Top Priority

TOP PRIORITY

TEXT: Matthew 6:33

INTRODUCTION:

Illustration:

A) Year 1991, in New York City, A HOMELESS man, a train maintenance worker, and a dog were killed on the subway tracks. Ninety people telephoned the Transit Authority to express their concern about the dog, but only three called about the worker and no one about the homeless man.

B)A husband and wife were attending a county fair where, for twenty dollars a

person, a man was giving rides in an old airplane. The couple wanted to go up but they

thought twenty dollars a person was too expensive so they tried to negotiate a lower

price.

"We’ll pay you twenty dollars for both of us," they said to the pilot. "After all,

we’ll both have to squeeze into that tiny cockpit that was built for only one person."

The pilot refused to lower his fare, but he made a counter offer.

He suggested, "Pay me the full price of twenty dollars each, and I’ll take you up. If you don’t say one word during the flight, I’ll give you all your money back." The couple agreed and got into the plane.

Up they went and the pilot proceeded to perform every trick he knew, looping and

whirling and flying upside down and lots more. Finally, when the plane had landed,

the pilot said to the husband, "Congratulations! Here’s your money back; you didn’t

say a single word." To which the man replied, "Nope, but you almost got me when my

wife fell out."

Yes, there are some people who would say, "Well, a person does have to have his priorities!" And so do we. You know what...."Why don’t we ask ourselves this morning." What are our priorities? What is our top priority in our life? What is our number one goal?

Yes, we all have different goals, different priorities, things that are important to us, things that we would like to achieve in our lives. What is your number one priority? Some of your priorities might include losing weight, staying healthy, advancing in your job, saving for retirement, or raising decent children.

Yes, those are all good priorities. But they are also earthly. In other words, all of those priorities have to do with the here and now, this life, and not the life to come.

According to the Bible, God wants our top priority, our number one goal, to be something that is not of this world. That number one priority is to be something higher than staying healthy.

It is supposed to be deeper than saving for retirement. It is supposed to be more spiritual than just being stable in life. Those are all good things, but as we think about our top priority in life, God wants us to look up – to look away from this world, and to look heavenward, and to focus on something else.

So we must take time to evaluate what are our real priorities are. What is first, second, third, fourth, and so on? As you examine your priorities, you may be surprised to find, that some things you think are high on your list are not as high as you think.

This morning, we are going to see what Jesus teaches about "Priorities".

Do you believe that all of us need a GUIDE to live by? What do you think will happen if there is no guide . . . no laws . . . or no rules? Yes, it would be an awful, chaotic world, if there was no GUIDE... no LAWS... no RULES.

Yes, we have LAWS in this country to regulate our standard of conduct. We have RULES and REGULATIONS to guide us … IRS … school policies … safety regulations … speed limits. We have DIRECTIONS to help us put things together. And we have the BIBLE to guide us morally, ethically and spiritually.

My fellow believers in the Lord, the BIBLE is our STANDARD. If we lived by it, there is no need for the 1000’s of volumes of laws that we now have. There would be no back-logs in the courts. There would be no crowded jails. If CHRISTIANS lived by the Bible, our Christian life would be so much easier.

But the Bible is so HUGE … 30,442 verses … 845,000 words. Have we MEMORIZED some verses already? Yes, we have memorized our Social Security number … maybe our driver license number or our bank account numbers. What about some verses in BIBLE?

You know what, if we had just memorized one or more verses that we could use to GUIDE us through every situation, it might help us to set our PRIORITIES in life to determine right from wrong and to solve our tendency to stray away from God.

Let me share to you some verses that helps me to set my priorities.