Text Galatians 1:11-24
Title: Give your busy schedule a break with Jesus.
Rev. Douglas W. Koehler
Bethlehem Lutheran Church
How chaotic is your life? Are you running around every day between jobs and kids and activities? Do you wish you had quiet time with the Lord, and wonder why you never seem to get it? Consider this: No matter how tired you may be, your exhaustion is justified, as can be proven by simple arithmetic which I am glad to say is not my own. Now math is not my strong suit, but I think this equation is right on the money. The U.S has a population of 200 million. Of these souls, 72 million are over seventy years old, leaving 128 million to do the work as they hopefully are able to retire. When you subtract the 75 million people under the age of twenty-one, you get 53 million. There are also 24 million employed by the Federal Government, which leaves 29 million to do the local work. The 12 million in the Armed Forces leaves only 17 million to do the local work. When you subtract from this the 15,765,000 who are in state and city offices and 520,000 in hospitals, mental institutions and similar places, the work force is reduced to 715,000. Fine, but 462,000 are on the streets leaving only 253,000 to do the work. There are 252,998 people in jail, leaving –you guessed it-just two people, you and me. And I’m getting tired.
When Saul had the authority to bind and harm the Lord’s saints. He thought he was doing the Lord’s will. He was busy doing something but it sure was not the Lord’s Will. I am sure he prayed to God when he went to Synagogue. I am sure he worked overtime, because what he was doing was in his mind of great importance. But then something happened to him, (and we know what that something was). God turned Saul, a butcher of men, into Paul a speaker of the Gospel. Something happened to this man that caused him to have an entirely new perspective on what being busy for the Lord is all about.
Paul’s life was going to be as chaotic as chaotic could get. The man would be a non-stop machine promoting the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He walked all over the known world preaching and teaching. His life was busy, and it got busier day by day. And even when he was in jail, Paul’s work never stopped. He kept on praying and teaching even while he was in chains. Talk about someone obsessed with their work! Talk about someone who probably never got a day off in his career and you will be talking about Paul.
Now most of you here today have not been called to serve full time in the ministry. And yet I know that a good lot of you try your hand at adding the work of ministry to your already busy schedules. Others here today just are happy to say they had enough time to go to work, take care of chores at home, eat and actually get some sleep. Like Saint Paul, you are also very busy, doing what is important to you….. So where and when do you get the time to rest in the Lord? Where and when do have time to rest with the Lord? And before you answer, don’t say Sunday!
What I am talking about is the kind of rest in and with the Lord that will restore your spirit and your strength. What I am talking about is ALONE TIME with Jesus. It is the kind of rest that we are called to have in Christ. It is the type of rest that moves you to dive into the Bible or prayer even on days when you don’t feel like doing anything but sleep. And it is the type of rest that every Christian needs if they are to have an active and participatory faith.
Sometimes we fool ourselves with our blind wisdom that says, “Hey I spent time with God on Sunday, at worship so that is my rest time with Him and its enough.” Or “I read a paragraph of the Bible today while I was waiting in line, so that was my rest time with God.” Those are good arguments but only if you would also say, “I had a one minute lunch today so I am good for the rest of the week.” Or for those of you who ever studied for a test, tell me if this makes sense, “I read one paragraph in my book, so I am now prepared for the exam.” See how those things don’t make sense? Well neither does the little time we might spend with God nor the excuses we give when we don’t make any time with Him.
But how in the world do we find the quantity time with God that we know we need? How do we do it, when there are only two of us working in the entire United States? Seriously, how do we find the quality time with God and His people when we are also trying to balance work, family and other responsibilities?
Our answer is with St. Paul. And it is a good answer. I know I needed to hear this answer because I am one of the many adults in this congregation that will be adding to my daily agenda when baby #2 comes to our doorstep. I ask the same questions you all do, and that is, how will we find the time?
