All month we have been looking at what it means to live a life that counts. If we are going maximize our impact in this world and in the process experience the fullness of life God has for us, then we need to manage well all the days God gives us, all the money God gives us and all the gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities God gives us. While the number of our days will be different for each of us, and the amount of money we are given to manage will be different, and the gifts, talents and skills God gives us are all different, there is one thing that is the same for each and every one of us. We were all created for relationship so we can not live a life that counts for God in this world until we are willing to make the most of all of our relationships.
Let’s start looking at our relationships by looking back to the creation story. Look at Genesis 2:18. It was not good for man to be alone because man was created in the image of God and God himself is relational. Think about how we talk about God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There are 3 persons who are all interconnected in ongoing and eternal relationships with each another. Because God is relational, we also were created to be relationship, not just a relationship with God, but relationships with one another. So we make the greatest impact in this world and live up to our God given potential when we are willing to invest ourselves in strong, healthy and faithful relationships with others.
The most important relationships that we need to tend to and care for are the relationships we have with our family and the best teaching on how to make the most of those relationships comes from Ephesians 5. Look at Ephesians 5:22-33
This passage often makes people uncomfortable because of the first verse we heard, wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. The problem is that many people stop reading there and they come to the wrong conclusion about the role of women in marriage. To really understand what the relationship of a husband and wife is to be, we have to keep reading because while Paul does tells women to submit to their husbands it is only because he also commands husbands to love their wives as Christ has loved the church. Now let’s stop and think about how Christ has loved the church. Jesus loved the church so much that he was willing to sacrifice everything he had for her. Jesus loved us so much that he was willing to die on a cross so that we could be forgiven and given the gift of eternal life. Jesus didn’t think about what was best for himself, he thought about what was best for us and that’s the kind of love a husband is to have for his wife. It’s not a love that rules over a person demanding it’s own way, it’s a love that is willing to sacrifice everything including our own wants and needs for the sake of someone else. If this is the kind of love that exists in a marriage, if selfless and sacrificial love is what exists in a marriage, than submission to that love is not a burden it’s a joy. Don’t we all want to submit ourselves to someone who we know loves us unconditionally and completely and always will? Wouldn’t it be a joy to surrender ourselves to one who would always be there for us and care for us in a deep and abiding love.
What Paul is saying is that in the relationship between a husband and wife there needs to be mutual love and submission. A wife loves her husband so much she willing submits to him, but a husband loves his wife so much that he is willing to sacrifice everything, including his own wants and needs to care for her, he submits to her in love. When we hear that the divorce rate in the church is over 50%, we know that this is not the kind of love that exists in many marriages today but it needs to be. The problem is that if we don’t love selflessly and unconditionally in marriage, those aren’t the only relationship that will suffer.
When marriages break down, so does the family and so does the health and development of our children. Not only is there less time and energy to spend on raising our children, but when marriages break down our children don’t have the faithful role models they need to become good husbands and wives. For those who are married, after our relationship with God, the single most important relationship to nurture and develop is the relationship with your spouse because that relationship in some way or another touches every other relationships in your life. Many parents make the mistake of putting their children first and while caring for our children is important, the most important thing a child needs is a stable home and loving mothers and fathers and good role models for what it means to be husband and wife. So if you want your life to count, if you want your life to really make a difference, then invest yourself in building up the relationship you have with your husband or wife and then move on to the other relationships in life.
Paul not only calls for mutual love and respect in marriage but he also calls for it in our relationship with our children. Look at Ephesians 6:1-4. While Paul does call children to obey their parents, and honor their father and mother, he also calls on parents to not exasperate their children but instead to bring them up, or nourish them, in the training and instruction of the Lord. Just as we saw in the relationship between a husband and wife, so the relationship between parents and children is to be one of mutual love and respect. Yes, children are to faithfully follow the example and teaching of their parents, but parents are we setting the right example for our children to follow and are we teaching our children the right things by word and deed.
We exasperate, or frustrate, our children when we say one thing and then do something else. If you have ever had children you know that they are better than anyone at pointing out hypocrisy. Children remember everything that their parents say and then they hold their parents accountable to it. So parents need to make sure that their words and actions always line up. When my niece and nephew were young my sister and brother in law tried to teach them the importance of saying grace before a meal. When they went out to a restaurant one night, after the food arrived my sister and brother in law just started to eat, but their children looked at them and said, “Aren’t we supposed to pray first?” If we tell our children that prayer is important then we need to take the time ourselves to pray and we need to pray with our children so they can learn from us. That’s what it means to bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. We can’t teach our children the importance of attending worship and Sunday School and then not attend worship and Sunday School ourselves. If we tell our children marriage takes love, forgiveness and hard work, then we need to model what that relationship of love, forgiveness and hard work is all about. Beyond the relationship with our spouses, the relationship we have with our children is vital. The biggest impact we will make in this world is the legacy we pass on to our children, so to live a life that counts means investing ourselves in our children and taking the time to nourish them in their lives and in their life of faith.
Our family relationships set the tone for all other relationships in life, but they are not the only relationships God calls us to manage well. When Jesus was told that his family was looking for him he looked at the people gathered around him and said this is my family. All those who seek to do the will of God are my brothers and sisters. In that single moment Jesus creates a new family and with those new relationships come new responsibilities to love and care for one another. As members of the body of Christ we are called repeatedly to care for one another. We are called to love and support those in the church as if they were our own biological family, and when we begin to take this seriously and reach out to care for those around us, we make a huge difference in their lives and in our own life as well.
Because so many families are divided by either divorce or distance, the extended family of the church is vital to our support and even our own survival. When my mom battle cancer a number of years ago I was away at seminary and both my sisters lived far away and had either full time jobs or were raising their children. The only way we had any peace of mind was knowing that my Mom was being well taken care of not just by my Dad, but the many friends my Mom had at her church. The church was her support during that time. The relationships she had developed through the years sustained her through months of chemo. When I had knee surgery a couple of years ago and was not going to be able to drive for 3 weeks there were dozens of people offering me rides and food and one gracious friend even came and cleaned my house. While it is not always easy to accept help – if we are willing to put away our pride and accept the help others offer, we will be blessed. We truly make a difference in someone else’s life when we reach out to care for them and God calls us to do this for our brothers and sisters in many ways.
A few weeks ago when we were looking at prayer we listed in the bulleting what some people call the “one another” passages. These are all passages found in the New Testament that teach us how God wants us to care for one another. We have listed them again on the insert in your bulletin because these are important for us to not just remember but to live out. If you notice, all of these passages come from the New Testament, which means these are the teachings God gives to the church and they show us how God wants us to care for our brothers and sister, our family in Christ. But there is something we need to understand here, if we want people to care for us in these ways we also must be willing to care for others. Too often people just sit back and expect others to take care for them but if we all just sit back and wait for someone else to take care for us, what happens? There is no one available to offer the help. We each have to be willing to do our part and help those around us in any way we can. When we love and serve others, relationships are established and strengthened so that when we need help there will be someone there to help us.
The last group of people God calls us to be in relationship with is the strangers around us and those in need. From the very beginning God has called his people to reach out and care for strangers. Throughout the Old Testament there is something called the law of hospitality that guided the people of God. This law called for God’s people to reach out and care for aliens and strangers in their land, and the reason they were to do this was because when God’s people wandered in foreign lands there were people who cared for them. One of the earliest examples of this kind of hospitality comes from Genesis 18. 3 strangers came to Abraham and when he saw him he not only greeted them but he gave them water to wash their feet, he had his wife Sarah bake them some bread, and then Abraham himself selected a choice calf and had it prepared for them to eat. Abraham went out of his way to welcome these men and he gave to them generously, and God continues to call on his people to give generously and even sacrificially to strangers.
Jesus said we are to invite the strangers in, but he then expands that out and says not only should we welcome the stranger but we should also feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit those who are sick and prison. Jesus doesn’t say we do this just for our brothers and sisters, we are to do this for anyone we see who is in need – even the very least in our society. We can’t ignore those in need around us or those in need around the world, because God has called us to be in relationship with them. One of the truths we need to remember is that when we reach out to help those in need our lives take on deeper meaning and greater value. We begin to feel more meaning and purpose in life when we help others. When we reach out to care for others, we are living a life that really counts.
To live a life that counts means we have to invest ourselves in meaningful and faithful relationships not just with those who are closest to us but those who might be far from us as well. So let us live a life that counts and love one another, family, friend and stranger, just as God has loved us.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
living a life that counts ~ our gifts
Read 1 Peter 4:7-11
This is one of my favorite times of the year and it has nothing to do with the longer warmer days of spring or even the spiritual focus of Lent and Easter, I love March Madness – NCAA basketball. Something happened to me when I went to Duke Divinity School, while I enjoyed college basketball before I moved to Durham, I fell in love with it my first year at Duke. I think they put something in the water there so that you will love basketball because everyone is a fan. Now part of the reason for that is geography, Duke, UNC, NC State and Wake Forest are all within 45 minutes of each other, so you have 4 major powerhouses in the ACC competing on a regular basis, and just about every year one of more of those teams is in the hunt for a national championship – so it’s an exciting place to be in March. More than the NCAA Tournament, what I loved was the ACC Tournament, because it was 3 days of non-stop basketball and every team in the area was playing. The weekend of the ACC Tournament, every store, business, office, school and home was tuned into the Tournament. You would walk through the mall and hear the game because every store had it on. It was infections and I got the disease. I love Duke Basketball.
The most amazing thing to see when you watch a basketball game is when a player is in the zone. You know what I’m talking about. It’s when an athlete is just on fire and everything they do works. I was at Duke when Duke played Kentucky in 1992 and if you know anything about basketball, you know that game is considered by everyone to be the best college basketball game of all time and in that game Christian Laettener was in the zone. He went 10 for 10 in field goals, 1 for 1 from three point range and a perfect 10 for 10 from the free throw line. Literally every shot he took went in the basket. Because Laettner was in that zone, when Duke was down by one point in overtime with 2.1 seconds left on the clock, there really was no question who Duke wanted to take last shot. Grant Hill made the perfect 75 foot inbound pass to Christian Laettner who dribbled the ball, turned around and shot. Because Laettner had been in the zone all game, there really wasn’t any question, nothing but net and Duke won the game 104-103 and this is THE shot. (show classic picture of Chrstian Laettner's shot!)
When an athlete is in the zone, their body, mind and spirit are all working together. They are efficient, precise and everything they do works. We’ve seen Tiger Woods play in the zone during the Masters and yes, Penn State seems to play in the zone every year that MSU comes to Happy Valley. But athletes aren’t the only ones who enter into that special zone, musicians, artists, scientists, teachers and even parents can find that place where everything just seems to come together perfectly. I hope you have experienced some of those moments in life because I truly believe that God wants us to live that kind of life every day. When we are using our God given gifts and abilities to their full potential and loving every minute of it, we are in the zone that God wants us to live in. When Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and life abundantly, I think the abundant life Jesus is talking is living in that zone where every day we are using God’s gift to make a difference.
Living a life that counts doesn’t just manage our days and our money well, it manages and uses our God given gifts and abilities to their full potential and that is what Peter is calling for in his letter to the church. If we go back to the beginning of 1 Peter we see that Peter is writing to Christians who are living throughout the entire region. Peter is writing to churches in Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithinyia which are all very pagan areas, which means there was not a lot of support for the Christians who were living there. It would become very easy for the followers of Jesus in these cities to just give up, so Peter calls the people to do more than just not give up, he calls them to make a difference, an eternal difference, by using the gifts, graces and abilities that God has given them.
Look at 4:10. Serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Now this verse tells us 2 important things. First it tells us that each and every one of us has been given a gift by God and it tells us that we have been given these gifts to serve others. God doesn’t give us gifts and abilities so we can make a lot of money and retire on easy street, God gives us gifts to serve one another and to advance God’s work in the world. So each and every one of us has been given gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities by God that we are to use to serve God and those around us and when we do this faithfully, we will find ourselves living in the zone and when we are in that zone, we are living a life that counts.
So how do we get into that zone? For an athlete to get in the zone they first have to identify their athletic gifts and abilities, and the same is true for us. We have to identify and focus on our God given gifts and ability. The bible lists several spiritual gifts that God has given to his people. In 1 Cor. 12 it says that some of these gifts include: wisdom, knowledge, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues. In Ephesians 4:11 it lists the gifts of: evangelism, pastoring, teaching and leadership and in Romans 12 the list includes: exhortation (encouragement), giving and compassion. There are a variety of gifts that God has given to his people through the Holy Spirit and we need to discover which of these gifts God has given to us so we can use them to their full potential. Now you may be thinking that you don’t have any of these gifts, but you do. The Bible clearly says these gifts are given to the church and each and every person in the church has one of these gifts. 1 Cor. 12:4-7. Everyone has at least one of the spiritual gifts listed in the Bible and God is calling us to discover those gifts so we can use them because to advance his work in this world.
If we don’t know what gift God has given us or if we are unsure of which talents and abilities God wants us to use for his purpose and his kingdom, then we need to get focused and figure out what they are. Look at what Peter says in 4:7. To be focused means we first need to be clear minded. We need to answer these questions honestly and thoughtfully: What am I good at? In what areas have I found success? What am I passionate about? What moves me with joy or even with righteous anger? What experiences have I had that might give me a sense of how God wants to use me? We need to think clearly about these questions and answer them honestly. I always appreciate the people who come to me and say, Look, I taught children’s Sunday school once and it was awful – that is really not for me. That’s good to know.
A number of years ago a group from my church in Altoona went to a training seminar and I wanted someone to share what we learned in church that Sunday. I asked Jan if she would and she said, no really, I’m not very good at public speaking – you should find someone else. Now I didn’t know Jan very well and so I pushed her until she did it and when was done all said to her, Wow, you really aren’t very good at that are you? I will never ask you to do it again. She laughed and I know Jan was very grateful that I never again asked her to speak in public. Jan’s gift was not speaking in front of people but today she does plays the drums in the praise and worship band at her church. We need to be clear-minded when we think about how God has created us and what natural gifts and abilities God has given us. We are all different, but God is calling all of us to be involved in something and so it’s up to us to begin to figure those things out so God can use us for his purpose and glory.
Not only do we need to be clear minded, but we also need to be self controlled. Being self controlled means being focused on the one or two things that God wants us to do the most. We can’t do everything well. Here me on this, we simply do not have the time and energy to do everything well, so we need to focus on the few things God is calling us to do. If we try to do everything and be involved in all that’s going on, what’s going to happen is that we aren’t going to do anything well and eventually we will burn ourselves out completely and do nothing. Self control means finding those one or two things that we can channel all our time and energy on so we can make a maximum impact for God. If you aren’t sure what gifts and abilities God is calling you to use right now, get focused and begin to get focused through a time of prayer. Again look at 1 Peter 4:7
Not only do we need to discover the gifts God has given to us, we need to develop those gifts so we are using them to the best of our abilities. Christian Laettner didn’t just walk out onto the court in 1992 and start hitting shots that went into the bucket – every athlete spends countless hours practicing and working hard to develop the gifts and abilities God has given them and we need to do the same. Living a life that counts means we take the time to deepen and develop the gifts God has given us so that we can do our absolute best at all times. I appreciate that the choir / praise team meets during the week to practice and develop their gifts and abilities to enhance and lead us in worship. I’m thankful that Pete has gone to PS for training on food safety so we don’t all get sick when we have a turkey dinner, and we are all blessed that our leaders are willing to invest themselves in training each year. It’s foolish for us to think that we can serve God anywhere in the church without some training and hard work.
