Avoiding Today

Dakota Community Church

September 2, 2007

Avoiding Today

Play Nooma DVD #17: Today

Wow, that is just really effective isn’t it, you see this guy drop his morning tea and go tearing down the street, and I can’t help but wondering, what is so exciting, is it the return of the Lord? Is that the “today” he is speaking about? What is going to happen? How are they going to show it? But then as the film draws to a close it is … a sunrise… all the excitement is about – today. A new day.

Psalm 118:24

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

The first song on the new Robbie Seay Band album is called “Rise” and the lyrics begin with the sentiment Rob Bell is conveying in “Today”.

“Slow down, be still. Let go, we will. Be here, be now.

Slow down, be still. Breathe in, refill. Be here, be now.”

Why do we need these kinds of reminders?

How does it happen to us, how do we stop enjoying today? How do we quit “rejoicing in the day that the Lord has made”? Why do we start living in the past or the future? What causes us to abandon today?

1. Disappointment.

Some of us have become disappointed with the direction life has gone for us. Expectations have not been met, things are not as we had believed they would be. We start trying to avoid the pain of disappointment with life, family, friends or even with God.

Partly to blame may be this “accept Jesus and life will be rosy” version of the gospel that gets preached so much now a days, but to be sure a good deal of it is just our own unrealistic expectations.

Exodus 16:2-3

In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."

When we are disappointed with life and with God, we start yearning for the good old days. The problem is the good old days were not the way we remember them. Remember:

Exodus 1:14

They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.

Listen; here is the reality, you weren’t that smooth with the ladies, in fact it’s a wonder you ever managed to snag your wife, you weren’t a great athlete, you weren’t on your way to fame and fortune. You cried out to God in desperation – and He saved you from your miserable slavery. Now get excited that He still has a plan for you that begins – today!

2. Pressure.

A second reason why we start living in the past or the in the future is because today is filled with many pressures. Today is real, the past or future can be imagined to our benefit.

Today, the bills are due, today; the kids are rebelling, today, I have to go to work, fight the traffic, control the spending, watch the diet, go to the gym, make the donuts. In the future life will be easier, problems will have worked themselves out, I’ll have gained victory over these habits and he’ll have begun to appreciate all the work I do around here. – Future fantasy!

Matthew 6:11

Give us today our daily bread.

Matthew 6:34

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Live in today, deal with the pressure of today because tomorrow will have it’s own pressures.

3. Drifting.

We want to escape into the past or future when we lose direction, purpose, and vision.

Proverbs 29:18

If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves;

But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.

Hebrews 8:11-12

No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ’Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.

When we are not listening, or when we are hearing things we do not like, things that go against our will, the easiest thing to do can be to take a little break from fellowship with God.

Before long we are living in the past because now seems pointless.

PowerPoint available (Free of charge) on request dcormie@mts.net