Love's Order For Life's Priorities III, Overcoming Busy-ness

Finishing prayer time up front here. Why don't you take your Bibles and get your outlines out as well? I want to move right into this morning's message on overcoming busyness. And I think you'll see in some ways it's even related to what has taken place here. Let's look at that first scripture together. So let's read it as our text for this morning. Got your outline and you need a pen or pencil to fill these in. I think you'll find these helpful. A lot of people came up to me after the first service and said, you were really speaking to me today. And the reason is because I really was speaking to me today. As you'll see as I go through here. Let's read this together. Just this one verse out of Psalm 127. It is senseless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night. God wants his loved ones to get their proper rest. That's the same Psalm that says, unless the Lord builds a house, what? They who labor, labor in vain. If God's not in it, you're wasting your time. Now I've been thinking a lot about this message for several weeks. How important I believe it really is, but I've been too busy to work on it. So this week I got some time away and had an opportunity to really think about what's going on when we talk about this matter of busyness. My life is not unlike your life. I feel like I'm a radar screen at Greater Pittsburgh Airport with all these blips that represent activities and life. Look up this way, please. Life and activities and stuff going on. And then all of a sudden, when I least expect it, the screen goes off and life goes crazy. Does that ever happen to you? Where am I supposed to be? Did I miss that appointment? And it just gets that way. And I've been wondering a lot about what is happening there. My honest assessment is that this matter of pace and busyness and priorities in our life is something we better really look at carefully. Because as a Christian, I have to tell you, I don't think it's going to get any easier. I don't think life's going to get any less complicated. I don't think things are going to get simpler for us. It's not going away. There have always been times, even way back in Jesus' days, when people were dealing with priorities. Remember in Matthew 8.21, Jesus was calling some of the disciples forth, and one disciple said, Master, let me go bury my father. And what did Jesus say? Let the dead bury the dead. You come and follow me. I mean, that's pretty heavy stuff. Mary and Martha in Luke chapter 10. Martha was busy about all the preparations, and Mary, the Bible said, chose the one thing that was needful. All through the Scriptures, there was a struggle. But there's never been a time like we're living in today, where so many people have such deeply held commitments in their lives. The explosion of communication and transportation, and information and technology, has not simplified our lives, has not streamlined things and made it easier, as we were told they would. I read an interesting quote. It was from a book I just finished reading, called Margins. It says, the prediction that turned out all wrong. Thirty years ago, futurists peering into their crystal balls predicted that one of the biggest problems for coming generations would be what to do with their abundant spare time. The author writes, he says, I remember hearing this prediction often. In 1967, and he records the reference to this in the Senate Journal, in testimony before a Senate subcommittee, United States Senate, claimed that by 1985, people would be working just 22 hours a week. Ho, ho, ho. Or 27 weeks a year, or could retire at age 38. Exactly when they stop talking this way, I'm not sure, he writes, but they did stop. No one sits around today trying to figure out how to spend their free time. On the contrary, the topic of conversation is usually, how do I get some? And that's true. I'm aware of what this does in my life, and many of you are too. What's often called stronic, yeah, stronic, chronic stress syndrome is something that we all struggle with. It's something that the overload of our lives pushes us to the brink, and we have just, we have no balance, no margin left in our lives. About 85 to 90% of Americans say that they just feel they're too busy. I'm just curious. I mean, I saw how many of you lifted your hand before. I said 7 or above. How many of you feel you're a 9 or 10? You're really listening, aren't you? I mean, life is right on the edge. 59% of the people in the USA Today CNN poll recently said they wanted their life to slow down, and I believe you do too, but they didn't know how to do it. They didn't know what steps to take. Experts tell us there's 8 1⁄2 hours less free time per week now than just 10 years ago. 8 1⁄2 hours less per week. And folks, with the rise of two working families and single parents, and the multitude of options that we have out there, it's no wonder that we're stressed out. Now, the consequences of this are far more significant than just, you know, well, I need to relax a little bit more. And I want us to tune in. On your outline, I have four blank spaces. Look at these with me. And I think these are crucial. Get a hold of these. These are the consequences of being too busy all the time. Number one, what I want to call relational shallowness. Next week, the entire message is going to be on building better relationships. And by the way, it would be