The Big Picture
At the time, it was one of the worst airline disasters in our nation’s history. On December 29, 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401, which took off from the John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, was scheduled to land at Miami International Airport. Shortly before midnight the plane crashed in the Florida Everglades, killing over a hundred people, including all three pilots. But what made the crash all the more tragic was not just the loss of life; it was the cause.
When investigators pieced together the final moments of the plane’s descent, they discovered that the only thing that malfunctioned on the plane was a small green light. Everything else was working properly. They learned that as the plane was preparing to land, one of pilots noticed that the landing gear indicator light was not illuminated. In actuality, the gear had descended and was deployed and locked, but the light that indicated that was out, so they didn't know that.
As the pilots scrambled to determine why the landing gear light was not working, they apparently bumped the "yoke," or control column on the plane, causing it to switch the autopilot from altitude hold mode. So while they attention was hyper-focused on that landing gear light, the plane lost altitude and eventually crashed. The landing gear did not cause the crash. Flight 401 crashed because of the crew’s inability to see the bigger picture.
Forgetting about the bigger picture is not only a problem for pilots. It can also tragically surface in our lives in so many ways. Sometimes we get so focused on the minor details of our day-to-day routines, that we miss the bigger issues of God's will, for which we should be living. This also is a temptation in our relationships, and especially our marriages.
So, we end up living on our own automatic pilot, just trying to make it through another day, and we forget what our priorities are, and don't live by them, or for them. Then, when we look back at what we didn't do, we have so many regrets of things we intended to do and be but never got around to.
That can also happen in churches, and even in denominations. It's so easy to get distracted and then sidetracked from what's important, and stop focusing on why we are here to begin with. So the minors become majors, and the majors get put on the back burner, and we lose our way.
Our recent messages from Romans 14 and 15 have been a good reminder for us not to spend a lot of our time or emotional and relational energy on things that, in the big picture, don't matter that much. There's no telling how many churches have "crashed" when they lost their focus and devoted all of their attention toward the little green lights of opinions, and preferences, and politics.
Our focus should always be first on the gospel of Jesus Christ, where we find our hope, and on which our mission is based. We should be sharing it and living it out in our relationships in and out of the church, and together be in tune with that so much that our "harmony" (as we talked about on Sunday) would just happen naturally because of our shared mission. This is what the New Testament church was always intended to be about.
My prayer for myself--and for you--is that we will keep our focus on the big picture of God's work of gracious redemption through the gospel to us, to our community, and to the world. May the Lord bless you as you serve Him this week. I look forward to seeing you Sunday.
--Pastor Ken
