Preached · September 3, 2017
If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to the book of Matthew, chapter 5.
Last week, we asked ourselves three questions, and those three questions had to do with discipleship. One of the questions was, who are we discipling? Another was, who is discipling us? In other words, who are we imitating that's imitating Jesus, and who are we asking to imitate us as we imitate Jesus?
But there was one question that I wanted to dig into a little bit deeper, a little bit more. And that's the question of, am I living an imitable life? Are you living an imitable life? Imitable is a word that means something that's worthy of imitation. Something that's so excellent that it calls us to follow its example.
Are we living an imitable life? And specifically, what I want to talk about this week is, are we living a life that's imitable, that's worthy of imitation, when it comes to our calendar, the way that we spend our time? Because here's the deal. Most of us say yes to too much, and say no to too little.
So today, we're going to talk about commitments and busyness. And no one's going to be surprised that a preacher is going to be talking to you about this. It's one of the plagues of our lives these days, that we are too busy, that we have too many commitments, that we just let our lives run amok with the amount of things that we have to do.
Where does our value and worth come from?
Before we get into all of that, I want to remind you of something first. I want to quickly answer the question, where does our value and our worth come from? Does it come from our work? Does it come from our accomplishments? Does it come from the amount of things that we can check off our to-do list? Does it come from the roles that we play in our family, or in our workplace, or in our neighborhood, or in our community?
No. Those things might give us a sense of value or worth, but it's not ultimately where our value and our worth comes from. The only place where we can get our value and our worth is from God himself.
Quick review. Genesis chapter 1 says:
God created humankind in his own image, and in the image of God he created them.
So human beings, when God formed them, shaped them, breathed life into them, he declared that they were made in his own image. God, who of course is of infinite value, declares that we are of value to him.
Psalm chapter 8 says:
You, [God], have made humans a little lower than the angels, and have crowned them with glory and honor.
So again, God has endowed human beings by their nature with glory and with honor.
Ephesians chapter 1 says:
God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be blameless in his sight. In love, God predestined us for adoption through Jesus in accordance with God's pleasure and will.
And so you have been brought into God's very family. When we attempt to give unconditional love to maybe our parents or our siblings or our children, we try, but we're not very good at it. God's great at it. God's unconditional love never fails.
So that's where our value comes from. It comes from what God declares is true. And you can't undo what God declares to be true. Who do you think you are?
So as we talk about busyness and convictions and how to say yes and how to say no, you may, I kind of hope, you may feel a sense of conviction today. And conviction can be a good thing. If you pay attention to it, conviction can spur you on into growth, can spur you on into more radically imitating the way and the life of Jesus. Conviction spurs us on.
But what I don't want you to feel is shame. I don't want you to question your value. I don't want you to question your worth. Because that's already been decided by God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. You are precious in God's eyes. Period. End of story.
Let your yes be yes and your no be no
Now that that's been said, let's talk about what we're actually going to talk about. Join me in the book of Matthew chapter 5 verse 37. These are the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says:
Let your yes be yes and your no be no. For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
I'm going to read that again. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. For whatever you say that's more than this, it's evil. It comes from the evil one.
Now in this passage, a couple verses before, Jesus is talking about swearing oaths, making promises, making vows. And the gist of what Jesus is getting at is he's saying that if we were just honest with each other all the time, we wouldn't need oaths or promises or vows. If we just said what we were going to do and did it, or said what we weren't going to do and didn't do it, then we wouldn't need such things as promises and vows and contracts and covenants, because we could just say what we were going to do, and that would be it.
Jesus' people, people who follow and imitate the way of Jesus, they should make oaths and vows and promises irrelevant. If we're going to say that we're going to do something, we're going to do it. We shouldn't need a contract or a big fancy promise to make it true. We shouldn't need to add, "I swear to God," at the end of a sentence to make people take us seriously.
Now here's an observation about myself that I think folks know. We don't like saying no, which weakens our saying yes. This is my observation about myself and a lot of people that I know, and maybe it applies to you. We don't like saying no, which weakens us every time we say yes.
Look, we are all nice people, kind, generous people. We all think so, right? So when someone asks us to do something, to make a commitment to something, more than likely, we want to say yes. Saying an outright no can seem rude or brash or inconsiderate. We just want to say yes to people.
