Wednesday 24 March 2021

‘Does your faith make you less stressed and more happy?’ (Matthew 11:28-30)

I don’t know how stressed you are feeling at the moment.  Lockdown has been strange.  For some of you it may actually be less stressful to work at home than have to go into an office.  For others the last year has felt like a nightmare of home-schooling and not having the support of being able to sit down with someone for a coffee.  I have no doubt that the pandemic will have strained many relationships and left some feeling totally isolated.

So, at this time of increased stress is your faith making you feel more stressed and less happy or less stressed and more happy?

I am going to suggest that if our church makes its members feel more stressed and less happy rather than less stressed are more happy then maybe we are misrepresenting that Christian life.  I am going to suggest that if being a Christian makes you feel more stressed and less happy rather than less stressed and more happy it may be that you have misunderstood the massage of Jesus. 

Afterall Jesus says, ‘Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ (Matthew 11:28-29).

Religious leaders will always be tempted to make you busy

The author Arian Plass puts it like this, ‘some Christians make people feel miserable and guilty and they regularly check that their victims don’t backslide into happiness.’  I must admit that I laughed when I heard that!  That is just like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day!  As if there were not enough laws in the Old Testament they added their own, and they questioned the faith of anyone who couldn’t keep up with their proud sense of outward righteousness.

Why did they do that?  Well partly because they had no compassion for people, but mostly because it made them feel good about themselves.  There are few things that make us feel more superior to people than working harder than them.  It is all about the congratulation that we can receive as we show ourselves to be labouring and heavy laden.

This is actually a damager for us in Limerick Baptist Church.  For example, myself and the elders are making a concerted effort at the moment to encourage as many people as possible to join small groups.  The reason for this is that we feel that small groups have a unique way of connecting people and can be the focus for pastoral care.  But supposing you are currently working twelve hours a day or have exhausting family commitments.  You might feel that being asked to join a small group is being placed with another heavy burden.  The most spiritual thing for you to do may be to say ‘no’ and to refuse to feel guilty for having said ‘no’.

Perhaps the most tempting area for a church to use rules and guilt is in the area of financial giving.  In the Old Testament there was a system of tithes that was connected with the sacrifices and temple.  The Pharisees loved to think about the rules for tithing.  They even tithed their garden herbs.  What was Jesus’ verdict of their giving?  ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.  These you ought to have done without neglecting the others’ (Matthew 23:23).  The New Testament teaching on giving is not to present you with a percentage of your income but to give you an inclination of the heart: ‘Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver’ (2 Corinthians 9:7).  Never listen to anyone’s criticism or applause of what you give, for it is entirely between you and God! 

So many good ideas can end up crushing us if we are not careful.  I’m currently doing something that I should have done before—I am working through the Bible in a year.  It is really blessing me.  I find that the more you study the Bible the more fuel you take onboard in which to enjoy praising God.  But can you see how such a plan could turn into a dead obligation?  Can you see how doing something like that could become a source of boasting, superiority and pride?  The devil will be happy for you to spend all you hours studying the Bible if it serves to make you arrogant.  This is one of the reasons why I avoid telling people how long they should spend praying a day, and yet I believe that there will be nothing that will refresh and grow your soul like the discipline of prayer!

I am not saying that we should never do anything that is hard or inconvenient.  But I think we misrepresent the beauty of the New Covenant if we simply focus on obligations and outward performance.  I do think that a disciplined Christian life will bless us, but it will also tempt us to the sin of pride. 

If you want to be happy in your faith ask God to help you live it from the inside out.

A physiatrist in America examined a number of studies and discovered people who said that they believed in God but did not put their faith into practice had higher stress levels than the general population.  Whereas those who say that they believe in God put their faith into practice had lower stress levels than the general population.  Part of Shalom and rest is found in action.

Jesus wants us to pursue our joy

Sacrifice and discipline are good, but that have no value if they are not done in love and in the pursuit of joy.

The reason I am labouring this point is because our attitude to work and rest reflects our understanding of the heart of Jesus.  The burden-giving Pharisees were harsh and proud.  In direct contrast Jesus is gentle and lowly.  The Pharisees simply wanted to make you busy.  In Jesus you will find rest for your soul.  Their religion focused on what we do for God.  Jesus spoke primarily of what he would do for us.  The Pharisees were simply about doing.  Jesus is more concerned about being.  Think of this in terms of the cross.  As an old song puts it: ‘Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling.’  As a new song puts it: ‘Jesus paid it all.’

We all know that what we believe affects what we do.  What is less known is that the Bible teaches that what we do affects what we believe.  ‘If anyone’s will is to do God’s will [doing], he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority [knowing]’ (John 17:7). 

If our Christian life just makes us busy, then we will continue to believe that Jesus is a hard task master.  But if we pursue joy, then we will know that Jesus has our back.  Maybe you need to repent of labouring too hard, and as a result having hard thoughts about Jesus!

