Matthew 22:35-40
Have you done your homework? Aren’t you parents glad that summer’s here and you can quit asking it? We expert parents know that you’re supposed to say that so that later you’re not saying, “What went wrong on this report card!?”
Schoolwork is important, and we teach our kids, homeschooled or not, to work on those assignments at home. After all, they’re involved in work that’s going to affect the whole rest of their lives.
So, this morning, we’re introducing a series just for this month, a month to really focus on family life called “Have You Done Your Homework?” We’re going to be dealing with topics for families of all sizes and encouraging a working response for the sakes of our homes and the Lord’s Church. This morning, I want us to take a look at a most important priority. We all tend to approach them differently.
Joke – The doctor shook his head. "John, you’re in terrible shape. You’ve got to do something, and I mean starting today. First, I want you to tell your wife to cook more nutritious meals. I want you to stop working like a dog. And tell your wife you’re going to make a budget, and she has to stick to it. And have her keep the kids off your back so you can relax. Unless there are some changes in your life, you’ll be dead in a month."
"Doc", John said, "this would sound more official coming from you. Could you please call my wife and give her those instructions?’ “OK.”
When John got home, his wife rushed to him and began to weep on his shoulder. “Oh, Honey, I talked to the doctor. You poor man – he says you have only 30 days to live!"
joke – 4 brothers in the UP went deer hunting and paired off in two’s for the day. They were deer hunting die-hards -- always had been. That night one of the brothers returned alone, staggering under the weight of a 200 pound deer. The other 2 brothers asked, "Where’s Sven?" He said, "Oh, Sven had a stroke of some kind. He’s a couple of miles back up the trail."
"You left Sven lying there, and carried the deer back?" "Yeah, it was a tough call, but I figured no one’s going to steal Sven."
As we start to examine these complex microcosms we call “families” it immediately becomes evident that we don’t all see them the same. From family to family, there are a lot of differences, and within families, we see a lot of differences between family members. It’s not caused just by genetics or gender or family birth order. There’s another factor at play in the makeup of families. It’s called priorities.
Whether or not we’ll have priorities isn’t a choice. That’s like saying you’re not sure whether or not you want to have a great grandfather who was killed by lightning. You can’t change your predecessors. That’s just part of being human. So it is with priorities in our families – whether that’s a family of 1 or 10. All of us have them – whether we try to not think about them at all or we try to structure all our thinking around them, we all have priorities.
You’re here today. You’re here today because you chose it as a priority for your life. If you hadn’t, you’d probably be somewhere else. If you’re not here, it’s probably because you made something else a priority. We all have them.
And that’s important to accept from the start. Because not only do we all have personal priorities, but we also have priorities in our homes, and
I. Our Homes Will Reflect Our Priorities
Ill - Imagine with me that everyone here this morning was to leave with a foreign exchange student from, say, Crimea. And that student was here for one purpose: to learn what’s important to Americans by observing your home life. Where would he or she look? I imagine, if you permitted it, that student would start taking notes about how much time you spend in front of the TV, the computer, and what’s on them, and how many of them are in your house. I imagine there would be some notes about where you spend your time, about your eating habits, and the amount of sleep you don’t get. I could see notes about how much time families actually spend together, and what kinds of activities they’re involved in outside home. I suppose a look in your checkbook register would tell a lot. And let’s not forget the time you give over to church functions or just serving others.
After a couple of weeks in your home, what would that student say about what’s most important to Americans? It wouldn’t be very comfortable, would it?
Listen: If you’re a parent with kids at home, it’s exactly what’s happening right now – it’s just that the student who’s studying your priorities is from the land of preadolescence in your home. And there’s no way to avoid it. Our homes will reflect and teach our priorities.
Ill - A few years back, I was miffed by a commercial on the radio that played for a couple of years every day. It was a commercial for radio, and it said something like, “Since some things in life should be free, why is it that we have to pay for our basic information and entertainment needs?” Then it proceeds to bemoan the cost of cable TV and the theater, and it points out how radio is still free! And it leaves me asking, “Have we really sunk this far? Would the average person refer to cable TV and theater tickets as a “basic need”?
Paul said, if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. I Tim 6:8. Really?
A more current and honest adaptation of that would have to read: “If we have fast food, stylish clothing, basic cable and a laptop computer with at least a dual core processor, we will be content with that.”
