Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor Sermon Podcast
Simply Christian (#4): A Day in the Life of a Disciple (Don Bromley)
Simply Christian (#4): A Day in the Life of a Disciple (Don Bromley) :: July 29-30, 2006
My name is Don Bromley, I am the associate pastor here. I want to give you a couple updates. First off, the Mike and Philly Brooks had their visa application meeting and they were approved. So they will be here August 11th. So that, thank you for everyone who prayed and has been keeping that in your prayers, because that's just obviously a really huge. They answered a prayer. I have one of those stories of something dumb I did, and I just thought we were singing that song in Spanish, and I thought this is kind of funny. I sold something to somebody in Italy on eBay, and we do the eBay thing, and they sent me a question about the item, and it was much a gobbledygook, and I replied, "I'm sorry I don't speak Spanish." (audience laughing) That was not the smartest thing I've ever done, but I just realized it, as we were sitting there singing that song, "Wait a minute, that was Italy. I don't speak Spanish in Italy." Oh well. So I might not get the best rating on that particular transaction. For the past few weeks, we've been looking at some of the themes that form the basis of what it means to be simply Christian, the title of an anti-rights book that we have for sale out in the lobby. In other words, we've been looking at how Christianity answers the longings of the human heart when it comes to our thirst for spirituality, when it comes to our desire for relationships, when it comes for our longing for justice, and this week I'm gonna take a little different tack, and I'm going to ask the question, what does it mean to live as a Christian, to be a follower of Jesus? We've been looking at why would you be a Christian, or why would you embrace this belief that Jesus was who he said he was. Today I wanna look at what does it mean to actually follow Jesus. So I wanna start with a question, and that is this, how do you know if you're a disciple of Jesus? How do you know if you're a follower of Jesus? It's an interesting thing to me that the question that more often gets asked is, how do I know if I'm a Christian? And usually what people mean when they say the word Christian is, how do I know if I'm going to heaven? How do I know, in other words, if I've met the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when I die? You know, people sometimes understand the gospel to be the announcement of the minimal entrance requirements for going to heaven. But here's the problem. Jesus never went around saying, here are the minimal entrance requirements for going to heaven. That was never the gospel that Jesus preached, but sadly in our day, that's often what's misunderstood to be the gospel. The gospel that Jesus proclaimed, if you go back to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the gospels that Jesus proclaimed is that the kingdom of God is now at hand. That was a message that Jesus preached. Repent and believe that the good news of the kingdom, in other words, that it's now possible for ordinary men and women to live in the power and the presence of God, that is the kingdom of God, what Jesus called the kingdom of God. Now, of course, that includes the promise of forgiveness, through grace. It includes life with God in this life and the one after. But it includes more than that. It includes life here and now. And to anybody who wants that kind of life in this world and in the world to come, Jesus offers a single invitation and he offers it over and over. He says, follow me. Become my disciple. Become my follower. Become a student of me. That's his offer. That's what a disciple does is to follow. So how do you know if you're a disciple? Well, what I want to suggest to you is this. A disciple is a person whose ultimate goal is to live as Jesus would live if he were in my place. In other words, given my life and my set of circumstances, how would Jesus live if he were in my shoes? The disciple says, I want to learn from Jesus how to live the life that God intends for me to live, how to be truly human. And we have to learn that one day at a time. We can only learn to do that one ordinary day at a time. Because if you can live with Jesus one day, then you can live with him every day. So that's what I want to talk about. And it's not primarily a matter of doing different things than you're already doing. Primarily, it's about doing the things that you already do, but doing them differently. Learning to do them in a way with Jesus. So let's take a minute and let's look at an ordinary day and learn how we can live and learn from Jesus in an ordinary day. So let's begin our day with Jesus looking at sleep. Let's look at the topic of sleep. You know, it's really interesting that from a scriptural perspective, the day actually begins with night. Go back to Genesis, the book of the primeval account of creation, Genesis chapter one verse five says, and there was evening and there was morning the first day. Not morning and evening, but evening and morning the first day. And that rhythm is repeated all the way through that creation narrative. And there was evening and the morning the second day. In Jewish life, when does the Sabbath begin? When does the day of rest begin? It's sundown, not it's sun up, but it's sundown the day before. Eugene Peterson, he wrote the message, translation of the Bible. He writes