INTRO: Living the Simple Life… ? What IS the simple life? The simple life doesn’t mean living simple minded, it just means being able to enjoy life and appreciate simple things in life.
You know, sometimes we surround ourselves with so much stuff that demands our attention on a regular basis, that life just becomes complicated and we find it difficult to have peaceful moments where we can appreciate God and His creation and our family and the things that we should be living our lives for?
How do we get our priorities so mixed up? How did life get so complicated? Those are a few of the questions that this series hopes to answer, and I hope it will bring us a little more encouragement and a little more insight as to how we can slow down and get back to living the simple life…
Roll video, “The Paradox of Your Time” 2:22 …(FAITH HIGHWAY)
It seems like the more stuff we have. The more we fill our hearts and homes with the things of the world, the less room we have for the things of God. The more stuff we bring into our lives, the less room there is for God in our lives, because stuff: things consume time, and time is a valuable commodity because we have so little of it in our lives.
The Bible says, James 4:13-14, “Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money."
Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
Our life is like a mist that comes and goes so quickly. Now, realizing how short life is, we should be people who are busy investing in lasting things: things that will still matter a million years from now.
? WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE / PRECIOUS TIME?
Most of us are wasting at least four hours every day on things that have no lasting significance whatsoever. Did you know that according to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day? In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the television tube.” And average of four hours of every day is blown on TV: stuff that won’t matter a million years from now. ((Now, it’s important to keep up on the news and things like that, but we could stand to turn off Fear Factor or Friends: who cares what happens to Joey! We could decide to turn off the stupid shows that are out there and decide to take control of our own lives.))
A lot of us are spending precious time on worthless things. That’s the paradox of our time.
? What’s a paradox? A paradox is a contradictory statement. It’s like saying, “You know, it seems like the less time I have the more I get done.” It sounds contradictory… Why would someone say they get more done when they have less time?
A paradox seems contradictory, but nonetheless, it can still be very true…
? For instance, (JOHN) if God were to shorten every day of your life from 24 hours down to 20 hours a day, what would you do with your time? You would have to reprioritize…
I’ll bet you’d be forced to make adjustments to your lifestyle. I’ll bet you’d do a better job of prioritizing and balancing your needs with your wants, and the result of that organization would be greater efficiency and more purposeful use of your time.
? What would be the first thing to go if you had 4 hours less in every day?
When people know their time is short, the smart ones start to cut out the unnecessary clutter…
Take for instance, someone who has terminal cancer. The doctor tells them they have 6 months to live… What do they start to do?
They start spending time with their family, they start donating time and resources to the church and to ministries that make a real difference in people’s lives, they start to do things they always felt like they should do.
Illust: My dad, when he was dying from esophageal cancer, spend that last months and weeks of his life developing a closer relationship with the Lord than he had ever known before because he knew it was time to start investing in something that would last beyond the grave: something that would do him some good a million years down the road.
You see, we have eternal souls. Not eternal bodies, but eternal souls and we need to be diligently investing in God’s Kingdom, where we want to spend out eternity.
Illust: When I worked for the television news station, on a slow night, we directors could talk and joke around during the newscast. Sometimes we’d make mistakes because we weren’t being alert enough since we were so relaxed… But when the news was hot, breaking stories and unpredictable things were happening, all the fluff went right out the window. We knew there was a job to be done and we were focused, because we knew there was no time for joking around.
Some of our best news came when time was of the essence, because we were focused and working together on what was most important: getting the news out to everyone who was tuned in…
That’s our job, friends: to get the news out: the news of salvation through Jesus. The news that there’s a better life out there when we partner with God… It’s a simpler life because it’s pure and powerful.
When people know their time is short, the smart ones start to cut out the unnecessary clutter…
In the book of Matthew 6:19-21 Jesus told us, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
? How do I invest in the Kingdom of Heaven? Find out what God’s doing and partner with Him.
When you invest in God’s business, you get God-sized returns.
It’s time to start investing in the important stuff, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. People get serious and we’re most productive when we know the time is short. So, in essence the paradox is true: the less time we have, the more we really do get done.
Take control of that TV and replace it with some meaningful activity or a meaningful relationship like that with my family or God… Do you know if we begin to see the importance of our time and take control of it, we could add 9 quality years onto our lives! 9 years, just by turning the TV off!
I could add nine years of life full of simple moments, like when I take the time to admire a rose or look into the sky and see the signature of God’s in its’ design, or when I slow down enough to savor a well cooked meal, and when I share intimate moments, encouraging words with my family and with my God… When I sit down and take time to spend talking with my God…
Not just TO my God, Yammerin’ on, but WITH my God where I hear back from Him, I see the direction He’s taking my life. I join Him in that purpose and I begin to see extremely powerful and wonderful things taking place in my life because I spend time with God. When I pray to Him, He always responds in powerful ways.
That’s simple life and God wants you to enjoy His simple pleasures…
GOD WANTS LIFE TO BE ENJOYABLE FOR YOU.
