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Weird Time

August 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment

WEiRD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weird Time
Sycamore Creek Church
August 25, 2013
Exodus 16:21-30

Piece friends! 

Today we continue in a series called Weird.  We’re exploring the difference between what is normal in our world and what is weird.  The problem is that normal isn’t working.  So if our lives are going to work, we may need to be a little weird.  That includes the way we use our time.  Normal when it comes to our time is being so busy trying to live “The Life” that we’re missing enjoying our life.  It’s like the classic Ferris Bueller quote: “Yep, I said it before, and I’ll say it again.  Life moves pretty fast.  You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Normal = Busy
Normal = busy.  That’s the badge we wear today.  I struggle with this myself.  I’m somewhat of a workaholic.  Any workaholics among us today?  I can’t sit still waiting the 30 seconds for Micah’s milk to warm up in the microwave.  I have to find something to do with that 30 seconds.  Or the other day I took the train to Chicago.  What I really wanted to do was just sit in my seat and stare out the window taking it all in, but what I did instead was bring my computer and a book so I could be productive with my time.

There’s a joke we have in our family that I get more done in ten minutes with my pinky than Sarah gets done in an entire day with her whole body.  And now we’ve got two kids: a two and a half year old and a seven-week old.  Parenting is work!  These days life seems like an endless cycle of child care, cleaning, and putting things away.  Then repeat.

Craig Groeschel says, “If the Devil can’t make us really bad, then he’ll make us really busy.” We are motivated in our culture by production and efficiency.  These two things drive us, but they have a dark side.  They lead to more buying, more debt, more work, and less time with family, less rest, and less soul.

Then there’s parenting.  While working on this sermon in the library a young mom came in with an infant strapped to her front, a toddler on a leash, and five-ish and six-ish year-old boys all while holding a bag full of library books!  Wow!  That’s some serious work.

MaryAnn McKibben-Dana, the author of the book Sabbath in the Suburbs, says that in the midst of all this we are “looking for a way to cheat time” (Sabbath in the Suburbs).  She adds, “Our calendars are spiritual documents, too. To-do lists and Google Calendars are statements of faith.”  What does your calendar look like?  The other day I tried to have a doctors appointment at 8AM in East Lansing, meet with an incoming college student at 10AM up on Lake Lansing Rd, have a staff meeting at City Limits in Mason, meet with someone getting married back at Biggby in South Lansing, follow that with a meeting with someone new, followed by meeting with a couple getting married, then back home for a quick dinner before meeting someone in Holt who needed help with gas and topping it all off with a leadership team meeting at the end of the day in Holt.  That friends, was eight meetings almost back to back in one day.  I pulled it off, but came home with little energy for my family or myself.  And I know I’m not the only one running a calendar like this.

Moments like this I think of the classic rock song, Cats in the Cradle:

My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin’ ‘fore I knew it, and as he grew
He’d say “I’m gonna be like you, Dad
You know I’m gonna be like you”

Then fast forward in the song…

I’ve long since retired, my son’s moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, “I’d like to see you if you don’t mind”
He said, “I’d love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job’s a hassle and kids have the flu
But it’s sure nice talking to you, Dad
It’s been sure nice talking to you”
And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He’d grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

A.W. Tozer says, “When you kill time, remember that it has no resurrection.”

Weird = Rest
If busy = normal, then weird = rest.  Many people are busy.  Few people are rested.  So here’s what we want to do today.  We want to explore this basic idea the is the foundation of this series:

If you want what normal people have, do what normal people do.
If you want what few people have, do what few people do.

Normal people have busy.  Few people have rest.  Normal people are over scheduled.  Few people follow God’s plan for rest called Sabbath.

The word “Sabbath” shows up in the Bible 157 times.  It’s a play on the word “seventh” in Hebrew.  Sabbath is a day of rest every seven days.  Let’s look at one place in the Bible where people practice the Sabbath day of rest.  It’s during the time when they are wandering through the wilderness on the way to the promised land, and God provided for them bread from heaven called manna (literally “What is it?”).  Let’s walk through this story in the book of Exodus little by little and see what we can learn about God’s weird plan for the way we use our time:

Exodus 16:21-30
Morning by morning they gathered it, as much as each needed; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.  On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, two omers apiece.

