Putting First Things Last

Bunbury

Wed pm

18/08/10

“Putting first things last”

Intro: *** A group of friends went deer hunting and paired off in twos for the day. That night one of the hunters returned alone, staggering under the weight of a buck.

"Where's Harry? His friends asked.

"Harry had a stroke of some kind. He's a couple of miles back up the trail."

"You left Harry laying there, and carried the deer back?"

"Well," said the hunter, "I figured no one was going to steal Harry."

One of the problems facing this generation is that we are people that have developed a profound ability to embrace wrong priorities.

We have b/co people who habitually ignore the impt while concentrating on the inconsequential things of life.

There is an old saying that I can clearly remember my parents / employers / friends / family / various advisers saying to me ...... “Let’s put first things, first!”

But today we so often put first things last!

I want to preach a message called ‘Putting first things last’.

Text: Matthew 6:19-34 (NKJV) 19“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For 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. 23But 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. 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? 26Look 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? 27Which 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; 29and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30Now 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?’ 32For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

# 1. Life upside down & back the front!

A. Jesus is addressing people who have got life upside down & back the front!

a. The problem w/ life is that if we don’t live it God’s way we soon end up living it the wrong way.

i. This is exactly what is happening in our day & age..... we are living life the wrong way & can’t work out why it’s going so badly wrong.

ii. The Bible gives us an order in life & from that order we u/s that there are natural consequences.

iii. God says work comes first & then the rewards from our labours ......

Psalms 128:2 (GWT) 2 You will certainly eat what your own hands have provided. Blessings to you! May things go well for you!

iv. But Harvey Norman & the Good Guys have given us 48 months b/4 we even pay a cracker!

v. Equally as stupid is the priority of making money an end in itself .... some people at life’s end will realise they worked so hard for the good life that they never had time to live it!

b. We’re one of the first generations that have had the ability to turn night into day...... many cities around the world function 24/7.

*** Guy murdered @ 3:00am in the Northbridge nightspot on Saturday night. He was stabbed to death. A great tragedy for sure but the question that first springs to mind is ...... what was he doing in Northbridge at 3:00am?