Faith in the Fastlane: Keeping Pace in a 24/7 World

In our fast-paced world of constant notifications and endless to-do lists, many struggle to maintain focus on their relationship with God. The story of Mary and Martha illustrates how busyness can prevent us from experiencing God's presence fully. While Martha became consumed with tasks, Mary chose to sit at Jesus' feet and listen. Today, we need to intentionally unplug from digital noise, create space for God in our daily routines, and build our foundation on scripture and prayer. By setting boundaries around technology use and prioritizing spiritual growth, we can develop a deeper connection with God.

Transcript

All right, friends, I'm going to invite you, if you have your Bibles, to go ahead and pull those out. We're going to start this morning in the Gospel of Luke in chapter 10. And we're going to read verses 38 through 42. It's a story that I know that we've heard many times, but it's important for us to hear it again. So if you have your Bibles, follow along.

If you don't, you can follow along. On the screens in front of you here is the word of the Lord for us today, as Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She had come to him and asked, lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?

Tell her to help me. Martha. Martha. The Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed, or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her friends.

I've got to ask you a question and I want to hear your answers. This is not a rhetorical thing. I want to hear it. How does your morning start? What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

Morning. Now, some things we can leave out, friends, but most things I want to know. Yes, ma'am. Stretch. That's a good idea.

Chronological order. So this is from Genesis 1. Are you doing it like, chronologically written or chronologically scholarly? Just whatever that says. Okay, nice.

All right. What are some other things you guys do when you first wake up in the morning? Phone. Just make phone calls starting at 6:00 in the morning. Just phone calls.

Make. Okay. Yes, but what do you mean phone? You mean.

Okay, email, texts. What did I miss overnight while I slept? Anybody else? What are some things that you do in the morning?

Okay, she does have you trained really well. You also deliver Andrea's coffee. That's weird.

Okay, what other things? Yes, sir. Wait for your coffee, man. You guys. Yes, sir.

Time. Am I late for school yet? Yeah. Okay. Yes.

What do you got?

You always have a dog just right there, huh? No, just sleeping right next to my head. Yeah. Stacy, what do you do?

Okay, so some of you are doing this well already, right? Very few changes needed. Praying time, scripture reading time. I really do think, friends, that so many of us, the first thing we do in the morning, whether we admit it or not, in front of everybody at church, is the first thing we do is pull up our phones. Right?

What did I miss? What news is happening? What happened overnight? This last week, I had an opportunity to read an online magazine article from the magazine Self where the author Lindsay Lanquist asked 39 different people and these are pretty successful people about their morning routines. And first of all I have to say I disgusted and second of all I was a little bit motivated because she her purpose and getting these things out, like telling people about morning routines is to get other people excited and motivated to get their mornings started correctly.

The reason I was disgusted is because some of these people get up at 3 o'clock in the morning and that's just gross. I don't understand that at all. That's true. Like if it's for a job, yes. But these people get up at like 3am on the dot.

So this is I'm going to read you some of their routines and I want to, if you have something like this, just think oh gosh, this could be really cool if I got up at 3 o'clock in the morning to do the same thing. This is from Wendy P. She is a 40 year old. Her wake up time is 3am on the dot. She's very precise.

It is on the dot and she says usually she doesn't even need an alarm to get up at 3 in the morning. Her bedtime though. 8pm her job. She is a prosecutor, author and a university lecturer. So her morning routine looks a little bit like this.

3:00am she gets up and immediately has a cup of coffee, then spends a full hour working. 4:00. She eats breakfast and spends some time in the morning catching up on work, writing articles, creating presentations and things like that. 6:00am she goes to the gym with some of her colleagues before heading to the office. She says the trick to my 8pm and 3am sleep schedule is monitoring my post work activities to make sure I can actually get to bed by 8pm do you guys have a bedtime?

That's interesting. I see young adults shaking your heads that I'm proud of you guys. I don't really have a bedtime and my wife doesn't like that. So next up, this is from Margo M-a-r-g-a-u-x is how she spells her name. She's 35.