Look at 4:11. Whatever we do we need to give it our best because we are doing it for God. My hope and prayer is that every person who serves in the church, whether it’s passing out bulletins, singing in the choir or teaching Sunday School will not only take it seriously and give it all they have but also understand that we are doing it not for us or for others, but for God. Even something that seems so simple like passing out bulletins we need to take seriously and do it for the Lord. We need to think about what we are doing when we are passing out bulletins, because we aren’t just passing out a bulletin, we are welcoming people into the presence of God. We are the extension of God’s love and grace that welcomes strangers and family into the presence of God. We are inviting people to enter into God’s presence so their lives can be touched and transformed. It’s an awesome thing to welcome people and we need to take it seriously and give it our absolute best. Every job is important and so every job requires us to think about what we are doing and develop the gifts and abilities God has given us to do that job so we can truly do it for the Lord.
Living a life that counts doesn’t just mean serving God with excellence, it also means serving God with passion and urgency. Did you hear how Peter began this section? The end of all things is near. The early church lived with a sense of urgency because they honestly believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime. Peter really thought the end of all things was near so he spoke and encouraged people with passion. He told them to use their gifts to serve God and one another and to make a difference in the world because the days were short. There was an urgency to Peter’s teaching and there was an urgency and passion to the teaching of Jesus. Jesus said many times that the kingdom of God is near and the passion of his message was picked up by the people. When we serve God it needs to be with a sense of passion and urgency because as we learned from Psalm 90, our time is short and we might not have another day to use that gift and make a difference. We can’t say, I’ll use my gifts later or when the kids are grown or when I retire because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. So don’t say, I’ll go on that mission trip next year – I’ll join the choir for the next cantata – I’ll help out in next year’s walk/run of faith – I’ll help out in the next VBS – do it today. We need to make the most of the opportunities God has given us today and use our gifts to their fullest.
If you aren’t feeling like you are living in the zone when it comes to living for God, loving God and serving God, then take the time to discover your spiritual gifts, develop those gifts until you feel confident in what you are doing and then use them to serve God and others with all you have.
This is one of my favorite times of the year and it has nothing to do with the longer warmer days of spring or even the spiritual focus of Lent and Easter, I love March Madness – NCAA basketball. Something happened to me when I went to Duke Divinity School, while I enjoyed college basketball before I moved to Durham, I fell in love with it my first year at Duke. I think they put something in the water there so that you will love basketball because everyone is a fan. Now part of the reason for that is geography, Duke, UNC, NC State and Wake Forest are all within 45 minutes of each other, so you have 4 major powerhouses in the ACC competing on a regular basis, and just about every year one of more of those teams is in the hunt for a national championship – so it’s an exciting place to be in March. More than the NCAA Tournament, what I loved was the ACC Tournament, because it was 3 days of non-stop basketball and every team in the area was playing. The weekend of the ACC Tournament, every store, business, office, school and home was tuned into the Tournament. You would walk through the mall and hear the game because every store had it on. It was infections and I got the disease. I love Duke Basketball.
The most amazing thing to see when you watch a basketball game is when a player is in the zone. You know what I’m talking about. It’s when an athlete is just on fire and everything they do works. I was at Duke when Duke played Kentucky in 1992 and if you know anything about basketball, you know that game is considered by everyone to be the best college basketball game of all time and in that game Christian Laettener was in the zone. He went 10 for 10 in field goals, 1 for 1 from three point range and a perfect 10 for 10 from the free throw line. Literally every shot he took went in the basket. Because Laettner was in that zone, when Duke was down by one point in overtime with 2.1 seconds left on the clock, there really was no question who Duke wanted to take last shot. Grant Hill made the perfect 75 foot inbound pass to Christian Laettner who dribbled the ball, turned around and shot. Because Laettner had been in the zone all game, there really wasn’t any question, nothing but net and Duke won the game 104-103 and this is THE shot. (show classic picture of Chrstian Laettner's shot!)
When an athlete is in the zone, their body, mind and spirit are all working together. They are efficient, precise and everything they do works. We’ve seen Tiger Woods play in the zone during the Masters and yes, Penn State seems to play in the zone every year that MSU comes to Happy Valley. But athletes aren’t the only ones who enter into that special zone, musicians, artists, scientists, teachers and even parents can find that place where everything just seems to come together perfectly. I hope you have experienced some of those moments in life because I truly believe that God wants us to live that kind of life every day. When we are using our God given gifts and abilities to their full potential and loving every minute of it, we are in the zone that God wants us to live in. When Jesus said that he came so that we might have life and life abundantly, I think the abundant life Jesus is talking is living in that zone where every day we are using God’s gift to make a difference.
Living a life that counts doesn’t just manage our days and our money well, it manages and uses our God given gifts and abilities to their full potential and that is what Peter is calling for in his letter to the church. If we go back to the beginning of 1 Peter we see that Peter is writing to Christians who are living throughout the entire region. Peter is writing to churches in Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithinyia which are all very pagan areas, which means there was not a lot of support for the Christians who were living there. It would become very easy for the followers of Jesus in these cities to just give up, so Peter calls the people to do more than just not give up, he calls them to make a difference, an eternal difference, by using the gifts, graces and abilities that God has given them.
Look at 4:10. Serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. Now this verse tells us 2 important things. First it tells us that each and every one of us has been given a gift by God and it tells us that we have been given these gifts to serve others. God doesn’t give us gifts and abilities so we can make a lot of money and retire on easy street, God gives us gifts to serve one another and to advance God’s work in the world. So each and every one of us has been given gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities by God that we are to use to serve God and those around us and when we do this faithfully, we will find ourselves living in the zone and when we are in that zone, we are living a life that counts.
So how do we get into that zone? For an athlete to get in the zone they first have to identify their athletic gifts and abilities, and the same is true for us. We have to identify and focus on our God given gifts and ability. The bible lists several spiritual gifts that God has given to his people. In 1 Cor. 12 it says that some of these gifts include: wisdom, knowledge, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues. In Ephesians 4:11 it lists the gifts of: evangelism, pastoring, teaching and leadership and in Romans 12 the list includes: exhortation (encouragement), giving and compassion. There are a variety of gifts that God has given to his people through the Holy Spirit and we need to discover which of these gifts God has given to us so we can use them to their full potential. Now you may be thinking that you don’t have any of these gifts, but you do. The Bible clearly says these gifts are given to the church and each and every person in the church has one of these gifts. 1 Cor. 12:4-7. Everyone has at least one of the spiritual gifts listed in the Bible and God is calling us to discover those gifts so we can use them because to advance his work in this world.
If we don’t know what gift God has given us or if we are unsure of which talents and abilities God wants us to use for his purpose and his kingdom, then we need to get focused and figure out what they are. Look at what Peter says in 4:7. To be focused means we first need to be clear minded. We need to answer these questions honestly and thoughtfully: What am I good at? In what areas have I found success? What am I passionate about? What moves me with joy or even with righteous anger? What experiences have I had that might give me a sense of how God wants to use me? We need to think clearly about these questions and answer them honestly. I always appreciate the people who come to me and say, Look, I taught children’s Sunday school once and it was awful – that is really not for me. That’s good to know.
