Busyness Is Not Godliness

I’m gonna wait a little while to have everybody kinda join in. I’m gonna leave the graphic up until we’re ready for that, and then I’ll be right back so we can get church started. Good morning, everybody. I’m seeing some folks jumping on the comments. That is great. I will enjoy as much of your feedback as you can give me, because I’m here not all alone. I’ve got my family here with me, of course, but I really miss seeing your all’s faces and hearing the amens and everything, and that’s a thread on Facebook. If you want to watch on your TV, if you pull up YouTube and search for Columbia First Assembly, it should show up there as well. Obviously, I want to see and hear everybody’s comments on Facebook. It gives me at least a little bit of connection as I’m sitting here, and so thank you so much for everybody joining. I wish we could have seen everybody in person, but if you looked outside, it dumped a lot of snow on us. I saw this morning, KOMU showed all of the roadways in purple, and the forecaster said, now all of the roads are in purple highlighted here, and all of the purple shows where none of the roads have been cleared, and basically all of Missouri hasn’t been cleared yet. I hope everybody’s home. I have my fake fireplace behind me. I hope you have something real keeping you warm, and I want to just kick off this morning and get started. I think we’ve got everything set up as it’s supposed to be. This is a first for me. I know we’ve done church online before. I have never done this. This is a first for me to actually be preaching from home, and so this is new for me. I know we did kind of some during COVID, but that was always on other pastors, so it’s a new experience for me, so thanks again for everybody joining this morning. Be praying for Pastor Tom and Jenny. I know they are having a really tough time of it right now, heavy sarcasm, because Tom sent me some pictures of the beautiful beach place that they are at right now. So Tom is seeing zero snow, and he is really enjoying the beautiful swimming pool they have down there. He picked the perfect weekend to not be here in Columbia. So just be praying for our pastors, though. We want to make sure that they have a safe return and just that everybody stays safe. So this morning, I’m going to be preaching on Busyness is Not Godliness. I’m going to dive into that. I want to open up with prayer here in just a little bit. We’re having Snowmageddon 2026, so this is fun. I want to just pray for everybody to keep safe, pray for everybody as they are at home, and I just want to kick off our service this morning. We’re not going to be doing any kind of worship music or anything like that. It’ll just be me preaching. We tried to figure out how we could do that, but we’re like, you know, we’ll just do the preaching this morning, and then maybe we can figure out another way to, like, we saw another church that actually prerecorded their worship team and worship service, and Jenny and I, we found that out yesterday, and we were thinking, hey, that would have been kind of a cool idea. So if we have another one of these, maybe we can do a prerecorded worship service so that we can share that as well. So let me just open in prayer this morning. Thank you again, everybody, for joining. Please keep leaving comments. I don’t mind. You can leave comments the whole time I’m preaching. It just lets me know you guys are out there, and it makes it just a little bit less lonely if we’re being completely honest. And so please, please, just keep those coming. It’s so good. If you ever see me look down, I’m just reading your Facebook comments. So let me just open in prayer this morning. Thank you again for joining us. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this wonderful day. Even if we’re snowed in, even if we’re all at home, Lord, we’re so grateful that we have this day with you. Lord, thank you for the technology of our day that we have that I’m able to just broadcast from home and that we’ve got our church that’s able to jump on and enjoy that and see this message and just find a little bit of connection and community, even though we’re all spread across the state this morning. Heavenly Father, I just want to lift up Tom and me as they’re traveling and the traveling companions that they have with them. Lord, I pray that you would just protect them, that you would watch over them, that you would let them have a wonderful and a relaxing time while they’re there and that you would bring them back to us safely, Lord. I pray that even if we are in our own separate homes today, Lord, you said where two or three are gathered together, you’re going to be there too. And so, Lord, we just want to hold you to that this morning, Father, that there’s more than two in my household. There’s more than two in many of the households with us and we are trying to gather together this morning. I just pray, Father, that you would show up this morning. Even if we are by ourselves, even if we’re in our homes alone, I pray that as we are connected this morning, as we are logged into these live streams, Father, I just pray in the name of Jesus that you would bring us all together. Lord, speak through me this morning. You say whatever you want through me. Use me, Heavenly Father, that I can make you proud, Lord, that I could speak exactly what you want me to speak, Lord. In the name of Jesus, I ask it, just be with us this morning. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen. I love it. Alright, Doug Grindstaff, thank you for your amen. Kevin, nice shirt. Yeah, hopefully you guys recognize this. I thought that’d be great today to bind us all together. Alright, folks. It’s so good to see everybody this morning. I wish I could be seeing you in person, but let us dive in. So, I wanted to open up by saying that this message is basically just the Lord convicting me and you guys are essentially along for the ride. So, anything that you hear me say that sounds judgmental or harsh, I just want you to know that I’m the one that needs to receive it probably because in the area of busyness, much like Paul, I would consider myself the chief among sinners. And so, the title of my message today is Busyness is Not Godliness. And so, let’s dive in. What does that mean exactly? God told us to occupy till he comes. Right? I mean, Jesus, as he left, he said, get busy. Right? That’s the Ellis translation. That’s not King James. But he said, go, preach the gospel, make disciples of all the nations. You have to get busy to do that call. The Great Commission. Right? The word tells us of a man who refuses to provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever. So, again, we know that the Lord wants us to work. 2 Thessalonians 3.10 goes far as saying the person, the man, that isn’t willing to work will not eat. So, we know that God is pro-work. So, what do I mean when I’m talking about busyness? Well, this morning I want to talk about habits, vision, and how those relate to busyness. More specifically, I want to talk about how easy it is just to be busy, even being productive, but then still missing out on the work that God actually wants us to do. And here is a line that has just been sticking with me. This has just been resonating with me. Show me your calendar and I’ll show you what you worship. This is very similar to the same line. I can’t claim credit for this, right? This is very similar to the line of show me your bank statement and I’ll show you what you worship. Or show me your bank statement and I’ll show you what you worship. See, my microphone just popped. Sorry. I bumped my microphone and shut it off. I’m so sorry there. First technical difficulty, hopefully the only one. So again, show me your bank statement. Show me your calendar. I’m going to show you what you worship. Or if that’s too strong of a word, we can just say, I’ll show you what’s important to you. And that’s true, right? A lot of us, we stick by that calendar. So this is the first slap across Ellis’ face this morning. I truly live and die by my Google Calendar. If it is not on my calendar, then it doesn’t exist in my mind and it is not going to get done. I have it open all day long in a Chrome tab on the top. I have it open. I’m jumping to it. I’m constantly moving things around. Now, one of my greatest moments in my marriage is that it took me years to get my wife to use the Google Calendar. I love Jenny to death. She likes physical calendars. She wants to be organized, but the whole digital using the Google Calendar took a long time in our marriage. But today, it is such a blessing that she will actually add stuff to the calendar. If she tells me about it verbally, if she just says, hey, we’re doing this on this day, there’s about a 20% chance I’m going to remember that. If she texts me, there’s about a 20% chance that I’ll remember it. But honestly, if it is on the Google Calendar, there is a 100% chance that I know it’s happening and that I will be ready and be prepared to go to it. My Google Calendar is so important. Let’s ask an uncomfortable question this morning. If somebody copied your calendar or mine, would they grow closer to Jesus or would they be drifting away? What’s on that calendar? Is it blocked out? Do you have time in there that is immovable for time with the Lord, time in prayer, time in reading, church attendance? Most of you were here this morning, so obviously you’ve made it a priority even when you can’t physically make it to the building. Again, that is important. As I said, I’m constantly moving things around on my calendar, but there’s items that are non-negotiable. This is what we’re talking about. Are there things that cannot be moved? Sunday morning service never gets moved, even during a snowstorm. Here we are. Wednesday night services, they are locked in and they are never moved. What about prayer time? What about that Bible time? What about family devotions? Here we go. Another slap across the face for me. It has happened more times than I care to admit where I wake up, I’m getting ready to do my prayer and devotion time, but the phone rings and a client needs something done. What happens? That prayer time gets moved on the calendar, devotion times get bumped back to later in the day, and best case scenario, I just wind up taking that time to do a little bit later in the day. Worst case scenario, another thing pops up, another thing pops up, another thing pops up, and that prayer and devotion time gets either deleted or moved into late into the evening. I’m a morning prayer and devotions person time. If I pray at night, as soon as I close my eyes, I’m gone. There’s no time with Jesus, there’s just Ellis snoring. I need to make sure that my time with the Lord is spent first thing in the morning when I’m fresh. I can’t be the only one. Let me know down in the comments, does anybody else do this? Does the calendar get moved? Do things get moved from time to time? Again, I’ll just say this one more time, preaching online is terrible because I can’t