Slow

Message Transcription

Well, we are launching into a new series this Sunday. We're going to go for the next seven weeks talking about discipleship. So the title of the message series is Imperfect Disciples. We're going to look together at what it means to really follow Jesus, to think about not how we are perfect, but how God helps to perfect us a little more every day into the image of Christ. If you think about discipleship, that's kind of a churchy word. And so I was looking for a definition remembered. One of my favorites is from a man named Dallas Willard. Some of you may be familiar with his writings, but he says this discipleship is simply the process of becoming who Jesus would be if he were you. So if Jesus were living your life, how would he live? This idea actually became pretty popular in the 1980s. You may have come across these things. Raise a hand if you know what this is. Ww JD Right. All right. Carly Babcock is wearing one right there. If you need to see one living in the flesh, she's got one on, right? But it was this question what would Jesus do now? How many of you know where this came from? Did you know it came from Topeka, Kansas? Did you know that it came in 1886? Now, not the band that Carly is wearing, but this idea, this question, what would Jesus do? The Reverend Charles Sheldon was a Congregationalist minister and he preached through a series of some of the moral dilemmas that were facing the Topekans.

I think that's the way you say that the topekans of the day. And after each one he would ask this question, What would Jesus do? Well, about ten years later, 1896, he gathered those sermons. That was about a ten sermon series, and he put them together into a book and he titled it in his steps, What would Jesus Do? Well, in 1989, a youth minister named Janie Tinklenberg in Holland, Michigan, came across this book, and she read it and she was moved by it. In fact, so moved by it that she started making these little bracelets for her youth group so that as they went throughout their day, they could look at their wrist and be reminded, what would Jesus do? Now, most of you know that that acronym or that those four letters have now been printed on just about any and everything that you can imagine. In 2016, the Oxford English Dictionary brought it into their lexicon. So now it's officially part of the lexicon. What would Jesus do? For several people, it kind of became a joke, right? Because we weren't always living up to it. But but the idea, the thought behind it is what would Jesus do if he were living your life? If he were living as you lived, how would he face these situations? How would he deal with that difficult, challenging relationship? How would he respond to that angry customer or that challenging student or that overwhelmed teacher? What would Jesus do? Well, that's going to be the question that will chase us around as we think about what it means to be imperfect disciples, people who are trying their best to live into the way of Jesus.

And again, Dallas Willard has brought a lot of wisdom to me in this endeavor. But he says simply about that learning to live the life that Jesus would live. He says the main thing that God gets out of your life is not all the stuff that you do. But the person that you become. This invites you to hold on to that this week as you're thinking about your life, the main thing God gets out of your life is not the stuff that you do. All those things that we do are important. But you just heard Mackenzie talk about how we love our kiddos and we want to shape them and help them to grow and know and love and follow Jesus. And so we want to invite you. Help us. We need your help. Please volunteer. Help us. The main thing God gets out of our life is not all the stuff that we do, it's the person that we become. So again, that's the level we're going to spend the next seven weeks thinking about what kind of people are we becoming because we believe that God created the world and every one, every thing in it.

And his desire is that because sin has marred the world and each one of us, that he wants to be reconciled to all of us. God was not content to just stand by and watch things get worse and worse and worse. Instead, he sends his son, Jesus, to die on the cross, as Charles reminded, but not just buried in a tomb, but then raised back to life that we might have the opportunity to live a kingdom, life not only here and now, but on into eternity. In fact, after we have have been brought into this life through baptism and through following Christ, that now Jesus turns to his disciples in Matthew 28, and he says, All right, guys, join in. It's time for your help. Paul translated that message this way to the church in Corinth. His second letter in Chapter five. He would say So if anyone is in Christ, there's new creation. The old is gone and the new has come. All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, who has now given us the Ministry of Reconciliation. That is in Christ. God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting the message of reconciliation.

The ministry to us. We are ambassadors for Christ. Since God is making His appeal through us. We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. So Broadway, we're trying to live this out. We're trying to take part in God's great reconciliation project. In fact, that's our vision to partner with God in his reconciliation of all of creation. And to do so, we've tried to split it up into some bite sized chunks. And so you've heard us talk about our core values, our mission to to pursue God, to build community and to unleash compassion, because we believe fully devoted followers are going to dedicate themselves to this kind of life. But if you've ever been a disciple for very long, what you realize is it's not just a spiritual endeavor. There's an emotional part to it. And I know for some of you, when you bring up the word emotions, it makes you nervous. The little hairs stirring up on the back of your neck because we don't like to deal with emotions. Or maybe it's just me. But these next seven weeks, we're going to talk some about what does it mean to be a disciple who's not just growing and maturing into Christ and our spiritual life, but in our emotional life to be an emotionally healthy disciple? In fact, there's a book titled That Very Thing by Pete Scudero. Some of you may be familiar with his work.

