Trying to be God

Mark 4:26-29

I have been delighted at the response to my sermon last week. If you were not here, I talked about the need to have a devoted time to be with God each day. This may not sound new or different, but I shared from the weakness in my life and encouraged people to join me as I begin to build up the reservoir of God’s strength in my life. I have had several phone calls, emails and other conversations. The response was another validation that God uses us when we are willing to be vulnerable and share our weakness. And it is encouraging that so many desire so much to grow in their relationship with Christ.

This has been a steady week for me. I have maintained my discipline of an hour in the morning and a short prayer time at night before I go to sleep. The difference has not been dramatic, but I sense I am on a good path. I hope you have also been encouraged to be more dedicated in taking time to be with God. If you have not yet begun, start this week and make it a priority to sit and be quiet with God each day.

In thinking about why I became spiritually depleted, I reflected this week on why it is that I sometimes feel so stressed. I am sometimes stressed because I have to much to do and not enough time to do it all. The ‘to do’ list gets longer and longer and I wish there were more hours in the day. This kind of stress can be dealt with by rearranging priorities, working more efficiently and taking a day off to get away from all the work and relax. This is what I call surface stress.

But there is a deeper source of stress that is not as easy to deal with and that is the weight of responsibility that we carry. There may not even be a lot to do for whatever it is I feel responsible, but I feel the weight of responsibility and the stress this produces is not so easy to deal with. Taking a day off or realigning priorities does not take away the weight of responsibility. It is there when I wake up and when I go to sleep. It stays with me all the time.

In fact it might be easier if there were three or thirty things I could do to change the situation. But often there is nothing I can do and that is what makes the weight I carry seem so heavy.

The weight of responsibility is the kind of stress that wears me down. I remember the night we had a party for Don and Rose Johnson in our house to say goodbye to them. Don and Rose lived in Rabat for 23 years and they had a large house that was always busy. Families from the Village of Hope and the Children’s Haven came down to Rabat and stayed with them. Visitors to Morocco came and stayed with them. People living in other parts of Morocco came to Rabat and stayed with them. We often had our potlucks in their home and Seder meals and other church events. They had such a gift of hospitality.

That night as we were saying goodbye and sharing stories of them, I stood at the side of the room, leaning on the wall, and I literally felt the weight of responsibility fall on my shoulders. With the Johnsons leaving, I knew the people who used to go to the Johnson’s would have to go somewhere and we were a logical choice. I took on my shoulders the responsibility for all those people.

This year at RPF we lost a lot of people in the church who helped with various things we did. We will lose more before the end of the year and where are the people who will come to help with what we need to do in the church? I feel the weight of that responsibility.

We are having a difficult time reaching our budget this year. This is the fourth year we have had to dip into our savings to meet our expenses and our savings can handle one or maybe two more years before we run out of funds. I feel responsible for this.

The association, l’Eglise Protestante is still in an organizing mode. We are not yet an established group and we could make progress and be successful or fade away into oblivion. I feel responsible for this.

The Village of Hope is struggling now with personnel issues. Half of the staff will be gone by the end of the year. The Deiningers are leaving next month. The Ericksons leave at the end of October. The Mullers will be away on a much deserved furlough for six months. The board is evolving into a different kind of board and we have had some conflicts in this process. Rather than moving forward, it feels that we have fallen back and I feel responsible for this.

I have friends who are struggling in their marriage. I have friends who have broken relationships with other friends. I have friends who are having a difficult time financially. And I am weighed down by their needs because I feel responsible.

Someone might say, “Don’t be so stupid! Why do you have to feel responsible for everybody and every project? Let your friends take care of themselves!” But the problem is that I am responsible.

I am pastor of RPF. I am the shepherd of the sheep and when the sheep struggle, I am responsible to help them. God has given me the gift of pastoring and I am expected to use this gift. If I did not, I would be failing in the responsibility God has given me.

If someone comes to me and tells me their problem, am I supposed to tell them, “Ce n’est pas mes oignons?” (It is not my onions?) (It is not my problem?) I can’t do that. It is a violation of my role as pastor.

I am president of l’Eglise Protestante. This is a gift God gave to us when we received our papers in March 2004. To not work and help this association develop and become what it is meant to be is a rejection of the gift God gave.

I am Chairman of the Board of the Village of Hope. If I am not responsible for the progress and development of VOH, who is?

So when I feel the stress that comes from carrying the weight of responsibility for people and projects here in Morocco and for the problems of family and friends in the US, what do I do?

You too have friends and family who have struggles they have shared with you. You have projects on which you work that have struggles from time to time. Do you not have responsibility for them? In Galatians 6:2 Paul wrote:
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

When we help our brothers and sisters who are in need by helping carry their burden, we fulfill the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are by commandment responsible for the burdens of those around us. To ignore the burdens of those God has put in your life is to break the second half of what Jesus called the great commandment. How do you handle the stress that comes from accepting the responsibility that is yours?

A close friend or family member tells you he and his wife are getting a divorce. What can you do about this? You pray but what else can you do? What will happen to the kids? How can you help the kids in this mess?

Someone else confides that they are under severe financial pressure. A job was lost and the only work to be found will not support the payments on the house and tuition for college. What can you do? How much can you help? Not enough.

Someone else is struggling with depression and the problem is that she is the one earning money for the family. If she loses her job, the family will have no income and then what? You live too far away to meet and counsel and try to help. What can you do?

A project you are working with is having struggles. There are personality conflicts. There are funding problems. You have worked long and hard and now it seems you are moving backwards rather than forwards. What can you do to turn things around?

You need to be asked a question. I need to be asked a question.

In a Woody Allen movie, someone came up to him and asked, “Who do you think you are, God?” And he responded with the wit I so much appreciate, “I have to pattern my life after somebody.”

We need to be asked the same question:
“Who do you think you are, God?”

God has unlimited resources and can help every person needing help. We do not have unlimited resources and cannot do what God does. We are not supposed to help every person who has a need and we may work against God’s purposes when we try to be God in this way.

Here is the reality. It is true that God gives us responsibility, but we are not supposed to carry the burden. That’s the trick, isn’t it? Assume the responsibility for what God has given you to do but let the emotional burden be on God’s shoulders. This is the tension we live with, taking the responsibility God gives us and letting God carry the burden of that responsibility and we are not very good at it.

To get some insight on this tension, look at Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 3. In this chapter he deals with the factions that had developed in the church. Some were claiming to be of the faction of Apollo, other of Paul. Let me point out a few insights from this text.

First, in verse 5 we see that the Lord assigns us to our tasks.
What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task.

God gives us work to do. If you work in a business or school, you have colleagues God has given to you so you can care for them. You may be involved in helping a charitable project. That is a task God has assigned you to. Part of the task to which God has assigned you is to care for the friends you have. You don’t have to be a pastor to have work assignments from God. All of us have received from God tasks to which we have been assigned.

Secondly, in verse 6 we see that God does the real work and we assist him.
I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.

Why do we plant seeds? We want to see the flower or tomato or onion that grows from the seed. Why do we water the seeds? We want to see the shoots break through the earth and grow. Planting seeds and watering seeds that do not grow makes no sense. It is because when seeds do miraculously pop out of the soil and grow that we plant and water seeds with great hope.

Someone asks us, “Who planted this?” and we easily answer, “I did.” But if we were asked, “Who made this plant grow?” what would we answer?

Jesus told a parable recorded in Mark 4 that gives God’s answer to this question.
26 [Jesus] also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground.  27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.  28 All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.  29 As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

We may plant and water but with us or without us, God is the one who will make the plant grow.

I remember when we moved from Ohio to Massachusetts and we had lots of things to carry in from the truck into the house. Our daughters were just five and seven years old. They wanted to help and so when my friend and I were carrying something, a table perhaps, they would help by holding the side of the table and we would carry the table together into the house. The reality is that we could have done it without their help and maybe it would have been easier without their help. But they carried the table into the house with my friend and me.

I think this is a helpful picture for us. God is the one who is doing the work in the world. We walk alongside holding the table and think we are carrying the whole thing when in reality, if God were to let go, the whole thing would collapse.

We work but it is God who is really carrying the load.

Note that in verse 10, Paul refers to himself as an expert builder.
By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder

When we say that God is really carrying the load, that does not minimize the importance of our working hard and doing our best. God values our working hard and excelling. Skilled artisans were asked to build the temple when it was constructed. Not just artisans, but skilled artisans.

We work hard and develop the skills we have been given so we can excel in what we do but it is still God who really carries the load.

Thirdly, in verse 7 it is not about us. It is all about Jesus.
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

Because God is the one responsible for the growth we see, we give glory to him for what is accomplished in the lives of people and projects around us.

Look at the negative example of this. Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon when Daniel was among the exiles.
Daniel 4
as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon,  30 he said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”

What was wrong with what Nebuchadnezzar said? Who built all that he saw? Of course he did not do the actual labor, but then an architect claims credit for a building even though she did not actually build it. Nebuchadnezzar was right. He did build the city he saw.

His mistake was to not see God at work. Who gave Nebuchadnezzar his power? Who gave his architects the ability to design and build? Who gave his artisans their creative gifts that made what he saw beautiful?

Rather than see God’s work Nebuchadnezzar took all the credit and for this reason, he was disciplined and for seven years suffered under a mental illness that made him unable to rule.

In our work we need to remember that it is God who has enabled us to experience any success.