It happens to me almost every day. I receive a request to do something, be somewhere, make something happen that I don't have the time for, the skills for, or I just quite frankly don't want to do. And when I say no, I can be given this look back at me that communicates that I've taken one of those person's toes and not just stepped on them, but pulverized them into powder. Like, who are you to say no to me?
But every time we want to say no, that we should say no, but we say yes instead, our yes gets weaker and weaker. Every time we say yes, that means that we, by definition, have to give less time, less energy, and less focus to the last hundred yeses that we've already made.
So I want to teach you this morning how to say yes, and probably the thing that we need more help with, how to say no.
I'm going to start with this quote from author and writer Shauna Niequist. She writes:
People love it when you say yes, and they get used to it. They start to figure out who the people are who will always say yes, always come through, always make it happen. And if you, friends, if you are one of those people, it does cause a little freak-out when you start saying no. People are generally not down with this right away. That's okay. Yes, it matters to me on a deep level. Saying a broad and brave yes to this beautiful world, to love and challenge and hard laughter and dancing and trying and failing. Yes is totally my jam. But you can't have yes without no. Another way to say it: if you're not careful with your yeses, you start to say no to some very important things without even realizing it. In my rampant yes, yes, yesing, I said no without intending to, to rest, to peace, to groundedness, to listening, to deep and slow connection built over years instead of moments. All my yeses brought me to a shallow way of living, an exhausting, frantic lifestyle that actually ended up having little resemblance to that deep, brave yes that I was searching for. But no became the scalpel I wielded as I remade my life, slicing through the tender tissue of what needed to go and what I wanted to remain. — Shauna Niequist, *Present Over Perfect*
So how are we going to take that scalpel of no to our lives? How do we obey the words of Jesus and let our no be no? I've got three not-so-easy steps for you.
How to say no
One: Set your values
Value is one's judgment of what is important in life. Whether you realize it or not, you have a set, a list of values that run your life, of what you think the good life is. It runs your decisions. It runs what you say yes to and no to. It's what runs what you give your energy and your time and your money and your resources to. We all have a list of values.
Now if you're going to get good at saying no, if you're going to make this a discipline in your life, if you're going to be able to say no with vigor and strength, well, you need to know what those values are. When something comes along that runs counter to those values, something that you need to say no to, you need to have something to check that opportunity, that decision up against, so your no becomes easier.
We all have values. They all run our lives. And so this first step is to set them, to say them out loud. We all have implicit values that we may not realize. And so what we need to do is to speak them aloud, to write them down, to make them explicit, so we have something to point towards when we want to say no.
So I'm going to give you some examples. These are values that my wife Emily and I have set over the years, and we have made them explicit. We have written them down. This is what runs our life. These are in no particular order.
We value experiences over things. This is a money value. We're going to save our money, set aside money, not for stuff, but for experiences. We're much more likely to spend way too much money on a trip or a vacation than way too much money on a car.
Our first priority with our money is supporting God's work. This sets how we spend our money, how we tithe, how we give. That's our first priority. It's the first check we write. It's the first thing that comes out at the beginning of the month.
Another value: if it can be done together, we'll do it together. This affects practical day-to-day things. My wife and I, whenever we have the opportunity, we go to bed at the same time. If we're going to choose a television show to watch, we're going to choose a show in general that we can watch together. We're going to eat at the table together.
Another value: your emotions are valid and deserve my attention and empathy. This is a language and a listening value. That's how we have conversations with each other. Putting down the phone, putting down the iPad, looking each other in the eyes, not saying that your emotions are invalid, but saying, okay, I may not agree with how you feel, but I recognize that how you feel is real.
Another value: the church is the world's best hope to experience God. This is how we spend our Sundays. Where we're going to be Sunday at nine o'clock. Where we're going to be Wednesday at six o'clock. How we're going to build our relationships, where our friendships are going to come out of.
Another value: our home and our family is something to invite others into, not shut them out from. We actually have this written into the homily given at our wedding. We came out of a Christian college where people would couple up all the time and become so insular. They would just stare into each other's eyes in the middle of the great room in the dorms. It was so awkward, these public displays of affection, and nobody liked being around that. So Emily and I said, we don't want a relationship to be something that shuts other people out. We want our life, our home, our family to be something other people can come into and feel welcome and feel invited and feel safe.
Another value: we're going to schedule Sabbath and margin first. This sets 24 hours in a week where we're going to do our best to not have any commitments, to not do anything that sucks life out of us. We're going to set margin.
