You know, we have been walking through this Real Faith Disrupts conversation for a while now, and I’m wondering how you are doing as week after week, we press in on the concept of real faith and its impact on our lives.  This is challenging but important because Christianity is about how we live our lives, which means life change.  We move from what we always have done and step into a new way of living.  But we can say it: Life changes, and living opposite the world can be unsettling, to put it mildly.  As I look back over the last few weeks, it’s only been more challenging as we talked about how we view serving, living a life of peace, and what we will jump into today because we are pressing into what matters to God, which is so opposite to what matters to us, people.  So, as we get started today, I wanted to check in and see how you are doing with all of this because it is challenging, and we aren’t always looking for our lives to be disrupted because it feels…disrupting!  I think it’s ok to say it; it is one thing to say we want this real faith, but it can be a whole other thing to step into it and live different lives…but it’s so worth it when we do.  Our time on this Earth is a process of learning to follow Jesus. It is all about letting go and letting God lead.  This is our life journey, and the closer we get to Jesus, the more we rid ourselves of the old way of living and step into new life.  We could call this the death of self.  The more we let go and give to God, the better, and the faster we do it, the better…but the death of our selfish desires is a challenging process with many ups and downs.  It’s funny; the older I get, the more I look back over my life and wish I could have let go of so much more at a much earlier age; it would have saved so much pain and stress…but I also seem to continue to find places in my life that still need to die, where I still need to let go and let God, and I’m thankful for that because with every moment of letting go, I’m better for it, and so are you.  So, we hope you are doing a few things as we press in on a very challenging subject.  First, we hope that you are sticking with us as we keep leaning into the concept of real faith and how it disrupts our lives because it is challenging and pushes against so much of our thinking, what we value, and even how we instinctively live our lives.  God’s Kingdom is just so opposite from our world.  I think that has become clear in the last few weeks. There seems to be something I like to call “God Math,” and His math just doesn’t add up like ours; it’s so opposite.  Here are a couple of examples of what I mean.  How do you be first in God’s Kingdom?  Be last and serve others.  How do you find yourself?  Stop looking for yourself and look for Jesus.  How do you help yourself, not self-help but self-sacrifice.  Who is strong?  The Weak.  How does God view success, greatness, power, time, and priorities in God’s Kingdom?  It's the opposite of the way the world does.  So, I hope you are staying open to the teachings of Jesus that seem so opposite to what we would instinctively do in life.  We also hope you are giving yourself grace and patience, with the understanding that you are on a journey and there are ups and downs along the way.  I don’t think it will happen overnight for most people; it sure hasn’t happened that way for me, and that is okay!  

I want to start with a quote today that will lead us into another challenging discussion in another part of God’s Value system, which is so different from ours. Just as the first are last, and the weak are strong, today we will learn that according to God and His Kingdom, less is more.   Here’s the quote.  

“For most Christians, the great danger is not that we will renounce our Faith.  It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living.” John Ortberg

Today, we will discuss something Jesus taught as a priority for His followers, but I can confidently say that accepting and living this out is challenging for several reasons.  First, it’s another place where God’s value system and this world completely clash, pulling us in opposite directions.  More than that, most don’t understand it; we miss the heart of it and make it something it isn’t.  This is also a tough one because it hits something we humans chase after more than anything else in our time on this Earth, and if we do what God asks and not what this world wants, we look crazy and can feel alone.

So, we are talking about something Jesus warned us about. Scripture keeps pointing to it as a major factor in experiencing our best lives.  It’s living simply.  Here’s our question of the day.  Has your faith disrupted your view of life and how to live it?  Has your faith changed how you view and treat your time, energy, money, and possessions?  Has your faith changed what you think those things are for?  I may have already hit a nerve, and you may feel a little uncomfortable, and that is ok; stay with me because I want you to understand what it means to live this way.  Most people hear about this concept of a simple lifestyle and do one of two things: we jump right to our money, thinking the church is trying to take our money or discourage us from having money or making money or tell us having money is wrong (not true, by the way!) Living simply is so much bigger than a conversation about money.  If we don’t jump to money, we may think the church wants us all to become Amish and not have anything nice or do anything fun.  That is not true either, although we could probably learn much from those who live that simply.  So much of this conversation will press against the world we live in today.  Our culture says that we are not truly happy and will never be fulfilled unless we have more stuff, more money, more things, more friends, just more of everything.  But that is an endless pursuit that leads to the very thing our quote taught us earlier.   What did it say again? 

