Special Event – Summer Series; Take It One Day At a Time: Rev. Alex Graham III, 07/19/26

SE 065_Sumr Series P4_PODCAST_Graham_071926
===

[00:00:00] It is so good to be here. Uh, Mark Lanier, uh, is a personal friend of mine and a longtime friend at my parish, my church, St. Martin's. And, uh, Mark comes, uh, about once every other year to, uh, lead our men's Bible study. We get a lot of great speakers at our men's Bible study, including guys like, uh, N.T.

Wright and even Mattress Mack, which is a, was a big hit. But I think Mark might be our favorite speaker that our guys just love. Um, so we- it's, it's a real honor and privilege to be here with you at his home church this morning. Uh, as Brett mentioned, St. Martin's, our church, is we are the largest Episcopal church, uh, in the United States, which sounds really impressive until I tell people that we're not even the largest church on our street because [00:01:00] about a mile down the road is another church called Second Baptist Houston.

Some of you might have heard of it. So, on Woodway. So, um, so I, I call it-- We're, we're about a middle-sized, uh, Baptist church, but we, we are proud that our church has grown over the last, uh, couple decades. Uh, primarily we believe and we credit that to the Lord in the preaching of the gospel, the preaching of the good news, teaching the Bible, um, because that is really, uh, what it takes to build disciples.

Um, so the Lord gets all the credit, uh, for that. But as Mark, or as, uh, Brent mentioned and as you might guess by the uniform that I'm wearing this morning, um, I'm an Episcopal minister, right? So, um, y- I would be remiss if I didn't share with you a little humor about Episcopalians. Um, as you know, uh, Episcopalians, we are not only a people of the book, which is...

And I, I love this annotated Bible here. This is huge. Um, uh, Todd is one of the editors. I [00:02:00] think he spoke here a couple weeks ago. We are not only a, a people of the book, but we actually have two books in our tradition. If you're-- If you've ever been to Episcopal Church, uh, they have something called The Book of Common Prayer.

I've actually brought one with me. Uh, it has a collection of these beautiful ancient prayers, uh, in addition to all our different liturgies. Like, our worship service is sort of comes straight out of this. Like, when we do baptisms or funerals or weddings, it comes straight out of The Book of Common Prayer.

We love it. We, it, it's beautiful, it's poetic, and it's super old. Um, so I wanna share a story about a grandmother who is a lifelong Episcopalian, and, you know, she finally got around to reading her Bible. Episcopalians aren't so good at reading their Bibles, by the way. Um, uh, unfortunately, um, that's not always the case, but, uh, sometimes it is.

She finally got around to reading the Bible, so she goes to the store, she gets one of those big print Bibles, and she read it, reads it from cover to cover. Took her [00:03:00] a couple months. She's super excited. Uh, and so she's at church the next Sunday. She sees her senior minister during the coffee hour, and she comes up to him, she goes, "I finally read through the Bible, but I was surprised how much the Bible quotes The Book of Common Prayer," she said.

Anyway. Yeah. Sometimes Episcopalians believe that The Book of Common Prayer is older than the Bible. It's not really. But, um, it, it is a very biblical thing. So if you would allow me, I know we've already prayed, but I think we can pray again, you know? Um, and there's a beautiful prayer I'd like to pray from The Book of Common Prayer.

It was written by Thomas Cranmer, uh, he was the very first Archbishop of Canterbury about 500 years ago under King Henry VIII. Uh, and he was the guy that sort of, like, helped spearhead the Reformation, uh, bringing the Protestant church to, uh, the British Isles. But he wrote several prayers in our prayer book, and this one is about the reading of scripture.

It's a short prayer, but I think it's [00:04:00] beautiful. Uh, so let us pray together.

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning, grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen Okay. So, uh, again, it's so good to be here with you today. Mark sent an email out, um, and I, I know I've seen you've got some incredible speakers, uh, so far, uh, this summer, so I have some big shoes to fill. But one of the, the, the tasks that was given to all of [00:05:00] us is to pick out a passage of scripture that we know well and to maybe reflect upon that passage of scripture and how maybe our interpretation, uh, has changed over time, or what are some fresh insight that we might have about a passage of scripture that we know very well.

So that was sort of the task that we are given. Uh, but before I do that, I want to say something briefly about the nature of reading the Bible and how often we continue to glean new meaning and fresh insight from passages of scripture, uh, that we read again and again as we come back to that same text again and again as we pass through life experience.

So I wanna talk a little bit first about the role of life experience in something called the hermeneutical spiral. That's a big word, right? Hermeneutics. Does anybody know what the term hermeneutics means? It comes from the Gr-- somebody knows. Yep. It [00:06:00] comes from the Greek word herm- Hermes, which mean-- it's the messenger god.

