How Busy Are We

Introduction

Well, good morning. It’s good to see you this morning and good to be here worshiping in spirit and truth here at the Church of Christ of South Bumbi. If you’re visiting with us, you are our guests of honor, and we are glad and delighted that you have chosen to be worshiping here in spirit and in truth. If you are visiting from the local community, we are especially glad that you have chosen to be with us here. And we want you to stick around and come to meet us, come to know us and uh communicate with us, and we hope you’ll be interested in continuing your presence here at the church here. And if you’re visiting from out of town and you’re just passing through, we’re also glad you’re here with us.

I know I saw Greg here. Greg is here with us, and there he is right there. Good to see Greg and Kashka with us from uh from their home, and it’s good to have them back here this morning. Good to be in the presence of Greg. This morning’s sermon is entitled, How Busy Are We. There’s a little danger to talking about the sermon topic with the title, How Busy Are We? Because when we look at our life, we might tend to think, well, we’re busy, we know we’re busy, and so we have challenges. But there’s another element I want us to look at in this idea of how busy we are, and that is a recognition of even if we’re busy, there are certain things in our life we can be busy about and busy for that are good.

Sometimes you say, Oh, I’m so busy I can’t do this. I’m so busy I can’t do this, I’m so busy I can’t do this. I don’t want any of us, self included, to be so busy that we can’t talk about the Bible with our family. I don’t want any of us to be so busy that we can’t share the gospel message with a neighbor or a friend. I don’t want us to be so busy that we neglect our responsibility to stir one another up for love and good works that we choose to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, because that is the habit of some.

There are some times we do need to take a little rest, a little vacay, a little time to ourselves to meditate on spiritual things and time to rejuvenate. Even Jesus took time to rest. Hebrews chapter 7 and 4 and various passages will teach us that rest is important too. I think we also need to recognize that we as people have a blessing that we sometimes miss. It was my eldest son that pointed out something to me one day that just struck me. It struck me so strong. I took my my study Bible, I took my study Bible, I opened it up and I wrote the number he gave me. He said, Dad, 14.4 minutes. I said, What’s that? He said, one percent of a day. 14.4 minutes.

1. Am I Busy About My Family and Spiritual Things?

I looked it up, he’s about right. About 15 minutes is one percent of your whole day. When you ask yourself how busy you are, ask yourself if you have 14.4 minutes. Do you have 15 minutes? Because in 15 minutes, you have spent one percent of your whole day. That’s telling. That’s a very interesting statistic. That is something very, very important. So we ask ourselves the question, am I busy? You might say, Well, I work. And my work situation makes it so that I am very busy. I have to be here, I have to be there, I have to do this, I have to do that. And so I’m busy. Got this wonderful Bible right here from John DeBoe. I thank you, John. I really appreciate this.

The New King James came out with the New Testament that is a preaching style Bible. I love it. I’ve already read, let’s see, I’m up to page uh 13 or 14 in the new one, trying to go through it and trying to see its layout, and I like it. And so we might make the point that we’re busy about various things, but when we look at this scripture in the New Testament in the Thessalonian letter, he tells us that the man that doesn’t work, neither shall he eat. And so in other times of places, he says, Don’t be idle, but be working and providing for your families. Men, it is not our charter call to be people that say, I’m lazy and I’m not gonna work.

We need to put forth the effort to be workers. We need to be the men that stand up and work and do our responsibility in the life in which we live in and not expect some sort of welfare system to pay uh our way into laziness. Some people they are they have challenges, they have debilitations and they still work. There are people that have challenges and disabilities and they still work. They’re in wheelchairs, they still work. They’re in various situations and they still work. We need to be the type of people that if we’re of an able body and the right age and the right mind and the ability, as my mom once said, she’s right there, if you’re living, I want you working. Now here’s the idea.

When we look get older and we retire and the phases of life changes, then certain things happen, and we’ll talk about that in a moment. But we need to ask ourselves the question: Am I busy to provide for my family? For he who does not provide for his own is worse than an infidel and is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Yeah, we’ve got to provide for our own. We’ve got to work. Am I busy about my family? Am I realizing that it’s important that I have a work and family balance, as is so often mentioned. We read in Joshua chapter 24, verse 15, that as for me and for my house, we will. No, he doesn’t say we’re kind of gonna. We will serve the Lord.