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. The trick is not to find the time, because you will continue to search for that time for the rest of your life. Think about how a person starts to tithe. You know it will never happen if you try to find the money first. What you have to do first and foremost is to just make the offering in faith and then to trust God with your money. The same scenario works with our need to have ALONE TIME with God. We simply have to make the time and to trust God that he will take care of the rest. After Paul’s dramatic conversion to Christ, in the lesson from Galatians, he tells us, “Immediately after my calling-without consulting anyone around me and without going up to Jerusalem to confer with those who were apostles long before I was-I got away to Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus, but it was three years before I went up to Jerusalem to compare stories with Peter.” If you remember Paul had every reason to jump right and get busy for the Lord. In fact he had a work schedule before him that would rival any one of ours. And yet Paul knew that before he got to work, he needed to get to God. Note that Paul made the time in his busy schedule because he knew that what mattered to his life and his ministry was to build an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ. Remember he and our Savior just met. Paul knew that it was more important to get ALONE with His Lord than it was to get BUSY. And note how long this ALONE time took. Three years! Three years later Paul went on to Jerusalem to begin his ministry. Although he did go to Damascus to preach he did not do any consulting for three years.
Okay most here today do not have a new relationship with Jesus. Most here today have known our Savior for a long, long time. But does that make the need to have ALONE time with God any less important? Paul still kept at his ALONE time all throughout his ministry, daily in fact, because he knew that he could do nothing (that mattered anyway) without Christ. Is that your belief as well?
Because our schedules are so busy, it is often easier for us to consult other people for information rather than finding it yourself. This was the way I went about things as a kid and even as an adult. It started when I was a kid. When I needed to know how to spell a word my mother would tell me to look it up. Now if I knew how to spell the word, I could have looked it up, but I didn’t know, so I asked for the easier route. “Just tell me what I need to know”, I would mumble to myself. As an adult beginning my walk with Jesus, I talked to Pastor Koehneke and asked him all sorts of questions about the Bible. He was happy to give me answers but eventually he said, “Did you read the entire Bible yet?” To which I replied “No!” His question unnerved me, but it made sense! Why should I go to others and seek their wisdom when I had the wisdom I needed right here in the Bible. In truth I wanted the easy answers so I did not have to take the time out to discover the answers for myself. I was too busy, I thought! Basically I was too busy doing everything other than what God wanted me to do. Can anyone here relate to that, as you try to get by you’re your busy schedules and try to absorb enough Godly strength through one hour of worship or Bible Study per week? If so, then listen up.
There is another lesson that our reading in Galatians offers. Paul said, “When God… was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood.” Paul gives us another reason why it is important to have ALONE time with God. That reason is so that God can produce wisdom in us, not so much through the lips of pastors, and teachers and neighbors (although those are all godly means) but through the very words of God in the Bible in your home. At least that should be our first resource. Why do this? For wisdom of course! But that is not all. If you have ever wondered what the will of God is for your life, you will be able to understand His will when you understand His nature and purpose. And the only way you will get to that point is through the time you spend intimately with God. For when you make that ALONE time with him on a daily basis, your will be molding your will to His, and that is when a Christian life really gets rocking.
Paul knew this, and so he put “spending time with Jesus” first on his list of things to do. Paul needed to get to know this Savior that made himself known to him so that his life and his ministry would be guided by Jesus and Jesus alone.
Paul also knew that quiet time with God is more than just a daily appointment. It’s more like a visit with your closest friend. It’s especially important for those of us who’ve designed our lives in such a way that we’d make God get an appointment to speak to us (like on Sunday worship) instead of the other way around. Good relationships need the time; they can’t live as just another item on our agenda because eventually that agenda is going to get reshuffled. So what the Lord asks of us today is to make the time for him, make more than just an appointment, make ALONE time with him a daily priority.
Please also don’t try to make this priority with your own strength. Remember it took the blinding of Paul by the interaction of Jesus Christ to make it happen. So let us now take the time to seek Jesus’ intervention, without the need to blind any of us, so that he can set upon our hearts the need for daily ALONE time with Him. Shall we pray?
Dear Jesus, it excites our spirit to be reminded this day that you can take anyone’s busy schedule and transform it so that ALONE time with you can be our greatest priority. So we pray that you would make this ALONE time happen for all of us. Change our lives O Lord so that we can grow in the wisdom of your Word and thus be transformed even as Saul was transformed. And aid us dear Lord to balance the rest of our busy schedule according to your design so that the things that matter most, you, family, worship all take precedence. This we ask in your name. And all God’s people said. AMEN!
Copyright 2004
