Iliff & Saltillo United Methodist
December 8, 2002
Managing the Inevitable Distractions
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
INTRODUCTION: This week I had difficulty getting this sermon ready. I was distracted by many things. Maybe you have felt this way too, especially during the Christmas season. Pulled from one thing to another, a person often begins to lose sight of what you started out to do and what is the main priority. How many have had this happen to you this week? You find that the week has gone by yet you have failed to stay on target. Today I want to talk about managing the inevitable distractions--especially those extra ones that creep up during the holiday season. I want to also go back in history to a time when the Israelites were experiencing some of the same problems--being distracted by the ordinary things of daily life to being distracted from giving their attention to God who brought them out of Egypt. Their distractions finally took them far from God and in this Psalm they were trying to get back on track. Sometimes we find that our distractions lead us far away from what we say is really important to us and far away from God who is our true source of all that is good--peace, hope, joy, and love. The Advent Season is a time to get back to where we need to be.
In Psalm 80, the Israelites had become distracted by many things. Many of the people became very arrogant and were distracted by false gods in the land. They made alliances with people who were not even serving God. They didn’t really think they needed God because they were blessed by everything they needed. Joshua had led them into the promised land, they had defeated their enemies, they had an abundance of everything and thought they could make it on their own. The many distractions led them into a sense of false security. The enemies finally defeated them and led them away into captivity. II Kings 17:6 tells us that the king of Assyria came and invaded the entire land and carried the Israelites off into captivity.
Today’s Psalm is a prayer for help for oppressed Israel. Did they have a shred of hope left? The Psalm is a picture of themselves as they looked back to better times. A time when the distractions around them were at least not defeating them. Let’s see what we can get out of this scripture.
1. Go Back to Square One: Psalm 80 starts out by saying, “Hear us, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. Awaken your might. Come and Save us. Restore us. Make your face Shine Upon Us.
1. Hear us 3. Come and Save us
2. Awaken your might 4. Restore
I think what this Psalm is saying to us is Go Back to Square One and start over again. They didn’t even think God was hearing their prayers. They thought God’s anger was “smoldering against their prayers” (v. 4). They still considered themselves God’s people, but they felt so far from Him. I have heard many Christians say the same thing. “God is not hearing my prayers. God is not answering me.” Could it be that we have allowed the many distractions to lead us away from God that we no longer feel His presence as we once did? These people of God went back to Square One--Hear us. They had begun to recognize their need of God. Awaken your might and come and save us. They are saying, “Stir Up Your strength which now seems to be dormant and silent in my life.” Restore us--when we think of restoring something, we want to make it beautiful again, to polish it or refinish it to a similar valuable state. They remembered the times when things were better for them. They went on to say, “Cause your face to shine on us that we may be saved.”
This was a very significant part of the Mosaic blessing in Numbers 6:25
“The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”
The Shechinah Cloud was the symbol of God’s presence among his people. They knew they had lost their sense of His presence in their lives. “Shine forth” represents POWER, FAITHFULNESS, and LOVE.
Distractions of all sorts--busyness, wrong priorities, neglect of the important, neglecting God--ALL of these things can lead us away from the Presence of God as well.
Today is the time to go back to Square One.
Here is the hope--they had not gone so far away from God that they couldn’t come back, that they couldn’t be restored. When they once recognized that things were not going so well, that something had happened to them, then they were able to find help. They returned to Square One right in the middle of their distractions just as they were. They didn’t try to “fix things” on their own.
Verses 8-16 gives us a better picture of how they saw themselves. They likened themselves to a vine that was brought out of Egypt, transplanted into good soil and carefully tended and protected by a wall. Then something happened to tear down the wall of protection. What happened? The distractions pulled their thoughts away from God and now the hedge of protection was down. When we allow distractions to pull us away from God we wander off into Satan’s territory where things begin to deteriorate for us.
We not only do not sense God’s presence but we are not protected from his attacks either.
2. Re-Focus: What do we do about the distractions that come to us every day? We need to realize that we are not going to elimate the distractions in our life. They will probably even intensify at the busy holiday season. They are a part of our 21st century lifestyle just as they were for the people of Old Testament times. We may find that our distractions will even increase as we live in a more demanding technological society. There will always be something to get our mind off of our priorities and off God. Did you ever feel so distracted that you can’t think straight?
STORY: There was a man who seemed to be so distracted over one thing and another and he needed his wife to tell him almost everything. One day she said, “Put your sweater on!”
To that the man responded, “Are we going somewhere or am I cold?” (source unknown)
I think that was one distracted person.
How can we manage the inevitable distractions that try to sidetrack us? How do we get back into focus? There are several things I can think of but I want to mention a couple of things that are practical and will help.
When you feel that distractions are pulling you in a million different directions, one of the first things you can do is to follow Jesus’s pattern.
