What's Important

What’s Important

Luke 9:57-62. James 1:22-24

Intro. This morning we are back into our core values that we identified in our vision casting sessions. Out of these sessions we defined our mission as a church which was “ to encourage and develop those we meet into committed followers of Jesus.” In these sessions we also cast our vision and identified six core values that identify who we are as a church. What we feel is important in our church.

. A couple of week’s ago we looked at two of these core values which were Preaching and Teaching Scripture, and Prayer.

. Today we will look at Bible Knowledge and Obedience.

. We identified Bible Knowledge as one thing that is important to us and we defined this as:

. A daily commitment to understanding and applying God’s word.

. As I contemplated and prayed through how to present this core value, the word commitment stood out to me in our definition.

. Commitment is an elusive concept some time.

. In our rapidly moving society it gets hard to commit sometimes.

. A few weeks ago we had our mother daughter banquet and after it was over I wanted to leave as soon as possible because I had talked with my son’s earlier in the day and we had agreed to go fishing. After the banquet as I was going to the lake to meet them I called them to tell them what time to meet me there. They informed me that something had come up and that they no longer wanted to go fishing. It seemed that they had gotten a better offer from someone else. Even though we had committed to this time it seemed that something else was more important. That’s typical in our society today. It seems that commitment is a tough thing.

.It seems that sometimes commitment is circumstantial. Let me illustrate.

. This was a letter sent by a young lady who just couldn’t seem to commit.

. "Dearest Jimmy, No words could ever express the great unhappiness I’ve felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you’ll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you! Yours forever, Marie... P.S., congratulations on winning the state lottery."

. Her commitment was contingent upon something.

. It’s much like the two men that were talking to Jesus as they were walking along the road as recorded in Luke 9: 57 -62.

. As they were walking along, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” But Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens to live in and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to even lay His head.” He said to another person. Come follow me.” The man agreed but he said, Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “let the spiritually dead bury their own dead! Your duty is to go and preach about the Kingdom of God.” Another one said, “Yes Lord, I will follow you, but first let me say good-bye to my family.” Bur Jesus told him, “anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”

. They said that they wanted to follow Jesus but they had some conditions.

. Our commitment cannot be conditional.

. Our commitment must be to the teachings of God.

.I know I talk a lot about commitment from the pulpit.

. That’s because that’s what these core value are . A commitment to something.

. We as a church must stand for something.

. We must commit ourselves to these principles or core values.

. Jesus says we must commit.

. In regards to this core value of Bible knowledge, we say that it is a commitment to first, understanding Gods word.

. How can you understand something if you don’t know what it says.

. It kind of like reading directions.

. At my house we have two distinct personalities when it comes to reading directions.

. Pam and Andrew have the same personality. When we get something new and it needs assembly, it automatically goes to Pam and Andrew. They are very meticulous and they read the directions.

. On the other hand, DJ and I are just the opposite. We don’t read directions and sometimes give up on something that needs to be done because we don’t want to read the directions. Notice I didn’t say we didn’t have time nor that we didn’t have the ability to read the directions. We just don’t want to. Were not really committed to doing what needs to be done.

. How can you expect to live a Christian life when you don’t know what the Christian life is.