Instead of focusing on what we can't see,
like the the uncertainties brought about
by the COVID-19 pandemic going around right now,
we're focusing on the things that we can see.
And today we see
that God wants us to get our priorities straight in our life.
What has your number one priority?
St. Augustine, he was a church father,
he wrote a book called "City of God."
And in it he talked about the order of goods.
He was talking about priorities.
And he called God the "Summum bonum",
the highest good.
And he said that anything that you put above God,
even if it's a good gift,
it actually becomes evil
because you can't love God properly if something is above God.
That thing becomes an idol.
And so, do you have any idols in your life?
I mean idols can vary,
they can be, like, sports or money or people even.
And even though idols can vary,
there are certain things about idols that are the same.
I always think that that that idols
demand a certain amount of things.
Idols demand our attention
They demand our time.
They demand our money.
And they demand our witness
So think about those things in your life
that you really pay attention to.
That grab your attention.
The things that you spend a lot of time on.
That you spend money on.
That you tell, love to talk about and tell others about
And that may be an idol in your life
And it's important to identify those idols
because God wants us to have our priorities straight.
So, what does the Bible say is our biblical priority structure?
Well, obviously God is number one.
and then you've got your spouse and your children
and you've got your friends and work
and everything else below that.
The problem is, the devil is super good at what he does.
He gets us to flip that priority structure around.
Just one example.
So I went I went to school in Germany for a semester
when I was in college .
And my school was on top of a mountain.
Literally, a mountain.
And the little cute German town below
was where we would go do our shopping, get our groceries.
Things like that.
And so every once in a while,
I would have a break in the day from school
And I'd think, I'm going to go down in the town and I'm gonna grab some groceries.
Then I don't have to go in later.
And I would go down in the middle of the day,
maybe one o'clock in the afternoon,
and everything was closed.
Did you know Germans take a siesta?
Okay, they don't call it that.
But the smaller towns, they do.
They shut down for a good period of time in the afternoon.
And then they open back up.
And then they still close by 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon.
Now as an American,
what was I thinking?
I was thinking these people are lazy.
But you know what? The older I get,
the more I realize that they had it right.
I wonder if, in our culture, the devil is so good
at getting us to be workaholics.
You know, how often haven't we put work above God,
in an attempt to get ahead and,
and get further in life.
Well, what does Jesus say?
This is what he says in Matthew 6, verse 33. He says
The truth is that we need to see God's love first.
Before we can love the other people and things in our lives.
the way God wants us to.
And one of the ways we do that is in worship.
And in worship, we hear God say
"I love you" in so many different ways.
He says it through his Word.
He says it in Baptism.
He says it in the Lord's Supper
All three, the same.
"I love you, I forgive you."
Now does that mean God's being redundant?
Unnecessarily repetitive?
Well, no.
It just means that he knows my heart.
Because sometimes
you're sitting there in worship and
and we confess our sins
and you hear the pastor say,
"I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Does he mean you?
Absolutely.
But sometimes I can sit there and I can think,
Well. He means the other people here but he doesn't mean me.
If he knew what I was thinking what I was doing,
he couldn't mean me.
And so what does Jesus do?
He sends me to the baptismal font and he says,
"Remember what I did for you there?
For you and no one else at that moment.
I made you my child. I forgive you. I love you."
Again, does Jesus mean me?
Absolutely.
But then my heart can say,
"But that was a long time ago.
Jesus, you wouldn't be saying that now.
I walked away from you.
You wouldn't have said that."
And then Jesus says, "Okay.
Go to my altar.
Go to the Lord's Supper.
Take and eat. Take and drink
This is my body. This is my blood given and shed for you."
And at that moment, it's just me and Jesus.
My heart has no escape.
No escape.
Jesus means me.
And it's when I understand that love,
that God becomes that number one priority in my life
and that allows me to put everything else
in the proper ranking.
You know, right now in our country,
like I said, we're going through that COVID-19 pandemic.
and I don't know the end of it.
But it has certainly ground a lot of things to a halt.
Maybe this would be a great time in your life
to sit down, take this time, and reprioritize.
And seek first the kingdom of the one
who made you first.
Let's pray
Yours forever God of love.
Hear us from your throne above.
Yours forever may we be.
Here and in eternity.
Amen
Hello. Today we talked about the priorities in our lives.
And obviously, God is number one
And your family is number two.
But then, just for the fun of it,
what, what comes next for you?
What are what are the priorities that you have fun with?
Whether it's a sports team
or a particular activity that you love doing.
Comment below and we'll see you tomorrow