hear any of your amens, I can’t see anybody nodding along with me. I’m checking down here to see the comments. If we ever do this again, I think maybe we should even try a big Zoom call so I can actually see some folks, even if we got three or four or five ameners that would just jump on the call. I think that would maybe be fun. Back to the point here, sorry, that’s a tangent. Do we treat time with God as immovable or flexible? Again, if you hear the conviction, it’s mostly just convicting me because I’m constantly moving things around on my calendar. What’s most important to me is obvious on my calendar. I’m working constantly. I’m constantly trying to provide for my family. That’s not a bad thing, but I need to make sure that I always have those blocks and that they are treated as carved in stone. It’s like I can’t start my day without spending time with the Lord. I shouldn’t start my day without reading the Word. What’s your calendar look like? Time is more valuable than money. The Bible talks about money a lot, but the crazy thing is time is a far scarcer resource than any form of wealth, whether it’s cash, gold, anything. Time is way, way less prevalent because here’s the thing, we can’t make more time. The time that we have is the time that everybody has. There’s 24 hours in every person’s day. Our level of wealth will be adjusted, but everybody has the same amount of time in each given day, and it all boils down to just like our money, how do we budget that time? Psalms 127 2 says, it is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil. Notice it doesn’t say lazy people do this. It says anxious people do this, right? Again, we can always earn more money, but we cannot earn more time. That means that our time should be more jealously stewarded than our wealth because what is the thing that is most precious? The thing that you can get more of or the thing that it is impossible to get more of? Again, if you’re looking at any other kind of a resource, if you’re looking at wealth, if you’re looking at the amount of bread that you have in your kitchen during a snowpocalypse, eventually the snow will melt and you will be able to go buy bread. Eventually you will be able to work and you’ll be able to earn more money. But the moments that have passed between now to the beginning of your life, they’re gone and you will not get any more. It’s so important that we spend that time wisely. Just last week, I actually told my wife that I would give every cent I have to this state to go back in time and do a whole lot of things differently. I want to know, how many of you that are watching this right now feel the exact same way? That you would trade immeasurable wealth to be able to go back in time and maybe make changes to maybe talk to somebody sooner. Reach out to somebody. Tell a loved one you love them one last time. There’s so many things that we think about that we would love to do differently in the past, but we know the only option that we have is to do things differently going forward. We can’t live in the past. The Lord does not tell us to stay and just settle and sit in the past and just beat ourselves up. He tells us to move forward, but it’s really important that we’re moving forward with a purpose and with a plan. Ephesians 5, 15 through 16 says, look carefully then how you walk. Not as unwise, but as wise. Making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Here’s something else that’s a little strange to say, but time management is not just practical wisdom. It’s actually a form of spiritual warfare. Have you ever thought about that? So think about this again. The way that you budget your money, we talked about tithing a lot in church and stuff like that, it’s really important. It’s a form of spiritual warfare of how you spend your funds because it is very much an American way of I want to spend 100% of what I earn. I earned it. It’s my right. I’m going to probably, if you’re following the American way, you’re spending 110, 120, 150% of what you’re earning because the amount of Americans in crippling debt is insanely high because it’s like we’re thinking, Oh, it’s our wealth. I’m allowed to spend it how I want, but the Lord gave us the ability to earn wealth. The Lord gave us the ability to earn an income. The Lord gave us all of the abilities that we have and he also gave us the time that we have. So how we spend our money is a form of spiritual warfare and how we spend our time is a form of spiritual warfare and again, you’ll see this in your everyday life. I have seen this happen and I have failed on this on too many counts. I try to just say, you know what, I’m going to mute my phone in the morning. I’m not even going to look at it. There have been several times where I knew if I even use my phone as my Bible, it’s like, no, I’m going to leave it in the other room and I’m going to use my physical Bible. I love using my phone for notes and I think I’ve shared before that a lot of times when I’m praying in the morning, I’m texting people. So as I’m praying, I’ll stop and I’ll text somebody and I don’t see that as a negative thing. I see it as when the Lord puts them on my heart, I immediately want to reach out to that person and let them know that I’m praying for them. It’s never been received as a bad thing. It’s always people are very grateful. And so we, again, we just have to focus on that this isn’t a natural thing that we think of, right? We just think of our time. We have a certain amount of time to get things done. We have