Notice here that there was some preparation needed for the Sabbath.  You had to plan ahead to make room in your calendar for rest time.  It wasn’t all miraculous.  They had to think intentionally about their time to make Sabbath work.  I think this was especially true if you had kids.  An adult might make it through a day without food, but imagine having six kids all hungry throughout the day!

When all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy sabbath to the LORD; bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning.'”

The phrase “solemn rest” points to the purpose of Sabbath.  First, Sabbath is solemn.  Sabbath is about God.  It’s about remembering God.  Sabbath is one of  the Ten Commandments: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it” (Exodus 20:11).  When we rest once every seven days, we remember that God is the creator and rested on the seventh day.

Second, Sabbath is rest.  Sabbath is about God, and Sabbath is about you.  Sabbath is rest for you.  Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27).  Sabbath isn’t about a bunch of rules to follow.  It’s about giving you space to rest and not just work through life but enjoy life.

So they put it aside until morning, as Moses commanded them; and it did not become foul, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field.  Six days you shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is a sabbath, there will be none.”  

As we continue reading this story of manna we see that there is something miraculous about Sabbath.  Sabbath expands what happens in our life.  Sabbath multiplies, sustains, keeps, and creates.  When you think it’s almost impossible to imagine taking a day off from work, and you do it, you find that you can’t imagine not taking a day off from work.  You work better the other six days of the week.  You are more creative.  You are more rested.  Everything you used to spread out over seven days is easily accomplished in six days.  Sabbath works miracles in our lives!

On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, and they found none. The LORD said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and instructions?  See! The LORD has given you the sabbath, therefore on the sixth day he gives you food for two days; each of you stay where you are; do not leave your place on the seventh day.” 

But then there are those times when we are tempted to work on the Sabbath.  When we are tempted to neglect our limits and push through.  Practicing Sabbath is hard!  It takes discipline.  And pretty soon we end up having our lives worn out and empty again.  No bread.  No creativity.  No rest.  No time with family.  No time for ourselves.  No God.

So the people rested on the seventh day.

Say it with me, “Ahhhhhh…”  Rest!  That’s what we need in our busy-badge normal culture: a little weird rest.

Blu Greenberg (as quoted in Sabbath in the Suburbs) puts it this way:

Six days shall you be a workaholic;
on the seventh day, shall you join the serene company of human beings.
Six days shall you take orders from your boss;
on the seventh day, shall you be master/mistress of your own life.
Six days shall you toil in the market;
on the seventh day, shall you detach from money matters.
Six days shall you create, drive, create, invent, push;
on the seventh day, shall you reflect.
Six days shall you be the perfect success;
on the seventh day, shall you remember that not everything is in your power.
Six days shall you be a miserable failure;
on the seventh day, shall you be on top of the world.
Six days shall you enjoy the blessings of work;
on the seventh day, shall you understand that being is as important as doing.

Say No To…
To practice Sabbath there are some things you need to say NO to and some things you need to say YES to.

First, say NO to “And.”  Replace “and” with “or.”  I can run errands and pick my kids up and do the bills and watch TV and go to the YMCA and put in an extra two hours of work and have a meaningful conversation with my spouse, or I can run errands or pick my kids up or do the bills or watch TV or go to the YMCA or put in an extra two hours of work or have a meaningful conversation with my spouse.

Second, say NO to your kids.  Yes, you heard me right.  Say NO to your kids.  Say NO to your kids’ activities.  We’re over-programming our kids.  Choose one activity each season and make sure you have a season with no activities.  Say NO to always spending time with your kids, and instead spend time on your marriage.  In her book For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage, Tara Parker-Pope summarizes the current research on marriage and parenting this way:

Studies suggest that parents in happier marriages are more effective parents than stressed-out parents in unhappy relationships…The bottom line of the research into parenting and relationships is this: The best way to take care of your children is to take care of your marriage.

Connect daily with your spouse.  Have a weekly date night where you get away for at least an hour or two.  Spending time on your marriage is the best gift you can give your kids.

