SIGNIFICANCE VS PROMINENCE: DON’T SUBMIT TO THE SUMMIT IDEOLOGY!
Have you ever felt unimportant and said, “How greatly God would use me if I was in a leadership position?” In your prayers, do you pray for every sort of gift and calling to glorify God? Are you the know-it-all who puts up his hand every time the pastor asks a question?
If you have all the above symptoms, you could possibly be a person who has a great hunger for God and/or a person who has a great disease I call the “Summit Ideology”. I used to suffer from the above symptoms, with a confusing mix of both personalities. Beneath whatever passion I had for God was an underlying coat of insecurity.
John 4:19-24 tells us a little about the “Summit Ideology.”
The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.
You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Jesus was telling the Samaritan woman that she was focused on the wrong things, just like what we do all the time. He was saying that it is not important about where we worship. It is important who and how genuinely we worship.
Acts 2:5, 9-11a tells us,
And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven.
Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
Cretans and Arabs.
Jerusalem was the city where the Temple was built. People from all countries went to this bustling capital of Israel to do business as Jerusalem was connected to the Silk Road. The Temple was built on Mount Moriah and it was a grand affair climbing up this mountain filled with so much history to worship God.
Mountains are high places where you can look down and see everything from a mountain top view. It captures the nearby landscape in a beautiful view that you will never see from the foothill. It’s the only place where you can broaden your horizons and see the sun as it is rising and setting.
Mountains also represent positions of leadership. It is the place where you can see the big picture of the ministry you’re leading clearly. It is God’s holy place, where He drew Moses, Jesus and other saints up when He was about to do something spectacular. Jews treated Mount Moriah especially as a sacred and important place.
Both mountains and Jerusalem spell prominence. Mount Moriah in Jerusalem spelt prominence even more clearly. What Jesus was trying to identify when He corrected the Samaritan woman is the common human mistake of placing prominence higher than significance, a.k.a(also known as) the “Summit Ideology”.
Just look at the human race in general and you will see the “Summit Ideology” popping up all over.
Countless people have tried to conquer mountains like Everest and K2 and despite the fatality rate. The most clear cut case of our preference for the limelight is the Guiness World Records. Thousands of people spend their whole lives training themselves to perform unique stunts or existing ones in ways more extreme than previous record holders.
Most of these records will do nothing for another person, except to entertain, shock and amaze. They do all this just to get their names in those records. They put all of their energy into an accomplishment that will one day be forgotten or erased. Prominence is something people would die for, even if it lasts for only a short time.
Ecclesiastes1:2-11 says,
"Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher;
"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
What profit has a man from all his labor
In which he toils under the sun?
One generation passes away, and another generation comes;
But the earth abides forever.
The sun also rises, and the sun goes down,
And hastens to the place where it arose.
The wind goes toward the south,
And turns around to the north;
The wind whirls about continually,
And comes again on its circuit.
All the rivers run into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full;
To the place from which the rivers come,
There they return again.
All things are full of labor;
Man cannot express it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
Nor the ear filled with hearing.
That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which it may be said,
"See, this is new"?
It has already been in ancient times before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,
Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come
By those who will come after.
The truth is that there is no lasting satisfaction or fruit from Man’s physical labours and achievements. There is nothing new; only old things rediscovered and repeated and its pioneers forgotten.
This was the verdict which King Solomon of Israel reached after building a mighty kingdom of wealth and peace. Israel, at that point in time, had many kings paying tribute to it and no enemies warring with it.
He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He was granted wisdom from God and became the wisest man in the world, writing more than 1000 songs and 3000 proverbs(1 Kings 4:29-34).
He was the man men wished they were yet he was not satisfied in all he had. In Ecclesiastes, he groaned about how wisdom increases grief and everything is grasping for the wind and meaningless.
Ecclesiastes 1:13-18 says,
And I set my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven; this burdensome task God has given to the sons of man, by which they may be exercised.
