Faith in the Fastlane - Sharpen Your Focus: Thriving Amid Digital Noise

In our hyper-connected world, digital distractions can prevent us from hearing God's voice and lead to spiritual exhaustion. Drawing parallels from Moses' experience with burnout, we learn the importance of delegation and creating boundaries. By implementing practical steps like scheduled digital check-ins and dedicated prayer times, we can better manage our modern responsibilities while maintaining spiritual health. The key is creating intentional space for connecting with God, free from the constant pull of notifications and digital demands.

Transcript

So, you know, we've been talking about how busy life is over the last few weeks. We've got today, and we've got one more Sunday, and then we're going to move on to something else. But I really want you to understand that your life friends, should be more than just constant state of busyness. All of our lives are filled with things that draw our attention away, right?

Just like the beeping and the loud noises and the shoulder tapping and all that stuff that happens every single day no matter where we are. I think of specifically my wife, who there is constantly something that is drawing her attention to her phone or her computer. She runs her own business, right? And I know her experience because I live with her. And many of you guys have the same experiences in your lives.

Some of you own your own businesses. Those of you who are retired, hallelujah. Hopefully you've gotten out of the busyness game that the rest of us have to run in. Praise God. You've earned.

Is easy for us to be overwhelmed by technology and this drive to be busy, right? How many of you in here turn your phone off every night? Anybody? Turn your phone off. Praise the Lord.

Okay, very few of you turn it off, right? Many of us will put our phones on the charger fully on in case something happens, right? In case we need to hear the beeps or the like. I'm incredibly guilty of this because every time that our doorbell, like, makes a notification, I have to like, oh, gosh, who's stealing my stuff? And it's always the neighborhood catch, right?

Like, it's always totally right. It's never a thief. It's always that jerk cat who walks. Yeah. Mm.

Knew that was coming. Denise. This is another reason why cats are the worst friends. When your phone never sleeps, neither does your soul. Busyness can distract us from deeper relationships and spiritual growth that God is calling all of us to.

And just filling our lives with activity, especially digital engagement, can mask our need for genuine reflection on our spiritual lives. Busyness should never be mistaken for holiness.

I think we fill our lives with the to do lists of all the things that we have to do, right? And God cares more about the condition of your heart than the length of that to do list. So a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Mary and Martha, right? We're going to talk about a different story today, but they're similar in some of the things we're going to talk about. So Martha was doing all the work and Mary just got to sit at Jesus feet.

Martha had to tattle on her sister because it was the woman's job to prepare. Right? Hallelujah. Amen. No.

Okay. All right.

Error message. Yes. Oh, listen, I kid, right? Like we know that that is just a different culture and a different time. Martha had a tattle on her sister because in her opinion, at her time, in the midst of that society, it was always a woman's job to be preparing to work out the meal to make sure everything was just right.

And her sister, by the way, woman at the feet of Jesus, learning she is not helping. She wasn't doing her part right. Martha wanted help from Mary and she knew that there was a lot to do and she couldn't do it all by herself. She asked Jesus to go advocate for her. Can you please just tell my sister to get her rear over here?

I've got a lot of stuff to get done. And Jesus says she's doing something more important right now. In the story we're going to focus on today, we're going to talk about Moses. Moses had a desire to help his people so much that he nearly burnt himself out. So if you remember Moses, Moses had a ton of responsibility.

So our youth group is reading through Exodus. We're on chapter 13. We've been in Exodus for about four years. So in the book of Exodus, Moses is clearly made out to be not just the voice of God, but God's representative on earth for his people. And he's got to take care of the Israelites and he leads them out of Egypt, delivers them from the hand of Pharaoh and brings them out of slavery.

And God is walking with Moses and leading them through the wilderness and taking them over into the promised land. And during this period of time, again, Moses is in charge of the 600,000 Israelites to make sure that they are going to the right place and doing the right things. But he didn't just have to take care of their, like, physical needs, the food and the water they needed, make sure they had enough shelter for them, to make sure they don't die in the desert. But he also had to solve other problems as they arose. I want us to read in the book of Exodus, chapter 18, verses 5 through 26, if you have your Bibles, this is the perfect time to pull them out and underline, make notes.

If you don't have a Bible today, then feel free to follow along on the screen. Here is what the word of the Lord is for us today. Verse 5 says Jethro, Moses, father in law, together with Moses, sons and wife, came to him in the wilderness where he was camped near the mountain of God. Jethro had sent word to him. I, your father in law, Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and your two sons.