Her wake up time is 3:30 or 4. She's a little more flexible but her bedtime is 9:30. She is a social media marketer and influencer coach. Okay, so fancy new job. Hey, can you guys hear each other?

All right, morning routine, 3:30am get up, make a big pot of tea before spending time updating her planner. 4:00. She responds to email. 4:45. Spends two hours working while talking or, sorry, taking periodic breaks to walk her dogs.

And she says, people often ask me how I'm able to get up so early so easily. And as cheesy as it may sound, I found that when I love what I'm doing for a living, I'm excited to start my day. You guys excited to go to work in the morning? Some of you, yes. Some of you not.

So, yes. Right. So I've got a few other examples here, and I won't go through all of them, but some people are just built for mornings, getting up and getting life started. I'm not that guy. Okay, so what I found out in this article when I was reading through it all, 39 of them were women, who clearly are way more motivated than many men that I know.

But they're all professionals and they're all incredibly busy in their lives. And to meet that busyness head on, each one of them has to spend time preparing themselves for what they know is ahead of them for the rest of their day. Their routine makes a difference on how they're able to tackle their lives. And I, again, I'm not a morning person and I'm much more productive in the evenings. That's why I really don't have a bedtime, because I could stay up till 1, 2, 3 in the morning if I needed to to get stuff done.

Thank God I don't have to. But I'm not the person that gets up and just jumps into anything. I need to wake up a little bit first. When I get up in the morning, I immediately pick up my phone. Can I get an amen?

Yeah, you shouldn't have done that. But all right. But I check out the news that I missed overnight and I hop onto Facebook to see what everyone is talking about, what's going on. Then I make my first cup of coffee. And by the time that the coffee is brewed, I'm onto TikTok to hear the latest gossip.

I mean, not anymore, but I'm hearing what's happening in regard to religion and politics. I watch a few videos and then I help get Levi ready for school. If it's a weekday, I usually help make breakfast for Levi or with his lunch, one of the two. And then I usually take Levi to school a little bit after eight. Then I head off to work.

My mornings are not super productive other than listening to American drama and catching up on social media stuff, so. But if you're anything at all like me, throughout the day, there is rarely a moment that I'm not either on my phone in Front of a computer monitor, checking my email, doing something on social media, looking@biblegateway.com for scripture or some other tech related thing. Right. Life has just moved to become so incredibly busy. And I think we can all agree that our lives have become this life that's lived in the fast lane.

And oftentimes the things that don't keep us up with our ever shortening attention spans, they get left behind in a world that never seems to power down. What do you think our lives would look like if we spent a little more time focused on God? So when we log into Faith instead of Facebook, our life's bandwidth will expand. So we as followers of Jesus have got to get back into investing in our faith and reprioritizing God as the most important part of our lives. I remember when I was young, like super young, like I was a really tiny little kid when we talked about priorities for the first time.

I still remember this because our teacher had us raise our hands and we talked about the four most important priorities. Now, this was not something that I knew. This is something I learned from that teacher. And she reminded us first four fingers. God, country, family, self.

You heard that? Or some variation of that. Sometimes they're a little flip flop, but those are the four things that we were taught that we have to have as priorities in our lives. God, country, family, self. And that's what I learned.

In that order.

When you hear that list, does that list of four things look similar to your own list of priorities?

It doesn't have to be exactly in that order, but your priorities are probably something similar. For some of you, it might be job or, you know, dog or whatever. But I think all of those things are important. The question then becomes, would anybody know that those four things or whatever is on your list? If those four things are your most important priorities by how you live your life.

Life. So we're going to put that to the test. Okay? Does everybody in here believe that God is your number one priority? Yeah.

Some of you are like, I don't know if I want to raise my hand right now. It's okay. Listen, if you feel like God is your number one priority, this is good. We're going to put that to the test right now by playing a quick little game. Okay?