As for me, I’m making a commitment, Joshua says myself, and for my family, there’s the and we will serve the Lord. The meditation scripture that was chosen this morning was from the reading of passage of scripture in Kings, where it talks about the idea of Elijah on Mount Carmel. And he says, choose, you guys. He says, choose which who you’re gonna serve. You’re faltering between two opinions. You’re either gonna serve the opinion of following after uh Baal, or you’re gonna choose the opinion to follow after the one true God. You choose and you make the decision. It’s the same thing Joshua said in the context of Joshua chapter 24, when he says, You can serve the gods over the rivers, you can serve God, but make the choice, make the decision that you will serve God.

And he says in Joshua 24, as for me and for my family, we’re gonna serve the Lord. We need to be busy about taking care of our family and teaching our family and helping our family grow and develop in the most holy faith. What about travel? Some people are busy for travel. They spend a lot of time traveling, a lot of time learning, a lot of time seeing the world. We can have some of that in our life, but we need to balance that as well. Same thing with recreation. Paul said in the scriptures, for bodily exercise profiteth, there’s my tongue twister title for this morning. Bodily exercise profiteth a little, but godliness profiteth more unto all good things. And so it’s important to have recreation and development there.

And am I busy for spiritual things? We’ll come back to that. One of the things I have been interested in listening to as a preacher and an evangelist and one that tries to teach the gospel to lost souls, is when people that are Christians, and I don’t know if this is you, maybe it’s you, maybe it’s not, but when maybe it’s me sometimes, but when people that are Christians make blanket statements about time, not really considering the average person and what they’re dealing with. And here’s what I mean by that. Some people will say statements like this, and I don’t know if this is you, or maybe you’ve said this before. Oh, we all have the same amount of time in a day. And you mean that innocently.

You don’t mean that bad. You just mean, well, this person here should worship the same way. This person here should give as many Bible classes as they can, so as everybody else. We’ve all got the same amount of time in a day. That’s a little shallow thinking. When you look to a degree about what time your day may have, you may have a certain time of day that 55 other people don’t have that time block in their day. You may have 7 30 a.m. to 8 15 a.m. where somebody else may not have that time block of open communication. They may be working at that time. You may say, well, I have the evenings free. Maybe you don’t. Maybe somebody else does. See what I’m saying?

Different times factors come into play. Sometimes other people are parents that are working. Some men work two jobs. Some ladies have to support additionally just so their family can pay the bills. And a family may be a family that is striving to serve the Lord, comes to every worship service they physically possibly can, but they are busy with time. And the time you have may be different than the time somebody else has. I will readily admit I have probably more time to share the gospel with the lost than a lot of other people. I know as a preacher, I am going to be held accountable as if I’m doing my job to teach the lost the gospel message. We had a great Bible study yesterday, and I say it’s a Bible study.

It was a prayer, uh prayer get together over at uh Brother Aaron’s house. But when we left, uh, there was a couple that was out there doing some work on an adjacent property, and I was able to share the gospel with them, talk to them about the gospel, uh, and they they were interested. And so you just never know who who will uh be receptive. I want to make a comment here that also when we recognize busyness, there’s an element of a recognition that who we are busy for needs to set priorities clear in our life. Obviously, we work, obviously, we provide for our family, obviously we care about our family, and we like to do various things, and obviously tons of things draw for our attention and vie for our attention.

But so it was with the case of Peter and Andrew and James and John. It said in Mark chapter 1, verse uh 16 through 21. Let’s turn there together if you have your scriptures handy. Mark chapter 1, verses 16 through 21. That as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, his brother, casting a net. Hold on to that three-word phrase, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said unto them, this is Peter and Andrew, throwing a net out into the sea, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. They immediately notice that word, left their nets and followed him. I don’t know if you caught that. They left their physical work to do a spiritual work.

They left what they were doing to follow Jesus. Then he says, when he had gone a little farther from there, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brothers, who were in the boats mending the nets. So they’re inside the boat doing work on their part of the lake, doing something else here. And immediately he called them, and they left their father and the hired servants in the boat, and immediately they followed him. So here you have a case in the Bible where you have people doing something. They stopped and chose to do something else. That is an ability we all have. We don’t all have the liberty to be able to stop our work and devote our whole life to spiritual activity. We simply don’t have all that ability.

But there are some things we can say, I’m gonna choose to not do this and do this instead. I’m gonna choose to maybe not work 70 hours or 80 hours. I’m being hyperbolic here, but basically work 40. I have the ability here, we might say, to focus on this one time where I’m usually watching a football game or a baseball game and talk to the scriptures power unto my family. I can be busy about spiritual things. I can stop one thing and do something else. They were casting their nets in the sea, and instead they followed him. The other two were in the boat mending their nets, and then they went after him and followed him.

The new King James Version uses the word that I really like, says immediately. Mark uses the word immediately over and over in his scriptures to help us understand the instancy and the instant that they did certain things. Next Sunday, we’re gonna have a special series of lessons. My brother Brent Hunter coming to us from the Tampa area, and he’s gonna be talking about the big picture of the Bible. I hope that we all devote the time Saturday, this upcoming Saturday, and also Sunday to be here for that. This is a great opportunity. An opportunity to be able to learn how to develop our lives to teach the lost and teach those in our community about the Bible. On the 24th and the 25th, we’re going to study with him beginning this Saturday.

The first session that he’s teaching will be at 10 o’clock a.m. And then the second session at 11 o’clock a.m. on Saturday, January 24th. If you’re taking notes on the sermon, put that in there as a note. We can be busy about Jesus. You might say, well, I actually have that time available. Or you might say, well, I actually could restructure my schedule so I can be there. That would be really important. You do that to devote some time to doing something spiritual that’ll help you teach the gospel. Am I busy? Well, sure I’m busy. How busy am I? Oh, you got no idea. I made it to services this morning, but there’s somebody I got somewhere I got to be in two hours. There’s somewhere else I got to be in three hours, somewhere else I got to be in five.

2. Are We Busy for Jesus’ Coming?

And when uh when it comes to the work week, I’m all over the place busy. We’re all busy. We are, but are we busy for Jesus’ coming? Are we busy for the time when Jesus will return? Paul was on trial. And he, when he was on trial, did not come up with some sort of contriving way of figuring out the most elegant speech to give his innocence of the case for why he should be released, because they absolutely had no evidence and no idea why he was even being uh taken captive. Instead, he goes another route. He goes, Well, these guys are the leaders of the land. They need to hear the gospel, they need to hear the will of the Lord, and he takes another approach.

Paul, after the governor had beckoned unto him to speak at Acts 24 10, he said, For as much as I know that you have been a judge of this nation, I do the more cheerfully give an answer to you. That’s his attitude. We got to focus on that for a moment. And then in Acts 24 21, he says, Except it be for this one reason or this singular voice that I cried to the nation standing among us concerning, or one version, touching the resurrection of the dead, I am brought before thee this day. It is unto this question that I’m being brought before you. The whole reason I’m standing trial before you is because I believe the dead are raised. You believe that. You know that is a possibility.

In Acts 24, 24 it says, And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ Jesus. So here’s Paul.

He knows how to talk. He’s a Pharisee. He could have done that, but instead, he chooses in Acts 24, 25 to teach someone of the gospel in the same breath that he’s explaining that the reason he’s on trial is because Jesus Christ is rose from the dead, and you can the dead one day, and you can go to heaven one day if you follow after good things, live a holy life, and recognize you will be judged, and you can be judged accountably right. And Felix is trembling at this point. It says in Acts 24, 25, let’s read that scripture together. In Acts 24, 25, let’s all turn there. That’s Acts 2 4 2 5. It says, Now, as he reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and answered, go away for now.

When I have a convenient time, I’ll call for you. You know, maybe we’re missing some of the background points because we read this so quickly that we say this is the time when Paul was on trial before Felix Fessus and Agrippa, and Paul gave a defense for Jesus, and he talks about the gospel that we miss some of these little instances that are in the background here. Look at 24 10. I’m always a little hesitant to throw in something I hadn’t studied before the lesson and just bring it into the lesson, but I’m gonna bear forth what Tom said in regards to giving, what he said in regards to giving.