I wish that my in laws would do that. I fred I'm coming to visit you. It's just funny the way it's announced here. So Moses went out to meet his father in law, and he bowed down and kissed him. They greeted each other and then went into the tent.

Moses told his father in law about everything that the Lord had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel's sake and all about the hardships they had met along the way and how the Lord saved them. Jethro was delighted to hear about all the good things that the Lord had done for Israel and rescuing them from the hand of the Egyptians. He said, praise be to the Lord, who rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and of Pharaoh and who rescued the people from the hand of the Egyptians. Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the other gods, for he did this to those who had treated Israel arrogantly. Then Jethro, Moses, father in law, brought a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God.

And Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat the meal with Moses. Moses, father in law in the presence of God. The next day, Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people. And they stood around him from morning till evening. When his father in law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, what is this you are doing for the people?

Why do you alone sit as judge while all these people stand around you from morning till evening? Moses answered him, because the people come to me to seek God's will. Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me and I decide between the parties and inform them of God's decrees and instructions. Moses, his father in law, replied, what you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will wear yourselves out.

The work is too heavy for you. You cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice and may God be with you. You must be the people's representative before God and bring their disputes to him, teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave. But select capable men from all the people, men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate, dishonest, gain and Appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, 50s and tens.

Have them serve as judges for the people at all times. But have them bring every difficult case to you. The simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter because they will share it with you. If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain and all these people will go home satisfied.

Moses listened to his father in law and did everything he said. He chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people. Officials over thousands, hundreds, 50s and tens. They served as judges for the people at all times. The difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple ones they decided themselves.

That is a good practice, right? The scripture we just read this morning starts out with Moses father in law coming to visit. Just a. Hey, wanted to check in, see how things are going. I know you're out in the wilderness with 600,000 people.

I'm going to come visit. Probably not the most opportune time, right? The Hebrew people have been wandering in the wilderness for a while now. They've already had people kind of started acting like spoiled Karens as they tend to do when you have giant groups of people around. I'm sure they ask things like where's the water?

Where's the food? I need more sunscreen. Are we there yet? All the things that people do on these long journeys. And at this point in the story, the Israelites had already been delivered out of the land of Egypt and they were brought through the Red Sea.

The people were now living in this sort of in between stage. They weren't in the promised Land and they weren't in Egypt and they had to figure out how to live as a group of people who had only known Egypt their whole lives. The Israelites had only lived under the reign of this God king in Pharaoh. The laws of Egypt were no longer suitable for the Israelite people. And so they wanted to be free from that old lifestyle.

Now Moses was beginning to lead the Israelite people back toward a more God centered life. And it began right there in the wilderness. And he had to single handedly try to shift their culture away from the things they had learned in Egypt and try to create this society that was more focused on what the ancient Hebrew life looked like in this new Israelite mode. Out in the wilderness, they could no longer look to a Pharaoh as a God to make rules that governed all the people out in the desert. There was a need for order and rules to be put in place.

But God's people could not live with the same system of laws and rules that the Egyptians used. So Moses began this weird sort of legal system where he sat as judge of everyone. Could you imagine one judge for all the issues that 600,000 people might have? Does anybody know the statistics for Oklahoma, like specifically Tulsa? How many people do you think live in Tulsa according to statistics?

And this is, I think just Tulsa proper? 411,308. Okay, now that number is outdated because that was in 2024. Do you know how many judges we have in Tulsa? In Tulsa County, 52.

Now these are all facets of judges. They do things like family court, drug court, criminal court, juvenile court. All of these judges are divided in their area of specificity. Specificity. Okay.

In our city, which is smaller than the purported 600,000 people who came out of Egypt, we have 52 judges, all their support staff, with clerks and stenographers and all that goes along with them. And here we see Moses trying to administer justice all by himself. He was single handedly judging and counseling an entire nation of people, which I'm sure left him exhausted. I mean, scripture told us that the people were waiting there for Moses all day, from morning until night. That situation is unsustainable.

An interesting thing is that when Moses was overwhelmed, his overwhelm caused the overwhelming of the people as well. When Moses couldn't administer quick justice, justice sometimes had to wait. And friends, when there is injustice, it needs to be eradicated. Carrying every burden alone is a sure path to spiritual burnout. But the great news is, is that God often puts people in our path.

Maybe cues in our lives that help us to recognize when we're being overwhelmed. But we have to be able to pay attention to those cues. Lucky for Moses, it was his father in law who saw what was going on and began to offer some advice.

If we're not listening for those cues, if we're too wrapped up in the busyness of life, the notifications are going to get in the way and we'll drown out the important voices.

