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“THE MARKS OF A TRUE DISCIPLE:
STRAIGHT PRIORITIES”

MATTHEW 6:19-24

You had to know it was going to come to this. With Jesus, it almost always does. He just can’t seem to talk more than 10 minutes without wanting to get into our pocketbooks. Many of you already know that Jesus had more to say about possessions than any other single subject. And the motive of his meddling never has so much to do with the possessions themselves as it does with the basic question that lies behind all possession issues.

The important question is, “When comes to possessions are you the possessor or the possessed?” Do you own your treasure or does it own you?” And no matter how you answer the question, I think Jesus would look at you, cock his head, close one eye and say, “You sure about that?”

You see what Jesus knows so well is how blind we can be when it comes to our treasure. We have many ways of convincing ourselves that we are laying up the “treasure in heaven” that Jesus is talking about here, when in reality our lives are packed full of “treasure on earth.”

Now let’s not let these words of Jesus become isolated and out of context. Remember what it is that we are doing here. We are hearing Jesus talk in this “Sermon on the Mount” about the core things that are involved in being true followers of his.

Last year during the Lenten season we studied chapter 5 and basically heard Jesus say to us there that genuine Christianity is not about doing all the right things on the outside, it’s about having the right heart and letting that changed heart flow out into a changed life.

This year, during these weeks of Lent, we’ve been studying chapter 6 and we’ve been hearing Jesus say that real Christians do have some defining marks in the way they live.

For example, true Christians serve regardless of who notices and no matter how anyone else responds. They just serve in love because that’s what Jesus did. True Christians pray, genuinely and simply. They aren’t concerned about getting the words right or impressing anybody when they pray. They just honestly pour out their hearts to god and listen for his quiet voice. Real Christians forgive, knowing that only as they forgive others can they hope to really receive the full forgiveness that God would have for them. Genuine Christians know how to deny their selfish appetites and sacrifice them in order to focus completely on god who gives and sustains life.

Now, this morning, we hear another mark of a true disciple of Jesus Christ. True disciples have their priorities straight. Real disciples know how true Jesus’ words here are – that you simply cannot serve both God and money. It’s one or the other.

Priorities. What are your priorities? And how does what you say about your priorities match up to how you live? Is there integrity?

I heard an amazing story recently about priorities. It was a 99-degree September day in San Antonio, when a 10 month-old baby girl was accidentally locked inside a parked car by her aunt. Frantically the mother and aunt ran around the car in near hysteria, while a neighbor attempted to unlock the car with a clothes hanger. It didn’t take long in that heat before the infant was dripping with sweat and becoming lethargic. They continued to try opening the car but after a few more moments the baby was turning purple and had foam on her mouth. It had become a life-or-death situation. That’s when Fred Arriola, a wrecker driver, came on the scene. He grabbed a hammer out of his truck and smashed the back window of the car to set the little girl free. A hero? Fred said, "The lady was actually mad at me because I broke the window. I just thought, what's more important--the baby or the window?"

We really aren’t much different that the folks that Jesus was dealing directly with. We really know how to talk a good game about our priorities, but when push comes to shove, our out-of-balance lives reveal just how messed up our priorities really are.
Bill McCartney, the well-known former coach of the Colorado Buffaloes confesses his own imbalance. He says, “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 the 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 life that God wanted me to have. All because I had broken my promise to put God first in my life.”

We know well the problem of living in a “possession-possessed” society. The relentless drive to acquire more and more affects us. It seriously affects our Christian life and spiritual development.

Arthur Gish, in a book called Beyond the Rat Race, says it in a very engaging way: “We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like.”

You know, our culture is experiencing perhaps unprecedented prosperity. But so what? Look at what it’s getting us. Are we really better off? Are we happier? More at peace? We live in a world where we are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. We need bigger, better houses. We need newer, more impressive cars. We just have to get the latest high-tech gadgets. Our definition of “need” is (if you’ll forgive the expression) “screwed up!” Richard Foster says “It is time we awaken to the fact that to conform to a sick society is to be sick.”

We know how true that is if we just stop for a moment and really look at it. If we do, we cry out, “There has to be a better way!” Our hearts intuitively long for simplicity. And that’s really what Jesus is talking about here when he says that true Christians have straight priorities.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who has so much to teach us about real discipleship says: “To be simple is to fix one’s eye solely on the simple truth of God at a time when everything is being confused, distorted, and turned upside down.”

That’s precisely the challenge we are facing as we seek to live as authentic Christians in a world that is choking to death on its own excesses. So what does it take to be people of straight priorities in a world like ours? I think Jesus places the issue on two simple principles.

First, straight priorities is fundamentally a matter of the heart. This is the essence of his Sermon on the Mount message. It's an inward reality that results in an outward life-style. I think that’s the real point of the somewhat strange saying about the eyes that he drops right into the middle of all this. Being a person of light is a matter of how you see. When it comes to possessions and all that this world pretends to offer you, do you see clearly? Or do you get blinded by the glitter of it all and suddenly find yourself enmeshed in the values and priorities of this world?

I am convinced that many of us would love to know the freedom and simplicity that is implied in Jesus’ straight priorities talk. But we’ve gotten so tangled in this world’s treasure that we feel like it takes all of our life’s energy just to pay for it, use it, fix it, replace it, insure it, upgrade it, downsize it, wash it, paint it, mow it, clean it, organize it, pay taxes on it, show it off, license it, redecorate it, and put gas in it so we can start it all over again!

Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters.” Why do think we can figure out how to be the exception? What does it mean to have “good eyes” like Jesus is talking about here? Doesn’t it mean that our hearts are uncluttered and our priorities are straight? We know who we are, we know whose we are, and we know what finally matters in life. But if that conviction doesn’t take root in our hearts first, it will never happen in our lives. It has an awful lot to do with where I find my value.

I’ve given you this evaluative question before, but I give it to you again. “If everything you have were suddenly gone tomorrow, your possessions, your position, your power – everything this world holds as valuable – if it were all gone tomorrow, would you be anybody?”

But beyond being a matter of the heart, straight priorities is also a matter of specific choices. Like “How am i going to spend the 168 hours available to me every week?” Like “what will I do when the company offers me a promotion but it will mean more time away from home?” Like “What percentage of our income are we actually going to live on?” By the way, it was announced this week that once again this quarter American spending outpaced income. We are going further and further into debt.

Now I understand that the specifics have to be applied very personally. But straight priorities in terms of earthly treasure and heavenly treasure is a major marker for Jesus that distinguishes the true disciple from those who only talk a good game.
So let me ask you this: “If Jesus were to walk into your house while you are paying bills and dealing with the family finances, and quietly look over your shoulder while you make those decisions, would he be pleased with what he sees?”

This is one marker of spiritual maturity that has a very tangible way to evaluate. What if Jesus took your checkbook register for the last year and went through it line by line? How comfortable would you be with that? What does it reveal about where your priorities really lie?

The words of Jesus here are so simple” You can’t serve two masters.” It’s either God or it’s money. So, which is it?