Priorities

Introduction

If you want to drive a car, what do you need to do? (Learn the road rules, get a learner’s license, practice for >100 hours, do drivers test, save money, buy car.)

If you want to drive a car, but you only want to spend an hour a week learning to drive and earning money to buy the car (so half an hour learning and half an hour earning, say). Do you think you’ll get to drive that car soon?

In terms of how much learning and practice and investment is required, which do you think is harder: driving a car, or being a good Christian witness?

For reflection: how much time and effort do we put into getting to know God and his Word, and obeying them?

And that’s what we’re talking about today: priorities. Or, more specifically, our Christian priorities.

Not abstract

But before we dive in, I want to make sure that you understand that this is not an abstract discussion about theoretical ideas. Priorities matter, and we often don’t realise just how they matter.

I’m going to be talking about Atalia, my daughter, in relation to gifts today. But before I get to that, I should mention that she has been reminding me of how she felt last Christmas when we gave her the same gift as her cousins. It was rather generic—a Koorong gift card—and it hurt her that we couldn’t give our daughter something with more thought and knowledge put into it than our gifts to our nephews and nieces. She’s right. We didn’t prioritise her when we should have, and we hurt her, and I’m sorry.

So priorities matter. They are how we show love.

Loving God vs Loving the World

Our Bible passage today is from 1 Jn 2:15-17. The apostle John, who wrote the gospel of John and was one of Jesus’ three closest friends, wrote this letter to one or more local congregations to warn them against dangerous theological mistakes. Let’s read our passage now.

1 John 2:15–17 NLT

15 Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. 16 For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. 17 And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.

The letter of 1 John is notoriously difficult to read. It is so dense and multi-layered. Stephen and I almost lost ourselves in this letter for a while last year. But this passage seems fairly straightforward, doesn’t it? Nonetheless, let’s unpack it a little.

What is the world?

First, what is the world? John refers to “the world” 23 times in first John alone! It can actually have three different meanings, depending on the context: the place we live in (such as in “God sent his Son into the world”); “worldly” attitudes or behaviours that are opposed to God; or the world of people who are opposed to God or who refuse to obey him.

1 John 2:16 ESV

16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

In this case, as verse 16 makes clear, John is talking about desires and priorities that are opposed to God. Notice that verse 16 isn’t talking about actions. Indeed, in this whole passage John is talking about attitudes rather than actions. For John, as for Jesus, it is the heart that is the source of our actions, and God, who sees the heart, judges our attitudes, not our actions. Getting our attitudes in line with God is crucial.

How do we love the world?

So how might we love the world, as John warns against? What are these desires or priorities?

John focuses in on three attitudes: the craving for physical pleasure, the craving for visible things (in other words, materialism), and pride in what we own. That pretty much describes Australian society, right? We love our food, our beer and wine, our holidays and sports, not to mention our gyms and hospitals. We crave a great house and nice gear to put into it, not to mention a good car, good clothes, and nice gadgets. And we are proud, in an appropriately Aussie low-key way, of all this stuff, not to mention our jobs and achievements (including our kids).

Why are loving the world and loving God mutually exclusive?

Now you might think that all these things I mentioned are perfectly good and healthy (in moderation). And indeed they are. In themselves. That’s because these things themselves—kids, cars, gyms, houses, food and so on—are not the problem. It is our attitude towards them that is the problem.

Imagine that, for her 18th birthday, I gave Atalia a lovely new car. (Now this is not going to happen, so don’t get excited Atalia, this is just a sermon illustration.) How would you expect her to react? [Wait for some answers.]

Yes, you would expect her to be grateful, right?

But what if she reacted by snatching the keys from me, jumping in the car, and disappearing from my life! I would be rather upset. It would be cold comfort to know that she is really enjoying the car.

Yet this is what we do to God when we love the world. We crave the good gifts rather than the gracious giver, and so the gifts become a horrible barrier between us. Just as Atalia would miss out on my friendship as well as all the future gifts and opportunities she might receive from me, so we miss out on God’s friendship and all his blessings when we prioritise the good things of this world over his presence. John emphasizes the long-term impact of this when he says:

1 John 2:17 NLT

17 And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.

I would hope that I am of more value to Atalia than a car, and that I will still be around long after the car has been relegated to the trash heap. I hardly need to say how much greater God is than me, and so how much more we miss out on when we prioritise the world over God.

You might wonder how we do what pleases God. It’s not difficult, he just wants us to make him our number one priority!

How do we prioritise God?

Now, it’s easy to say “make God number one,” but surely the Bible has some practical pointers to how we prioritise God?

The two great commandments (and John’s take)

Well, let’s start with the basics. Jesus gave us two big priorities with the two most important commandments:

Luke 10:27 NLT

27 The man answered, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”

That first commandment seems to consume everything, right? What do you have left to love with after you’ve used all your heart, soul, strength and mind? What are you supposed to love your neighbour, or yourself with?

John actually explains this quite beautifully in the letter we’re reading. In 1 Jn 4:20-21 he explains:

1 John 4:20–21 NLT

20 If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? 21 And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.

You see, we love God by rightly loving both him and all that he creates, does, and gives us. Let me say that again, we love God by rightly loving him and all that he creates, does, and gives us. We don’t love God in the abstract, we love him by loving the concrete things he treasures in this world: human beings. And we love human beings, by using the things of this world God has given us to serve them.

To continue my example, Atalia would best show her appreciation for my generous gift of a car by both loving me and expressing that by caring for the car and using it appropriately (i.e. driving safely and responsibly).

