Serving: Trail Hazards & Safety Tips
June 23, 2002
We continue this morning in our series on the Christian life, from what are commonly called, “The Psalms of Ascent”.
These were Psalms specifically written for travel, as the early Israelites made their ascent every year, upwards to worship at the temple in Jerusalem.
We said that each one of these Psalms describes a different dimension of Christian living. And the Psalms we’re going to be looking at this morning are no different
As you continue following God, there are going to be all kinds of hazards and obstacles that will threaten to trip you up and knock you off the beaten path.
If you’re like most of us, you’ve probably received one of these, (or something like it), in the mail this past week. According to my letter… I qualify for a “MasterCard Executive Business Card”! In fact, I’m to be congratulated for my “preferred credit status”. Says here that I’m such an important person, that I deserve to have a platinum colored credit card! Wow! Heady stuff!
All I have to do is sign on the dotted line, and I can have a $100,000 credit line at my disposal! And look at this! A 9.99% variable APR! No annual fees and… I’m pre-approved! This is my lucky day! I’m rich!
Oh… wait a minute! (take out glasses) According to these teensy-weensy little letters on the back page…the terms of my account are subject to change?
What’s this? If I fail to make my payments on time… I lose the low rates? If I default, my APR will be increased to a “Default APR” equal to the higher of the account APR plus 3%, or the variable rate index, PLUS a default margin of 17.24% (Don’t know what it means, but it’s not sounding as good as I thought!)
Don’t you just hate fine print? You’re promised one thing, only to find out that it’s got an escape clause attached to it!
If that’s you, then I’ve got good news. When Jesus called you & I
to follow him… He didn’t use any fine print! He was totally upfront & honest about the cost and the complications that following him would involve…
He told us in Lk.12:49-53 that obeying Him would cause division in our homes… believing spouses would struggle over going to church with unbelieving spouses, other family members would hassle us…
In John 16:33 , he told us, “In this world you will have trouble”.
In Luke 14:25 Jesus said that in comparison to loving him, if you didn’t hate your mother, father, wife, children, brothers, sisters… and even your own life… you couldn’t be his follower.
Now, I’d say Jesus was pretty upfront about the downside of following him! Wouldn’t you? No fine print here!
So after hearing that, if you still decide you want to follow Jesus, believing that the benefits (eternal life, abundant joy in this life, purpose & meaning, healthy strong marriages, great relationships, deep friendships…ect)
If you believe that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages… then I want to talk to you about 2 Trail Hazards you need to be aware of as you travel the upward way!
Now, each of these 2 Trail Hazards are taken from each of the 2 Psalms we’re going to be reading this morning. (123,125)
The 1st trail hazard that you need to be careful of is taken from Psalm 123. Let’s read it…
I look to you, heaven-dwelling God,
Look up to you for help.
Like servants, alert to their master’s commands,
Like a maiden attending her lady,
We’re watching and waiting, holding our breath
Awaiting Your word of mercy.
Mercy, God, mercy!
We’ve been kicked around long enough,
Kicked in the teeth by complacent rich men,
Kicked when we’re down by arrogant brutes.
Trail Hazard #1… BURNOUT
Burn-out was originally a psychological term used to describe a condition that happens to members of the “helping” professions… (pastors, nurses, doctors, social workers ect.) It occurs when a person works to hard, for too long, in a pressured environment.
The burn-out victim becomes drained at every level – (physical, emotional, attitudinal, and spiritual).
In fact there are 3 distinct stages that the “burn-out” candidate goes through…
1. The “Honeymoon Stage”: in this stage you start out with enthusiasm, commitment and great satisfaction… but eventually the energy reserves begin to drain off and you move into the 2nd stage
2. The “Fuel Shortage” stage: Mothers of newborns and pre-schoolers experience this a lot!
This stage is characterized by exhaustion, detachment, illness, anger, depression and escapist behavior, (like drinking, drugging, or obsessive garage sale-ing!)