A number of years ago a group from my church in Altoona went to a training seminar and I wanted someone to share what we learned in church that Sunday. I asked Jan if she would and she said, no really, I’m not very good at public speaking – you should find someone else. Now I didn’t know Jan very well and so I pushed her until she did it and when was done all said to her, Wow, you really aren’t very good at that are you? I will never ask you to do it again. She laughed and I know Jan was very grateful that I never again asked her to speak in public. Jan’s gift was not speaking in front of people but today she does plays the drums in the praise and worship band at her church. We need to be clear-minded when we think about how God has created us and what natural gifts and abilities God has given us. We are all different, but God is calling all of us to be involved in something and so it’s up to us to begin to figure those things out so God can use us for his purpose and glory.
Not only do we need to be clear minded, but we also need to be self controlled. Being self controlled means being focused on the one or two things that God wants us to do the most. We can’t do everything well. Here me on this, we simply do not have the time and energy to do everything well, so we need to focus on the few things God is calling us to do. If we try to do everything and be involved in all that’s going on, what’s going to happen is that we aren’t going to do anything well and eventually we will burn ourselves out completely and do nothing. Self control means finding those one or two things that we can channel all our time and energy on so we can make a maximum impact for God. If you aren’t sure what gifts and abilities God is calling you to use right now, get focused and begin to get focused through a time of prayer. Again look at 1 Peter 4:7
Not only do we need to discover the gifts God has given to us, we need to develop those gifts so we are using them to the best of our abilities. Christian Laettner didn’t just walk out onto the court in 1992 and start hitting shots that went into the bucket – every athlete spends countless hours practicing and working hard to develop the gifts and abilities God has given them and we need to do the same. Living a life that counts means we take the time to deepen and develop the gifts God has given us so that we can do our absolute best at all times. I appreciate that the choir / praise team meets during the week to practice and develop their gifts and abilities to enhance and lead us in worship. I’m thankful that Pete has gone to PS for training on food safety so we don’t all get sick when we have a turkey dinner, and we are all blessed that our leaders are willing to invest themselves in training each year. It’s foolish for us to think that we can serve God anywhere in the church without some training and hard work.
Look at 4:11. Whatever we do we need to give it our best because we are doing it for God. My hope and prayer is that every person who serves in the church, whether it’s passing out bulletins, singing in the choir or teaching Sunday School will not only take it seriously and give it all they have but also understand that we are doing it not for us or for others, but for God. Even something that seems so simple like passing out bulletins we need to take seriously and do it for the Lord. We need to think about what we are doing when we are passing out bulletins, because we aren’t just passing out a bulletin, we are welcoming people into the presence of God. We are the extension of God’s love and grace that welcomes strangers and family into the presence of God. We are inviting people to enter into God’s presence so their lives can be touched and transformed. It’s an awesome thing to welcome people and we need to take it seriously and give it our absolute best. Every job is important and so every job requires us to think about what we are doing and develop the gifts and abilities God has given us to do that job so we can truly do it for the Lord.
Living a life that counts doesn’t just mean serving God with excellence, it also means serving God with passion and urgency. Did you hear how Peter began this section? The end of all things is near. The early church lived with a sense of urgency because they honestly believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime. Peter really thought the end of all things was near so he spoke and encouraged people with passion. He told them to use their gifts to serve God and one another and to make a difference in the world because the days were short. There was an urgency to Peter’s teaching and there was an urgency and passion to the teaching of Jesus. Jesus said many times that the kingdom of God is near and the passion of his message was picked up by the people. When we serve God it needs to be with a sense of passion and urgency because as we learned from Psalm 90, our time is short and we might not have another day to use that gift and make a difference. We can’t say, I’ll use my gifts later or when the kids are grown or when I retire because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. So don’t say, I’ll go on that mission trip next year – I’ll join the choir for the next cantata – I’ll help out in next year’s walk/run of faith – I’ll help out in the next VBS – do it today. We need to make the most of the opportunities God has given us today and use our gifts to their fullest.
If you aren’t feeling like you are living in the zone when it comes to living for God, loving God and serving God, then take the time to discover your spiritual gifts, develop those gifts until you feel confident in what you are doing and then use them to serve God and others with all you have.
living a life that counts ~ our money
Read Matthew 6:19-24
To live a life that counts we need to learn how to manage three things well. The first is our time. As we saw last week, life is short and so we need to make the most of each and every day God gives us. We need to spend time listening to God, loving our family and serving God as we love and serve the people around. The second thing we need to manage well is our money. Money management is clearly the #1 issue we face in the world today. Whether it is the mortgage crisis, the massive amount of personal debt we have accumulated as individuals or as a nation, or the declining stock market all that we read and hear about today is the global economic recession and the job and financial crisis that we face. In an effort to address the problem, in the last few months our government has passed three bills that will spend close 2 Trillion dollars to help the economy. I don’t know about you, but I can’t even comprehend how much a trillion dollars really is.
I read this week that if you laid $1 dollar bills end to end, you could make a chain that stretches from the earth to the moon and back 200 times before you would use a trillion dollars. And if we spent a million dollars every day since Jesus was born we would still not have spent a trillion dollars and we will be spending almost 2 trillion on the TARP bill, stimulus package and spending bills combined. It’s hard to figure out where that kind of money will come from or how we will ever pay off the debt that it will create, but that’s where we are today. We face economic problems that seem so overwhelming that it’s hard to know where to start or what to do, but here’s where we need to start, (pull out wallet) with our own wallets and our own money. While we may feel powerless when we think about the global economic recession, we are not powerless when it comes to our own personal finances, and since God has called us to be good stewards of all He has given us we need to learn how to manage our money well. Money management is not just a financial issue – it is a spiritual issue. Jesus talked more about money than any other subject and the bible is full of teachings on how we are to earn, spend, save and give money.
In Matt. 6 Jesus said do not store up treasures on earth where moth and rust can destroy – or where a days trading in the stock market can wipe it all out – but instead store up treasure in heaven. Now this does not mean we don’t work hard to earn money and it doesn’t mean we don’t save and invest and even spend our money wisely. What Jesus is saying is that money can not be our master. We can’t trust our money to solve all our problems and we can’t turn to our wealth to find life’s ultimate meaning and fulfillment. If the focus of our life is money – it will become our master and we will lose sight of God. And it doesn’t matter if we have a lot of money or a little bit of money, if the focus of our lives is money – we run the risk of losing sight of God.
Look at Proverbs 30:8b-9. What these verses show us is that money is neither good nor bad; it is when we focus on money that we run into problems. If we have a lot of money and focus on that we might begin to think that we have all we need & so we don’t need God. With too much money we run the risk of turning from God to trusting in ourselves or in the wealth we have accumulated. But there is also a danger when we have too little money. Proverbs 30 says if we don’t have enough to live on we might become so desperate that we would steal. Let’s broaden that out & see that having too little money could cause other problems as well. We might become bitter toward God or jealous and angry of others who have more. We might not trust God to meet our needs and once again take matters into our own hands. We might engage in unethical dealings & then justify our actions because we are poor. We might just give up our hands and allow someone else to just take care of us forever. Poverty can cause us to compromise our honesty and integrity as much as greed can, so there is a danger in having too much money and there is a danger in having too little, but the danger doesn’t come from the money, it comes from our attitude toward money. When our focus is on our money – we lose sight of God, so the first key to Godly money management is making sure that God is at the center of our lives.
One of the ways we keep God at the center of our lives when we look at our financial situation is to remember that it all belongs to God in the first place. This is really the first rule of Christian money management – it all belongs to God. In Psalm 50:10 it says the cattle on a thousand hillsides belong to God – but God also owns the hillsides. God owns it all and God simply gives each of us a portion of his creation to use according to his purpose. When we look at the money we have we can never forget that it is God who has provided us with this money because it is God who provides us with the knowledge, skill and opportunity to work. Look at Dtr. 8:18. God is the one who gives us the ability to produce wealth, therefore what we have really does not belong to us – it all belongs to God and we need to begin to see things from that perspective.