Mark 6:46 says, “And when he had sent them away, [Jesus] departed into the mountain to pray.” I am sure that after dealing with the masses of people every day, he needed the time apart.
Luke 6:12 says, “And it came to pass in those days that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”
This is exactly what the people did in today’s scripture. It never occurs to us that a little talk with the Lord can bring us back into focus again. Give yourself permission at this Advent Season to stop and pray--to carve out a little sacred space--to quiet your heart and to refocus on the Lord. Tell Him about your day--whether it has been a rotten day or “better than yesterday, as Walter always says.” Tell Him what you are struggling with--people, finances, health problems, too much to do and too little time... Someone said, “Give yourself a gracious place to simply sit for a few moments, to be still and quiet, just at that point where you are about to tear out your hair becauce you’ve been running at such a manic pace.”
Prayer makes sense. When the circumstances of life begin to overwhelm, it is time to withdraw and seek the counsel of the Lord. He will show us what to do in difficult situations. He will calm us. He will help us to see the light at the end of the tunnel and He will give us HOPE.
Story: Once an artist was painting a winter scene. As he began to paint, the scene that unfolded on the canvass was of snow covered ground and pine trees. The artist’s hand brought the day to a close and night fell on the canvas, and the entire scene was covered with semi-darkness. A grim log cabin was barely visible in the shadows. Then the artist dipped his brush in the yellow paint of his pallet, and with a few strokes placed in one of the cabin windows the warm glow of a lamp. As he finished the painting the gold rays of the lamp reflected happily on the fresh snow. The lonely light totally changed the tone of the picture, replacing the gloomy chilled night with a warm and secure homestead. What happened on that canvas happened two thousand years ago on the world’s canvas. When a tiny baby came into a grim and dark world, shining light across the barren landscape and offering all the hope of eternal warmth and security. DAILY BREAD
Do you have a “gracious space to sit” and refocus to allow His light to come in? If not, find one this week.
3. Freeing Ourselves from the Chains We’ve Forged: Other distractions that get us out of touch with our real priorities are the chains we have forged over the years. The chains of Christmases past. The expectations that others place on us and the expectations we place on ourselves. They are distractions that keep us from having peace especially at the holiday season. The discrepancy between the “ideal” and “what really is.” There is the gap most of us experience between the ideal picture we desire and the Christmas we actually experience. Someone described what we are looking for as a “spontaneous intergenerational moment of Christmas season togetherness.” The decorations in the background are Martha-Stewart magnificant. Children are in the center, everyone looks rested and glad to be there. The food is in the oven and the snow is falling outside and inside are logs burning brightly in the fireplace.”
For most people, we’ve got to realize that Christmas is not one long, Kodak Moment. The holiday doesn’t usually deliver what you’ve been led to believe. We can manage the inevitable distractions of the season by letting go of some of the unrealistic expectations and traditions that have lost their meaning. Let go of activities that are not high in value for you anymore. Have you lost your perspective on what is really important? How significant are your traditions in the light of enternity? Are you looking at the ground when you should be looking at the heavens?
We can free ourself from the chains we have forged for ourselves by refocusing on Paul’s words in Philippians 4:4. He says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again. Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.”
Shake off the holiday chains of unrealistic expectation and REJOICE in the Lord. Rejoice in who you are in Christ and who He is to you. Lighten up. We are loved by the Father. He holds our hand in every situation. When you encounter rude people in long check out lines, people who cut ahead of you in traffic, Paul says, “let your gentleness be evident to all.” How? One way is to “lower your voice.” You can’t fight in a whisper. Paul says, “treat people who distract you with kindness. Speak softly in an angry situation. Be the one to say, “Thank You” to the person who looks tired and weary. People cause us to be distracted and no matter what we say about them they can suck the joy right out of us.
Story: The Christmas rush jammed the streets of London. Drivers were losing their tempers. One fellow who had decorated his car by putting a bunch of holly on the hood seemed to think that everyone should make way for him. When a taxi blocked his progress, he leaned out and shouted abuse. The taxi driver replied, "What’s the use of having holly on your bonnet if you ain’t got holly in your heart?" Without our heart’s response to God’s love and grace in giving us Jesus, our celebrations are, as Shakespeare said, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord. Let your gentleness be evident to all.”
CONCLUSION: Today’s scripture ends up on a different note than it started. There is hope for these people as God begins to turn their hearts and change them. They made a new commitment to the Lord. They said, “we will not turn away from you. Revive us and we will call on your name. Restore us and make your face shine upon us that we may be saved.” I think that they meant that.
They returned to SQUARE ONE to begin again. They realized that they couldn’t go it alone. There were too many distractions to pull them away from God.
They REFOCUSED on the things that were important. They began to call on the Lord God who had helped them all along. They had just gotten away from Him. They learned how to live with distractions and to steer around them. They took time to pray.
They learned how to FREE THEMSELVES from the chains they had forged for themselves.
Let Us Pray:
