August 14, 2005

Series - If You Can't Stand the Heat - 3

Does your schedule have you stressed? Here's a short quiz of five questions to find out. Use the fingers on your right hand for YES and your left hand for NO as you answer these questions about how busy you are. Ready? 1. Do you always seem to be in a hurry? 2. At the end of your day do you often find that your "To do" list isn't done? 3. Has anyone ever told you to slow down? 4. Do you feel guilty when you relax? 5. Have you ever found yourself scheduled to be in more than one place at a time? Were you surprised by how many "yeses" you had? Everyone, raise your left hands. Now your right hands… Wow, we're busy!

In 1994 a Gallup Poll revealed that 72% of us believed we would be working less due to advances in technology. Yet, a decade later, the opposite is true! We are working 22% more hours and have 8.5 hours less leisure time per month than we did a decade ago! When is the last time you really rested? I mean, sat down, no TV, and just relaxed? How long has it been since you took a walk, not for exercise, just to be refreshed? Or taken "a Sunday drive?"

Night after night a man came home to his family with his briefcase full of work. One evening his little son turned to his mom as his dad once again walked in with an overstuffed briefcase in hand: "Why does Daddy always have work to do when he gets home?" he asked. His mom replied, "Because Daddy can't get it all done at the office." The boy innocently quipped back, "Why don't they put Daddy in the slower class?"

Is the heat of job pressures getting to you? Well, if you're living a hectic and harried life let me say this… That isn't the lifestyle God wants for you. He says in Ps.127:2: "In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat - for He grants sleep to those He loves." God wants you to live a balanced life. This is a message I know I need and I think you might too.

1. First of all, let's look at GOD'S WISDOM IN REQUIRING REST. From the very beginning, this aspect of life was important. Genesis 1 tells us that God worked 6 days and then rested on the seventh day. Why? Was He exhausted? Do you picture God out of breath by the 7th day, saying, "Whew! I've got to slow down! This is killing me!" No, God is all-powerful. God stopped in order to set an example for us: we all need to relax at times and be refreshed.

Now, don't misunderstand. This message isn't to promote laziness! Remember God worked for 7 days. It is God's will that every person be involved in some kind of a meaningful task. Whether that's running a business or running a home. We need to have meaningful labor.

For a number of reasons: (1)Labor enables us to achieve. Generally, the people who succeed in life are the people who know what it is to work hard. Hard work will help us achieve goals. A junk dealer once became a millionaire even though he only had an 8th grade education. Somebody asked him how he was able to make a million dollars and in spite of his lack of formal training. He said, "Well, it ain't hard. I just bought junk for $1 and sold it for $2 and you'd be surprised how quickly that 1% profit adds up." Now, he wasn't too good at math, but people can make up for a lot of inadequacies if they're willing to give 100% everyday.

(2) Labor also provides for our families. It's God's design that we provide for our family, so that we are not always looking for others to care for us. Honest labor helps us provide for our families. (3) Labor builds self-esteem. When you put worthwhile effort into your labor it makes you feel good about yourself. One of the surest cures for low esteem is to get out there and begin to work hard and make yourself useful again.

(4) Labor enhances our Christian testimony. If you are lazy, people will have a hard time respecting you. But if you work hard & don't complain you may have the opportunity to tell someone that you put forth your best because you're not just working for an employer but for God. The workplace might also be the best place for sharing the good news of Jesus with others!

But in order to have the balanced life God wants for us we also must realize that our lives need rest. "Six days shall you labor... but the 7th day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work..." We push ourselves pretty hard in the rat race we're in, don't we? Well, in the middle of this rat race, God says, "I want you to take some time to rest." "Sabbath" means rest. In Mk 2:27 Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." God wasn't saying, "I'm going to force you to take a day off because I want it." No, Sabbath rest was given for our benefit! God is watching out for us by wanting us to get some rest!

Here's what our Shepherd does for us. "He makes me lie down in green pastures.." Sheep, dumb animals that God created to show us what we are like, often don't know when to rest. Phillip Keller writes, "Often they will be grazing in the field and the shout of a wolf or some disturbance will come and they will begin to run back and forth across the pasture, round and round in circles, wearing themselves out. The shepherd knows that they have a long journey ahead of them and can't expend their energy this way. So, he will move into the flock and take each sheep by the scruff of the neck and he will force it to lie down until he quiets it, and then another and another until the entire flock is at rest. He literally moves into the midst of the flock and causes his sheep to lie down in the pastures."

