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"Habits of Effective Christians: Putting the Best First"
February 8, 2004 The Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson
There was the story of a man who was walking on the beach and he saw a bottle laying on the sand. And of course he picked it up, and rubbed it, and a genie popped out. When the genie popped out, one thought came into in his mind: I get a wish! Sure enough, the genie said, "I'll grant you one wish." The man thought to himself, "I want to be filthy rich!" So he said, "I'd like to have next year's newspaper" so he could get the stock prices and he'd know how to invest with the information that he had in next year's newspaper. But as he got the newspaper in his hand and began thumbing through it, he happened to look at the obituaries. And there his priorities changed, because his name was at the top of the list.
This morning I want to talk to you about putting the best first. Or, as Stephen Covey calls it, "first things first." To some degree it's about setting priorities, determining what is best in whatever we do. But it's more than that. It's not simply sitting down with your Daytimer and determining what is best. You've got to know first what is best. It is determining in our lives what is first and foremost. And that's what I want to talk to you about this morning.
First, I'll be reading Scripture to you from Psalm 24. I'm reading from a different version. It is from Eugene Peterson's The Message. Occasionally I really like how he paraphrases the Scripture. Let us listen to God's Word:
God claims Earth and everything in it, God claims World and all who live on it. He built it on Ocean foundations, laid it out on River girders.
Who can climb Mount God? Who can scale the holy north-face? Only the clean-handed, only the pure-hearted; Men who won't cheat, women who won't seduce.
God is at their side; with God's help they make it. This, Jacob, is what happens to God-seekers, God-questers.
Wake up, you sleepyhead city! Wake up, you sleepyhead people! King-Glory is ready to enter.
Who is this King-Glory? God, armed and battle-ready.
Wake up, you sleepyhead city! Wake up, you sleepyhead people! King-Glory is ready to enter.
Who is this King-Glory? God of the angel armies: he is King-Glory.
From Matthew chapter 22, where Jesus tells us about the two greatest commandments:
When the Pharisees heard about how he had bested the Saducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. One of their religion scholars spoke for them, hoping to show him up: "Teacher, which command in God's law is most important?" Jesus said, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and Prophets hangs on them."
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and mind, and soul. Indeed, this is the greatest commandment. There is another like it: Love others as you love yourself.
Let us pray. God in heaven, be with us now as we hear your Word. We pray that you would put aside our distractions and help us to focus on you. Be with us, we pray. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Her life was seemingly a big flash in the pan. And when she died, millions grieved as though they had lived their lives through her. I'm speaking about Princess Diana. I remain intrigued by the force and interest in her life. It seems like there is not a week or a month that goes by when she is not mentioned in some way or another. Usually now, it's trying to determine the circumstances about her death. But when she lived, millions followed her life. And when she died, millions grieved. People sent flowers. People stood by the way as the hearse went by. Millions watched on TV. And she still has an effect today.
I often ask myself, "Why?" Why is this person's life so interesting to people? I have some thoughts about this. And you may disagree, but here they are. I think the force of Diana's life was in her story itself. You see, she represented so many things for so many people. First and foremost, she was like Cinderella. I had three girls and I know the force of the Cinderella story in a girl's life. She was almost a commoner, if you will, who married a prince--and everyone saw it. She married Prince Charming, she thought. We had the wedding on TV, and then the kiss on the balcony. Powerful stuff! But then she became something else. She became an underdog. David against Goliath, when the fairy tale began to unravel. And there she was, standing against the cold-fish royals, who never really accepted her. And, of course, standing against the not-so-Prince-Charming, Prince Charles. And then, everybody else. And then she became, to go along with that, sort of the "struggling victim," if you will, because she was very honest about her struggles with bulemia and some other things. Through it all, she tried very hard to do good things in the world. And people identified with her in so many ways. And then finally, in the end, she lost out. Just when she seemed to have found some happiness, she dies. And I believe that the reason this all became so large was the fact that she was these things, and then in the end, people began to live through her, and they were disappointed--because she didn't get what they thought she deserved: the castle, the prince, money, comfort, children, happiness.
What are we to make of Diana? Well, I really do believe that she did try hard. And I'm not trying to criticize her. But I think she becomes sort of an image of what people do seek in the world. Everybody wants to be happy. Everybody wants to find fame and fortune in some sense--or at least some kind of meaning and comfort. And here was a woman who seemingly went all over the world looking to find some kind of meaning in her life, some kind of happiness, some kind of something that would do it for her. And she failed. Partly because of the way she was, but partly, I believe, because the world just doesn't work that way because God has made it not to work that way.