So your first step in learning how to say no is to set value statements like this. How are you going to prioritize your money? What's the first thing that comes out? What's the second thing that comes out? So when an opportunity to spend money comes along, you've got a list of values about your money to check that decision up against. How much sleep, literally, do you want to get per night? Seven, eight, six hours? Probably should be more than five, according to the scientists. Well, that's going to depend on what time you get up and what time you go to bed. How long do your commitments last? How are you going to eat with your family? Around a table, on the couch, in front of the TV? Set it in stone, write it down. Have values.
Once those values are set, put them out. Hang them. Put them in a frame. And then when a decision comes along, yes or no, look at the framed photo of your values and say, nope, this goes against our values. And we're going to say yes or no accordingly. This is how we make decisions around here.
Two: Believe that pruning leads to growth
As counterintuitive as that may be. If you want a plant to be healthy, you can't just let it grow and hope for the best. It needs tending to and nurturing. And sometimes you even have to cut that plant back so next year it will come back even stronger and healthier.
And I did not make this up. Jesus said this in the book of John chapter 15. He says this using a metaphor about his relationship with his people:
I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. And the father cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
Do you see it? Even branches that bear fruit need to be pruned and need to be cut back. They need some no's in their lives so that they will come back even more fruitful. And this is true whether you're talking about grapevines or fruit trees or human beings. If you want it to be more fruitful, believe that cutting back will lead to that. It will allow you to grow back stronger and even more fruitful.
Jesus continues:
Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
Abide. In order to be fruitful, you have to abide. Abiding sounds an awful lot like resting and sitting still and doing nothing. Exactly, Jesus says. Abiding and pruning is what leads to bearing fruit.
There's no clearer picture of this than in Genesis chapter 1 when God creates humankind. He says this to them:
Be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over every living creature.
Okay. Wow, God. That sounds like a lot of work, but you created us, so thank you for that opportunity. We're going to do it. When do we start? Keep reading:
On the seventh day, God rested from all his work. God blessed the Sabbath day, the seventh day, made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Creation is just completed. Humankind has just been given this task, this work, this job to be fruitful. And so on the very first full day that they're alive, it's rest day. It's Sabbath.
We are all so used to resting from our work. We work until we're exhausted, until we crash. And then we finally rest when it's the absolutely last thing we have to do. But that's not how God designed creation to work. We are meant to work out of our rest. To make rest the very first thing that we do. The very top of our to-do list.
You want a fruitful life, Jesus says? Then be still and abide in me. You want a life that's full and abundant? Then hold on, Jesus says. Let me prune some things back. Let me take some scissors to your calendar. And then your life will be full and abundant. In other words, Jesus says, let your no be no.
Three: Believe that it's okay to disappoint people
Don't confuse the command to love with the disease to please. Now, disappointing people stinks, doesn't it? For a lot of us, it's at the very top of our worst experiences pile. We would rather be shipped off to Normandy on D-Day than have to disappoint someone. Any disappointment haters in here?
Again, Shauna Niequist writes:
Some people are very uncomfortable with the idea of disappointing anyone. They think that if you are kind, you'll never disappoint a soul. They think that if you try hard enough, if you manage your time well enough, if you're selfless enough, prayerful enough, godly enough, you'll never disappoint anyone. I fear those people are in for a rude awakening.
So, friends, first of all, you're going to disappoint people. It's going to happen. You might as well ride with it. And secondly, God never said that your job on this planet is to make sure that no one is ever disappointed in you.
I tell you what, Jesus was God in the flesh. Jesus was literally God, the divine God in the flesh. He was absolutely perfect, flawless. Jesus lived out the complete, mature life of a human being. He had every measure of love and patience and joy and peace and self-control. And there was an angry mob that followed Jesus around to tell him how disappointed they were in him.
Did I say a disappointed mom? That's a Freudian slip. So, if Jesus can't please anyone — and by the way, his mom was disappointed in him. His mom and his siblings went to Jesus, thought he had gone crazy, wanted to pull him back to the homestead. So, if Jesus can't even please his mom, why do you think you can? If Jesus can't please everybody, why do you think you can?
So, if Jesus disappointed people, and you can disappoint people, well, hallelujah, look at you, you're imitating Jesus.