When we begin to think that the money in our wallets, bank accounts, pension fund or money market accounts belongs to us, then we have lost sight of God. What we need to do is retrain ourselves so that when we look at our money, when we pay our bills, when we balance our checkbook or make a budget we think of it all as God’s money which we are to use according to God’s principles and for God’s purpose. It’s a radical way to think of our money and our lives – but it’s the foundation to a biblical view of money and wealth and that foundation has to be in place before we can explore how God wants us to use our money.
So it all belongs to God, but what are we supposed to do with it? Instead of trying to focus on the details of personal money management – which will be different for each of us, let’s look at three basic financial and biblical principles which apply to all of us. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, said that we when it comes to money we should gain all we can, save all we can and give all we can, so let’s look at these three financial principles.
From a biblical perspective, gaining all we can means being willing to work hard and be productive. If we go back to the story of creation we see that we were created in the image of God and the God of creation is a God who worked. And the work of creation was hard enough that after 6 days God needed to rest. So if we are in the image of God – part of what we were created for is to work. Working and being productive is part of who we are and so we need to take the talents, gifts, resources and opportunities God gives us and gain all we can. Proverbs warns against the dangers of being idle and the apostle Paul told the people of Thessalonica to work hard. Look at 2 Thess. 3:6-10. God calls us to work hard and gain what we can in this world, but let’s also be clear that we are not to do this at the expense of our health or our families. Gaining all we can is not a license to work too many hours and neglect our families and it does not mean that we destroy our health by not taking the time out for our physical, emotional and spiritual needs for rest and refreshment. Remember being created in the image of God means that need to time to rest. God even commands us to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Along with gaining all we can we are also called to save all we can. The personal saving rate for the US at the end of last year was just 1.3% or our income. The reality is that if you are out of work or struggling to make ends meet at the end of the month, it’s hard to find the money to save, so maybe to help us save all can we need to sit down and work out a budget. Making a budget is really just establishing a good financial plan for you and your family and you have probably heard the saying, if you fail to plan you plan to fail. So if you want to plan to save it’s important to begin by setting up a budget and when you do this talk to your family about it. Talk to your children about setting up a budget so they can begin to learn some good money management principles. Schools don’t teach children how to balance a checkbook, or how to live within a budget so it’s important to take the time to sit down and talk about financial issues as a family. What choices do families need to make in these hard economic times to not only get out of debt but begin to save.
Talking about a budget with your family raises another issue when it comes to our finances and money management. It’s important for couples and families to talk about money. I am amazed every time I read that the #1 cause of divorce is financial stress. I read this week that 54% of all divorces are related to financial issues. For healthy marriages, couples need to talk about their finances and be honest about their financial goals and how household money needs to be spent and saved. The more we avoid talking about money, the more money and the problems related to our finances can drive a wedge into our relationships. So saving all we can requires some planning, establishing a budget and then some open and honest discussion about how we spend our money.
The third financial principle John Wesley gave us was to give all we can. Proverbs 11:24-25 says:
We need to give all we can because God’s blessing comes when we give. When we give we are blessed. When we give to God, or when we give to others, we will be blessed. One of the clear biblical principles on giving is the tithe, or giving 10% of our income to God’s work in and through the church & God says when we tithe we will be blessed with more – it may not be more money, it may just be more peace and strength because we know we are honoring God with our lives and living a life that counts. So tithing is a good principle for us to consider, but it is just that, a principle. There is no law that says all Christians must tithe, it is just a clear solid practice that many people find is a good place to start. Notice I said a good place to start. While for many people tithing is the goal, when we look at how Jesus calls us to give we see that his teaching goes well beyond giving 10%.
Jesus looked at a rich man and said, give all you have to the poor and then come follow me. Jesus didn’t say tithe and then follow me, he said sell all you have and give it away. Jesus commended a poor woman who gave to the work of God all she had to live on. He didn’t say anything about the faithful people who gave their tithe – he elevated and celebrated the woman who gave sacrificially. And in the early church it says that the people shared all that they had with one another. They didn’t give their 10% and call it finished, they gave all they could & so while tithing is a solid principle for us to hold up – it really is just the starting gate - the call of God to give goes much deeper. We are called by God to give all we can to God and to the people of God and to the work of God around the world.
We forget sometimes that giving to God was the center of worship in the Old Testament. Worship for the people of God revolved around the sacrifice and the offerings people gave to God and so giving to God all we can is an act of worship that can’t be ignored or put off – it is central to our lives of worship. I hope that you get that sense every time we receive an offering in worship. I am always humbled by the fact that God calls us to give ourselves to him in this way. God wants us to give because God wants to use us as part of his working in this world. What an honor for us to be used by God in this way.
Because giving really is an act of worship, we will never give the way God calls us to give – sacrificially and completely – until we place God at the center of our lives because the trust it takes to give away our possessions, the trust it takes to tithe or give beyond the tithe is only possible if we first place God at the center or our hearts and lives and love and trust him alone. So it all comes back to the foundation and our understanding that all we have really belongs to God and we are simply called to use it according to God’s principles and for God’s purpose. Since God has entrusted us with a great deal of wealth, we will never live a life that really until we learn how to use our money according to the principles and plan of God. So let us gain all we can, save all we can and give all we can.
To live a life that counts we need to learn how to manage three things well. The first is our time. As we saw last week, life is short and so we need to make the most of each and every day God gives us. We need to spend time listening to God, loving our family and serving God as we love and serve the people around. The second thing we need to manage well is our money. Money management is clearly the #1 issue we face in the world today. Whether it is the mortgage crisis, the massive amount of personal debt we have accumulated as individuals or as a nation, or the declining stock market all that we read and hear about today is the global economic recession and the job and financial crisis that we face. In an effort to address the problem, in the last few months our government has passed three bills that will spend close 2 Trillion dollars to help the economy. I don’t know about you, but I can’t even comprehend how much a trillion dollars really is.
I read this week that if you laid $1 dollar bills end to end, you could make a chain that stretches from the earth to the moon and back 200 times before you would use a trillion dollars. And if we spent a million dollars every day since Jesus was born we would still not have spent a trillion dollars and we will be spending almost 2 trillion on the TARP bill, stimulus package and spending bills combined. It’s hard to figure out where that kind of money will come from or how we will ever pay off the debt that it will create, but that’s where we are today. We face economic problems that seem so overwhelming that it’s hard to know where to start or what to do, but here’s where we need to start, (pull out wallet) with our own wallets and our own money. While we may feel powerless when we think about the global economic recession, we are not powerless when it comes to our own personal finances, and since God has called us to be good stewards of all He has given us we need to learn how to manage our money well. Money management is not just a financial issue – it is a spiritual issue. Jesus talked more about money than any other subject and the bible is full of teachings on how we are to earn, spend, save and give money.
In Matt. 6 Jesus said do not store up treasures on earth where moth and rust can destroy – or where a days trading in the stock market can wipe it all out – but instead store up treasure in heaven. Now this does not mean we don’t work hard to earn money and it doesn’t mean we don’t save and invest and even spend our money wisely. What Jesus is saying is that money can not be our master. We can’t trust our money to solve all our problems and we can’t turn to our wealth to find life’s ultimate meaning and fulfillment. If the focus of our life is money – it will become our master and we will lose sight of God. And it doesn’t matter if we have a lot of money or a little bit of money, if the focus of our lives is money – we run the risk of losing sight of God.
Look at Proverbs 30:8b-9. What these verses show us is that money is neither good nor bad; it is when we focus on money that we run into problems. If we have a lot of money and focus on that we might begin to think that we have all we need & so we don’t need God. With too much money we run the risk of turning from God to trusting in ourselves or in the wealth we have accumulated. But there is also a danger when we have too little money. Proverbs 30 says if we don’t have enough to live on we might become so desperate that we would steal. Let’s broaden that out & see that having too little money could cause other problems as well. We might become bitter toward God or jealous and angry of others who have more. We might not trust God to meet our needs and once again take matters into our own hands. We might engage in unethical dealings & then justify our actions because we are poor. We might just give up our hands and allow someone else to just take care of us forever. Poverty can cause us to compromise our honesty and integrity as much as greed can, so there is a danger in having too much money and there is a danger in having too little, but the danger doesn’t come from the money, it comes from our attitude toward money. When our focus is on our money – we lose sight of God, so the first key to Godly money management is making sure that God is at the center of our lives.
One of the ways we keep God at the center of our lives when we look at our financial situation is to remember that it all belongs to God in the first place. This is really the first rule of Christian money management – it all belongs to God. In Psalm 50:10 it says the cattle on a thousand hillsides belong to God – but God also owns the hillsides. God owns it all and God simply gives each of us a portion of his creation to use according to his purpose. When we look at the money we have we can never forget that it is God who has provided us with this money because it is God who provides us with the knowledge, skill and opportunity to work. Look at Dtr. 8:18. God is the one who gives us the ability to produce wealth, therefore what we have really does not belong to us – it all belongs to God and we need to begin to see things from that perspective.
When we begin to think that the money in our wallets, bank accounts, pension fund or money market accounts belongs to us, then we have lost sight of God. What we need to do is retrain ourselves so that when we look at our money, when we pay our bills, when we balance our checkbook or make a budget we think of it all as God’s money which we are to use according to God’s principles and for God’s purpose. It’s a radical way to think of our money and our lives – but it’s the foundation to a biblical view of money and wealth and that foundation has to be in place before we can explore how God wants us to use our money.
So it all belongs to God, but what are we supposed to do with it? Instead of trying to focus on the details of personal money management – which will be different for each of us, let’s look at three basic financial and biblical principles which apply to all of us. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, said that we when it comes to money we should gain all we can, save all we can and give all we can, so let’s look at these three financial principles.
From a biblical perspective, gaining all we can means being willing to work hard and be productive. If we go back to the story of creation we see that we were created in the image of God and the God of creation is a God who worked. And the work of creation was hard enough that after 6 days God needed to rest. So if we are in the image of God – part of what we were created for is to work. Working and being productive is part of who we are and so we need to take the talents, gifts, resources and opportunities God gives us and gain all we can. Proverbs warns against the dangers of being idle and the apostle Paul told the people of Thessalonica to work hard. Look at 2 Thess. 3:6-10. God calls us to work hard and gain what we can in this world, but let’s also be clear that we are not to do this at the expense of our health or our families. Gaining all we can is not a license to work too many hours and neglect our families and it does not mean that we destroy our health by not taking the time out for our physical, emotional and spiritual needs for rest and refreshment. Remember being created in the image of God means that need to time to rest. God even commands us to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Along with gaining all we can we are also called to save all we can. The personal saving rate for the US at the end of last year was just 1.3% or our income. The reality is that if you are out of work or struggling to make ends meet at the end of the month, it’s hard to find the money to save, so maybe to help us save all can we need to sit down and work out a budget. Making a budget is really just establishing a good financial plan for you and your family and you have probably heard the saying, if you fail to plan you plan to fail. So if you want to plan to save it’s important to begin by setting up a budget and when you do this talk to your family about it. Talk to your children about setting up a budget so they can begin to learn some good money management principles. Schools don’t teach children how to balance a checkbook, or how to live within a budget so it’s important to take the time to sit down and talk about financial issues as a family. What choices do families need to make in these hard economic times to not only get out of debt but begin to save.
Talking about a budget with your family raises another issue when it comes to our finances and money management. It’s important for couples and families to talk about money. I am amazed every time I read that the #1 cause of divorce is financial stress. I read this week that 54% of all divorces are related to financial issues. For healthy marriages, couples need to talk about their finances and be honest about their financial goals and how household money needs to be spent and saved. The more we avoid talking about money, the more money and the problems related to our finances can drive a wedge into our relationships. So saving all we can requires some planning, establishing a budget and then some open and honest discussion about how we spend our money.
The third financial principle John Wesley gave us was to give all we can. Proverbs 11:24-25 says:
We need to give all we can because God’s blessing comes when we give. When we give we are blessed. When we give to God, or when we give to others, we will be blessed. One of the clear biblical principles on giving is the tithe, or giving 10% of our income to God’s work in and through the church & God says when we tithe we will be blessed with more – it may not be more money, it may just be more peace and strength because we know we are honoring God with our lives and living a life that counts. So tithing is a good principle for us to consider, but it is just that, a principle. There is no law that says all Christians must tithe, it is just a clear solid practice that many people find is a good place to start. Notice I said a good place to start. While for many people tithing is the goal, when we look at how Jesus calls us to give we see that his teaching goes well beyond giving 10%.
Jesus looked at a rich man and said, give all you have to the poor and then come follow me. Jesus didn’t say tithe and then follow me, he said sell all you have and give it away. Jesus commended a poor woman who gave to the work of God all she had to live on. He didn’t say anything about the faithful people who gave their tithe – he elevated and celebrated the woman who gave sacrificially. And in the early church it says that the people shared all that they had with one another. They didn’t give their 10% and call it finished, they gave all they could & so while tithing is a solid principle for us to hold up – it really is just the starting gate - the call of God to give goes much deeper. We are called by God to give all we can to God and to the people of God and to the work of God around the world.
We forget sometimes that giving to God was the center of worship in the Old Testament. Worship for the people of God revolved around the sacrifice and the offerings people gave to God and so giving to God all we can is an act of worship that can’t be ignored or put off – it is central to our lives of worship. I hope that you get that sense every time we receive an offering in worship. I am always humbled by the fact that God calls us to give ourselves to him in this way. God wants us to give because God wants to use us as part of his working in this world. What an honor for us to be used by God in this way.
Because giving really is an act of worship, we will never give the way God calls us to give – sacrificially and completely – until we place God at the center of our lives because the trust it takes to give away our possessions, the trust it takes to tithe or give beyond the tithe is only possible if we first place God at the center or our hearts and lives and love and trust him alone. So it all comes back to the foundation and our understanding that all we have really belongs to God and we are simply called to use it according to God’s principles and for God’s purpose. Since God has entrusted us with a great deal of wealth, we will never live a life that really until we learn how to use our money according to the principles and plan of God. So let us gain all we can, save all we can and give all we can.
Living a life that counts ~ our time
Read Psalm 90
For more than 25 years my Dad worked at Yale New Haven Hospital and yet we lived in a town 45 minutes away, so he had a long commute both to and from work every day. To avoid the rush hour traffic on the highway in the morning, my Dad would leave the house around 5:30 and every morning my Mom would wake up and fix their breakfast, eat with him, and then stand at the door and wave as he drove off to work. My Mom did this every day that my Dad went to work and I didn’t think much of this as a kid, it was just normal in our family, but then one day, probably when I was a teenager and sleeping in was the thing to do, I asked myself why my Mom got up every morning to do this when she could have slept in for another hour or more before she had to be at work, and if my Dad really wanted breakfast he was perfectly capable of getting a bowl of cereal all by himself. When I asked my mom why she did this, she reminded me of the Stewart family.
