Being With Jesus

The question I want to answer today is how we can thrive in a spiritually dead world without losing our soul. “Our doing for Jesus cannot exceed our being with Jesus” Pete Scazzaro, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship

In Luke 10, we see the familiar story where Martha and Mary have stark interactions with Jesus. Martha is busy tending to the work, and Mary is busy sitting at the Lord’s feet gleaning. I’d like to ask you this morning, which do you identify with more?

This upcoming year, as we begin to read through the Bible together as a family, I want us to make it our goal to spend more time with Jesus. A lot of us are so busy doing, that we forsake our first life work: to be with Jesus.

I have been at the bedside of many people as they have passed away since becoming a pastor 10 years ago. And I have never, not one time, had someone say they wish they worked or produced more in their life. They always wish they were more present and invested into their relationship with God and people.

Being with Jesus is our number 1 priority in life. This upcoming year, as we look to read through the Bible as a family and take that next step in our journey with Christ, I want to encourage you to create space so that you can be with Jesus and experience him in a life transforming way.

Our value is determined by our relationship with Jesus, not our production for Jesus

I tend to be a Martha. Not because I am a hard working, high capacity leader (which is what I thought being a Martha would make me), but because I fundamentally believed that my hard work would lead to the approval of God and man.

Now, I say God and man for a reason. Man, because words of affirmation is my love language, and approval is my heart idol. Hard work was the means to which I could serve my idols, not serve God. I worked hard for God because I had believed in the Americanized Jesus that through my work, I could achieve his approval.

I was too busy to encounter God, I was busy building what I thought was the kingdom. I told myself, how could I have time to encounter God when I was doing God’s work? The simple truth is this: God wants your being with him, to exceed your doing for him. We don’t do our work to earn God’s favor, but we give from our being with him.

This is the heart of the gospel. The one who earned our place in the kingdom is not us, but Christ. He achieved what we could not. He took our place, lived a sinless life, and built the bridge to the Father. All we have to do is pursue this relationship with our whole being.

In John 15 Jesus says that apart from him, we can do nothing. We must take this time to abide in him because there and there alone, our value is found.

We cannot give what we do not possess

If we don’t have Christ or encounter him, we cannot expect to give him to the people around us. We cannot live from what we do not have. We can’t say we are a Christian and spend no time on our being with Christ. We are living from what we do not have.

This is why I am so big about going beyond just raising your hand and repeating after me to become a follower of Jesus. It is in our daily work, our regular relational building with God that we walk in the decision that we’ve made.

Us Pentecostals don’t like spiritual disciplines and practices, but they are what have held up the church for centuries. We need to create space for God to do an inner work in our lives, so that he do the deep work required to change our lives in a whole and complete way.

So how do we achieve this great task? Here are a few ways:

• Stillness and silence before the Lord. We turn down the noise of our world so that we do not miss the voice of our God. How did God speak with Elijah in 1 Kings 19? Not in the wind, not in the fire, not in the earthquake, but in the still small voice.
• Sabbath: we create spaciousness for God to speak and to listen to ourselves. Our emotions are crucial to be heard and laid before the Lord.
• We embrace the gift of limits. You heard that correctly, the gift of limits. (Adam and Eve) God has given us all limits in how much we can do, and we need to embrace and thank God for them.
• Daily practice in the word and in prayer. Not a verse of the day, quick fix, pill popping style devotional. But deep dives into scripture, chewing on it. Lectio divina, praying scripture. Not coming to get something from Jesus in prayer, but coming just to be with Jesus in prayer. Delighting in him, and contemplating in him.

Spiritual disciplines lead to spiritual health and vitality. Without them we cease to walk in God and instead walk from what we can produce in ourselves. We are pouring from an empty cup.

In our excessive busyness and entertainment in life, we forsake the work that the Holy Spirit wants to do in and through us. And when we miss what God wants to do in us, we will miss what God wants to do through us.

When we lead from ourselves, we forget what is most important. We become religious in our thinking and focused on all the wrong things. We start to serve the Americanized Jesus and not the one of the Bible. Walking with Jesus goes beyond conventions and feelings, it is in our daily practice of creating space to walk with him.

Who we are is more important than what we do

Many of us are more concerned with being who we think we should be, instead of what God has called us to be. There is a tremendous peace in resting in the inherent value that God has placed upon us.

The primary focus in our journey with Jesus is the inner work that God is looking to do in us. As I said earlier, we cannot give what we don’t possess. If we are not in deep relationship with God, we cannot give that Jesus to those around us. We cannot be the wives and husbands God has called us to be. Or the sister or brother, friend or coworker that he has called us to be. We can’t be transformed into the people God has called us to be.

We must look deep into what God wants to do and give space for God to do that work. As I said in the point before, spiritual disciplines are vital to this. They are vital because they do that inner work that we are seeking. They provide the space and the means for God to do the work we know needs done in us. But only God can do this work. So we must invite him in and give him space and allow him to do that work, not us.

Think about all the important relationships in your life. It isn’t what these people do for you, it is who they are. It isn’t the dad that just buys you gifts for affection, it’s the dad that shows up and is there and gives you quality time and builds that relationship. Who we are is far more important than what we do

Conclusion

In Genesis 28:16, we read the saddest verse in the Bible: “Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” May the same be not said of us.

Mary and Martha are a case study for us to learn from. Martha is tempting, but Mary had the heart that we all ought to seek. We must look beyond our production and instead put our efforts into our relationship with Jesus. Our doing cannot exceed our doing, or we will pour from an empty cup. To have our production set our value sets up the perfect stage for anxiety and insecurity.

We also discussed how we cannot give what we don’t possess. We are about to start reading through the Bible in a year, and this is a chance for you to cultivate some lacking spiritual rhythms in your life. I truly believe that these spiritual practices are what have led me to stay close with the Lord all these years.

Then we come to the last bit, your focus. Who we are in Christ should be the primary value that we have in this life. It is much more valuable than what you can produce. Think about it, if something happens to me, you’ll just go find a new pastor and vote him in and be on your way. The world will continue to spin without your production. Be intentional about who you are in Christ, more than anything that you do.

Your doing for Jesus cannot exceed your being with Him. This is the call for us in this coming year as we get ready to reap a harvest for his kingdom. But we can’t give to them what we don’t have, so let’s pour from full cups that are vibrant with the vitality of God and his powerful Holy Spirit.