Slow Down & Grow Up!
Ephesians 4:11-15
CHCC – August 24, 2014
INTRODUCTION:
For the last 3 Sundays we’ve been in a series called Crazy Busy where we’re talking about how important it is to AVOID the common trap of getting our lives too full to too many things until we actually ARE Crazy Busy. It’s kind of ironic to be preaching on this topic on Faith in Action Sunday, because after church today we WANT to all to get crazy busy helping with our carnival at West Avenue Elementary School.
Of course, the point is not that we should never be busy. There are times to pour out all the energy we have for work that needs to be done, especially in service to God! The point is that we need to build times of rest into the rhythm of our lives. Times of business need to be balanced with times of rest.
This isn’t a side issue in God’s Word. The 4th out of the Ten Commandments says to strictly observe a Sabbath day of rest every week, and refers back to Genesis 2: 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Rest is an essential part of the Christian life. Jesus set the example when, during his 3 years of ministry that would be crazy busy to most people, he regularly took time away to rest and commune with the Father. Today we’re going answer the question: WHY is rest essential to the Christian life? The answer to that question can be found in one word: MATURITY.
Look at how often the idea of maturity comes up in this description of the goal of the church: "So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ." Ephesians 4:11-15
We might think, If maturity is the goal of the church, then the sooner we get there the better! Right? Wrong! Listen to some advice from these Christian leaders:
Brother Lawrence, author of "Practice the Presence of God", wrote “You don’t become a saint in a day.” (p.67)
Alan Fadling, in "An Unhurried Life", wrote, “Growth in goodness is not fast. It is not a sprint followed by additional sprints. Growth in goodness – in Christlikeness - is a steady, day by day, footstep after footstep journey. To our overstimulated hearts and minds, that path may sound boring.” (p.144)
The problem many of us have with maturing is that we try to make things happen in our lives without much reflection. Have you noticed how often you make a resolution to improve some behavior in our life … and then two weeks later you notice you’re right back where you started? The truth is that maturity takes time. It requires the determination to start over … again and again. It requires unhurried perseverance. Fruitfulness comes no other way.
Thomas Kelly, Quaker author of "A testament of Devotion", wrote these insightful words, “Spiritual maturity comes after the awkward age of religious busyness for the kingdom of God, yet how many are caught and arrested in development within the adolescent development of the soul’s growth.”
You see, Christian maturity is not about doing more for God, but letting God do more in and through us. Look at it this way: Immaturity is often characterized as busyness that is full of noise (usually the sound of your own voice) and frantic activity, often without any lasting result. Maturity, on the other hand, is quiet, with purposeful activity at a reasonable pace.
It might look like what Susan tells me is the difference between walking down the hall between classes in a Middle School or in a High School. She says the Middle School hall is crazy loud with kids running in different directions and teachers calling for them to slow down. When she goes to a High School, she struck by the relative order and quiet. The same kids who were racing around the Middle School hall are now walking at a more reasonable rate and talking in normal tones. What’s the difference? Nothing but greater MATURITY.
You see, maturity is not a personal performance for me to accomplish apart from God in His behalf. Instead it is a welcome fruit that results from living with the loving Father himself. This is what abiding is all about, and it is slow and steady all the way.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 explains: "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
There is one – and only one – way to grow up to maturity in Christ. That is to ABIDE in HIM. This is the way to the fruitfulness of maturity. So I want to spend the last part of this sermon talking about ways we can strengthen our ABIDING muscles.
All these ways require us to hit the PAUSE button in our Crazy Busy schedules and take time to contemplate the Lord’s glory, so we can be transformed into his image.
The first suggestion we’ll talk about is called EPC:
1. Extended Personal Communication with God (EPC)
Most of us are familiar with daily prayer time. We have our routines for doing our daily duty. Some of us may pray for a few minutes. Others may have prayer times that last 30 minutes to an hour. Some pray on their way to work in the car. But when was the last time, if ever that you took a day, or a good sized portion of a day, to get away and be alone with God?
This is a pattern Jesus set for us, and it can make a big difference in our rate of maturity. EPC is actually built into our Children’s and Youth programs at church. The kids go to camps or on Youth Trips where they take time apart from TV and electronic devices and spend time ABIDING with Christ.
I remember those times in my growing-up-days as times of great spiritual growth. I don’t think I’d be where I am today without those EPC times when I got away from the Crazy Busy teenage schedule I was living.
Those kind of times are equally important in Crazy Busy adult schedules … and we would be wise to do whatever it takes to make time to regularly get away with God for at least several hours, or a day, or longer. I’m not saying it’s easy, just that it’s important.
Probably my longest experience with an EPC time came when I took a Sabbatical a few years ago. As part of the time, I spent 4 days in Colorado Springs at a retreat center my brother-in-law recommended, “World Prayer Center” which is part of New Life church.