He’s designed you to enjoy all the wonders of this creation: the beach, the sky, the birds and the flowers…
The problem is that you and I are so good at tangling ourselves up in the webs of life that we forget to appreciate the simple life…
? How in the world did life get so complicated and what are the steps to living the simple life?
EVERY COMPLICATED ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE BEGINS WITH ONE WORD:
CONFLICT.
Every complicated aspect of your life begins with conflict.
Life gets complicated the exact moment your will, your beliefs, your interests, your schedule or the things you are listening to contradict God’s Will, Truths, Interests, Schedule or Voice.
When your will and your schedule and your ways become into conflict with God’s, then your life is no longer simple: it becomes very complicated…
JONAH’S CONFLICT WITH THE WILL OF GOD:
Take for instance, a man in the Bible named Jonah. About 775 years BC God clearly instructed Jonah to go to Nineveh for the simple purpose of asking them to repent. But Jonah decided to go his own way, and that’s exactly when his life became complicated. You see, God had designed Jonah with a special purpose in mind. The purpose was to speak the truth of God to people.
God wanted to save a nation of unbelievers through Jonah: a people in conflict with God because of the way they lived and worshipped. But Jonah had his own will and it was in conflict with God’s. When Jonah decided to ignore the call of God, he made an extremely self-centered decision and his life became complicated that instant.
Most people think, if I turn to the Lord, my life is going to be constrained by all these rules and regulations in the Bible, but in reality turning to God is the most liberating thing a person can do. There’s nothing worse than being a slave to your own sin and there’s nothing worse than never seeing anything happening in your life beyond your own means…
Living with God is the most simple thing you can do to improve your life, and more than that, it’s a powerful life! God is able to do SO much more than all you could ask or imagine and once you realize that, you’ll never want to live by your own means again!
Jonah didn’t want to join in the purposes of God so He decided to drown out the voice of God.
IT’S CALLED SELECTIVE LISTENING… Happens in your family all the time… Illust.
Jonah exercised selective listening when God told him to go to Nineveh. He decided, “I’m going to run as far away from God’s will as possible,” so he took a boat in the opposite direction, and that’s when Jonah’s life became complicated…
No longer simple… No longer living under the will and protection of The Lord… Jonah was living under the oppression of a guilty conscience: trying to justify his defiance. There was no more peace in his heart. In fact his mind was so conflicted with guilt that he made himself busy trying to drown out the voice of God… as a result, he nearly drowned himself in the ocean of conflict…
When your will is conflicted with God’s, your life will become life the waves of an angry sea: an ocean of conflict. Jonah was living proof…
Jonah 1:3-17, “After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.
4 Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up.((LIFE IN CONFLICT threatens to break apart.))
5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. (Jonah ignored the problem. Meanwhile, all the other men worked to make life simpler: #1, THEY GOT RID OF ALL THE UNNECESSARY STUFF!!! BACK TO BASICS.)
6 The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish."
(#2: GET UP AND CALL ON YOUR GOD!)
7 Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity." They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.
8 So they asked him, "Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?"
9 He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land." (Why the trouble? Because Jonah’s God is REAL and HE HAS A PURPOSE FOR YOU THAT HE WANTS FULFILLED!)
10 This terrified them and they asked, "What have you done?" (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.)
11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?"
12 "Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you." (#3: Jonah CONFESSES his sin.)
13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before.
14 Then they cried to the LORD, "O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O LORD, have done as you pleased."
15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm.
(#4: Life became simpler THE MOMENT the man was SUBMITTED TO GOD!)
16 At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.
17 But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.”
#5: GOD PROVIDED DELIVERANCE and SALVATION for Jonah!
Jonah’s life was a type and a foreshadow of Christ’s sacrifice to take place 775 years later.
Matt 12:40-41, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.”
HIS NAME IS JESUS!
Deliverance, salvation is available to everyone in the world who stops their running from God, and who submits themselves to the greater will of God: who partners with God in purpose.
Do you want to live the simple life? It all begins with a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Acts 4:12, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."
His salvation is so simple… There’s nothing complicated about it.
You know, I’ve had people come and take our new Christian class to learn about how to be saved.
I’ve had people sit in that room and pray the sinners prayer with me, ask Jesus into their heart and then never come to church again because they couldn’t accept the fact that salvation was so simple.
People complicate the Gospel when we imagine it takes anything more than the blood of Jesus to cleanse us of our sins… That’s all it takes: one sacrifice made once for all. Take it or leave it.
It’s simple: the simple truth and the simple life.
Are your ideas in conflict with the Lords? Is you will in conflict with His? Have you been running from God for one reason or another?
Get up and call on your God. Submit yourself to the Lord and He will provide deliverance for you: deliverance from your circumstances, from your sins and your habits…
Ps 91:14-16, "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."
God wants us awakened to a simple fact today friends. He has a solution for the Paradox of Your Time. It’s a Paradigm. A paradigm is a pattern or model. It’s not modeled after the world, which says we should spend all our time running after the things we want to possess: all those things that demand our time: the things, which in 20 years will be land fill…
The first step to living the simple life is a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Problem is, we are so busy running after things that we have ignored our relationship with Him.
