We saw yesterday how Jesus said one goal mattered more than even day to day concerns like food and clothing: his kingdom. He said, “seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you.” What does that mean?
First of all, it doesn’t mean seek only God’s kingdom as some spiritual distant concept and ignore the realities of day to day life. Jesus doesn’t meant we should never eat or sleep, or that those things are inherently bad. He says quite clearly, when we seek first the kingdom, “then all these will be added to you.” He knows we need them, and wants to be the one to give them to us, but in their proper perspective.
For example, consider food. We need food to live, and good food is an enjoyable part of living. But that good thing can be made into an ultimate thing, and when that happens, it becomes a very bad thing. When we elevate food to become more than it was meant to be, and it becomes our source of comfort, emotional stability, we are in both physical and spiritual danger.
Instead, Jesus challenges us to seek kingdom of God. God is the creator sustainer of the whole world, including its food sources. He created, called it good, and wants us to enjoy the world’s sustenance so we can do our daily work and enjoy his provision. When we find our true satisfaction in God, then we can enjoy good things for what they are…we don’t have to overdo it, and we don’t have to hate it. This applies to food, and any number of other good things God created.
In the Christianity 101 course, we sometimes illustrate this with a wagon wheel. The hub is special – it’s particularly strong, and has a unique shape to do its job. The spokes are meant to be all connected with, and delivering power from the hub to the rim.
If we try to remove the hub and replace it with a spoke, you know what happens, it all falls apart. It’s the same with our lives. We were made to have God at the center of our lives, providing meaning and purpose to the whole. Unfortunately the human race tried to remove God from the center long ago, and have been trying to shove spokes in ever since, whether it be money, career, sexuality, power, or any other good thing God created that can be abused. This is a good definition of sin: When we take good things, try to make them our ultimate good, and that’s ultimately really bad for us.
Question: Make a list of good things in our world that can be abused.
Reminder: We are reading the Bible in sync as one community – so check out today’s reading here.
Reminder: The best way to grow spiritually this year is to join our Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course in Pickering starting tonight. Register for you and a friend today!
Read the Bible in Sync Today
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We are a few weeks into a new series on “Becoming Like Family”. This is important as members of our online community begin to share the daily challenges with friends, and we begin to gather our larger community together as one church community. We won’t be bound together by a building, or institution, but rather by five commitments. We’ve talked about commitment to common learning goals, connectedness as a community of small and large groups, connectedness to God in worship, and now this week, we come to grace in lifestyle.
Those who’ve decided to follow Jesus, and walk in his path, are going to have to choose this over other paths. These choices impact many areas of life. That should be no surprise, but sometimes it’s hard to swallow. We can recoil from rules, or worry about restricted freedom.
We’ll explore that this week, but it starts with understanding why we are asked to live by, and with, grace.
But what does grace mean?
There is a classic Seinfeld episode where Elaine is in a job interview, and the interviewer shares her admiration of Jackie O, who had “grace”. Elaine tries to say, “I think I have a little grace” but the interviewer snaps back, “You can’t have a little grace, you either have it or you don’t.” Elaine backpendals, “Alright, I have no grace. I don’t have grace, I don’t want grace. Hey, I don’t even say grace.”
You can see the confusion here – what does grace even mean? Is it poise and kindness? Is it a lovely name for an old lady that is finally making a comeback? Is it a prayer before a meal?
Question: What do you think of when you hear the word grace? What does it mean?
Reminder: Last week we talked about worship, and asked you to complete our online survey about worship here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8TS7K93
Reminder: Earlier in this series, we saw the importance of reading the Bible together in sync, so our new daily bible readings start today in our mobile app and web site.
