- “What
I’m Trying to Do Here is to Get You to Relax,
- Not be
so Preoccupied with GETTING, so You Can
-
Respond to God’s GIVING”
-
- Luke 12:
32-40
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- Our
forebears – our mothers and fathers who have gone before us –
studied Scriptures diligently and prayed without ceasing to discern
what is the prime purpose of a person’s life.
- They saw
it clearly….
- “The
chief end of a person’s life is to glorify God and
enjoy God forever.”
-
- from the Shorter Catechism, 1648
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- Isn’t it
mystifying that God is with everyone of us continually and we don’t
give God the time of day… until there’s a crisis. Why do we wait for
the extreme circumstances to make the time to realize God’s presence
and enjoy God? Why do we have to experience some disaster before we
make time for God? Too many people think of our Christian faith as a
crisis religion. We get it out when things are tough and put it away
when things are smooth.
-
-
Relatively few people consider the primary purpose of their life to
be that of glorifying God and enjoying God.
-
- What does
it mean to glorify God anyway? Maybe it means to get self out of
picture and recognize that it is God in whom we live and move and
have our identity. It is recognizing that God is the source of all
achievement and the good of all desire. To glorify God is to long to
know God better.
-
- Imagine a
family of mice who lived all their lives in a large piano. To them
in their piano-world came the music of the instrument, filling the
dark spaces with sound and harmony. At first the mice were impressed
by it. They drew comfort and wonder from the though that there was
Someone who made the music – though invisible to them – above, yet
close to them. They loved to think of the Great Player whom they
could not see. Then one day a daring mouse climbed up part of the
piano and returned very thoughtful. He had found out how the music
was made. Wires were the secret – tightly stretched wires of
graduated lengths which trembled and vibrated. They must revise all
their old beliefs: none but the most conservative could any longer
believe in the Unseen Player. Later, another explorer carried the
explanation further. Hammers were now the secret, numbers of hammers
dancing and leaping on the wires.
-
- This was
a more complicated theory, But it all went to show that they lived
in a purely mechanical and mathematical world. The Unseen Player
came to be thought of as a myth. But, the pianist continued to play.
-
- reprinted from the London Observer
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- We become
so obsessed with our own struggles and worries and so thrilled with
the belief that God cares for the individual that we enthrone self
instead of God, thinking God’s chief end is to glorify us and enjoy
us forever.
-
- While
Jesus teaches of our great worth in God’s sight, He emphasizes that
God is in charge. The first petition Jesus teaches us to pray
outweighs all the rest – “Hallowed be Thy Name.” The second is:
“Thy kingdom come.” And, the third: “Thy will be done.” Do you see
a pattern here? These petitions are for God, not for us! These are
not primarily that we may have food, enjoy forgiveness and be able
to endure, but that God may be glorified and God’s nature
understood.
-
- But many
people are so on the run that they have no sense of God’s presence.
We are ambitious people. We like to be thought of as industrious
people.
-
- We have
so many things we want to accomplish as soon as possible. We make
for ourselves a lifestyle that keeps us under pressure.
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- This
seems strange in a time like ours. Today young people don’t have to
be out on their own at 16 forging a living. They may be supported by
the family until 27 when their formal education is completed. Yet
today’s youth are running faster and faster. Adults don’t have to
work from sunup to sunset to eke out a living, what with all kinds
of labor saving device. The internet saves us hours and hours.
Transportation gets us anywhere in the world faster. Of all the
industries today, recreation is the most rapidly growing. If any
people have time for living and for God it should be us.
-
- Listen to
this poem by Arthur Guiterman:
-
First dentistry was painless;
-
Then bicycles were chainless
- And
carriages were horseless
- And
many laws, enforceless.
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Next, cookery was fireless
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Telegraphs were wireless,
-
Cigars were nicotineless
- And
coffee, caffeineless.
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Soon oranges were seedless,
- The
putting green was weedless,
- The
college boy hatless,
- The
proper diet, fatless.
- Now
motor roads are dustless,
- The
latest steel is rustless,
- Our
tennis courts are sodless,
- Our
new religions, godless.
-
- from Gaily the Troubadour,
1936.
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- Would you
care to guess when this was written? 70 years ago.
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- Of all
the observations about Jesus’ life there is no record of his
running. We read in the Bible that Peter ran, John ran, Barabas ran,
Phillip ran. It is recorded that the multitudes ran. So far as we
know Jesus never ran. Jesus was very industrious with only 3 years
to do the biggest job in the world ever assigned to a person. Jesus
went to parties, banquets, wedding receptions, public gatherings.