“For most Christians, the great danger is not that we will renounce our Faith.  It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living.” John Ortberg

What comes to your mind when you hear of living simply? We want you to understand that as Christians, we value life and view things differently from how the world does.  The worldview is more is more, but God’s view is less is more.  This is more of that “God math” that doesn’t make sense.  The world says the only way to find satisfaction is to fill up your life with more stuff, more money, more well, everything!  A follower of Jesus’s view is that all they have are gifts from God that they are given to give and build into this world.  The world says it’s mine; the followers of Christ say it is all His.  A Christian seeks God first and is focused on the Kingdom ahead, so we do our best to steward all we have and use it for Him in this temporary home.  Our culture and this world seek themselves first and see everything they get as “theirs.”  And I will say this: our culture and our enemy have done a fantastic job of filling up our lives to where we end up missing our best life, living out that mediocre version of our faith that John Ortberg was showing us.  Living a simple life is all about living a decluttered life that frees us up to live bold, Kingdom-focused lives, to give generously, and to serve joyfully.  We can't do that when we fill our lives with the things of this world.  Jesus taught and warned of this and shows us the heart and motivation behind living this way in The Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus talks about things of this world, what matters to people of this world, and how we worry about this stuff, and what happens when we stop focusing on that stuff and focus on God and seek His Kingdom as the highest priority of our lives.

Matthew 6:31 "So don't worry about these things, saying, 'What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?' 32 These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. 33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” NLT

There is that contrast again between what people of this world focus and worry about, all of which a follower of His doesn’t have to worry about because they understand their Heavenly Father has them, provides and cares for them.  The worldview is all mine; God’s followers view it as all His.  It’s His provision versus my collection.  If I know He loves, cares, and provides for me, and it’s all His, I live and view all I have very differently.  I don’t need to worry, collect, or chase things that pull me away from Him; I can live a simple life, seeking Him first and using the things He gave me for Him. 

So, let's talk about decluttering our lives today. We are doing a lot of spring cleaning this time of year, so this seems like a good time for this conversation. Maybe we can do some spring cleaning in our lives and declutter them as we do with our homes at this time of year.  

Let’s start by looking at one day in the life of a human as God designed it.  One of the coolest things in our Bible is that we get a picture of what God’s original design of this world was to look like before sin.  Now, it’s just a glimpse because by the third chapter of our Bibles, we humans messed it all up, but we need to see life as God intended.  So, when we look at our first two chapters of Scripture in Genesis, we can see life in its purest form in The Garden of Eden.  It was perfect; it was life as God designed.  There, we see Adam and Eve experience the perfect relationship with God.  And I want you to think about how simply they lived.  It was just them, the garden to tend to, the animals, one tree to avoid, and God walking with them in the evening breeze.  It’s so pure.  They lived so simply that they didn't even need clothes!  No phones, bills, sickness, pain, fears, insecurities, stressors, sin, or chaotic schedules to navigate.  Just God and paradise. Can you imagine how focused and relaxing this would be, how many thousands of thoughts would be eliminated, how much time you could have, how less distracted from God you would be?  I mean, try to take that in; it didn’t last long, and it seems that since sin entered the scene, one of the primary schemes of the enemy is genius.  Fill our lives and days to a place where we can’t engage God or see life as it could be. 

