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Ingleside Presbyterian Church A Congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America |
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Ingleside Presbyterian Church A Congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America |
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Gadgets.
Electronics.
Technology.
It’s in our purses, on our belts, in our
pockets and on our dashboards.
Technology has made three things happen in
the world. First, our world has gotten smaller; it is now more complex;
and it’s now going faster.
You live a faster lifestyle than your
parents did.
Your children will live even a faster
lifestyle than you did.
How many of you have ever received a
speeding ticket?
I feel ok about this message on slowing
down today. Some McDonald’s Restaurants now
offer a “fast track” option when you go to a drive-through and it will
automatically bill your fast track account and shave a whole fifteen
seconds off getting your Big Mac—as if that is essential.
There was a recent article that frozen
juices are declining in sales because people don’t want to wait for them
to thaw.
When you hit A
USA Today article says:
“Today people are souped up, stressed out, and over-scheduled.
In this brave new world boundaries between
work and family are disappearing.
Everyone is mobile and everything is
scheduled.”
This fast-paced way of living
is so new to us as humans that anthropologists are now studying to see
how it will affect us long-term.
We don’t need their research.
The Bible tells us that hurry, worry and
scurry have negative effects on our life-style.
Let me give you four of them:
Effects of
a Hurried Lifestyle
Ecc. 5:3 “A
dream comes with much business…” sounds a little strange in the ESV
translation.
The
Message paraphrase writes,
“Overwork makes for restless sleep…”
When you’re always in a hurry, your
personal reserves get depleted and you can’t do that indefinitely.
You have to slow down periodically.
Now there are ebbs and flows in life when
you go fast and you go slow.
You just can’t keep charging without
re-charging. You aren’t the Energizer Bunny—he even stops eventually.
Job 9:25
“My days are swifter than a
runner; they flee away; they see no good.” The faster you go in
life, the less time you have to enjoy.
Think about the difference in scenery from
a jet plane versus a train ride.
Think about what you can see from your car
and what you may see when you’re taking a walk.
Enjoyment comes slow.
If your life is constant pressure at a
harried pace, you’re not enjoying anything.
You’re missing the details.
The law of diminishing returns
kicks in when you go too fast.
One thing is you lose your creativity.
I’ve seen the sign before that reads: “The
hurrier I go the behinder I get.”
That is a biblical principle.
Prov. 21:5
“The plans of the diligent lead
surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.”
(I know you laid back and procrastinator
types LOVE that verse.) You’re actually less productive if you are
going, going, going all the time.
You have to have breaks.
You have to slow down.
Ps. 46:10
“Be still & know that I am God.”
Folks, you get to know God when you slow
down.
When you are quiet.
When you’re busy all the time, your
circuits are busy and you have God on Call Waiting.
There is too much noise in your life. Those of you who know me well
realize that I am a Type AAA personality.
And I admit, I often attempt to do too
much.
I bite off sizeable chunks and try to chew
them.
And I have seen the things I’ve just shared
“fleshed out” in my own life and walk with the Lord.
We all need to strive for a more rational,
reasonable, humane pace of life.
I want to share five things from Scripture
that are counter-culture strategies.
They are the opposite of what our culture
teaches, but if you implement them, you will find the joy going up in
your life and the stress going down.
We’re going to look at two of them today
and the last three next Lord’s Day.
Ways to
Slow Your Pace: A man was traveling in the
rural South fifty years ago and he was given an attic room for the night
in the home of a poor couple.
That evening the host came to his room and
said, “We are glad to have you here as our guest.
We’re sorry that we don’t have better
living quarters for you. If there is anything you want and we don’t have
it, we’ll show you how to get along without it.”
The first way that we can slow our pace is
to…
If you really want to start
slowing down, you shouldn’t start with your schedule.
You need to start in the heart.
In Phil. 4:11, Paul declares that he has
learned contentment, regardless of his circumstances.
He enumerates being in need and having
plenty—when things are good and when things are bad.
Notice he says,
“I have learned contentment.”
We are not contented people by nature.
It is in our nature to want things to be
different.
We want them to be better.
But, in order to deal with stress, we have
to learn contentment and it’s learned over time. I Tim. 6:6-7, Paul writes,
“Now
there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought
nothing into the world & we cannot take anything out of the world.
But if we have food & clothing, with these
we will be content.”
He is telling us that life isn’t about
things.
I didn’t have anything before I was born
and I won’t have anything after I die.
Let’s think about what
contentment is NOT.
Contentment doesn’t mean that you should
have ambition.
You ought to make the most of your life.
It’s not having goals or dreams or plans.
But contentment means that you don’t need
more in order to be happy.
You’re not waiting for more to be happy.
Instead, you choose to be happy right now. Happiness is a choice and you
are as happy as you CHOOSE to be.
Don’t blame it on circumstances or people.
We live on a broken planet and nothing is
perfect.
We should be happy in spite of situations.
Our culture teaches that having more will
make us happier.
