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January 23, 2005
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The Purpose Driven Life
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"What will be the Center of My Life?"
Matthew 6: 19-34
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life£?
“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
NIV
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A couple weeks ago I was in a meeting with a group of clergy during which we shared about what made worship most meaningful to us. Well, we all shared about all kinds of aspects of "worship". All of us were speaking of the "worship event" meaning Sunday morning. And if I were to ask you a similar question, you too most likely would think of musical styles, things that bless us, a sermon, seeing friends, along those lines.
But for all of you in the PDL studies this week, you discovered something different. To worship God does not mean Sunday only. Indeed in the week of studies, you found worship is meant to be your whole life. Worship is about my heart surrendered to God, focused upon God, enjoying God. It is the primary purpose of my life, to be a worshiper. So the question "What will be the center of my life?" is actually the question "who am I going to live for?"
The way we determine what is the center of our lives or for whom we live is often by the choices we make rather than the words we say. Most of us would readily claim Christian beliefs if asked, "Yes, certainly Jesus is the Lord and Savior of my life. " But do our actions demonstrate this?
This reminds me of the guy Jesus tells about who surveyed his great wealth and the huge harvest that year, he decided to build bigger barns to store the harvest and retire: "I will take my ease, eat, drink and be merry," he said.
But this was the wrong decision. The youth class humorously decided the lesson was "Don't build barns. " But actually this man had a heart problem. At the center of his life was himself, not God. And from God's response to his decision we have a graphic illustration that this was the wrong choice. He was wasting his life instead of living rich towards God, Jesus says (Luke 12).
The key need is for us to have Jesus at the center of our lives instead of at the sidelines.
- Jesus gave this same lesson in the Matthew 6 Scripture. In this passage where Jesus has just listed three acts of Righteousness, he ends with this discourse on attitude - "do not worry".
Worry betrays something about your heart. A heart that worries has pushed God 'off center'. A heart that worries has abandoned worship, and like that rich fool who built his bigger barns, when we worry, something other than God has taken the spotlight in our lives.
To worry is to meditate upon a problem - turning over and over in your mind even though that pondering of the problem will not solve it. To worry is to pray to yourself, and you got to know that will not accomplish anything.
The word "worry" Jesus uses here means to "draw in different directions". Like chil dren trying to convince us to go one way or another, each pulling on a different hand, so worry pulls our thoughts in many directions. We become double-minded when we worry.
Why not worry?
- It won't change a thing! You can't add to your length of days; you cannot turn one hair white and another black through worry!
No even though you imagine that it will change something, to worry cannot change a thing.
- It denies the intrinsic value God sees in you! (v. 26) When you worry you are saying to God that He does not value your life, He does not see your need as worth meeting. So, since God finds it worthless to meet, then, you better worry it to solution. Oh, God values you so much. You are precious in his sight. Think of a dad who loves to just sneak into his little children's room to watch them sleeping. Watching those little chests move up and down gives a dad or mom's heart such pleasure. How much more the Heavenly Father looking upon His children? How much more? Oh my.
- And when we worry we have aligned our behavior with unbelievers, with pagans, instead of with Jesus. We have begun to act just like an unbeliever.
"Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted about so many things, when only one thing is necessary," Jesus said.
Here was Martha trying to put on a good meal for the disciples and Jesus and Jesus did not care she was left to do all the work. So, she told Jesus. Her statement and question to Jesus in this passage in Luke 10 is a picture of a prayer of complaint - actually a prayer of accusation. "Don't you care about me?" she shouts from the kitchen. Her statement placed blame for her circumstance on Mary.
So, Jesus' reply to her was heard in the "Martha, Martha…" statement. You see a complaint will not bring the desired results. Martha needed an attitude adjustment.
Ever been there? When the demands or concerns of life weigh heavier upon you than the hope you have in God? It is easy for me to get all caught up in trying to complete a sermon for Sunday and sink from trust to worry. I have to stop, pray, confess my worry, look to God and get my focus back. I have to move from the kitchen with Martha, worried and bothered about so many things, to the living room with Jesus and Mary, and just sit at his feet for a time.
Really Jesus was saying to Martha that she had painted herself into a corner by choosing to cook "many things" rather than just one simple dish. How often do we give ourselves more stress because we do the same? The message is "do not worry" - God values you, knows your needs and your worries will not change a thing.
Do not push God from the center of your life, instead, give God center stage and worship. Worship is your life, not just your Sunday. Your whole life is expressed in worship.
- And that is what Jesus turns to at the close of this passage. As Jesus said it in Matthew 6:33 we are to seek God.
"Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. " What things? The things about our lives that tend to cause us to worry.
Seek means to grope to search.
It is not the little light sweet chorus we sing, but a life of passion.
It is like what David writes about in Psalm 42 where he writes that his soul thirsts for God as a deer pants for water. So, the desires of our lives are to be focused upon God, hungering, thirsting for God.
The other day Grace came into the office asking me if I had heard some particular songs on a CD Anna had given me for Christmas, which Grace had borrowed to listen to. I hadn't, so she went and got the CD and I took a break to hear these songs. One of the songs was an account of the writer's longing and thirsting for God. He said the song had come to him after reading Acts 17:26 which said: God created all in the manner he did so that "men would seek him". When he read this, the young songwriter was gripped by how much he did not seek God. He just lived day by day letting God be God, but not really pursuing him. That day when he read those words, he was struck with his deep need of God and began to just groan and long to be near Him.
Do you seek God in your life?
- Jesus calls us to a life of seeking, of groping our way through the mire of our days with one thought: "OH to be near You, O Lord!" And the good news is that God is never far from us, no matter how we may feel, but our passions, our deep desires, are to find their focus upon Him.
"Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness," Jesus declares.
This echoes the Lord's prayer where we pray: "Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!"
For the Kingdom is the rule and reign of God. It is life lived in the presence and for the glory of God. May the rule of God come into my life, we pray.
And Righteousness is the will of God enacted through our lives. It is right-action brought about by the work of God's Holy Spirit.
So, a life of worship is a life lived passionately alive, desiring God above all things. That is what we are called to and therein is the first purpose of our lives.
Who will you place at the center of your life? What will be the center of your life?
My prayer is that God will be in that center place and the we will be a people known as worshipers of that God not just on Sunday but all through our weeks.
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