a great message to bring some friends with you to church if you'd like to see that friendship grow and develop a little bit with them. You see, people today, when they're so busy that they don't have any time to get their life in order, the one thing they immediately begin to draw back from is relationships. How many of you don't know your neighbor's name, let alone what's going on in their life? It's too busy. Families get shut out. And I needn't say a whole lot about God and our relationship to Him, although I'm going to mention it later. What is very time-intensive? Relationships. And those are the things that get cut out if you're too busy. Second thing is ministry indifference. You know, there may be a whole lot of people out there in the world that are dying apart from God and destined to spend eternity out of His presence, but that's not my problem. I don't have to worry about how to use my spirits or gifts. I'm just too busy. Folks, do you realize how ineffective the church at large is in using its gifts to win the world? You want to know why the church is mired in basic sort of... I just read, I don't know if you did, that the church has declined in attendance in the last several years from 44% to 37% of Americans in attendance. Why? Because most Christian people are too busy to spend time investing in ministry opportunities. We have sort of a collective good Samaritan syndrome. Well, you know, I see the problem there, but hey, I'm on my way to something important and someone else will take care of that person. Third consequence is personal weariness. I mean, we just don't really enjoy life that much at all. We're too busy to really just sit back and breathe in the blessing and rewards of God's presence in our lives. And that creates some very interesting scenarios, some very short fuses in some of our lives, sometimes including me. A couple of months ago on an unusually nice day, I was headed off to a pastoral meeting in another part of the city and I was looking forward to it and had godly things in my mind going on and I was listening to a praise CD but I had made a mistake and scheduled a lunch meeting that went longer than I thought and I knew I was running late to catch this pastor's meeting and so traffic was starting to become an issue and I started being preoccupied with that and got a little bit tense and so I'm going to be late and if you're late, the pastor's always hassling you and that kind of thing. Well, I came up to one of these intersections and it was one of those things I was in the left lane and a person came up to me in the right lane and down the road just a little bit the road narrowed and went into one lane and I was just kind of thinking through things and when the light changed this person kind of jumped out and got ahead of me and that rarely happens in my life but it did but what really got me about 100 yards down the road this person put on their left turn signal slammed on their brakes to make a left turn and all the godly things the praise CD, none of it worked I mean what are you doing? I couldn't believe it and I could give you the license number of that black Ford Mustang if you were really impressed with it what kind of a driver would do something like that? cuts you off and then turn left but you see the problem was me because I had no margin I was just in such a hurry and that person was making me late for my appointment well the fourth thing which is probably the most significant but you may not be aware of it is spiritual dryness relational shallowness ministry indifference personal weariness and spiritual dryness when's the last time you felt really close to the lord? you really felt that he was speaking to you you knew that you'd given him ample time to communicate his voice to you folks yeah that's great all four of those, look at those those are not lightweight issues are they? how many of you would say those are the things that make up life those four things to me have to do with what really matters in my life relationships and ministry and personal fulfillment and my relationship with god and those are the things that get pushed out of our lives when we get too busy do you see that? there's no point in me going on if you don't see how important this is not about having a better day planner this is not about getting more done with your day this is not about time management it's about the things that matter to you and me and I'm concerned about us because I think a lot of us and I'm speaking to me we get caught up in what the world values and how the world does things and we miss some of the things that god most wants to do in our life I want to offer to you five things that I try to monitor to see how my life's doing in respect to what really matters and maybe just one of these will help you I'm not naive enough to think that all five of them are going to say great for you but at least one of them may help and so I'm going to encourage you to write them down as one person wisely said if you're burning the candle at both ends you may not be as bright as you think you are ok first thing is to prayerfully and positively determine what really counts alright to prayerfully and positively determine what really counts in your life and keep that before you one of the great tragedies of the compartmentalism of religion in our day is that we think god has this place in our life maybe it's Sunday morning and maybe