Okay? So hermeneutics is the study of messages, and Christians use this term, and they apply it to the interpretation of the Bible. Okay? Everybody interprets the Bible, right? So everyone does hermeneutics, right? If you read the Bible, and you apply it to your life, you are doing hermeneutics, right? Well, there's something called the hermeneutical spiral, right?

And the idea is very simple. It means that we read a text of scripture, we walk away from it, we have life experiences, we grow, we mature, and then we come back to the Bible, and we read it again, and then we have even new understanding, a fresh interpretation that maybe we didn't have before. So it sorta looks like this, right?

We read scripture. We have initial understanding, life experience. We read it again, and then we come to a new understanding, right? And I think all of us have had that experience [00:07:00] when we read the Bible, right? Um, and one of the way-- places that we see this is in the parable of the prodigal son, right? We're all probably familiar with this parable.

It comes from Luke chapter fifteen. Um, there's three basic main character or there's three characters, I should say. I guess, can they all be main characters? I don't know. It depends. There's three characters, right, basically in the prodigal son. Well, I'm not counting the pigs. I'm not counting the swine. Um- There's three characters, right?

So you have the teenager, the teenage son. He's the wayward son. He asks for his inheritance up front, right? And then what does he do? He squanders it, right? He, he, um, he spends it all, right? And so, um, it's interesting though, uh, if you read this parable as a teenager, uh, many teenagers when they read this parable, they identify with the teenager, right?

They-- That's who they identify with, the wayward son. However, um, [00:08:00] once you sort of grow older, you get some life experience, maybe you settle down, you start a family, you have children, you become a parent, a mother and father. When you read this parable again, who do you identify with? You often identify with the father, right?

So again, we're reading the same parable, but now we're identifying slightly with different characters within that same parable. And then finally, the older person, maybe as you get older, uh, you might identify with the older brother. But the point I'm making is that we can read the same passage of scripture over and over again and identify, depending on our station in life, from, with different characters within those, uh, stories.

So again, this is called the hermeneutical spiral, right? We read scripture, uh, we have an initial understanding, life experience, trials, hardship, growth, and grace. We read scripture again, and we come away with [00:09:00] new understanding. So

So the role of experience, the hermeneutical spiral, our understanding of scripture deepens over time as we gain life experience and grow in grace. Now, I'm, I'm assuming that most of you can, uh, testify that this is a truth, right? Have y'all experienced this before? Um, that's why reading the Bible never gets old, right?

That's why we can reread the same passage over and over again, right? Um, we are in a practice at our church to read through the Psalms in 30 days. We do it, uh, five days a week. Now think about that. So if you come to St. Martin's, if you're on staff there, the whole staff reads through the Psalms. Uh, every, all, every Psalm every month.

So if you c- if you're on staff at St. Martin's, you will read through the entire psalter, uh, 12 times in a year just by be- this is how we start our day, right? Um, and so when I'm reading the Psalms, I'm reading [00:10:00] the same Psalm again and again and again, and, uh, I come away with fresh insight, fresh meaning, uh, because, uh, my life, uh, changes and I grow in grace.

So what is the passage that I've take- that I've chosen? Take it one day at a time. You ever heard this phrase? Where is it in the Bible? Can anybody tell me? What's that? Okay. Yeah, well, yeah close. Yeah. What were you gonna say?

Yes. Yep, absolutely. Yep. The phrase is actually take it one day at a time is actually not in the Bible though, right? It's actually not in the Bible. Um, but here's what I wanna say. Is it taught in the Bible? Yes. So the concept is in the Bible, Matthew 6, and the other passage that was quoted. And that-- And we have to realize that theology is done at the concept level, [00:11:00] not the word level, right?

You understand? So, like, for instance, uh, is the, the term trinity in the Bible? It's not in the Bible. Is the concept trinity taught in the Bible? Yes, right? God is triune, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is a deeply biblical, uh, concept, and it's all throughout the Bible, but the term is not there, right? So theology, when we theologize, when we, uh, extrapolate truths from the Bible, we take into context all of what the biblical literature says, and we formulate something, we systematize something based upon, uh, the full context of God's Word, right?

And so take it one day at a time, that phrase is not in the Bible, but the concept is taught in the Bible. And so I wanna look at some of the passages, uh, that teach this. Actually, before I do that See here. Before I do that, um, uh, I, I just wanted to [00:12:00] say that this is a phrase we've probably all heard before.