3. The Crises Stage: At this pt. pessimism, self-doubt, apathy, disillusionment, and an obsession with your own problems sets in.
When I read that this week, I thought to myself… “You know, I’ve seen Christians working hard in the church go through every one of those stages! And I always thought it was a purely spiritual problem!”
They start out enthusiastic about Christ and His church. Nobody can do any wrong! The pastor is perfect, the people are perfect, God answers every prayer…excitement is high! But then as they get more and more involved, their initial enthusiasm begins to wear off.
Their satisfaction with the church begins to wane. God doesn’t seem to be listening anymore. Other Christians begin to wear on their nerves. The pastors messages don’t seem to be as good as they used to be.
So they become detached, disillusioned… “If I have to suffer… is God real?” They start missing bible studies, skipping responsibilities… Others notice how sensitive they are to any and every perceived wrong… they anger easily.
And then the “Crises Stage” hits… they get obsessed with their own needs and how nobody seems to care about them any more… And finally disillusionment takes over, and you never see them again!
When a person 1st becomes a Christian (and begin to realize that they can trade in all of their sins, all of their hurts, all of their faults… and get eternal and abundant life in return, because of what Jesus did on the cross…)
… their natural response is this overwhelming sense of thanksgiving. As a result, no one ever has to tell them to serve God, they just naturally WANT to serve him out of gratitude.
It’s like, “God, you have given me soooo much, and I know I can never repay that… but what can I do for YOU out of appreciation?”
That’s the perfect motivation for doing good works in the Christian life. And there’s nothing wrong with that at all!
We start out (as this psalm describes it)… “looking up to the heaven dwelling God”, focusing on Him, “like servants alert to their masters commands”
We’re serving Him… working in the church, reaching out to others, meeting the needs of the unfortunate… it’s great! For a while…
But for some reason, (and nobody knows exactly why), the motivation slowly changes… false motives begin to seep into our lives…And when our motives change, the slow steps towards burn-out begin.
Let me give you two false motives to beware of …
1. Motives of Expectation:
If we’re not careful, we’ll begin to do things for what we can get, not for what we can give!
It’s like the businessman who needed millions of dollars to cinch and important deal, so he went to church to pray for the money.
By chance he knelt next to a man who was praying for $100 to pay an urgent debt. The businessman took out his wallet and pressed a new $100 bill into the praying man’s outstretched hand.
The man opened his eyes, saw the $100 and was overjoyed! He thanked the businessman profusely and then happily left the church.
The businessman promptly closed his eyes and began to pray, “Lord, now that I have your undivided attention!”
Have you ever done something that you thought would get God’s attention… and then almost subconsciously believed that because of what you did… He’s obliged to answer your prayer? I have!
We can even begin to get the idea that if we serve God faithfully, nothing bad will ever happen to us. And if it does, we get mad at God for not holding up His end of the bargain!
I remember reading of a time when the late Jack Benny was accepting an award. As he stood to give his acceptance speech he said, “I don’t deserve this. But I have arthritis, and I don’t deserve that either!”
We have to remember that we don’t ‘deserve’ anything from God, and everything we do get is just another example of His love and mercy.
The 2nd false motive for serving, comes from…
2. Motives of Esteem:
Somewhere along the way, our serving God gets all wrapped up in our self-worth. We fall victim to the “need to be needed” and so instead of serving others out of love for God, we begin to serve others out of a love for ourselves!
See, we all have these unmet needs for attention and worth, and if we’re not careful, helping others is the way we get them met.
I’ve known people who purposely kept themselves busy doing God’s work, because it gets them the sympathy strokes they want. “Poor Sister Suzy, she’s soooo busy! She must be godly!”
If your motivation for working in the church moves from appreciation of God, to trying to gain some kind of approval or acceptance from God & others, you’re not going to make it very far in the Great Adventure! You’re going to burn bright for a little while and then just kind of fizzle out!
