"Strengthening Our Grip On Priorities
" Sermon Transcript for September 23, 2001 By Rev. Mike BeckScripture Reading: Luke 10:38-42
Chuck Swindoll, one of my favorite preachers, several years ago authored a book entitled, Strengthening Your Grip. And I want to use that book as a foundation for five messages that I believe will be very practical and very helpful in nature for you. We’re going to look at these issues: How do we strengthen our grip on integrity, on family, on our attitudes? On one that we all need, because the last I checked none of us are getting younger, how do we strengthen our grip on aging?
And, today, we want to begin by looking at the very important subject of strengthening our grip on priorities. Priorities are perhaps the "DNA" of our lives for this reason. Follow me carefully. Our priorities determine our decisions. Our decisions determine our actions. And the cumulative effect of our actions, determines our destiny. But it begins with priorities. Priorities lead to decisions; decisions lead to actions; actions lead to our destiny.
And one of the many good things coming from the tragedy of recent days is many Americans are re-examining their priorities. We’re thinking more about God, about prayer, about our country, about our family, about others. Self-centeredness, friends, is no longer in vogue in America. And we pray that that shift in priorities will be a long-term thing.
Today’s story from Luke 10 has a great deal to teach us about our priorities. Let me set the stage. Jesus and His disciples had stopped in Bethany. Bethany is just across the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem. And there lived Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. Good friends of Jesus. But he stops to spend the night with them. Well as Jesus is present in their home, Martha who is a Type-A personality…let me stop there. I thank God for Type-A personality people. They make the world run. They’re concerned about the details. They want things to happen correctly. So here’s Martha, the Type-A personality, scurrying about making sure everything’s in order., preparing the meal. It makes me think about a wedding I did a little over a week ago. Jason, the groom, was scurrying about, one thing after another, concerned about every detail prior to the wedding. When they actually got up front I said, "I think we need to take 15 minutes of silence or Jason will miss the whole wedding because of all the details he’s worried about."
Well, Mary is the "laid back" sister. She’s in the living room deep in conversation with the Lord. And Martha gets upset that Mary isn’t helping her with the work. She says, "Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" And then Jesus gives this interesting reply. He says, "Martha…" And I imagine he also said, "Martha, you know I love you, but … you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
This matter of choices is at the heart of life and of this issue of priorities. And, friends, the issue is much more complex than choosing between the "good" and the "bad". Most of us do the "bad" pretty well. It’s in other areas where we’ve got to choose between the "good" and the "best" that we struggle. In the little book, The Tyranny of the Urgent, are these profound words that relate to all of us that would like to have 30 hours in the day instead of 24. Anybody out there like to have 30 hours in the day? But you know what we’d probably do if we did? We’d fill those up and be just as busy and stressed as we are with 24. These words, "Our greatest danger is in letting the urgent things of life crowd out the things that are truly important."
Let me flesh this out for you. The urgent demands in our lives are the phone calls. But, boy, I’ve made great progress on that one! A lot of you have got caller ID. Isn’t that wonderful? You can see who it is that’s calling before you decide whether you want to answer. The boys were with me in the office once and the phone rang while I was on the way out the door for an appointment. And I just kept on walking; I didn’t answer it. And the boys said, "Dad, the phone’s ringing!" And I said, "I know it is, but I’m already a little late for my appointment. That person is important too!" The phone calls, the interruptions, the continual pile of dirty clothes in the laundry room. You young mothers can relate to that one. The constant upkeep needs around the house, the tasks before us in our job, the persons we need to see connected to our work. All of these things are clamoring for our urgent attention.
Now, I’m not seeking to minimize any of those things that do need our attention. But, follow me carefully, what are lurking in the background are the truly important things in life: our family, our health, our marriage, and our relationship with God. And, if we’re not careful, what the urgent things do is they crowd out the things that ultimately matter. We put them off until "one of these days". We had a saying around our house, the boys did. We’d always say to Dad, "Dad, can we do this?" And Dad would say, "One of these days." And then working three jobs, we learned to reply, "Yeah, one of these days never comes!" But, see, if we’re not careful the urgent crowds out the really important things often with tragic results.
So I want to suggest to you this morning two principles from God’s Word that can help us to strengthen our grip on priorities.
- The first thing I want to suggest is the need from time to time, to stop and take inventory of our lives. For what happens is, in the business of our lives, Monday bleeds into Tuesday, into Wednesday, into Thursday, into next month, into next year. And we’re so caught up on the merry-go-round of life that we never take inventory of what’s really going on. How are we doing on the things that we say are really important in our lives? A basketball team takes periodic time-outs for mid-game corrections. A successful businessperson is constantly setting aside time to review what’s going on in the business. Our Lord did exactly the same thing. You see Him over and over again withdrawing, even from the twelve, to go alone to be with God, to reflect, and to pray.
Are you doing that in your lives? Don’t make it necessary for a physical or a relational breakdown to force you into taking inventory when it may be too late. I don’t know about you, but I find it very hard to do that unless I get away. Last weekend there were 40 of our ladies, who went out to Camp Allendale. I understand it was a marvelous retreat. But for those of you ladies who went, it gave you time to reflect and take inventory in your lives. That’s what a marriage enrichment weekend does. I always say how important our marriage is, but it gets the leftovers of our time. The ALPHA course is currently helping many people at Grace take inventory of their relationship with God. The Walk to Emmaus retreat is a wonderful, 72-hour opportunity. In fact, the very first talk on an Emmaus weekend is a talk about priorities. So we need to stop and take inventory.
- The second thing we need to do, and it’s a hard one for us, is we have to learn to say "no" to some good things in life. I recall this advice given to me. I think I was on a retreat for incoming elders in our conference. I believe it was Martha McCowan who shared these words that I had never thought about. And they are applicable to every single one of you as well. She said this, "Your success in life may in one sense be measured by the things you say "no" to and the things you choose to leave undone!" Reflect on that for a moment. What that’s saying is this. If you say "yes" to everybody and everything that wants a piece of your time, if you’ve got to cross every little thing off your to-do list before you stop and relax for a moment, you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
And a word of caution is in order here. If you follow this advice, and I urge you to do it, take it to the bank, there will be people who do not understand your choices based on your priorities. When Grandma and Grandpa want you to come over on Christmas morning to their house with the little kids and you say to them, "We think it’s important that we begin traditions of our children being together with only us on Christmas morning." They may not understand. Tell them, "We’ll be there in the evening." But see, whenever you start saying "no" because of priorities you’ve established, somebody around you isn’t going to understand. You just have to accept that.
That is absolutely essential that we sometimes say "no" to good things so that the "best" things in life aren’t neglected. You may have heard me use this example. I often get invitations to come to some community function to give the invocation. And I almost always say, "Thanks, but no thanks." And they’ll say, "But we’re going to give you a sumptuous meal." To which I reply, "Yeah, but do you know what that two-minute prayer is going to cost me when there’s already four evenings on my calendar filled up this week? It’s going to take away the one evening I’ve got to be at home with my wife to give a two-minute prayer. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to do that. But my wife is a higher priority than saying the invocation for this gathering."
And let me add, it’s not only a matter of saying "no". It’s also a matter of saying "yes". Saying "yes" to find some time and resources for a much-needed vacation. And I know this is too general, but yet I think there is some truth to it. You show me a couple that hasn’t taken time to take a vacation, and I’ll often show you a marriage that’s going to be in trouble. Saying "yes" to a leisurely walk with your spouse or a good friend even though there are clothes piled up in the laundry room. Saying "yes" to a day off or a periodic morning to punch—not the snooze—but the "off" button and just sleep to 11:00 a.m. Saying "yes" to an invitation to be a part of a group that maybe you feel like I don’t really have time to do it but I know if I do, I’m going to grow in my relationship with others in the church and with God.
At the risk of being too simplistic, let me leave let me leave you today with this ordering of priorities in reverse order – there are four of them.
#4 – JOB
Now, here me carefully, for those of you who are still working. Your job will take the greatest amount of your time. That’s just a given. And I’m not in any way urging you to neglect your work. Except, friends, the last I checked after about 60 hours aren’t we pushing the point of ridiculous? I am suggesting that you not let your work be the center of your life or the only reason for your existence. Whatever job you’re doing and no matter how well you are doing it, be aware someone down the road is going to set in your chair in your job. Take it to the bank! John Maxwell in his leadership principle for the week said this, "If you think you’re somehow indispensable in your job, just die and see what happens!" And then he went on to say this, and those of you retired clergy will really relate to this. He said, "Thirty minutes after they dropped your body in the ground, they’ll be sitting back at church eating potato salad and saying, "Pass the baked beans." Our job’s important, but it’s not number one, it’s number four!
#3 – HEALTH
If we don’t care for our physical and emotional health, friends, you have nothing down the road to give to anybody else. The last I checked I couldn’t be a very good father if I’m taken by a heart attack because I’ve worked an ungodly schedule. Jesus said we were to, "Love others as you love yourself." My sister, nine years ago when I came to the point of physical and emotional collapse, believe me I learned these lessons the hard way! She wrote me a letter. I’ve been tempted to send it back to her. She works way to hard. She said, "Mike, if you’re suppose to love your neighbor as you love yourself, right now I’m real worried about your neighbor." The third priority, up above our job, needs to be our health.
#2 – FAMILY
How easy it is for us to say how important our family is and then we give them the leftovers of our time. Gentlemen, is your wife in your date book for dinner? Do you have time blocked out for your kids? You say they are important! But are they really a priority when it comes to the time you give them. I would ask you to reflect on this with me. Persons on those ill-fated planes who were able to make a phone call, the last I checked none of them called their employer and none of the called their investment counselor. They called their family. And we’ll talk much more about that on October 14th.
#1 – GOD
And I’ll tell you, Satan will do everything he can to keep you from making God a priority. Because he knows if you make God a priority, he’s in trouble. In your life, the greatest ongoing struggle you will face is in making time for God. Since that time for receiving guidance and grace from your Heavenly Father is so important, Satan will do everything he can to squeeze it out of your life. When our relationship with Christ becomes our top priority, we discover the hub of life that holds everything else in our world together. There’s a poem I’ll leave you with these words, "We have only one life that will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last."
Job – Health – Family – God at the top! You’ll never do it perfectly, but take inventory, learn to say "no", let those priorities become more what God wants them to be.
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