Well, that helps us to understand how to interact with people and things. But I think there is another wonderful guide from Jesus that explains how we can prioritise God day by day. It is called the Lord’s prayer.

The Lord’s prayer

The Lord’s prayer is Jesus’ model for how we interact with God. We often think of it as just words to guide our prayers, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a pattern for our lives. Let’s work through it.

Matthew 6:9 ESV

9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

We start by focusing on God. That is hardly surprising, given that he is supposed to be the centre of all our attention. But we need to recognise two things about God.

First, he is our Father. That tells us a lot about him. He is personal, he is our origin, where we come from. He is our teacher and guide and disciplinarian.

It also tells us that we are now part of God’s family—Jesus, the eternal Son of God, tells us to call God “our Father.” “Our” as in the Father of both Jesus and us. Jesus can call God his father by right of his sonship, but what right do we have to call God our father? Simple: we are his adopted children, joint heirs to the kingdom with Jesus. So these first two words tell us so much about God and our relationship to him, and how that transforms our lives.

Second, God is in heaven and he is holy. We need to recognise that God is distinct from us, that he is holy, and we need to do that daily. Holiness is complex and mysterious, but at it’s heart it means that God is pure and true and above all and beyond all and even, in a way, dangerous (but only to those who are not holy). We can’t afford to treat God lightly.

Matthew 6:10 ESV

10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

After God we focus on the world, not as a thing in itself, but rather God’s work in the world. Our goal, as part of God’s kingdom, is to see this world, the world of humanity, realigned with God. Every action we take, every word we speak, should be done in the light of this great mission. We can ask ourselves, how is this activity I’m doing bringing the world I live in into greater alignment with God’s kingdom? That’s why we love our neighbours, that’s why we help others, that’s why we teach, create, serve, support, and supply others with good things. If we’re doing something that makes the world less like God’s kingdom, then we’re doing the wrong thing, and we need to back away.

Matthew 6:11 ESV

11 Give us this day our daily bread,

God’s kingdom isn’t some pie in the sky, spiritual future. It is all about redeeming this world, in all its glorious physicality. And so God doesn’t abandon us physically. We show both humility and faith in asking God for our daily bread. In humility, we recognise that, while we may have put in a good day’s work, we didn’t create the society or technology or the world that rewards that work. We receive the gift of sustenance from God, not our own efforts. And we are faithful in asking only for today’s bread. We don’t need to ask God for a stockpile because we can trust his “just in time” supply chain to provide for us.

By the way, notice how this focus on our physical needs, rather than being primary, comes only after we have concerned ourselves with God and his plan in the world. That’s the priority we should have.

Matthew 6:12 ESV

12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Our next priority, after our stomachs, is our hearts.

It does seem strange that they are in that order, doesn’t it? But God recognises that a penitent person who has starved to death is not going to make a good disciple or ambassador. We need to take care of our physical needs and then our emotional and spiritual needs. But remember, before our physical needs were met we had already focused first on God, worshiping and glorifying him.

We can see this patter in many practical ministries of the church. For example, Compassion glorifies God by lifting children out of poverty and then sharing the gospel. Imagine an approach that insisted on repentance before food! I don’t think that would be very successful. And even in our daily lives, God recognises that we are physical beings who need physical support.

So all our spiritual activities should follow this pattern: focus first on the character and purposes of God, and only then on our own character. And note that we can’t work on our own character without releasing others from our judgement, forgiving them. We need to mold our character to God’s, and that means taking joy in the salvation of others rather than taking delight in their comeuppance.

Finally,

Matthew 6:13 ESV

13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

We must recognise that there are powers greater than us, and opposed to us. They include our own sinful desires—our old self that still loves the world and the things of the world—and so we pray for freedom from temptation. But we also recognise the reality of evil, the presence and work of Satan, and we plead that God’s mighty right arm would protect us from that.

You see, it is only if we have got our priorities right that we can be kept safe from temptation and protected from evil. If we have focused on God and his work, accepted his physical sustenance and the cleansing work of his forgiveness, only then is it useful to ask for protection from temptation and evil. If we get those priorities wrong, then the content of our lives and the patterns of our thoughts expose us to temptation and we are habitually delivering ourselves to the evil one, so it makes no sense to ask God to protect us from what we are deliberately doing. Getting our priorities right, then, is crucial.

So a reminder: love God with everything, love our neighbours as ourselves. And daily: focus first on God, his work in the world, our daily needs, let go of judgement, and shelter from evil.

Final encouragement

It is easy when we’re thinking about our lives and our priorities to get confused and discouraged. None of us have been able to maintain God as our #1 priority for our whole lives. For many of us, including me, we struggle to remember God at all many days.

I’m not going to pretend that this doesn’t come with consequences. My life is so much less rich because I’ve spent so much of it oblivious to God. I know that, and I mourn that.

But at the same time Jesus comes alongside me, and you, and he lifts us up from our failure and he says,

Matthew 11:28–30 NLT

28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

You see, Jesus has already lived the perfect life for us. All we need to do is to relax into his strength, into his love and purity. Our struggle is not in trying to be as good as Jesus, our struggle is in trying to let go of our control. It is in our weakness, when we have fallen and given up on controlling our lives, that Jesus’ strength can finally be seen.

So, take heart. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Don’t strive to live in your own strength. Just come to our father in heaven, and let his name be made holy and his will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. He will give us our daily bread. He will forgive us of our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. He will protect us from temptation and evil. For his is the kingdom, forever and ever and ever.

Amen.