Sermon for 4/17/2005
Mark 12:30-31
Jesus’ Life- Management Map
Introduction:
When I was in high school, the #1 thing that I enjoyed was Bible Bowl. My life management map would have been Bible Bowl at the top, and school and other things below this. When Crystal was in high school, the #1 thing that she enjoyed was piano. Her life management map would have been piano at the top, and school and other things below this. Now, I can’t speak for Crystal, but I know that looking back I should have make relationships a higher priority. I was a hermit, a loner and relationships were good (I enjoyed my teammates) but when some relationship got in the way of my #1 thing then that relationship would be have been abandoned or at least shied away from. Sometimes people were seen as nuisances or obstacles in the way of what I really wanted to do. How sad!
WBTU:
A. Lucinda Norman in the Lookout- What is Jesus’ Life Management Map?
B. Mark 12:28-34
C. Since our lives revolve around the relationships described in those verses, Jesus’ life-management map can balance our harried, hurried lives.
Thesis: From the Great Commandment we see three relationships that need to be our main priorities
For instances:
I. Love the Lord
A. Frazzled? Check your spiritual tank. Often, we try to fill a spiritual vacuum with activities and busyness. This can even include church activities.
B. #1- the Lord; #2- Family; #3- Church; #4- Work. Our time cannot reflect these values but if we are not spending time with the Lord or with our family, then something is wrong.
C. As we talk about maps, this is our polar star.
C. In our relationship with the Lord, sometimes we offer to God our church involvement instead of our hearts. We confuse participating in church activities with a relationship with the Lord.
D. The volunteers here need to have times of corporate worship. Personal worship is up to each individual, but corporate worship should not be cut out at the expense of doing church things.
E. Paul instructed the Corinthians on their communion time. They were coming together and they really were not observing the Lord’s Supper. It was a time for people to eat and drink and get drunk. They had lost the main reason for that time together. Paul says that this was bad because (1 Cor 11:30 NIV) That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. The fallen asleep here is fallen asleep spiritually.
F. Lucinda Norman- For several years, my husband and I confused this. Our eager involvement in our local church grew excessive. It embittered our son. Ten years later, his memory of those years is still sharp-edged. Our excessive involvement during the parenting years wasn’t worth his disillusionment. In hindsight, back then we became spiritually dry. Our focus shifted from the Lord to church activities. God wants our hearts and our friendship. Jesus told his disciples in John 15:15- I no longer call you servants… Instead I have called you friends. I’m not suggesting abandoning church. I’m saying that when friendship with God is primary, God helps us balance our lives. Then we place church activities into proper perspective. Otherwise, we can become so church-activity oriented that we risk alienating our families toward church and God. We risk becoming so narrow-visioned that we no longer understand the world we live in.
G. I have seen something similar happen in civic and sports clubs. We want to be a good witness and get to know these people and do a good job. However, after a while, our focus is on this more than it is on Christ.
H. It is good to be a witness in the community and involved in church activities, but if this dims our vision and love and devotion for Christ, even this needs to be reprioritized.
I. I love my home church. They have elders who take a yearly sabbatical.
II. Love Yourself
A. Love your neighbor as yourself.
B. Love yourself by praying. Bill Hybels in Too Busy Not to Pray wrote, “Prayer less people cut themselves off from God’s prevailing power, and the frequent result is the familiar feeling of being overwhelmed, overrun, beaten down, pushed around, and defeated.”
C. When we give God consistent time, we become aware of being continually in his presence. As the apostle Paul noted in Acts 17:28- For in him we live and move and have our being. This awareness affects every corner of our lives, integrating prayer, service, and worship. We mustn’t leave God on the church steps.
D. We can ask God, the ultimate time manager who runs the universe, to help clarify our priorities. Then we choose what we’ll say yes to so our efforts won’t be haphazard, ineffective, and scattered.
E. Love yourself by accepting and understanding yourself. What energizes you? Does time with people drain or recharge your energy? Does solitude give you energy or tire you? From your schedule, carve time to energize so you have reserves to give your family, friends, God and work.
F. On an airplane they tell you secure your oxygen mask before helping others. This is important in life.
G. Give yourself grace. IF God has forgiven our sins, does it make sense to hold our flaws against ourselves? How can we accept and appreciate others fully if we don’t extend the same kindheartedness to ourselves?