So, how to say no in three not-so-easy steps? One, set your values. Make them explicit. Two, believe that pruning is what leads to growth. Abiding is what leads to abundance. And three, friends, know it's okay to disappoint people. God is not disappointed in you. Remember what we said at the beginning. God has set your value before the foundation of the world. God loves you. You are his child. His love is unconditional. Don't rely on other people's disappointment or approval to get your value and your worth.
How to say yes
So how do you say yes? I'm going to give you three more steps.
One: What is my best yes?
There is no doubt that our lives are filled with opportunities that can fill our calendars. There are a hundred things that we could say yes to today. And so the question we have to ask is, which is the best yes? What is the yes, though, that's going to make us come alive with joy, that uses our gifts and our talents and the resources that God has given us? The one that not only improves our lives, but improves the lives of the most people around us.
You may be saying yes to something that's hard and difficult, something that will stretch you and grow you, something that's going to shape you to be more like Jesus. But which is the best yes? The yeses that are okay yeses, the good-enough yeses, the begrudging yeses, those are going to suck the life out of you, friends. And they're most likely going to suck the joy and life out of those around you as well. So what's a yes that you can throw yourself into?
Lysa TerKeurst says this:
Whenever you say yes to something, there is less of you for something else. Make sure your yes is worth the less.
There's only so much of you to go around. We all have the exact same 24 hours in a day. We all have only so much financial, intellectual, relational, emotional capital in our lives. So we need to use it wisely and say yes to the best things.
Two: Do it for Jesus
When you say yes, do it for Jesus. We said this a little bit earlier in our worship service. Colossians chapter 3:
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as though working for the Lord, not for people.
In the original context of this verse, it's addressed to slaves. It's addressed to a terrible economic situation for slaves serving masters. In other words, this is not necessarily a life-giving situation that we're talking about.
Sometimes you have said yes to something that's hard, that's not easy, that's not fun. Sometimes it takes longer than you want. Sometimes it includes more meetings than you like. Sometimes it's just not fun. But that doesn't mean that we get to give a begrudging yes. It means that we still do it with all of our heart. It means that we still do it with our best energy, the best of our talents, the best of ourselves.
So whatever we have said yes to, we should do it with all of our heart. We should do it as if Jesus himself was the one who asked us to do it. The one who asked us to bring cupcakes to the classroom. The one that asked us to serve on that committee. The one that asked us to mow our neighbor's unruly yard. The one that asked us to help out on that team. Whatever we have said yes to, let's do it with all of our heart. That means that we're doing it for Jesus.
Three: Do it with joy
It means that what we have said yes to, we bring our best. It means that we bring a certain amount of cheer, that we lighten up the room. When we say yes to things that are hard, things that grow us, that stretch us, things that make us want to whine and complain, things that make us want to pull our hair out — we don't have to be upset about it. If we are people filled with the Holy Spirit, people who have accepted Jesus as Savior of the world, Lord, King of the universe, that means we get to bring the joy of the Lord with us, even in the crummy situations.
Second Corinthians 9 says this:
Remember this. Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. Whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give. Not reluctantly or under compulsion. For God loves a cheerful giver.
Friends, you get to pre-decide what you will say yes to, in a lot of cases. Maybe not every case, but in a lot of cases. And so what you say yes to, you're doing it with Jesus. Do it with joy. With a smile on your face and not a grimace.
Now, let me make something clear. Does this all mean that we should only do something that makes us happy? Do only things that are easy? Do only things that we're passionate about? Of course not. Sometimes God is going to ask us and present us with opportunities that are hard and difficult and messy, that aren't easy, that aren't our gift or our calling. They're not in our wheelhouse. But do it anyway. If you feel like it's God's will, if God is confirming and affirming this in your life, do it with all the joy that you would have if you were doing something easy. As my friend John likes to say, do something you're not passionate about.
Conclusion
So as you enter into this fall, you are going to be left with many, many opportunities of things to say yes or no to. How will you do it?
I encourage you: set your values. Make them explicit. Write them down. Sit down with your family or your friends, those who are close to you, and say these things out loud so you have something to check them up against.
Believe that pruning can lead to growth. It's a faith thing. It's a faith thing to believe that if I cut back, if I say no, if I take scissors to my calendar, that God's still going to use me in a powerful way.
Believe and know that it's okay to disappoint people.
And then when you say yes, do it with all of your soul and strength and might and heart and mind and everything that you have, so that when you say yes, God first and foremost, and the people that you have said yes to, get your best yes.
