Misplaced Priorities
Notes
Transcript
Intro; In The Wall Street Journal, March 15, 1993, William Bennett, former Secretary of Education, talked about the leading index of cultural indicators—not economic indicators, but cultural indicators—and he gave some alarming statistics.
He says—and I quote—“Since 1960, the U.S. population has increased 41 percent; the gross domestic product has nearly tripled; and total social spending by all levels of government (measured by constant 1990 dollars) has risen from $144 billion to $787 billion”—that’s social spending. That’s the money that we spend to solve problems—“more than a fivefold increase”—that’s in thirty years, with constant dollars. That’s even allowing for inflation: a fivefold increase.
So I was interested in what has happened since 1990 till 2024 in those same categories of cultural indicators over the last 35 years;
The US population has increased from 3 billion to 7.5 billion [150% increase], the GDP has gone from 6 trillion to 29 trillion [383% increase], and the social spending levels [Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, SSI, Welfare, Food Stamps, SNAP, EBT, WIC] has gone from 1.4 billion to 6.8 trillion [756 % increase]
So we have gone from a fivefold increase from 1960-1990 to a five-hundredfold increase from 1990-2024.
We are spending 500 times more on our social problems than before and yet our society has higher rates of teen pregnancy, suicide, obesity, divorce, single parent households, grandparents raising grandchildren, gender identity issues and a deteriorated education system [world rank is 31 in 2025].
Why is this happening? Because values determine priorities, and priorities determine success or failure!
We are living in times and generations of “Misplaced Priorities!”
Text; Mt.6:33
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Prayer
Our text this morning occurs in the midst of a warning that Jesus gives in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus warns His followers against undue anxiety/worry in their life. He contrasts their worldly concerns with spiritual priorities.
Jesus tells them to place value on the things that matter [spiritual] and you want worry about the things that don’t [material]!
1. Mistaken Values; 19-24
1. Mistaken Values; 19-24
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;
20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.
23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
[v.21-23] Jesus tells us that what our heart values is what one will treasure or seek after. And what our heart values is what we see with our eyes that seems to be the best benefit to our lives.
[v.24] So we make a choice, daily, of what we treasure the most, God or mammon. Whatever we choose is whom we will serve!
10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
2. Multiplied Worry; 25-32
2. Multiplied Worry; 25-32
25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;
29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
When we have mistaken values that simply leads to “Multiplied Worries”, worrying if what we have will meet our needs now and in the future.
[v.25] If Jesus is our treasure then He takes the worry out of life;
If He gives us life [salvation], surely He will provide our essentials in life!
He provides for the birds and the flowers and they do not have His breath in them. You and I do! If we provide for our family being sinners, surely He will provide for His family being Holy!
32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?
[31-32] When we worry about the essentials that God has already promised His children, then we are acting like the world. When we act like the world we are not giving glory to God and therefore we are a bad reflection of Christ!
Those worried about losing their hair accelerate the process and end up losing it. Folks worried about getting sick weaken their immune system and end up many times, getting sick. Employees who are worried about losing their jobs can lower their performance at work and end up losing their jobs. Dieters who are worried about gaining weight sometimes will eat more and gain the weight. Worry cannot change the past or control the future; it makes you miserable today. Worrisome thoughts are barren, so why worry?
Mattoon, R. (2007). Treasures from the Sermon on the Mount (Vol. 2, p. 180). Rod Mattoon.
3. Misplaced Priorities; 33
3. Misplaced Priorities; 33
This is where we look at the “Out of Context” in this message. The text is not about “Worry” but our “Misplaced Priorities”. The reason we worry is because of our Misplaced Priorities on mistaken values!
Seek first- preference of order;
Charles Spurgeon; If it should ever become a choice between God and Mammon, never hesitate. If wealth and righteousness run counter to each other, let the gold perish, but hold thou fast to righteousness. Follow Christ, however dear it cost thee. Blessed is that man who never deliberates, because his mind is made up.
24 By faith Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,
25 choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin,
26 esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.
His Kingdom- making Jesus King Supreme in our life! Top priority!
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,
13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,
14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Dr. S. D. Gordon used to say, “In everybody’s life there’s a throne.” “Either Christ or self is on that throne. Now,” he said, “if self is on that throne, then Christ is on the cross. But if self is on the cross, Christ is on the throne.”
His Righteousness- holiness
13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
14 as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance;
15 but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,
16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.
2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
1 Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:
2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,
3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge,
6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness,
7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.
8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are to have a hunger and thirst for righteousness now in this present age, longing for our eternal righteousness with Him in the future!
Close;
Misplaced Priorities come because of Mistaken value for the things of this world that cause multiplied worry in our life.
First Things First by Consumed By Fire
I don't wanna love what the world loves
I don't wanna chase what the world does
I only want you, I only want you
First thing's first, I seek Your will
Not my own, Surrender all my wants to you
Keep the first thing first
To live Your truth, Walk Your ways, Set my eyes
Lord I fix my face on you
All my desires reversed
To keep the first thing first
If we will get our priorities straight in Christ we will quit worrying!
