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Finding Balance
Sounds like a worthy endeavor, doesn't it? Just getting everything in balance is what we need, right? A place for everything and everything in its place. Equal time for everything. Sounds sensible on the surface. Which is fine if superficiality is what you want.
Maybe the issue is not so much one of balance as it is one of order. Putting first things first. Perhaps it is not so much about giving everything equal weight, but rather giving the things that should carry the most weight priority. Perhaps what we are called to do is not so much to find balance as to establish priority? Priority.
Things happen in order. In John 15, Jesus outlines life on the vine. It begins with abiding in Jesus, it progresses to loving one another, and then spills out into service and bearing witness in he world around us. It is not a matter of balancing the three priorities, but rather ordering them and allowing them to happen. It is a way of life in which one flows out of the other, overflowing as they go. And while they all may be happening along side of each other at the same time, there is an order to it that keeps things from forming puddles and sometimes even stagnating.
Priority, however, implies intention. To line things up in a certain way requires that we are intentional about putting them and keeping them in that order. Ordering is a different kind of skill than balancing, but one with developing, and one that bears fruit. Take a few moments to reflect on the scripture passages to the right, and note how they encourage not balance but priority.
That is what Pastor Jon invites us to consider this morning. If you would like to listen to the sermon once again, or perhaps for the first time, you can access our sermon library by clicking here. Or, if you prefer, you can access our on-line streaming version by clicking here.
Matthew 6:33
33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
John 15
15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other. . .
26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. 27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
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