"Sacred Walls That Protect"
Sermon Transcript for June 30, 2002
Scripture Reading: Nehemiah 2:17-18; 13:15-22
By Rev. Mike Beck
Hear these profound words from Tim Dearborn. He writes, "We have the most sophisticated technologies in history to help us save time, manage time, make time, keep time, and avoid losing or wasting time. Yet in spite of being surrounded by all these labor-saving devices, we’re working harder and longer than ever." And then, boy, does this part of what he says relate to me, "We have the most elaborate kitchens in the world, but we often only use the refrigerator and microwave, preferring to graze like animals rather than dine like families. Paul Borthwick in his book, 101 Ways to Simplify Your Life, tells the story of African missionaries. Hugh and Marge will relate to this and Bishop Kintambo’s going to be with us at 11:00 a.m. service today—he’ll relate to this. These African missionaries hired some local villagers to help carry supplies to a distant station. The first couple of days the locals went at a pace slower than the missionaries desired, so they pushed them to go faster. And on day three of the trek, the group went twice as far as they did on day two. Around the campfire that night, the missionaries were congratulating themselves on their leadership ability. But when they got up to begin day four, the African workers wouldn’t budge. "What’s wrong?" asked the missionaries. "We can’t go any further today," the villager’s spokesperson said. The missionaries said, "Well, why not? Everyone looks well." "Yes," said the African, "But we went so quickly yesterday that we must wait here for our souls to catch up with us!"
Are you (am I?) going so quickly through life that our souls have been left behind? You may have heard this little poem of Elizabeth Cheney:
Said the robin to the sparrow
I should really like to know
Why those anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so?
Said the sparrow to the robin
Well, I think that it must be
That they have no Heavenly Father
Such as cares for you and me
Perhaps this short quote by Gordon Dahl gets to the heart of this critically important issue I want to look at today. He writes, "In our day we tend to worship our work. We tend to work at our play. And we play at our worship." Let that sink in as I share it again. In our day we tend to worship our work. Think about your leisure. We tend to work at our play. And isn’t it true, all God gets in return in terms of our worship is we play around with it a little bit.
Work is an important and God-honoring part of our lives. In our scripture for today, we see Nehemiah hard at work re-building the walls of Jerusalem. But as he oversees the project, we note in Chapter 13 that he becomes aware of a major problem. As persons are often inclined to do today, the people have taken a good thing—it was a good thing to rebuild the wall—but they’ve taken it now to the level of excess. They’ve carried their work over to the Sabbath in violation of the 4th Commandment – to remember and "honor the Sabbath Day and keep it holy".
And let me remind you of a truth that I shared with you from my sermon series a few years ago on the Ten Commandments – that God gave us the commandments as gifts to insure and protect our well-being. And so, in an effort to honor God – and also for the sake of the peoples own good – Nehemiah puts his foot down pretty hard. Let me read a few of the verses again from Chapter 13. It says, "When evening shadows fell on the gates of Jerusalem before the doors of the Sabbath." For background, Jewish Sabbath began at sunset, not sunrise. "I ordered the doors to be shut and not opened until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my men at the gates so that no load could be brought in on Sabbath day. And once or twice the merchants and sellers brought all kinds of goods, they spent the night outside Jerusalem. I warned them and said, "Why do you spend the night by the wall? If you do this again I will lay hands on you." And from that time on they no longer came on the Sabbath; they obviously got the message. Then I commanded the Levites to purify themselves and to go and guard the gates in order that the Sabbath Day may be kept holy."
I’m quite confident that God, in love, wants to speak a word of correction to me today, to you today, in terms of the pace of our lives, of our disregard of "Sabbath" rest, of what we are doing in our land for what we’ve come to call "the Lord’s Day" which in reality has become no different than any other day. Many of us in our desire for success, our perfectionism, our pursuit of pleasure, our love of material things, we’ve allowed the sacred walls of rest, the sacred walls of worship, or family time, of quiet time with the Lord to be torn down. And because they’ve been torn down, we’re exposed to all of the harsh elements of life because the sacred walls of Sabbath that God gave to us for our good to protect us we’ve neglected, they’ve been torn down, they are in disrepair, so our souls have become bruised and barren.
Friends, this Fifty-Day Adventure, if you just apply the principles you will thrive spiritually. The fourth principle we’re looking at today is one we dare not neglect – we need TO REBUILD THE SACRED WALL OF "SABBATH" IN OUR LIVES. Now, I have no simplistic answer for you for how you do that. You’ve heard me say on numerous occasions, "I’m sure glad there’s somebody at the police station, the fire station, the hospital today." Their day of Sabbath may have to be some other day of the week. I know that strict legalism is not the answer. The Pharisee’s tried that in Jesus’ day and they were rebuked strongly by the Lord.
In that regard I like these words from Greg Asimakopoulos. He wrote the words of that song we sang during our prayer time today and he authored this poem. I like what he says; the words are up on the screen. He says:
Pharisee fences are for the birds.
No legalistic pickets, please.
But, if what you have in mind
Is a stone wall to guard my vulnerable heart
From the kind of solicitors
That typically call on Sundays,
Hand me a brick.
I’m ready to start building!
And when Greg speaks of "solicitors" that typically call on Sunday, he’s not talking about the telemarketers. You know, I want to thank the State of Indiana today. My phone doesn’t ring near as much at supper time any more. He’s not talking about the door-to-door sales people. What he’s talking about when he talks about those solicitors he’s talking about the subtle but deadly things, things that aren’t necessarily bad in and of themselves, but things that we allow in to our lives that make us so preoccupied, so busy, so weary, that the walls of protection fall. And do you know what happens to God’s people when the walls of protection fall? Oh you’re still in relationship with Christ but the joy of the Lord is gone. You’re doing it all out of duty.
So I want to be very practical in closing today and suggest some things that you may need to deal with if you are to rebuild the sacred wall of Sabbath in your life. The list is by no means exhaustive. Let me list quickly seven things:
1. Establish values and priorities: You’ve got to know what’s really important in your lives. If there’s a good thing that came out of September 11th, that tragedy, a lot of Americans re-established some values and priorities of what was important. Now the reason we have to have those is, if we have them, they guide our decisions, our choices.
2. Know your limits: There’s so much out there that we could do, but when we try to do it all we end up paying the piper. You’ve heard me say it took almost a total physical and emotional breakdown in my life in the ministry ten years ago for God to finally crack through my thick skull and say, "Reverend Mike, your busyness doesn’t please me at all. Your "to-do" list is absolutely ridiculous. You might re-check my Word where it tells you you’re not supposed to do all the ministry. You’re suppose to prepare the saints to do their ministry with you." We have to learn to say "no". It’s time. Because I’m not talking about saying "no" to things that are bad, I’m talking about saying "no" to things that are good so that the best does not get neglected.
3. Stop trying to please everybody: Abraham Lincoln said, "You can’t please all of the people all of the time no matter how hard you try". And I want you to see that those three things are all connected. When you create priorities and then you say "no" to things, there are going to be people in your life who don’t understand. They’ll say, "What do you mean you don’t have time to come to my party?" And it’s not that you wouldn’t like to go to their party, but you’ve been someplace four nights in a row already and your wife, or husband, or kids are being neglected. Others won’t understand. You’ve got to learn if you are going to build some sacred walls around you that you can’t please everybody.
4. Realize that "things" can own you!: There’s nothing wrong with things. Every good and perfect gift is from the Father above for our enjoyment. But I’d like you to wrack your mind now to some item that you just thought you had to have so you paid far more for it than you should have, and that thing now owns you. It takes more time to maintain it than you get to enjoy it. Is it possible that less could actually be more in terms of the really important things of life?
5. Turn off the TV!: Now, I didn’t say throw away your TV. In fact, some times after a busy day when I get home I want to check out my mind and turning on the TV set lets me do that. I want to check out for a while; it’s therapeutic. Or maybe there hasn’t been much of my day that’s caused me to laugh that a half an hour with Raymond is really therapeutic. What I am saying is a lot of reason we don’t have any time is because the TV set is on all the time. View it selectively. Learn where the "off" switch is as well as the "on" switch. On my remote it’s the same button.
6. Don’t feel guilty when you relax!: You’ve heard me say, in fact I intend to do it this afternoon between 2:30 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., I’m going to take a nap. I’m tired after I’ve preached three times on Sunday morning. And I’m just about ready to get one of those phones with caller-id. I’d worked eleven hours one day this week, came home and there’s a lady that I dearly love that lives in another city. But the phone rang and I picked it up. This lady takes an hour to tell me stuff that she could tell me in five minutes. And if I had caller-id, as much as I love her, when I saw her name there, I wouldn’t have answered the phone. See I use to feel really guilty if the phone rang and I didn’t answer it. You’ve got to get over that. Or else there’s no Sabbath rest in our life.
7. Learn to live in God’s grace: We’ve got to maybe remind ourselves that God might not be all that impressed with our busyness. Some of us are still going around like we earn our salvation by what we do—not biblical. We may need to learn to live in God’s grace. He’ll look at that list. Some of those things you need to do to start building, re-building the sacred walls of Sabbath day.
And finally, in closing, in re-building walls around your life, make sure that God doesn’t get left on the outside of the wall! Because when I’ve preached related messages in the past, I’ve had persons hear me who only come to worship once a month, who decided the way to re-build their life, some walls around their life, is to come to worship once every three months instead of once every month. God’s got to be on the inside of the wall. Don’t cut him out in the process.
E-mail Comments to: Reverend Dan Sinkhorn