The game is called the five second rule. And no, I'm not dropping donuts on the floor. So I'm going to need two volunteers. Come on, just. Anybody?

Anybody? One teenager. Come on, teenager. One teenager. All right.

Come on, Jimmy. Jimmy and Osha. All right.

Hi, Mom. Alright, so this game that we're going to play, it's a really short, simple little game. It's called five second rule. Here are the rules. You're going to buzz in, hit the buzzers or whatever, the bells, and you must quickly name three things relating to a topic that I'm going to share.

You have five seconds to list three things. Okay? There's going to be a timer that's going to keep track of our time and whoever has the most points at the end of the round, your whole side gets free donuts. Every Sunday forever. All right?

Yeah. All right.

If you list all three items before the buzzer, you score. If you don't, you don't get it. You get two out of three zero points. Okay? All right, so we're going to begin.

We're going to do a practice round. Name whoever gets to, whoever buzzes in first gets to answer the question. Okay? Are you ready with our timer? All right, this is just a practice round.

Okay? Just a practice round. Name three toppings that should go on a pizza.

Four. That's right. All of those things. So get it? Do we get it?

Do we get it? Okay. No point. That's a fake point. All right.

Yeah. I want you guys to put them behind your back. How about that? And then face the other direction. No, I'm just kidding.

All right, are we ready? All right, you're gonna need to cheer your teams on because they are very nervous right now. All right? I need you to name three books of the Bible. Go four, Three.

Got it. Wonderful. Congratulations. One point. Erica, keep track of points for the donuts.

Okay? All right, next question. Name three disciples. Five, Four. That's four, but all right.

Yes, we'll take it.

John, tell me.

Yes. Let's be clear on the question. Disciples of Jesus. Come on, come on. Alright.

By the way, Jeff is our judge and just to be clear, there are some things in here. Well, that's fine. There are some things in here that I might not know all the answers to because there's going to be a million different options in some of these things. Jeff will correct us. Okay, next question.

Name three ancient cities found in the Bible. Yes. Yes. Rome. Five.

Athens. Yes. Three, two, one. Any.

All right, so you're not going to get a point, but what do you have? Babylon. Oh, crap. Rome. Rome.

Okay. Yeah. All right, so Annie again. It's okay. It's all right.

Give her. Yeah. It's okay. It's all right.

All right. Name three fruits of the spirit.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Nope.

Do you want to try to name three fruits of the spirit? Anybody want a name? What?

Beautiful. Got him. Wonderful. Good job, Elaine. Very nice.

You guys didn't. Okay, all right, all right. Name three churches in Tulsa. Life, Church, Community. Brookside and First Baptist.

Okay, Very good. All right. Yay. Now, these are not all biblically. Are you gonna be okay over there?

All right, sorry. All right, name three religions. Five, four, three.

Got it. All right. She got it. Just under. Just under the bell.

All right, name three things. Could be anything that you could find. Cheater at the Last Supper.

Okay, I'll take it. Yes, all three.

All right. Name three parables of Jesus.

Do I know what a parable is?

Okay. Yes. Four, Three. No, two. Okay.

Yeah, we will go over that in youth at some point. Anybody else want to throw some out besides Jeff James? He got a couple. What were they? Okay.

Talents. Lost sheep, Pearl coin, Prodigal son, Whiskey. What? Can I Google what a parable is? Yeah.

Wheat. Wheaton, Chaff. Yes. So all of those are parables. They're stories that Jesus taught about using words that people would have understood at the time.

All right, here we go. You ready? Now, you're going to have this, like, a kind of advantage on this one because you and I talked about it this week, so. Sorry about this. Name?

Sorry? Name. Jonah's three sons. Yeah. 5, 4, 3, 2.

Yes. Hate ham. Or him. And then. Oh, I already forgot the other two.

Never mind. All right. I just read it. So he asked me a question about it. What?

What? Anybody? J Fest. Yes. So Sham Ham.

Sorry. Shem Ham and J Fest. Yes. Very good, guys. I think that we're going to call that good.

