Jeff Klein, Pastor of Outreach
Jeffrey Klein 0:00
I just want to try to be efficient this morning — a little multitasking. Do you know why I'm preaching? Maybe I'll get my exercising? Right, as I'm saying, I mean, you know, it's all about being efficient. And by performing well and making sure that everything is working and we're going quickly, and so I just thought I'd bring this out this morning great thing about these you can set the speed or you can so look, I can put this and it was just oh yeah, I gotta start it hold on. You gotta get going here, and they get to set the speed now see, this is pretty good, nice slow pace to go ahead donate your wife look at all like this is this kind of your pace is how you're going. It's like this cruising along. But then, you know, the problem is you get started like this. And then you say yes to a couple more things. And then pretty soon, you know, it starts to speed up, right? And pretty soon, you're like, Whoa, okay, I can do this. I can do this. I'm in good shape. I can run this fast. I can do this. I know how long you do this. Now the thing is, we start ourselves in the treadmill early; we teach our kids how to get onto the treadmill quite early— don't wait. It's like get good grades, join the club at school, be on a travel sports team, going to 50 games a summer, running all the practices, keep going, keep moving, keep going, get a good ACT score, good SATs score, good GPA, because you got to get a good college. Because we if get a good college, you have a great life. But then you have like all the rest of us like this. And then, of course, you say yes to more things. And you get going faster. And say, okay, how long can I get this up? Can I suppose I guess he was listening? It's out of control, I'm losing hair. Have you ever felt like this? To refine yourself in this kind of situation? It slows down a little bit, then it speeds back up and slows down and speeds back up. And pretty soon, you're out of breath. Do you ever feel like you would want to just push the stop button? How do you keep that up? How long can you keep it up? Because most of us if we really are honest, we live our lives. Next thing you know, we look up treadmill in Webster's Dictionary; the definition is this: a wearisome or monotonous routine from which it is hard to escape. Mike Yaconelli was the youth ministry guru of the world back in the day, he wrote this. "We are going as fast as we can, living life at a dizzying speed. And God has nowhere to be found. We're not rejecting God. We just don't have time for him. We've lost him in the blurred landscape as we rushed to church. We don't struggle with the Bible with the clock. So there were two decadent or too busy. We don't feel guilty because of sin. Because we have no time for our spouses, children, or God." It's not sitting too much. It's killing our souls. It's our schedule that's annihilating us. Most of us don't come home at night staggering drunk. Instead, we come home staggeringly tired, worn out, exhausted, and drained. Because we live too fast. Dallas Willard, before his death, he's a philosophy professor. He was a famous professor at the University of Southern California. He was best known outside of Christian circles as a teacher of the way of Jesus. He said this hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life in our day. You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. Corrie Ten Boom once said, "The devil can't make you sin. He'll make you busy." Now in our culture, slow is a negative word. True. In fact, when you refer someone is slow. This is not a positive compliment. When I was playing golf this year, my son in fact, the people in front of us were slow. It was annoying. They were holding us up. We had to stand on the tee and wait, each shot in between, and talk to each other. We couldn't just play at 90 miles an hour. The round took too long. It was too stinking slow.