Now, contrast another person, if you will. A person who died the very same week as Diana. And that is Mother Teresa. Her death also received a lot of notoriety, but nothing like Diana. Nothing like Diana at all. And yet, in her I think we find someone who had it right. Now, sometimes people might say it's unfair to compare Diana and Mother Teresa, and I'm not really trying to do that. But I think they both serve as examples to us of how to put first things first. How do we do that?
And I think Mother Teresa did get it right in so many ways. She lived according to principles, not according to the moment. She had an equally-busy life. She went all over the world. And yet, when you look at her and you look at her life, she was so calm all the time. She seemed to have a grounding that you and I need. Because we really do live our lives, often, in a very frenetic pace. I talk to people all the time who just go from here, and go to there. Who do this, and do that. And sometimes it seems like all of us, from time to time, run around like the proverbial chicken with the head cut off. We run around, not really knowing where we're going. What do we do about that? Well, I think it's more than simply getting our Daytimers out and setting priorities. That's good to do--and, by the way, I would say that Stephen Covey, who I've been kind of following in this series, does a pretty good job of telling us how to do that. But even he says there's more to it than that. It's discovering the principles of what life really is all about.
I'd like to share a few of them. And, again, I've tried to do the letters of the alphabet and I didn't quite get it at the end. You'll see what I mean. But the first thing I want to talk about is an "F"--a "focus," if you will. Something I think Mother Teresa had. She said this in one of her books:
In God we live, and move, and have our being. It is God who gives life to all, who gives power and being to all that exists. But for His sustaining presence, all things would cease to be and fall back into nothingness. Consider that you are in God, surrounded and encompassed by God, swimming in God.
Now, what does she mean by that? I believe she means that we--you and I--are not the point of life. Now, people run around all the time trying to find out the meaning of life. This proverbial guy who goes up to the guru up on Mount Tibet someplace: "What is the meaning of it all?" And the Bible is very clear about the meaning of life, and it's not you and me. It is God. How many of us know the answer to first question the Shorter Catechism? "What is the chief end of man?" "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."
It is Christian to think in these terms. The focus, then, is not on us, but on God. It is, if you will, from the inside out. If you want to change how you live, the focus is not simply getting all the things around you in order. It is changing how you look at yourself. The point is God. And the world militates against this. The world is all about self. We hear it every day: self-fulfillment, self-esteem, self-this, self-that. And those things are not all bad. But when they become the point of life (that is, "self"), it changes the whole direction from the way God has made it to be.
I have great compassion on Diana. I feel sorry for her, or at least I used to. Because I think in the end, like most people in life, she was focused on herself. And it ended in tragedy. But that's true for all of us.
I went to Walmart just the other day and I counted at least 15 new diet books, and probably 50 more self-help books. (I thought they had all been written in the seventies! But they're still being written.) And they're not all bad. But, I mean, people must be making money off them because they're continually being written. You've got Dr. Phil, you've got Atkins, you've got this, you've got that. Everybody's writing a self-help something. It's all about self.
And God says it's all about Him. Not because He needs to be egotistical. But because He is. And without Him, we are not. It's all about the focus on Him.
Along with that comes the "F," and then the "G." Life is about "giving and not getting." Mother Teresa really understood that. She told a powerful story about a woman she had found out about who had eight children. And she heard from someone that they had not eaten in several days, and so she gathered up some food and took the food to this woman and she said this:
I could see the faces of the children, shining with hunger. But then the mother took the rice from my hands and divided it in two and went out. When she came back, I asked her where she had gone. She gave me a very simple answer: "They are hungry, also." The "they" were the family next door, and she knew that they were hungry. I was not surprised that she gave, but I was surprised that she knew. And this is something that is so beautiful to see: that shining happiness in the face of that mother who had the love to share. I had not the courage to ask her how long her family had not eaten, but I was sure it had been a long time. And yet she knew--in her suffering, in her sorrow, in her terrible bodily suffering--she knew that next door, they were hungry, also.
Do we know that our neighbor needs love? Do we know that our neighbor needs care? As the example of this family shows, God will never forget us. There is always something you and I can do. Life is about giving, and not getting.
In my preaching, I will not often ask you how much money you give--or actually, to give money. You will hear that from time to time--all preachers do. In fact, that's one of the big complaints about churches these days, that preachers are always asking for money. But I will ask you about how much you give of yourself and your resources. Not so much "how much" as "how," perhaps. Because it isn't always about how much. It is about how.
