What do you do to relax? I know, professionally speaking, most of you operate at a rather intense level. You don’t achieve the level of success most of you have achieved without being an over achiever. Chances are most of you haven’t seen a 40-hour work week in a long time. Working 9-5 might have worked for Dolly but not for people like you. I used to be surprised when one of you would tell me that you had flown to someplace crazy like Scotland for a business trip but so many of you fly so often to so many faraway places that I am almost surprised when you tell me you didn’t fly someplace last week. Even when you are not physically at the office you are almost always mentally at the office. I have been on a golf course and waited for some of you to finish up a conference call before you tee off, I have heard you schedule appointments while watching your kids play ball, I have seen you check inventory while sitting on the couch. -- O.K. that last one was my wife. I don’t want anyone online to get the idea I am a creeper. -- But I have been in most of your homes, and I have noticed your home offices aren’t just for show. There is some serious work getting done after hours in those offices. Even you retired people are workaholics. Tom Beckman is retired, yet his home office looks like the command center of a fortune 500 CEO. It is obvious, even when you people are not working you are working. So, what do you do to relax?
When your Woop strain is above 17, when your Oura readiness score is below 50, when your body battery is in desperate need of a recharge many of you go on vacation. Some of you go to Greece, Italy, Puerto Rico! Others go to the closest place you can put your toes in the water and rear in the sand. Still others attempt to do the staycation thing. But some of you have shared your vacation itineraries with me and I have noticed your vacations are typically so densely packed full of events and activities that I’m not entirely convinced y’all know how to relax. I enjoy running, but even I know flying to London to run a marathon does not qualify as “relaxing”. The closest thing I have seen to a relaxed person is Mellissa Brown sitting on a beach with a bedazzled drink koozie, but after 6 hours in the sun I think you stop calling it sunbathing and start calling it sun-cooking. What I am saying is, even y’all’s relaxing is intense.
But here is the thing. Even if you tightly wound people do manage to relax amidst the chaos of your vacations, when the vacation is over, you go right back to work. And likely you go back to twice as much work because no one did your work for you while you were gone. The problems that you put on hold when you left are still there when you get back and likely a few new problems arose since you weren’t there to deal with them in a timely manner. As you sort through the backlog of emails, texts, and voicemails, as you are forced to double and triple book your calendar, isn’t it amazing how quickly you become unrelaxed.
I empathize with you. I know how desperate you are to relax, and I think I can help. Vacations can be temporarily effective but if you want to be truly relaxed, I mean deep down in your soul relaxed you need to deal not just with your physical or emotional stressors, you need to deal with your spiritual stressors. Today we are going to look at three common spiritual stressors and learn how, in spite of them, we are able to relax.
Saint Paul identifies the first spiritual stressor in verses 13-14. There Paul writes, “13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.” A common stressor for anyone with at least a mustard seed of faith is a guilty conscience. Everything with a soul has a natural knowledge of right and wrong. Even if a person has never read a single commandment, they know that it is naughty to lie, cheat, steal, and murder. Pagans still do these things, but they feel guilty when they do them. Now, it is true if the pagan keeps doing naughty things their conscience becomes calloused and they are increasingly able to ignore feelings of guilt but the guilt for doing a naughty thing never really goes away. You, however, are not a pagan. You not only have a natural knowledge of God’s law written in your heart, but you have also read God’s law in the pages of scripture. You know with painful certain that the things you have done are not just naughty but downright damnable. You have no choice but to confess you have sinned against God, you have sinned against your fellow man, and you have sinned against yourself. You are keenly aware how far you have fallen short of the glory of God and the guilt associated with your sin stresses your soul. You know what I say is true. If you are struggling with a guilty conscience, it’s impossible to relax. King David described how a guilty conscious made it impossible for him to relax. In Psalm 32 David wrote, “3 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.”
If you have any hope of relaxing, you must deal with your guilt. The problem is, asking a guilty person to deal with their guilt is like asking a corpse to be a life coach. Guilty people can’t deal with guilt. Thankfully, for you and me, Jesus isn’t a guilty person. Both the law written on His human heart and the law written in the pages of scripture were perfectly obeyed by Jesus. Jesus never sinned against His God, He never sinned against His fellow man, He never sinned against Himself. Yet because He loves you, Jesus allowed himself to suffer the stress of your sin. Jesus took your guilt and nailed it to the cross. Relax! dear friends, your conscience has been cleansed by the blood of Jesus.
Another common spiritual stressor is identified by saint Paul in verse 15. There Paul writes, “15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Another common stressor for all the descendants of Adam and Eve is the devil. You don’t have to know that much about the devil to know that he is up to no good. Scripture describes the devil as a powerful predator that is hell bent on collecting victims. Which is concerning because we are the ones the devil desires to victimize. You see the devil hates God; hates everything about God; hates everything God cares about. So natural the fact that God so loved the world, that God so loves you, means the devil hates you. The devil wants you to suffer; he wants you to join him in the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. For thousands of years the devil has been studying us to see just what temptations are most likely to lead to that suffering. The devil is diabolically patient and waits for a moment of weakness and vulnerability before he attacks. Saint Peter warns, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”[1]
There is absolutely no way you can relax knowing that you are being stalked by a powerful predator like the devil. Before you can relax you have to deal with the devil. But, once again there isn’t much you can do. The devil is a fallen angel. He has powers and abilities that far surpass your powers and abilities. Everyone who has ever gone toe to toe with the devil has regrated it… everyone, that is, except for Jesus. Thankfully, for you and for me, Jesus has put the devil in his place. The devil threw everything he had at Jesus. The devil marshalled the world’s most powerful empire against Jesus. The devil cackled with delight as every sin of every person of every time was piled upon Jesus. It looked as though the devil was about to win a horrible victory over Jesus. But then Jesus said, “it is finished”[2]. And with those words the devil was undone; completely defeated, stripped of any power he possessed and displayed as the looser that he is. Relax! Dear friends. Your enemy the devil has been defeated.
The final spiritual stressor we are going to discuss this morning is described by saint Paul in verses 16-17. “16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.” Another spiritual stressor that is almost exclusively found among people like us is status. I mean the pagan chases after status. But keeping up with the Joneses, or the Kardashians for that matter, is child’s play compared to the status we seek. We don’t seek to be celebrities we seek to be saints. Our pursuit of sainthood causes us to be mindful of things like worship attendance, offering amounts, and acts of service. Of course, we don’t initially do these things because we are trying to earn our way into heaven but when we notice that someone isn’t attending as much as we attend, or we suspect they are not giving as much as we give, or notice they are not helping out at church as much as we help out at church we inevitably struggle with both pride and prejudice; we start to speak of us and them, with the clear implication that being us is better than being them. We don’t say it with him, but we understand it when the Pharisee prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men”.[3]
The problem with seeking the kind of status we seek is you can never relax. You will always have to wonder if you have worshiped faithfully enough, given generously enough, served adequately enough. All the while knowing the answer is, you haven’t. Your attendance may be better, your offerings might be greater, your service might be more impactful than someone else’s but, if it is the status of saint that you seek, it is not your fellow man with whom you must measure up, it is your God. And try as you might, my friends the reality is you will never earn an equal status with God. Thankfully, for you and for me, real status is found in Jesus. Which is why just as the dietary restrictions, religious festivals, and even the Sabbath celebration all pointed to and prepared people for the coming of Jesus so also our worship, our offerings, our service are intended to focus us on Jesus. Recall how the saints who gather around the throne of God are described in the book of Revelation. There we are reminded they are the ones who “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”[4] Sainthood is not a status we achieve by our actions it is something we are gifted by our Savior. By God’s grace it is a status that has been gifted to you. So, relax! Dear friends. In Jesus your status is secured.
Y’all are intense people. It is one of the things that makes you so successful. But it is also why you so desperately need to relax. I hope all y’all find some time over this summer to relax. I hope you go on some amazing vacations. But when you come back to the backlog of emails, texts, and voicemails and your calendar is double and triple booked, and the relaxing effect of your trip wears off I’ll be here to remind you that your guilt cannot be un-crucified. Your enemy the devil cannot be un-defeated. And In Jesus your status as a saint cannot be revoked; I’ll be here to help you tightly wound people spiritually relax. Amen.
[1] 1 Peter 5:8
[2] John 19:30
[3] Luke 18:11
[4] Revelation 7:14