When we begin to be anxious and take the emotional burden of responsibility for people and projects on our shoulders, we are claiming too much power and authority for ourselves. We are saying that it is my project, my problem and we deny the work of God in which we are only assisting.

To say it is all about Jesus means we do not take the glory but it also means we do not take the burden of responsibility that is God’s not ours.

Who do we think we are, God?

Understand that when you are worried or anxious and this leads to deep stress in your life, you are in some way sinning. Anxiety is an indication of a sinful attitude at work in your life.

We read in Psalm 139:23-24
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Anxious thoughts are offensive to God and need to be removed because they block us in our relationship with God.

Paul wrote in Philippians 4 a verse we have in the bulletin every Sunday
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Anxiety reveals a sinful attitude. You are worried because of the problems of a friend or project and you do not know what to do. You have taken the emotional burden of responsibility for the problem on yourself and when you do this, you are sinning by either trying to pay God back for the salvation you have received, trying to earn God’s salvation and love, building your own kingdom or it is your pride and ego on the line. In one way or another, you are taking on yourself what is not yours and you need to release it as Paul suggests.

Release your anxiety by prayer and petition and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

There was one day in the last week or two when I was feeling overwhelmed by the tensions at the Village of Hope and I began to despair. But then I acknowledged that God is the one who is working at the Village of Hope and I felt the weight slip off my shoulders. The weight keeps on creeping back and I have to continue to pray and acknowledge God’s work in what we are doing. We have seen his work from the beginning and continue to see it today.

I was up at Ain Leuh yesterday for a board meeting and was much encouraged because even with the tensions that exist, we see God at work building while we sleep. New people are coming to help us with the work. Funding continues to come. People continue to come alongside to help and support the work that is taking place.

Because we are human and therefore sinful beings, we will make mistakes. We will create broken relationships. We will make wrong decisions. We will fail to fulfill the responsibilities God has given us. That is a given. But when we make mistakes, the disaster is never as great as we think it is. We see the disaster but God sees what he is doing and the disaster is only a small part of what is happening.

If God is the primary worker who carries most of the load, then our failure will not destroy the work God is doing. We make a mistake or someone we are working with makes a mistake and we panic and think all is lost. But do you seriously imagine when I fail to live up to the responsibility God has given me and make a bad decision that all of heaven stops and the highways of heaven are filled with angels running around in a panic because Jack Wald messed up?

We may fail from time to time to do our part but God is still carrying his part and his purposes will be accomplished. Perhaps others will have a part in what he is doing and we may miss out on the privilege of working with God, but God’s purposes will not be thwarted.

This does not mean you can or should accept failure lightly. But you can step up, learn from your mistake and move on. Because you are on God’s team, you will still be advancing.

There are two images I would like you to carry with you today. The first is that of a child helping carry a table into the house. Remember in whatever it is you are doing, that you are working with God and he is carrying the heavy load.

The second image comes from an apocryphal story that has been passed around on the internet. There are many versions of this but the details do not really matter. It is a great image.

When the house lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and discovered that her child was missing. Suddenly, the curtains parted and spotlights
focused on the impressive Steinway piano on stage. In horror, the mother saw her little girl sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” At that moment, the great piano master made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in the girl’s ear, “Don’t quit.””Keep playing.”

Then, leaning over, he reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the child, and he added a running obbligato. Together, the old master and the young novice transformed what could have been a frightening situation into a wonderfully creative experience. The audience was so mesmerized that they couldn’t recall what else the great master played that night, only the classic,”Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

Perhaps that’s the way it is with God. What we can accomplish on our own is hardly noteworthy. We try our best, but the results aren’t always graceful flowing music. However, with the hand of the Master, our life’s work can truly be beautiful.

Paul said he was an expert builder so I might change this story and say that the great piano master sat down at the keyboard to play his masterpiece and then God reached down and filled in the music on the left and right and front, back, top and bottom. God takes the work of the best of us and makes it truly beautiful.

Work is good. We are supposed to work. We are supposed to be good at what we do. But carry in your mind these two images. First, it is God who is supporting the work you do. When you despair because you do not see how you can care for those of your family and friends who do not know Jesus, rest in the comfort that God is at work in their lives and he neither slumbers or sleeps.

When you despair because you do not know how to solve the problems of your friends, know that God is at work and he will not abandon them.

When you despair because you do not see how the project on which you are working will make it, rest in the comfort that God is at work in ways you can only barely see.

When you despair because what you do seems too little and insignificant, be encouraged by the fact that with God working with you, a marvelous symphony is being created. He takes your efforts and fills in from left and right, top and bottom, front and back to make beautiful music.

We do not work to earn his favor or repay him for what he has done. We work for the pleasure of participating with God in his work.