I have to admit that it took me a while to get into a proper frame of mind for the solitude, silence, and prayer that I wanted to enter into while there. My room had a small library in it and I picked up a book written by John Bevere (the minister of New Life Church there on the same campus as the Prayer Center) The book was entitled "Drawing Near", and it was a helpful guide to assist me in my 4 day encounter with God.
I remember those 4 days of reading, resting, praying, worshiping, and writing in a journal as being the spiritual high point of that year. I recommend a day or more of EPC for any believer who wants to grow spiritually.
This can be done in a variety of ways.
• My brother-in-law, Bob Beaver, takes a motorcycle trip for this purpose once a year and said those days away give him the spiritual strength for the rest of the year.
• Some people set aside a day a month to go somewhere quiet (away from home and work) to simply ABIDE with God. This is when we can hear from Him in new and deeper ways.
• My son-in-law, PJ Condit, is planning a 3 week sabbatical from the church where he serves. He isn’t leaving town, but plans to use his days to spend time ABIDING and seeking direction from God.
• I remember a friend who used to spend a day about once a month walking around his city, communing with God and praying for the people in his community.
These kinds of days won’t just happen. They have to be purposefully scheduled, and it’s best if they happen regularly. The good thing is, a day --- or a few hours out of the day --- doesn’t require any kind of complicated organization. In fact, it will be most effective if you keep it simple. Just plan to be quiet and focus on God. Talk to Him, and listen to what He has to say to you.
You will find that as you with unveiled face, contemplate the Lord’s glory, you will be transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
The first suggestion for interrupting a Crazy Busy life was EPC (Extended Personal Communication with God). The next two suggestions are really simple: SLOW down, and SLEEP. We’ll start with Slowing:
2. Slowing (Intentionally slowing your pace)
Ronnie talked about some of these suggestions in the first sermon – things like
• Drive in the slow lane on purpose
• Park further away and walk at a leisurely pace
• Set aside “no tech” times in your schedule. All those devices keep our inner life running full-speed all the time. We have too much input to be truly available to the Holy Spirit
• Choose the longest line – and let someone go ahead of you. (My personal favorite)
Did any of you try those out? If you did, what was your experience? The same week Ronnie preached that, I had an interesting experience at the grocery store. I got in a line with ONE item and the person in front of me didn’t put that little divider out, so I just stood there holding the item. A lady came behind me and she DID put her groceries on the counter. Then, I let the lady go ahead of me in line…
Well, okay, I’ll be honest. After the conveyer belt moved, that lady just walked around me and got ready to check out before me! I said, “Are you cutting in front of me?” and she just looked at me and went on and checked out. But, hey, I did remember the sermon, and I didn’t yell at her, so maybe I’m making progress…
The point is that being aware of our frantic pace can help us intentionally slow down as we go through our days.
And the last suggestion is my favorite:
3. Sleep
In spite of our Posture-Pedic and Sleep-number beds, we are a sleep deprived culture. I read that adults need 7-9 hours of sleep each night for good health … but 30 % of Americans average less than 6 hours per night. We may understand that this is bad for our physical health, but most of us don’t realize that lack of sleep is bad for our spiritual health.
I read a book recently about Spiritual Disciplines and the first one they listed was Sleep. God considers REST to be an essential need for us. A couple of weeks back, Monica mentioned that Rest is an act of faith. That’s the truth. When we take time out of our busy lives to get plenty of rest, we show that we trust God … not ourselves … to be sure the essential things get done.
Think about how sleep affects your ability to serve God. People who are sleep deprived can’t give their best efforts to anything. We tend to get grouchy and short-tempered and depressed, and we make stupid mistakes when we are worn out. We fall into all kind of temptations when we are exhausted.
Benedict, the founder of the Benedictine order of monks had this plan for daily life:
a. 4 hours for prayer
b. 6-9 hours for work
c. 7-9 hours for sleep
d. 3 hours for eating and rest
e. 3 hours for reading and reflection
Nothing makes prayer more difficult than consistently sleep-starved bodies. What if sleep is one of God’s gifts to us what we are failing to open?
CONCLUSION:
We can compare our journey to Spiritual Maturity to a long road trip. We tend to want God’s guidance to be like a Google Map. We want to see the whole journey from beginning to end so we know everything that lies ahead.
But God’s guidance isn’t like a Map. It’s more like a GPS. And more than that, it’s a GPS where we don’t even know the specifics of the destination. You see, we are not asking God to help us get where WE want to go, we are traveling with God where HE wants to go. And like a GPS, all we usually see is just the stretch of road that’s directly ahead.
What if, instead of a road-map, God gives us step-by-step guidance. God seems to prefer guiding us in a way that keeps us close to Him, depending on His next instruction. My GPS not only shows the next turn to make, it shows the speed limit, and turns red if I start going too fast!
God’s way of guiding us is definitely unhurried. So think about the suggestions we made today. Pick at least one and apply it to your life this week!