that the Bible is trying to help us remember something in this. The Bible is what he calls it, teaching us the rhythm of grace. In other words, everything doesn't depend on me. I begin the day by going to sleep and God goes to work. You know, God is at work in this world while I'm sleeping. Our bodies are resting and being healed. Crops are in the ground growing. God is causing things to happen. And I'm not doing anything. I'm sleeping. It's part of what Peterson calls the gift of grace. And then I wake up and I join God in his work, but he's already started it. God has already begun what he's doing. So I begin my day by going to sleep. Now the Bible actually has quite a fair amount to say on this topic of sleep. So I want to talk about how do we sleep with God or how do we view sleep in a way that brings God to the center of it. The Bible says that sleep is an act of trust. Psalm 35 says, I lie down in sleep. I awake again for the Lord sustains me. In other words, God gives me sleep and God wakes me up. Sleep is from God. The Bible says that sleep is a gift from God. Psalm 127.2, in vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat. Now how many of you does that kind of describe your day? I get up early and I stay up late working, toiling for food. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for God grants sleep to those he loves. That's in the Bible. For God grants sleep to those he loves. Ken's got a cool little thing on the website under Ken's Corner. And it's an exercise called bedtime exercise for daily awareness. And I'd really recommend you check it out if the whole issue of sleep has been kind of a struggle for you or how do I end each day in a way that brings God to my mind. And the basic gist of the bedtime exercises is this. It's taking a few minutes at the end of each day before you go to sleep to review your day with God in your mind. In other words, just you and God go through each part of your day reviewing it. If something you've done that you feel guilt about comes to mind, confessing it, asking God for forgiveness. If you're blessed in some way, in whatever way it may be, saying, "Oh, thanks God for that." If concerns come up, giving those concerns to God, it's okay 'cause God's gonna be up all night anyway, so just unload your concerns. Give those things to God before we go to sleep. Learning to spend a day with God is the most important spiritual skill that we can learn. And it's not outside the reach of any of us. Now what's the next thing you do after you sleep? Well, hopefully you wake up. Hopefully you wake up. So how do we wake up with God? Now this might be really hard for you. Waking up might be a real struggle in your life. As you know, there are two kinds of people in the world. There are people who love to get up in the morning and there are people who hate people who love to get up in the morning. So you fall in one of those two categories and maybe you fall in that second category of people. Maybe not even God really likes being with you first thing in the morning. (audience laughs) But what I wanna say is, as soon as possible, as early on in your day as possible, try to arrange to have a few minutes just to be alone with God. You know, as soon as you can, after you wake up, just arrange to have a few minutes alone with God. It doesn't have to be a long time. If you like to spend a long time, that's great, but it doesn't have to be a long time. My wife, Julie, and I have just started trying to do the divine hours together. And one of the things we do is in the morning time, do the morning divine hours together. And it just takes a couple of minutes, but it's really a wonderful way to acknowledge God first thing in the morning. And the reason that it's so important is that, like I said, we acknowledge our dependence on God. That's the first thing we can do when we wake up saying, in other words, to God, I'm not going to try to live this entire day and try to function just all through my own strength and in my own power, but I'm gonna acknowledge my dependence on you. And then maybe, if you have that few minutes in the morning, tell God, you know, what are you concerned about for this day? What do you have coming up that you're kind of anxious and worried about, you know, maybe a meeting, or some particular task at work or some challenge or maybe something you're concerned about, you know, in one of your children's days that you're worried about. And we can ask God to identify fears and help to remove them. The Psalmist says in Psalm five, three, "In the morning I lay my request before you and wait in expectation." And that's what God's inviting us to do in the morning. Lay our requests before Him. And then last thing, when you spend your few minutes with God in the morning, renew your invitation to Jesus to spend the day with you. And that kind of sounds funny, but in other words, invite the presence of Jesus to be with you as you go throughout your day. You know, renew that invitation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he wrote a tremendous book about living our days with Jesus called "Life Together." And Bonhoeffer says, "For Christians, the beginning of the day should not be burdened and haunted by the various kinds of concerns they face during the working day. The Lord stands above the new day for the Lord has made it, all restlessness, all impurity, all worry and anxiety fully before Him. Therefore, in the early morning hours of the day, may our many thoughts