it's Thursday night and maybe it's this and that but does god really exercise lordship over all of my life and friends this is not just an idle question it's one thing to say Jesus is lord it's another thing to say now lord come and look at my life and show me what may need to change if my life is to be pleasing to you in his excellent book how to succeed where it really counts Doug Sherman and William Hendricks say this if you intend to pursue godly success and how many of you say that's your goal in life godly success it's obvious that self rule must give way to Christ's rule in your life the two are diametrically opposed success in the culture means faithfully pleasing me myself with the resources and responsibilities one's been given by contrast true success before god means faithfully pleasing him with our lives this means that Christ calls the shots it doesn't mean avoiding responsibility and acting like we're brain dead or getting into weird mystical schemes for discerning god's will we still have choices to make tough choices at times as we're going to hear in a moment that god won't make for us but when I say that Christ calls the shots I mean that it's his desires his interests and his agendas that ultimately matter to us and those are what we need to fulfill friends that is a day to day decision that each of us have to face and I have to say I'm not sure that all of us are facing it I wonder how many of us wake up and say lord I want you to be in control of this day and I want to honor you with my decisions and my priorities life's a constant series of those choices where you determine what really matters one thing I love about being a Christian is I'm not a puppet I make choices but god says will you bring them to me will you let me order your day will you let me remind you what I want to see you do and prepare you for those unexpected things that we're going to talk about in a moment where I lead people across your path of life see the fact is if you don't consciously choose your values and priorities if you don't prayerfully and positively this is what really matters to me I want to promise you something the world will sell you what it thinks you ought to be doing with your life why? because of the hundred how many hours are we awake a week? five approximately how many hours in a week? let's start there hello wake up whatever 168 right? and how many of you sleep? well that varies no doubt about it some of us sleep 60 some sleep 40 whatever but roughly speaking if we're awake 110 115 hours a week how many of those hours are you being bombarded with messages that say this is what really matters in life huh? most of them right? you drive down the road messages you turn on the radio messages television messages I mean media just everywhere and then people send you all kinds of messages you need this you need that power, influence, security buy a Cadillac DeVille and you have it all whatever you know you get all these messages that send gotta do this gotta do this but it was Jesus who plainly said you cannot serve God and mammon or accurately translated money you cannot let one of those compete with the other one one will be the lord of your life and the other one won't be Jesus didn't say hey it'll be tough but you can do it he didn't say keep an eye on the one he said you can't do it friend you cannot do it one will rise to prominence in your life Jesus said either I'm the giver of life and serve me or your career or your interests or your family or something else will be the lord of your life you have to decide what does it mean to serve that though that's the key thing you cannot serve it what does that mean well the word doulos in the greek means literally to be in bondage to to be a slave of it's your primary pursuit of life now friends listen we may say to God well you know you're the lord of my life Jesus but then never really ask him whether or not the job that I'm in and the way I'm doing the job that I'm in is what's pleasing to him we may go for months without ever really asking God am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing Lord am I doing it the way you'd have me do it Jesus referred to God and money in the context of the sermon on the mount Matthew 6 24 where people were talking about they need clothes they need food they need shelter they need this and the lord says hey your father knows you need all that but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness first and all these things I'm not arguing for responsibility here I'm saying prayerfully and positively determine what your life is going to be about what will people say about you when you die what will you say about you when you die I've never been at a bedside of a dying person who said you know I wish I'd spent more time at the office but I've been with people who said you know I just wish I'd spent more time with my family I wish I'd spent more time doing things God wanted me to do and my prayer that you would end your life and be able to say I don't have any regrets God I live my life and I invested in the things that really counted you need to determine those you're the only one that can do that second thing you can do is to examine your expectations you know often times our busyness is not the result of someone else demanding of us rather it's the expectations that we put on ourselves it's our own ambitions our own desires and our own drives some of us