If you find yourself going through the stages of burn-out this morning, (whether from life in general, or from working in the church) and you want to be restored, I’d suggest you do 3 things…
1. RE-EVALUATE Your Schedule
This might come as a shock to some of you… but you may be trying to do too much! And no matter how good you think you are, eventually, you’re going hit the wall!
Before you drop yourself, you need to drop a few of your pet projects.
Sometimes we think we’re overworked when in reality we just need to learn to delegate better. We’re trying to do it all, when others could benefit from helping us out.
Moms, if you’re working a 40 hr. job outside the home and then coming home and doing all the work around the house… when you have strong, healthy kids and a husband sitting around watching… you’re being silly! Recruit some help! It won’t hurt them & it might help!
2. RECHARGE Your Emotions
If you’re feeling burned out, you need to know that replenishing emotional strength takes time – usually more time than it took to drain it.
The best analogy I can think of is a car battery… If you sit in a parking lot and run all of your car’s accessories (radio, headlights, heater, horn, & power windows) – you can probably sap the battery in about 10 minutes.
After that massive drain, suppose you took the battery to a service station and say, “I’d like this battery charged. Be back to pick it up in 10 minutes” The mechanic would laugh at you!
He’d say, “Sorry! We’re going to have to put this battery on our overnight charger. It’s going to take 7-8 hrs. to bring it all the way back up”. It has to be re-charged slowly or else the battery will be ruined!
The same is true with you & me! A massive drain of emotional energy requires a slow and steady charge! Some people do that by running, others by taking a bath, reading, or listening to music.
But in order to re-charge you need to take some extended time every once in a while to do something totally unrelated to what caused the drain in the first place!
The 3rd strategy for burn-out is to…
3. RE-FOCUS Your Priorities
Whenever I think of wrong priorities, I think of Martha in the N.T. The bible says in Luke 10:38 that while her sister Mary was sitting listening at Jesus feet, she was hard at work preparing dinner. It must have been ‘beef stew’, because all the while, she was on slow simmer!
Finally, she’s had enough, and asks Jesus to tell Mary to get off her duff and help out! She probably thought Jesus would do just that, but was surprised when instead, He scolded her!
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things. 42 Only one thing is important. Mary has chosen the better thing, and it will never be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41,42 (NCV)
Jesus affirms that Mary’s motives were purer than her sisters because her priorities were right! He said that Mary had chosen the BETTER thing! Spending time with Him!
See, when we begin to serve with wrong priorities, if people don’t show us the appreciation we think we deserve… we get frustrated and lash out in anger! But in that moment our true motives are revealed!
The Psalmist has a better idea… Re-focus Your Priorities on God!
When we’re worn out from trying to live the Christian life in our own strength we need to cry out with the Psalmist… “Mercy God! Mercy! We’re watching and waiting, holding our breath, like servants awaiting their masters command, we’re awaiting your word of mercy.”
The cure for burn-out comes when we stop praying, “God, give us what we deserve”, and we start praying, “God, give us what we need… and what we need is Your mercy!”
We don’t pray, “God be nice to us because we’ve been such good people, or because we’ve served you faithfully in the church… “, BUT…
“God give to us because by nature You’re a giving caring God! That’s what You do, because that’s who You are!”
Give us your strength. Give us Your rest. Give us Your peace!
I think the best commentary on this psalm is found in Pauls words to the Romans in chapters 12-16. Listen to how it starts in 12:1 (The Message version)…
”So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering.”
Other translations tell us that to take our lives and offer them up to God is our “reasonable service” or our “spiritual act of worship”.
The word “service” there comes from the grk. word ‘latreia’ which means, ‘liturgy’, or ‘worship”. In otherwords, Paul is telling us that the ability to serve others is the result of worshiping and focusing on God!
In fact, Psalm 123 doesn’t say a thing about serving others, instead it concentrates on being a servant of God. If you’ll do that, the natural outgrowth will be in serving others from a right motivation.
