President Lyndon Johnson’s wife Lady Bird once gave a speech to wives of congressmen. She told them she had once asked Lyndon what he felt were the three most significant priorities in his career, and he named what he felt they were. Then she told those wives: “I recommend that you ask that same question at home.” What are your most important priorities. Lady Bird said it is so easy for us to get “fragmented” — especially in the  busy Washington lives they led — so she said you need to know what your priorities are; what is most important; that you want to be sure to accomplish when your time is over. She said, make sure your life and your time here adds up to something. (Abigail McCarthy, in Katharine Graham’s Washington, p. 641)

Lady Bird Johnson was an extraordinary person, and I think her advice is good for all of us today. If we aren’t careful, our lives can get very scattered and fragmented today, too. We need to make sure we know what our priorities are — and like she said, make sure our lives at the end of 2024 add up to something! 

I hope that you are here today because you know that God needs to be a priority in your life. And not just “a” priority, but THE priority. Jesus said in Matthew 6:33 that we are to “seek FIRST the kingdom of God.” The single greatest problem facing many Christians today is that we don’t really give God the priority He should have in our lives. We give Him “a” place, but not FIRST place. So as we begin this new year together let’s look at what God’s word tells us about giving Him “FIRST” place in our lives this year:

I. God Designed us to put Him First.

Jesus said here: “Seek FIRST His kingdom and His righteousness.” 

The scriptures makes it abundantly clear, in both the Old and New Testaments, that God is to be our First Priority.

— The very first of the Ten Commandments says: “I am YHWH your God,  who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; you shall have not other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:2-3) In Hebrew that literally reads, “You shall have no other gods before My FACE” – the face of God is to be the single most important face in your life; nothing else should cloud His face; nothing else should be more important than Him. HE is to have first place in your life.

In the New Testament, God’s priority in our lives did not change. In Matthew 22, Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment of the Law. He responded in Matthew 22:37, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment.” Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God. Of all the things you can do with your life here on earth, nothing is more important than loving God. THIS is what you were designed for: to love Him, and give Him first place in your life every day.

The Westminster Confession says: “The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.” You were made to love and glorify God, both in this life, and for all eternity. Psalm 16:11 says, “In Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” God designed us to experience pleasure and joy in His presence. That is what heaven will be, and we can get a taste of that here on earth as well.

Jonathan Edwards, the great American theologian who preached in Connecticut just before the Revolutionary War, said, “Consider that great part of your happiness in heaven, to all eternity, will consist in this: in praising of God, for his free and glorious grace in redeeming you; and if you would spend more time about it on earth, you would find this world would be much more of a heaven to you than it is.” (Jonathan Edwards, sermon, “Glorious Grace”)

That’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? That perhaps the reason “this world is not more like heaven than it is” for many of us, is that we haven’t given God the place He should have in our lives right now. Looking back on 2023, can you say you always put Him first? If we were honest, most of us would probably say, No, we didn’t — at least not as much as we should have. But we need to realize that we were created to give God undisputed first place in our life, and we will never really be content until we do.

II. We have rejected God as First

Although God created us to make Him the “First” priority in our lives, we have rejected that. It started in the very beginning. We’ve seen in our study in Genesis in Sunday school that God made Adam & Eve to know and love Him, and to walk with Him in the Garden of Eden. He told them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Genesis 3 says that the serpent, Satan, tempted Eve, and she took the fruit and ate it. And Adam & Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, and sin and death and every evil we know, came into the world.

Another way to describe what happened in the Garden of Eden is that Adam & Eve rejected the priority of God as first place in their lives. They wanted something else more than God. God was supposed to be their love, their top priority, and have first place in their lives. But when they saw that tree and its fruit, they believed the lie Satan told them, and they wanted that fruit more than they wanted God – and that was the root of their sin. It wasn’t “just” that they took a piece of fruit; the real problem was they wanted something else more than they wanted God. They turned away from Him as “First” in their lives. And that’s the root of sin; this is what sin is: making something or someone else more important than God.

Unfortunately we all do this same thing. We were all made, like Adam & Eve, to walk with God every day, and to make Him our top priority. But like Adam & Eve, we’ve all broken the first commandment, and put other things ahead of God. Just like Adam & Eve, when we break any of the commandments, we do it because we have broken the First commandment first: we want something else more than we want God, or we put something else in His place. This is the story of all our sins:
— Abraham feared Pharaoh more than he feared God, so he lied about Sarah.
— Samson wanted Delilah more than he wanted God, so he had his immoral relationship with her.
— Judas – and then Ananias & Sapphira — wanted riches more than they wanted God, so they compromised for money.
Every one of these broke other commandments, but the first commandment they broke was the first one: they put something else ahead of God.

This is what we do as well. Whenever we break one of God’s commandments, we do it because we have broken the First Commandment first:
— why does a person not come to church on Sunday? Because they love doing something else more than they love worshiping God.
— why does a person steal, or cheat, or not tithe their income? Because they love money, or what they want to do with it, more than they love God.
— why does a person commit immorality? Because they love that pleasure more than they love God.
— why does a person not spend time with God in the morning? Because they love eating breakfast or exercising or reading the newspaper, or making themselves look attractive, or whatever else they are doing, more than they love God. 

It is the same with all of the sins we commit and all of the commandments we break: the first commandment is always the FIRST one we break: we don’t love God with all of our hearts; so we put something else ahead of Him. That is the heart of what sin is: not putting God first. 

III. Jesus calls us to put Him FIRST!

This is really what Jesus calls us to, when He calls us to be saved. He’s calling to put God back as 1st place in our life. Salvation isn’t just “praying some prayer” that gets us out of hell and into heaven. Real salvation happens when we realize that we have not given God the place He should have had in our lives, we ask forgiveness for that, which was paid for when Jesus died on the cross, and then we put Him BACK in first place in our lives where He belongs as the Lord of our life. When we are saved, we are putting Him back in 1st place in our lives, over everyone and everything else. Jesus made this very clear in the Gospels:
— Matthew 10:37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” He says NO OTHER PERSON is to have priority over Him in our lives. HE is to be first!
– In Matthew 8:21 He told a man who asked Him, “permit me first to go and bury my father.” Jesus said NO! You come and follow Me. No other PURPOSE was to come before Him. He is to be first.
— In Matthew 19:21, He commanded the Rich Young Ruler: “sell all your possessions and give to the poor … and come, follow Me”. Jesus doesn’t tell everyone to do that; but he wanted that rich young man to see that if he was going to follow Jesus, that HE was going to have to be first, not his POSSESSIONS. That young man failed the test. He would not put Him ahead of His possessions – and notice that Jesus didn’t go running after him and say, “Oh, I didn’t mean it; you can be My follower anyway.” No, Jesus demands to be first in our life – over every other PERSON, any other PURPOSE, or any other POSSESSION we have.

A lot of people don’t understand this. They talk about “asking Jesus to be a part of their lives”; but that wording can be very misleading. Jesus does not come to be a “part” of your life; if He comes into your life, He comes to be LORD of your life! 

If you think of your life as being like a computer, a lot of people would think of Jesus as just another “program” they load into their computer, with all of the other programs they have going: they have a sports program, a school program, an entertainment program, a family program, and a religious program, and so on. They see Jesus as the “religious program” they’ve “downloaded” to use an hour or two a week. But Jesus is more than that. If your life were like a computer, Jesus would not be just a “program.” He would be more like the “operating system” that controls all of the other programs in your life. He is Your Master; He is Your Lord; He is Your Operating System, through which everything else in your life operates. Jesus does not come to be just a “part” of your life; He comes to be FIRST, and to control every other aspect of your life.

If you’ve never done it before, today you need to turn away from all the other things you’ve put before God in your life, ask Him to forgive you through Jesus’ death on the cross, and truly make Jesus the Lord, the “operating system” of your life for the very first time.

Others of us really have made Jesus Lord, but as you examine your life this past year, you’d admit there are some areas in your life in which you need to recommit yourself, and put Him first. For our last point today, let’s look at what some of these areas might be:

IV. FOUR SPECIFIC WAYS TO PUT GOD FIRST as we begin this new year:

A. Give Him the first part of every day.
Psalm 5:3 “In the morning, O Lord, You will hear My voice; in the morning I will order my prayer to Thee, and eagerly watch.” Here David says that his first action of the day will be to seek God. He gave God the first part of his day in worship & prayer.

Jesus had that same commitment: Mark 1:35 says: “And in the early morning, while it was still dark, He arose and went out and departed to a lonely place, and was praying there.” The Father definitely had first place in Jesus’ life — and He SHOWED it by giving Him the first part of His day in prayer.

We need to do the same thing. What has first place in your life in the morning? What’s the one thing you won’t start your day without?  

— For some people it’s exercise. They are sure to get their workout in. 

— For others it’s putting their makeup on — NO WAY they are leaving home without it (and perhaps some of us shouldn’t!) 

All of us probably have something that’s really important to you, that you just HAVE to have or do before you leave home in the morning. God says I want to be that one thing: more important than your exercise; more important than your coffee; more important than whether your pants are ironed — more important than any other thing.

I’ve shared before about the lady from our church in Tulsa who loved reading the newspaper every morning, and she wouldn’t leave home without reading it. But she eventually realized that she was putting her newspaper ahead of God every day. So she made a new commitment: “No Bible; no newspaper.” She would not read her newspaper, until she had read God’s word first. Some of us here today need to make a similar commitment as we start this new year: that NOTHING else will take priority over our time with God in the morning. Say like David: “In the morning O Lord, You WILL hear my voice” — and give God the first part of your day.

B. Give Him the first day of every week (in worship).
The First Commandment said that we are to put nothing else ahead of God, and the 4th Commandment showed one way to demonstrate that, by keeping the Sabbath: Verse 8 says; “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” The Sabbath was one way that God’s people showed their commitment to Him as first priority in their life.

Now, that changed with the coming of Jesus. After He rose from the dead on the 1st day of the week, the New Testament indicates that the church began to meet regularly on that first day. It was no longer “the Sabbath”, the 6th day of the week, but “The Lord’s Day’, the First Day of the week, Sunday, when God’s people gather to worship Him. Hebrews 10:25 says we are not to neglect this gathering together. This is important for several reasons, including what it says about your heart, and whether you are really giving God His rightful place in your life. Our commitment to worship on the Lord’s Day is one tangible way we can show whether we are really putting God first in our lives. How can you say that God is the most important thing in your life, when you don’t make worshiping Him on Sunday a priority?

We show by our schedules what our priorities are. After I’d been out of the ministry sick for a couple of years and God made me well, Cheryl & I moved to North Carolina to pastor. We found they did a lot of things differently in North Carolina than they did in Oklahoma. For example, I found that in North Carolina, they thought NOTHING about scheduling church activities, sporting events, and all kinds of get-togethers during University of Oklahoma football games! That was just unheard of in Norman! The first thing you do before you plan anything in Oklahoma is check the OU football schedule — weddings, funerals, whatever! But for some reason, they just didn’t do that there!

But all kidding aside, what we prioritize in our schedule says a lot about what’s really first in our lives. And some of us would take a big step towards putting God first in our lives this new year, if we would right now put Sunday morning worship on your calendar first, before you put anything else on there. Make worshiping Him the priority item on your schedule. Let your family and others know: THIS is what we’re doing on Sunday mornings. We are putting God first, and we will worship Him the first day of the week.

C. Give Him the first tenth of your income.
The principle of giving to God first is found all through the Bible:
— Proverbs 3:9 “Honor the LORD from your wealth, and from the FIRST of all your produce”.
— Exodus 23:19 “You shall bring the choice first fruits of your soil into the house of the LORD your God”
— Exodus 34:20 “The first offspring … belongs to Me, and all your male livestock, the first offspring from cattle and sheep …”.
Repeatedly God told His people to give Him the first of everything: the first of their fruit, the first of their vegetables, the first of their cattle and all their animals, the first of their dough – they were to give the Lord the FIRST of everything that He gave them.

And the reason this is so important, is because like each of these commitments, it shows our heart. When my father passed away a few years ago, my sisters and I shared some stories we remembered about him. One of my sister Erin’s favorite memories of Dad was one time she asked him after church if he had $5 so she could go and eat pizza with the youth group. Dad reached into his wallet and gave her $5. She didn’t find out until later, when my mom told her, that we were on a pretty strict budget just then, and Dad had set that $5 aside to go out and eat one day that week, which was one of his favorite things to do. But he gave that up for her. Erin’s never forgotten that, and she never will. And it wasn’t just the $5; it was that Dad showed by giving her that money, over the other things he wanted to do with it, how important she was to him. 

And it’s the same when we give to the Lord today. It’s NOT just about the money; it’s what it reveals about your heart. When we give God the first 10% of what He gave us, it shows in a real, practical way that we are putting Him first. It’s easy to SAY: “Oh God means more to me than anything else.” But how can you really SHOW that? Giving is one of the most practical, down-to-earth ways of showing how important He is to you. And on the other hand, when we DON’T give to Him, it’s a very practical giveaway sign that He is NOT first in our hearts. Our lack of giving is a symptom, that something else has displaced God in our life: that there was a house we wanted more than Him; or a car or boat you wanted more than Him; there is something you wanted to spend your money on more than Him; It just shows that God does not have first place in your heart.

A lack of giving is like a “warning light” for your spiritual life. When a warning light comes on in your car, you know there’s something wrong, that needs your attention. It’s the same way with your spiritual life. When you aren’t giving to God, or when you don’t want to give, you need to see that “the light is flashing” — it’s a warning sign, that there’s something wrong in your heart before God. It’s NOT just a financial problem; it’s a heart problem: you aren’t putting God first. Your lack of tithing, or your  overspending, or debt, is just the symptom, the “warning light”, that you aren’t putting God first in your heart. 

That’s why many of us need to recommit not only our budgets, but also our HEARTS to God, and show it by give Him the first 10% of everything He gives us in 2024. 

D. Give Him the first consideration in all your decisions
In Matthew 6:33 Jesus said: “Seek FIRST the Kingdom of God …”.

Every one of us takes certain things into consideration whenever we make decisions:
— You may think: what will this decision do to me financially?
— You may ask: how will this affect my family, my wife or kids?
— You may wonder: what will people think about me if I do this?
There are any number of things you might take into consideration as you make decisions. And you will undoubtedly have some decisions to make in your life in 2024. What will you take into consideration as you make those decisions?

If you’re a Christian, the #1 factor that you should take into consideration for every decision you make this year, is God. What pleases Him? What advances His kingdom? What is His will? What does His word say? God should be your first consideration in every decision you make.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make this new year, is to decide something without seeking God first. I think of Joshua and the people of Israel in Joshua 9, when the Gibeonites tricked them into making a covenant with them. The key phrase in that chapter is found in :14, where it says they “did not as for the counsel of the LORD.” They didn’t check with God first — and they made a bad agreement with the Gibeonites, whih became an albatross around their neck that dragged them down for years to come.

Sadly, Christian people do this all the time: they make decisions without checking with God first, and it costs them:
— they just go out and buy a car on a whim, without really seeking God, and end up with monthly payments that strangle them for years to come.
— they get entangled in a relationship with a guy or gal, without really seeking if this is who GOD has for them, and it ends up dragging them down spiritually, emotionally, and costing them in many, many ways.
— Sometimes we just do something because it “seems like the right thing to do”, or just because it’s what we did last year, but we end up missing something better God had for us, because we didn’t really seek Him. 

DON’T be like that this year. You will likely have some decisions to make in your life in 2024, but don’t make a decision without seeking God first: check His word; pray; get some wise counsel from the most godly people you know. “Seek FIRST the kingdom of God,” by giving HIM the first consideration in every one of your decisions this year.

CONCLUSION:
These are four specific areas in which you may need to put God first as we begin this new year. But you could do all these things, and still not really do the most important thing, which is to give Him control of your WHOLE LIFE, make Him the “operating system” that everything else in your life revolves around.  If you’ve never done that, why don’t you do it right now? Let’s bow our heads together, and pray about how you need to really put God FIRST in YOUR life this year. 

INVITATION:
—Maybe you’re here in church today because you wanted to get a better start for this new year. And you can have it. But you won’t get it just because you “came to church.” You have to really put God first in your life. How specifically do you need to do that?

— Maybe as you look back on 2023, you realize you’ve let some things slip. And God’s talking to you today about making some recommitments in your life for this year: maybe you need to get back to giving Him the first part of your day in His word & prayer; or to really be in worship every Sunday; or to give Him the first part of your income; or to re-think some decisions you’re facing, in light of what GOD might want you to do.
Maybe it’s something I haven’t even mentioned today, but God’s spoken to your heart about it through His Spirit. Pray about it during this time and ask Him to help you put Him first in your life this year.

— Maybe you need a church home where you can be accountable and serve this year. If you think that God may be calling you to join our church, I’d love to get your enrolled in our Membership class … 

— You might need to humble yourself and come and pray for someone/something on your heart; the front of this worship center is always open as an altar for prayer.

— Or maybe for the first time you truly need to give your life to Jesus as your Lord & Savior. Give Him the first place He deserves in your life …