This book has been so impactful and so challenging and helpful to me. I invite you if you're a reading kind of person to grab a copy of that and read along as we kind of navigate and think about what are some of those challenges that if we're going to be emotionally and spiritually healthy disciples, how are we going to live this out together? One of the first words that he's going to give to us. In fact, each week we're going to have a word that that centers us in this process. And today it's slow. That God matures us by helping us learn how to slow down. I don't know about you, but it's a frenetic world that I have to engage with all the time. All the time. In fact, just this week, I'll tell you, just last night I was at the football game and I'm watching a game. And there are these two guys in front of me. And you know what? They want to talk. They they find out that I went to the University of Texas and so they're going, well, here's the score. Here's the score. Every now and again, I'm like, okay, whatever. You know, he goes, by the way, what do you do? And I thought, this will shut them up. I'm a pastor. And normally, if you want to kill any conversation, that's all you got to tell them.

And this guy goes. Huh? Well, you know, I've been wanting to get back into church and I'm thinking, oh, man, I'm trying to watch the ball game, man. And in that moment, I just thought, okay, wait a second. This week I've been trying to slow down, slow down, let the spirit work. And here's a guy sitting in front of me, 56,000 fans. And these two want to find out how to get involved in church. And my thought is, dude, could you turn around and watch the game Jaylen's on the field. Right. We live in a frenetic world. And it's crazy and me included. How do we learn how to slow down? My slowdown is a really important piece of advice. It's been a piece of advice I've been giving my kids the last three years as I've helped to learn them, help them to learn not how to speak, but how to drive. I. Slow down, slow down, slow down. In fact, our first experience, I take him out to the parking lot at the USA over here, and we drive in the parking lot, and I just get him a sense of making a turn and feeling the pedals, all that kind of stuff. Well, Halley, the first time we were driving around, we were driving back to the house and we drive through the neighborhood and we live in Terrace. And so we're driving down Flint.

And I said, Well, I'm going to take her down. Gary The street that we live on because it's got several stop signs, so it'll help her learn how to approach a stop sign and then check both ways and then move through the intersection. So we turn on 26 and then left on Gary and we're headed south on Gary. And as we're going down the street, I tell her, Now remember, slow down, because we have some college students in our neighborhood, sorry, college students, but it's true. Sometimes y'all don't obey the stop signs and you just they just drive through and I kid you not literally as I said that. Here goes a car right in front of Halley. All right. And I'm going. Slow down. Slowdown is an important word of advice for us, isn't it? And a lot of different ways. Several aspects of our life. It's important that we learn how do we slow down? Sakaziro argues that slowing down is critical. If we're going to become the kind of disciple who's growing spiritually, who's growing emotionally, learning how to be emotionally healthy. We've got to learn to slow down and listen for the spirit, to listen to what he might be wanting to say to us. He says. If we try to move through our spiritual life at warp speed, what we find is we end up getting warped. We lose our ability to actually hear.

In fact, he says it this way to many, followers of Jesus, are chronically overextended in doing more for Jesus than their inner life with him can sustain. And you think about that for a minute. Let me let that hang on. Too many followers of Jesus are chronically overextended in doing more for Jesus than their inner life with Him can sustain. I don't know about you, but that is painful to hear. That That could be the banner hung over my office door. So often I get busy. I've got so much to do that I think, well, I can spend time with God later. I can spend time in His word later. And maybe some of you feel that same kind of pressure. I've got kids, I've got a job, I have responsibilities. I have things asked of me and things I need from other people. What if God's word for you this morning is what if it's time to slow down? Remember Dallas Willard's encouragement from before? The best thing. The greatest thing? The main thing God gets out of your life is not all the stuff that you do. It's not that checklist, that's all everything's checked off. It's the kind of person that you become. That's what's going to carry over into eternity. How do we learn how to slow things down? Maybe that's a word for you this morning. Slow.

In fact, that's the word I think that's going on in the back of Luke's mind when he tells us what's happening in Luke chapter ten. If you have your Bible, I invite you to turn there. As we look at the words that Hattie read for us just a moment ago. But the words that Luke writes to us to set the context as Luke Ten opens up, Jesus and his disciples have been traveling around all in Galilee, Galilee, and in fact, he sent 70 of them out to go do, preach and teach and drive out demons. And it's been this fantastic success. And they come back and they're talking to Jesus about it. It's this amazing thing, and there's this wonderful time where Jesus thanks God for the work that He's doing in and through his disciples. But in the midst of that, a conversation takes place. There's a lawyer there that we're told. And he wants to justify himself. Isn't that just like a lawyer to want to justify themselves? Nobody else is like that. So he asked him this question What must I do to inherit eternal life? That sounds like a good church question, the kind of question you'd want to ask a preacher. Right. And we've got an answer for you. Jesus says, Well, what's the law say? You're a lawyer. You know the law. What's the law say? And he says, Well, here's what I read.

And he gives a version of the Shema, Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And then he adds this Peace and love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus says, you're right on the money. Do those and you will live. But the lawyer. Remember he wants to justify himself. So he asked this question, Who is my neighbor? And then what comes out of Jesus? The story of the Good Samaritan. Many of us know that story. It's on the heels of that story that we find our story here at the end of Luke, verse 38 today. As they went on their way. We're told he entered a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him. She had a sister named Mary who sat at Jesus feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, so she came to him and asked, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things. But few things are needed. Indeed, only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her. Now, let's break the story down for just a minute. It starts out with these two sisters, Mary and Martha. Some of you are probably familiar with this story.

In fact, verse 40, we're told, Luke tells us that Martha is worried and distracted by her many tasks. She has a lot of stuff going on. How many of us could be described that way? Carl is worried and distracted by many things. I wish I could tell you different, but there's probably not a day in my week that I'm more worried and distracted by many things than on Sunday morning, right around 11:00. He is worried and distracted by many things. Like Martha. I want to go tell some people to do something about those things. Do you not see that? I'm getting ready to preach a sermon. Could you take care of this? Could I get a little help here, please? Carl is worried and distracted by many things. Like Martha. I want to tell Jesus to do something about it. Jesus, could you prompt somebody? Could you just not. Could you help them? Especially from the people that I think should be helping. Which might be one of those signs to us, right? If we're telling Jesus what he needs to do to make our life easier, that might be one of those signs that things are going sideways. My Martha and I too often are the example of this emotionally unhealthy disciple. And I'm worried. I'm distracted, I'm anxious, I'm concerned, I'm stressed out. I'm frustrated. And it's not because. She's feeling emotions is that she's not really aware of the emotions that she's feeling.

She's kind of slipped into autopilot and she responds to them in a kind of unhealthy way by telling Jesus what to do. See emotionally unhealthy people. That's what they do. That's what Carl does often, unconsciously, when emotions start to bubble up. I think this is distracting. This worries me. This concerns me. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to think about that. In fact, this is something I've been working on with my therapist the last especially year, to slow down and learn to sit with an emotion and not just think about that, but think about where it comes from. Because if not, it's going to drive me. It's going to cause me to say some things that I don't really mean. It's going to cause me to do some things that I don't really mean. Give you an example. This last year, it's been a really challenging year for our family, as many most of you know about. And at one point Katie and I are arguing about something and how I'm not living up to her lofty standard. And we're arguing. And at one moment I don't even realize it, but I go, my mom died. And she looked at me. And I knew as soon as I came out of my mouth, I'm like, that has nothing to do with what we're arguing about.

But it was in there and I had been stuffing it down and stuffing it down and not dealing with it. Right. And that emotion just came as all I knew to say. And I stopped and I went, I'm sorry. That has nothing to do with what we're talking about here. I'm sad. I'm upset. I'm worried. I'm concerned. I'm distracted. I'm anxious. And I'm not taking the time to sit down and wonder why and how do I deal with it and where should I go with this and what should I do with this instead? I'm trying to to hold it in. And it's getting in the way of my relationships. I hadn't been slowing down enough. Maybe some of you that resonates. You've been living this frenetic life and you have some stuff going on inside of you, some feelings, some emotions, some challenges, and you're not slowing down. In fact, you're just getting busier and busier because, you know, one of the first and best ways to deal with emotions or rather to not deal with them is just get busy. Find some stuff to do. Focus on something else, then you don't have to deal with it. The only problem is it just keeps following you around. I wonder what all Martha was dealing with. I wonder what all emotions were going on in her life. Some of the challenges. She says, Jesus, don't.

Don't you care? Don't you see what's happening here? I'm putting all this time and energy and effort into this situation, and my sister's just sitting there. Tell her to do something. And Jesus responds with Martha. Martha. My buddy Jody preached a series on this several months ago and he pointed this out. And I don't know how I missed it, but he says, anytime in the Gospels, when Jesus says your name twice in a row, you better stop and listen. Right. Peter. Peter. And in Luke, chapter 22. Satan has asked to sift you. Or maybe you remember in Acts Chapter nine. Saul. Saul. Why do you persecute me? Jesus, says Martha. Martha, you're worried. And you're distracted. What was she doing? When she wasn't breaking the Ten Commandments. It's not like she was out in the bar getting wasted. She's at her home and she's working hard to clean it up and to make sure there's food on the table and everybody has a chair and. Oh, do you. Oh, we got another person. Okay, let me run over here and get get. And she's going, Mary, what's the deal? Jesus, Can't you tell her to help me out? Actually, I'm helping you. And it reminds us that sometimes we get so busy doing stuff for Jesus that we stop being with. Jesus. You may need to hear that today. I remember most. Most followers are so chronically overburdened and overtaxed with things.

That they spend the most of their time doing stuff for Jesus at a pace that their life with Jesus can't sustain. That's a sobering deal. Jesus says, Slow down, Martha. You're worried and you're distracted by a lot of things. But few things are, in fact, just one. And Mary chose it. And I'm not going to take it away from her. Why don't you sit down? Why don't you sit down and join her? Mary doesn't do anything exceptional in this story. Right. She doesn't give a great lesson. She doesn't tell a funny joke. She just sits at Jesus feet. So let me invite you to consider where is God inviting you to slow down? And to sit at his feet. Maybe it's part of your life. Maybe there's something going on in your lifestyle. The the the way that you're burning the candle at both ends. And God this morning is saying, can you slow down? Would you take a breath? Would you take a couple of moments in the morning to just be quiet and still? Would you take a couple of moments in the evening when things are winding down and just be quiet and still? Would you take a moment in between classes? And the temptation is to turn on those AirPods and just walk through. Could you just, like, make eye contact with somebody? That maybe there might be somebody. Who just needs to know. I see you.

I see you.

And I'm glad you're here. And it seems like a simple thing, but you and I both know the power of being seen by somebody. Now, could you slow down a moment? Because you're going to go to this football game and you're going to be cheering on your team. And in the middle of it, two guys are going to turn around and two of them, both of them were about three sheets to the wind. Right. They'd had about seven beers by my account. But all of a sudden, this guy wants to ask me about how should I go to church? And I mean, in my head I'm thinking, what in the world? 56,200 people, I think was the number Curtis told us. Carl, can you slow down? Yeah, the game. It's exciting and it's fun and we want to be a part of it. But. He's asking about getting in connection with me. Would you talk to him? Now, I'm glad to get to tell you. I talked to him and Haley can confirm it. And I thought, I don't know. He gave me his phone number. He gave me his email address. I said, Well, I know a couple of guys. He lives in the Metroplex. Would you want to meet? I'd be happy to meet with them, thinking This is unbelievable. An evangelism experience I never imagined would happen. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that you helped me just to slow down a moment and remember. God's at work all the time. Maybe for you.

You're going to have to slow down like I have and start dealing with that emotional world. Some of these events that have been happening in your life that you don't quite know what to do with? Some stuff's been bubbling up. And you're tempted to just swallow it, just force it down, or you're tempted to just vomit it all over whoever gets in your way at the wrong place and the wrong time. Maybe God's inviting you. Would you slow down? Would you have a conversation? Could we stop and think about this? You see, the most important thing God gets out of our life is not all the stuff that we do. It's not our list of accomplishments. It's the kind of person that we become. Imperfect as we may be. But would you be willing church this week to take it slow? God, would you help us as we discern what it is that you're inviting us to do in response to this word? As we think about. The lives that we live, the challenges that we face, the conversations that are going to come our way, some expected and some unexpected. God, would you give us lots of grace and courage and be willing to slow down? Some of us have been avoiding a conversation that we need to have with another person. Would you give us the courage to have that conversation? As some of us are facing a health crisis, an outcome we're not sure. And rather than asking and getting help and inviting people in to pray and and to to walk in journey with us, God, we're tempted to just keep it to ourselves.

And some of us are living at warp speed right now. And we feel like we have to to keep all the plates spinning in the air. God, would you help us to see where we can slow down? But the most important thing is not all the stuff we can get accomplished, but the kind of person that we're becoming. Jesus, You warned us about this so many times. So many times. There are few things that are really needed in life. In fact, just one. God. Would you help us to see that one? At one thing. That matters most. Jesus. Thank you for your example that you lived, that you showed us the way of seeking the kingdom. And even in the midst of challenging, overwhelming circumstances. Not even death could stop it. And the freedom that comes in knowing that. Now that's a game changer. We no longer have to be afraid of dying. But the worst thing in our life that could happen to us is not that we die. Jesus, you are. The worst thing is that we never live. We never take advantage of the opportunity to be kingdom bringers. God, would you help us to be kingdom bringers? God, we want to become more like you each day. And so would you take us, your imperfect disciples. Would you teach us how to slow down? Father, we pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.