Uh, I hear it a lot, uh, in my profession. Uh, I make hospital visits typically once a week in the med center, visiting our patients and praying with them. Um, a phrase that you often hear if you're at the hospitals and people are sick is, you know, "You gotta just take it one day at a time." Uh, we see it in Hallmark movies, Hallmark cards, even country songs, uh, have this phrase.

So we become very familiar with it, and the dangerous, uh, part is when we become familiar with a phrase or any passage of scripture. I mean, it's good to befa-come familiar, but if it becomes too familiar, right, we desensitize ourself from it, right? So we have to just be careful. Um, and so, uh, we have the danger of becoming over-familiar, uh, with this, and we're gonna look at the passages that teach this concept.

Another phrase that I wanna talk about that's related to this idea of taking it one day at, [00:13:00] at a time is taking baby steps, right? Baby steps. Now, baby steps is the idea that you just take one step in front of you, one step in front of you, right? Don't worry about, you know, where you're gonna be, uh, tomorrow or the next week, but just take one step at a time.

Take things one step at a time. Baby steps. Um, there's a profound truth embedded there, right? To take one step at a time, right, in our lives, to take one thing at a time, uh, to take each day one day at a time. And as we're gonna see, um, this is a truth, a concept that is taught in the Bible. So where do we find it in the Bible?

So let's look. There's several passages, uh, but let's look first, uh, in the Exodus. Exodus chapter 16. This is after God has redeemed Israel out of their bondage and slavery. Um, he's about to take them into, um, uh, the desert, and he says, uh, you know, there's no food in the desert. He says, "I will rain [00:14:00] down bread from heaven for you.

The people are to go out each day, each day, and gather enough for that day." In this way, I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. Now, notice what he's also says in verse 19. He says, "Then Moses said to them, 'No one is to keep any of it until morning.'" Now, he does make one sort of caveat to this, 'cause on Friday before the day of Shabbat, they get a double portion that will help them get through, um, the Sabbath, right?

So you're not supposed to, you know, gather food on the Sabbath. But sort of the typical protocol is don't reserve, don't hoard, uh, for tomorrow, right? Uh, don't hoard the food, uh, for next week, next month. Don't hoard the stuff for your retirement, as it were. Uh, but to take it one day, uh, at a time. Uh, to teach-- And I think what, [00:15:00] uh, God is doing here is to teach them daily trust, right?

That they are dependent upon God, really, for their life and, and in fact, uh, for everything. And so God gather-- tells them to gather only what they need. Only excess is left overnight, we see rots, right? Maggots get to it. Uh, and so as I mentioned before, on the sixth day, a double portion, uh, is given Um, and so I think this is, uh, an important thing that we need to, uh, to do in our own lives.

Um, another passage that we see is Matthew 6. This is what was quoted before, and it's actually there's two passages in Matthew 6. Uh, but the first is where Jesus is praying the Lord's Prayer, and he says, "Give us this day our daily bread." Um, notice that the petition in Jesus' prayer is not about tomorrow or next month [00:16:00] or asking G- that God would provide for their retirement, but rather asking God to meet our needs, uh, this very day.

So, um, and so I think this is important, uh, aspect of our prayer life, and hopefully you guys are praying the Lord's Prayer every day. I mean, I think it's a prayer, uh, that we should all pray, uh, and weave into our devotional life. Uh, but it's, it's simple and profound, and as I, uh, sort of like the phrase, uh, taking things one day at a time, uh, we say this petition, and it can just sort of wash over us, and we don't fully grasp its meaning.

But Jesus says, uh, you know, "Give us this day our daily bread," right? So we depend upon God each day. Now, if we fast-forward to the same cha-- in the same chapter to Matthew chapter 6, uh, we read, uh, [00:17:00] "Do not worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble on its own." Um, and Jesus is telling his disciples, you know, he compares them to the, the lilies of the field or the birds of the air.

He's like, you know, "God cares about them. You're infinitely more valuable than these flowers that are beautiful," right? Um, and if God cares about the flowers, surely God cares about you. So do not worry about tomorrow, right? Each day has enough trouble on its own. Each day has enough things to worry about, in other words.

Like, we're gonna worry, but let's focus on today. What's bef- what's, uh, before us, right? Um, and so each day has enough trouble, uh, on its own. And so this concept of living one day at a time is further reinforced of living one day at a time, uh, when Jesus tells his disciples in Luke chapter 9. Uh, he calls them together, all 12 of them.

He gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and [00:18:00] to heal the sick. He told them, this is what he tells them, and this is kinda-- I, every time I read this, it sort of, it s- it doesn't set well with me. It's sorta uncomfortable.