So, yay. Let's give them a round of applause.

All right, so.

All right. All right. I noticed that Chuck is giving them a hard time, but Chuck didn't volunteer to be up there, so. All right.

Forever on Sunday morning. Forever. So think about these questions. If we had any sort of time to really think about them, it wouldn't have been a big deal. We could have all probably come to the answers at one point.

But the 5 second time limit, man, that's where having to respond immediately becomes an issue. How would the rest of you have done? You think you would have done better or do you think you would have done worse? Especially if it was like, different questions, Right? Like questions you didn't already get the answers to when.

When they were up here. I bet that it would have been easier for every one of us to know these answers if we knew what we were talking about. Kind of generally right. The same is true for us in our everyday lives. If we know scripture, if we know Jesus, if we know our faith well, then when life gets hectic, when we have to make responses and we have to decide and make decisions, immediately, our muscle memory will kick in and the faith that we've deeply laid in the foundation of Jesus will come to us out of knowledge rather than panic.

We have to have a deeply laid foundation in order for us to be best serve God in every moment of our daily lives. And it's hard to do in our busy world because we fill ourselves up with things that entertain us. Think about the constant pressure that we're all under, every one of us, every single day, social media updates, busy schedules, split second decisions that we have to make. All of these things can lead us to react rather than to reflect. So what this means is that we're going to have to build in moments of pause in our life because if we don't, we're going to burn out.

Some of these pause moments might be moments of prayer, of meditation on scripture that we've read, or seeking counsel, being in conversation with somebody about scripture. When life gets hectic and we prepared by developing some of these things as a routine for our lives, we will have a solid foundation on which to base our choices, conclusions and our actions.

Just as we might have fumbled to name the three books in the Bible in five seconds, we often rush through big life decisions regarding our relationships, our finances, even our moral choices without pausing to listen to God's guidance. At times, it's incredibly easy to be reactive rather than intentional when we feel rushed, isn't it? In order to avoid having to act out of mediacy, we need to work hard to react deliberately to align our choices with the will of God in our lives. And we can only do this if we slow down and we're intentional about giving God the kind of focus that we need in order to develop a serious and powerful spiritual life. We oftentimes in America, we think the church is unaffected, ineffective, right?

Because the church doesn't look like it did in the 1970s. When the spirit is breaking out and people are miraculously healed and they're speaking in tongues, all these incredible things are happening in the church. It's because we've kind of shifted God to the side of American religion. We don't focus on the ways of God anymore. We focus on being entertained for an hour.

We have got to be more intentional to give God what God deserves. Deserves. In the book of Haggai, it's a prophetic book. In chapter one, we can see the prophet receives a message from God about his people that could easily be relevant to us today. After the people of Israel had been returned to their homeland, we recognized that there was a Babylonian exile where the.

The Jewish people in Judah were taken from their homeland and they were dispersed out in the Babylonian empire. When they came back to their homeland, their homes were burnt down, the city was. Was destroyed by fire, the city gates were destroyed, and the temple was destroyed stone by stone. So when they come home, they're looking at this desolate land that used to once be vibrant, that housed God's home on earth, right? They've come home, but they've been too busy with their own lives at this point to do anything about the greater good, to do anything about the temple of God.

These folks are focused on getting them their homes built up, not just repaired, but they're turning their homes into these lavish houses. So Haggai, chapter 1, verses 1 through 9 says this. In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and also to Joshua, son of Jozadik, the high priest. Priest. This is what the Lord Almighty said.

These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord's house. Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Hegai. Is it a time for yourselves to be living in your paneled houses while this house remains a ruin? Now this is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways.

You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your. You put on clothes, but you are not warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it.

This is what the Lord Almighty says. Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber to build my house so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored, says the Lord. You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away.

Why? Declares the Lord Almighty. Because of my house, which remains a ruin while each one of you is busy with your own house.

