Clockwork: Living in the Present
by Shannon Lewis 10/15/06
The last time we visited this sermon series we looked at the first dimension of time management: Learning from the Past. This week’s sermon of the 3 part series we’ll be exploring: Living in the Present.
Just a quick recap before we begin this morning. In the first part of the series we saw that we can learn from the past. Learn from the mistakes of yesterday. We’ve all had those times in our past that we’ve flopped, fumbled and failed. But the key to learning from the past is to get up, dust ourselves off and try again. It’s been said before that the cure for the fear of failure isn’t success, but rather it is failure.
If a person fails enough, they’ll eventually learn the process of success. Failure isn’t a death sentence; it is more like a new lease on life. You have the opportunity to attempt it again. Where failure is most damaging is when it keeps us from trying again. The surprise isn’t in the fact that we failed at something but that we are unwilling to take another stab at it.
I took Chase golfing with me last week on my day off. Chase had never spent any real time on a golf course so this was really a first for him. He refers to a golf course as the “big flags”. The reason for this is because there is a putting green there at the golf course which a couple of months ago I took him to. He was putting on the green with me. On the green the pins are only about 3 feet high with little flags attached to them. In contrast, the pins on the “big” golf course are very tall and have “big flags” on them. So it isn’t a golf course, it’s the “big flags”. Well, we went to the big flags and being his first time, besides the fact he’s only 4, he wasn’t hitting the ball exceptionally well, though I might say better than me some of the time. But when Chase was on the T box, he might hit the ball straight or he might not. When he would hit the ball wrong, he would say something like, “oh that wasn’t good”. But you know what he did? He didn’t quit and say I can’t do this; no he got his ball and hit it again. He hit it until he was pleased with the outcome. He wasn’t going to fail because he didn’t hit it right, he would hit it until he succeeded.
Many times the same is true for us. We can’t quit because we failed at something. We simply learn from it, readjust and go for it again. That’s the true difference in failure and success.
Today we consider how to Live in the Present.
I remember my school years….they weren’t that long ago! But the teachers did something everyday. They took a “roll call”. Now I don’t know if they still do this, maybe I need to ask Gracie, but the reason for the roll call was to determine if a student was absent or present. Obviously if the student was absent, there would be no response but if the student was present, the teacher would hear a response from the student of “Present”. This would indicate to the teacher that Shannon was present. I was there, in the class room, eager and ready to learn. Now we all know that’s not always the case, right? Just because a student is present in the class room isn’t always indicative of an eagerness to learn. I knew many students, including myself on occasion that were there but they weren’t present. Their bodies were there but their minds and thoughts were somewhere else. You know what I mean? It’s like I see you here but you’re not really here.
Well, that’s precisely the way many people live their lives. They’re here but they’re not present. To be present is to be aware, alert and advancing.
I want to look at these three aspects of being present.
AWARE
Aware in that you’re watchful, you’re looking for God in your life. It means you’re awake! You’re not sleeping in class. When God calls on you, you’re ready to respond in willing obedience. God opportunities are missed everyday because we’re not present. We’re here, but our minds aren’t aware of what God is trying to do through us.
William James said, “Compared with what we ought to be, most of us are half-awake.”
Do you know what happens to the individual living a life that is half-awake?
They miss God opportunities! They miss divine appointments! They forfeit supernatural experiences! All of which are vital to our lives. We must capture the essence of who God is and what God is attempting to accomplish in us. But if we’re half-awake, we’re not present to capture them.
Missed Opportunities
As you re-trace your life, you may see those God opportunities never seized, never taken hold of; those opportunities to share the hope of the Gospel with someone. That time you felt God tugging on your heart to take a step in the direction of faith; those moments when God spoke to you to give something but withheld. God reveals himself in opportunities presented to us.
We can search the pages of scripture and unfold countless times when people were faced with an opportunity, opportunity to obey God, trust God, and believe God.
One such opportunity occurred when God ordered Moses to send 12 men to spy out the land of Canaan; I want to you take notice of something real quick with me. These 12 men weren’t randomly picked from each tribe. God made it clear that in Numbers 13:2 that each man would be a ruler in the tribe from which he was taken. So these aren’t just a random group of men, they are carefully sought out leaders from every tribe of the children of Israel. Why do I point this out? Well, hold that thought….