are out to prove that you know I'm really a pretty good person after all some of us grew up with affirming parents and others of us didn't and those of us maybe who didn't have that kind of godly model at home or someone who was encouraging us positively we have to prove to someone hey that I'm a pretty good person that I'm alright that I can accomplish something if I purchase this home or live in this neighborhood if I can have this title beside my name if I can get to this level of compensation then I really have it made and I have proven to you that I'm not what you said I was folks we need to be careful never to confuse work with worth with achievement with the idea that you're valuable you know when someone says what do you do and you say well I'm a brain surgeon they say wow you must be pretty smart must make a lot of money you must be a pretty good person someone else says what do you do well you know I'm a street sweeper you get your life together well god doesn't evaluate our lives rather the lord says the foundation of being free to not put unrealistic demands on your life is to know how much you're loved how much you're loved by god Isaiah 43 is one of my favorite old testament passages and let me read just a couple verses but now this is what the lord says he who created you oh Jacob who formed you oh Israel fear not I've redeemed you I have summoned you or called you by name you are mine since you are precious and honored in my sight and because I love you I will give men in exchange for you and people in exchange for your life Paul writes later I pray that you might be established in the love of god and have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of christ and to know this love personally that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of the fullness of god you see that love is the basis upon which you build your life not your achievements that's where your worth stems from not your accomplishments now let me say quickly here some of the expectations in our life that kind of get hairy from time to time are things that we volunteer for some of us want the privilege of being a leader or being a coach or being a board member but that takes a certain sense of responsibility and we need to know that if we volunteer to do something because we want to participate and be part of something that's happening that also means there's some expectation there. I mean if a leader meets once a month with their group you gotta be there you can't say well you're putting an unreal expectation no that's part of the privilege of being a leader but every once in a while if you're like me you just have to look at your life and say wait a minute I just can't do that anymore I had that happen about a month ago in March and it's difficult maybe you relate to this I don't like to say no to people, do you? and someone called me and I've been on the committee for the March for Jesus which is that prayer walk that goes through downtown Pittsburgh and I think that's a worthwhile thing I think there's unity there I think there's prayer going up for this city and I've been on the board of that for several years and this year came and I missed the meetings, the planning meetings they were on Friday mornings and I had a conflict and couldn't go and one of the pastoral leaders called me about a month ago and said well J.D. you still want to be on the board? I said well of course I do he said well you haven't been to any of the meetings and we were just wondering what are you going to do about that and I said well on Fridays I can't come and he said it very lovingly well maybe you shouldn't be on the board and he said yeah you you know I thought about it and at first I was a little bit hurt then I realized no he's absolutely right I need to get off that board I don't need to be on that board God didn't want me on that board I had another commitment that was more important and so I said one simple little word okay I'll step down and you know what it freed my life up and I can focus on something else that's really important to me maybe you need to look at your life and realize that some of the expectations you have you put there and not God maybe you don't need to coach four sports maybe your workout schedule can change from six days a week to three maybe you could turn off the television set a little bit earlier at night maybe you don't need to watch the 11 o'clock news so you'll know everything that happened first thing last thing at night first thing in the morning I don't know but all of us need to know that our expectations come from God this is a process I want you to hear from Dwayne Pretty once again Dwayne has been singing for us quite a bit recently and it's been such a blessing but I wanted him to share something about his life because like many of you he's a responsible person with a job that demands a lot of him and he wants to share with you just a bit how he's learning how to balance these priorities so let's welcome him as he comes Dwayne Thank you pastor for the opportunity as pastor said my name is Dwayne Pretty and just to tell you a little bit about myself before we get into why I'm even up here I grew up in Michigan and I was very very fortunate to grow up in a strong Christian home as a result of my parents dedication to God I also gave him my life at a very young age I'm a product of Christian education having undergone Christian school my