Take that just in your mind to how Paul answers this recognition of what he’s on trial for. He says, I the more cheerfully give an answer. Do you know how to evangelize? You say, well, well, yeah, you evangelize by telling the truth and preaching the gospel in all of its force, veracity, and power. That’s right. But you also have to preach the gospel with the right attitude. You can’t be, oh God, not preach the gospel. Deal with these people in life. Oh, they’ll never change. You can’t do that. And here he is before one who is wicked, and he says, I’m cheerful. I’m happy to give an answer. He has the right attitude. Second, he has the right doctrine. Look at this second part in verse 21.

He says, Among them concerning the resurrection of the dead, I am in question by you this day. He knows the resurrection is real. He does not shun away from teaching the doctrine of truth. The Sadducees were wrong. They did not believe in the resurrection. The Sadducees were wrong. They did not believe in the afterlife. They did not believe in angels. They did not believe in a great number of things that Paul knew were right. And here in this particular instance, he preaches of the resurrection. And today we must recognize that the resurrection is real. One day Jesus will come back in the clouds of the sky, and the dead in Christ will rise first, and then we who are alive together will meet the Lord in the air.

Therefore, we need to always comfort one another with these words. He said these types of things to him. And we recognize that it caused one to inwardly reason. It caused one to think about their life, to inwardly think. So when we evangelize, we need to have the right attitude, nice, peaceable attitude, a cheerful attitude. We need to preach the right doctrine and not water down the doctrine one inch. We need to keep the doctrine to be right and true and strong. But third, we need to seek the desire to have one inwardly reason. He did not say, you’re going to do this and you’re going to change, and you’re going to pay attention to what I have to tell you to do. He didn’t talk like that.

He let him inwardly reason. He let him process things and think about things. He inwardly reasoned about righteousness, the idea of living in a godly way. He inwardly reasoned about temperance or the idea of self-control or reasoning about that. And he inwardly reasoned about the judgment to come, knowing just as is saith in the scriptures, for we all must stand before the judgment seat of God to give an account to the deeds in the body, whether they be good or evil. He reasoned about those things. He knew about the sheep and the goats and those that were on the left and those were on the right. He talked about things of a godly nature, and to this soul that he cared about, he let the soul think about it and reason about it.

Need to ask yourself the question, are we busy for the judgment? Are we busy for Jesus’ coming? Are we busy for this type of scrutiny? Like in Psalms 139 and verse 23, where it says, Search me, O God. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Then he says, try me, or judge me, or think about me, and know my thoughts. Are we busy for that type of scrutiny? If we’re honest with ourselves, we may say, Ah, not really. I’m busy for the Lord to search me in hope of grace and mercy and kindness, but I’m not really ready for him to be my judge. Well, then we need to reassess our life. We need to live in such a way where we’re ready to say, like it says at the end of the book of Revelation, Lord, come quickly.

I want you to come. I want you to be here soon so that we can have all the righteous go to heaven. However, the reality is that’s not always the case with life. We need to recognize that part of our busyness needs to be developing the teaching of the lost. We need to be the type of people that value spiritual work with an imminent recognition of the Lord. You say, what does that mean? Value spiritual work knowing that this could be the last day for someone. Value spiritual work with knowing this could be the last day that we have before the Lord returns. Value it with an imminent work of the Lord. Spiritual work without vision is drudgery. Spiritual vision without work is dreaming. Spiritual work plus spiritual vision is bound for spiritual destiny.

3. Are You Busy for Joy?

We can do a lot of work without vision and hate the work we do. Or we can have a great work idea or great thought, but never actually tell a lost soul about the gospel, and then that’s just a dream that they’ll be saved. Or we can have the working attitude that says, I will devote my life towards teaching and I will pray and plan and plead for others to go to heaven so that they can have the destiny of eternal life. Which brings us to our third point. Are you busy for joy, for happiness, for pleasantness? In 3 John 1 4, it says, For I have no greater joy. 1 John 3 4. Turn to this little book. It’s just one chapter long. And this is at the very beginning of the book.