Third, say NO to media.  We spend so much of our time watching TV, surfing the internet on our tablets, looking at Facebook on our phones that we’re sucking time away from the relationships that really matter.  Recently a friend of mine who has one college-age child and another high schooler told me that the biggest mistake he made as a parent was having a TV in the house. His kids aren’t fully present to him.  And now that we watch more TV on our tablets and phones, TV shows (can we call them that anymore if we’re not watching them on a TV?) are becoming more and more of an individualistic event rather than a communal one.  Turn off all your screens when talking to someone and be fully present to the people you’re in the same room with.  One family in our church told me about how successful it’s been having a media-free night at their home.  They talk with their kids and read books with them and go on walks.  Give it a try.  Say NO to media so you can say yes to what matters, including rest.

Say Yes To…
That brings us to saying YES!  You know, you say NO to some things only so you can say YES to other more important things.  Say YES to a weekly Sabbath.  Take a step of faith and have a weekly unproductive restful day, even if you don’t think you can “afford” it.  Make it a regular day.  Don’t do any work: work work, home work, whatever, be “unproductive.”  Worship & spend unhurried time with God.  Spend time with friends and family.  MaryAnn McKibben-Dana defined work in this way: “Any activity that changes one’s environment. So Sabbath would be a day of giving up trying to change things.”  That’s an intriguing way of thinking about.  So what if there really is no way to do that week?  Have you tried?  OK, you’ve tried and it didn’t work.  Well, what about bi-weekly, monthly, daily?

Second, practice daily Sabbath.  Taking care of yourself daily.  When I was in grad school I was stressed out more than I had ever been trying to keep up with everything.  I went to see a counselor at the student counseling center.  Her name was Dr Chaudhary.  This was a secular counseling center which makes her non-drug prescription for clinically proven stress & anxiety reduction especially intriguing when compared to what we’re talking about today.  Here are six things that research has shown to reduce anxiety and stress:

  1. Daily Exercise
  2. Plenty of Sleep Each Night
  3. Brief Journaling
  4. Prayer (remember this was a secular counseling center)
  5. Breathing Exercises
  6. A Day Off (Sabbath!)

How are you doing with taking care of yourself by practicing Sabbath daily?

Third, work smart.  Remember, not all of Sabbath is miraculous.  It takes some preparation and advance planning to make room in your calendar for Sabbath.  That means working a little smarter.  Pick up a book about time management and put into practice some of what you read.  I’ve read several.  Here’s the gist of three:

Eat the Frog (Brian Tracy)– Do the most important/essential/hardest thing first.

Four-hour Work Week (Timothy Ferriss) – If I had one hour to work today, what would I do?  Do that first.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Steven Covey) – Schedule time in your calendar for the things that are important but not necessarily urgent.

Rest Begins With…
All of this weird practicing Sabbath stuff begins first with the weird decision to follow Jesus, the weirdest guy who ever lived.  He taught that normal is a really messed up life that regularly and consistently misses what God wants for us.  He showed us in his own way of living what that kind of weird God-life looked like.  And he not only showed it to us but he made it possible for us if we would submit our lives to him and follow him.  That’s where real rest begins.  That’s where real peace begins.  Say NO to your own way and YES to Jesus.

Imagine what a whole community rested might look like.  In the midst of a busy-badge world, there’d be an oasis of peace and rest.   “If you want a normal life, do what normal people do.  If you want to know God intimately, walk with him daily, and please him in every way, you’re going to have to do what few do.  Absolutely nothing” (Craig Groeschel).

Take five minutes and just sit where you’re at and do nothing.  Just sit.  Just breathe.  Just be silent.  Don’t try to change yourself.  Don’t try to change anyone or anything around you.  Just be.  Rest.

“My God, I pray better to You by breathing,
I pray better to You by walking than by talking.”
Thomas Merton, Dialogues with Silence

 

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Weird in a God Way

August 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment

WEiRD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weird in a God Way*
Sycamore Creek Church
August 11/12, 2013
Tom Arthur
Matthew 7:13-14

Peace friends!

I’ve always been a little weird. Growing up, my friends told me I was “a little off.” I hung out with the crowd in high school that was sometimes called the “holy rollers.” I led Bible studies and prayer groups before school. I had a rule, that I didn’t always follow, that I would only date Christians. I was a little weird. And yet, I always wanted to be normal. I wanted to be popular. I wanted to be athletic. I wanted to date the popular good looking girl. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be seen as smart, but not too smart. I wanted to drive a cool car, but instead of having a 69 Camaro like my friend who picked me up for school each day, I had a two-tone blue 79 Plymouth Horizon. At times I managed to do what normal people did and live the way normal people lived, and it usually ended up hurting me or others.

Today we’re starting a new series called Weird: Because Normal Isn’t Working. There are a bunch of different kinds of weird. There’s weird in a good way, like that guy with the flat-top I see always riding his bike all around Holt and S. Lansing making the rest of us look like super slackers. There’s weird in a bad way, like the overly needy friend who is always having a crisis and it’s always someone else’s fault. Then there’s weird in a God way. That’s what I want to explore today: being weird in a God way.

Jesus puts on the path to being weird when he says:

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Matthew 7:13-14

The majority of people travel the broad way. They think, “We must be OK because the majority of people are on it.” If you’re on the broad road, looking like everyone else—pretty normal—it could be that you’re on the broad road that leads to destruction.

The problem is that normal isn’t working. Take away the Bible, just ignore it for a moment, and look around yourself, and ask: is normal working? When it comes to our schedules we’re overwhelmed, stressed, driven by the urgent, and lacking in quality time with friends and family. When it comes to money, we direct our lives toward the pursuit of material things that don’t make us happy and we end up broke, in debt, fighting about money, and full of fear. When it comes to our jobs, we’re working for a paycheck, just getting by, and not doing anything that we’re called to or filled with passion about. When we look at our relationships the usual course of things is to go from bed to bed to bed to marriage, which last for seven years and then we divorce. Normal isn’t working.

If you want what normal people have, do what normal people do. But…
If you want what few people have, do what few people do.

The few have peace, security, a sense of call, a mission for their lives, and their eyes on eternity. They’re weird.

Let’s face it, the teachings of Jesus are really weird too. He teaches something different than the normal. Jesus says, don’t just avoid adultery because lust is adultery too. Weird! Jesus teaches that the first in life will be last in eternity and the last in life will be the first in eternity. Weird! Jesus teaches that if you give, it will be given to you. Weird! He teaches that when someone curses you, you should bless them. Weird! He tells us that when someone hits us on one cheek, we should give them the other one too. Weird! Jesus teaches that when someone wrongs you, you should forgive them. Weird! Jesus is weird!

Sarah and I try to follow Jesus by living a bit of weird life too. We have a group of friends from seminary that we video chat with every other month. We call ourselves “The Order of St. James.” We have three things we hold ourselves to: Simplicity, Hospitality, Evangelism. We try to live at a certain level of income and give the rest away. We seek to share our homes with people who need a place to land to get back on their feet. We want to share the good news of Jesus with others and invite them to participate in the body of Christ. We’re all pretty weird. Who video chats with people these days and shares their financial details, talks about how they’re using their homes, and whether they’re inviting people around them into Jesus’ love and community? Weird!

There are two points that I want to share with you today about being weird. They are foundational points for the rest of the series.

1. Weird people don’t think like normal people.
First, weird people don’t think like normal people. Don’t copy what weird people do. Learn to think how they think. Paul, one of the writers of the New Testament said:

Don’t live any longer the way this world lives. Let your way of thinking be completely changed.
Romans 12:2 NIrV

The Message is a paraphrase of the Bible and it paraphrases this verse in this way:

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.
Romans 12:2 The Message

Learn to think differently about the way you live your life, and the way you live your life will change. This series is inspired by and based upon a book by Craig Groeschel titled Weird: Because Normal Isn’t Working. I suggest you pick up a copy of the book and read through it while we’re in the series. You’ll learn how to think differently about your time, your money, your relationships, sex and the values that you have.

What you think and value has a significant influence on what you become. If you value the pursuit of money as the purpose of life, then it will suck your time away from the relationships that really matter: your family and church. If you value the pursuit of pleasure as the purpose of life, then you will seek to have as many sexual encounters (real or virtual) as possible, and it will ruin your capacity for deep intimacy in your relationships, especially your marriage. If you value being liked by the people around you, then you will spend money to make sure they like you, spend time pursuing their approval, and end up with shallow friends and short-term commitments.