God promises that if your motives are right… if you’re seeking God’s face not His hand… then He will give you all the power you need to serve Him…
In Acts 1:8 Jesus promised the apostles the power they’d need to carry out His will, and remain faithful over the long haul. (READ)
The word He uses for power is “dunamis”. It’s where we get our English word for ‘dynamite, but it’s even closer to our word for ‘dynamo”.
See, dynamite goes off with a big boom, but then it fizzles out… but a dynamo, continues to produce power day in and day out, over a long period of time.
If we’ll learn to cry out for God’s help instead of trying to serve Him in our own strength… He’ll give the kind of “dynamo” power that will overcome burn-out!
The 2nd Trail Hazard I want to talk to you this morning about is found in Ps. 125… (READ)
Trail Hazard #2… BACKSLIDING
If you’ve ever climbed much, you know its hard work. The tug of gravity is always pulling on your shorts. There are barriers that need to be skirted and obstacles to be overcome.
Now normally, with a little bit of determination and stamina… people complete the climb they start. But sometimes the foothold gives way and there’s a slide backwards.
A couple of weeks ago we all witnessed how disastrous that can be when a whole group of climbers slipped and fell into a deep hole while on Mt. Hood.
When the rescuers went to get them, their helicopter blade hit the mountain and sent them crashing down the side of steep embankment themselves. (how many of you saw that on T.V.) Tragic!
Now as tragic as it was for these climbers to fall off a mountain. It’s even more tragic when a Christian falls from his faith.
The results of backsliding from God have tragic consequences on you, your family and your church. Prov. 14:14 warns that, “The backslider in heart will have his fill of his own ways”.
What’s that mean?
It means because He’s no longer walking with God, the backslider is going have his fill of his own mistakes & troubles. Mistakes in business, in relationships, in life. Instead of keeping out of temptation, they’ll run smack dab into it.
They’re filled with their own cares, because they’ve turned back to selfishness. It means to be filled with your own anxieties, your own worries, your own pressures and prejudices.
The backslider is always looking for ways to justify himself, and becomes deeply angry when anybody tries to tell him He’s wrong.
Most of all, a backslider is full of his/her own self-condemnation. Because they used to know what life with God is like, they can’t enjoy their new life without God.
They’re like a man with a splitting headache; it hurts too much to keep it, but not enough to cut off his head!
They have enough religion still in their system to make them miserable, but not enough to make them happy!
Now although the term ‘backslider’ is mentioned in Ps. 125, it’s not the main message of Ps. 125. The main message of this Ps. isn’t the precariousness of the Christian life, but the security of the Christian life.
Living for God isn’t like walking on a tightrope without a safety net, while a breathless crowd sits below just waiting for you to fall!
David is emphasizing the safety of being right with God, and I think that’s the clear emphasis of the rest of the bible too!
“Those who trust in God are like Zion Mountain! Nothing can move it, a rock-solid mountain you can always depend on! Mountains encircle Jerusalem, and God encircles His people!”
City life was pretty dangerous in the ancient world (in fact come to think of it, city life is pretty dangerous in the modern world too), but the dangers were different. Back then the countryside was full of roaming marauders and invading armies, ready to attack at any sign of weakness.
Because Jerusalem was surrounded by hills (and in fact, was on a hill), it was one of the safest cities you could live in 4,000 years ago. Besides having a wall all around the city, the hills acted like a natural protective fortress.
In the same way, just like the mountains that encircle Jerusalem, this Ps. is telling us that if you’re a Christian this morning… God is surrounding you with a circle of protection. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s an awesome thought!
In otherwords, you don’t always have to be looking over your shoulder, afraid of what ‘evil thing’ is going to bushwhack you without warning!
Recently, when I heard the news of another little girl being kidnapped from her home in Utah & fear attacked my thought life.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a daughter to one of those animals!
But the Lord quickly reminded me of His protection for my family, and I believe that one of these guys would have to fight off an army of angels before he could ever get at one of my kids! I had to choose to trust in the Lord’s fortifications!
