Life Is to Enjoy God

I don’t remember what my bedtime was when I was in second or third grade, but I do remember that when that time arrived my sister would always ask my parents what time it was.  They would answer her and then say, Andy, time for bed.  My sister doesn’t remember doing this, we have talked about it, but I do because I was convinced that all the good things in life happened after I went to bed.  All the good tv shows were on after I went to bed.  I didn’t know what those shows were but I knew that they were the best and I was always missing out.  Sometimes that seems like the story of our lives, we are always missing out.

All through school I was never part of the “in” crowd and there were times I felt like I was missing out.  I wasn’t the best and brightest, I wasn’t the most popular or most athletic, I wasn’t strong or clever.  I was nominated by my senior class as most sophisticated – whatever that means when you are in high school – but I wasn’t given that honor.   I’m thinking that out of the three people nominated - I came in third.  What’s funny is that no one knew I was nominated and none of my friends voted for me.  I knew that because I actually had to show my friends that my name was in the year book.

Do you ever come to worship and look around thinking that everyone else has it all together in life and in faith and you just don’t measure up.  You look around and see people who have it all together while your life is falling apart.  You see people strong in their faith while you aren’t sure what you believe or what you are even doing here.  You see families that are living the dream while your family feels more like a nightmare.  You see people God loves and enjoys and blesses while you are sure that all God could feel about you is disappointment.  If this is where you are today – then the first thing you need to know is that you are not alone.  We are all right there with you.  None of us measure up, none of us feels worthy and none of us feel like we have it all together.  On some level we are all broken and scared and come here wondering if God can really love us.  Forget that, we come here wondering if God even notices us or knows us.

For the past six weeks we have been looking at how we can get the most out of life because we often look at our lives and feel like we just aren’t getting it right.  What we have found is that life isn’t found in all the things around us but in a deep relationship with God.  Life is to be loved by God and to love others.  Life is found when we trust God and have peace with God.  Life is being at peace with ourselves and today we are going to learn that life is to enjoy our relationship with God and that only comes when we know that God first enjoys us.  To help us understand that God does enjoy us and is concerned about us we are going to look at the story of Jesus healing a man who was in a situation similar to ours.  John 5:1-15

So here is a man looking to be healed and to get that healing he has to be the first one into the water when it is stirred, but he can never be the first one in because he is not the fastest.  I’m not sure what you picture this scene to be like, but it was not an orderly parade into the water, this was an every person for themselves race to get into the water first.  I think it looked like this.

It most definitely looked like this when Jesus was there because it said that Jesus had gone to Jerusalem for one of the festivals which meant that Jerusalem would have been packed and people from all over Israel would have been gathered at the pool looking for healing.  The man Jesus speaks to has been an invalid for 38 years.  Chances are that he had come to this pool often during that time but he was never fast enough, strong enough or clever enough to find a way to get into the water first.  He is also not popular enough to have everyone help him in or have everyone agree to put him at the head of the line.  In time he begins to think that he is just not good enough.  Sound familiar?  I am not the fastest, the most clever, the most popular, the strongest nor the brightest.  I am just not good enough.

When this is the place that we live, we have no life.  We are like this man, getting nowhere and experiencing nothing and as long as we think that we need to be the fastest, strongest, brightest or most sophisticated to find the fullness of life, we will never find it, but Jesus shows us a different way.  Look at what Jesus says to the man.  Get up, take your mat and walk.  Jesus doesn’t tell him to get into the pool to be healed, he doesn’t mention the pool at all, Jesus offers him a completely different way to find life.  Jesus invites him to just get up and walk and the man tries it and he walks.  Now here is what’s interesting, this man is not responding out of his faith in Jesus because he doesn’t know who this man is, so why does he do what Jesus asked?  That is a really good question that we don’t have an answer for, but maybe he was just sick and tired of trying to find healing and wholeness and life in the ways of the world around him and was ready to try a something new.  Maybe he was sick of the dog-eat-dog race into the pool so was willing to reach out for a different way of finding life.

But the story doesn’t end with his physical healing, it says Jesus went back to find him in the crowds and told him to stop sinning.  When Jesus says this, it’s not the is concerned about the morals of this man’s life as much as he is interested in offering him more in life.  Jesus had something more to offer him than physical healing, he wanted to offer him something better; he wanted to offer him freedom and spiritual wholeness.  Jesus wanted to offer him the fullness of life and so he goes back and seeks him out and points him in the direction of real, true and lasting life so he tells him to stop sinning.

