Priorities
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Glad you showed up, glad your here:
Companies have been bragging about making plants taste like meat. Cows have been doing that forever.
Illustration:
Our lives are all made up of priorities. Like these rocks, some priorities are large, like family, work, etc. (Hold up the larger stones)
Other parts of our lives are made up of various small priorities like working out, watching sports, or eating out at restaurants. (Hold up the smaller rocks)
The question is whether we have our priorities in proper order. For instance, if we were to fill our lives with the smaller priorities first (take the small rocks and pour them into the large clear container) the larger and more important priorities can not fit.
We can get lost in lesser things. As we begin this new year, we must take an honest look at our lives and consider what priorities we have put first, what things matter most.
How do we seek God?
We seek Him like we seek anything else.
We must spend a lot of time and energy in pursuit of Him.
Seeking God takes time.
We only have so much time to prioritize:
There are 168 hours in a week. But only 112 of these (roughly) are while we’re awake.
Out of the 112 hours lets say 40 hours goes to work
That leaves 72 hours: lets say roughly 6 hours a week to wake up and get ready for proper hygiene.
Brings us to 66: We spend on average 2 hours a day on food prep, eating, and clean up.
52 hours We spend an average of 60 minutes a day driving.
45 hours: house hold chores about 7 hours a week
39 hours left for family, church, service to others
Ideas that come vs priorities:
Learning how to build a cabin
hunting, camping, getting a travel trailer
start another business like dog breading
working out and getting in shape
eating right takes time
What do we do with the rest of the 39 hours a week?
22 hours a week on the smart phone
Average gamer spends 8.5 hours per week on games
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
We must seek God first. Do you hear the language of priority? Jesus tells us that when we seek after a life that pleases God, all the things that we have the tendency to worry about will fall into proper order. So, let’s look at how this might practically work out day in and day out;
● When it comes to our marriages we might be worried about, when we put Jesus first, we might mature into a more gracious, loving, and kind spouse, which may in turn have a positive impact on our marriage.
● When it comes to our finances, perhaps focusing on God first may reveal to us how we spend too much on things that don’t matter.
● When it comes to our children, we may find that putting God first may make us more patient and understanding with our kids.
Someone once asked Tom Landry who was one of the greatest head coaches of all time who coached the Dallas Cowboys for 29 seasons, why he had been so successful as a football coach. He said, "In 1958, I did something everyone who has been successful must do, I determined my priorities for my life — God, family, and then football." (Sermonillustrations.com)
It is a marathon and not a sprint. We also seek God by knowing what it is that we are looking for. Without knowing what we are looking for, we will never know when we find it. When I seek God, I am looking to do things in my life that shape me into someone who looks more and more like Jesus Christ – loving, and sacrificial.
The only way that we make the effort to seek God first is by deciding to love Him more than anything else. Jesus speaks to this as well. In fact, there is this moment in the Gospels when the Pharisees and the Sadducees try to trap Jesus by asking Him a question about priorities. As he travels along, he is cornered by a lawyer who asks him a tough question.
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.
35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
38 This is the great and first commandment.
He says, “What is the greatest commandment?”. He could have easily asked it this way. “Jesus, what should I have as my greatest priority?” Jesus quotes a command from the Old Testament when he tells him to love God with all his heart, soul, and mind. This was Jesus’ way of telling him to love God with everything.
1 “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.
2 “ ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.
3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.
4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.
5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
6 Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’
There are certain things God cannot do:
He cannot lie
God cannot sin
God cannot act contrary to His nature. If He did then would cease to be unchanging God
God cannot stop existing
God cannot be second.
Whenever God is made second to anything - even good things it is unexceptionable. Because God is in a class by himself.
In the beginning God.
Jesus has first place in everything
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
First command to love God
When it comes to giving it says give to God the first fruits of what He has given you.
God assumes if He is not first then He must not be worthy.
God demands to be first because that’s what He is. If we reposition Him to second place then what ever we replaced Him as first has become an idol. Whatever is first has become your god and now God has competition.
Signs that we left our first love:
It means you have to find time for Him when you have time for other things.
Its when we get around to it. I’ll spend time with you Lord...
This isn’t a scheduling issue but a sin issue. Not putting God first is a sin issue.
One proof of love is:
How can you tell when you love something or someone?
The easiest way to tell is that you talk about it or them all the time because they are always on your heart and mind.
When a couple falls in love, it is almost sickening how much they talk about each other.
When someone really loves their sports team, they bring it up all the time.
The same thing should be true of us if God is truly our priority. When we love Him with all we have, we can’t stop talking about Him. He is regularly a topic of conversation. We look for reasons and ways to bring Him up.
Another:
Jesus said if you love Him you will make what He says a priority in your life. You will make God’s priorities your priorities.
Closing
What in your life could be reordered?
What could be reprioritized?
Make sure that the things that receive your time, attention, energy, and affection are things that will last. Take a moment to pray and ask God to show you the big rocks in your life. Place those on the schedule first. The little stones need to come next, as a secondary priority… And if our priorities are centered around God, everything else has a way of working out (Matthew 6:33).
Let’s pray together.