He offered some pretty great advice. Thousands, Hundreds, tens, fifties, get the right people in the right place so they can help you do what you're called to do. This not only alleviated Moses burden, but it also provided a healthier structure for everyone in the community. The ability to delegate to folks allows us to spread out responsibilities and allows us to share the burden. And this goes for everything.

Not just when it comes to like judging, but sometimes even in our daily lives, we just need help. And I will be the first to tell you, I really, really struggle with delegation, I absolutely have a hard time letting go of anything because I have been bitten sometimes. And even in those bad moments, delegation is still important. We, as people who love the situations we're accustomed to, some of us like having that authority, being the only person in charge. Right.

Even in those moments where delegating backfires, we still have to learn when our lives become overwhelmed not just by technology, but also the things that we have to do. Take care of kids, go to work, pick up the kids, make dinner, wash the laundry, fold the laundry, take the dog to the vet, make sure alyssa goes to one of her 13 doctor's appointments this week. And all those other things. Sometimes it's okay for us to ask for help.

Even this coming week, I'm going to be out of town. Nicole is one of the busiest people I've ever known. We need help. And the great news is we have already gotten offers from some of the people in our church family to help while I'm gone. This is why living in community is so important.

We are together. We are church family. We are the body of Christ. And when one part of the body begins to fail, rather than all the other parts failing, it's time for us to support that part of the body.

Even more importantly, and I'm speaking to myself here, it's important for us to hear when people are trying to help us.

It's not an insult. It's not a dig. And I have to hear that because sometimes I think, oh, well, Matt, you're incapable of doing all the things that you want to do, and that's not what it's about. And it's hard to hear it when we come with that attitude.

Wisdom often arrives through another person's set of eyes, and it's up for us to listen to what they have to say.

So I fully believe that healthy boundaries aren't barriers. Healthy boundaries are bridges to balance. We have to come to this realization, like Moses, that we cannot do every single thing ourselves. Right? And it's hard for some of us who've only done everything ourselves for our whole lives.

It's hard to shift out of that mentality. What's our church name? Community. Right. We were designed as human beings made in God's image to live in community.

And we need each other's gifts, and we need each other's input. Have you ever heard the phrase it takes a village? Do you know where that comes from? Ha ha, I do, and I'll tell you. It's a famous African proverb.

It takes a village to Raise a child right. That's the full phrase. It originated from the Nigerian Igbo culture and a proverb, and I'm going to butcher this. I apologize. "Oron azu nua," which means it takes a community to raise a child.

The Igbos also name their children "NWA Ora," which means child of community.

The same sentiment is echoed in proverbs of various other African cultures, such as the Swahili proverb, one hand does not nurse a child, the Sudanese proverb, a child is a child of everyone, and the Tanzanian proverb, one knee does not bring up a child. The saying it takes a village emphasizes that a child's upbringing is a communal effort involving many different people and groups, from parents to teachers to neighbors to grandparents to pastors to friends. The whole idea here underscores the belief that the collective involvement of a community is essential in achieving a certain goal or completing a task. Not just raising a child, but doing all the things that we do as human beings. It takes a lot of us to do it together.

This phrase for us should be a friendly reminder that asking for help with hard things, okay, because many hands make light work. Life is really hard to live on your own. I don't know if you've ever lived as a single person for a long time, but life is really hard to live on your own. We need each other. And that goes even for some of you guys who are, you know, more introverted.

Sometimes we feel like we don't want to be around people. But there are other times in your life where you're just lonely and you need someone.

Delegating, I believe, does two really important things. Number one, it allows others to fulfill their calling in Christ to serve other people. And number two, it helps us to maintain a sense of sanity by taking some of the busyness off of our plate. And I never really thought about it that way until just recently. Allowing other people to help us helps them answer their call of God, too.

Notifications are not commands.

We each need to be able to learn to filter what we truly need, just as Moses tried to do it all. We often feel pressured to stay constantly connected and be responsive for anybody who needs anything. Right? We have been conditioned in America to keep our phones on 247 in the US we get our two weeks of paid vacation time each year, and then we're expected to get right back into routine. Our culture has kept us so busy and that productivity is the most important thing.

And so we rarely have enough time to fully just unplug from work and recharge I remember the first time I was offered vacation as a part of a perk package when I worked at the church. So I went from a part time youth minister to a full time pastoral assistant. I was like, hallelujah, I get vacation. And there was a catch. It wasn't paid vacation.