The Babylonians had taken the Jewish people prisoner and dispersed them, and they were gone from their homeland for 70 years. For 70 years they were away from their homes, away from the remainder of their people. They were away from their religious life. The temple of God had been destroyed. Then, after 70 years, they were finally permitted to Go home.

And when they did, the first thing they did was they built their homes. Now, listen, I know that many of us. I'm thinking specifically about the disaster that's happening on the west coast, right? There are fires there that are making hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people homeless. They're devastating lives.

And the first thing these people want to do is go home and build their houses again, right? To find some sort of normalcy. And I get that. But what's happening here is God is saying, you guys have had your time to build your own homes at my house, where I come to meet with you. My house is still in ruins.

You have not cared about what's happening with my house. It's time that you put me back into your lives.

Scripture calls them paneled houses. You've got your own built paneled houses, which means that you've got so much time spent on building your own homes that they look really nice. They have things that normal homes don't. Have you paneling in your homes yet. My house is desolate and in ruins.

God could only get the attention of his people through the prophet because they were so wrapped up in their own lives. Does that sound familiar?

It's so much like us today. It took God speaking some pretty harsh words. Your houses look great. I want to come home, too.

Friends, if we are not tuned into the things of God, then God might also have to do something dramatic in order to get our attention and to call us back to him too. We've got to start tuning out the things of our culture that seek to steal our focus and attention and once again put God first in our priority list. And God's call is constantly coming to us. A call to draw near to him, to respond to Him. But we are so wrapped up in the things of the life that we live that don't really matter in the big scheme of things that we easily miss.

What God wants to do in us and wants to do through us.

How many times a day do you think your phone buzzes or chirps at you? Right?

Maybe it's something like a breaking news story, a text message, social media notification, or something else that draws your attention away from whatever it is that you're doing. Is it once an hour, three times an hour? 100 times an hour?

God's invitation can get lost in the noise.

But the good news is God continues to try to get through even when we're busy. The scripture we opened up with this morning, the story of Mary and Martha, is the perfect example of how we Might miss God acting in our lives because we just get too busy now. To be clear, there's no good guy, bad guy in this story. Martha is not the bad guy because she's doing the hospitable thing. She is just alone in her work.

And I mean, I was gonna say something very sexist. I won't this time, but Jesus specifically showed up at this particular time to spend time with these sisters. When he came, Martha was so focused on making sure that everything was just right, she missed what Jesus was teaching.

If Jesus showed up to your house today, would your first thought be to making sure that the couch cushions were evenly spaced or the pillows were fluffed just right? Some people are, yes, shaking it. Yes, for sure.

What would your mind's attention be on? Would it be Jesus and what he's teaching you, or would it be, oh my gosh, I missed a spot on the carpet?

What we give our mind's attention to gets our hearts affection.

Mary prized the time that she had with Jesus and gave her entire focus to his presence. When Martha complains to Jesus, he gently, he doesn't say, oh, Martha, Martha, you're going to hell because you're too busy. Okay? He's not dramatic like that. But he gently corrects her and reminds her what her focus should be on building a relationship with Jesus, who is there in her home with her.

Yes, Martha showed some wonderful hospitality, welcoming Jesus and his disciples in. But she got lost in the distractions.

And again, this is not to say that Mary's the hero and Martha's the villain. Martha was also doing what God asked to do, showing hospitality. Right? But Martha was so focused on the particulars that she missed a chance to have closeness with the Son of God.

And we do that today, too. We sacrifice time with Jesus because we're wrapped up in making sure that everything is done right, in the right order at the right time for the right people. Everyone else's needs are met.

And by the time we're done with the chores, we're too exhausted to do what God invites us to. Joshua, chapter 1, verses 7 through 9 says this. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law that my servant Moses gave you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left that you may be successful wherever you go.

Keep this book of the law always on your lips. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you'll be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous?

Do not be Afraid. Do not be discouraged. For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. It's really hard for us to keep God's laws on our lips and to follow God's laws in our lives when we're all wrapped up in the go, go, go of today. Sometimes we have to intentionally unplug from the noise in order to recharge our souls.