But he says this, he says, "Take nothing for the journey." No staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. I mean, I, I'm sort of like, you know, I like to overprepare for things. You know, if you go, uh, pack on a trip, I wanna make sure I have everything in my suitcase, you know? And I, you know, often find out that when I'm on the vacation I was like, "Man, did I really need to pack like, you know, five pairs of pants?

I mean, two would've worked, right?" So, um, it... Um, I'm thinking these guys are going out on God's mission, the most important mission in the history of humanity. Shouldn't they just pack some extra money, take a extra, you know, shirt, you know, take their staff with them at least? They could at least ward off some of the, the wolves or whatever, um, help them in their journey.

Um, you know, no bag? I mean, come on [00:19:00] But Jesus tells them, "Don't take any of those things," right? Um, at first glance, Jesus' instructions seem impractical, but trusting God's provision one day at a time, um, is important. I think that's what He's underscoring here. The- their focus was to be on that day's mission, right?

What has God given us to do this day? Let me be faithful to God this day in what God has called me to do, not tomorrow's security. Um, that was to occupy their attention. They are not to become preoccupied with contingency plans or accumulating supplies. Their energy is directed towards today's calling rather than tomorrow's uncertainties, right?

I mean, I think that's a challenge, uh, to us, I think, living in a world when we have access to pretty much anything we want, right? The simplicity of living [00:20:00] each day before God and relying upon Him. So I think Luke chapter 9 when Jesus gives this instru- these instructions to his disciples is in many ways a practical outworking of, of Matthew 6 when He prays, uh, "Give us this day our daily bread.

Uh, don't worry about tomorrow, for each today has enough trouble on its own." It's a practical outworking of those, uh, truths. So, there's also James chapter 4, right? So we see it outside the Gospels as well, where James writes, "You do not know what tomorrow will bring," right? "Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'"

Right? 'Cause we-- the reality is we don't know what tomorrow will bring. There's lots of uncertainty in life. But we have fooled ourselves living in a modern world where we think we can control everything, and then when something happens that's out of our control, we freak out. [00:21:00] I think COVID taught us that, right?

Why, why can't we get a vaccine? What's taking so long? You know, you had people saying, "If you just wear masks, well, it'll solve all the problems." Then you had people saying, "Masks aren't gonna solve the problems," right? People were arguing, right? There was polarization, right? We became angry because we wanted it solved.

Things were out of our control. Most of our lives are lived within our control, right? If you want to see a movie, you can watch that movie instantly. If you want a book, if you want anything delivered, Amazon Prime will have it at your doorstep, sometimes within twenty-four hours, right? If you wanna go on a trip, just book it.

Like, you can pretty much, for the first time in human history, you can control so much of your life. So you-- we think, and we're all prone to this, that we're in control. But brothers and sisters, we are not, we are not in control, right? So James reminds us of [00:22:00] this: "We do not know what tomorrow will bring.

Instead, we ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will do this and that.'" Right? So taken together, if I was to sum up these biblical passages, um, taking collectively, the Bible clearly teaches the concept, the theological concept, that Christians should live one day at a time. Are we in agreement with that, by the way?

Do we see that? Okay, very good. Well, I think this is a truth that we can all agree upon, um, 'cause I think we've all experienced it, and especially as we read our Bibles we know it to be the case. So back to Mark's assignment here. How has my interpretation of this particular biblical truth and concept, how has it changed over time?

How do I have fresh insight upon this passage that maybe I didn't have before? And so to answer [00:23:00] this question, if you'll allow me to share a couple personal anecdotes, um, which I think that have happened recently in my life that have helped me see this passage and see, uh, these passages and see this truth afresh in new ways.

Um, right at about two summers ago, two years ago, uh, my wife and I, we always go to South Carolina, where I'm from, for vacation. We got back to Houston, and my wife, uh, Christina, she's here. Christina's over there with my kids, by the way. Um, she noticed that sh- we had a... I had a mole on my back, you know, and actually she had been telling me about this mole for years.

She's like, "Alex, you need to go s- see the doctor." I'm like, "Yeah, I know. I'll get to it, whatever," you know. By the way, listen to your wife. Uh, so finally I got around seeing a dermatologist. He's like, "Yeah, it doesn't look great. We're gonna biopsy it." So he biopsied it. Sure. Got back, sure enough, "Hey, not good news.

Cancer. I'm gonna refer you over to MD Anderson." "Okay. Well, all right." So I go over to MD Anderson. They [00:24:00] do all... Some of you probably have been there. Um, they do all the scans and stuff, and, uh, uh, even more, uh, bad news, like, "It's spread around your back, it's sp- sp- spread to your lymph nodes, in your armpits, and we're gonna have to do surgery."

