Week 1: Better Priorities

Scripture: Matthew 6:33 // Matthew 22:34-40 // 2 Corinthians 4:18

(All scripture quoted comes from the NIV unless otherwise noted)

Matthew 6:33 (NLT)

33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

Introduction

Hello, Church! It is such an honor to be with you this morning. We gather today to be encouraged by one another and to learn more about the great love that God has for you and for me. As you know, we have just entered a brand-new year. This is the perfect time to look back on the past and ask what can be learned. It is also the perfect time to look ahead and ask ourselves if we are living the kind of life that God wants for us, or if we could do better.

Today we begin a new sermon series appropriately called Better. We will look at four different areas of our lives that we could make simple changes to in order to experience God’s fullness and blessing. We will evaluate our priorities, our relationships, our choices, and our witness. So, let’s open our hearts and minds as we dive into our priorities and into the new year together.

STORY: (Have with you on stage a large, empty, clear container and two smaller containers. One smaller container will have small pebbles, while the other container will have large stones.) 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. (Demonstrate this by trying to place the larger stones in the large clear container with the smaller rocks already in the bottom.) As you can see, there is no room for them anymore. The goal then is to reverse this order. Large stones first. (Take out the large and small stones and put them back in with the large stones first) With the large priorities placed first, there is space for the small ones to fit in and around.

This Bible speaks to this need to order our lives well. God knows that without keeping the main thing, the main thing, 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.

Main Teaching

1 — SEEK GOD FIRST

Jesus’ most famous sermon in the Gospels is called the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus turns to preaching and teaching about how we have the tendency to worry about our lives. Maybe some of you can relate to this right now. We are worried about paying the bills. We are worried about our children. We are worried about our marriage. We are worried about what this new year might hold. Jesus states that trusting in Father God is the only way to keep us from being paralyzed by anxiety.

In verse 33, Jesus gives us the answer to our worry.

READ Matthew 6:33

Matthew 6:33 (NLT)

33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

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.

So, as we think about these priorities the question is, “are you seeking after God? Is God at the center of these things?” Or are you seeking after the smaller stones that don’t matter as much? Is your attention and energy divided?

STORY: Someone once asked legendary coach, Tom Landry, 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)

Tom Landry got it right. He knew that in order to succeed in our families and our careers, we must seek God first. 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. 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, courageous, 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.

READ Matthew 22:34-40

Matthew 22:34–40 (NLT)

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. 35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” 37 Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Did you catch the question the man asks Jesus? 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.

2 — LOVE GOD WITH ALL YOU HAVE

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.

STORY: I find this to be true in my marriage to my wife. I love her with my whole heart. I love to talk about her. I love to brag about her. I am always looking for reasons to bring her up. As a result of my deep love for her, I want to do everything I can to please her. My love for her makes everything else I do in my life more meaningful. I look for how everything I do can help empower the love we share rather than being a hindrance to the love we share.

Loving God with all of our heart, soul, and mind helps us realize that every part of our life is incredibly meaningful. How we do our life reflects how we love God. This means how we handle our career is meaningful because it says something about our relationship with Jesus. This means how we parent our children is reflective of our relationship to our heavenly Father. Our love for God should be the motivation and inspiration every day over this next year. We want to look back 365 days from now and recognize all the ways we loved God with all that we have. This is what I have found: God actually meets our needs in our lives most fully when we prioritize His needs in our hearts – that is a result of love.

Notice how Jesus ends this conversation. He tells the man that the first and greatest commandment is to love God, but the second is just like it, we are to love our neighbor. It seems that unless we get loving God right first, we have no hope of loving our neighbor well. There is a prioritization that God lays out for us in this passage. He even says in verse 40, all of the laws and the prophets depend on getting these first two right. They are the big rocks, and the rest are the small stones. We cannot get them out of order.

3 — FOCUS ON THE ETERNAL RATHER THAN THE TEMPORARY

One easy way to know where to put our energies this year is by asking a simple question. Is this thing eternal or temporary? To spend our time focusing on serving others is to focus on their eternal souls. On the contrary, to spend our time focusing on building a massive 401K is to focus on something we cannot take with us when this life is over. Which one is better? I would argue it is the eternal. The apostle Paul understood this important distinction as he wrote the early church in Corinth.

READ 2 Corinthians 4:18

2 Corinthians 4:18 (NLT)

18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

Paul says that we should not spend all our time focused on what is seen, rather, we should focus on what is unseen. The things that we can see will one day pass away, while the things that are unseen will go on forever. Which is easier to spend our energies on? In my experience, it is the things that are seen because they are often more obvious to us. This means it takes a more intentional effort to give ourselves to the things of God.

ILLUSTRATION: Over the triple doorways of the cathedral of Milan there are three inscriptions spanning the splendid arches. Over one is carved a beautiful wreath of roses, and underneath it is the legend, "All that which pleases is but for a moment." Over the other is sculpted a cross, and there are the words, "All that which troubles us is but for a moment." But underneath the great central entrance to the main aisle is the inscription, "That only is important which is eternal." If we always realize these three truths, we will not let trifles trouble us, and not be interested so much in the passing pleasures of the hour. We should live for the permanent and the eternal. (Sermonillustrations.com)

Conclusion

As we go through this series and get into a new year I want to encourage you to think about these things, and bring them before God in prayer;

What in your life could be reordered?

What could be re-prioritized?

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.

Prayer: “As we begin another year, help us Lord to order our lives in ways that honor you and bring glory to your name. Help us to prioritize our time and energy in such a way that our lives will be fulfilling and faithful. We need your help, just as much this year as we did last year. Thank you for your unfailing love and concern over all your creation.”