These 12 spies go and search the land they all see the same things they all record the same sights. They come back to Moses and Aaron to give the independent report of each spy. It’s important to remember that each spy had seen the same things while spying the land. They all saw the same people groups; the children of Anak, the Amalekites, the Hitites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites! Also, they all saw that the land truly did flow with milk and honey. They all saw the fruit of the land and it was better than any fruit they had ever seen before. After 40 days of investigative searching they are now ready to give their reports
So, what was the report offered? 10 of the 12 spies said, “We went to the land you sent us to and surely it does flow with milk and honey and the fruit of it is unlike any other. NEVERTHELESS, the people in the land are strong, the cities are walled and very large and we saw the children of Anak, now, the children of Anak must have been some pretty bad dudes, there were only 3 of them! Among them were the Amalekites, the Hitites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites there! We were grasshoppers in their site!
2 of the 12 said, “Let’s go right now and possess the land because we’re well able to do this!
These 2 groups, the group of 10 and the group of 2, were speaking different languages. They were not speaking the same language; one was foreign to the other.
Once group spoke the language of doubt while the other spoke the language of faith!
Let me share with you the language of doubt according to Dake.
Language of doubt:
We saw.
We are not able.
We are not as strong as they are.
Language of faith:
We are well able.
The Lord will bring us into the land and give it to us.
The Giants are bread for us.
They are defenseless.
The Lord is with us.
Do not fear!
You see, there is God opportunities at stake here…will we believe God or will we believe our eyes?
Will I listen to the language of doubt and miss this divine appointment or will I listen to the language of faith and jump into this thing with both feet? We all have to make the choice at different times in our walks with Christ. If you’re following Jesus, you will come to a place in your life where you will either listen to the voice of doubt or voice of faith. And the language you choose determines the result you achieve.
Now I asked you to keep in mind that these were not just 12 men randomly picked from the masses of 12 tribes. They were carefully sought out rulers from each tribe. I bring this up to say this.
Leaders of God’s people must be mindful of the language they speak; church leaders as in Pastors, Staff Pastors, and Board Members. People look to us and hear the language we speak concerning God opportunities. Are we speaking the language of doubt or the language of faith? We have to understand that if we miss out on divine appointments as a church it doesn’t just affect us; it affects all the people that God has asked us to lead.
Because of the evil report brought to Moses concerning the land of Canaan by the 10, all those 20 years old and older who complained about God never went into God’s Promised Land. They died in the wilderness.
Numbers 14:36, 37
“And the men which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the Lord;
Even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the Lord.”
As God’s leaders, we must not cause doubt to rise in the hearts of other people through the language of doubt!
Zig Ziglar said, “We don’t live alone. Our actions and deeds affect other people, many of whom we will never know."
We have to be awake and ready to act upon God opportunities and divine appointments.
We have to learn to speak the language of faith not the language of doubt. It comes naturally to us to look on God opportunities with our own eyes and say, it’s impossible. It cannot be done. There is no way that could work.
That is the language of doubt! Living in the present! Here and now God wants to do incredible things in our hearts and lives but will we allow it? Will we listen to our doubt or walk in faith? These are the questions that must be answered.
Here’s what’s important to remember about this story, God did bring a group of people into the land. Those who spoke the language of faith!
Then, we have to be Alert to Live in the Present.
ALERT
This is very similar to awake, but I want to bring another aspect out of it.
One definition of Alert is this: Quick to perceive and act!
In other words, you see it and you act on what you see quickly!
Caleb said, “Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it!”
Modern Translation: “Let’s roll, right now and get it done! It’s ours and we can do this!”
Caleb wasn’t interested in wasting time through vain deliberations. He knew this was a God Opp and he was ready to go get it.
Carpe Diem= Seize the Day!!
Do you get the idea that Caleb missed the big picture somewhere; that at some point between the milk and honey and the abundance of fruit, he forgot about the 3 bad boys of Anak and all the rest of the tribes in the land who were killers?