I am not saying that discipline and sacrifice do not matter.  I am saying that the purpose of discipline and sacrifice is so that we might experience happiness in Jesus.  The greatest act of sacrifice that the world has ever seen was motivated by unparalleled love and from a desire to experience joy.  Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.  And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.  Who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God’ (Hebrews:12:1-2).  It brings great glory to Jesus when we seek to be happy in him!  Are you pursuing the sort of Christianity that will bring you pleasure or are you simply going through the motions because you are fearful of how other Christians will judge you?

Jesus needs nothing from us.  He doesn’t need our work, our time or our money.  He doesn’t call us to make sacrifices in order to make us miserable.  He calls us to make sacrifices so that we can be filled with gladness.  He is not seeking to add a burden to our already stressed lives.  In fact, our sacrifices are less than rubbish if they are done without love and in the pursuit of our own joy.  I am not saying there isn’t an obligation on us—how can someone hear if no one preaches the message to them  (Romans 10:14)? We insult him if we do not let him make us happy.  Financial giving is something that we are to do to make us cheerful.  Even suffering can be joyful as we remember that God is using it to make us more like Jesus.  I am not saying that if you find teaching Sunday School frustrating you automatically pack it in—ask God to help you enjoy it, ask him to help rejoice in the privilege of being frustrated for the sake of these precious children and, if you conclude that this is not actually your calling, ask him to send other harvesters into this field.  Sharing your faith with your work-mates, family, neighbours and friends may terrify you, but I am certain the happiest Christians are those who do this regularly.   Even rejection for the gospel gives us the thrill of following a noble path of those in the past who have been despised for their faith.  Prayer is to be pursued so that we can delight in fellowship with God.  Church is designed for our encouragement.  God’s people are to be our joy.  The Bible is a book that uniquely changes us as we listen to it. 

If you are kept busy by the need to please people then you have a heavy burden on your shoulders.  In particular you must not live to please those who are critical of you.  But Jesus is gentle and lowly in heart.  He takes our imperfect attempts to follow him and makes them beautiful through grace.  He is readily pleased with us.  He is not reluctant to say, ‘well done, my good and faithful servant.’

There was a certain businessman by the name of Mr. Abercrombie.  He was a successful man, who attended church and even had a weekly business lunch where he would invite his friends and have a Christian speaker.

On one occasion he invited a well-known Christian who worked mostly with prisoners.  This speaker opened his Bible and talked about the fact that we have a problem with sin.  Some of the businessmen began to shuffle uncomfortably in their seats.

The very first questions that was asked after the talk was: ‘You don’t really think that we are sinners, do you?’  To which the speaker replied, ‘I believe that we are all desperately sinful.  What is inside of us is ugly.  We deserve hell, and we would get it but for the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for our sins.’

Mr. Abercrombie lost it: ‘Well, I don’t know about that.  I am a good person.  I have been good all my life.  I go to church.  I get exhausted spending all my time doing good works.’

You could have heard a pin drop.  All eyes were on the speaker, who said, ‘if you believe that Mr Abercrombie, and I hate to say this because you’ll certainly never have me back to speak again, you are for all your good works further away from the kingdom of God than the people I work with in prison who are aware of their sins’  There was a long embarrassed silence, until someone politely changed the conversation.

But that was not the end of the story.  As they were leaving Abercrombie grabbed the speaker by the arm and brought him into his study.  ‘I don’t have what you have,’ said Abercrombie.  ‘I know’, replied the speaker, ‘but you can.’  Soon both men were on their knees as Mr. Abercrombie handed his life over to Jesus and found the rest that he needed.  No longer would he exhaust himself trying to prove his goodness for all to see, but he would joyfully give himself for others because Christ had joyfully given his life for him.  

Conclusion

This is so important because it has everything to do with who we think Jesus is.

If our church makes its members feel more stressed and less happy, rather than less stressed are more happy then maybe we are misrepresenting that Christian life.  If being a Christian makes you feel more stressed and less happy rather than less stressed and more happy then it may be that you have misunderstood the massage of Jesus.     

The great nineteenth-century Baptist pastor, Charles Spurgeon, tells a story that illustrates this:

One day another minister in his church went to the house of an elderly widow with some money from the poor relief fund.  He knocked and knocked on the door and yet no one answered.  Later he found that the widow had been inside but had not come to the door.  When he asked her why she had not come to the door she replied, ‘I heard the knocking alright, but I hid.  I thought it was the rent man coming around to evict me for my rent arrears.’

Maybe that is why we are slow to listen to Jesus.  He comes and knocks on the door of our hearts, but we pretend to be deaf because we think he is like the rent man coming to make us pay the debt of all our moral failings.  Maybe we think that if Jesus had the opportunity to sit down face to face with us all he would do is remind us how useless we are and simply tell us to try harder.  But he wants us to open the door because he has blessings to share with us.  He knows that we are sinful, but he died that we might be forgiven.  On the cross he said ‘it is finished’ and therefore there is no debt left to pay.  We are poor and in need, and he is rich and generous.  He comes not to take but to give.  He comes in love and with grace.  Jesus says, ‘Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ (Matthew 11:28-29).

No comments: