Dr. M. Taylor Bach I Corinthians 15:1-11 Mark 12:28-34

Imagine you were shipwrecked and you are in a rubber life raft floating around in the ocean. Off in the distance, you see an island. You are on the rubber raft with your friend. You have in the raft flares, a week's supply of food and a week's supply of fresh water. But there are holes in the air pockets surrounding the raft and it is slowly sinking. You know that you have to throw something out. What would you throw out? (Pause) Raise your hand those of you who said the friend? (laughter) This morning, I am beginning a series of sermons on relationships and how important they are. So I hoped none of you would throw out your friends.

To focus on relationships, we first have to have our values straight. What we know is, if we live our values, our values then are the guidelines, the guiding light, by which we make the decisions of our life. To get our values straight as Christians, we need to focus on the Great Command that Tom Matthew read this morning. We are to understand that first and foremost we must love God. Let me read to you a very short paragraph from the gospel of Matthew. When I first read it, it kind of puzzled me a little bit but as I think about it, it is saying, “Put God first.”

Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

The gist of that passage is that God comes first. He comes before family. He even comes before ourselves. God is the most important person (if we can think of God as a person, even though He is much bigger than that). He is the perfect being that we need to focus our attention on. The whole gist of the Bible from the very first pages in Genesis to the last pages of Revelation makes the point that God wants a relationship with us. He wants us to be His friend, His children, His company. He wants us to be in prayer constantly showing our love and gratitude to Him, praying to Him and talking to Him conversationally. This is what He wants of us and this is what He is asking of us. So we wonder then&how difficult is that, to keep God first and foremost? Can we do that on a daily basis? Can you do it when you rise? Can you do it as you eat breakfast? Can you do it as you go to work or go to do whatever you are going to do for the day and make God first and foremost in your life?

Rev. Tom Hardaway, who has taken Rev. Rick Warren's place (the author of The Purpose Driven Life) at Saddleback Church as the new preaching minister, makes a point that should be well-taken. That is&lesser values seem to overtake greater values. This is part of the human condition. We don't want it to be that way but it just turns out that way. Let me give you some examples. The first one that comes to mind is if you have made it a habit to have morning devotions or said to yourself maybe as a New Year's resolution, “I am going to pray every morning” and then you walk into the kitchen and see the newspaper and want to read the sports page or check the stock market report. The resolve to do morning devotions often just goes by the wayside. It is very easy for the lesser value to take over the greater value. Or how about this example? When you are talking to your very best friend in this world, maybe it is your spouse or partner, maybe it is another good friend, and they have something really bothering them and they just wanted to tell you about it. But as you look at them, you see a piece of spinach in their teeth. All you can do is focus on the green spinach. Has that ever happened to you? You miss what they are saying. You lose your concentration or your focus. The lesser value took over the greater value. How about the case when your spouse or partner has something very important to say to you and in your mind is& “My favorite television program came on three minutes ago.” Has that ever happened? Be honest. Come on now. What about the case where one of your children has a concern. To that child, it sounds like it's the greatest concern in the world but you are in a hurry to get on with something else, so you rush the child through it. Again, the lesser value takes precedence over the greater value. This is part of the human condition. It is the kind of thing that we do. We have to consciously and habitually learn to put God first and then make our other relationships as important as we consider ourselves important. That is what the Great Command is all about.

Jesus was an expert at this so we can follow His example quite easily. As you think about it, what is the greatest gift you can give in a relationship? Isn't it the gift of time&quality focused time in the relationship? If we look at the life of Jesus, we see that He was wonderful in giving quality focused time. Take the case when Jesus was going to cure Jairus' daughter who way dying and on His way to cure her, a woman touched the hem of his cloak. Instantly she was cured from a hemorrhage that she had had for many many years. What did Jesus do? He stopped. He turned around and said, “Who touched me?” He felt power go out from Himself. He then took the time to listen to her story and spend time with her even though knowing that time was of the essence to get to Jairus's daughter. Then He went ahead and cured Jairus's daughter. But He gave the woman with the hemorrhage quality time in speaking to her and hearing her story. We need to give people quality time and listen to each other's stories as well.

In the baptismal ceremony that we had this morning, there is the example that comes out of Jesus talking with grownups. Apparently, little children were trying to get to see Jesus. His apostles were pushing them away. Jesus became indignant, the scripture says, and He said, “Let the little children come unto me and don't prevent them. In fact, it is being like this that will get you into the kingdom of heaven. Unless you become as a little child, you are not going to enter the kingdom of heaven.” So He gave quality time and focused His attention on the little children even though He was pressing to convert the grownups at that time. Then He gave that interesting comment that unless we become like little children, we won't enter the kingdom of heaven. What is it that little children do that is so important? The answer is&little children will give their full attention. They'll give their trust. They'll connect and hold on and be there totally present. So we need to be present to Jesus as these little children were who came to Him.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of the Samaritan woman. You all are familiar with it, I 'm sure. You've heard how she was there filling up her jar of water at noon time which was a time when women weren't allowed to be at the well. It was part of the sexism of the time. She was a brazen woman and was there in defiance of the social custom. What did Jesus do? Rather than honoring the social custom, he talked to her. Not only did He talk to her, He shared His mission and His purpose with her. He told her that if she came to Him, He would give her eternal water so she would never thirst. Then He got into her personal life, perhaps listening to her personal story and identified to her that she had been married five times and the person she was now with wasn't even her husband. Did He condemn her for that? No. He forgave her for that as He gave her His quality time. She was so excited in having met Jesus that she ran back to the town becoming one of the first missionaries! In doing so, she invited all the towns' people to come forward. And darn, if they didn't listen to Jesus and He ended up spending two more days at the well talking to people and sharing His mission and healing them. He gave them His quality time. And all this because He gave her quality time in a relationship that He held important even though society would have dismissed her. Society would have judged her as worthy of being stoned because that was the Jewish law for an adulteress. Jesus ignored the social customs that put law before people. So this was what Jesus was all about. He gave us the example of how to have great relationships by putting people first.

How about His relationship to His Father? I am sure when you've read these Biblical passages you have seen where it says, “Jesus, in the morning, would go out alone and talk with His Father.” He put His Father first in everything. He often said, “I come to do the will of my heavenly Father.” Even in His last hours in the garden of Gethsemane, what was it that Jesus said there? As you recall, just having gone through Good Friday where He was in agony sweating blood and visualizing what was going to happen to Him, He said, “Not my will but yours be done (talking to His Father).” So this is the example that He gave. He put His Father's will (our Father, too), God the Father's will first and foremost. This was His priority in His relationships. This too needs to become our priority as well. Once we get our priorities straight, our values right, and we take care of our relationship with God and take care of our relationship with others, we are giving a great gift to our self and we are loving our self. That should be what life is all about