So I, "Okay." So, uh, uh, they put me on immunotherapy, um, did a couple surgeries. Uh, fast-forward six months later it had spread to my chest, and so then I got moved to Stage Four cancer, um, which, which is cu- currently where I, I sit right now. Um, uh, the good news is, uh, that I've been on immunotherapy for, uh, 22 months now, and it looks like it's working, and, uh, thank the Lord, praise the Lord, the last couple scans have come back clean.

It's negative. So praise the Lord for that. Um, I typically-- This is something I typically don't share in public, by the way, but I'm, uh, I'm gonna share it with you guys. Um, my home parish knows about it, and they've been praying for me, and I've [00:25:00] certainly felt their prayers. Um, I share about this because

When I went to MD Anderson, uh, and the first parts of getting cancer, if you've ever had it, um, especially if it's an aggressive kinda deal, um, the first few months is really hard. It's-- You kinda go to dark places, you know? And I'm a Christian minister. I mean, I read the Bible, I believe the Bible. Um, but you know, sometimes you can go to dark places because you say, "Well, where is this cancer in my body?

Is it spreading? I don't know." You know, I've got three kids. Uh, you know, my... Really, my heart was for them, really, 'cause, uh, we're all gonna die. I think everybody's scared of dying. Um, that wasn't my greatest fear. My greatest fear was leaving my kids behind, right, without a father. That was my greatest sort of gut punch, as it were.

So you can kinda go to dark places. And for the very first time in my life, I began to sorta live one day at a time, right? I [00:26:00] began to get up every morning and say, "God, thank you for this day. I don't know about tomorrow. I can't guess. I'm gonna trust the-- you, the Lord. I'm gonna... I'm dependent upon you. I trust you and your plans.

I also trust, you know, my medical team at MD Anderson. But I, I can't, I can't worry about that. I can't even get through this day if I, if I go there. Thank you, God, for this day. Thank you, Lord, for this day. I'm gonna be grateful, uh, for this day." Um, and so, uh, that life experience, as we go back to the hermes- hermeneutical spiral, shaped the way, reshaped the way that I read this passage.

No longer was it a silly platitude that you hear or a aphorism, but it really meant something, and it really changed the way I lived my life. And in fact, I would say it w- my cancer in many ways is a gift from God. It is a absolute gift from God because it has reshaped the way that I think. Um, it's helped me reconnect with my family on a deeper level in a more meaningful way.[00:27:00]

Um, and so I, I'm, I'm grateful for that, and I know that I'm in God's hands. Um- So one other thing I would share, uh, last summer that reinforced this idea of living one day at a time. Last summer was a very difficult summer. This is one year after I had my diagnosis. I'm still going through my treatment.

And in late June, uh, we had two parishioners, uh, die, uh, in our church that were young dads. One of them left four children behind. Uh, he was in Italy, had a heart attack. They had to fly him back. All his kids were in camp, so the mom had to go get them out of camp, tell, uh, that their dad had passed away.

Big funeral, unexpected. Um, and, uh, it was just-- to, to go-- to walk that family through that was really difficult. Seven days later, another family, a young dad, uh, committed suicide, [00:28:00] uh, left behind two daughters. Uh, I was close with both of these young dads. Uh, another big funeral. Fast-forward seven days later, July 4th last year.

Four of the Camp Mystic girls are, were St. Martin's members. Uh, and so I was on the phone every day with each one of those, our, our girls. Uh, we did four funerals at St. Martin's for four of the Heaven's Twenty-seven within five days Um, and so when you go-- when you walk through the trauma and experience like that, um, you realize that life is short.

Life is short, guys. Uh, you see a young dad pass away, uh, which you think should have had a longer life, and you... Especially as you see young children pass away, you realize how precious life is and how life is short, and it's really a gift from God. And so, again, it just reinforces this idea, uh, to live one day at a time, to thank the Lord for the gift [00:29:00] that He has given each one of us, the blessings He has given us in this life, the gift of life that we get to enjoy this day and enjoy everything that God has given us.

So those are two, uh, sort of anecdotes or two experiences that I've had over the last couple years that have reshaped my thinking about this biblical concept and truth. But I'd like to share a couple quotes from you, uh, from, uh, a gentleman by the name-- He's got a-- He's a French guy. He wrote, like, in the 18th century.

Uh, and his name is Jean Pierre de Caussade. I think I'm pronouncing that right. But he's got this wonderful l- uh, little book called The Sacrament of the Present Moment. Um, I know it sort of sounds like Roman Catholic or something, but it's actually a, a good little book. I think Protestants would enjoy it.