It was just vacation time. If you want to take some time off, you're more than welcome to do that. By the way, you won't be able to pay rent that month if you do right. And it kind of stinks because there are so many churches who, like, our church is just financially strapped. Like, it's hard for us to allow things like that.

I mean, I try to take care of Erica as much as I can. She needs a raise. Everybody. I just want you to know that.

How old were you the first time you got two weeks of paid vacation? Think about that. Some of you young people. It'll come, I promise. I don't promise.

I can't promise tomorrow. Right? Like, but man, think about that.

Did you know that some countries do a little bit better on vacation time than America does? So France and Spain offer around 36 paid vacation days every single year. 36 days.

There are other countries like South Korea, they actually require that companies offer 31 paid days vacation. Germany requires 30. The UK requires 28 days off shored. You're the most Dutch person in the room. Tell us about Dutch vacation.

Okay, okay. Pants on fire. Liar, liar. But there's a difference in the way that we vacation. As people, we have been trained that vacationing is not good in America.

Oh, I've been offered. How many of you have carried over vacation days? Right. I was talking to Price Vargas last week. He says I have eight weeks of vacation this year.

What is that? Like, that's amazing.

Since the US does not have a federal universal standard, paid time off is a luxury. This equates you ready. On average, the United States companies in the United States offer 10 paid vacation days a year. And because we are really never given the opportunity to fully unplug from work and plug into our physical and spiritual charger, we often come back from vacations more burnt out than we were before. Right.

Because not only did we not get enough time off to recharge, but now we've got to catch up on all the things that we didn't get to do for the last two weeks.

This is not healthy. This is not sustainable.

The game that we played at the beginning of the sermon today was by itself, probably not incredibly difficult. It's easy for us to make some responses to some words that we hear. But it's pretty hard to respond when all the notifications keep happening, right?

The same thing is true because on our vacations, our phones don't go off, right? We keep them right on us. Every time we're in a foreign country, I connect to the wi fi somewhere and I listen to the things and check on the news and, you know, it just so happened that I was in a different country when the President had an attempted assassination, right? And so my phone every 10 minutes is Bing, bing, bing. New, new information, new information, new information.

This constant stream of notifications that we get from our phones and emails tend to drown out some of the important things that we need to be listening for in our lives, especially when we have the downtime in order to recoup, in order to get back some of that bandwidth that we've given up. Even when it's not work that has our attention, the digital distractions have even found a way to take us away from our rest.

So I want to tell you something. Did you know that you can delegate your digital workload? And delegating some of your digital load can unlock time for some serious and true devotion in your life? So you might be asking yourself, how do I unload my checking of my notifications? Well, there are some tools that are available to help us.

And again, I can't imagine how hard it was for Moses to let go of some of that authority. I can't imagine like AI trying to make posts for me on Facebook that probably will never happen.

In the same way Moses needed to delegate. We can learn to delegate tasks and set boundaries on what occupy our digital spaces too. So here's some practical steps. Alright, so I want you to think about some things in your life this week that are tasks that are repetitive and I want you to find an app. There are productivity apps like auto Reply, email filters or things like that to kind of sort incoming messages for your email.

You can automate scheduling by using shared calendars or project management tools. There are ways to let some other apps kind of filter what's important and what's not. Create some digital boundaries in your life this week. Set scheduled times each day when you check your email and your messages and. And let that be it, begin to use things like the do not disturb features, especially during prayer time or family time or devotional time, and then communicate those boundaries clearly.

I can't get to my phone right now because I am worshiping Jesus. Hallelujah. Could you imagine what it would look like if some of our friends got bounce back replies. My wife has an uncle, he came a couple of weeks ago. When he is traveling, his phone automatically goes into a focus mode that he doesn't receive texts while he's driving.

And it automatically bounces back something. Hey, in order to avoid a crash, I'm not looking at my phone right now. Could you imagine if our phones were set up in such a way that during our focused prayer time and you know, spiritual time, that our phones automatically bounce back something to whoever sent something to us that says, hey, I'm in prayer right now. I can't get to you, but I promise I'll come back in a minute. Right.

People might expect a little better of us at work after that. Right. But how cool would that be?

Communicate those boundaries clearly so that others know when that they can expect responses. And then you can automate reminders and some of the follow ups. Right. Use calendar alerts or task management apps like there's Asana, Trello or just the simple reminders app in your phone that can prompt you at the right time so you're not constantly checking your phone. Set a reminder 3:00 every day.