Jeffrey Klein 4:46
In fact, when I was in New Mexico last week at a camp there, I decided to go to Wendy's for lunch, and I got through Wendy's line. I'm in line. I'm there for way too long. And I explained to the one he's worked at the window I said "Ma'am, this is called "fast food." For what real food, I'd go to a real restaurant with a chef and sit at the table having served me. But since this is fast food if it's not fast, it's really not worth it." That's what kind of a jerk I am. Right? Do you relate at all? I mean, I just preach to myself; this is what I do. Do the same problem I have. Are you hurry sick, moving 90 miles per hour with no time to stop running, and on a treadmill hurtling towards a relationship with Jesus? That is, I don't know. Not what all that he offers far less than what he offers ever. They were playing a game in the supermarket to get in the supermarket, you get through the lines, and it's like, Okay, I think this line is the shortest. And then you sit there, and you watch a cross and see if you're beating the people that you chose to get another line and see if you're beating up or if you get a traffic jam. You're moving lanes all the time because you're thinking, okay, one of these ways is gonna be the magic lane to get me out of this as quickly as possible. How often do you get to sit down with someone and look them in the eye and listen to them? This idea that quick texts or Snapchats or Facebook messages or whatever, we're sending each other, that this is a real relationship? Seriously, those friendships on social media they're not really your friends. They're just acquaintances. You just shoot things back and forth to all the time. You know, the one that hit me the hardest I read this week, Sunset Fatigue, when I come home, so tired, so preoccupied, so drained, that I can't even love the people that I've made the deepest promises to. Because I'm annoyed, I'm short. I'm angry and frustrated. I'm tired. And so connecting with my wife, my children, whoever is supposed to be around me and I'm supposed to be loving and looking in the eye. I just can't do it. I'm exhausted.
Jeffrey Klein 6:58
Catholic writer Ronald Rolheiser says that we have a disease. It's called "pathological busyness." Now, this makes me wonder what drives us to be so busy. If any crouches right if every idol offers us something. What does busyness offer us to keep us going back to the well and getting it? Every off. Every idol offers us something but delivers little on their actual promises. And yet, all of us are wondering 90 miles an hour. That's the culture we live in. So there must be something at stake. We must be getting something from this. So I looked I thought about this is the first thing we get is this. We value business if you can say I'm busy. Somehow it's a badge of honor. True. I mean, you're not going to tell people I got all kinds of time on my hands. I remember the first pastor I worked with this all he talked about was how busy he was. I worked 70 hours a week Ba ba ba ba ba is going on every time every meeting, we were just talking about busyness. This is somehow a badge of honor. He was really a pastor because he was super busy. Somehow this busyness builds our self-esteem makes us feel more important. makes us feel greater. Like we're really doing something in the world. Like we're really significant. the busier you are, the more significant you must be. The second thing it does. Secondly, it offers. It offers us a way to escape. Because when you're busy running 90 miles an hour, you have no time to deal with what's happening here. You have no time to think about it. As long as you're on this thing is going, you're keep pushing the buttons, and you just keep running. You never have to deal with what's going on inside. You can always just keep ignoring it. pretending like you're fine. Everything's great. Everything's wonderful. Isn't it weird how sometimes your body can be going so fast on the treadmill that somehow your insights are going fast too. And even when you sit down, you can't slow your insides down. Ever had this experience? You sit down, and your mind is going 950. You wake up at four o'clock in the morning, and your mind's going 950 Because you just can't slow down. Yeah, I've had that experience. John Ortberg says "For many of us, the great danger not that we will renounce our faith is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied. We will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them."
