Focusing On Minutia While Eternity is at Stake

This morning, I was reading about King Saul, the first king appointed by God over Israel. He was a mighty man of valor, and led Israel through many conflicts. He did, however, disobey God quite often, and, thus, lost his Kingdom to another man, David. This got me thinking about how we do things in the Lord’s Church. How many of us do the work, but we miss out on the obedience? We can have a complete logistical mind, we can maintain a beautiful building, we can organize and do programs, be worried about public opinion and so many other things, but we can also miss out completely on God. That’s what Saul did.

Loved ones, God is not impressed with our buildings.  He is not impressed with our musical styles, nor the tenacity and dynamic ability of the preacher. He’s not concerned with how many people fit in the building or come through the door. He is, however, concerned with sin. In His earthly ministry, Jesus did heal people, He did raise the dead, and He did do miracles, but His main concern was addressing sin and bringing people back to obedience.  He did not live, die and rise again for the things of the body, but did so that we might be reconciled to God for eternity’s sake. If this so concerned Jesus and His followers after Him, why do we get caught up in the minutia?

So let us focus on eternity. Seek to be obedient to God. Love Him with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. People are dead in their sins and trespasses, and Jesus is the only way to life. We absolutely should take care and be good stewards of what we have been given: our people, our assets and the like. But the goal is the Eternity, and the message is the Gospel. Eternity is at stake!

Matthew 6:19-34

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money”

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.