REC Ruthlessly Eliminate Hurry

Intro to this series:

Have you ever noticed that breakthrough comes after a change of Rhythm

And a change in Rhythm is something that we tend to think about in the beginning of the year…In fact we often say this year I am going to do this…every single day

Whether it is working out or eating right or doing something like that We at least like the idea of changing something to achieve something else

Well last year as I taught the marriage series and as we had the prepare and enrich seminar we had 40 couples take the prepare and enrich.

we had 40 couples worth of Data on our church…And that is a lot of data…

So because I am not aloud to see the results of these prepare and enrich tests, just our presenter I asked him…Ok you have 40 couples worth of Data on our church…What is the predominant problem…If there was one thing what might that be?

Well He told me a few things: One Forgiveness…and we are going to get there this year

But two: He said that it seemed to him that marriages are experiencing a lot of stress. Stress for time…Stress for money…Stress about kids Stress about life

So as I thought and prayed about that The word Sabbath kept coming to mind for me

Because to practice the sabbath is a refuge from the stress…

To practice sabbath is to enter into what one Rabbi calls, a cathedral in time

Whether or not we realize it, Time can be oppressive in our life…Is is that silent thing in the background that just keeps ticking along…

We wish we had more of it…

We are almost never grateful for the time that we have in the first place.

I have a perfect example…My kids are all now in their teens or entering their teens and I love it…I love that they are independent, they have their own ideas, they can do chores…

But I see these families with three little kids and I am like wow…you blink and it’s over, that stage where they are small is so precious and so valuable…you will literally never get that back…And I miss that time!

Time works in other ways…We are dominated by our need to get somewhere on time or to leave on time or to turn in our work on time…Time is that silent thing in the background that always has the capacity to stress us out…

Even right now, in every sermon I give, I know you have an attention span but also we have this delicate mix in children’s ministry, If I preach too short and we are over early then the teachers won’t be done in time but if I go too long then we’ve got a few volunteers with a bunch of kids…

Time…is just always on your back…

To practice Sabbath is to take a day to refuse to allow time to dominate over you…To forsake your own work and to be in the presence of the Lord!

So I want to intro the Biblical idea of Sabbath to you through a video from The Bible Project: These guys are really great and will help us to set the stage for this series:

SABBATH VIDEO

hurry

So as we get into this today: Here is a question for you:

Is being busy a virtue for you?

Here is how you know…You are at work you are at a party and people ask you how its going.

What is your response: Well its just been really busy with work and family lately …Almost as if it is a badge of honor…

And we all say it….I think for a few reasons…

1 it’s true…and

2. it makes you feel impotrant

There is even a cultural expression that I have found to be pretty true: If you want something done, ask a busy person…

And thats true too

Our world conditions us to be busy and to even find our value in that same sense of being busy

Our world trains us for hurry!

To be in a hurry is rewarded in the workplace

Speed of life is so crucial that we spend thousands of dollars on the latest phone, tablet or computer all for a marginal increase in speed

We are so conditioned that hurry is a value that we are often incentivized if things are done early or on time.

We as a people have learned to serve our sense of hurry more than we climb into the quiet place of listening for God’s voice.

Our sense of hurry drives us to an unholy business that will leave you starving for God

And remember the main premise of our marriage series? Good relationship with God translates into good relationship with people!

So keep in mind, I am doing this series, partly for marriages here at REC

Finding and even desiring to be quiet and alone with God is so uncommon

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Let’s go over a brief history of speed

Before the 1800’s

The fastest horses could get you between 50-80 miles in a day , So for thousands of years, the fastest people were warriors, curriers or merchants

What does 80-100 miles look like????

So if you were really trying hard, you could get to Santa Cruz from here in a day …But we are talking leaving very early in the morning and arriving well into the night

Just after the 1800’s there was an increase in shipbuilding technology and the fastest sailboats could go about 110 miles in a day with good wind.

Buy the 1830’s ship building improved more and you could get about 250 miles out of a boat

By the 1860’s you go go 250 miles per day on a train and trains just kept getting faster, by the 1920’s you could go about 900 miles on a train,

today the fastest train if there was track long enough could take you 8000 miles if it want non stop...