Furthermore, we don’t have to live in fear that one day we’re going to just wake up, slip on a banana peel, and lose our salvation.
The general overarching truth of scripture is that once you’re a Christian, God will keep you in His family. But I need to add, just as this Ps. adds…there are exceptions to the rule.
Falling away is a possibility. If you want to stubbornly walk away from His protective perimeter by an act of your own free-will, and expose yourself again to the dangers of the world… that’s your choice!
The bible speaks of men like Judas Iscariot. Hymenaeus and Alexander in I Tim.1:19-20, as men who “made shipwreck of their faith” You can’t read Hebrews 6:4,5;10:26,27 and deny the possibility of falling away from the faith. (READ)
He didn’t force us to trust in Him in the 1st place and He won’t force us to stay against our will. Falling away is a possibility because God respects human freedom.
It’s like the story of a sheep who found a hole in the fence and crept through it. He was so glad to get away! He wandered far and eventually lost his way & couldn’t get home again.
Then he realized that he was being followed by a wolf. He ran and ran, but the wolf kept chasing him. The wolf was just about to catch the little defenseless sheep…when the shepherd showed up and rescued him out from the jaws of death.
He lovingly picked up the frightened sheep & carried him back to the fold, but in spite of everyone’s urging, the good shepherd refused to mend the hole in the fence!
You say, “Pastor, if it’s possible to defect from the faith, how do I know that I won’t, or even worse… that I haven’t?”
It’s true, we may wander like lost sheep, but we don’t do it blindly or without our knowledge…it takes a deliberate, sustained and determined act of rejection on our part…to walk away from God.
And even then, God is a faithful shepherd who pursues us relentlessly. We may break our promises, but He won’t break His!
We’re secure not because we’re sure of ourselves, but because we trust that God is sure of us…
You say, “Well what if I find myself wandering this morning off the narrow path? Can I come back to God? Answer? YES! And here’s how…
In Rev. 2:4,5 Jesus is speaking to the Eph. church and accuses them of abandoning the love they had for Him… and then He gives them the steps necessary to regain their 1st love.
1. REMEMBER
He says in vs. 5 “Remember the height from which you have fallen”.
God wants us to remember where we were with God before we fell. He wants us to reminisce about the good times, the close times of fellowship we had with Him. How He blessed us and looked out for our needs. The joy we experienced under His care.
Just like the “Prodigal Son”, who thought about how good it used to be in his Father’s house, we need to remember how good we used to have it, and then compare it with our present lifestyle.
We need to be thoroughly and completely homesick for God!
And then vs. 6 says we need to…
2. REPENT
“Repent and do the things you did at first”
We talked about repentance a few weeks ago. We said that repentance means you need to be totally fed up with the “ways of the world”.
You need to be sick of the lies, sick of the false hopes, sick of the way your life has turned out. So fed up in fact, that you’re willing to turn around and come back to God.
And then, you need to do just that. You need to…
3. RETURN
Like the Prodigal Son, who lit. got up out of the pig sty, you need to get up from where you’re at and come home to your heavenly Father!
Come to Christ, owning up to the sin and the shame. Taking responsibility for the actions YOU took, nobody else. And then lastly…
4. RECEIVE… Receive Gods forgiveness. Accept the fact that He still loves you and never wanted you to leave Him in the first place
When mountain climbers are in dangerous terrain, on the face of a cliff or on the slopes of a glacier, they rope themselves together.
Sometimes one of them slips and falls – (backslides). But not everyone falls at once. Those who are still on their feet are able to keep the backslider from falling away completely. That’s the kind of church we want to be!
And of course, in any group of climbers there’s a veteran climber in the lead. Heb. 12:2 identifies for us who He is… Jesus, who both began and finished the race we’re in!”
I want to encourage you to keep your eyes on the lead climber this morning! He is able to protect us and keep us from every hazard that we may run into on our way to the top!
(Let’s pray!)
