Some Thoughts on Sunday’s Sermon on The Last Shall Be First

This morning Pastor Barry shared the second sermon in our series on the Upside Down Way of God. As I was sitting, listening and taking notes it just hit me. I saw how God is trying to impart to us a way of life that is contrary to anything the world values but when lived out is the highest blessing and fulfillment. It’s not that I didn’t know this stuff but it really deepened in my heart today.

It’s like the scripture that says they hear, but they do not hear and they see, but they do not see… I saw, I heard, I knew but I didn’t really see… I mean I thought I did, and that is the thing with it, you don’t know if you don’t really see… You think you see but you might not really see… The true test of if you really see the upside down way of God is… is that the way you live your life? Do you do it? Do you live it?

Today’s upside down way was the last shall be first and the first shall be last. The story in Matthew 20:1-16 is the one with the workers in the vineyard. The master paid the worker that worked all day the same as the one who worked only an hour. The worker who worked all day felt that he was entitled to be paid more than the one who only worked an hour. It’s not an outrageous thought. I think I would think the same thing. It makes sense. But our Master does not work in our system. Our system says you work hard you earn more. Our Master says you cannot earn what I want to give. The last did not earn or deserve the wages he got; he only had to receive them. What the first did not understand, What we often don’t understand is that no amount of work will give us brownie points in the eyes of God. He does not measure us according to the system that we understand. The system, which our culture has taught us. A system where we have to do in order to get more from God.

God has already given us the gift. When we fully receive it we start living according to His upside down ways and our lives become better, not because he gives us more but because the Bible actually does what it says. When we live it, it works. You give and are thankful and you will be blessed more. It’s not in what we are doing it’s in who we are being.

He looks at the heart. He looks to who we are and how his kingdom has been lived out through us here on earth. We live in a world that values knowledge, wealth, influence, power and strength. We are told and taught in a thousand ways every day that these are the things that are important in life. However, in God these things are nothing. They mean nothing, they will all pass away. God’s upside down way is that we see, I mean really see His way, and live out who He made us to be. When we can see who God sees when He looks at us we can be who he wants us to be. When we use the talents and gifts that God has given to us wholly and fully, we will live this upside down way of God.

I believe that knowledge, influence, power, strength and even wealth can walk in a loving and committed relationship with Christ, the point of bringing those things up are not to say stay away from them because they are bad, but just to say that they are not what is important in God’s eyes. He doesn’t care how rich you are; He cares about you being all you can be in Him. It leads us back to Jason’s talk last week; our dependency must be in him.  Our culture is all about appearance and the Kingdom of God is all about character, so in order to live the first shall be last and the last shall be first we must fully receive God’s grace for our lives and let what we do be an extension of who God as called us to be. Be first, and then do. Not be first but BE first, then do. Get it?