By the 1950’s there were early passenger planes and you could travel 1500 miles in a day…I mean imagine telling your friends…I am flying to New York and it is going to be so fast, it will only take me 2 days!

Now, it is a 5 hour flight, with wifi so you don’t even have to miss work because there is wifi

Now modern planes can take us 10,000 miles in a day!

right now individuals can drive 1,000 miles a day

Our lives have been sped up by the technology all around us...

But it’s not even that

How many of you wished you had more sleep?

For thousands of years people would go to sleep a couple of hours after dusk.

The average amount of sleep people got was 11 hours, usually more.

During the time of the renaissance people got so much sleep that it was very common that there was a brief waking hour around 2-3am where people would do chores, read, or even socialize with their neighbors. Then they would go back to sleep for a couple of hours...

This was called segmented sleep…and it was very common

Well after this was the industrial revolution and people started waking up earlier and going to bed later

But everything changed in 1879....In 1879 the light bulb was invented

Our sleep times went from an average of 11 hours to where it is today…at 6 hours...

Some of you would be excited to get 6 hours of sleep!

Our lives are hurried along and there is no change of pace on the horizon

In 2007 the iPhone came along…that spawned android phones and now we have screens in our face for 14 hours a day...

We have relentless notifications…We have likes and comments to deal with…emails are ever present…the boundaries for work are all but gone

It seems like you are at work non-stop because that email is always there...

All of this has built a condition of the soul called: Hurry

Renown Christian thinker, Dallas willard comments that

“Hurry always excludes God. It has an attitude of fending off something terrible that's about to happen. But your body has to find peace knowing that God is in charge. That's why Isaiah 28:16 says, "...he that believeth shall not make haste."

-Dallas Willard

So why don’t we see God they way the Old Testament people did?

Why don’t we experience God in this way....

We have so distracted ourselves with hurry that we have lost the ability to be silent before God

Look at Psalm 46:10

Psalm 46:10 NIV

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

This verse has made it onto bookmarks and bumperstickers,

And every time someone posts a picture of a sunset, somehow Psalm 46:10 gets quoted....

But the reality is that we are not good at being still! We are not good at doing nothing!

but do we even know how to be still and silent before a holy God any more?

Silence before God is where breakthrough happens

If you want to put this verse in to practice…Try it today…Go home and aim at doing nothing.

Go home and be still…You have one agenda item, knowing that God is with you!

Don’t take it as a time to read or listen to music…Find a quiet place and just sit there....Let me tell you something, you desperately need this

We will often ask why we don’t have Old Testament God experiences any more…and I dont know, maybe we are all just a little too busy for that

lets take a look at one of these Old Testament experiences:

In the book of 1 Kings

Elijah has just killed 100 prophets of Baal, by calling fire down from heaven…So if your new to the Bible these are people who represent a false god...

And this woman Jezebel is after him and wants to kill him…She is kind of powerful…So Elijah runs away

And it’s even kind of ironic or funny in the story when he runs away because the reader is like..>Dude you just killed 100 bad guys by calling fire down from heaven…dont you think God will be faithful when it comes to Jezebel?

1 Kings 19:9–13 NIV

There he went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.” The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Even in the “Old Testament God experience” God speaks in a whisper...

This Hebrew word that is used for Whisper is

“di-ma-mah”

The word is used interchangeably for the words

Calm

Silence and

stillness

We ask questions like why don’t we have Old Testament experiences with God

and we fail to realize that old testament people encountered God in quiet, silence and unhurried lives.

But we look for God in the fire and the earthquake in the wind

We go to church and hope and wish for some sort of spectacle to amuse us…

We are constantly looking for the next distraction

But God wants us to practice being still and silent before him!

We live in a world where to be silent is an uncomfortable anomaly!