3 John. I said first. I meant third. 3 John 1 4. This is Paul writing to Gaius. And he talks about Gaius to Gaius. And he talks about Demetrius. And he talks about Diatrophies. Diotrephes was seeking the preeminence and wanted to put people out of the church and wasn’t welcoming and wasn’t hospitable. Then you have a good guy named Demetrius at the end of the book. It’s very good, very good guy, trying to do what’s right. And then you have the author writing unto Gaius, that is Paul writing to him. John, excuse me, John writing to him. And he says in the fourth verse, for I have no greater joy. Let’s read this together. For I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

We all want your faith to grow. We want your faith to grow. And as John writes to Gaius, who he loves in truth, he says, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health just as your soul prospers. For I rejoice greatly when the brethren came and testified to the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth. And I have no greater joy than to hear that. We want you to be well. We want you to be healthy.

And we need that to grow in our life for others. We need to be joy filled and happy and encouraging to others. And we want others to be edified and built up in the most holy faith. And we want others to have faith in this local church that is striving to teach and preach truth, that it strives to teach and preach that which is right in accordance with the scriptures.

Spiritually, you’re either saved or lost. You’re either in the kingdom or out of the kingdom. You’re either in light or darkness. As he said in the Sermon on the Mount, if your eye is bad, your whole body’s bad. If your eye is dark, your whole body is dark. Make your eye light and seek the will of the Lord. What about your family? Our theme this year is talking about our influence and our dedication to our family. You can be busy for joy-filled spiritual things. It does us no good to be grumpy about spiritual things before our family.

What would that indicate? Well, first of all, stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. People say, Well, people at church or people in Christianity, they’re hypocrites. Well, you don’t have to be. You can find more enjoyment fully in the sunlight because Jesus isn’t a hypocrite. Jesus doesn’t live his life opposite of that which is what it should be. He doesn’t do that. Jesus is all that we are to be, and he is our pattern and example. If we’re happy and joy filled and encouraged about studying the scriptures and religion and faith, you’re indicating the quality and the value you place on religion and faith. And so as we look at that together this morning, we ask ourselves, how busy am I? What about that 14.4 minutes?

Conclusion

What about that one percent in a day? Every day ask yourself the question did I spend at least 15 minutes talking about the gospel to my family? And then as you get more focused through the months and the year, ask yourself, did I spend 20 minutes? Did I spend an hour? Develop that, grow that. Realize I know not everybody has the same set amount of time to talk to their family about the gospel. I know that. I’m aware of that. But let’s not be naive and let’s not be wrong in thinking that this is too difficult. As for me and for my house, we will serve the Lord. Choose this day to whom you will serve, but as for me and for my house, we will serve the Lord.

So then, as our scripture reading was read this morning, see that ye walk as wise, not as fools. See that ye walk as wise, redeeming the time, making the best use of each day, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Ephesians 5, 17, 16 and 15. Let’s make the best use of each day’s time. Let’s be busy about doing spiritual things, and let’s do our best to serve the Lord. What if you’re not a Christian? Well, you can be. You can believe, repent, confess, be immersed, and be sanctified, and be living in Jesus’ good graces. You can be living for Him, always busy in the faith doing good. You can do that.

A saint is one that’s separated from the world, someone that’s holy. You can be holy. You can be sanctified, separated from the world and apart to something good. Sanctified is the idea of saying no longer like this, but something else. It’s like basically saying, uh, it once was one way, but now it’s taken what it once was, changed, and done something different. It’s not just saying this is holy, this is something different, this is something special. Sanctified is not just saying this is something special, it’s saying this is something special because it’s made a change. It’s no longer doing this, but it is doing this. It’s no longer throwing out a net, it’s no longer mending a net, it’s following Jesus. It’s no longer doing something worldly, but doing something spiritual.

It’s no longer doing one thing, but doing something else, replacing something sinful with something righteous. You can do that. We want you to be saved this morning. And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. If we can help you do that, why don’t you come forward as we stand and sing?