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
What is crooked cannot be made straight,
And what is lacking cannot be numbered.
I communed with my heart, saying, "Look, I have attained greatness, and have gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge."
And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind.
For in much wisdom is much grief,
And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
Let me tell you a secret about lasting achievements. The only way we can have an accomplishment that lasts way beyond our lives is to change the lives of people and encourage them to pass it on to others in need, like what Mother Teresa had done with her life.
Loving God and people is the most significant thing that we can ever accomplish on Earth. The wisdom of God about doing everything that’s important and good was summed up in these two commandments (Matt 22:36-40). Everything else fades away with time.
Job 14:1-2 describes how short our days are.
Man who is born of woman
Is of few days and full of trouble.
He comes forth like a flower and fades away;
He flees like a shadow and does not continue.
1 Peter 1:24 tells us what our glory is likened to.
“ All flesh is as grass. And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers and its flower falls away.
Our lives and glory are like grass and flowers that wilt away but if we live life loving others, we can bear much fruit even after we die. It was with this confidence that Jesus Himself said what He said in John 12:23-24, knowing of His approaching death.
But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.
Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”
Everyone admires Mother Teresa but not everyone would choose to be her. Not everyone understands this saying of Jesus, “Greater love has no one than this, than one who gives up his life for his friend.” They would rather be Elvis, Miss Universe, American Idol or some other prominent figure of our society.
Does this mean we should never serve God in leadership positions because we will get prominent? Absolutely not, the problem is not with prominence itself. The problem is us, humans, putting prominence of a higher importance than significance.
Don’t we often wish we could preach a ‘Sermon on the Mount’ at some evangelistic rally, where thousands of people listen attentively while we speak?
But Jesus chose a different way; He chose to be glorified, not to glorify Himself. He was glorified when He did something significant but He was never One after prominence. He believed in doing what was significant and sometimes it meant He was in the limelight.
When He fed the 4,000 and 5,000, it was because He cared about them, not because He wanted to glorify Himself. He didn’t act like a celebrity yearning for attention. If He did, He would not have gone to the lowest caste of society; the blind, lepers and tax collectors.
He came to be a doctor to those who were sick and to call sinners to repentance (Mark 2:15-17). He ate with sinners and enjoyed being called a “Friend of sinners.” (Luke 7:34)
Other great biblical heroes like Joseph, Daniel and David all climbed the political ladder but they never let their head get big and heart confused. Never submit to the “Summit Ideology”; it destroys the dreams we have. We don’t have to feel small and let the “Summit Ideology” take away our joy.
Romans 12:16 teaches us to “be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.”
Philippians 2:3 reminds us to “let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 tells us that
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Without love, we are clanging cymbals and noisy attention-seeking gong. If I do not love, I am nothing though I do the most significant thing or have the most power or the best talents in the world.
Matthew 23:11-12 instructs us to a better way,
But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.
And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
I want you to know that God wants us to be prepared for prominence by serving him in significant areas first. Prominence is dangerous to our egos and we do less significant things, out of wrong motives. We yearn for mountain top experiences but we forget the mountains are also places where cold winds rage and there’s less air to breathe. It’s easy to stumble and fall backward.
God may not call you to a specific calling of your own but love is the calling He gives to all men. Not everyone will be on stage, because then no one will be downstage. And the stage is the church but downstage is the world, largely unreached by Christ’s love because all of us have been focusing on the stage. Embrace the vision of a bigger ministry ground than inside the church walls.
Matt 19:29-30 says,
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.
But many who are first will be last, and the last first.
The last will be the first in Heaven, if not on earth. I really await that day when we enter Heaven. That will be the day when unsung heroes and heroines are honoured and given charge over many things. Can you imagine seeing that guy who served God by sweeping the sanctuary actually given more glory and responsibilities than his pastor?
I’ll leave you with 1 Corinthians 13:13 to think about.
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
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