whole life even up through undergraduate went to Cedarville College in Ohio which is a four year Christian school and when I was done with Cedarville in 1990 I was really disappointed I hadn't found my wife yet you'd think wow of all that selection you'd at least find your life's mate no that wasn't for me so I went ahead and pursued a graduate career in chemistry went down to Virginia Tech in Blacksburg Virginia and it was great down there joined a local church Blacksburg Christian Fellowship and through that singles group met my wife Alisa just a wonderful person and I thank God for her after we both finished up down there our education took a job with Bayer here and now work with them as a research chemist in polymer chemistry the Lord's been great to us we now have a nine month old baby daughter Ashley and we spent six months looking for a church finally found North Way and we've been here for a year and a half so we're really excited but why am I up here? Pastor Jay asked me to share with you a little bit what's going on with my life right now and in order to sort of set that up I think it's important you know what makes me tick my whole life I've been a perfectionist wanted to be a high achiever I think being first born that's somehow tied in according to what the psychologists say and up until really the last two years this hasn't been a problem because my time has been my own basically I decided what was going to happen but now with the demanding career a wife and a child maybe it should be a demanding child a wife and a career but nonetheless now I have these different parameters in my life that I'm constantly trying to juggle for time Lisa and I were talking about this earlier this week and Lisa said Duane I think it's really important that you understand how I perceive you she said did you realize that your self perception is totally based on your job and I looked at her and I thought what is she talking about she said well when things are going great you're all on the up and up you know you just had a patent or some of your work just got published from graduate school or you just accomplished a great goal or a new idea you're going strong you're going home but you know what the next week if you haven't met a goal you set for yourself or you're following a little short time you're rushed you know you're bumming and I thought wow yeah that's an interesting perception she said but you know what your job even though it's great I could really care less what's going on there I think it's great for you but you know what's important to me my perception of you is not through your job and what you accomplish my perception of you is totally based on the quality time you give me and our new daughter that was the first time I'd ever thought of that wow she's right on the money and if I think back over the last two years of our marriage and anytime she's really been upset with me you know what it's been it's not over what I haven't done or not what I've done it's what I haven't done given her my time that's what ultimately comes back to I didn't give her enough time and time tells her that I love her it's as simple as that thinking about this putting it together I can see through my wife's wisdom that that is really probably the ultimate responsibility that God has given me now the most important job that he'll ever have for me is being a husband and a father of course the practical reality of life is we all have jobs to support a family and there's always going to be a struggle between these two it's inevitable and as I think now I have a role model and that role model is my father I mentioned that he was a very strong godly man as I was growing up and I'd like to tell you a little bit about him and just what he did to juggle this since he's the one that I'm trying to model my life after my father's a prolific author he's well respected and world renowned in the field of polymer chemistry which is the same field I chose he's just a great guy all the while I was growing up both him and my mom they were at every soccer game every basketball game track meet drama musical sing at church on Sunday they were there your mom and dad were sitting in the audience supporting you I can't tell you how many hours late into the night both mom and dad set up with both myself and my sister talking about personal problems giving us advice yeah they had to get up and go to work the next morning but no they were there for us and I'll tell you growing up for my sister and I our parents were our best friends and I can still say that today for me there's one thing personally that I've done was fortunate again with Bayer one of the first classes that they make their new employees take is called managing your personal growth what's that mean well the very first thing they tell you is hey we're not really in charge of your career what you do here you are you're going to have to decide for yourself where you want to go in the company okay so we're going to have you do an exercise and that first exercise is going to be take a look at 100 values and through a list of questionnaires you're going to narrow down your top 5 and so we all did that and then they said this they kept stressing over and over again employee in order for you to be happy in your career make sure that whatever job you choose does not conflict with those values because if it does in any way you're not going to be happy wow