Life After Sunday

-good morning everyone. As you can see, the pastors are away for annual conference so we’ve called in the third string today.

-before we begin today though, I have a volunteer who is going to come up here for a second. [DO TRUST FALL THING, HAM IT UP]

-now be honest, how many of you after a few minutes were thinking in your head “Fall already!”?

-here’s why I ask. How often do we do that? We say that we trust God, we say how much we love Him and want His will for our life, but how we live doesn’t mimic that? How many people are looking at your life and saying “Fall already”?

-why is it so hard for us to do that? I mean, we just sang it, “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey.” Do you really believe that?

**Ps. 84:11-12 -> 11The Lord is our Protector and Glorious King, blessing us with kindness and honor. He does not refuse any good thing to those who do what is right. 12Lord Almighty, how happy are those who trust in You! (GNT)

-He doesn’t refuse those who do right, those who trust Him, they are happy? When it comes to God and your faith, here’s a tough question. Are you happy? Are you really trusting Him?

-and realize I don’t say this lightly or to try and impose guilt, I just want you to think. This is something that has been taught to us, how to put God in a box in our lives.

1. THE HISTORY OF COMPARTMENTALIZATION

-I used a big word to try and seem smart, sorry.

-but I wants us to take a look at our history. When America was founded, most people lived in a way where there was no separation in their lives. For instance, say daddy was a cabinet maker. Daddy would make cabinets at home and sometimes even sell them out of the front room of the house. The kids, they would be with daddy and mommy all day as they worked. The parents were in charge of teaching their kids the trade as well as reading, math, and they were in charge of teaching their children about faith. Yes, the family would go to church once a week, but the other days it was mom and dad having church as a family at home.

-so everything was wrapped up in one life, job, family, faith, education, there was no separation.

-then we entered the Industrial Revolution, papa’s chairs were no longer made at home, papa went to a factory where he would make chairs. Now the majority of working people did not work at home. What that did is remove daddy from the family for many hours a week, and when he got home, he was tired. He didn’t want to teach kids math and he definitely didn’t want to talk about work. Leave work at work. I only talk about work at my work place during my work time.

-but the kids need to learn math. So we started sending the children outside of the home for an education. Now just like daddy had his work place and his work time, so did the kids. They had their education place and their education time.

-but then something amazing happened, daddy started making money. He had a little extra. And suddenly entertainment and sports and things daddy could spend some extra money on appeared. Now daddy had another piece to his time and another place to spend it. Don’t talk to me about work, don’t talk to me about the kids, I’m golfing [TAKE SWING]

-and as we progressed forward, we kept building more compartments. Mommy got a job too and had her work place and her work time. Now we even have exercise places and exercise times. We go the gym or the Y.

-so what happens is now we have a family where work takes place at our work place during our work time, education is done at school on our school time (how dare they try to cross that line with homework), we have our leisure time at our leisure places, we have our family time at our family place and somehow in the midst of all that God got shrunk down to instead of living a life that is all God all the time we just do the God thing at the God place during the God time.

-and now we’ve done this for so long that for some people when two of these compartments overlap it’s like worlds colliding. I know, because I see it all the time. I go sit in at lunch at the high school.

-when I do that one of three things will happen. You have the students who have no problem, God is not in a box for them. They come over, they say hi, they introduce me to their friends, “this is Troy, my youth pastor” and I sit at their table and talk. No problem.