I'm responding to emails I've gotten since lunch. And you don't have to be on your email with it up and hear a ding every moment that you get an email. And then I would suggest that we all begin to seek some accountability. Ask a friend, spouse, small group member, or somebody else to remind you to log off at the end of the day. Again, there are actually time limits you can put on your phone that set that reminder for you that actually shut your phone down.

No longer can you be on the Internet past 9:00. I bet that makes going to bed a little easier. I wouldn't know.

But these are things that we can all do by ourselves so that we can have safer, better, more intimate family time. We can have a spiritual life again. It just requires some discipline. Kids, you have only known the digital age. I had to do this to a cell phone or a telephone.

Right. Like I remember the little ring a ding ding thing there, whatever that's called. That's the word rotary phone. Yeah. No redial.

You had to push the thing at the top to do like your call waiting because call waiting became a thing. Yeah. And there was no caller id. Man, life has gotten so good. Anyway, however you decide to do it, it's important for you to find ways to delegate your digital load off of your plate so you're not constantly checking your phone.

Your email and all the things that pull your attention away from everything else that's going on.

So now we've talked about some ways to kind of get rid of some things. I want to read some scripture that will help remind you about what it looks like to thrive spiritually. We can find some biblical truth that anchors our spiritual health to keep us from becoming too distracted. First of all, I want to read Psalms chapter 46, 9, 10. It says this.

He makes war cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the chariots with fire. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth. We have to cultivate a stillness even in a world that values constant movement. True stillness is the stage where God reveals himself to us. We also have to seek God's kingdom first. Matthew 6:25 33 says this.

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will wear, or, sorry, what you will eat, or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his lifespan? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon and all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so closed the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, oh, you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

But seek first the kingdom of God and all his righteousness. All these things will be added to you. Friends. Prioritizing spiritual commitments will recalibrate our sense of busyness, what is important and what's not. When God is first, everything else falls into its rightful place.

We don't have to be anxious now. It doesn't mean we're not prepared, but we don't have to be anxious. And then we're going to have to draw close to God in solitude. Mark 1:35 39 says this. And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place.

And there he prayed. And Simon and those who were there with him searched for him. And they found him and said to him, everyone is looking for you. And he said to them, let's go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out. And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Jesus set a time every single mourning, right? We have evidence that Jesus spent a lot of time alone modeling for us what intentional disconnection means for our spiritual lives. Solitude with the Savior resets a restless heart. And then we know that we shouldn't be conformed to the world, right? We've heard this scripture before.

Romans chapter 12:1 and 2 says, I appeal to you, therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God and what is good and acceptable and perfect. Conformity to. Sorry, conformity to culture chokes spiritual clarity. When we look like everybody else, our lives are going to be filled like everybody else's and God becomes second best or third best or fourth best.

We have to resist the cultural pressures to stay busy. Just for busyness sake.

Christ invites us to rest. Matthew chapter 11, skip one. This is Matthew 11:28 30. It says this. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

True rest is found in Christ's gentle leading, not necessarily in the endless striving that our culture expects of us today. Jesus doesn't offer us a schedule. Jesus offers us sanctuary.

So this week, do some things. Evaluate those digital habits that you have. Because what you scroll through can shape what your soul goes through next. Create sustainable rhythms. Pace and peace.

Walk hand in hand. If you're walking fast, you aren't going to have peace. But if you slow down, you can have that peace that we need in order to sustain ourselves. Embrace community and accountability. Independence can breed exhaustion.

Community breeds encouragement.

Being busy for God is not the same as being close to God. Did you hear that?

Being constantly busy is not a biblical virtue. Rest and reliance on God are biblical virtues.

So this week, surrender your schedule to God and watch your soul find rest.

Give God some intentional time this week. That means you might have to get up early to do a little prayer. Listen, I don't know if you guys have every day this week continually been doing the power up checklist that I offered you the first week, but every single day for the last two weeks, I have done that. Is it two weeks or is it three now it's just two weeks, right? Because we start the third week tomorrow, every single day.

If you need a copy of that, I think we have them somewhere here. But I can have more printed for you, but it's super simple. We can also do that and it's on our Facebook page. If we are intentional to set aside some time this week, it will make a difference in how your day goes, I promise. So that might mean we get up a little early, or it might mean we stay awake a little bit longer.

I don't know. But we have to be sacrificial for God and not necessarily sacrificial for the busyness of our lives. Put down the phone this week and pick up your Bibles.

Adopt some new habits this week, guys. Find rest, say some prayers. Be digital stewards of your life. Do something new to invite God to participate with you this week. Okay, let's pray together.