to get whatever done. We don’t normally think of it in terms of hey, the devil can throw stuff at us and our flesh can throw stuff at us and the world can throw stuff at us intentionally to eat up our time and take us away from what the Lord wants us to be doing. Take us away from the mission of what our Heavenly Father has laid out before us. So just be thinking about this week. Time management is spiritual warfare. If we’re talking about working and we’re talking about good work versus whatever work, we’ve got to talk about Mary and Martha, right? So there’s kind of, there’s two things and they seem like they’re the same thing but they are a little bit different. There’s church work and then there’s God work. Now sometimes those can be hand in hand, right? They absolutely can be hand in hand. But there’s also sometimes that the church work overrules the God work and that’s not always what he intended. So Luke 10, 38-42 incredibly famous story where Martha was distracted. She’s serving serving. She’s serving well. She’s trying to take care of everybody. And Jesus said to her Martha, you’re anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is certain. Mary has chosen the good portion. Now again, I don’t want you to get the wrong message from this verse, right? Jesus is not rebuking work. Again, Martha is doing good things. She’s doing necessary things, helpful things, probably church approved things, right? The text literally says Martha was distracted with much serving, not sin serving. But here is a huge danger to Christians. We can become more committed to church work than to God work. And again, that sounds counterintuitive, right? It seems like well, if I’m doing church work, how am I not doing God work? Well, it’s completely possible that you could be doing a good thing that is not furthering the kingdom or a good thing that is not what God has intended for you. It’s not what whatever he’s wanting you to do. It’s so important that we jealously guard our time to make sure that we are spending it in the most fruitful way and place possible where the Lord wants us to be. So we’ve got to serve. We’ve got to organize. We’ve got to build. We’ve got to lead. We’ve got to volunteer. We have to attend. We have to plan. And it can all be real work. But we can still miss the one thing that is necessary. Now Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and that posture shaped everything else. Again, the posture. Her posture was I want to sit at the feet of Jesus. Her calendar had exactly one item on it at that time. There was one thing on her calendar. It was sit at Jesus’ feet and soak up every possible second with him. Right? And I hope we’ve all encouraged that. I’m sorry. I hope we’ve all experienced that. I definitely have. That time at the altar where nothing else that you care about is going on. You’re not thinking about lunch. It’s only 10.50, so hopefully you’re not thinking about lunch already. You’re not thinking about anything else going on. You’re not thinking about what you have to do that week, but just that heart posture time that you’re spending at the altar. You’re spending at home. You’re spending in your prayer closet. You’re spending during the worship time. As a worshiper and as somebody that loves to worship, it’s really hard for me to end worship time because it’s so wonderful for me to just sit and marinate in that time and in that power. And again, that’s a form of spiritual warfare because it absolutely will happen that while the preaching is happening, you get tired. That while the worship time is happening, you’re thinking about what you’re going to do for lunch. You’re thinking about all the stressful things that are coming up. You’re thinking about Monday morning and everything that you have to get done. Maybe you’re even thinking about what you have to do Sunday afternoon as soon as you leave church. Maybe you’re thinking, man, I wish the preacher would stop talking so I could get home and get to work. That’s the wrong heart posture. We need to make sure that our posture is sitting at the feet of Jesus and that we can take time to block all those other things out. I was just talking to my youth. Again, reinforcing the idea of take every thought captive. And some of those thoughts can be good things of, I really need to get this done. Right? I don’t know. I don’t want to hammer over on that point too much. I just want to make sure that we are focused on that heart posture. Because here’s the thing. If our habits never put us at the feet of Jesus, then our work is always going to drift away from him no matter how good it is. Right? The preacher that never spends time in prayer and just writes phenomenal messages, eventually he will drift away from the Lord. Eventually he will have moral failure. Because just speaking the things, just reading the word to the populace without having that heart posture, without designating that time, that rock in the calendar of I have to spend time with the Lord during this, they will eventually drift away. It is guaranteed. It has happened over and over and over for thousands and thousands of years. So busy is not the same thing as faithful. Right? Busyness is not godliness. Now here’s a verse that I’ve actually never heard preached. But again, it attacks me personally. And that’s Ecclesiastes 4.6 Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind. Now, I’m going to read that one more time because it’s kind of a strange vernacular. It sounds a little bit different. But