The way we regard our resources – our time, money, concentration, energy, creativity, health – is a reflection of what our culture holds to be most important in life.
But what’s closer to home is the way our homes are a reflection of our priorities. You can’t escape that, so you may as well embrace it this morning.
With that thought in mind, let me build on it by pointing out that…
II. Our Choices Will Often be Between Good, Better, or Best
The ability to choose is a blessing from God. He’s the one Who invented it and gave it to us. Each one of us has the opportunity to choose God, and to choose right or wrong. If God hadn’t placed the trees in the middle of the Garden of Eden, there wouldn’t have been that choice. Remember that the next time you’re tempted. It’s an opportunity to honor God by choosing what’s right.
But I have also observed that often the choices we’re faced with aren’t just between right and wrong. They’re often between good and better or good, better and best.
Philippians 1:22-24
If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.
For Paul, if he could have chosen it, he wasn’t sure which he would choose. Both were good choices: live and have the Lord continue to do good things through him, or die and go to be with Jesus. Neither was a bad option.
There’s another situation in I Co 7. Here Paul is talking about the advantage of remaining unmarried.
(7:1) It is good for a man not to marry. Vv7-8 I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am.
He doesn’t say marriage is bad – he says it has some challenges (Amen?) – but it’s not a bad choice. The Proverbs say that he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. But being unmarried is better… if you can handle it… if you’ve been gifted by God to handle that. On the other hand, he says, if you can’t handle that, (v9) if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. I’ve always viewed myself as one of those “better to marry than to burn” guys! It’s a choice between 2 good things.
The home of Martha reflected a good priority. She loved Jesus, and she had opened her home to Him, preparing lunch for Him and His disciples. While she was preoccupied getting everything around, her sister Mary had snuck away into the other room. Martha’s slaving away over the stove making lunch, and Mary is in sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to Him teach. When Martha realizes her sister has bugged out of working, she complains to Jesus. “Hey, Jesus, tell my lazy sister to get in here and help with the drinks!” Martha saw a choice between good and bad. But Jesus pointed out that listening to Him wasn’t a bad choice at all. In fact, Mary had chosen what was better.
There are other examples in the Bible.
In a family of 1 or 21, many ofour choices are often going to be this way: good, better, or best.
Should I accept the job position of company A or company B?
Should I play football or soccer?
Should I ask out girl A or girl B or girl C or just not go out?
Should I go to college here or there?
What classes should I take at school?
To which event, out of the 20 that are happening tonight, should we go?
On and on goes the list. Maybe all good things, but I want more than just good – I want to choose what’s best.
What can help me make sure that I choose best?
III. Our Lord Has Told Us the Best Priority: Love God!
It’s a day of questions, just a couple of weeks before Jesus will be crucified. Several have attempted to stump Jesus and publicly embarrass Him, but they’ve just embarrassed themselves. An OT expert steps forward and throws another at Him: Which is the greatest of all the commandments?
Jesus’ answer comes from Dt. 6:4-5, a passage of Scripture called the Shema - from the first Hb word in it: “hear”
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
Devout Jews would recite the Shema each day at sunrise and sundown. It is the first sentence in every Jewish service; the first verse to be learned by Jewish children; the verse spoken over a dying person as he passes away -- the Jn 3:16 of the Jewish faith!
Matthew 22:37-40
Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
613 OT commands. Which one is best? Which one deserves priority? Which one is the framework on which hangs every other command from God? Love God. That’s priority ONE.
On different occasions, God has allowed people to take a proficiency test to see how they’re doing at this.
Gen 22:1: Some time later God tested Abraham.
22:12a "Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."
Didn’t God already know this? Of course! He’s God! But the test allowed Abraham to try out his faith and remind himself that his love for God was first priority in his life.
God speaks of another time of testing for Israel in
Deuteronomy 8:2
Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.
Didn’t God already know this? Of course! He’s God! But the time in the desert allowed Israel to see that they had some growing to do when it came to putting love of God first.
Then there was Peter. He’d really blown it when it came to going through a test. Push came to shove, and Peter bolted. 3X he had even denied knowing Jesus. So, after He rises from the dead, Jesus gives Peter a makeup test. 3X Jesus asks him point blank, “Peter, do you love Me?” Peter gives the right answer: “Yes, Lord, I love You.” So 3 times Jesus says, “OK, if you love Me, write an essay about it; sing a song about Me; create a monument to me.” No, He says, “Feed my sheep.”
We’re going to see how loving God first above all else necessarily means we’ll also love others. In fact, you can’t do one without the other.
Let’s echo the words of Jesus this morning. Let’s ask if we ourselves and our homes have this priority. Let’s listen to Jesus as He says, “Do you love Me – above everything else, above every other person. Do you love Me?”
Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 13:5
Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you--unless, of course, you fail the test?
How might we test ourselves this morning to see if we really do love God first above every other person or thing?
1. We might start by going to I Co 13 and reading what love does.
We might ask of our love for God, “Is it patient, kind, not envious, does not boast, is not proud, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered…”
2. Do I keep His commands?
John 14:15
If you love me, you will obey what I command.
John 14:21
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.
1 John 2:3-5
We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him.
Do you love Him or not? Take a look at your life, take a look into your family life, and answer it.
3. Do I enjoy closeness with God?
It’s kind of hard to convince your wife you love her if you don’t enjoy being around her. We need to test ourselves by asking if we regularly enjoy closeness with God in our homes.
1 Corinthians 8:3 But the man who loves God is known by God.
Of course, God knows us. He knows everything. But the word for know carries with it the idea of familiarity through experience. Has there been an experience between you and God? Has there been enough time spent conversing and planning together that you’re “known by God”?
Jesus said,
Matthew 7:22-23
Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
Would Jesus say to you, “I never knew you”? Or do you regularly enjoy closeness with Him?
4. Do you love your neighbor?
1 John 4:20
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
No wonder Jesus said the 2nd greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. The absence or presence of love for other people is a direct indicator of our love for God – starting with the love we have for the people who live with us. If we don’t love other people, we don’t love God. It’s that simple.
So, we need to answer the questions:
Do I act toward Him like I love Him? Do I keep His commands? Do I enjoy closeness with Him? Do I love my neighbor, starting with my own family members?
Time for a checkup. In case you’re finding that God hasn’t received that priority place in your home, let me suggest some helps to make this #1 command our #1 priority.
1. Test yourselves, honestly
Ask yourself today, “What is my passion? What is that thing that I most often think about? Where do I pour out my emotions and energies? What am I willing to die for? What does my home indicate is most important to us?
2. Discover for your home that there are often other choices.
You can actually miss a practice if it comes up interfering with a church event.
You may have a choice to not work on Sundays if you just ask your boss. You have asked him, haven’t you?
You can set a limit to the amount of things your kids sign up for when you see that their love for God gets shoved to the side.
There are other choices out there! Explore them!
3. Increase your reasons to love God.
Every time I’ve stuck my neck out for God or been in a situation that forces me to rely on God, and He comes through, I gain another reason to love Him.
The more you experience God, the more you learn about Him and understand of Him, the more reasons you have to love Him.
4. Choose the best priority with joy!
What a release! What freedom! What a help it is to me to know this: I may mess up every other priority in my life. I may forget my schedule, misuse my resources, let people down, or just fall flat on my face, but if I’ve loved God above every other pursuit of life, I’ve gotten the most important priority in life correct.
What a release it is to live in a home where, if someone messes up on everything else but genuinely loves God above all else, we can overlook the small stuff and appreciate that they’ve done #1 right.
Make that choice and rejoice in it. Rejoice that when you get this one thing right, you’ve dealt well with life’s most important priority, no matter what else you’re still working on.
Conclusion:
Bill McCartney – “When I took the job as head football coach at the University of Colorado in 1982, I made a solemn promise: I told everybody that with me, God was first, family second, and football third.
But I didn't keep that promise for long. The thrill and the challenge of resurrecting a football program in disarray simply took too much time and attention. As my teams kept winning year after year, I kept losing focus of my priorities.
When we won the national championship in 1990, many people said I had reached the pinnacle of my profession. But for me, there was an emptiness about it. I had everything a man could want, and yet something was missing. I was so busy pursuing my career goals that I was missing out on the Spirit-filled life that God wanted me to have.
All because I had broken my promise to put God first and foremost in my life.”
Does that describe you or your home this morning?
When you took on this job of a lifetime given to the Lord, you were making a promise to keep your love for Him as priority 1. God has certainly kept his end of it. Will you?