H. 19th century essayist William Hazlitt wrote, “Those people who are uncomfortable with themselves are disagreeable to others.”
I. Those who do not like themselves also make the most problems in the church. Nothing you do satisfies them. They do not like themselves and therefore they do not like others.
III. Love Others
A. Maintain friendships through easy, quick, thoughtful acts of human warmth. In Moses on Management, Rabbi David Baron advised, “Small gestures of concern for another person’s welfare, or of simple hospitality, have an enormous impact on people’s sense of connection with you. Life is lived in the small gestures.”
B. I have an uncle, the twin of my grandmother, and his wife Lois Jean always sends cards and notes on anniversaries and birthdays. How simple but how significant.
C. In today’s brash, trash-talking, technological society, a simple courtesy or a word of appreciation warms others, making them feel supported. We can easily fit such gestures into our schedules.
D. Loving others involves kindness and sacrifice. In the days when an ice cream cone cost much less, a 10 year old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. “How much is an ice cream sundae?” he asked. “Fifty cents,” replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the coins in it. “Well how much is a plain dish of ice cream?” he asked. By now the waitress was growing impatient. “35 cents,” she quickly said. The little boy again counted his coins. “I’ll have the plain ice cream,” he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left. When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies. You see, he couldn’t have the sundae, because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip.
E. In another episode an expert in the law comes to Jesus and gives this same answer that Jesus gave, the Great Commandment. Look up and read Luke 10:29- 35
F. There is a lot that we could talk about from the Parable of the Good Samaritan but I want us to look at the trouble that the Good Samaritan went through for his neighbor.
1. He spent an extra day on the road.
2. He got his hands dirty.
3. He used some of his own cloth for bandages.
4. Pouring on oil and wine. This was probably for his food.
5. Spent his energy on walking to the inn.
6. Spent time with him at the inn making sure he was well for the night.
7. He spent two silver coins on him and a promise to be indebted to the innkeeper if anything more was needed.
G. Mount Airy Church of Christ: Our mission is to share our lives and Jesus Christ with people who are near to God and far from God.
H. The first two points of this sermon are included here. IF we don’t focus on loving God and loving ourselves that we will have no life and we will not know Jesus Christ enough to share him with others.
I. With people who are near to God: our brothers and sisters in Christ. Come and get to know the Paysons and the Morgans, Kimberly Snow. How many of us have invited these people into our homes? How many of us have learned the names of someone new here (Pictorial Directory)? How many of us have formed a relationship with some not so new here? It would be wonderful to form small groups and so that people can really get to know one another on a regular basis. (Phil 2:1 NIV) If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion,(Phil 2:2 NIV) then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.
J. With people who are far from God: At church (guests), neighbors (those living close to house), extended family, work associates (had someone come a few weeks ago because invited from work).
K. This kind of sharing means that I will be hurt. Yes, from time to time. C.S. Lewis in the Four Loves wrote, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully around hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will be not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, and irredeemable. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is Hell.
L. I don’t want to waste my time on things that make no difference in Eternity.
M. Make time for the things that are important. Rearrange your schedule to make sure that these relationships with the Lord, with yourself, and with others come before other concerns.
Conclusion:
A. Jesus life management map truly is greatest commandment for balanced living.
B. In New England there was a farm that had been abandoned because the owner couldn’t grow enough to survive. A professor at a local agricultural college heard about the farm when it came up for sale, so he bought it. The first year he produced several crops; the second year he doubled his yield. A reporter from the local paper interviewed the professor and asked how he had turned a non-producing farm into such a producer in just two years. The professor told the reporter he honestly didn’t know. The reporter asked around the area if any one could explain what had happened. The answer: the original owner farmed to make a living; the professor farmed because he loved it.
C. Many things in life are like that. Things we do because we love to do them, come easily; things we do but don’t love to do, come hard.
D. IF we are keepers of the Great Commandment because we love the Great Commander, keeping it will come easily. If, on the other hand, we find keeping the Great Commandment comes hard, perhaps we don’t truly love the Great Commander.
E. 2nd and 3rd verses of O How I Love Jesus! For invitation