better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and striving after wind. Now that verse cuts directly against the grain of American culture. Right? A handful of quietness though is not lazy. It is intentional margin. It is room for God to speak. It is room for God to correct, to redirect, and refine us. To send us through that refining fire. Again, this just directly attacks me. I’m not going to lie to you. This is directly an attack on my personal character. I take it personally that the Lord put this verse in. Because I hate quiet. Alright? One of Jenny’s favorite things to do is just to simply sit in the quiet and just spend time together. But if I’m being completely honest with you, I would rather be beat with a bag of oranges than just sit in silence and do nothing. I don’t think this comes as a surprise to anybody that knows me or that anybody that’s been around me from the church. I want to constantly be moving. I want constant noise. I will drive ten miles out of my way just to avoid sitting still. If there’s traffic, I will get off and just keep driving to avoid whatever the traffic is. Now, I’ve never been diagnosed and I’m sick of all the labels. But, you know, call me ADHD or whatever you want to. Okay? I want to be doing something. So the idea of sitting still is really, really painful. But again, if I go back to what I said, I know some of the best times that I’ve ever had with God are just sitting with worship music and waiting to hear from Him. There’s a power in that stillness and that silence. When we look back over all of recorded history and we look at all of these phenomenal observations, take for the fact that somebody had to figure out that the earth was round at some point, right? All they had that they could see was a flat plane in front of them, right? But they had the time to sit back and to observe the known universe. If you spend any amount of time looking at nature, getting out of the man-made cities, getting out and just watching the beauty and the majesty of God’s creation, if you spend any time just quietly observing that, it is never not breathtaking. I don’t care whether it’s the mountains, whether it’s the woods, whether it’s the ocean, whether it’s just the open prairies of Missouri when you’re out there watching, right? The beauty and majesty of God’s creation is overwhelming. And so I’m going to say something really strong this morning. I’m kind of jumping ahead of my notes as the Lord’s dealing with me on this. But we don’t really have a whole lot of time to sit and observe anymore. I really do think that one of the devil’s best tactics today is not necessarily moral failure, but just getting us so busy that we have no time to stop. We have no time to look around. We’re driving 80 miles an hour down a highway screaming from one appointment to the next, right? Again, I’m just attacking myself here. There’s never not noise around, right? Even good noise. Even good worship music. Well, it can still take you out of that introspection. Out of just that observation of looking around. If the ancients had Netflix, would they have ever taken the time to figure out that the stars move in the sky? Would they have ever taken time to figure out how the earth is round just by using a stick and looking at the casting of a shadow? Would they have ever had the time if they were so busy with just the noise of the world, would we have ever gotten any of those amazing observations? And I’m not saying all those things are bad, right? There’s some beautiful and some wonderful things. If you watch Christian TV that’s taught you more about Christ, the amazing TV show that has taught people about Jesus and has drawn them toward Christ. That’s a wonderful thing. Worship music. I love, love, love worship music. I want it playing all the time. I’m not saying these things are bad things. What I’m saying is we have to make sure that our heart posture is intentionally taking time that we quiet our minds that we quiet our spirits that we quiet the noise around us to make sure that we’re spending that time with the Lord. We tend to think that, well, I’ll slow down when things settle down. And when I say we tend to think that, I tend to think that, right? But let’s face the fact, reality, things are never going to settle down, right? If we don’t choose quietness, the world is going to fill every available space. There’s this rule or law logic concept that’s called Parkinson’s Law. It states that work is going to expand to fill whatever time is made available to it for its completion. Anybody that has children know that this is the reality, right? Children follow Parkinson’s Law. If you give them three days to clean up their room, it’s going to take every second of three days. But we also know that 90% of that work is going to be done at the very, very, very end of that time, right? Whatever time we allot to accomplish something, it almost always takes that full amount of time. Whether it’s business, whether it’s home, whatever. That’s Parkinson’s Law, right? Well, the same thing is true for our calendars. If we don’t carve out parts of those time, then everything else is going to fill that space, right? But if you look at a box and a cube, right? And you put a box, a rock in there that is never allowed to be moved, then the rest of the space cannot fill and fill that as well. And that should be that box that we are saying, this is our time with the Lord. This is that immovable calendar item, right? I also want to be clear about something. This