For example, in the area of money, God does say something about a tithe. That is, we should give ten percent of our income to God's work in the world. But did you know that the principle of the tithe is not so much about that number ten? It is about the principle of "first fruits." You see, when the people gathered their harvest, they were expected to give ten percent of the first fruits of the harvest--the first of what they had gotten from the harvest.
And, practically speaking, to me that means that one of the first checks that you and I ought to write is to God's work in the world. You see, most people give out of what they have left, not out of their abundance. We wait to see what we have left in the budget, and then we may say, "Oh, I'll give that to the church (or to God, or whatever)." And my challenge to any church is that you ought to pick a percentage of your income. You may say, "I can't do ten percent, but I can do two." And that's the first check you ought to write. You see, it has nothing to do with gross, or how much money you have left over after taxes. It's just whatever you have. And if you've chosen two percent that year, you give two percent. Or five percent. With the goal of giving more. How do you give? And how much do you give? That's a question for all of us. And I am stricken by that question all the time because I am just like you, often. All of us--we often wait to see what we have left. But the principle is to give the first fruits.
First the "F," then the "G." And this is where I had the hard time--to get to the "H." But I call that the "higher calling of serving." You see, it's not about being served. It's about serving. You know, I really love those commercials where it talks about going on vacation, you know. You're sitting out on the beach and someone's bringing you a beer, or food, or something like that. It's that wonderful image that we can go to someplace warm . . . and then have somebody serve us. And that's fun. But life is about serving and not primarily about being served.
In the gospels, James and John come to Jesus and they have a question to ask Him: "When you come into your kingdom, can we sit on your right hand and your left?" Because, you see, they believed that Jesus, when He got through with all this serving-stuff and riding around and looking poor, that He was actually going to draw the sword, and become the king, and set up a kingdom in Jerusalem. And they wanted to be number one and number two. Jesus pulls them aside and says, "You've heard that the Gentiles lord it over them, but not so with you. If you want to be my servant, you must be a servant. For the Son of Man came to serve and not to be served, and to give His life as a ransom for many. It is about serving and not being served." And they had it all wrong. And often we do, too.
Mother Teresa says (and I really love this quote because I've used this example myself and I find that I need to change it). She says:
We are not channels; we are instruments. Channels give nothing of their own. They just let water run through them. In our action, we are instruments in God's hands, like a pen. And God writes beautifully.
In the end, it is all about love. (And this is where I couldn't come up with the "I.") But it is about "love." Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul, and loving others as yourself. Mother Teresa says there is no limit because God is love and love is God, and so you are really in love with God and God's love is infinite. That's why it's not so much how much you do, but how much love you put into the action.
For Christians, love is not simply a feeling. It is a verb. It is what we do, and it is toward God and toward others. But I will say this: If you have never experienced love, you can't give it. See, we can only give what we have received. And if we have not really experienced the love of God--and by saying that, I'm not talking about how much God loves you. I'm talking about our ability to receive it, or understand it. And if you have not experienced the love of God, you don't have a lot of love to give yourself. Know that God loves you so much, because He has shown that in His Son.
One final story that Mother Teresa tells about how there was a huge earthquake in Russia. And there was a woman and her baby who were buried in some rubble for over ten days. They finally dug them out and Mother Teresa went to visit her. She saw the woman who was ravaged. Her body was broken and just so horrible-looking. And yet beside her was this beautiful baby who looked so wonderful. And she asked the nurses, "Is this the same child who was with her mother?" And she said, yes, it was. "How could that be?" Well, the story went like this. The mother, when she was buried in this place, trapped underneath this rubble, fed her child with her breasts as long as she could until those dried up. Then she began to prick her finger and let the child suck on that. And she did that for days on end. Self-sacrifice. The shedding of blood, if you will. And for us, the blood of Jesus nourishes us because it shows us so clearly the love of God. God really does love you.
And what I used to say was, "Be channels of that love." But I want to change that and say, "Be instruments of that love." Because these are the principles by which we live. And if we use these principles and others, we can choose priorities about how to live more productive, less frenetic, purposeful and meaningful lives--all based on the foundation of Jesus, our Lord.
Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for all the love you give us. Go with us now as we meditate on that love. Help us to think about how giving, and focus, and serving, and love influence our choices of each day, influence the priorities that we make and the things that we do. Above all, Lord, help us remember the foundation of Jesus Christ, in whom we live, and move, and have our being. It is in His name we pray. Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson Senior Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota
[Transcribed from an audiotape of the 9:00 a.m. worship service on February 8, 2004.] |
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