I love how Jesus just tells this like it’s just that easy.  I don’t know about you, but every time I tell myself to stop sinning I just find myself sinning more.  It’s like telling all of you to stop thinking about the color pink – and what color are you all thinking about right now?  PINK.  It’s not that easy, but Jesus just told this man who had been an invalid for 38 years to get up and walk and what did he do?  He got up and walked.  Just like that.  He listened to Jesus, trusted him and followed him and was able to walk, so maybe if we listen to Jesus, trust him and are willing to follow him we can stop sinning – or at least be pointed in the direction of a life free from the guilt, shame and bondage that sin has on us.   The only way to find freedom from sin is to trust and follow Jesus.
The common theme through this series is that life is found in Jesus.  Life is found when we keep our focus on Jesus and when we are willing to follow him.  So freedom from sin and the shame, guilt and bondage of sin can be found in Jesus which means that the life God has for us is found when we are willing to listen and follow Jesus.  Life isn’t found in the dog-eat-dog world in which we live, it’s not found in being the best and brightest, the strongest or the fastest or even the most sophisticated.  Life isn’t found in trying harder, life is found in responding to and following Jesus.

But why does Jesus offer us this life?  Why did Jesus go back to find this man to offer him more than physical healing?  There really is only one explanation – he loved him.  He cared about him.  Jesus liked this man and simply wanted to offer him something more.  Because Jesus enjoyed this man he gave the man the opportunity to enjoy God and get more out of his life.  We enjoy God and get more out of life when we understand that God enjoys us.  God loves us.  God cares about what we are going through which is why God reaches out to us and doesn’t tell us we have to be the best and brightest but offers us a better way of living which is to follow Jesus.  God enjoys us and it is that delight that opens the door for us to fully enjoy God.

How often do we stop to think about how much God enjoys us?  Can we really grab hold of this idea that God delights in us and deeply cares about us?  Many times when we think about coming face to face with God we don’t think about the delight God will have we think only about the disappointment he will feel, but that’s not God – that’s us.  We think God could only be disappointed with us because we don’t measure up but the Bible is clear that God delights in us.  One of my favorite passages in the Bible comes from the little known book of Zephaniah.  Zephaniah was a prophet writing to the people of Israel who were struggling to be faithful to God and often failing.  They were not the best and brightest and they often lived disappointing and faithless lives and yet this is what Zephaniah said to them:
Zephaniah 3:17.  The Lord your God is with you, he is might to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.

Psalm 18:16-19 also talks about how much God enjoys us.   Even in our worst moments when everything is spiraling out of control – God still delights in us which is why he comes to rescues us.  He sets us on a rock or in a quiet place and shows us a better way to live because he delights in us.  Jesus healed the invalid and then went back to find him in the crowds to offer him something more because he delighted in him and wanted to offer him freedom from sin and point him in the direction of finding true and everlasting life.  

God enjoys us and because he does he seeks us out and points us in the direction of true and everlasting life  That life isn’t found in the world around us.  Life isn’t found in trying to measure up to those around us or trying to be the best and get it all together, life is found when we can enjoy God and the only way to enjoy God is to know that God enjoys us.   If you are here today thinking that you don’t measure up and that God can’t be here for you because you don’t have it all together, the one thing that can make a difference and help you find more in life is to know that God enjoys you.  God delights in you just the way you are right now but God does want more for you so is offering you a better way to live.  Follow Jesus.  Listen to Jesus, trust Jesus and let Jesus forgive you and set you free.

God can change us today if we will allow him to.  Just like the invalid at the pool of Bethesda, God is here to offer us his love, a love that has the power to set us free.  That’s what we call amazing grace.  God’s grace is given to change us because God delights in us and God wants so much more for us.  It is God’s grace that opens our eyes, our hearts and sets us free from sin.  It is God’s grace that finds us when we are lost and points us in the direction of life.  Life is to enjoy God and we can enjoy God because God enjoys us.  God loves us.  God delights in us and God’s grace is here to set us free and bring us the fullness of life.

Next Steps
Life is to enjoy God.

1.  Read the following passages which remind us that God truly enjoys us.
• Psalm 18:16-19 Psalm 149:4
• Micah 7:18-19 Zephaniah 3:17

2.  When the invalid man got up and walked (John 5:1-8), he experienced the full power of God at work in his life.
• Where and when have you experienced the power of God in your life?
• What difference did it make?
• How might you describe the feeling to someone else?
• How do you experience God’s power and presence from day to day?

3.  Jesus told the invalid man to stop sinning.  The more we try to stop sinning the more we are focused on our sin which defeats us.  When it comes to living a life free of sin, Judah Smith says, the secret is not self-control.  It’s not self-discipline.  It’s not self-improvement.  It’s not self at all.  As a matter of fact, self is the problem.  The more we focus on self, the worse we become.  The secret is focusing on Jesus.
• How can you focus more on Jesus this week?
• How can you help your family focus on Jesus?

4.  The Bible says that Jesus is full of grace so as we focus on Jesus we see and experience God’s grace.
• How has God’s amazing grace changed your life?
• Name the freedom God’s grace has given you?
• How can God’s grace help you forgive yourself?

5. What qualities or characteristics of God’s nature and character do you enjoy the most?  Celebrate those this week.

Life is to be at peace with yourself.

Where are the places you go, or the things you do, to help calm your nerves or find some peace?  Do you escape to the mountains or the beach?  Maybe you walk in the woods or go for a run to feel at peace.  Maybe you less active and find peace getting lost in a good book or listening to some music.  Some people love to cook while other people like to eat.  There is even an entire category of food that helps people feel at peace called comfort food and it brings peace because it helps connect us to the traditions or our past.  While we often look to these things to bring peace to our lives, we learned last week that peace isn’t going to be found in the world around us or even inside of us – peace is found in God.

Last week in our Life Is series we learned that life is to be at peace with God and this kind of peace only comes through Jesus because it is only Jesus who brings us back into a relationship with God.  Jesus redeems us and opens the door for us to experience peace which is why the focus of our lives needs to be Jesus.  Peace with God is only half of the equation; however, the other half is having peace with ourselves.  Life is to be at peace with yourself and you won’t be surprised to hear that this peace is also found not in what we do or what we listen to or what we eat or in anything we find in the world around us, it is found in the one we trust an turn to.  Finding peace with ourselves comes from God and to help us understand how we find this peace we are going to look at the beginning and the end, the first chapter of the first book of the Bible and the last chapter of the last book of the Bible, Genesis 1 and Revelation 22.

Revelation 22:13.  Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and Omega is the last.  So Jesus is saying that he is the first and last, the beginning and end, which means he is eternal and present with us at all times and in all places, but let’s just look at the word first for a moment.  Jesus is first has two meanings.  It means Jesus is before all things, but it also means that Jesus is better than all things.  Think about what it means to be first in a race or a competition.  The first in a race is the fastest.  The first in a competition is the best or most skilled.  The first is usually the most powerful, the most beautiful, and the most talented and that is Jesus, he is first in everything.
Since Jesus is the first in everything we can trust him for everything.  Whatever it is we are worried about – God is bigger.   Whatever problem we face – God is stronger.  Whatever we strive for in this world – God is better.  Jesus is first in all things which means we can trust him and that trust brings us peace.  The Apostle Paul said, if God is for us, who can be against us?  Can any force or power stand against us if God is on our side?  No, because God is bigger and God is stronger because God is first.  Paul says, we are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us.  And he says, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.  The empty grave of Easter tells us that God is even greater and stronger and more powerful than death which means there really is nothing that can stand against God and if God is with us then we can be confident and at peace in all circumstances.

Not only is Jesus first which means he is bigger, better and stronger than all things, but being first means He is before all things.  Here is where we turn to the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1:1.  God is before all things and the very first thing God does is bring peace into chaos.  Genesis 1:2.  God is first so he is the one who brings order out of the chaos.  The deep and darkness it talks about here are symbols of chaos and confusion and it is out of that chaos God brings order.  God brings light into darkness.  God brings the heavens and then the sky and the earth into a formless void.  God brings creatures to live in the waters and then creatures to live on the land and then finally human beings to be stewards of it all.  So God is before all things and God is there to make a way for us.  God is first which means that God goes before us to make a way.

In all things, God goes before us which means that wherever we are in life and what every stress or problems we face – God is already there.  God has been there and God is there waiting to help us find peace.  We hear this in Psalm 139: 5, You hem me in behind and before – you have laid your hand upon me.    God is before us, so no matter what we face, we are facing it with God who already knows the situation and has a plan for our future.  We can be at peace with ourselves if we will trust that God is first.
God going before me was a lesson it took me weeks to learn when I worked in Yellowstone NP, and I had to learn it the hard way.  The summer I woprked in Yellowstone I was told I was going to be working at a location called Lake.  I was going to work in the dining room but I was also going to be part of a ministry team.  When I arrived in the park for my orientation they told me I was going to be working in Grant Village which immediately stressed me out because my ministry position was in Lake.  I didn’t know what to do so I talked to several people about it both at work and with the ministry and after worrying for some time they told me to go ahead to Grant Village and I could work with the ministry team in place there.  It didn’t take me long to realize that the ministry team at Grant Village was awesome and it was exactly where God wanted me.  God had gone before me into the park and provided for me a great team of people to work with, but I still didn’t have peace because I wasn’t very happy with my job.

I worked as a prep cook and dishwasher.  I basically did a little bit of everything and whatever needed to get done, but it wasn’t very exciting so when a job opened up at an ice-cream shop, I applied thinking it would be more fun.  I really thought that was the place for me, until they told me I would have to work on Sundays which conflicted with my responsibility with the ministry.  After a lot of thought, I realized I had to turn it down which didn’t bring me peace but just more anxiety and searching.