isn’t a call to do nothing, okay? I’m not telling you that you need to do nothing, right? Rest and margin are not the same thing as disengagement, right? So I’m not judging Pastor Tom for being on vacation right now. We need to take time. We need to allow our bodies to rest. The Lord said there were six days of work and one day of rest. Even He built this into our own calendars, the calendar that He gave us. So I’m not saying do nothing, okay? If your calendar has plenty of space, but there’s no intentional obedience, then that’s not faithful either. Let me say that again. If your calendar is completely empty, but you don’t have space that is set aside for the Lord, that’s also not holiness. That’s not faithfulness. God calls His people not just to sit at His feet, but to rise and serve from that place. Mary, when she was sitting at the feet of Jesus, she didn’t stay there forever. Jesus moved on. Jesus had other stuff to do. Then it was time to get to work, right? When we leave the church is when we enter the mission field. We come to church. We come to the preaching time. We come to the worship time. We get energized up by being around each other. Hopefully if you’re an extrovert or even an introvert, hopefully you get energized by being around your Christian brothers and sisters of praying for each other, of being prayed over. Hopefully then we take that and then we go out into the world. I’m not calling you to do nothing. I’m not saying that the church work doesn’t still need to be done because we desperately need volunteers in every area of our church. I’m not telling you that you just need to clear your calendar and do nothing. I’m talking about intentionality and purpose in the time that we’re using, in what we’re doing. Can Satan use busyness? I kind of jumped ahead in this. I’m jumping down into my notes here, but I want to come back to this too because I think it’s so important to repeat this point because it is something that the Lord has been dealing with me about so strongly for quite a while now. I don’t think Satan’s primary strategy for Christians today is necessarily temptation. Obviously temptation has always existed, will always exist. There’s no question about that. Whatever it is, all the great sins that we know, lust, greed, gluttony, all the above. List them all out. Those temptations are always going to be there. But the busyness of the day I feel like is different today than what it was 100 years ago or 200 years ago. In technology we talk about the signal to noise ratio and the noise ratio of today’s world is the highest it has ever been. This is why I never tell our youth that they have it easier than anybody else ever has. That’s a ridiculous statement because they don’t. The signal to noise ratio that our young people, our children, our youth are facing is insanely high because there’s so much noise. 200 years ago there were not billboards every single where that you looked. There were not unskippable ads every single where that you walked. There was less noise. We’re facing that today. Satan is using that as a distraction and the only way for us to battle against that is to put intentionality and purpose into what we’re doing. 2 Corinthians 2.11 says we are not ignorant of his designs. Him being Satan. Scripture doesn’t actually tell us Satan’s playbook in detail, right? But Jesus does say in Luke 8.14 in the parable of the sower, the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the world. So it’s not persecution. It’s not scandal. It’s not cares. It’s not persecution. It’s not scandal. It is cares. It is riches and it is busyness. This is going to sound kind of crazy, but Satan doesn’t need to make us sin if he can make us too busy to do anything for Jesus. Does that make any sense? If Satan can get you so busy that you don’t have a single second for Christ, then he doesn’t need to throw the temptation at you so much because he knows that eventually that will come. He knows that if he can get you far enough away from the Lord, the Holy Spirit’s voice gets quieter and quieter in our minds. That Holy Spirit conviction gets less and less and less and less as we spend less time with the Lord. The less time we spend in the Word, the easier it is for us to forget the words. The easier it is for us to be distracted and think, oh, well, actually that sounds really good even though it’s a thing of the world. It’s so easy for us to be distracted, to be led astray when the Father’s voice is so quiet in our minds that he can’t override the noise. If Satan can fill your calendar, he doesn’t need to corrupt your character. And don’t get me wrong, if Satan fills your calendar, he will eventually corrupt your character. There’s no question about it. We have seen this over and over and over and over again. The moral failures of what we thought were powerful Christian people, powerful people close to the Lord, and you can watch the ascension and then you can watch the fall. And how did it happen? It didn’t happen here where they were at the peak power of Christ. As they climbed through that, as they were powerful, powerful, powerful, doing amazing things for God, healing people, bringing thousands to be saved. That’s not where they fell. But when they got to this level of success, the calendar filled up with everything they had to do for the good work that they were doing that the time they spent with the Lord fell off the calendar and then they fell. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to warn us about today. John 9 4 Jesus says we must work the works of him who sent me. We know that the Lord has a work and a plan for us, right? Work is good. Scripture affirms work constantly. But the danger is that when work stops being a means and becomes the mission, that’s when things step in. That’s when Satan steps in. When the facility stops being a place of worship and becomes our whole focus, then we’re off mission with Jesus. Jesus didn’t care about the buildings he was in. He spent most of his life not in any buildings. Again, we are so blessed with what we have with our technology. But Jesus didn’t have any of that. He didn’t need it. He had to go out on a boat to be heard. He had to go up on a mountaintop to be heard. I have this beautiful, wonderful microphone right in front of me. It’s not the technology. The facility is not the thing that we worship. When success crowds out obedience, that’s when we have a problem. When productivity replaces presence, that’s where we have a problem. When growth in numbers replaces godliness, that’s when we have a problem. And again, hear me again. Hear me carefully. Busyness is not godliness, but inactivity isn’t godliness either. Inactivity isn’t faithfulness. Inactivity isn’t holiness. Some people aren’t exhausted because they’re overcommitted. Some people are stagnant because of being uncommitted. An empty calendar doesn’t automatically mean obedience. It may mean we’ve stopped asking where God wants us to serve. I’m going to say that again. An empty calendar doesn’t mean you’re doing everything right. It might mean that you’re not asking God where you can be used. It might be you giving into the intrusive thoughts that I can’t be used. It might be you saying, Lord, you can’t use me. I have a stuttering problem. Moses thought that. It might be, Oh, I’ve got a thorn in my flesh. I can’t serve you, Lord. Untrue. Power through. It is not okay to have a completely empty calendar. We need to have time blocked off to serve the Lord. Absolutely. Absolutely. But we also must have time dedicated to the gospel mission. We must have time dedicated to serving others. We must have time that we are able to do what the Lord calls us to do. He tells us there are people that we might help out where we are entertaining angels unawares. Why would he be doing that? But to test us, to give us opportunities to make sure that we are on mission with Jesus. Vision produces discipline. Okay. Proverbs 28 18. I’m sorry. 29 18 says where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint. A lack of vision doesn’t make people lazy. It makes them scattered, right? You could have people working extremely hard, but if they’re not all working towards the same vision, they’re going their own different way. If anybody remembers, I preached a message on purpose a little while ago where he had the boat and there were the people rowing, right? If you have a rowboat and there’s 10 people in that rowboat and one of them slapping the side of the boat and the other one’s waving the oar in the air and one side is rowing forward and the other side is rowing backwards and the guy at the tiller is asleep. That is a useless vehicle at that point, right? That boat is not going anywhere. It is going to just spin around in circles and sit there and you will be exhausted when you’re done, right? The people on the left going forward, the people on the right going backwards, they will be exhausted when they are done, but they will have accomplished nothing and they will have gone nowhere. It is not just that exhaustion that we are seeking. We’re seeking the plan and the purpose. Without vision, everything feels urgent. Everything feels important. Everything gets a yes, but vision gives us permission to say no. Matthew 6.33 says seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Notice the order. Seek first, not seek eventually, right? I really like that. Seek first, not seek eventually. We know that the Lord has given this church a vision. We know that the Lord has given our pastor a vision that we are to follow, right? We want to seek first the kingdom of God and then everything else is going to be added up to us. Church, God is not calling you out of busyness. He is calling you into a purpose. He is not asking you to do less work. He is asking you to do the right work in the right order for the right reason. Colossians 3.23 says whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. But you can’t work for the Lord if you never stop to be with the Lord. Again, you can think you’re doing the right work, but you’re not going to be doing the right work. You may think that you’re doing everything you’re supposed to be doing, but if we’re not checking in with the Heavenly Father, how are we ever going to know if we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing? Better a handful of quietness than two hands full of striving after wind. And we know the wind can’t be captured. We know the wind can’t be grabbed. Pray today over your calendar or maybe pray over your lack of a calendar and lack of a plan. It’s not an easy thing to say. I know we’re all busy. Pray this week about what might need to change in your priorities because there’s a very real possibility we need to change our priorities. I know the Lord has been convicting me of this. This message, again, I opened up telling you guys, this message was mostly just for me that I should be convicted of my busyness. That constant motion is not the goal. Productive motion is the goal. Doing work is not the goal. Doing the