And in order for us to do this well, we have to really identify the digital and mental distractions that are constantly around us that pull our attention from God. I bet some of you right now are even thinking about some of those things.

Is it the endless news cycle? Is it a Facebook feed filled with tragedy? An Instagram feed that shows us lives that we'll never have? Whatever the distractions are, we have to limit them so that we can focus on the person that God wants us and invites us to become. Come.

So I just need to show you my phone here for a minute. I've gotten three notifications. No, that's more than three. Four notifications, five notifications while I'm standing here talking to you. And I can scroll up from here and you can see like this.

And it's not just my phone. It's all of our phones. Want to pull our attention away from whatever it is that we're doing. Did somebody just text me right now? Kim Myers is calling me.

You jerk.

What a turd.

Every one of those things wants to pull my attention from what it is that I'm supposed to be doing. And we have to be strong and focused so that our faith can once again be more important to us than it's become. Have you ever done a battery test on your phone or, like, a laptop or something where you, like, intentionally see how long your battery will last? I, for a long time, have had a really cool laptop. The foundation actually helped me purchase it for school.

And that thing is really neat. Touch screen does all the fun things, but the battery lasts 0.4 seconds. It is a battery eater. Recently, my wife brought home a laptop for us to use for here at the church. Right?

So it's back here in the back, and we use it for our click track. And before I wanted to bring it up here, I wanted to test the battery because if it was anything like mine, we would have to have it on a charger, which means we've got to move stuff around to make sure that we have power. It's just a pain. So I wanted to see if it would function correctly. So I set it up and I opened it up.

And I turned it on and I let it sit for days and days and days. That thing was perfect. I mean, I'm talking there was like a seven day battery power, like screen open on the whole time, never lost a charge. But then that's neat. It's good to know, but it doesn't matter if I don't do the things that I'm supposed to do with it.

So I pulled up the program that we use and I left it running. And you know what? Fine. Days, three days, four days. And it stayed powered up.

Great. Awesome. I think it will work. I think it will do what we need it to do. And then I was like, well, let's just pull up my email and I'll pull up the Facebook and I'll do all the things.

And as I did that, just momentarily, the battery, like the screen got dim and it said, oh no, I'm going to die. And then it shut itself off. So the more that we put on our batteries, the more things that we, we try to run at the same time, the less, the less bandwidth the battery has, the more power it draws from the battery and eventually it dies. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Over the next few weeks, we're going to be talking about ways that we as believers in Jesus can really begin to focus again on putting stock and what needs to have stock put in it. Right.

This morning when you came in, there was something on everybody's chair, a little handout. It's something that I hope will help everyone make just some small adjustments to make sure that no matter how busy you get in the mornings, we can all include God in our busyness. So this is called the Power Up Checklist. And it's a couple of simple things that we can all do. Just small changes we can make to put God intentionally back into our lives.

Hopefully first thing in the morning, last thing before you go to bed. But the idea is if we are intentional to take time for God, God is going to show up. I believe that.

So I invite you over the next week, start with a week, just every day, do these three simple things every single day. It's not going to take a ton of time, but it's a good way to start something new. If you're not already doing a morning routine that includes scripture reading or meditation or prayer, this will help. And down at the bottom, it gives you some opportunities to give you some options to make it more personal for your own life. So, friends, this week and always, let's be intentional about making some Time for God and His Word in our daily lives.

It's January, right? Like, I mean, I know it's kind of towards the end of January, but for those of us who didn't have an opportunity to make a New Year's resolution, this could be it for us. It's never too late to start a new routine that includes our Creator. So my prayer for us this week and always is that we become more intentional about making time to learn more about our own faith. I want each of us to build a foundation on the gospel of Jesus, who every time life got too busy for Jesus, he made intentional time to slip away, to go recharge his battery.

Christ is calling us to do the same. We need to follow his example in this busy world so we don't crowd out the God of our lives with the stuff in our world. Let's pray together.