Did Caleb somehow misplace the realities of what he saw over the last 40 days? Is he alert to the realities?
The truth is Caleb and Joshua was the only ones that DID see the big picture. The other 10 were zoomed in on the downside of the situation. They were focused on the problems, the obstacles, and the battle that lied ahead. They failed to zoom out and gain a God-sized perspective.
Listen, anytime you focus on the problems, you fail to see the bigger picture of who God is and what He is trying to give you. You fail to see what God is attempting to do in you. You see the struggle, the lack of resources, the insurmountable odds; what we need to learn to do is like Joshua and Caleb, zoom out! Get a God-sized perspective on the situation. Because if you get a God-sized perspective on any situation, regardless of the enormity of it, you’ll be alert! You’ll be ready for action!
You’ll be quick to perceive and act. If you’re indecisive, unsure, questionable, and speaking the language of doubt, you will never accomplish or receive from God all that he has for you and you won’t be ready to act when the time comes.
To be alert means to be on the watch. I’m watching God, watching his movements, watching his plan…always chasing the Spirit of the Lord as if to lay hold on him. I’m alert and when God moves, I don’t want to be left behind. I want to be on His heals. I’m praying to stay alert, I’m reading to stay alert I’m engaging God that I wouldn’t miss his offerings of opportunity!
A man was sitting at twilight dreaming in his easy chair. He thought he saw the figure of a beautiful being glide into the room and approach him with outstretched hands. He gazed upon the angelic creature and was filled with delight at her graceful movements and the radiance that shone about her. He wondered greatly what was the meaning of this apparition, but made no motion himself until he saw the figure begin to draw back and gradually fade from his sight. Then he came suddenly to the consciousness that he was about to lose entirely the presence of this bright being and, springing from his chair, he sought to detain her. But the form vanished, and when he called out to her to return a voice replied sadly, "You should have held me while I was there. My name is Lost Opportunity. I can never come again."
It’s like sitting in that class room and you’re day dreaming about something and the teacher calls on you to answer the question. But she won’t repeat the question. She moves on to the next student who gives the correct answer and you think to yourself, “I knew the answer!” You missed an opportunity.
What’s worse, is when God calls on you to do something extraordinary for Him and you’re spirit isn’t alert and you miss the God opportunity. God uses someone else and you see what could have been.
That is precisely what happened to the 10 spies. They missed the opportunity to enter into God’s Promised Land. For them it was a situation of “What could have been”.
Living in the Present requires you to be alert in your spirit, always aware of God given opportunities because if you miss it, it’s gone. There is no guarantee of another ever coming again!
The final point this morning is this.
To Live in the Present, you must be Advancing.
Advancing in the sense that you’re not being idle, you’re life is not gathering dust.
I want to talk about God desires that are failing in our lives. I call these “Dusty Desires”. These are those things that God is calling us to but we fail to advance in them. There could be many reasons for this but some of the more common ones are:
1. Lack of time.
2. Lack of energy
3. Lack of creativity
4. Lack of faith
5. Lack of resources
1. Lack of Time
Most often we lack the time because of the demands placed on our time. We haven’t yet learned the principle of prioritizing. We hear about it from the preacher/teacher but it hasn’t sunk in yet.
Do you remember not long ago I share a thought with you about this very thing? I said, to be busy is to be lazy. I know at first hearing, it sounds backwards but here’s the logic.
Just because someone is busy, doesn’t mean they are doing great things. They’re doing this and they’re doing that, they’re going here and they’re going there. To the rest of us it looks as if they are super busy people. Their lives are in high demand. They’re time is a premium. Much of the time what appears to be business is really laziness. Here’s how:
That person may have failed to do the hard work of prioritizing their life. Listen, it’s not hard to waste time on everything under the sun. The hard work comes when we sit down with a pen of honesty in our hands and from our hearts begin to write down and prioritize what is most important in our lives. And then to live by those newly established priorities.
A lack of time is one way that we fail to advance in our lives.
