Reset Part 4

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Mountain trip with the kids

Many of you found out one of the main reasons God has been testing my margin - new baby

Psalm series

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Older kids finished John the Baptist and are now talking about Baptism

Little kids are still in creation

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Intro:

So, we’ve been in this series called reset. Talking about how sometimes in life you need to just reset.

We talked about how in order to reset you need to create space to do it - margin

We talked about some truths to realize in order to do that well

Last week Justin did a great job of talking about finding rest in our reset

The importance of silence and solitude in our lives, how Christ actually models that for us many times

And how we are designed by God from the beginning of creation with a pattern to live our lives. To yes work, to cultivate, to subdue, to strive, and to toil, but to also rest.

And that when we live our lives red lined all of the time then not only does it lead to stress, and weariness, often depression, sickness and all of these things but ultimately it is living outside of the pattern in which God intended us to live

And if I had to guess that may be the most difficult one yet for us. Rest.

No one has time to rest, no one has time to take a break, and I think it’s because resting feels like wasting

And let me add that this is a skill to be learned and a discipline to be gracious with yourself

This doesn’t come easy for most

I like silence, I get very little around my house, but I love it. My wife gives me a hard time a lot because we can take a trip in the car and I’m good to not say a word the whole time. I’m not afraid of silence

But for me, true rest, is hard to find.

Because even after 30 seconds of silence and focusing on the Lord and thinking on His goodness and who He is and what He’s done for me,

all of sudden I remember we need bread at the house,

I wonder what we are going to have for dinner

Do the girls have anything this afternoon?

What day is it? Well they have gymnastics this day, cheer, this day, dance this day,

how in the world did I end up where my world revolves around these activities.

Thank you God for that one

Oh yea God. I forgot!

So, this is difficult! We are so trained and engrained to just go, go, go

But what we see throughout Scripture, and if you’ve ever done this regularly you can probably attest, that sometimes it’s in the quiet that we hear God the loudest.

Right, because we throw off distractions, we drown out the noise

And if we can ever just forget everything we have to do and truly focus on Him then He begins to stir and speak and the HS in this moment will bring things to your mind and to your heart and it can be some of the sweetest moments you have with the Lord

Today, I want to wrap up this series with the most important part of the whole thing.

The things that are most important. The things in our lives that matter the most.

So, we create margin, we realize truths, we find rest, so that we can do the things that the Lord says is most important in our lives

We have a real bad tendency to do a lot of pretty meaningless things but then not doing or avoiding the most important things

As a parent, you learn this really quickly.

It’s all the dumb unimportant stuff that you’re really hard on them for and then the big stuff that we slack and make excuses on

God forbid johnny didn’t make his bed this morning so we are gonna have throw down drag out fight over that but then johnny goes out this weekend gets high and hammered and doesn’t come home until 2 am but “You know he’s just a teenage boy.”

Wait a second, we’ve got our priorities wrong here.

So here’s what I want to do. I want to show you how my priorities look, in my life. So, I’m not saying this is exactly what yours should look like but if you are in a similar stage of life then it might be pretty close

Now, I’m not saying that I model this perfectly every day but here is what I’m striving for.

#1 God

We are going to spend more time on this in just a second so I’ll just leave it at that for now

#2 my wife

Ephesians 5:25 NIV

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

I am to give myself up for my wife

No where else in Scripture does it say to do this for anyone other than your wife

She takes sole priority over anyone and anything else on this earth

#3 My kids

Notice here, it’s spouse then kids.

We are called to make disciples of all nations and if we neglect to that in our own homes we fail to do that all together

God has entrusted me with 3 soon to be 4 blank heart canvas’s

How I father them, I how talk to them, how I spend time with them, how I treat them will mold their hearts and impact the rest of their lives

#4 Ministry

Now, a couple of things on this one. Some may say, shouldn’t this be 2nd. Shouldn’t it be God and then the ministry He’s called you to?

My answer to that is yes and no. Yes it is God and then ministry I just believe that my ministry is first and foremost to my wife and kids before it’s to anyone else.

But after them, after I have ministered loved and fulfilled the role of husband and father then I am most concerned about the role of pastor

Second, some of you may say, well you are a pastor so yea you have ministry but I don’t have that.

My answer to that is, you most certainly do. It just doesn’t look like mine.

Ask yourself this, where are you able to be the gospel and share the love of Christ or be the hands and feet of Jesus?

That’s your ministry!

Some of you think of your work solely as a job. For most of us in this room it is also your area of ministry.

How are you using your job to minister to others?

#5 Relationships, job, hobbies

Here’s what I will say: all of these things are important, they just aren’t most important

And here’s what else I say about this before we move into the meat of this today.

When you say yes to one of these, you are saying no to something else.

And when we say yes in the wrong order we are saying no to the most important things

So when I say yes to my wife first, When my spouse becomes my god then God quits being God in my life

When I say yes to my kids over my spouse my marriage suffers

When my ministry becomes most important everything above it suffers

When my job, my hobbies, my relationships become the most important thing to me

When I say yes to them, I’m saying no to something or all of the above

Ok so this is important

Now, there’s a moment in Jesus’ life where he himself is asked this very same question.

in Mark chapter 12 we see the religious people of the day come to Jesus to try to trap Him. They want to ask Him these questions that there’s no real right answer to in hopes that He stumbles or says something that they can accuse Him for so that they can take Him down

So they come to Him and ask Him about marriage in heaven

And how it was law back then to marry your brothers wife if he were to die and if brothers kept dying and the wife kept remarrying who’s wife would she be

Jeret’s version of Jesus’ response is, you’re gonna be so wrapped up in me marriage won’t be a thing

so He kinda dismisses them and then we read this encounter

Mark 12:28 NIV

28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

Ok Jesus, what is the most important thing?

now remember that this was a teacher of the law. That’s what Scripture says here.

What we know about these guys is, the most important thing to them was the law.

the scribes concerned themselves with proper exposition of God’s law

And for many of these laws there was a hint of interpretation needed to understand them

And so they had earned a reputation as being experts in interpreting the law of God

The rabbinic tradition counted 613 commands given in the Torah, which is the first 5 books of the Bible, often known as the pentateuch or more simply the Law

In these 613 commands were 365 prohibitions and 248 positive commands

Among these rabbis would interpret and differentiate between what they would call “heavy” and “light” commandments.

Light commandments made less demand one’s will or possessions

Heavy or weighted commandments concerned life’s essentials according to God

Heavy commandments were given utmost respect and claimed seriousness.

If broken, it was assessed the severest of penalties

So it was common for Rabbi’s and teachers of the law to pride themselves on what they believed to be heavy and light commands

But also on their ability to sum up the whole of the law

Based on ancient texts and manuscripts there were Rabbi’s who hinted around and came close to how Jesus answered. But never had anyone answered that question the way Jesus does here.

So this teacher of the law comes to Jesus and is asking Rabbi to Rabbi, of the most important things, which is most important?

The same question we are asking today

And here is Jesus’ response

Mark 12:29–30 NIV

29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

If you want to know what the most important thing is that you could ever do. Here it is.

Love the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

At the top of all of our lists ought to be this.

Now there are different segments of this right?

Jesus doesn’t just say, “give me your heart.”

He say love me, give yourself up for me, in the area of your heart, in the area of your soul, in the area of your mind, in the area of your strength.

And you can not fully love God until you fully love Him in all of these areas

And this is difficult because more than likely you’re pretty good at 1,2, maybe 3 of these areas but there’s one of these or some of these that are more difficult for you.

And you can give God the areas of your life you want and be religious or you can give Him the areas He asks for and be saved.

Jesus love me with all of your heart

Love me with your affections/emotions

Let me be honest here, this is the area I struggle most with. And this is probably where most men do.

Sometime, this looks like what we talked about last week.

Sitting in silence with the Lord

This is thinking on His goodness and faithfulness

This is worship and adoration in its purest form

Love me with all of your soul

This is your will/ your desires

This is a call and demand to let that which moves the Lord to allow it to move you

This is a realigning of your passion

Love me with all of your mind

So this is studying the Lord

Digging in His Word to know Him more and more, deeper and deeper

So we don’t read through our Bible to see what He can do for us, we study and dig and chew and read and meditate to know Him that’s the goal

Love me with all of your strength

This is let your actions and the things that you do be in service and love to the Lord

This is that idea of being the hands and feet of Jesus

So here is a good way to think about this.

Pray, plan, pursue

So seek the Lord, today God how do I love you this way?

And come up with a plan of how to do this.

This isn’t just going to come naturally. It’s going to take effort, it’s going to take work, it’s going to take discipline, so plan out how you will do this, of course adjust where needed, allow the HS to guide you and lead you in the moments but you can’t just pray about and then wish for the best

Plan to do these things

Then, after you’ve prayed, after you’ve planned, go do it! Pursue it with all that you have and what will happen is you will end up doing the 2nd most important thing that Jesus says

Mark 12:31 NIV

31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

There is nothing greater than these. This is the whole point. And I think we miss it far too often

Naomi winning all of the tickets and being disappointed she had to wait for them