Let’s compare a day in Eden to a day in our lives today. The purity of the Garden, compared to the chaos of today.  From the moment we wake up, we start juggling things: social media, schedules, bills, pressure, work, politics, people, money, cram-packed schedules keeping us constantly moving at speeds we can’t sustain, days filled with multitasking, constant noise, fears, insecurities, restless days and sleepless nights.  Is there a moment when we aren’t doing or thinking of at least three things at once?  We moved from a garden to maintain and nothing to focus on but God to days of stress, chaos, and clutter beyond our ability to absorb. Instead of a pure relationship with God and living for Him, we react to whatever life throws at us next, led around by the next things our smartphone tells us we are doing.  Constant noise, dinging phones, overwhelmed, stressed, distracted, just bullied around by life. This is normal today, and I want you to see the difference between what was intended and what has become.  If we are honest, we aren’t living; we are surviving one day, hoping to make it to the next.  We are almost relieved to get to the next vacation, calling it a break from life while never truly resting.  Our lives get filled with so much to do, think about, maintain, and work through that it smothers out our best life, blocking us from our true selves and never allowing us to experience real faith.  This is not an accident, and your enemy has set our world up this way, so you stay in that cluttered, chaotic, reactive mode because it keeps you from being the person God created you to be, keeping you living that mediocre version of faith, rather than experiencing all God wants you to experience!  Your enemy knows he doesn’t have to get you to rebel against God or renounce your faith; he just needs you to fill up your days to the place where God is crowded out of your life. 

So, let me ask you, what does your life look like?  Is it simple and filled with the space you need to live your best life, or is it time to do some spring cleaning for your soul and declutter your life? For so many of us, we love God; we want to serve, give, and help build God’s Kingdom.  We want to invest in Eternal Things, but over time, our lives have filled up to a place where our faith life is being choked out, and as well-intentioned as we are, we can’t be the people we want to be.  You can’t give what you don’t have to give, and your enemy knows that.  As unintentional as clutter seems to build up in our lives, we must intentionally clean it out so our real lives aren’t smothered out.  To me, the best teaching on this is Jesus in The Parable of The Farmer Scattering Seed; the imagery is clear here. 

Luke 8:4 While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: 5 "A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. 6 Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown." When he said this, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." NIV

Jesus often taught in parables or stories and told his disciples that He does this because people just aren’t ready or open-hearted to what He is saying, so He told stories to try to create readiness and open up their hearts and minds to God.  Most of the time, Jesus tells a parable and moves on without even explaining its meaning! This time, He tells a story and says if you can hear me, hear me and moves on!  But later, the disciples asked what it meant, and He explained it to us. I’m glad He did because this couldn’t be a more precise teaching. 

Luke 8:11 "This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. 12 Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. 14 The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. 15 But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. NIV

In this parable, we see that some of the seed falls on the path, representing those who hear, but it never gets into their hearts and minds.  Some fall on rocky soil, where people hear it, like what they hear, and accept it at first, but when life hits and tests them, they check out and go back to their old ways of living because they don’t have the depth to grow through the painful moments of life.  Some fell on good soil; these people accept and allow God’s Word to penetrate their hearts and minds; they hear it, accept it, live it, and share it.  But we want to focus on the thorny soil today as we talk about living simple, God-focused, decluttered lives.  Let’s slow down and focus on verse 14…

Luke 8:14 The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. NIV

So, Jesus explained that the thorny soil represents people who hear the Word of God but allow it to be choked out by life’s worries, riches, and pleasures.

Luke 8:14: "…These are the ones who hear, but then the seed is crowded out, and nothing comes of it as they go about their lives worrying about tomorrow, making money, and having fun.” MSG

I want you to see something here.  Jesus didn’t say that the hearts represented by the thorny soil rejected the Word of God.  He didn’t say they were rebellious, hard-hearted people who didn’t love God or want to do good for God and live their best lives.  No, He said their faith life was choked or crowded out.  It wasn’t that they didn’t want it, and it wasn’t that they were bad people. Life, stress, money, possessions, and having fun simply choked God out of their lives. Jesus is so clear here, the imagery is so good, and quite frankly, it describes life today.  We can want to live fully for God; we can want to seek Him first and set out to do so, but life, stuff, pressure, money, fun, people, social media, politics, everything chokes God out of our lives.  This is an important warning on something so easy to slide into.  This world can choke real faith out of our lives if we aren’t careful.  It’s tough with all this world throws at us, where it is so rare to have a moment that isn’t full of things to do, think about, maintain, and respond to.  We are never where our feet are, we can’t listen and love well, we can’t focus and serve because we have nothing left as each day looks like another game of 52 card pickup that never ends…and what gets smothered out of our lives? God.  What is wild is that in our culture today, it is normal and looks good to be busy, cluttered, and stressed, and it seems very strange, even negative or lazy, to live outside of that intensity in life. 

