Archive for the Sermon Follow-Up Category


Aug 13

One More Great Article on Busyness

2009 | by Ryan Kelly | Category: Quote,Recommended Link,Sermon Follow-Up

At the risk of recommending so much new reading that I add to your busyness and stress, I can’t pass up recommending one more: “Taking Care of Busyness” by John Ortberg.

This is an article that I just today re-discovered in my files after first reading it in Leadership magazine in 1998. Though more than 10 years old now, the article is probably more needed and helpful today than when it was written, since the problems of busyness and stress have only seemed to get worse.

After re-reading it today, I know why I filed this away: this is a great article. It has pointed conviction, warm encouragement, enlightening stats, practical suggestions, and diverse quotes (from Kierkegaard to Alice in Wonderland).

His prescription is to “ruthlessly eliminate hurry” from our lives. 

Jesus was often busy but he was never hurried. Being busy is an outer condition; being hurried is a sickness of the soul. Jesus never went about the busyness of his ministry in a way that severed the life-giving connection between himself and his Father. He never did it in a way that interfered with his ability to give love when that was what was called for. He observed a regular rhythm of withdrawal from activity, for solitude and prayer. He ruthlessly eliminated hurry from his life.

Go read the whole thing. I really do think it’s worth your time. And then prayerfully seek to apply it. I’m praying for wisdom for you and yours as I write this.

Aug 13

How Stressed and Harried Are We?

2009 | by Ryan Kelly | Category: Quote,Recommended Link,Sermon Follow-Up

As another follow-up to the sermon on Mary and Martha, this assessment from MSNBC writer, Julia Sommerfield, is illustrative and sobering. She suggests that most Americans are so stressed and harried that they seemingly live to complain about how stressed they are! 

Millions of Americans are so stressed they don’t have time for, among other things: lunch, vacation, sleep, exercise, time with their family or even sex. One thing they do have plenty of time for? Talking about how stressed they are. …

People are now determining their self-worth on how busy they are and how much they have to do …

Ouch! I know. But go ahead and read the whole thing. 

Aug 12

Books on Busyness and Restoring Rest

2009 | by Parker Landis | Category: Books,Recommended Link,Sermon Follow-Up

In Sunday’s sermon, Ryan mentioned the book The Overload Syndrome, by Richard Swenson.  This book is about identifying and combating overactivity, overcommitment, busyness, and stress — all of which have become the norm for the average American. Swenson writes from a Christian perspective and from his expertise in the medical field. His erarlier book on the same topic, Margin, is also very helpful. Also instructive on this topic is Charles Hummel’s now-classic booklet Tyranny of the Urgent. But perhaps less well known is the full-book-length version, Freedom from the Tyranny of the Urgent. May these books help you to restore a restful schedule!

Aug 12

Spurgeon on Mary and Martha

2009 | by Ryan Kelly | Category: Quote,Recommended Link,Sermon Follow-Up

Last Sunday, we looked at Mary and Martha’s hospitality to Jesus in Luke 10:38-42 (audio here). I’ve since had the joy of reading Spurgeon’s sermon on the story. Here are a couple of highlights.

To those busy do-ers, like Martha, he says:

Perhaps, you are a very hard-working man. You have very little rest during the week, and in order to bring up your family comfortably, you strain every nerve; you live as you should, economically, and you work diligently; from morning to night the thought with you is, “How shall I fill these many little mouths? How shall I bring them up properly? How shall I, as a working man, pay my way?” Very right; I wish all working men would be equally thoughtful and economical, and that there were fewer of those foolish spendthrifts who waste their substance when they have it, and who, the moment there is a frost, or they are out of employ, become paupers, loafing upon the charity of others. I commend your industry, but, but, but, at the same time, is that all? Were you made only to be a machine for digging holes, laying bricks, or cutting out pieces of wood? Were you created only to stand at a counter and measure or weigh out goods? do you think your God made you for that and that only? Is this the chief end of man—to earn shillings a week, and try to make ends meet therewith? is that all immortal men were made for? As an animal like a dog, nor a machine like a steam engine, can you stand up and look at yourself, and say, “I believe I am perfectly fulfilling my destiny”? I beg this morning to interject that quiet “but,” right into the middle of your busy life, and ask from you space for consideration, a pause for the voice of wisdom, that a hearing may be granted her… Yes, but there is a higher bread to be earned, and there is a higher life to be considered. Hence the Lord puts it, “Labour not for the meat that perisheth,” that is to say, not for that first and foremost; “but for that which endureth unto life eternal.” God hath made man that he may glorify him; and whatever else man accomplishes, if he fail to reach that end, and make eternal shipwreck, unless he comes to sit at Jesus’ feet; there and there only can he learn how to sanctify his business and to consecrate his labour, and so bring forth unto God; through his grace, that which is due to him.

Of those who might misappropriate Mary’s example with frivolity and love of pleasure, he says:

They are not cumbered with much serving; rather, they laugh at those who cumber themselves about anything. They are merry as the birds, their life is as the flight of a butterfly, which lightly floats from flower to flower, according to its own sweet will; with neither comb to make, nor hive to guard. Now, thou gay young man, what doth solomon say to thee? “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth; but”—there comes in a pause, and the cool hand of wisdom is laid upon the hot brow of folly, and the youth is asked to think awhile—”but know thou, that for all these things, God will bring thee into judgement.” It cannot be that an immortal spirit was made of frivolities; a soul immortal spending all her fires on the playthings of the world, “resembles ocean into tempest toss’d, to waft a feather, or to drown a fly.” So great a thing as an immortal soul could not have been made by God with no higher object than to spend itself upon trifles light as air. Oh, pause a while, thou careless, godless one, and hear the voice that saith unto thee, “but.” There is something more than the fool’s hell; and should not life be? The charms of music, the merriment of the gay assembly, the beauties of art, and the delights of banqueting—there must be something more for thee than these; and something more must be required of thee than that thou shouldst waste from morn to night thy precious time upon nothing but to please thyself. 

You can read the whole thing here. 

Also, some older DSC sermons might be of interest if you want follow-up on a related theme:

Jul 31

Piper Poem on Luke 10:20

2009 | by Ryan Kelly | Category: Quote,Sermon Follow-Up

In light of last Sunday’s message on Luke 10:1-24, this post from John Piper is timely for us. He writes:

On vacation I was meditating on Luke 10:17-20 where Jesus tells us not to be overly excited about our ability to do feats of triumph in defeating the devil. Rather he says, fix the root of your joy in this: Your names are written in heaven. Amazing.

Most of us are moved more by the fireworks of miracles than by the mere assurance of salvation. Something is amiss. So I lingered long enough here to put my heart right. And in the process wrote a poem.

Rejoice! Your Names Are Written in Heaven

Luke 10:17-20 –
The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

How quickly does a lightening bolt

Fall from the blackened clouds and strike the forest fair!

How powerful the fleeting volt

That vanishes at once and leaves a cinder there!

So quickly falls the ancient Snake

From his condemning height with all his cruel pangs,

When in Your name and for Your sake

We wield your mighty word and break his deadly fangs.

And as we leap to celebrate

This triumph in our hands, this best of mountain peaks,

Your voice, so calm and full of weight,

Cuts through our ecstasy, our festival, and speaks:

“Do not rejoice in this, dear ones,

That Satan and his hordes are subject to your voice,

But that, in heav’n as treasured sons,

Your names are written down. In this, in this, rejoice!

Rejoice, rejoice, my friends, my prize!

Your names are written there, in blood with my own hand.

Rejoice and sing, rejoice, arise

And leap for this: before the world, your name was planned.

Rejoice, your name is written there

Secure, and by this Lamb it is forever placed.

And thus by my own blood I swear:
Your name will never be, no never be, erased.”