2. Lack of Energy
We’re so tired. We’re worn out and life is really bearing down on us. Well, let’s look at where we are exerting our energies. We may find that we’re treading water too long in a particular area of our lives.
In the Seventh and Eight grades, I was on the swim team. I always loved swimming and diving. I was jumping and diving off of high dive platforms as young as 8 years old. I remember in practice on the swim team part of the training was not only laps doing the butterfly, backstroke or breast stroke, it was treading water. I hated this the most. We would have to tread water until the coach was tired. The problem with this was the coach was never IN the water. He could last a long time while we were treading water. I think I disliked treading water so much because there was never any forward motion. You just kind of hung out there in the water trying to keep your nose above the water line. It gets pretty old pretty quick.
Sadly enough, that’s the way many Christians live their lives. They’re just sort of treading water. No real direction for advancement, just hanging out in the water.
God never called us to that. He called us into a movement. A movement of love and compassion and extraordinary living as the Spirit of God leads our lives!
Stop treading the spiritual waters of mediocrity and begin swimming in the sea of God given opportunities!
3. Lack of Creativity
Failing to nurture your creative abilities will most assuredly sign your spiritual death warrant. I believe that! Passion is withered and blown away by the winds of apathy when we fail to live creatively. I’m not going to go too far into this point as I’ll be starting a 3 part series dealing with Creativity in coming weeks. Suffice it to say, where there is no creativity in our lives, there isn’t any real spiritual advancements made. And that my friend is dangerous for the Christ follower!
4. Lack of Faith
At the root of the 10 spies that said “we can’t”, was a huge lack of Faith. Slice it and dice anyway you want, but it all boils down to one thing. NO FAITH.
As a matter of fact, God even says to Moses in Numbers 14: 11
“…How long will it be before they believe me for all the signs that I have shown to them?”
They said it was because of the giants in the land, they said it was because of the walled cities, they said it was because of the size of the cities, they said it was because of the sons of Anak, they said it was because……you see my point? They had all the reasons in the world to blame it on but they never pinned it on the root cause. NO FAITH!
They just didn’t have the faith that Joshua and Caleb had.
Do we do the same thing? We sense God urging us in a new direction and we say, “I can’t do it because…….”. And we begin put bullet points up for God to view. When in reality, it’s because our faith is weak. God never asks us to do anything for Him that He won’t be there to see us through. Never. He’s not that kind of God.
How do you build faith on your life? By practicing faith; yes that‘s right. If you want to build faith, begin using faith. Maybe start out small. Show God that you’re willing to grow and advance in faith.
Let me make an observation here.
God will never work in your life at a pace faster than you can keep up with. God will work at your pace. He’s not going to “out do” you. He’s not going to “out work” you. He’s going to stick by your side to see that you get where He has destined you to be. Trust Him and build on that faith. The more you build faith the stronger faith will become.
Finally the last reason for our failure to advance in God is:
5. Lack of Resources
Now this one hits many people right between the eyes. Because we all at one time or another think to ourselves, I just don’t have the means. I don’t have the time, talent or treasure to do what I think God wants me to do.
And we buy into the lie that anything done for God that is going to be noticed or significant demands a ton of resources.
Can I just say something here? I don’t care what it is that God asks anyone to do, if a person is relying solely on themselves and what they have to get it done, they will never have enough anyway.
You don’t have to have all the “right” stuff, you just need to have the God “stuff”. What is that in your hands? That was the question God asked Moses. Moses said, “It’s my staff.” God said, “Throw it down.”
We know the story well, it turned into a snake and God then told Moses to pick it up again by the tail and it became a staff again.
Now after some time of questioning God about what He was asking Moses to do, Verse 20 of Exodus Chapter 3 says, “…and Moses took the rod of God in his hand.”
The significance is…As long as the rod was the property of Moses, it was just a staff. But the moment Moses surrendered his resources over to God, the staff became Gods. Moses didn’t face the challenge in the might of his own resources; he met the challenge in the might of God’s resources!
Friend, what is in your hand that God can make His resource to equip you in the opportunities He is sure to pass your way?
God wants you to Live in the Present but you must be Awake, Alert and Advancing!