Let’s be real here.  As we progress through life, there is also a natural progression in our lives of growing responsibilities, obligations, and added stress as we progress in our careers and begin to build a life…this is why we have those moments where we think back to the good old days when we were young, and didn’t have so much filling up our days.  Those were simpler times.  If you think about it, the enemy doesn’t have to do a lot, tempt us much, or try to get us to fall into something big. He just keeps luring us into more, and as humans, we do human math and think more is more, but in God’s Kingdom, the math is less is more.  Why?  Because with less of us, we get more of God.  The more we fill our lives, just less room for God, which chokes real faith out of our lives.   This is tough and another week of us looking at living opposite of our instincts and how this world would tell us to live.  When you think about the Garden of Eden before sin, isn’t there something refreshing and peaceful about their lives?  No stress, distractions, pain, insecurities, fears, sin, and no thousands of things to think through and maintain, just walking with God in the cool evening breeze, following one rule, and tending to the garden.  Maybe we don’t have to go to the Garden but can just look back to simpler times in our lives before we started gaining responsibilities, bills, and all that comes with life…isn’t there part of us that craves getting out of the chaos?  Isn’t there something deep inside us longing for that pure relationship with God we were designed for?  We are wired with that deep need inside us, which was to pull us to Him, but often, our enemy convinces us we can satisfy it through people, places, and things. None of it satisfies us.  It leaves us chasing more, and your real faith gets choked out in that endless chase for more. 

So, you may be thinking, Sam, get your head out of the clouds today; life is crazy and busy, and this is not those Biblical times!  Life isn’t the Garden of Eden! Life is so intense…and hey, I agree!  Life is busy, and we have a ton going on each day. We seem to live at a pace and level of distraction and stress that doesn’t allow for much else!  Living a decluttered life seems great, but it can feel impossible, especially for those of us in that cluttered, stressed-out, chaotic lifestyle.  In that thorny soil, we can’t see a way out and convince ourselves it just is what it is as life smothers us, and the chokehold gets tighter and tighter.  The other issue is that you aren’t looking for anything else to do, and decluttering your life and living this way does take effort and focus on our part.  This is why Pete Scazzero says this: 

“It’s easier to be busy than actually tend to your inner life.”  Pete Scazzero

It’s challenging but so important.  I want you to think about this.  What if there is a way to escape that cluttered, stressed-out, reactive life?  If there was a way out, would you take it?  Could you step out of the rat race while the rest of the world races by getting ahead, gaining more than you, and probably thinking you are crazy for not doing what they are doing?  Are you open to living this way?  That’s the most important question we can ask ourselves as we try to pull out of the thorny soil we call life.  Am I willing to do this?  If the answer is yes, the way through is to do something that sounds simple but is so difficult to do. We must seek God first. We roll up our sleeves and make changes.  We must stop living for ourselves and live for God. We must live what Jesus taught, which most Christians have heard thousands of times, and share with others while struggling to apply.

Matthew 6:33 “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” NLT

The reality is we know that, but if we aren’t seeking God above all else, we will never grasp the God math of less is more. We get caught in the trap of more is more, and our lives continue to be filled up, choking out our best life.  As we close today, I want you to look honestly at your life.  It’s a great time of year for spring cleaning and removing all that clutter.  Please take some time on this because it can save your life and lead to everything you want to experience in life.  Slow down and look practically at one day of your life and think through what can be removed.  It may seem daunting, but start with one thing: take that one step: get rid of that first thorny weed and start regaining what you have lost.  If you want this, you can do this.  It all centers around living for God and not for yourself.  We can be so frustrated that we aren’t experiencing all we want in our faith; we live in that mediocre version of it, and it’s frustrating, and we wonder why we are stuck there.  But often, we aren’t open to disrupting what was in our lives to experience what could be.  We can call it surrender or nice it up and say let go and let God lead, but until we die to ourselves, we can’t get to where we want to be.  That is a process we are all on, with new things that pop up often to lay at the feet of Jesus and get rid of along the way.  And as crazy as it looks to live simple, God-focused lives to people of this world, it is as healthy as you can be when you live life in all this God math, understanding things like when we are weak, we are strong, to find ourselves, we lose ourselves, and to embrace something wild, grasping that less is actually more.