The Stewarts lived up the street from us when I was in elementary school and Mr. Stewart also had a commute to work every day and he traveled the same section of I-95 that my Dad traveled. One day on his way home from work Mr. Stewart saw a woman with a flat tire on the side of the road. He stopped to help and while he was changing her tire, he was hit by a car and killed. In the days that followed Mrs. Stewart shared with my Mom how hard it was because she never got a chance to say good-bye. She never got up in the morning to see him off to work and so she never got the chance to say I love you one last time. It was right after the accident that my Mom started getting up in the morning to fix my Dad breakfast and then stand at the door to say good bye. My Mom was going to make sure that if anything like that ever happened to my Dad, she would have at least seen him that morning and said, I love you.
While she may not have known it, my Mom understood one of the basic principles of Psalm 90, life is short. Look at Psalm 90:4-5. Our lives are like new grass – it springs to life in the morning but is withered dry by evening. The length of our days is numbered and they pass quickly, so God calls us to make the most of them. God tells to number our days aright so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. God is calling us to make the most of our days and we begin to do this by taking some time to reflect on our life and our use of time because this will help us determine our priorities. On the Bible Study insert in the bulletin are some thought provoking and honestly, some painful questions for us to think about: What is it that eats up most of our time? Do we feel good about this?
What activity wastes our time? Can we change this? Maybe the question isn’t can we change it but are we willing to change this? If we really want to live a life that counts, if we want our days to make a difference in the lives of our family, friends and the community in which we live then we need to get our priorities straight. We need to sit down and ask ourselves what is it that God is calling us to do and to be right now. Where is God calling me to spend my time? How is God calling me to number and live out my days? This season of lent, these days leading up to Easter, is a good time to think about this because deepening and developing our faith will most likely require us to establish some new priorities.
What’s encouraging to think about is that even Jesus needed to take some time to evaluate his life and get his priorities straight. Look at Mark 1:35-39. Jesus got up early to go off by himself to pray because he needed to figure some things out. Since he entered into public ministry what had consumed his time was healing people and driving out evil spirits. If we look at V32 it says that the entire town of Capernaum had come to Jesus looking for healing and strength. They were camped out on the doorstep waiting for him. As news of Jesus spread - more and more people were coming to him looking for help and healing, and while helping people is a good and healing people is a worthy mission, Jesus questioned whether or not it was his mission. Jesus takes the time to go off and pray because he needed to get his priorities straight, he needed to figure out of healing people was going to his primary mission in life. Jesus knew his days were numbered, he knew his life and ministry in this world would be short, and so like the rest of us he needed to number his days aright and get his priorities straight. Was Jesus going to be a healer and miracle worker, or was he going to be an evangelist and share the good news of God’s power and love and salvation to others? Both missions are worthy causes, but what was God’s will? What was God’s purpose and plan for Jesus’ life?
Jesus doesn’t just show us that we need to get our priorities straight; he also shows us how to do this. In Mark 1:35 it says Jesus goes off to a solitary place to pray. The first thing we need to do if we want to get our priorities right is to spend some time alone with God. While worshipping together is important and studying God’s word in small groups is important, time alone with God is also important and yet for many of us it is this time that we crowd out of our schedules. Time alone with God is not driving to work with the radio off. Driving can’t be quality time with God because our focus and attention is divided; at least it should be because when we are driving our primary focus should be on the road. By going off to a quiet place to pray, what Jesus shows us is that we need quality time in silence, prayer and reflection where we can open ourselves up God with ears ready to hear God’s voice and eyes ready to see God’s hand moving in us and guiding us in life.
If quiet time with God is not part of your regular routine, I encourage you in this season of lent to start the practice. Get up a few minutes before the children do, find a quiet moment at night, or take some time during a lunch hour to just sit in a quiet place to think and pray. Reflect on your life and how you spend your time. Ask God to show his purpose and plan for you at this moment, for this day, or this week, or for this season of your life. Ask God to speak to you through his word, or through the silence that surrounds you. This disciple of silence and prayer is not easy in a world that is constantly filled with noise, but it is important because many times the way God speaks is through the still small voice that can only be heard in the silence of our hearts and lives.
There’s a great story in 1 Kings 19 about the prophet Elijah. He’s at a point in his life where he is trying to figure out what God is going to do with him and he was told to go stand on the mountain and wait for the Lord to pass by. In 1 Kings 19:11 it says…
God was in the still small voice – actually other translations say that Elijah heard the sound of sheer silence and God was in the silence. It was in the silence and through the gentle whisper that God spoke to Elijah and gave him direction for his life. Many times God wants to speak to us in those moments of silence when we quiet our lives enough to be able to hear whisper. Will we make the time for this kind of silence and prayer.
For many of us, living a life that counts will begin by getting our priorities right and we will only know what God wants us to do and how God wants us to order our days if we will be willing to take the time to listen. While hearing God’s voice is important, once we hear God’s voice, we also have to be willing to act. When Jesus comes back from his time of prayer he tells his disciples that he came to preach throughout the whole region, so they needed to move on. If God calls us to order our days differently, we need to make whatever changes are necessary, and we can’t put this off until tomorrow, remember Psalm 90 says, our days are short. We may not have another day to make the change.
When I graduated from college I knew I wanted to be involved in some kind of mission or full time ministry. While I thought that would be accomplished by working in Christian television, that never worked out and so I took a job as an assistant manager of a movie theater. For 3 years I worked at the theater and was quite successful. It was a good job and I had good friends. Life was good, but I had put away any thought of using my life for mission or ministry. I had become content, maybe even somewhat complacent because when I did think about serving God in some way, I told myself I could do that tomorrow. What I had forgotten was Psalm 90, our days are numbered and they pass quickly. What opened my eyes to this truth was my Grandmother’s surgery.
My Grandmother was the most active and vital 80 year old woman I have ever known. During the summer she would swim in the cold waters of Long Island Sound every day. She read voraciously, she served in her church and community faithfully and she just loved life. After a routine surgery my Grandmother had a stroke and she never again was able to walk or speak. In an instant her life was changed and I was confronted with the reality that we may not always have another day and so I needed to get my priorities straight. I had been hiding from God’s call long enough and it was now time to seize the day. Over the course of the next year I made plans to attend Seminary, which was what my Grandmother always wanted me to do, and that change in direction led to full time ministry in the local church. It took my grandmothers illness to wake me up to the reality that for all of us, life is short and we can’t put off until tomorrow what God is calling us to do today. If God is calling us to make some changes or move in some new directions or step out into some activities – today is the day to do it
If God is calling you to spend more time with you family and to guard and protect the time you spend with your spouse – then make the changes you need to do this. If God is calling you to deepen your relationship with him through more time in worship and prayer, if God is calling you to step out in ministry and serve the church or community, then make the changes you need to do this. If God is calling you to make some radical changes to your life or lifestyle so you can support the work of God here or around the world – make the necessary changes to do this, because there may not be another day. If God is calling you to forgive someone or reach out and say I love you to someone, then do it today, because there may not be another day to do it.
If we are willing to listen to God and act on his direction, we will be blessed. Turn back to Psalm 90 and look at how it ends. If we number our days and live them to the fullest, God will…
90:14 - Satisfy us with your love.
90:17 – may the favor of the lord rest upon us and may God establish the work of our hands.
When we are willing to prioritize our lives the way God calls us to and then do the things God calls us to do, we will be blessed, and the work of our hands will be blessed by God. And when the work of our hands is blessed – we are making a difference in the world around us – we’re living a life that counts.
For more than 25 years my Dad worked at Yale New Haven Hospital and yet we lived in a town 45 minutes away, so he had a long commute both to and from work every day. To avoid the rush hour traffic on the highway in the morning, my Dad would leave the house around 5:30 and every morning my Mom would wake up and fix their breakfast, eat with him, and then stand at the door and wave as he drove off to work. My Mom did this every day that my Dad went to work and I didn’t think much of this as a kid, it was just normal in our family, but then one day, probably when I was a teenager and sleeping in was the thing to do, I asked myself why my Mom got up every morning to do this when she could have slept in for another hour or more before she had to be at work, and if my Dad really wanted breakfast he was perfectly capable of getting a bowl of cereal all by himself. When I asked my mom why she did this, she reminded me of the Stewart family.
