a pastor of a large local church once say that if anyone in the church wanted him to go to the hospital to pray for a family member, he would ask them why they don’t do it instead. It was very plain that this pastor did not want to get involved. He wanted to stay on the outside, pretending to be on the inside of God’s kingdom.
What do you think the church is here for? What do you think you are here in this church for? We need to start asking ourselves some very hard questions, all to see where our real priorities in life are.
We spend much time talking about revival and some of us even spend time praying for revival, but I sometimes have to wonder how many of us have revival as a priority. If we don’t understand where we are in God’s kingdom, and if we never spend any time or energy trying to examine ourselves to find out where we stand, I have a hard time believing that God will honor us by listening to, or answering, our prayers about anything.
I had a chief in the Navy that used to say he was going to change things, and he was going to start with one of us. His point was that when things need changing, it always starts with one person. So, if today’s church needs changing and refocusing, I believe it can all start with each one of us in this church this morning.
There are three ways I think will bring about the fastest; the most Godly; and the deepest change in our church, in our community and in our lives. The first is -
1. HAVING A PRIORITY OF PRAYER
Now, we all say that we pray and that we believe in the power of prayer, don’t we? We even quote scriptures such as MATTHEW 7:7-8
‘Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you: 8) For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened’.
In JOHN 14:13-14, it says,
‘And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.’
Now, we could go on and on picking and choosing verse after verse that substantiates the need for, and the power of, prayer. But, I have to be honest. I love to pray. I try to spend as much time as I can in prayer, even when I am driving, working, etc.
But, I still do not pray as much as I should. I recognize that prayer is one of the greatest needs in my life, and it is a priority, but what happens is that most of the time, I can even be in prayer and something will happen and my thoughts instantly and totally forget all about prayer.
You see, I have this need in my life like most of you do. That need is to immediately hop on things as they arise, especially problems, so I can get them taken care of in short order. My instinct does this to me. I do not even think about going to God first in many instances; I just jump on it myself and start trying to fix things.
Many times, it is only after I have exhausted all attempts of my own to fix it, that I finally and quite humbly turn to God for the real fix. Why can’t I just force myself to always keep focused on God? Because this world in which I live is run by the enemy; the great deceiver; the author of confusion and difficulty, I cannot keep focused, as I should. That is why all of us get our priorities all messed up and shifted around to where they no longer make any real sense.
We often make the mistake of thinking the quality of our prayers must be of a certain caliber or God just won’t listen. Or we are in a hurry to do something we want to do, so we offer up God what I call a ‘prayer to go’.
God isn’t interested in our having quality prayers because He is our quality. And as far as our quick little prayers, we must remember that God generally will not give us that $1,000 answer we want for the the $2.00 prayer we offer.
We should not have a ‘profession’ of prayer as a priority. That is when we talk a lot about how much we pray, etc. etc. That just goes to glorify ourselves.
We should have a ‘practice’ of priority of prayer. That is when we let our actions speak for themselves, and they will speak volumes if we really do have a Godly prayer life.
Have we ever felt that we had to be holy for God so much that we actually did anything about it? All too often, the American Christian is very good at talking the talk, but not walking the walk. We know all the right religious words and popular phrases, but we have a problem putting into practice what our mouths seem so eager to always talk about. Most of the time, we do this to glorify ourselves in someone else’s eyes.
When I first became a pastor, I spent a lot of time thinking about this. Was I doing this so that I would be ‘elevated’ in somebody else’s eyes? Was I trying to impress others by being something that I really wasn’t? In short, was I an out and out fake?
I finally realized that a pastor is only elevated in somebody else’s eyes when that pastor has already proven himself to be a true man of God, and as far as trying to impress somebody else with anything I was doing, well, I have never really cared too much about what others thought about me. My father taught all of us kids to do the best we could, and walk with the Lord, then if somebody else had a problem with you, let it remain their problem. I kept praying that God would make sure I wasn’t making a mistake, and I finally realized that He had called me to do this. I know this, because if it were up to me, I would have chosen something else because this is very hard work at times.
Do we ever have this gnawing feeling in the pit of our soul that we need to get closer to God? What do we do when we feel this way? Most times, people just plain ignore it. I think that is very much akin to what Peter did three times before the rooster crowed. That is a flat and purposeful denial of the Lord on our parts. We need to start offering God some of our time each day so that we can devote that small amount of time to prayer.
Let me put it this way: You have a child. That child never seems to want to talk to you. This goes on for years, even though you have tried everything you can to make the child want to talk to you. That child either never responds, or when he does, it is when he needs or wants something from you. Would you be inclined to rush over and give that child anything he wanted? Of course not! And, neither is God inclined to answer your prayers, unless you devote them from the inner core of your heart.
Are we so jealous of our prayer time that we won’t let anything interrupt it, or are we so jealous of everything else that we won’t let our prayer time interrupt them?
There is the story of a young man who applied at a logging company and asked for a job. The foreman asked him if he could fell a tree with an ax. The young man walked over to a tree and felled it like an old pro. The foreman hired him.
On Monday, the young man outdid everyone else on the crew. But, each day after that, he got slower and slower until Friday, he could barely cut one tree down. He went through all the motions; swinging his ax, hitting the tree and repeating it, but it just didn’t work very well.
Finally, the young man laid down his ax, sat on the ground in exhaustion and wondered what was causing this. The foreman came over and told the young man he knew what caused it. He said he had been so busy all week doing the things that a logger does, that he had forgotten to get back to basics and sharpen his ax. It has become dull and is all but worthless today because it had not been kept in good condition.
Have we been so busy in our lives, and possibly even in our church, that we have forgotten to go back to the basics and just simply talk to God? Have we learned how to really do a good job talking the talk, but forgotten how to walk the walk? Don’t you agree that to keep our faith in good condition, we need to go to God more than we are doing now? The second thing I would like to talk about today is -
2. HAVING A PRIORITY OF PRAISE
There was a man who owned a grand old mansion on many acres of land. He wasn’t particularly satisfied with it and wanted something better, so he hired a real estate agent and asked him to write up an ad about the house.
The next day, the real estate agent came by and read the ad to the owner. The ad went on to say that the house was a beautiful old piece of artisan craftsmanship sitting on 30 acres of beautiful woods with plenty of scenic views of the valley below. It said that there were 20 rooms, all of which had floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the estate, and there was a large stone fireplace in each room.
The owner thought about that for a while and then read the ad again to himself. He laid it down and told the agent to cancel the sale. He said that he had never realized just how wonderful of an estate he had until he heard someone else praising it, so he decided to keep it.
All of us have more blessings from God than we realize. We need to start recognizing them and praising God for them. Daniel praised God when God revealed the meaning of dreams to him. He recognized that as a blessing and responded with love and praise.
In 2 SAMUEL 22:4, it says,
‘I call to the Lord who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies.’
Did you know that by praising the Lord for the blessings He has given you, you could thwart your enemies and even save your life? It’s true! Let me explain: You will not be able to honestly praise God from the inner parts of your heart unless you have a deep personal relationship with Him. And, when you have that kind of relationship with Him, He will protect you and lead you to victory, just like he did Daniel, Samuel and many other heroes of the Bible.
In the jungles of Africa, there is a fruit called the ‘taste berry’. It has that name because when you eat it, it changes your ability to taste things. Everything you eat, even several hours later, will taste very sweet. Even the most bitter and sour of things will taste pleasant and sweet after eating the taste berry fruit.
I think that Christianity has its own taste berry fruit. I think that praise is the fruit that leaves us with the sweet lingering taste of God, long after we have even lifted our praise to Him. When we are filled with the sweet taste of God, nothing this world can throw at us will seem as unpleasant as it would have without God filling up our hearts and souls.
In EPHESIANS 5:18-19, it reads,
‘….. be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord….’
By being filled with the Spirit and singing of all kinds of loving songs to God, we know that we actually have a priority of praise, just like Daniel did.
It is very hard for us to do that when we are having a very hard time, isn’t it? But we need to start thanking God and praising Him in all things, no matter what they are. If we do that, even when we think we are just ‘reciting’ praises, you will see God start to work wonders in your life, and the lives of those you love. God does things like that for those who make Him a priority. Would you say that you have a priority of praise? Is that your daily habit; to praise God for everything that happens to you? It should be.
The third thing I would like to point out is –
3. HAVING A PRIORITY OF PEOPLE
Take a moment and think about one thing that you would really like to have in your life. Now, since this is just an exercise in dreaming, THINK B-I-G ! Make it so big that the only way you could ever get it is to have God give it to you.
It could be anything from the restoration of a relationship, or the healing of a loved one. For me, I think it would be to have all three of my kids want to enter the ministry in some area so they could just work for Him the rest of their lives.
Now, imagine for a moment that God has blessed you with that dream. Your relationship is restored or that loved one is healed into perfect condition. Upon receiving that blessing, what would be your first priority?
Would you spend all your time now basking in the warmth of that restored relationship, or spend all your time with that healed loved one? That would be kind of like praying to God to supply some money to pay the back rent you owe, then taking the money He supplies you and going to Wal-Mart with it to buy a new watch and clothes. It would be wasting the blessing. This would be offensive to God.
In these cases, you might want to take that restored relationship and use it to direct the person and the relationship towards God. You might want to take the healed person and find some way to glorify the kingdom of God. Whatever blessing it is that He has given you, you can find some way to use it, enjoy it, even to love it so that He gets the glory.
There is a preacher in California who is also on radio and sometimes on TV. His name is Greg Laurie. He is an excellent preacher and truly a man of God. Has anybody here ever heard him? He tells of when he was a teenager, he had a very rough life. He had many stepfathers, and lived in many places. To fit in, as all kids need to do, he started using drugs and drinking a lot of alcohol. He is pretty much bald now, but then, he had long hair down to his waist.
There was a young girl in high school, he noticed this beautiful girl and was trying to do everything he could to get to know her so he could ask her out. The only problem was that she was a Christian and he wasn’t.
He noticed her in a group one day after school, so he sauntered over and stood kind of in the back of others; that way he could see her without being in the middle of all of them. He found out it was a prayer group and they began to pray. He said it was during that prayer that God touched him for the first time in his life. Soon after that, the girl started showing an interest in him, and today, they have been married for some 30+ years and have several grown children.
Now, we would all agree that Pastor Greg received a blessing from God. He could have just got to know the girl and took her out a few times, but he took another route. He got to know her and they made a very early and clear cut decision to build their relationship on Jesus Christ. This is what I mean by having a priority of people. Using them to enhance the glory of God in your life and theirs.
In EXODUS 32, Moses tells God that the people of Israel had sinned, and he asked God to forgive them. Then he said if God would not forgive them, to kill Moses and leave the others alive. Moses’ priority was not on his own life, but on the lives of the people of Israel.
In ROMANS 9, Paul says that all truth is in Christ, and the Holy Ghost bears witness to that. Then he says that he has sorrow in his heart for others and would wish that he could be accursed rather than them. Paul showed his priority was for others, not himself.
I would wonder how many of us have a priority for other people’s salvation? Do we worry about their souls? We should. Do we try to talk to them about Jesus? We should. Do we invite them to church, or to a Bible study? We should. Do we have them as one of our highest priorities? Again, we should.
A small country church’s pastor moved on to be with the Lord one time. An elder of the church asked the superintendent of his denomination to send a new pastor to the church.
The superintendent asked the elder how big a person he wanted, and the elder replied, “We aren’t really fussy about how big he is, but when he is on his knees in prayer, we want him to be able to have him reach Heaven.” They just wanted a Godly man.
I would like to ask a question this morning. Are we Godly people? Do we have our priorities where they should be, or do we always seem to fall away and start focusing on the world around us?
Let me tell you what real priority is, and then I will close. During service one morning, the pastor told the congregation that there would be a guest speaker that morning. The guest was a retired pastor who he had known for most of his life. He then introduced the old pastor.
The old pastor talked a while, and then started talking about salvation and accepting Jesus, telling the congregation just how important that was to them. He told a story of how a pastor had taken his 12 year old son and his son’s 12 year old friend out on a boat to do some fishing in the Gulf of Mexico.
He said a sudden storm came up and the boat overturned, throwing all three of them in the water. He heard his son calling for help about 20 feet to his left and saw the other boy struggling to stay afloat to his right. He said the father only had one line, and could only save one boy. He yelled to his son that he loved him and threw the line to the other boy, saving him. Then, he told the congregation that it was a true story, that he was the father.
After church services, someone came up and asked him why he saved the other boy instead of his son. He said that he knew his son was saved and would go to Heaven, but he knew the other boy wasn’t saved and he didn’t want him to go to hell.
That person then asked the pastor how the other boy finally turned out, and the old man looked at him and said, “That little boy is now your pastor of this church.”
That old man truly had his priorities straight. I urge you to take this opportunity this morning, during this invitation, to get your priorities straight with the Lord. I urge you to commit your self fully today, to the Lord and His realm and take yourself out of the world and its realm.
INVITATION
CLOSING PRAYER
CLOSING SONG