Prov. 23:4 (NIV)
“Do not wear yourself out to get
rich; have the wisdom to show restraint.”
Don’t give up you health to attain wealth. Our culture also tells us that
doing more will make us “more worthy.”
In other words, if I do more, people will
love me more.
I’ll be more admired and respected.
So I will prove my worth by my work.
When you confuse your work with your worth,
you’re going to be stressed out your entire life.
This myth tries to convince me
that doing more will make me more important.
The busier I am, the more important I am.
A lot of high achievers are actually
insecure and that insecurity is driving them to over achieve—to try to
get everyone’s approval.
Ecc. 4:6
“Better is
a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil & a striving after
wind.”
It could be smarter to buy a smaller
home and have a less material lifestyle in order to have more time,
energy and enjoyment.
We are motivated by lots of
things.
It could be fear, jealousy, revenge,
insecurity or ego.
All of these are unhealthy emotions and the
Bible calls them idols…false gods.
We often think of “idols” as a little hand
carved god you buy at a tourist shop overseas.
We have our own idols, outside of
American Idol—the show.
Our idols are hood ornaments on our cars
that say, “I paid a lot for this.”
Or they are brand names on dresses and
shirts and purses that say, “I paid a lot of money for this so I’m
important.
I bought it at Needless Markup Department
Store.”
It’s the same shirt you bought at Wal-Mart.
They are both made of cotton but you paid
three times more at Needless Markup so you could get that little logo
that says, “I’m important.”
If you build your self-worthy
on status symbols you’re in trouble, because next year, it will be a
different symbol.
When you find yourself not on a quest for
more things, then you are learning contentment.
There is another myth that life
is competitive so we must live in competition with other people.
Folks, each one of us is unique so
comparing yourself with others is like comparing apples to oranges.
God desires for you to be who He created
you to be.
He wants you to be you.
When you can simply be yourself, it takes a
lot of stress off your life.
You don’t have to look like everyone else.
You don’t have to smell like them, dress
like them or talk like them.
Comparing ourselves to others
is what breeds envy in our lives.
It creates discouragement and
discontentment.
Prov. 14:30
“A
tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rots.”
There is a secret to a long life…the more
stressed out you are, the quicker you’re going to die.
A relaxed attitude lengthens your life.
Slowing down is much more than
merely clearing your calendar.
You have to start with your heart.
You begin to slow down by becoming content
with what you have and who you are.
Now, let’s go from our heart to our
mouth…the second strategy to slowing down…
Learn to listen before
speaking.
We have become a nation of interrupters.
People don’t let others complete their
sentences.
They talk over each other.
Three or four people talk at the same time
and nobody’s listening.
Like those women on
The View…one of the biggest
wastes of sixty minutes in the universe. Why has You may say, “I don’t have an
anger problem.”
Yes, you do.
You simply hide it.
Some people blow up while others clam up.
Everybody is either a skunk or a turtle.
When you get angry, if you’re a skunk, you
simply stink up the place.
Everyone knows you’re upset.
If you’re a turtle you are a coward and
pull back into your shell.
It odd that turtles usually marry skunks.
Ecc. 5:2
“Be not
rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before
God, for God is in heaven & you are on earth.
Therefore let your words be few.” Do you know that slowing your
speech actually increases your credibility?
Which of these salesmen will you TRUST
more?
The slow speaker or the fast-talking slick
salesman?
There is a drug commercial on television
and at the end, the voiceover says ninety words in about 10 seconds.
��Should not take this if… it may cause this
and this.
You might die.
You’ll always get diarrhea.
You might turn in to a serial killer.”
They say it so fast. When people talk real fast,
you’re thinking, “What is this person trying to pull over on me?
We trust the guy who calmly asks, “May I
help you out?
If you need any help, please let me know.”
He isn’t pushy with words.
Prov. 29:20
“Do you see a man who is hasty in
his words?
(He opens his mouth before his brain is in
gear.)
There
is more hope for a fool than for him.” There is an organization on the
Web called SlowDownNow.org.
It is the International Institute of Not
Doing Much, which teaches followers how to slow the pace of their lives.
When it comes to “not doing much,” I think
I’ve seen some of their charter members in “inaction.”
However, it is novel that there is a
website dedicated to us slowing down.
A pastor was known for being
extremely long-winded, preaching 45 minute to hour length sermons.
He was shaking hands with his congregation
at the door and one guy got a little mixed up and instead of calling him
“reverend,” he called him “never-end.”
To avoid your doing that I’m going to stop
here today.
The first two strategies we looked at today
talk about slowing down our hearts and our mouths.
Next week we’ll look at scheduling,
decision-making and trusting God’s timing. Folks, I trust that we will learn to slow down and live more. That God will teach us to learn contentment and to listen before speaking. All these strategies are Lordship issues. In other words, who is in charge of our lives? Us? Or God? When you think about it, who has the better “batting average?” The last time I checked the Lord’s, it stood at 1.000. Please pray with me. Please visit us at our next worship service.
In Christ,
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