Has the Shepherd ever done that for you? Sometimes maybe through sickness or some event out of your control, He forces you to rest? To take a new look at your life and your habits? Maybe it's as simple as hearing a sermon, maybe it's a sickness or physical injury that laid you up, making you think about your life because you didn't have much else to do! That could lead you to the spiritual rest He wants to give you - the trust in Him that give us real peace.

David says, "He gives us rest by "leading me beside quiet waters." The Hebrew literally reads: "He leads me beside the waters that have been made to rest." According to Phillip Keller, a shepherd himself, sheep are very afraid of running water. They know instinctively that if water should get on their coats of wool they would become water logged and sink beneath the stream. So, as thirsty as they might be in the hot sun, if the water they find is running, the sheep will not drink. They will stand at the side and look at the water but draw back in fear of what will happen.

So the Shepherd comes, takes a few large stones and dams up a quiet pool. He makes the waters quiet and he allows them to drink. And if the pressure of our work life is getting to us, we need to realize God's command for us to rest is for our good! We think that we can keep pushing ourselves. That it's a badge of merit to be called a workaholic, refusing to slow down, vigorously trying to get ahead. But actually we are giving ourselves nervous breakdowns, high blood pressure, ulcers, mid-life crises, heart disease, depression, insomnia. Nobody got more done in 33 years than Jesus did and yet we read, "He went apart unto a mountain, an entire day, to pray." -Or- "Jesus went into the synagogue, on the Sabbath day, as was His custom."

We need time for rest, prayer, worship, and growth in God's Word! God knows that if we do not take time to rest, we'll begin to lose perspective on the true meaning of life. We may be a worldly success but we will end up worn out physically, burned out emotionally and out of touch spiritually. We'll be caught up in a downward spiral that weakens our marriages, our families, our friendships, our health, and most importantly, our relationship with God.

So here is: 2. GOD'S WAY TO FIND REST: R.E.L.A.X. Rick Warren suggests using the word "RELAX" to remind us of God's prescription for pressured people.

(1) "R" is that we need to RECOGNIZE our true value before God. The reason most people overwork is because they confuse their work and their worth. We think that if we work a whole lot, achieve a lot, we're worth a lot. We confuse what we do with who we are. The antidote is to realize what God says about you. God says you matter more than the rest of creation! You can relax; you don't have to prove your worth. God says you are OK. In fact Jesus would rather die than live without you! And that is what He did for you!

(2) "E" - ENJOY what we already have. Can you be so preoccupied in getting more that you don't enjoy what you've got? Yes! And then we spend all of our time making payments on these things we've bought and relationships begin to deteriorate. That's not the way God wants us to live. God wants us to emphasize relationships over riches!

(3) "L" - LIMIT our labor. We need to make time for other things besides work. We have to decide how many hours we realistically want to spend working each week and then stick to it. God knows we need a Sabbath. A day in which you 1) Rest your body. 2) Recharge your emotions. 3) Refocus your spirit. The Bible calls this worship. Worship brings perspective. When you come to church with a big problem, worship helps. You have more energy to deal with the problem. You need this time with God. If you're too busy for God, you're too busy!

(4) "A". ADJUST my values. In order to reduce busyness in my life I must change my thinking about what is important. I have never had one person say at their final breath, "I wish I had hurried more." "I wish I had spent more time at the office." Many have said "I wish I had spent more time with my kids, wife, husband, building relationships, with God." So, ask yourself while you're alive: "If I was on my death bed now, where would I wish I had spent more time?"

In Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas, a terminally ill mother wrote these words of wisdom: "Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls - family, health, friends, and integrity - are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, or perhaps even shattered. And once you truly understand the lesson of the five balls, you will have the beginnings of balance in your life."

(5) "X" - eX-change my pressure for God's peace. Nothing saps your strength like spiritual fatigue. You need more than a nap. You need peace with God. A little child does not like to lie down to rest. Resistance to rest is a mark of immaturity. If you won't take any time to be renewed in the spiritual rest Jesus has given you, then you're acting like a child! Sheep don't like to rest, to lie down, either. Our psalm says: "He makes me lie down." All of us need a relationship with Christ or we'll end up empty!

Can't stand the heat and pressure of work and your busy life? Jesus Christ would love to trade His peace for your pressure. He traded his life for yours on a hill outside of Jerusalem one day. He exchanged our lives, loaded down with the sins of wrong priorities, values, and pressures, and gave us his perfect, pressure-free, sinless life. So friends, instead of adding your spiritual burdens to your to-do list, eXchange your pressures in life for Jesus' peace! X is the most important letter in this acronym. X stands for Jesus. He has given you peace. Slow down. Relax. And drink deeply of the still waters of forgiveness your Shepherd has led you to. Amen.

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