There are many people in the world who claim the name of Christians.There are thousands maybe even millions of people who give their money, time, and their talents to help the church continue it’s ministry of spreading God’s Word to a secular world.
Some folks devote hour’s everyday to make sure that the programs, and committees of the church perform as efficiently as possible.
We have people right here in this congregation, who take very seriously their role as leaders in our church.
They go above and beyond in their effort to make sure that Trinity UMC continues to function as a place of spiritual nourishment in this community.
I thank my God for them!I thank God for their administrative skills and their willingness to give of their time and talent in such an unselfish manner.I thank God for their DEVOTION and their DEDICATION to the tasks to which they have applied themselves.
This type of loyalty and devotion deserves to be recognized and commended because it is important and necessary if we are to continue providing spiritual nourishment to each other and to those who come to worship with us.
But along with this recognition and commendation I also want to issue a warning!
The warning is:PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW WHAT WE DO FOR CHRIST BECOME MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST.
For those of you who were not listening, I’ll say it again.
Please do not allow what we do for Christ to become more important than our relationship with Christ.
You have heard me say on more than one occasion. It is very easy to get so caught up in serving Christ,
in doing all the things we think he wants us to be doing - doing all the things we think are necessary,
until we forget that we are working for Christ.
Pretty soon, as we become more focused on our tasks and all the things we have to do, we begin spending less time in PRAYER, MEDITATION, AND THE STUDY OF SCRIPTURE.
We begin spending less time in the things that we need to keep our personal relationship with Jesus Christ first and foremost.
When this happens,
When our service to God becomes more important than spending time with God – we lose the power of the Holy Spirit, which gives us our spiritual direction and is our spiritual guide.
Without the power of the Holy Spirit to guide us we only think we are pleasing God because we are acting within the boundaries of our own limited knowledge, power and strength. We start to replace his divine plan for our lives with our human plan.We start to do all the things we think he wants us to be doing.We start to do all the things we think are important and necessary but what happens is that we end up working to satisfy ourselves instead of God.
I remember at my last appointment I was working 7 days and long hours.There was so much to do and so many souls who needed to hear about Jesus. I got so busy until I began neglecting my devotion time.
It wasn’t long after that until my focus switched from saving souls to –how to get money to spruce up the building so it would attract more people.
I became more interested in getting our 19th Century organ restored than I was in meeting the needs of the many lost and disconnected souls who were occupying our building already.
When our time along with Christ is neglected our whole out look on life changes and as a result the Holy Spirit, which gives us our Spiritual direction and purpose for living, loses its power and we fall into a form of SPIRITUAL RELAPSE.
The things that are important to God don’t seem to be as important to us anymore.
The things that God cares about take a backseat to the things that the world tells us are important.
Our service to God must never be allowed to become more important than our relationship with God.
Without the quiet time spent in communion with God-
Without the prayer and meditation time with God-
Without the Love Exchange between us and God-
Our relationship suffers like any other relationship that is not nurtured and cared for.
(Illustration from my past)
Several years ago I had a friend who met a young woman and fell in love with her.After about a year of dating they decided to get married. When he met this young woman, he knew from seeing her around that she normally dated men who were in the money, men who were able to buy her the kind of expensive gifts that her taste called for.So from the very beginning of their relationship, he began buying her very nice and expensive gifts. He thought he had to do it to keep her.
He bought her fine jewelry, furs, expensive perfumes, he even gave her a new car for her wedding present.
Everything he thought she might enjoy he tried to buy it for her.
This went on for quite some time. He was working double shifts in the shop,running an illegal numbers route on the side and every now and then he would even stick up an out of the way gas station, just to get money to spend on his wife.As a matter of fact he was spending so much time working,when he did come home all he wanted to do was eat, shower and sleep.
One day his wife called me an asked if I would talk to him. (She and I had dated for a brief time in the past and we were still good friends.)
She told me that the gifts were nice but she didn’t really care if he gave her anything or not, what she really wanted was for him to spend more time with her.
Because I knew my friend better than most, I decided that it would not be a good idea if I talked to him so I told her that she should set him down and tell him how she felt. She said she didn’t want to hurt his feeling because he was trying so hard to make her happy, however, she would give it a shot.One day she called and said she had talked to him and she thought he might have understood.
My friend was so caught up in what he thought would please his wife until he couldn’t hear a word she said.
He continued buying gifts and each time he bought her something he tried to make it more extravagant than the last. Soon his hours in the shop and hustling began to out number the time he spent at home. His wife pleaded him to spend more time with her but by now he was actually obsessed with doing what he thought was pleasing to her even though she kept telling him the gifts were not necessary.
At one point she told him that what would really make her happy was if they could spend more time together and if they could have a child. More than anything she want to have children.But it never happened.
She began to get depressed and he tried to cheer her up with more gifts.He finally decided that what they needed was a new home.He wanted to buy her the biggest and nicest home of anyone he knew.So he sat out to do it. He increased his hours at the shop until he was only home for about 4 or 5 hours a day.He lived and worked for the day he could surprise her wither new home. He was a man driven by the desire to please his wife—all the while he never recognized what it was that she really wanted.
FOLKS, NEVER LET THE RELATIONSHIP SUFFER BECAUSE OF THE SERVICE.
God wants to spend time with us.
He wants to have community with us.
He wants us to listen to him.
He wants to share his love with us and for us to share our love with him.
He wants us to know that he loves us just as we are.
he wants us to know that he cares for us.
If we are Christian we should all know this. But I think that sometimes we may forget. Sometimes I think we forget the price Jesus paid that we might be cleansed of our sins.
One of the reasons we forget is because we spend so much time doing the things we think God wants us to be doing - doing the things we think are pleasing to him until we lose sight of what is really important to him.
We stop cultivating our relationship with him and the weeds of the world begin to grow and choke out the beauty of a personal relationship with Christ.
Don’t let your service or the things you do for Christ become more important than your relationship with Christ.
Don’t be like my old time friend who couldn’t see the beautiful wife he had who loved him for himself and not for what he could give her or do for her.
He thought she wanted fine jewelry and gifts when all she really wanted was for him to spend more time with her.
I would love to tell you that my friend finally woke up and saw the light.I would love to tell you he realized his wife no longer needed material possessions to make her happy and that he started to appreciate the wonderful woman he married. I would love to tell you that they had lots of children.
But I cannot. Because on the day he came home with the ultimate gift; the day he came home with the deed to a $250.000 home, which was a lot of home in the late 60’s.
The day he came home to tell her to start packing, he found her in the garage in the car with all the doors closed and the motor running.
The note on the seat beside her simply read:
Dear ___________
"Please forgive me but I cannot go on this way any longer. I love you very much and I appreciated all the wonderful gifts, even though they were unnecessary. I only wanted you."
Folks, God loves you for who you are, not for what you do for him or try to give him.
He wants you to spend time in his presence,
To share with him in a love exchange
Don’t allow your service TO Christ to become more important than your relationship WITH Christ.
The more time you spend with Christ, the more loving, the more meaningful, and the more effective the things you do for Christ will become. As I said a few weeks ago, the Main Thing is to keep the Main Thing the Main Thing. And the Main thing is, our relationship with Jesus Christ.
AMEN.