The Stewarts lived up the street from us when I was in elementary school and Mr. Stewart also had a commute to work every day and he traveled the same section of I-95 that my Dad traveled. One day on his way home from work Mr. Stewart saw a woman with a flat tire on the side of the road. He stopped to help and while he was changing her tire, he was hit by a car and killed. In the days that followed Mrs. Stewart shared with my Mom how hard it was because she never got a chance to say good-bye. She never got up in the morning to see him off to work and so she never got the chance to say I love you one last time. It was right after the accident that my Mom started getting up in the morning to fix my Dad breakfast and then stand at the door to say good bye. My Mom was going to make sure that if anything like that ever happened to my Dad, she would have at least seen him that morning and said, I love you.
While she may not have known it, my Mom understood one of the basic principles of Psalm 90, life is short. Look at Psalm 90:4-5. Our lives are like new grass – it springs to life in the morning but is withered dry by evening. The length of our days is numbered and they pass quickly, so God calls us to make the most of them. God tells to number our days aright so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. God is calling us to make the most of our days and we begin to do this by taking some time to reflect on our life and our use of time because this will help us determine our priorities. On the Bible Study insert in the bulletin are some thought provoking and honestly, some painful questions for us to think about: What is it that eats up most of our time? Do we feel good about this?
What activity wastes our time? Can we change this? Maybe the question isn’t can we change it but are we willing to change this? If we really want to live a life that counts, if we want our days to make a difference in the lives of our family, friends and the community in which we live then we need to get our priorities straight. We need to sit down and ask ourselves what is it that God is calling us to do and to be right now. Where is God calling me to spend my time? How is God calling me to number and live out my days? This season of lent, these days leading up to Easter, is a good time to think about this because deepening and developing our faith will most likely require us to establish some new priorities.
What’s encouraging to think about is that even Jesus needed to take some time to evaluate his life and get his priorities straight. Look at Mark 1:35-39. Jesus got up early to go off by himself to pray because he needed to figure some things out. Since he entered into public ministry what had consumed his time was healing people and driving out evil spirits. If we look at V32 it says that the entire town of Capernaum had come to Jesus looking for healing and strength. They were camped out on the doorstep waiting for him. As news of Jesus spread - more and more people were coming to him looking for help and healing, and while helping people is a good and healing people is a worthy mission, Jesus questioned whether or not it was his mission. Jesus takes the time to go off and pray because he needed to get his priorities straight, he needed to figure out of healing people was going to his primary mission in life. Jesus knew his days were numbered, he knew his life and ministry in this world would be short, and so like the rest of us he needed to number his days aright and get his priorities straight. Was Jesus going to be a healer and miracle worker, or was he going to be an evangelist and share the good news of God’s power and love and salvation to others? Both missions are worthy causes, but what was God’s will? What was God’s purpose and plan for Jesus’ life?
Jesus doesn’t just show us that we need to get our priorities straight; he also shows us how to do this. In Mark 1:35 it says Jesus goes off to a solitary place to pray. The first thing we need to do if we want to get our priorities right is to spend some time alone with God. While worshipping together is important and studying God’s word in small groups is important, time alone with God is also important and yet for many of us it is this time that we crowd out of our schedules. Time alone with God is not driving to work with the radio off. Driving can’t be quality time with God because our focus and attention is divided; at least it should be because when we are driving our primary focus should be on the road. By going off to a quiet place to pray, what Jesus shows us is that we need quality time in silence, prayer and reflection where we can open ourselves up God with ears ready to hear God’s voice and eyes ready to see God’s hand moving in us and guiding us in life.
If quiet time with God is not part of your regular routine, I encourage you in this season of lent to start the practice. Get up a few minutes before the children do, find a quiet moment at night, or take some time during a lunch hour to just sit in a quiet place to think and pray. Reflect on your life and how you spend your time. Ask God to show his purpose and plan for you at this moment, for this day, or this week, or for this season of your life. Ask God to speak to you through his word, or through the silence that surrounds you. This disciple of silence and prayer is not easy in a world that is constantly filled with noise, but it is important because many times the way God speaks is through the still small voice that can only be heard in the silence of our hearts and lives.
There’s a great story in 1 Kings 19 about the prophet Elijah. He’s at a point in his life where he is trying to figure out what God is going to do with him and he was told to go stand on the mountain and wait for the Lord to pass by. In 1 Kings 19:11 it says…
God was in the still small voice – actually other translations say that Elijah heard the sound of sheer silence and God was in the silence. It was in the silence and through the gentle whisper that God spoke to Elijah and gave him direction for his life. Many times God wants to speak to us in those moments of silence when we quiet our lives enough to be able to hear whisper. Will we make the time for this kind of silence and prayer.
For many of us, living a life that counts will begin by getting our priorities right and we will only know what God wants us to do and how God wants us to order our days if we will be willing to take the time to listen. While hearing God’s voice is important, once we hear God’s voice, we also have to be willing to act. When Jesus comes back from his time of prayer he tells his disciples that he came to preach throughout the whole region, so they needed to move on. If God calls us to order our days differently, we need to make whatever changes are necessary, and we can’t put this off until tomorrow, remember Psalm 90 says, our days are short. We may not have another day to make the change.
When I graduated from college I knew I wanted to be involved in some kind of mission or full time ministry. While I thought that would be accomplished by working in Christian television, that never worked out and so I took a job as an assistant manager of a movie theater. For 3 years I worked at the theater and was quite successful. It was a good job and I had good friends. Life was good, but I had put away any thought of using my life for mission or ministry. I had become content, maybe even somewhat complacent because when I did think about serving God in some way, I told myself I could do that tomorrow. What I had forgotten was Psalm 90, our days are numbered and they pass quickly. What opened my eyes to this truth was my Grandmother’s surgery.
My Grandmother was the most active and vital 80 year old woman I have ever known. During the summer she would swim in the cold waters of Long Island Sound every day. She read voraciously, she served in her church and community faithfully and she just loved life. After a routine surgery my Grandmother had a stroke and she never again was able to walk or speak. In an instant her life was changed and I was confronted with the reality that we may not always have another day and so I needed to get my priorities straight. I had been hiding from God’s call long enough and it was now time to seize the day. Over the course of the next year I made plans to attend Seminary, which was what my Grandmother always wanted me to do, and that change in direction led to full time ministry in the local church. It took my grandmothers illness to wake me up to the reality that for all of us, life is short and we can’t put off until tomorrow what God is calling us to do today. If God is calling us to make some changes or move in some new directions or step out into some activities – today is the day to do it
If God is calling you to spend more time with you family and to guard and protect the time you spend with your spouse – then make the changes you need to do this. If God is calling you to deepen your relationship with him through more time in worship and prayer, if God is calling you to step out in ministry and serve the church or community, then make the changes you need to do this. If God is calling you to make some radical changes to your life or lifestyle so you can support the work of God here or around the world – make the necessary changes to do this, because there may not be another day. If God is calling you to forgive someone or reach out and say I love you to someone, then do it today, because there may not be another day to do it.
If we are willing to listen to God and act on his direction, we will be blessed. Turn back to Psalm 90 and look at how it ends. If we number our days and live them to the fullest, God will…
90:14 - Satisfy us with your love.
90:17 – may the favor of the lord rest upon us and may God establish the work of our hands.
When we are willing to prioritize our lives the way God calls us to and then do the things God calls us to do, we will be blessed, and the work of our hands will be blessed by God. And when the work of our hands is blessed – we are making a difference in the world around us – we’re living a life that counts.
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