I kept looking at other jobs always thinking that something else was going make me happy.  Forget the fact that my kitchen job not only gave me every Sunday and Monday off because of the ministry team,  it also gave me every Saturday off.  That location was the only place where they worked us 4 - 10 hour days so we could have three days off to explore the park and I was the only one who got every weekend off because I had asked for Sunday and Monday and so they gave me Saturday as well.  You would have thought I would have seen God’s hand going before and providing all this for me, but I didn’t.
I kept looking for other jobs thinking a different place and different work would make me happy and bring me peace.  Eventually they offered me a different job and I took it and the first week there, I was miserable.  I didn’t like it at all and prayed for God to make a way for me to go back to the kitchen.  God made it clear that I had gotten myself into that situation and I could get myself out.  So I humbled myself, went to my manager and told him I wanted to go back to the kitchen.  They really didn’t understand, but they agreed and I went back to washing dishes and preparing meals and I never looked for another job that summer.

When I look back on that summer I can see that God had literally gone before me and worked it out for me to work in a kitchen in Grant Village.  It was the absolute best place for me to be and God had actually paved the way for me to be there.  God went first and when I realized that and accepted that, I found peace.

That experience taught me a great lesson in life and faith, God really does go before us and prepares the way for us.  God is there to give strength and wisdom when we need it.  God is there to give direction and guidance when we need it.  God is there to give us patience and love when we need it and God is there to offer us grace when we need it.  Yes, God even goes before us when we fail and need to be forgiven and Peter is the one who teaches this to us.

Before Jesus died, Peter failed to acknowledge that he knew Jesus.  Three times as Jesus was being questioned and condemned by the religious leaders, Peter was also being questioned and he denied that he was a follower of Jesus and that he even knew Jesus.  That failure was painful for Peter and in the days after Jesus died that failure meant Peter had no peace.  We all know what it is like to fail and let down the people we love the most.  It’s horrible and it disturbs us and it robs of peace, and that is where Peter was until the morning of the third day.  On the morning that the women found Jesus’ tomb empty, they were given this message, Mark 16:6-7.

Jesus was going ahead of them.  Once again we see that Jesus is first.  Not only was the first to rise from the grave but he is going before his disciples to Galilee, but did you notice that Jesus singles out Peter?  Jesus specifically wants Peter to know that he will meet him in Galilee.  What peace Peter must have felt when he heard this news from Mary.  Jesus wanted Peter himself to know that he went before him and would meet him in Galilee.  The door of forgiveness was opened.

So Jesus goes before Peter to Galilee but what Jesus does in Galilee is what’s really important because it is in Galilee that Peter is forgiven.  While most of the resurrection appearances of Jesus take place in Jerusalem where the disciples had been staying for the Passover, in John’s gospel we find the disciples back fishing.  They are back in Galilee and it is here that Jesus takes Peter aside and forgives him for the three times that he failed.  So even when we fail, Jesus goes before us to forgive.  Jesus is always first.

What often causes us the most distress and robs of any kind of peace of mind is our own sense of failure.  We are not who we think we should be and we are not who we think God wants us to be and that failure often keeps our hearts and minds unsettled and it can destroy our faith and wreck our lives, but God is telling us here that he goes before us to forgive us.  God is ready to forgive before we even see our need to be forgiven.  God being first to forgive and first to offer mercy and first to reach out in love brings a peace that can bring order to our chaos and light to the darkness of our lives.

There is one more way that Jesus being first can bring us peace and that is remember that no matter we are facing today, Jesus faced it first.  Whatever the stress is, whatever the anxiety is, whatever the temptation is, whatever the suffering, loss and pain is, Jesus experienced it first which means that he is able to understand what we go through and help us through.  Look at Hebrews 4:14-16.

Jesus has experienced our flesh and blood which means has been tempted in ways we have been tempted and has gone through the same suffering and pain. Jesus knows the bitter disappointment of family and friends lettings us down and he has seen great plans fall apart.  Jesus knows about loss, he knows about misunderstanding, he even knows about failure, not that he failed but he saw and experienced the pain of those who failed around him.

Jesus knows what we are going through today which means he is able to understand us our weakness and offer us whatever it is need to move forward in life.  That’s what Jesus does as the great high priest – he goes before us to God so that we can follow him to a place where we can find mercy and grace and strength.  It says we can approach God’s throne with confidence, and it is that confidence and assurance that brings us peace.  

Peace comes in knowing that Jesus is first.  He is alpha and omega, beginning and end, first and last.  He hems us in behind and before.  God was first at creation and brought peace into the deep dark chaos of the world.  Jesus is first which means he is bigger and better than anything and can help us overcome all of our problems and fears.  Jesus is first because he goes before us and prepares the way for us to experience the fullness of life and Jesus is first in that he has experienced all of life before we did which means that no matter what we are experiencing today, Jesus knows and he understands.   Peace comes in knowing that Jesus is first and we find peace by making Jesus first in our hearts and lives.





Next Steps
Life Is to be at peace with yourself

Read the creation story in Genesis 1.  Notice how God was before all things and how God prepared the way for all of life.

Read Revelation 22:13.  What does it mean that Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end, the first and last?  Can you say that Jesus is first and last in your life?

Knowing Jesus is first brings us peace:

Jesus is first.  He is bigger and better than all things
• What problem do you face today and how is Jesus bigger?
• What thing are you searching for today and how is Jesus better?
• Where do you feel weak today and how is Jesus stronger?

Jesus is first.  He is before all things.
• What situation can you look back on and see how God went before you to provide?
• How has God gone before you in circumstances you find yourself in today?

Jesus is first.  He has experienced all things.
• What does it mean for Jesus to be your Great High Priest?   (See Hebrews 4:14-16)
• Jesus was tempted in every way we were.  In what temptations and struggles with sin does this help you?
• What does it tell us about God that He sent His son to experience the fullness of our lives and weakness?

Where do you need to put Jesus first in your life so you can be at peace with yourself?

Life Is to be at Peace with God.

We all know that true and lasting peace is hard to find or experience in the world today.  What we see in Syria and the Middle East reminds us that the world has never really known any lasting peace.  Shootings in Oregon and Arizona remind us that the peace we might experience in our community can be shattered in an instant.  Our own peace of mind can crumble when a spouse suddenly talks about being unhappy or a child begins to struggle with depression or people around us at work lose their job.  The kind of peace that brings contentment, completeness and a true sense of well-being is essential if we are going to experience life the way God intended, but this kind of peace is illusive and fragile at best, but it is not impossible.  Today our life is series is going to help us find this kind of peace because life is to be at peace with God.

The first thing we need to know is that God wants us to experience lasting and life giving peace.  Before Jesus left this world he said, Peace I leave you, my peace I give you which tells us that God wants us to be at peace which means that peace is possible, but the peace we are taking about is not the absence of war or conflict it is much – much more.  The kind of peace we are talking about is what the Bible calls Shalom.  Shalom is one of those words that doesn’t translate well.  We often think of Shalom as a greeting or something we say when we people come or go; much like aloha, but it means much more than hello or good-bye.  Shalom means peace, not a 60’s kind of hippie “peace” but a profound sense of completeness or wholeness.  Shalom means fullness, rest, harmony, a state of calm without any anxiety or stress.  It also includes a sense of vitality and passion that penetrates every area of our lives and every fiber of our being.  Shalom is the fullness of life – life the way God intended it to be lived.  So life is Shalom, life is to be at peace and this all starts with being at peace with God.

To show us where we can find this kind of peace we are going to look at a story of Jesus found in Luke 10:38-42.


Many people look at this story to define their personality type.  Are you a Mary or a Martha?  Do you like to do things or do you like to study and learn?  Are you active or a contemplative?  While those questions are all fine and can be helpful, we need to look deeper at this story and admit that in some ways we are all like Martha.  Look at what Jesus says to her.  Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about MANY things.

Couldn’t this be said about us?  As we head off in 100 different directions we are worried and upset about MANY things.  Even when it comes to our faith and our relationship with God we worry about many things.  We wonder if we are good enough.  We wonder if we are doing enough.  We wonder if we are doing the right things.  Whether it is our life or faith, we are all like Martha.  We are worried and upset about many things which means that we aren’t experiencing Shalom.  We are not at peace.

Martha was not at peace because of all the work she was doing and yet the irony is that she doing all the work to try and find peace.  Martha was doing everything possible to serve and please Jesus because she wanted to be close to him.  Martha wanted to show Jesus that she loved and trusted him.  She was cooking and cleaning and serving and helping all in an effort to be at peace with Jesus.  That’s part of what motivates her question to Jesus.  It’s not just that she wants Mary to help or that she’s trying to point out to Jesus that Mary is a slacker, she wants Jesus to notice her and appreciate her so she can feel close to him.  She wants to feel content and confident and complete in her relationship with Jesus, but the harder she tries and the more she works the father away from Jesus feels and the less peace she experiences.

As long as Martha tries to find peace in what she is doing – she will fail.  As long as her focus is on herself – she will fall short.  As long as we try to find peace in what we do – we will fail and as long as our focus is on ourselves – we will fall short.  Peace isn’t found in us or in what we do; peace is only found in Jesus because Jesus is the Prince of Peace.

The only thing that brings lasting and eternal peace is Jesus which means that if we are going to experience peace with God and any peace in our lives then our focus needs to be on Jesus.  Maybe you have seen this saying before: No Jesus – No Peace, Know Jesus – Know Peace.

In many ways, this sums it all up.  If we know Jesus we will experience peace.  It’s not in serving Jesus or talking about Jesus or even believing in him that we experience peace it is in knowing him, which is what Mary was doing.  She was sitting at Jesus’ feet getting to know him.  She was listing to him and watching him, learning from him and loving him.  She was staying connected to him.  To know Jesus is to know peace, but no Jesus means no peace.  Without Jesus there can be no peace with God.

Peace with God only comes through Jesus because Jesus is the one who brings us back to God.  In Romans 5:1-2 it says, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  Peace with God begins when we enter into a relationship with God and that only comes through faith and trust in Jesus who paid the price for our sin and redeemed us, or brought us back into a relationship with God.

Last week we heard that the penalty for our sin is death, but we don’t get what we deserve, we get life through Jesus.  While our sin separates us from God, the death of Jesus on the cross paid the price for our sin and so it is Jesus who brings us back into a relationship with God.  This is what Paul means when he says that we are justified through faith.  When we have faith in Jesus, when we love Jesus, when we know Jesus we are brought close to God and not only are we saved but this justification or salvation opens the door to more peace.  It is the first step toward Shalom.  Paul says this again in Colossians 1:21-22.

Peace with God only comes through Jesus; we cannot achieve it on our own., but a life at peace cannot continue without Jesus, that’s what Paul goes on to say in Colossians 1:23.
If we continue to live a life where we maintain our connection with Jesus and where we stay firm in our hope and steadfast in our love for Jesus then we will experience the peace God has for us.  The real question we have to wrestle with is how to remain focused on Jesus so we can experience this peace.  Again, Mary and Martha give us the answer.

In his Life Is book, Judah Smith says about Martha and Mary that Mary is distracted from her responsibilities by Jesus.  But Martha is distracted from Jesus by her responsibilities.   Do you see the difference?  It has to do with priorities and perspective.  If our priorities are all the things we have to do in life and Jesus is not our main focus, then Jesus becomes a distraction to what we think is really important, but if Jesus is the priority then everything else is the distraction.  So where are our priorities?

When we look at our schedule are we trying to fit Jesus into a full calendar or does time in worship, prayer and scripture come first?  When we look at our checkbooks does giving to Jesus come from what is left over at the end of the month or does God and the work of God take priority?  And what priorities are we setting for our family?  Is time with God a focus or an afterthought?  If time with Jesus is a distraction from our lives, then Jesus is not our focus and God is not the priority and any peace we may experience is fleeting and fragile, but if life begins to distract us from Jesus, then we know that our perspective is right and we are moving in a good direction.

Perhaps our lack of peace today comes from not having the right priorities.  As we search for peace in the world and as we look for contentment and completeness in more and more activities we always come up short and the reason is we are looking in the wrong places.  Peace is never found in the world, it is only found in Jesus.  Shalom is found when we set the right priorities and keep the right perspective.

Now please understand that making Jesus first doesn’t mean we neglect our jobs or families, it just means we set healthy and faithful priorities for ourselves and our families.  It means we talk together as a family about how to make sure God is first.  We set expectations about where our faith fits in to our lives.  When I was growing up, going to worship wasn’t an option it was an expectation.  Being involved in the church wasn’t forced on us but it was part of lives because it was part of our families, we learned it from our parents who made church part of their lives.

If I could say one thing to parents and grandparents today it is this, set a good example for your family.  Set the right priorities for your children and grandchildren and invite them to be part of your faith.  Don’t teach them the faith, live out your faith for them.  Set the right priorities and help your family keep the right perspective because if God is not a priority in your life, God will not be a priority in the lives of your children and peace for them and for you will be difficult to find.  Peace is so needed today and we have been shown the way – it is the way of Mary.  Peace is found in knowing Jesus.

Maintaining this kind of perspective and keeping these priorities is not easy.  The world is pulling us in so many different directions and telling us that everything else that we need to do is essential.  The world says we have to be involved in everything if we are going to find life and we have to have our children involved in everything if they are going to be complete and confident and well rounded adults.  But it’s not true.  Shalom is not found in the world or in a whirlwind of activities, it is found at the feet of Jesus.  It is found in knowing Jesus and so that needs to be our priority.

Peace with God comes only from Jesus.  The key to life is this one thing – Jesus.  Do you remember the 1991 movie, City Slickers?  In that movie three middle aged urban men go out west to be cowboys for a few weeks with the hopes of finding some of the answers to life.  They are looking for peace – that sense of completeness and wholeness that is missing in their lives.  The old cowboy who leads them is named Curly who gives them the secret to life and the secret to finding peace.

Curly: Mitch that the secret to life is this (shows his finger).  
Mitch: the key to life is my finger?  
Curly: No, the key to life is one thing.  You stick to that one thing.  
Mitch: what’s that one thing?  
Curly: that’s for you to figure out.

Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to figure it out, the one thing that leads to peace with God is Jesus.  Stick to Jesus, sit at the feet of Jesus and you will find peace with God and life is to be at peace with God.  


Next Steps
Life is to be at peace with God.

1.  Take time to honestly answer this question:
Does Jesus distract you from your schedule, activities and life or does your schedule, activities and life distract you from Jesus?

2.  If Jesus is a distraction to life, begin to set different priorities.
• How can Jesus come first on your calendar?
• How can Jesus come first in your checkbook?
• How can Jesus come first with your family?
• How can Jesus come first in your plans for the future?

3.  Read the following Scriptures that talk about how Jesus brings us peace with God.
• Romans 5:1-11
• Colossians 1:21-22
• Ephesians 2:14-18
• Galatians 5:22-25

4. What ONE THING can you do this week to keep your eyes, heart and life fixed on Jesus.  Read Hebrews 12:1-4 and Isaiah 26:3-4.

Life Is To Trust God

In the midst of all that has been going on this week, you may not have heard about the problem that impacted millions of people around the world this week, facebook went off line for about an hour which meant that people couldn’t read animal meme’s, 

watch cat videos to relax (yes, studies show they actually do help you relax) 

and we had to live with huge unanswered questions, like what our friends had for dinner.  

I’m not sure how the world survived – well, we survived because people could check instagram to see what others were eating and twitter to catch up on what others were saying and pintrest for everything else.  Some people actually took the outage as an opportunity to talk to their friends – what a novel idea.  

One of the real problems with social media is how easy it is to compare our lives with others.  Doesn’t it seem like you always have a friend on fb who is on vacation?  That means every day we see pictures of the exotic locations other people are travelling to,

and the adventurous things they get to do

and the delicious food they get to eat.

I always ask myself, how come they get to do all that while on my last vacation I spent a couple days cutting the grass and reading a book from the library.  Social media often leads us to ask: Why is everyone else’s life so much better than mine?

Their weddings are more exciting,

 their pets are cuter,

their diets are working,

 their families are going well

and their jobs are fun

and my life just pales in comparison.

It’s great to be happy for others and it’s nice to share in what others are doing and I know that we are all genuinely happy for our fb friends, but studies have shown that we would be happier if we would stop comparing ourselves to what we see on social media.  It’s true.  I see amazing recipes that people post and I imagine everyone eating these fantastic dinners with their families

as I sit down to reheated pizza.

Left over pizza after I picked off all the mushrooms and olives.

Comparing ourselves to others is dangerous because we begin to think that we deserve the same things our friends have and that it’s not fair that their lives are so much better than ours.

Comparing our lives to others can also lead us to become discontent in our faith because we begin to think God must love others more than He loves me, after all, they get to do all those amazing things.  It’s hard to trust that God loves me and is willing to help me when all I see is that the lives of everyone else are so much better.  As we continue our Life Is series this week we are going to talk about how life is not found in comparing ourselves to others or even getting what we think we deserve or have earned but how real life and true contentment is found when we trust God.  Life is to trust God.

For us to be able to trust God we have to understand how God works because God’s ways are not our ways.  Much of our understanding of how life should work is based on fairness and equality.  People should get what they deserve, what they have earned and what they have worked for.  This sense of fairness seems right to us and is heard a lot in the culture around us, but fairness and equality are not the guiding principles of God’s kingdom.  Fairness and equality are not God’s ways and in time we will see that this is a very good thing for us, but first let’s see what the guiding principle of God’s kingdom are by looking at a story Jesus told.  Matthew 20:1-16.

There are times I read this story and want to shout, this isn’t fair.  The people who only worked for an hour or less got the same pay as those who worked all day.  It just isn’t right.  This story makes me think of when I worked in Rocky Mountain National Park.  My direct supervisor was a man who told all of us that his goal was to do as little work as possible and each day he accomplish just that, he would walk around and do nothing but then yell at us if we took too long a break.  He was doing no work and getting paid more than I was.  It wasn’t right or fair and there were times it really got to me.

Now, if God’s kingdom was based on what we earned or what we deserved, then this story would look very different, but Jesus is telling us that God’s kingdom isn’t based on what’s fair in the eyes of the world and it’s not based on what we have earned or what we deserve.  While fairness and equality might be principles we use to guide our nation’s policies and legal system, this is not how God establishes His kingdom and this is good for us because when it comes to God, what we deserve is death.
In Romans 6:23 it says, the wages of sin is death.  In a system where we simply get what we deserve, we would get death.  In a system governed by fairness, we would end up separated from God because of our thoughts, words and actions.  The good we want to do, we don’t do.  Those things we know aren’t good for us and separate us from God and others are those things we keep on doing, so if we really got what we deserved or earned, we would end up separated from God.  The consequence of our sin is separation from God and that is what Paul means when he says the wages of sin is death.  But we don’t get what we deserve, we get what God gives us and what God gives us is life.  That is the rest of Romans 6:23, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Life is found when we are willing to trust God to give us what we don’t deserve and what we didn’t earn.  In fact, in this parable of Jesus, we are the ones who go out at the end of the day and end up with a full day’s ages.  Many times we think of ourselves as the workers who went out early in the day because we see ourselves as the hardworking, faithful followers of Jesus, but the truth is that we aren’t those early workers, we are the ones who were invited to go out at the end of the day and got the blessing they didn’t deserve.  In Jesus story, the people of Israel were the laborers who made the contract with God to go out and work all day and it was the gentiles and sinners and outcast who were invited into the fields at the end of the day.  The whole point of the story is that the last are first and in Jesus day the last were those on the outside.

We are those on the outside, we are God’s people not by bloodline or birth but by the blood of Jesus Christ which covers us and forgives us and brings us into the family of God through grace.  If we can trust God to give us what He wants us to have in life, then we will experience a deeper joy and appreciation for life.

It is easy to trust God when things are going well, but to trust God when things are falling apart and life is difficult is a challenge, but it is possible if we will remember two things.  The first thing to remember is that God is the same yesterday, today and forever.  God never changes which means that God’s love for us never changes.  Do you remember why God created us?  He created us because He loves us and that love doesn’t change.  It doesn’t change by what we do or don’t do.  It doesn’t change if we are faithful or faithless and it doesn’t change with the circumstances of our lives.  God’s love is constant, eternal and strong which means that no matter what we are going through, we can trust God.  God is for us and with us and loves us always.  Paul says there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God - Romans 8:35, 37-39.

So remembering that we are loved by God helps us trust God even when things aren’t going well.  The second thing that can help us trust God through difficult times is remembering: God is always with us.  One of the great myths about following Jesus is that once we accept Jesus into our hearts and lives that everything should go well and we should have any problems.  When we love God and follow Jesus the best we can we begin to think that we deserve to have all our problems and suffering taken away, but that was never promised to the followers of Jesus and it was not what his disciples experienced.  The truth is that we will continue to go through struggles and experience tragedy and loss and circumstances that seem insurmountable and we are going to cry out to God that it’s just not fair, but through it all we can trust God to help us if we will remember that God and his grace, love and power is with us through these storms.

The disciples faced a huge storm one day out on the Sea of Galilee.  The storm was so fierce that hardened fishermen who lived through countless storms before now feared for their lives and through this storm Jesus was in the boat with them.  He was asleep, but Jesus was with them.  What this story tells us is that following Jesus and asking God into our lives doesn’t mean all the storms will go away, it just means that Jesus is with us through the storm.  We may not understand what God is doing or why God doesn’t seem to be doing anything, but we can trust that God is with us through the strom.

There are real storms that we face in life.  It can be financial, it can be the breakup of a marriage or the falling apart of a family.  The storm can be a job loss, an illness that doesn’t seem fair or the death of a loved one that comes too soon.  We all go through storms and we need to remember that these storms are NOT a sign that God has abandoned us.  Storms are not a sign of God’s anger with us or his failure to help us.  Like the disciples, storms come up and what we need to do is trust God to be with us and God will help us through.

The disciples finally woke Jesus up and he simply told the wind and the waves to be still.  The power the disciples needed was right there, God was never going to let them to drown; they just needed to trust Jesus.  God isn’t going to let us drown either; we just need to trust Jesus to be with us and to help us.  Judah Smith says
We might be drenched but we are not drowned.
We might be soaked but we are not sunk.
We might be wet but we are not washed up.
We might be dismayed and discouraged but we are not going down.  Paul said it this way: 2 Corinthians 4:8-9.

God is on our side, no matter what, which means that we can trust God even when things seem unfair and life is hard.  Life is to trust God and to trust that God is with us and that God will give us what is right in God’s eyes.  Life is found when we stop comparing ourselves to others, when we stop thinking about what we deserve or looking for what we have earned and start trusting in God’s grace which gives us more than we deserve and more than we could ever earn.  Life is found when we trust that God loves us and that God is with us yesterday, today and forever.


Next Steps
Life Is to trust God.

1. Where do you do the most comparisons with others? (Appearances, Finances, Family…) Do you tend to see the blessings you have or the problems you face?

2. What things do you think you deserve to have in life or have earned from God?  What is it we truly deserve from God?  (See Romans 6:23)

3.  What are the 3 biggest challenges you face today?
Are you taking these situations to God in prayer or are you blaming God for them?  Can you identify where God might be with you in these storms?

4. What are the 3 biggest blessings you have in life today?  Have you thanked God for them?  How can these blessings help you work through the challenges you face?

5. We can trust God because His love for us is unconditional and unending.  Read Romans 8:28 each day to remind you of this love.  I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  

6. Is there is a storm you face today that seems to have you completely down and out?  Use 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 to give you hope.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed but not in despair, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed.