Loyalty

I recently heard a podcast from a well-known Pastor talking about church staff, deacons, and elders. The man claimed that a church leader's primary loyalty is to their Pastor, then to the church. In the guy's defense, they'd just gone through about a year of fighting with a rebel and his faction who were attempting a coup (I've been there--zero fun). The reason that the fuss took so long to resolve was, in the Pastor's opinion, because people were more loyal to their opinions and their friends than they were to their Pastor and their church. He does have a point--faulty loyalties will get us off track. 

But I think the guy was wrong in his assessment of where our loyalties are rightly placed. First loyalty is to Jesus. 

Jesus once sent me to a rotten church. I went because I'm loyal to him. He once had me work for a bad man. I did it because I am loyal to Jesus. I've had to choose loyalty to Jesus over loyalty to more than one family member, and I'm guessing you may have too. (If not, you probably just haven't lived long enough.)

You may have heard the formula or read it on a t-shirt: God-Family-Country. That's cultural wisdom, not biblical wisdom. Cultural wisdom is usually something that makes sense on the surface, but is not found in the Bible like, "God helps those who help themselves." (No, he doesn't. He helps those he wants to help by sovereign grace.) You'll see nothing in the cultural wisdom about church or Pastor, just a vague reference that could mean a thousand things. But are you aware that there is nothing in the Bible about a loyalty ranking of God-Family-Country? I'm not real sure that there's anything about loyalty to the church or the Pastor either. Why do you think that is? 

Simply stated: our loyalty is to Jesus Christ. Not first, not second, but all of it. All our loyalty is to Jesus. 

Don't miss the reality, however, that if all one's loyalty is to Jesus, they will be loyal to their Pastor and their church automatically--you cannot be loyal to Jesus and hate his anointed servant or his body (the church). Moreover, you'll love your family a lot better if you love Jesus more than you love them. You'll love your nation if you love Jesus, too. Now, you might not like some things your family members do or things your country does, but if you love Jesus, you won't hate anything except sin. Your loyalty to Jesus will keep you praying and fighting for those rebellious family members and idiotic government policies as well. You just will not stop, and that loyalty may be the thing that breaks the enemy's grip (don't forget to vote, btw). 

Where are your loyalties? 

You don't have to defend yourself, but if you did, could you make an evidence-based case that you're loyal to Jesus above all?