Jeffrey Klein 9:38
So when you think about it, you've made up three parts, right your body which moves and goes and moves and goes and then you got your soul which is your mind and your emotions and your personality your will. I think each of us has unique soul in the room. God gives His unique soul; some people are more wired like me, kind of hyped out bananas. Other people are calmer. and cool and cucumbers. But then there's a deeper part of us that all of us have. And that's the part is deep inside, that's your spirit. It's the part where God is longing to connect with you. It's the part that literally hungers for a connection with the Father. It's hungry for connection with the Father. So like, literally everyone in the world they don't know what it is always. But there's a deep cry from inside to connect with the father in some deep way. Here's the problem. When you're super busy and running and going and running and going, your spirit gets like, drowned out that cry from inside. You can't even hear it. And if God's whispering to you, you certainly can't hear God whispering when you're running on the treadmill at 90 miles an hour. And when you can't quiet your mind, and your soul and your emotions. You just never hear God. So your relationship with God becomes just kind of just surfacey. quick, fast. So is there a remedy? Is there a way out? Can we put away the treadmill? Well, look at Matthew 11. Kara did it great. She did great. I was gonna start yelling at these kids. Hurry, hurry. Let's go. We gotta go. We gotta go. ever done that to your kids? What do you guys take it so far? I've done that many times. Look at Jesus; Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear. And the burden I give you is light." So Jesus was a rabbi; Rabbi had two things. First was a yoke. His yoke was considered to be the way he read the Bible, and the way we interpret the Scripture. So his yoke was actually kind of like his prescription of how he read the scripture for how you were to live your life to have a full and complete life, how to carry the weight of wife was the yoke of the rabbi. So each rabbi taught people how to carry the weight of of their life, the weight of everything. And so there were comments on marriage and divorce, and sexuality and prayer and money and conflict resolution, the government was all including the yoke of the rabbi, teaching each person how to carry the yoke of the rabbi, this is how you live your life to live a meaningful life. It's a way to shoulder the law. You know what a yoke is, right? You put to action in New York, you put a yoke around their neck, and then they pull together. So Jesus is offering us a chance to do live next to him. So here's Jesus, and we get a yoke put on us, and he carries the weight of our lives with us and for us walking alongside of us. That's what the offer is, it's the invitation. Don't do this alone. You don't have to do this alone. I can help you carry the yoke in my yoke is easy. It's light. It's peaceful. It's different. Right? So he's offering this thing to us. Secondly, Jesus had apprentices, disciples, and people that were following his yoke who were saying, I want to be like this. And if you were an apprentice of Jesus, your three goals, be like Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus would do if he were you. So if Jesus were you, how would you live your life? Because obviously, Jesus had his own life. It's different than your life. So the question is, how would Jesus live your life if he were you? Right?
Jeffrey Klein 13:39
This invitation is this verses invitation. It's like, come and do this. Now. It's interesting. Dallas Willard, the guy, quoted earlier, this the philosophy professor, said that the secret of the easy yoke is actually hidden in Matthew chapter 11. He says it this way, "In this truth, why is the secret of the easy yoke, the secret involves living as Jesus lived in the entirety of his wife adopting his overall lifestyle." So here's the thing. We all know this verse, right? "I'm the Way the Truth and the Life." We focus a lot on Jesus being the truth and the life. Right? We know what those mean. But what does it mean that Jesus is the way? What it means is that he is actually showing us the way we're supposed to live. So we talked about being disciples of Jesus being people to follow Jesus, were trying to make our lives look like his life; he actually modeled for us the way life was supposed to look when he was on planet Earth. So he was on planet Earth for 33 years, three years as an adult, and modeled for us this way of life. So we can learn how to live like this rabbi in this peaceful, easy way by living Jesus' way by adopting his way of life. So how does Jesus' life helped get us off the treadmill? Well, let's look at this Was Jesus busy? Yes, he was there. Let me show you; check these verses out, mark for again, Jesus began to teach by the lake the crowd the gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and set it out in the lake. He couldn't even stand on the shore. People were pushing so hard. They're gonna push him in the link, so many people coming to hear him. So when people are going to be healed, massive crowd, here's another one, Mark, chapter five, one chapter leader, look at this, when Jesus again crossed over so he tries to get away from the crowd, he goes to the other side of the lake, when he crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. So again, the people now follow him to the new place. This whole crowd just walks all the way around the lake. By the way, the Sea of Galilee is eight miles wide, and 12 miles long. These people aren't going by boat, they're walking around the lake to get to Jesus. Crowds of people check this one out, Mark 6, that because so many people were coming and going, they did not even have a chance to eat. So decide Jesus's disciples are so busy doing ministry that they can't even eat lunch, breakfast, or dinner, and eat. You're just ministering to people. They're super busy. So is busyness the problem, is being busy, bad or negative or evil now, oh, Jesus was so busy. But amid the busyness, we can find a practice that Jesus practices as a way of life, a Rule of Life. That was consistent check Mark 6:31 out again; look at this. 'And because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat. He said to them, "Let's go off to a quiet place and rest for a while."' So he says to his disciples, we're gonna, we're gonna check out we're gonna go to a quiet place. Guess what? It didn't work. The people followed them to the quiet place. You know what had to happen. They had to feed 5,000 People probably 15,000 people, out of lunch. In this remote place, it was so remote that there was no food there. There was no McDonald's. There was no Wendy's. There's no fast food. They just had a Jesus does miracle. So the miracles over, and then we read this and Luke, look at this. Vast crowds came to hear him preach and be healed of their diseases. But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer. I love this. This is not the first time we read this. It's not the only time we read this. Jesus takes his disciples, cargo back one to two the one mark, I think it is right, the one that says immediately after this. Yeah, me after this. Jesus insists his disciples get back into the boat and head across the lake to Bethsaida while he sent the people home. After telling everyone goodbye, he went up to the hills by himself to pray. Now this Greek word that's in these passages, if the word era most, it means wilderness, desert, deserted place, desolate place, solitary place, quiet place. Jesus chooses a quiet place. Because he's a human. He needs time to reconnect with his father. He needs time to hear his father's voice. He needs time to have a real relationship with his God. You know the problem with our busyness. We never make time for God. We can't fit him in. Just the truth, right? We're going so fast. There are so many important things to do. Going to a quiet place like Jesus did.
Jeffrey Klein 18:38
Those. It crosses our minds, but we never get there. I mean, I'm preaching to myself, crosses my mind. But then I come up with 10 reasons why not to go to the quiet place to hear from God. You know, I was in Colorado a few weeks ago; there was 450 high school students in their leaders there. And on Wednesday night, I couldn't do it in the chapel. The chapel is supposed to hold 200 people which were 40 or 50 people inside there. So you can picture this, right? So I couldn't have an exercise in the chapel. So I simply said to the kids, I want you to put your cell phones away. Put them down on your seat or whatever you got to do with them. Turn them off. When you go outside. Somewhere on this mountain. I'm gonna give you 15 minutes of total silence. And I want you to just sit before the Lord and be quiet. I mean, it was awesome. You could hear a pin drop on that camp. 450 Kids, I could see them all over the place. Sitting on the ground, kneeling. I gave them buckets of water to go to if they needed to go into kind of drop something leave something with the Lord, and several kids were getting up going to the buckets back to their quiet place was amazing. It's probably not something they've done. Maybe their whole lives, not for 15 minutes. I told him I feel like an eternity. I told them that they just let their inner chaos settle down and see if they can hear the voice of the Lord. So when that was done a young lady from Florida, her name is Annabelle. She approached me. And she said, "Hey, can you pray for me?" So I went over and took Annabelle to the side. And I heard her story. She said that she had grown up thinking that her parents were trying to kill her since she was six years old. This is her constant fear in her life. She told me when she got to the camp, she was in a bathroom and a total panic attack, completely unable to shut down the anxiety and losing her mind. And this is how she lives her life all the time. I asked her what the Lord had said to her while she was sitting there by herself. She said, Well, the Lord told me that he wants to heal me. So I said, "Annabelle, I want us to pray right now." And I took Annabel back to that swimming pool where she was when she first started thinking her parents are trying to kill her. That's an evil thought. It's crazy that thought doesn't come from heaven comes from the dark side. I took her back there. And I said, "Okay, Annabelle, I want you to close your eyes. And I want you to tell me if Jesus is there anywhere in the pool with you?" She really said, "Oh, yeah, he's sitting right on the stairs there." "So if you want to tell Jesus, Annabelle, what's going on in your mind right now? What's happening to the six-year-old little girl." She talks to Jesus about that. And I took her to the bathroom, where the panic attack happened. And the same thing, Jesus was there with her there. By the time we were done praying, time she was done with the silence. It was like you could see this wait. I thought of this verse, you'll come to me, when you're weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest, I will give you peace, I will give you joy, I will give you the ability to love again. Maybe you're sitting here this morning. You haven't taken any time to think about what's going on inside you. You haven't taken any time to really deal with it. Maybe you just keep running on the treadmill, hoping it won't go away on its own. Maybe you need healing. Maybe you need to come to Jesus, maybe you knew, accept his invitation to come to me. If you're weary, heavy-laden, or tired of the treadmill, come to me. I can hear the objections, actually. Here's what Henri Nouwen says, the Catholic priest. "Without solitude, it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. You do not take the spiritual life seriously. We do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him." I can hear the objections flying. Jesus didn't have four kids under the age of eight, I get it. Or you know, Jesus never had a smartphone or an email to deal with. True. He didn't have an Andy's has to go to a 10 o'clock at night and get the chocolate chip concrete mixer, like I go. Right didn't have that distraction. You know, I know Jesus didn't have these things. But the question is, how would Jesus live your life if he were you?
Jeffrey Klein 23:31
What do you still find those quiet places to go to, we still find a place to go and be quiet with the Lord when he just you saw the story. He's super busy. He just keeps going after the quiet place until we get to that place where he's by himself with just him and God. Many people will tell me they don't have time for this. I hate to give you the statistics, but the average American spends 705 hours on social media in a year. So just add that up. The average American spends 2,700 hours watching binging television shows in a year. The average male by the time they're 21 years old, spends 10,000 hours playing video games. According to research and 10,000 hours you can become an expert at anything. So you can be an expert at fortnight and Call of Duty or maybe an expert at the New Testament or it can KNOW JESUS. It's possibility. You know the Kyler Murray the 21 year old or 20 year quarterback of the Arizona Cardinals, his statistics last year, were doing really well for six games then Call of Duty came out and his his statistics dropped off the charts. They tried to write into his contract this year he would put a Call of Duty away and watch an NFL film instead. Because he just can't stop himself. The treadmill, the treadmill. Now, I was thinking about this a few weeks ago what makes camp so impactful? Like I love camp. I've got videos this week from Young Life Camp from Jackson Kemper is awesome just to watch kids. I've been to three camps this summer. It's been amazing. What makes camp so impactful? Well, I can give you two things. First of all, there's no TV there. So nine o'clock at night comes, and we're all forced to do something together. Because we can't turn the TV on, that doesn't exist. In fact, your cell phone has pretty shoddy reception at camp in the middle of the mountains; it sometimes works, sometimes doesn't work, which is awesome saved to put your cell phone down and actually talk to somebody. So it camp. At night at nine o'clock, kids are playing the game Settlers of Catan. And all these games are going on in the room together. People are just playing games together. You know, a camp we eat together. Common meal times, we sit at the table we talk to each other. I mean, people I don't even know I sit across from kids and want to talk with them. It's amazing. You know, what's really impactful about camp, we worship twice a day; it's built to the schedule. But you know, the most impactful thing. There's the most painful thing that happens every day at camp. There was a time in the morning. It's called Time Alone With God. There's an hour set aside every morning and every camp scheduled for Time Alone With God. And everybody in camp together has time alone with God. And they go on their own somewhere by themselves to a quiet place and hang out with their God. That is always the most impactful part of camp. So it's okay to be busy. But will you get some time alone with God this week? When you hear His voice, when you so come in, well, you let them heal you deep inside. It's only going to happen in the quiet place off the treadmill. We enjoy ourselves.
Jeffrey Klein 23:31
All right, let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank You for the example of how you lived your life. Thank You that we can look to the way you did this, Lord. And we can follow that example. We can see, Lord, that you were super busy and had lots to do super important stuff. Yet you were willing to walk away from all that. To be with your father, to connect with your father to be alone with him. Lord, give us the willpower. Give us the resolve to do the same with our Father in heaven today. Your Name Jesus, we pray. Amen.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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