that's pretty amazing isn't it so I had the opportunity to do that list my top values and I'll tell you what I made a decision in that class I told myself through the lord I said lord if my job requires more than 65-70 hours a week or any other significant detraction from my family then it's not the job for me I'm going to tell you right now that when that if it ever does happen you know I'm willing to go into teaching or whatever it may be in order to invest my life into others and give my time to my family and just to wrap up I sort of have a motto that I put together for myself when I'm under pressure I tell myself Dwayne God always helps you to get things done he always does and if you just think back in your own life we've all made it through everything we've ever had to do and chances are if it didn't get done it probably wasn't worth it anyway so that's sort of something that I assure myself and as Jay mentioned earlier at the end of my life I really have one prayer for my wife and child not that they will say wow boy dad was a great scientist but that they would say he was a godly man he was my best friend and he invested his life into mine by the way I just want to mention if you don't see Dwayne you're going to be gone in about July 5th July 5th Dwayne and Lisa are going to Germany with the company for a couple years of what is it formal training or just exposure to the operation develop a process but you're coming back looking forward to it alright thank you so much alright third concept first one is prayerfully and positively determine your values second examine your expectations third accept God's principles of pace you know the ten commandments how many of you think you know all ten of them if I asked you to rip them off right now you could do that no hands are up how many of you know one of them how many of you know this one the fourth one it's about the sabbath day remember the sabbath day and keep it holy my estimation is that most people look at that commandment and say well you know that's about having a day off and getting stuff done um but there's a far more profound directive underneath this that the Lord has instituted you see God almighty determined that he would set a pattern Dwayne talked about the model that his father was our heavenly father said hey look I worked for six days and I wasn't even tired and I took a day off ever think about that God didn't need to take it Bible doesn't say and God was tired it just said he rested God almighty said now that's the way I want you to live your life in a rhythm so that you can be refreshed because folks one thing if you don't know it already you do not have the capacity to keep burning burning burning burning you will burn out and that isn't just a matter of of a cliche it has to do with your spirit dries out all the things that I talked about the syndromes of overload I don't know if this is something you're struggling with but I see people with so many irons in the fire they start to put the fire out and you get close to it and you realize there's not a whole lot of life left in there and one of the key things is to look and see are they regularly consistently giving themselves some time to be refreshed look at your outline would you please on the back side it says you have six days right in the middle you have six days in which to do your work but the seventh day is to be a day of rest and then look at the next three words and say them with me dedicated to me it doesn't say the day of rest is to be spent playing in the yard all day long now there's nothing wrong with being in the yard if you've dedicated the day to the lord and given him your priority it doesn't say I'm going to spend all day on that day doing sports activities and folks let me say I'm not going to make any friends with this but I'll say what I believe I believe that many Americans have fallen into the idea that Sunday is their day and it's God's day first and if you'll honor God first and put him first in that day then you'll enjoy the refreshment physically emotionally and spiritually that God intends for your life and I have to say if it's a Sabbath day unto the lord then put the lord first and the number one priority of every one of our lives in this church should be when God's people gather on the Sabbath day I'm going to be there I'm not going to let a little bit of foul weather keep me away or a little bit of nice weather draw me away I'm not going to let a little bit of inconvenience or you know the kids being a little tired I'm going to get with God's people because I need the refreshment I need the encouragement I need the refocusing of seeing others of like-minded faith come together and many people have told me over the years they said you know I wasn't going to come to church today but I kind of made myself come and dragged myself there and then they said this and I am so glad I did God met me something happened in my life remember the Sabbath day all of us need it we need to leave the chores and the games and the shopping and just rest many of us have two days on a weekend get this stuff done on Saturday so you can spend Sunday pouring into the things that really count and I need to say please examine your life look at it are you honoring God in the Sabbath day my day of rest is really Monday Sunday is not a restful day for me I'm really pretty wiped out but Colossians says as long as you have a day that's