Learn to think like weird people. Because how normal people think isn’t working.

2. Weird people don’t live like normal people live.
Second, weird people live entirely differently than normal people live. When you take scripture seriously, and pursue God, you will be different than this world. If you look like everyone else, then it’s hard not ask this question: do you really know the God of the Bible? Because knowing God, not just knowing about God, makes you kinda weird. Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers, said:

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.
1 Peter 2:11-12 NRSV

They malign you as evildoers because you’re not doing what everyone else is doing. You’re abstaining from all the stuff that draws us away from God. But when they look at the end result of our lives, they see that our weird lives actually were lives that brought peace, contentment, joy, mercy, hope, and love. By our weird lifestyles, they will be eventually convicted of their own choices and turn toward God and bring God glory.

Let me tell you that there are some weird people in our church. I think about the Richards, the Hoerners, and the Kirkconnells who have all been following the principles of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University: set a budget, don’t spend all you have, live below your means, pay off your debt, build an emergency fund, and then pay for things all in cash, even your house and your kids college. Now that’s weird, because we live in a buy-now, pain-later culture. They along with many others are living like no one else so that later they might live like no one else. Weird!

I think about Kathie Brooks who has what she calls a “prophet’s room” in her basement that she shares from time to time with people who are struggling and need a safe and affordable place to stay for a while. Weird!

Then I think about Kathie Brooks, Sue Knechtges, and Teresa Miller who all went backpacking on South Manitou Island to build deeper spiritual friendships and grow closer to God. When was the last time you heard about three middle-aged women heading out in the wilderness to grow spiritually? Weird!

I think about Rebecca Titus and Dawn Bacon who are raising their grandchildren. You know when the Tituses show up because there’s so many of them. I love that when it’s baseball season, instead of skipping church, they come dressed in their baseball uniforms to the early service, and when they can’t make Sunday morning, they come on Monday night. Weird!

Then there’s Barb Smith. Barb died a couple of years ago from Pancreatic Cancer. It was only months after her diagnosis that she died. It was so quick. One day Barb invited me over to her house to plan her funeral before she died. I was amazed at the peace she had. While she was a bit afraid of the process of dying, she wasn’t afraid of death. Who sits with their pastor and looks death right in the face by planning out their own funeral? Nobody. Weird!

Then this week there are 22 guys from our church running around in the woods acting like a CRASH, a herd of rhinos. They’re deepening their relationship with one another and God. There are several people who gave scholarships to make sure that every guy who wanted to go could go. And they’re doing all this male bonding at a Girl Scout camp. Weird! Weird! And triple weird!

Now when I say weird people don’t live like other people, I’m not telling you to copy their weird. God has a custom weird for you. You may find bits and pieces of weird in there worth copying, but seek God’s weird for you. Maybe God is calling you to work less so you can volunteer in the community more. Or maybe God’s weird for you is to leave a lucrative job to be a parent. Or perhaps to take a big job so you can give generously. Or maybe if you’re single and sexually active, to reclaim sexual purity until marriage. Or maybe God’s weird for you is to live simply so you can care more fully for creation. Or is God calling you to seek a single mom or fatherless child in the church or community to invest your time in?

Normal isn’t working. Normal is fear, shame, regret. Weird is peace, contentment, fulfillment, and purpose. You can’t be weird like this by just being a normal Christian. Normal Christianity is half-hearted, lukewarm, risks nothing, sacrifices nothing, meets my needs and makes me feel good, and worships one day a week. Weird Christianity is different. Weird Christians worship seven days, are fully submitted to Christ, are the last, serve, give their whole heart to God, and are all in. You get all in by stepping through the narrow gate of Jesus. You don’t get there by doing enough weird stuff to be accepted and loved by God, but you receive the love of God in Jesus Christ’s own weird. Jesus loved you so much that he left his comfortable place in heaven to enter into creation and live a perfect and sinless life and submitted himself to a painful death only to be raised by the power of God three days later. That’s weird! Jesus’ weird is what makes it possible for you to be weird too. Don’t wait another moment. Follow Jesus and be weird too.

*This sermon is based on the book and sermon series, Weird by Craig Groeschel.

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