right work is the goal. And again, if you’re not involved somewhere in the church, please go and ask one of our pastors, one of our ministry leaders. We have 16 ministries, I believe is what Pastor Tom said at the Vision Banquet. There is so much work to be done. I don’t want you to work just because it’s work work, right? I don’t want you to be doing that. I want to make sure that you’re doing something for the kingdom vision, for our church, for our church people, for the people that have never stepped foot in our church. I want you to have that intentionality, that purpose. I want you to make sure that you have time on your calendar for seeking after the Lord and also for serving the Lord. I don’t want your calendar to be so completely full that you can’t do anything for the Lord, that you can’t spend any time with the Lord. But I also don’t want your calendar to be so empty that you’re not doing anything for the Lord or spending time with the Lord either, right? Both of those are bad. We need to be busy after the Lord’s business. Jesus said, even as a 12 year old kid, he said, I got to be about my father’s business. I want us to be doing that exact same thing. Thank you again so much for joining me this morning. I hope you stuck with me. I hope that you have a wonderful and a blessed rest of your day, that everybody has stayed warm. I want to close with us in prayer. Thank you again so much for your comments. I know I just kept glancing down here as I got to see each one of you all this morning. So you have a wonderful day today that hopefully you’re going to be at home. Hopefully you don’t have to do a whole lot of stuff around the house. Spend some time in prayer this morning, this afternoon. Oh, it’s still morning. Good. Spend some time in prayer this morning. You can’t be rushing to a restaurant because you probably can’t get out of the house yet. Spend some time in prayer this morning asking the Lord intentionally what needs to change on my calendar. Is my calendar too full? Is my calendar too empty? Where do you want me, Lord? I’m going to pray that over you all this morning. I missed all of your faces this morning. I am an extrovert. So those old memes during COVID that said, check on your extrovert friends because they’re not okay. That was me. And so I love you guys. I love seeing you all. I’m so sad that I couldn’t see you in person today, but I hope every single one of you has a blessed day. And if you guys would just bow your heads in prayer this morning with me. Pray over your calendars. Pray today. Pray over your calendar today. And pray over what your calendar says for this week and for the coming weeks. Because we want to be on mission with Jesus. We have a purpose. Our plan is to make Jesus famous in this church and in all the land. Thank you again for joining this morning. Love you guys so much. Heavenly Father, Lord, we just lift up your name. We just praise you, magnify you, and glorify you, Lord. Heavenly Father, I take my calendar and I lay it at your feet this morning. Lord, I pray in the name of Jesus that you would reveal to me, and I believe you already have, the areas, Lord, where I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. Where maybe I’m doing too much of the wrong thing, Lord. I pray in the name of Jesus that the chief among sinners am I this morning, Lord, is I focus so much on just being busy. On work, work, work, work, work, work, work. That I let things get in the way, Heavenly Father, of making sure that I’m spending time in the quiet with you. That I’m not spending as much time just rooted in your word every single day as I need to be, Lord. That I read your word every day, Father, but not enough. Lord, in the name of Jesus, I pray over every single one of our church people’s calendars this morning, Lord. I pray that if their calendar is too full, they would look at the vision, they would look at the mission, and they’d figure out what needs to be said no to. I pray that they would look at you, Heavenly Father, at your vision, and your plan, and your purpose, and say yes to exactly the plan that you have for us, Lord, in the name of Jesus. I pray over this whole church, Heavenly Father, that you would order and orchestrate our calendars, Lord, that we would serve you, that we would go exactly where you want us to go, that you would do exactly what you want us to do, Lord. We want no wasted effort. We want to make sure that we are applying all of our energy to exactly the plan and the path that you have for us, Heavenly Father. Thank you so much, Lord. We love you so much. We appreciate you so much. We’re so grateful that we can even do this this morning. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for all that you’ve done and all you’re going to do, Lord. Keep everybody safe. Keep the road crews safe as they’re out driving and pushing snow off the road. And keep everybody safe as they get out and they start driving, whether today or tomorrow or this week, Lord, in the name of Jesus. We praise you and glorify you. And I’m so sad to hear this, but I said, and then all God’s people said, and I hope there was amens that just went up all across this town. Thank you so much for joining me this morning. I love you guys so much. I hope you have a wonderful blessed rest of your day. Hope you have a real fire keeping you warm. And I hope that the fire in your hearts is stirred up this morning to figure out what you need to do on your calendar, what you need to change. God bless you guys. I love you all.