First things First!

I had an interesting experience on a Monday afternoon recently. A man named Andrew called me and asked abruptly if he could ask me a series of questions. He jumped right in and asked if I though of myself as Free, or in bondage? He followed that up if I thought I was more flesh or Spirit?

(I just had several cookies that one of our Church members had left for me, so when He called I was definitely, more flesh than spirit!)

He also wanted to know that when I speak is it God’s words or mine. He also was captivated by the concept of binding and loosening, He was confused, He was confusing! I shared my life journey to faith in Jesus and how He could know him.

He had a problem with thinking of himself as a sinner…I quickly told him that I was a sinner, and the only difference between me and a non-believer is that because of the Lord Jesus Christ, I have been forgiven….

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
(John 8:36).

I learned that he is an engineer and calls Pastors at random from around the country…to ask the questions he asked me. I told him that I believed the Lord had arranged for him to call me…Andrew is a seeker!

Andrew the brother of Peter, was once a seeker as well, then he met Jesus and Andrew became a sharer, of the love of Jesus he reached out to his brother Peter and told him about Jesus. He kept…first things first!

Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus. 41The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). 42And he brought him to Jesus. (John 1:40-42).

If we are to keep First things first…we need to be like Andrew, have a ….

A humble listening heart:

*Andrew was the first called...the first disciple Jesus enlisted... he was the first to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, however, Andrew never achieved the fame that his brother Peter did. During his years as a disciple Andrew was never included in Jesus' inner circle. Unlike Peter, James, and John he was not taken up to the Hill of Mt. Transfiguration or in with Jesus when He healed Jairus' daughter...or when Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to His arrest.

Andrew never preached like Peter, never recorded a gospel like Matthew or John, nor was he ever recognized by the early church like James. PETER'S name appears in the four gospels 96 times. Only Jesus is mentioned more often but Andrew's name is only found 14 times and most of those times he is referred to as Peter's brother. Peter is constantly in the center of the action. There are numerous accounts of things he said or did but Scripture only records Andrew as doing three things.

Now, it takes a great deal of grace to play second fiddle, especially if it's your own brother who's playing FIRST fiddle!

And Andrew must have learned to access this grace because he doesn't seem to mind this arrangement. I mean in a similar situation many of us would have considered ourselves slighted. *Redland Baptist Church on line sermon

Not Andrew, why? He was humble, he had a listening heart, and what he heard was “No life is insignificant that belongs to Jesus!

Andrew happy to be apart of the twelve, He had a humble listening heart, he kept first things first...do we?