and our many idle words be silent. And may the first thought and the first word belong to the one whom our life, to whom our whole life belongs." In other words, give God the first word. Give God the first thought. You know, it's the whole point of waking up with God, that thing that we do every day. Now, for many of us, what follows waking is washing. You know, you can ask my wife, I take one shower a week whether I need it or not. Many of you are probably the same way. Washing is an element in your early morning. Washing is something we can do with God. Thanks, Josh. "The Psalmist says, "In Psalm 51, "cleans me with hiss up, "and I will be clean, wash me, wash me my sin wider than snow." It says metaphorical, you know, in other words, using the language of washing to describe God's forgiveness and his cleansing of us. Paul, again, in Ephesians 5, says that Jesus intent and his desire and plan is to make the church, which he describes as the bride of Christ, radiantly cleanse by the washing of the water of the word so that she'll be without blemish or stain. So tomorrow morning, you know, when you're doing your morning routine, whether it's taking a shower or a bath or cleaning up with the sink, doing the stuff that you ordinarily do, it means just pausing to take a minute and say, "God, just like this soap and this water is washing me and cleaning me, "may your word and your spirit cleanse my heart of any impurities. "Any false intentions I've had, "things that mislead me, destructive desires, "things that get me off of track, "God, I just pray that you would wash those away from me. "God, just cleanse me, just like this water and this soap is cleansing me. "Then you can go out of your shower or your bath. "You know, really understanding I've been cleansed. "God has washed and cleaned me. "You know, my sins, the things that I carry around of me, "the things that cause guilt have been washed away. "I don't need to live with guilt and with shame. "It's a wonderful way to enter your new day with a clean conscience "and knowing that God is going to continue to cleanse "and to purify your spirit through the day. "So, you know, look, I mean, waking and washing "and things that you do as part of your ordinary day, "this whole practice of spending our day with Jesus just means doing them differently, "doing them in a way where we invite God into them. "Then there's eating. Most of us eat breakfast in the morning. "There's probably a good chance that most of you are going to eat something "at some point tomorrow. "And scripture tells us that, you know, food is a gift from God. "You know, we're told Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread. "Some one of four says, 'God brings forth food from the earth.'" It's this wonderful psalm how God feeds all his creatures and provides for every living creature, including us with bread, with food that sustains us. And so this is an invitation to acknowledge that every time we eat, it's not just an accident. It's not just because we have this wonderful agriculture, it's because God has provided for us. It's an opportunity to acknowledge that God has provided. So this is an invitation to eat with God, make eating a time where we spend some time and learn from Jesus. Now, eating with God may affect how you eat. There's actually a command in scripture in Ecclesiastes that says, "Eat your bread with joy," describes how we're to eat, how many of us eat with joy. Some of us do, some of us love to eat and we're filled with joy when we eat. But how, you know, sometimes meals can be just this time of hurry. So often we're eating on the run. I can't tell you how many times I've eaten lunch while I'm driving, which is not a good idea. We don't even think about God when we sit down to eat so many times. But God intends that our meal times be times of celebration. You know, eat your bread with joy. Be reminded of God's goodness too when you eat. So tomorrow, you know, we can make just eating an exercise in gratitude. You know, it's actually sitting down and stopping and noticing our food and considering that God's been good to us and thanking him. This is Dietrich Bonhoeffer again. God will not tolerate the joyless manner in which we eat our bread with size of groaning or pompous, self-important busyness. Through the daily meal, God is calling us to rejoice to celebrate in the midst of our day. On this topic of eating meals, Robert Putnam, he wrote a book called Bowling Alone, which talks about the loss of community. He says, "In the last two decades, we've witnessed one of the most dramatic changes in our society, the loss of a really important tradition of family connectedness, the evening meal. Throughout human history, families gathered around the meal. It has been a centerpiece of their connectedness. And in one century, mostly in one generation, that's to a large extent been lost. Families eat together much less today than they did before. And when families do eat together, there's a really good chance that they'll do it in front of the television set. I know that was how it was when I grew up. And that's my natural inclination now, is when we get something to eat. I say, "Well, why don't we just eat in the living room and watch something while we eat TV?" And Julie had a much better example for eating. He says, "Well, why don't we eat at the table so we can talk to each other?" "Okay, well, maybe that's a good idea." So I'm trying to learn there. But if you're part of a family, it doesn't mean necessarily you can do that every night given your circumstances, but it does mean being intentional about eating dinner together as a family. Another thing you can do when it comes to eating is eat meals with people who don't necessarily know God or don't have a connection with God, the people who are far from God. Eating meals together is a wonderful way to share your life and your faith. Jesus did that all the time. If you look at Jesus' life, he was all the time eating meals with people who were far from God. Or another thing you do is eat with friends. Jesus ate with his disciples on a regular basis. Go out for a meal with friends who are life-giving and life-sustaining for you. That's something I try to do pretty regularly is go out for a breakfast or a lunch or something with a friend who's an encourager, someone who can remind me of what God's saying in my life. It's just really an important thing. The next major chunk in our life after waking up and washing and eating is for most of us doing some kind of work. How do we work with Jesus? How do we make God part of our work? The single largest block of our waking time for most of us is spent working. It's a really important part of life. I want to say a word about work and what work is from a biblical perspective. Because in the last few centuries, we've come to equate work with just with having a job or getting a paycheck. And as a result, many people, for example, people who are retired or stay at home parents or people who are unemployed or thought of as not working. You hate to see this, but sometimes people will ask the mother of young children, "Do you work?" Well, you remember in school where your teacher said there's no such thing as a stupid question. Well, that's a stupid question. So don't ever ask a mother of young children if she works. Now, work is essential to what it means to be made in the image of God because it says in Scripture that God works. From a biblical perspective, work is the creation of value as I serve God, as I care for His created order, as I seek to benefit the lives of other people. Work is the creation of value. Now, that includes, if you have a job, that includes paid employment. It also includes household chores, work done around the house. It includes for students studying, going to school. It includes volunteer work. So here's the question. Under this whole category of learning to work with Jesus, if tomorrow Jesus were to show up for the work that you do, you know, looking just like you, obviously. Otherwise, it'd probably be a little strange. But if He showed up in your place looking like you, would things go any differently than they did for you this last week? Would He do anything a little different than how you did it? If tomorrow Jesus were to show up for my job looking just like me, would things go any differently? I mean, that's an important question to ask because every day we go and we do work. It's an opportunity to learn from Jesus, to learn to do our job the way He would do it. You know, Jesus spent most of his adult life working. We often forget this. But Jesus spent most of his adult life working. He worked as a carpenter. His father was a carpenter and he shared in that trade. And he was every bit bit as much in his father's will when he was working at carpentry as when he was being a teacher or a preacher. What do you think Jesus' carpentry work was like? It's kind of a funny question. I don't know of anybody who actually has a piece of something that Jesus made. There may be some claims on eBay, but I don't think we actually have anything He actually made. But do you think that the work He did was done in a really sloppy way? Do you think He had a lot of benches and chairs returned to the shop because they weren't well constructed and He cut a lot of corners? Do you think He complained a lot on the job about the other people He had to work with? There's a fundamental statement about work in Scripture. You might want to put it up where you work. And it's from Paul's letter to the church at Colossae. And he says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart." Whatever you do, whatever it is you do, it's a very broad category. Work at it, not just hard, not just with effort, but work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for men. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. In whatever work you do, whether you get paid for it or not, the Bible says ultimately it's the Lord God you are serving when you're creating value. So let me give you some questions that as followers, as students of Jesus, we want to mull over when we think about this whole concept of bringing God into our work. Am I making an idol of my work? In other words, do I sacrifice time and energy that really ought to go to my family and my relationships, my friendships, to my rest, to my prayer life? Do I sacrifice those things inappropriately for work? Another question, how do I treat my co-workers? Do I treat the people I work with the way that Jesus would treat them if you were in my place? If I'm in a position of authority, if you are somebody's boss or supervisor, do I treat those who report to me in a way that Jesus would treat them? In other words, am I truthful with them? Am I fair with them or do I try to manipulate them? Do I work for their growth and for their development? Do I try to motivate them in a way that honors their personhood in the way that Jesus would? Do I regularly ask God for help, for wisdom and guidance in my work? Am I scrupulously honest in my work? For many of us, that involves how we fill out our expense reports. You know, are we really honest in how we conduct ourselves at work? How are our ethics? And is my work in line with the sense of what gifts and calling God has given me in my life? You know, and for many of us, that's not the case. For many of us, we're in a time of transition or we're building up to something that we eventually want to do. We're not necessarily doing what we believe God has called us to right now. But are we taking some steps to move in that direction? And in the meantime, how can we continue to serve with diligence and with honor? In the meantime, so these are questions that students of Jesus ask about works. You know, questions that we as students of Jesus wrestle with as we learn to work with him. Now, there's another thing that's probably going to take place in your day tomorrow. Probably at some point in the day tomorrow, hopefully you'll have some leisure time. You'll have some time when you're not working, some time for some kind of recreational activity. God did not make you to work all the time. You were not intended or designed to work all the time. The Bible's really clear about this in the opening chapters of Genesis, their creation account, Genesis 1 and 2. That part of God's will for us is that we work some of the time, but also that there be times of rest and relaxation, times of recreation, play, times of being renewed. In every moment of that free time that we're going to spend tomorrow or the next day during the week, those are also chances to learn from and invite God into our life. It doesn't necessarily mean that we have to do something really spiritual. It doesn't mean that every time you have free time, you have to take a prayer walk or go to the monastery to have some quiet time. But what it does mean is inviting God into the things that we already do. How do we learn to be with Jesus and invite him into our life in our recreation and leisure? This is a really interesting question. And I think we have to really think intentionally about how we spend our leisure time because of the default mode of how we spend our leisure time in our society. It's what one sociologist calls the 900-pound gorilla of leisure time in our day. And that's television. I'm not going to go on a long rant about television. I like television as much as anybody. But Robert Putnam, he wrote that fascinating book called Bowling Alone, which is about community and the loss of community. And he documents the role of television in the loss of a sense of community, of civic engagement, and so forth in our lives. And here's what he writes. And I found this really surprising. He writes dependence on television for entertainment is not merely a significant predictor of the loss of community in somebody's life. It is the single most consistent predictor I've discovered on the basis of quite exhaustive research. Nothing, not low education, not full-time work, not long commutes, not poverty, not financial distress. Nothing is more broadly or deeply connected with a loss of community and relational disconnection than one's dependence on television for entertainment. That is a startling statement. And so for some of us, for whom this is an issue, the question is maybe we need to go for a day or a weekend or even a week of a TV fast. You know, no TV for a day or a weekend or maybe a week. You know, Jesus is talking to the Bible about fasting. And usually when we read about fasting in Scripture, it's having to do with food. But I think in our day, if Jesus were here with us, he'd talk about our need to fast from media sometimes. We're so media saturated. And instead of just doing the default stuff, asking you, what are some activities, what are some things that I can do that God uses to breathe life into me? That he uses to refresh me, to recreate and renew my spirit? You know, instead of activities like watching TV or surfing the internet that tends to produce kind of passivity and low levels of alertness, what kind of things produce gratitude and joy and strength and renewal in me when I engage in them? You know, my, I'll tell you, my default mode for entertainment is to watch TV or to surf news sites on the internet and just go from one crazy story to the next. And you know, I'll sit there and do it and an hour and a half is gone by and I'm tired, I'm frustrated, I'm depressed, I mean, I'm disillusioned with the whole world. After reading all these web things and I'm like, I feel miserable, I feel absolutely miserable. And so the question is, what are the things that deplete me and exhaust me? What are the things that refresh me? For me, you know, it's going on a walk or going on a bike ride or even just working outside in the lawn or something like that. What does God use to refresh you and to breathe life into you? For one friend I have, it's just getting out into nature. He likes to take walks in the park or go jogging in the park or in the winter in time, go across country skiing. I have another friend who likes to just go out and ride a motorcycle. I've got another friend who likes to cook. You know, cooking is just really a fun, refreshing, relaxing thing for some of you that's reading a book. I don't know what it is for you and it's not so important what it is, but tomorrow you're going to have some free time in your ordinary day and when that happens, all it means is just taking a minute and saying, you know, here's my chance to be with God in whatever I'm doing. What is it that's going to breathe some life into my spirit? And sometimes that is just going to be watching TV and that's fine. But what is going to breathe life into my spirit? There's another basic category for your ordinary day that I want to talk about, and that is lifestyle choices. Just the little decisions that we make throughout the day. The choice is about how we're going to spend our money, how we're going to spend our time, what the pace of our life is going to be, how much debt we're going to live in, how many commitments we're going to make, how much pressure we're going to live under. All these decisions have just an enormous impact on whether or not we're able to get close to God or whether we drift away from them. The Apostle Paul who wrote many of the letters we find in our New Testament, he wrote one of the most important commandments there are about spiritual life found in the New Testament, and in J.B. Philip's translation of the Bible, it reads like this, "Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold. Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold." How is the world likely to do that for you? How is the world likely to squeeze you into its mold? Now for most of us who would consider ourselves followers of Christ's disciples, the world isn't going to squeeze us into its mold with just defiant fist in God's face sin. That's not the way for the most part God is going to squeeze us into its mold. I think for the most part, the world is going to say things instead like this, move faster, do more, go faster, and we do, and we fall into that. We get squeezed into that rut, and it cuts us off from prayer, it makes us feel more anxious, it makes us increasingly angry and frustrated, it makes it very difficult for us to love. If the enemy can't make you just defy God outright, he may just settle for making you really, really busy. And I think all of us wrestle with this, this area of being too busy. So let me ask each of you a question, just individually. What's the pace of life in which you can live and still be intimately connected with God? Still be able to effectively love other people and able to live with joy. What's that pace of life for you? And we're going to have to arrange our life around that pace. You know, no one is going to come and do that for you, tell you you can't do this or that, or you need to change this. You know, I think this area of busyness is one of the primary ways that the world is going to try to squeeze you into its mold, causing you to live in a way that it's impossible for you to deliberately intentionally and consciously invite God's presence into your life. It's just like, you know, being squeezed into that mold is living in a way that cokes off all intimacy with God, it distorts your ability to love people, causes you to live with a chronic sense of anxiety or fatigue. It tells you that it's normal. It's normal to live that way. Everybody's doing that, working, you know, X number of hours and having 10 different commitments. You know, it just gives you a personal example. We had our daughter Eve last August. And, you know, as the fall came, I was, you know, working my current job here at the church, which is, you know, quite, you know, demanding in a lot of different ways, and then caring for Eve on a lot of times so that Julie could go to work, and then trying to pursue a PhD program. And it got to a point where, like, I was every minute of time I had during the day, I had to be doing something. So whenever I had a free moment where I was home from work, and I, and it would be like, well, I got to go read something, or I have to study something or write something. I mean, every single spare minute, there was never a time to just stop, to relax, to just, you know, enjoy being. And it got to a point where I was, I was completely miserable, and I was making everybody miserable around me. And so just recently, Julie and I talked and decided, you know, I'm going to have to put the PhD thing on hold. I'm going to have to wait until, you know, Eve gets a little bit older, or circumstances change, because I just cannot live at that pace and still feel like I'm connected to God, still feel like I can, you know, love my wife or be a good husband. It just wasn't working for me. But, you know, it is not normal to live that way. I mean, it's insane. If every single spare minute of your life is taken up with something, that is not normal. That's crazy. It is not God's desire for his children to live that way. You know, Jesus says this, you know, consider the lilies in the field. Look at the birds. They don't have high blood pressure and colitis. They don't have day timers the size of Massachusetts, you know, being carried around with them all the time. But I'll tell you, a sparrow can't fall out of its nest without God knowing and God seeing and God caring. And if God cares like that for the birds of the air in the lilies of the field, can't you trust them to live your life in such a way that your intimacy with him and your ability to love other people isn't just completely severed off? Now, that pace of life is going to vary from one person to another. Some people are wired such that they need to move and operate at quite a slow rate or it's going to violate their heart and their spirit. Other people are able to move at a much quicker rate and remain intimately connected with God and thrive in their work. It's not the kind of thing that you can judge for another person, say, oh, this person's doing too much or etc. But it doesn't mean that each of us individually are going to need to be quite intentional about this. You know, the world says, go faster. The world also says to us, accumulate more, get more stuff. We live in a consumer culture. I mean, holidays, think about holidays, whose intention was originally to take time for rest and for worship. They're now primarily an excuse to shop and consume. That's primarily what holidays are now. At least that's what we've turned them into. I mean, can you think of a single holiday that isn't celebrated in the newspaper with advertisements for a one day holiday sale or something like that? I mean, can you think of a single holiday? That doesn't mean that it's wrong to shop. It doesn't mean that it's wrong to go to the mall or to enjoy excellent things and quality and fashion and design and so forth. Those are good things. But the point is we need God's help as we make purchases to make them wisely as a disciple. It means in all of these things that we do, whenever we make a decision, it means asking the question, how will this decision impact my ability to follow Jesus as a worker, as a dad, as a friend, as a husband, and so forth? It means if you're going to say yes to Jesus. Now, here's the whole point of this whole lifestyle thing. If we're going to say yes to Jesus, I want to be a student. I want to be a follower. It means we're going to have to say no to some other things. You know, what is it that you need to say no to, or that you're wrestling with right now, saying no to? Maybe it's debt. Maybe you're living in debt and it's got you stressed and frustrated and anxious. Maybe it means coming to the class Wayne Hardison leads, God and finances and learning how to move out of a place of financial pressure and debt in your life. Maybe it's time commitments. Those are the things that God is really saying to calling you to say no to. Maybe there's an activity that you're involved in or your kids are involved in, and it's not a bad thing in itself. But what it's doing, it's contributing to an overall pace of life that is just not healthy. Maybe it's a need to honor the Sabbath, taking that day, if you can't take a whole day taking a large block of time that you consistently take each week for rest, for relaxation, for refreshing. Maybe it means taking some time for vacation with people you love, a time that'll be renewing for you and remind you of God's presence and His goodness in your life. Be your lifestyle choices, the basic patterns that you use to arrange your day. They're very, very important for your life as a follower of Jesus. Last category I want to talk about. Tomorrow as you go through your ordinary day, you're going to, you're going to constantly be interacting with people. You're almost certainly going to be regularly interacting with people. And every single relationship, every single interaction is a chance to learn from Jesus how to form a loving heart. For instance, the first person you meet in the morning, the first person you greet, now that's a very important moment. You know, greetings, how you greet people, it's a way of saying you're significant to me. It's a way of saying you matter to me. So when you greet somebody and however way you do it, you can do it with Jesus. You can offer, maybe when you greet someone, offer a silent prayer on their behalf, or maybe you can offer an appropriate touch, a handshake or a hand on the shoulder. You know, some people go throughout their whole day and no one ever touches them in a kind way. So you can shake somebody's hand or put a hand on their shoulder. You know, you go through the New Testament and you see that Jesus, whenever you greet people, you constantly see people touching Jesus and Jesus touching them, especially people like the lepers and sinners, people who normally didn't get touched. I mean, you can just in a kind way offer a kind, compassionate touch. You can express authentic joy when you greet somebody. I mean, you can do that just in your normal interactions, you know, wherever it is. And what about our regular interactions with people, our relationships? Two kinds of relationships, I think all of us need. One is spiritual friendships, deep friends, regular interactions, people who foster our spiritual growth, help us to hear what God's saying in our life. I think so much in our culture and among us in the church, we've diminished the value of friendship. Friendships are becoming less common, more short-lived, more superficial. That's not God's plan for human life. You know, scripture says that a friend loves it all time. A brother is born for adversity. Friends are important. Friendship, scripture says, is necessary for spiritual growth. There's a verse that says is iron sharpens iron, so one friend unsharpens another. Friends are necessary for spiritual growth. So are you devoting enough time and attention and energy to cultivating some deep spiritual friendships? Not just merely acquaintances, but some real friendships, because we need friends. We need spiritual friends. You need contact with them throughout your day. There's another category of people you need, and that's difficult people. You need difficult people in your life. Jesus was pretty emphatic about this. He says at one point in scripture, love your enemies. In other words, love those, it's difficult for you to love. I mean, you can translate enemies that way. People for whom it's really difficult for you to love them. I mean, if you only love those people who love you back, what's the goodness in that? Even the mafia does that much. You know, we might translate it. And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? You know, drug dealers do the same thing. The ability to love difficult people is like a litmus test for spiritual growth. And that means you need difficult people in your life. They are absolutely necessary for your spiritual development. So if you have some difficult people in your life, be glad. You know, express appreciation to those difficult people on a regular basis. Don't turn to your neighbor and do it right now, but express appreciation to those difficult people in your life. Maybe you don't have any difficult people in your life. I'd like you to, you know, see me after the sermon and I will appoint someone to you. Just to be that difficult person in your life. So I've kind of outlined eight different things that most of us experience in an ordinary day. And in each of those things I've outlined, you know, we're given a chance to learn from Jesus how to live authentically. You know, every day we get these chances. I mean, a chance to wake up in the morning and start the day by considering God. You know, realizing that God is right there with you. You know, opening your eyes and saying, yes, to God's invitation to learn from Him that day. You know, here's my chance, whether it's sleeping or waking or eating, cleaning. You know, when I'm at work, this is my chance to learn from Jesus what it means to be human. You know, when I have free time, here's my chance to learn. When I'm making really significant decisions about my day and about my life, here's a chance to learn from Jesus how to be human. You know, whether when I run into people, people are really difficult for me to love. Here's a chance to learn from Jesus how to love. You know, Psalm 90 was one of the Psalms of Moses attributed traditionally to Moses. And it says, this teaches to number our days of right, oh Lord, so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Let's teach us to consider each day that we're given. So when we may learn wisdom, we may learn from you, help us to really wake up every day. There's a great book called "Receive the Day." And the author writes about a poet named Jane Kenyon. And she was diagnosed with cancer in January of 1994, and she died in April of 1995. And she wrote a poem that's just about the day, about just receiving the day as a gift from God. And she wrote it, and I'll put it, it'll be up on the screen behind me. She writes, I got out of bed today on two strong legs, it might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach, it might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birchwood, all morning I did the work I love. At noon, I laid down with my mate, it might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at the table with silver candlesticks, it might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls and planned another day, just like this, but one day I know it will be otherwise. It's just a wonderful reminder that all we have is this day. And all we can live in is today. So if we're looking for opportunities to learn from Jesus, how to live, it has to happen today, have to happen in the day that we're in. Before we go to bed, it means just stopping for a few minutes and talking to God and saying thanks for this day. Renew your invitation for God to spend each and every moment of your day with you. That's what it means to be a follower of Jesus, inviting him into each and every day and learning from him what it means to be human. I want to go ahead and close with worship. So I want to invite the band to go ahead and come back up. And let's go ahead and stand and I'm just going to pray. And when we close with worship, I'll just invite you to come up for ministry. If the whole issue of your day and how you spend it and the pace of your life has gotten to a point where you realize this is not how God intended for me to live. You are feeling that you've been squeezed into a mold of living that is just not what God intends for you. Maybe it's your attitude towards work, maybe work as a drudgery for you and you don't see how God is in it at all or maybe you realize I've kind of made work a little bit of an idol in my life and I'm sacrificing things to it that really I shouldn't be doing. Or maybe you realize you've made too many commitments or you're living in debt and you just realize it's just ruining your life. I just want to offer to have some prayer ministries that are available just that you might offer your life back to God and say, "God, here's my whole life, everything that I'm doing. I'm offering it up to you that I'm saying yes to you, God." And that means I know I'm going to have to say no to some of these things, but I just need your wisdom in how to do that. I want to pray for people who are struggling with an illness that makes it just very hard for you to live with God each day. Maybe it's a chronic condition that you've just struggled with day after day and it just makes it so hard for you to experience God's presence in your life. I want to pray, I want to have the prayer ministers pray for healing for those people. And of course, if you have any other need, if you're worried or anxious, just want to pray for God's peace on you. So, Lord, we invite you, we invite you.