We travel quickly every day

We rarely sleep

We have a smart phone shoved in our face 90% of the time

It is no wonder that we have become addicted to hurry and we have lost many of these experiences with God

Here is what some great christian thinkers have said about hurry over the years

“To walk with Jesus is to walk with a slow, unhurried pace. Hurry is the death of prayer an only impedes and spoils our work. It never advances it.”

-Walter Adams

“We, for every kind of reason, good and bad, are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion.”

Ronald Rolheiser

Wickedness gets hidden through a hurried life

Dallas Willard

What I hope we see in Jesus is an invitation to an unhurried life.

It doesn't mean that you are unproductive

It doesn't mean that you are lazy

Because Hurry is a condition of the soul.

Matthew 11:28–30 NIV

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Every week we will at this scripture from a different angle.

I am convinced that this scripture is the key to an unhurried life.

Here is why. This is an agricultural society, they knew how Oxen worked.

If you were to put two young oxen in a yoke together and have them plow a field, they would have been useless…They would wear themselves out so quickly. They’d walk in circles

Any farmer knew that you always connected a younger oxen with an older oxen

The older more experienced oxen would set the pace for the younger oxen.

Jesus’ invitation is to take up his yoke—to travel through life at his side, learning from him how to shoulder the weight of life with ease.

The invitation that Jesus gives is to walk with him at his pace of life.

To step out of the burnout society to a life of soul rest.

So when Jesus is saying take my Yoke.

He is giving them a picture of oxen plowing a field and telling them, listen when you are walking with me you will walk through life with me…You’ll be connected walking at my speed and not yours.

I will set the pace in your life!

And here is the deal, Jesus wont make you lazy…Ever! Laziness is not tolerated in the Bible. Jesus simply sets the pace for work…He sets the pace for life.

See

Accepting Jesus is the act of reorganizing your life around his life. IT IS BEING YOKED TO HIM

Jesus doesn’t bend his life to fit your schedule!

I think what happens when we accept Jesus is like, ok Jesus…Here is my life come and take it…We assume that Jesus has to reorganize his life around our lives…And we do things like “Make Time” for God

But the reality is that some of us have said yes to Jesus but never done the hard work of reorganizing our lives around his life...

We are far more likely to ask Jesus to adapt to what we are doing...

Stopping…Engaging in silence....Trying a new Rhythm is so uncomfortable

Jesus has offered his yoke but we would rather say, I like what your doing Jesus but I’m good I’ll watch from the sidelines...

Jesus you are moving too slow, never mind I’ll take the wheel! But the reality is that we would hate that because Jesus would probably just ditch the car all together and walk…

I think if you could go back and time and have a face to face encounter with Jesus…You’d find a person who was relaxed!

I mean he started his ministry with 40 days of prayer and fasting...Who does that?

Why did Jesus do this? Why did Jesus start his ministry this way?

Why is it that whenever large crowds came Jesus would retreat to a quiet place?

Why is it that Jesus wouldn't allow others to speed him up?

Because Jesus never served a sense of Hurry! He was on his father’s time and agenda

Hurry is a drug…It controls us, but we need it to give us purpose in life...

Jesus was relaxed and he invites us to walk with him in an unhurried life

Just like every week in this series, I want to invite you to sabbath

The reason I did this sermon is that I think it will do you little good to have a sabbath without permission to do nothing durring that sabbath.

To take one day and recognize that you can not have more time

you can not keep up with the pace of life if you tried

The Sabbath is God’s gift to you to relentlessly eliminating hurry

Sabbath

as the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann said...

“Sabbath, is ‘an act of resistance.’…An insurgency and insurrection agains the ‘isms’ of the Western world—globalism, capitalism, socialism materialism, all of which sound nice but quickly make us slaves of the rich and the poor.” (168)

This week I want to challenge and invite you to actually sabbath…To spend some time before the lord Silent…

Silence is where Elijah hears the still small whisper of the Lord and how can we hear the whisper of the lord when we are actively listening to the shouts of our phones!

Silence is the great unhurrier of our souls

SILENCE AND SOLITUDE

“The noise of the modern world makes us deaf to the voice of God, drowning out the one input we need.”

Communion

Participation in life with Jesus