Jesus First 

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
1 Corinthians 2:2 (NIV)

I was asked the most interesting question by a pastor friend of mine. I thought about it for weeks after our conversation. He asked, “Hey Bill, if you were the singular shaper of the church today, what would be your focus and what would you change first?” And to both my answer is this: “I would require more preaching, teaching, and worshipping centered on Jesus, and far less centered on us.”

The church’s focus should be more about the lordship of Jesus, and less about our cultural circumstances, our political issues, or our gender and sexual identity issues. I understand the need to express our worth and our value, our strengths and our potential. I know that we’ve got to speak truth to power, and I know we have issues related to race and politics. Trust me, I get it. We need to be reminded of our inheritance and our spiritual status. We need to be told on a repetitive basis that we’ve got victory and we walk with spiritual might. We need to celebrate the blessings and favor and open doors that God extends to us. But none of these things should be the primary focus of the church. Preemptive above all else is the lordship and the atoning sacrifice of Jesus.

Why? Because unless we had been made alive in Jesus, we would be floating dead in trespasses and sins, so nothing else matters as much.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying these things don’t matter at all—because they do. I’m saying they do not matter as much as our focus on Jesus. We need to be encouraged, we need to be motivated, we need self-esteem and character building and training. But these are peripheral things, and all of them are enveloped under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the undeniable, indisputable, irrefutable, singular Son of the living God. And He alone can save by His divine power. It’s time for the church to turn its focus back to where it belongs and keep the main thing the main thing.