Um, but this is what he says. He says, "The sure and solid foundation of our spiritual life is to give ourselves to God and to put ourselves entirely into His hands, body and soul. [00:30:00] To forget ourselves completely so that He becomes our whole joy and His pleasure and glory, His being our only good. To think of ourselves as objects sold and delivered for God to do with what He likes," he writes So he goes on to talk a little bit about-- He uses a metaphor of an artist or a mason, uh, making a sculpture, right?

With a chisel. And you know, the artist is God, and we are the block of marble, right? And so sort of the i- the metaphor is the idea is that we allow God... We're passive in many ways. We allow God to work on us. And this is what he writes. He says, "The cruel chisel destroys a stone with each cut. But what the stone suffers by repeated blows is no less than the shape the [00:31:00] mason is making of it.

And should a poor stone be asked, 'What is happening to you?' It might reply, 'Don't ask me. All I know is that for my part there is nothing for me to know or do. Only to remain steady under the hand of my master and to love him and to suffer him to work out my destiny.'" You see that? Isn't that beautiful? Um, God is at work.

God is in control. We're not in control, right? We are a piece of, like, stone that God is chiseling. It feels like, it feels like a cut. It feels like a blow, but God is using those things to refine us. You think of Romans eight, right? All things working for the good for those who are in Christ Jesus, right?

God is working on us. We don't see the full picture, but God is working on us. "By ignoring all this," he continues, "I rest contended, contented with the present moment, thinking only of my duty to it. I [00:32:00] submit to the work of this skillful master without caring to know what it is. Yes, dear sisters, simple souls, leave to God what belongs to Him, and go your way in peace and quiet.

Let God's will be done and surrender yourselves to Him. Let the chisel do its work." So how should we do this? What are some practical takeaways that we can take away from this? How do we do this? Well, the first thing that I would say, remember you are finite creatures. Remember your finitude. You're not God.

You're not in control, but we are finite creatures, and this is okay, by the way. This is how God has created us. There's a wonderful book I would recommend to you. It's by Kelly Kapic, and it's called You're Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God's [00:33:00] Design—And Why That's Good News. Recommend that book. Uh, but remember your finitude Uh, we are finite creatures and God created us that way.

And in fact, if you go back to the original sin in the garden in Genesis 2, a part of the issue was they wanted to be infinite like God, right? They weren't content with the way they were made, but they wanted knowledge like God, right? God had vast knowledge. They wanted that exhaustive knowledge for themselves, right?

So be content with your finitude. We're finite creatures. Um, and if we don't do that, we will exhaust ourselves in the rat race, right? And I'll-- I'm gonna talk a little bit about that Uh, this leads to something called performancism, uh, and self-worth. Oftentimes we measure our self-worth with our accomplishments and what we do, right?

And that can lead to exhaustion, and that can be deflating, [00:34:00] right? So we feel pressure to do more in our culture, uh, because we are told that our self-worth is measured by how much we do or accomplish. This leads to what David Zahl calls performancism. Performancism is the unspoken assumption that there is no distinction, uh, between what we do and who we are, right?

Brothers and sisters, each one of you is created in God's image. Each one of you is redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ if you hold to Him in faith, right? That gives you self-worth. That's where you should look. You shouldn't look to, uh, who your grandfather wa-- In South Carolina, it's like who's your, who's your grandfather, right, or whatever.

Uh, you shouldn't look to where you went to school or, you know, how successful you are, what neighborhood you live in, or who your friends are, right? Those things don't define you. Uh, but what defines you is who you are in Christ, made in God's image. That's, that's who-- what [00:35:00] defines you, not your performance.

But we live in a culture that tells us otherwise, right? And it's easy to get trapped in this sorta hamster wheel of, of striving for success and these sorts of thing. That your resume is part of your identity, that your children and your ability to be a great parent, to raise them well, for them to go to the great s-schools you want them to get into, that defines you, uh, in your identity as a parent.

Uh, what makes you lovable, indeed what makes worth-- life worth living, is your performance in X, Y, and Z. So that's this idea of performancism. So we have to be careful for that. Uh, performancism, uh, turns life into a competition and invests daily tasks with existential significance and turns even small, mundane tasks into measures of enoughness, right?

So each day we feel this pressure just to kill it, just to be amazing, right? [00:36:00] Um, and this is really an illusion of our capacity, right? The idea is simple. The, this idea that we, you know, we want to be excellent at everything, right? And, um, part of the reason why we wanna do this is, you know, the Protestant work ethic and the Protestant Reformation, John Calvin, Martin Luther, they came up with this idea, it's a biblical notion.

Uh, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God, where St. Paul talks about, right? So this idea that our vocation by glorifying God through what we do, so we wanna do good work, we wanna make excellent music and art and all this kind of stuff, be good at our vocation. That is a good thing. Uh, but what's not a good thing is the idolatry that's embedded, uh, within our culture that says that, you know, our self-worth is measured by how excellent we are, how perfect we are, right?

And so we're on this almost endless quest in order [00:37:00] to, to be perfect at everything, to kill it at life. And so that's where it can sort of lead us, lead us astray. Uh, David Zahl continues in his book Seculosity, he writes, uh, "Keeping up with the Joneses," you know, this idea of keeping up with the Joneses, "now means trying to out-schedule them," right?

And so the catchphrase is busy, right? I, you know, I ran into somebody, how-- I, I see her all the time at church. How are you guys doing this summer? Uh, we're busy. Okay. Try, try, try to answer that question without using the term busy, by the way. It's hard to do. I mean, we're all prone to it, right? So we almost outsch- you know, we almost our self-worth comes from how busy we are, how scheduled we are, right?

So keeping up with Joneses now means trying to out-schedule them Um, at some point, the course of life will expose what we receive as painful truth. This is going back to [00:38:00] Kelly Kapic's book. We are not the best, not the brightest, the most able. There are always stronger, more beautiful, more brilliant people.

Many of us fail to understand that our limitations are a gift from God, and therefore they're good. This produces in us the burden of trying to be something we are not and cannot be. Okay. So, uh, the idea is that we are not under any requirement, um, to be infinite. Remember, God is only person who is infinite.

We are finite, so remember that is reserved for God. And remember also, part of the good of being a creature is to have limits, right? To sit under God and His authority, to depend upon God, right? That's the beautiful aspect of this relational thing that we have with God is that we are dependent upon, we sit under Him.

Uh, we are [00:39:00] dependent, right? He is the only independent, uh, being as it were. Uh Kapic continues, "Once we see ourselves within this framework, uh, where our creaturely finitude plays a good and essential part, the presence to fulfill endless expectations take on a different appearance. We begin to relate to God and to others in a more fruitful way.

No longer do we aspire to have infinite capacity. That's God's job." So just to recap, how do we do this? Remember, brothers and sisters, that we are finite, uh, creatures. Second, uh, be still and know that I'm God. This is, of course, a quote from Psalm 46, uh, where Psalm 46 basically says, you know, come before the Lord, be still before the Lord, uh, spend time before God.

Now, what's interesting is if you read this text, uh, the verb in the [00:40:00] Hebrew to be still is actually a military term. Uh, it means to cease and desist. In the midst of a fight, it means to lay down your arms. You're in the presence of the king, to put everything-- lay everything bare before Him, right? And so this idea is that we should come before the Lord and lay everything before Him, right?

To come in a very vulnerable way before the Lord. And one of the ways that we do that is we cultivate a devotional life. Hopefully, each one of us is spending time with the Lord by reading scripture and by praying. This is a beautiful quote from C.S. Lewis. He says, "It comes the e- the very moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals."

And if that was certainly true when he wrote this probably in the 1930s, it's definitely true today, right? As soon as we get on the phone, right, we're getting texts and emails. "And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them [00:41:00] all back and listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.

And so on all day, standing back from all your natural fu- fussings and frettings coming in out of the wind." In other words, cultivate a spiritual, devotional life with the Lord. Read the Bible every day, right? This is simple stuff. This is not rocket science, right? Read the Bible every day. Spend time in prayer with the Lord.

Be still and know that I am God. Uh, finally, be fully present. Uh, and this is something that I call the practice of Christian mindfulness. Okay. So, uh, I'm gonna share one quick, uh, anecdote. I know we're-- I'm probably about need to wrap up here. Um, years ago... I don't know if this is a true story, but I'd like to think it w- it, it is.

Uh, years ago, they [00:42:00] were having this, uh, world religious summit in Geneva, and so they summoned all the religious leaders from the various denominations, various religious sects from around the world to convene at this gathering in Geneva, Switzerland, right? And so there was a reporter from The New York Times that was sent over to cover this religious summit.

And so at the opening night, at the opening ceremony, they're having this big meal, right? They have this huge dining hall, this massive table, and all these religious clerics and religious leaders from around the world are, uh, getting ready to take a seat at the table to have this meal. And so the reporter for The New York Times, he sees the Dalai Lama, right?

The Dalai Lama. So the reporter says like, "Man, he's gotta be the wisest guy. I ne- this is my chance, uh, to go and to ask the Dalai Lama the question." Right? So he quickly, the reporter from The New York Times, quickly pulls up a chair next [00:43:00] to the Dalai Lama. They sit down to eat. The food is served, and the reporter leans over to the Dalai Lama and s- asks the question, "Dalai Lama, what is the secret to life?"

To which the Dalai Lama says, "Just eat."

Yes. Be fully present. Now Uh, you know, uh, we, we hear this and this-- we think, like, this is a Buddhist idea, right? You know, focus on the moment, right? Focus, be present. But I'm here to tell you that this is a Christian idea. Read the Gospels. Whenever Jesus interacts with someone, he's not distracted. Think about when the ch-children come up to him.

You know, he's got more important things to do than to be with kids, right? Disciples try to keep the [00:44:00] kids away. Jesus is a busy guy. He's on the most important mission in the history of the world, okay? What does Jesus say? "Let the little children come to me." He's got time for them. Jesus is always fully present with people, right?

This is a deeply Christian idea, to be fully present, to focus on what is before you. And I think one of the-- my favorite passages that speak to this is Luke ten, the Mary and Martha story. You know the story well, but let me just read it. "As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.

She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, 'Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me.' 'Martha, [00:45:00] Martha,' the Lord answered, 'You are worried and upset about many things,'" or details, as the New Living Translation says, "but few things are needed, or indeed, only one.

Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Now, this is another one of those passages that is deeply unsettling, right? Because, uh, I'm kind of a Martha, right? I mean, I like to be busy. Y- you know, I, I feel like I'm doing something, right? I've got... I, I have a little to-do list on my phone.

Check, check, check, check. Man, I'm really doing something, right? Um, and it's okay to have to-do lists. It's okay to get things done. But when I read this, the assumption is that, that, uh, Ma- that Mary is wasting time, right? But Jesus says no. [00:46:00] Uh, the essential component, there's only one thing that is necessary, and it's not about doing things, even good things.

It's about being with. It's about being fully present. It's about meeting with the Lord, and I think this translates, uh, to how we interact with other people, to give ourselves fully to them, right? Seeing them as God's image-bearers. Um, there does, there's a discipleship, a missional, an evangelism component to this.

But at the very base level, it's seeing another individual that's before you as made in God's image and giving them your full, uh, attention. Jesus's words assure us that it's not a waste. According to Jesus, Mary has chosen what is better. As The Message translate it, only one thing is essential, the main course, right?

So I'd like to close by sharing, uh, one other story. A c- couple years ago, [00:47:00] uh, we were on sabbatical, and I took, uh, my three kids. My wife joined me later. Uh, we were in Italy for a few days, and I got to go to this place, Sistine Chapel. Always wanted to go, so, you know, we planned it. We got a tour. You get in there.

There's the famous sort of... If you look at the front, you got the, you know, Michelangelo painted it. He's a pretty good artist from what I hear, and- Um, you know, you got that famous scene, the creation scene where God is t- reach- you know, touching the fingers. And so the, the thing about this room is there's one sort of...

One side of the room is you come in the room, and on the other side of the room is you exit the room, right? You come in one way, and you exit the other way. So we wait in the queue for, like, an hour or two. We finally get there. I've been waiting my whole life to get there. And by the way, as I mentioned, I've got my three lovely children with me.

Uh, my wife was not there yet, so it's just me and my three kiddos. Uh, as soon as we get into the room, two of my three kids have to go to the restroom. [00:48:00] And it's an emergency, right? It's an emergency. But once you leave the room, you can't come back, right? And I'm like, "I've waited my whole life to get here."

And so I look up, and I see this beautiful image. And I thought to myself, "Yeah, it's pretty, but this is what's right before me." Okay? Which one is more beautiful? Which one is more meaningful? Which one is more important? These kiddos right over here, they are the real deal. They're made in God's image.

They're standing right before me. I, I share this with you to remember I know we focus on doing great things for God, and that's great. We can all have plans. Don't miss the present moment. Don't miss those who are right, uh, before you. So just to wrap up, each [00:49:00] morning is a new day, a new day to celebrate, to rejoice, to be grateful, a day to be glad.

Each day is an opportunity for you to grow in grace, to grow as a disciple, to grow in your sanctification. Tomorrow it's gonna come, it's gonna return again, but we will return tomorrow not in the same place as we were, but one step further along the spiral. That is why taking it one day at a time is not stagnation, but it's actually spiritual ascent.

Taking it one day at a time is God's way of making us into a changed people that we can serve Him all the better. Let me pray. Heavenly Father, we give you thanks, uh, for your Word and, uh, how it speaks to us. Help us all live into this reality of taking it one day at a time. In [00:50:00] Jesus' name we pray. Amen.