Jesus stopped to smell the flowers in the field and watch the birds
of the air. Jesus always made time to play with little children. He
took time to go into the mountains and take a boat out on the
restful waters. He made time for solitude where he could get at
things that were important.
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- Even in
this time of worship, if we are here primarily to get
comfort, strength, or even guidance, we have things backwards. We
are making God a means toward our ends. Our worship is only proper
and good if in our heart God is the end and we are the means. The
other benefits are the natural by-products of glorifying God and
enjoying God forever. Listening to Christians talk today while
surfing the TV, it’s as if the end of human life were our salvation,
of which God is the means! It is not so according to scripture. The
end of human life is God’s glory, of which our salvation is one of
the means or a by-product.
-
- Like many
saints of old, I used to think monks and nuns who isolated
themselves in monasteries and convents just to pray were less that
realists. They’re less than human somehow. But how is it we say,
“just to pray”? I wonder if when some of us stumble into heaven all
worn out from endless committee meetings, public forums, writing of
grants, legislative lobbying, preaching or listening to many
sermons, campaigning for moral reform, and long hours at church
board meetings – we may find some who, from care center beds, prison
cell or retreat center, have “just prayed” and left all our busy
doings way back in the dust of accomplishing human’s chief end.
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- All life
should be worship – all we do should be done, not to demonstrate our
cleverness or virtue, but to glorify God. Our standard of living
today – progress we call it.
-
- But, we
are less secure than people in the days of ancient Rome. With all
the conveniences and technologies of our up-to-date homes, our homes
are neither as serene nor happy as the simple home in Bethany where
Jesus came at the close of the day for rest, quiet, and friendship
in the last days before his death. We have more knowledge but less
wisdom. We have material and technological might, but little power.
We have wealth, but not worship.
-
- I confess
to you I have thought an efficient, busy life spent continuously in
good works is the best use of the Christian life. However, I find
this rationalization stands in the way of my plunging the depths
where God is to be found and enjoyed. We’ve got to make the time to
meet and enjoy God on God’s level – a level deeper than surface
things.
-
- I grew up
believing if you weren’t physically busy you were sinning. We human
beings have an unusual capacity to stay busy no matter how much, or
how little, we are doing. I have felt guilty when I hid out to study
or pray. Nobody taught me the art of being still or the virtue of
making time exclusively for God. I have lived so much on the level
of the physical activity that seldom have I made time to venture
more deeply into the spiritual. I have always talked with God on the
run but too seldom stopped to listen. If God is still speaking, I
haven’t always been still enough that I would hear. If I don’t make
the disciplined effort, I am saying to God:
-
- “You are
a luxury – I will enjoy you when I can get around to you.” I know I
will get around to God when I am in need or trouble. That says to
God, “I regard you as my Divine Service Person – a Mr. GoodGod.
Don’t call me, I’ll call you when I need you. In the meantime I
won’t bother you.”
-
- Unless we
make time for God we aren’t even going to have time! I have a hunch
this isn’t going to TAKE time so much as it will REDEEM time.
-
- Many
times at a memorial service in church I have read from Psalm 90. It
is any interesting psalm.
- It talks
about the frailty of life and how God is eternal. It has verses you
will wonder about and you will struggle with the words about the
wrath of God. But don’t stop with those words. It reminds us that
“the days of our lives are seventy, eighty years if we are strong”
not to discourage or depress us, but rather to remind us that life
if short and precious for each one of us. The part that continues to
catch my attention is the verse that says, “so teach us to number
our days so that we may live wisely.” It doesn’t mean we should sit
around worrying about each day. Rather it means each day should be
lived to its fullest. “Live wisely” means to use the resources that
God has given us. It means to appreciate the world that God has
provided and the persons around us. It means to listen to the music
and smell the roses.
-
- The
apostle Paul insisted in his writings that we keep developing, keep
pressing on, keep maturing, keep growing up in Christ, keep going on
beyond the ABC’s. This may be exactly what God has in mind for us.
And to the extent that we are continually transforming our lives by
the renewing of our minds, to that extent we are fulfilling the
highest purpose in life and will, of course, be glorifying God.
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-
“What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, not to be so
preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s
giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over
these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep
yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You’ll
find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don’t be afraid
of missing out. You’re my dearest friends! The Father wants to
give you the very kingdom itself.
- Be
generous. Give to the poor. Get yourselves a bank that can’t go
bankrupt, a bank in heaven far from bankrobbers, safe from
embezzlers, a bank you can bank on. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The
place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be,
and end up being.”
- -
Eugene Peterson, The
Message, Luke 12: 22-34, adapted
-
An
Interpretation