Today, we begin a sermon series called “License Plate Sightings.” We’re going to spend the next several weeks through Labor Day Weekend focusing on Jesus’ teachings from the Gospel of Luke. Each Sunday, we’ll focus on a vanity license plate that will correspond with a particular teaching of Jesus.
A couple of years ago, I was reading an article in the Columbus Dispatch that focused on the popularity of religious vanity license plates. The article said that over the past six years, a Bloom Township couple has identified 275 religious vanity license plates while out driving.
These include O GLORY, 1 FAITH, & JC FREAK and some that are a little more difficult to decipher. Some of the plates include scripture references like LUKE 6 31. That’s the Golden Rule in which Jesus says, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
So let’s get started. Our vanity plate for today is KISS. KISS is a shorthand way of saying, “Keep it simple…saint.” You thought I was going to use a different word, didn’t you? Jesus wants us to remember to keep things simple. I like this K.I.S.S. reminder from Jesus because it’s so easy for us to complicate things end get our focus off of what is vitally important.
The Gospel writer, Luke, introduces us to Mary and Martha who provide a place for Jesus to stay during his journey. Mary kept things simple. She simply sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to him, something that I hope we do during this entire sermon series and beyond this series for our daily living - listening to Jesus. The implication in this story is that Martha also wanted to listen to Jesus but felt that she couldn’t listen because of all of the things that needed to get done. Martha was distracted.
Whenever I read this story, I can always relate to Martha. I know that we should be more like Mary and listen to Jesus, but do you want your guest to see dishes in the sink, shoes in front of the couch, an unmade bed, an unclean bathroom, and dirty windows?
And when you know that you’re going to be entertaining a guest at your house, it’s always good to have a little extra help to clean things up like maybe your sister, Mary…hint, hint, someone like Mary, to come and lend a hand or two to get things ready for your guests. Mary didn’t even bother to ask Martha if she could help her.
You got to feel for Martha in all of this. She wants things to be nice and she wants to be a good host.
So let me ask us this question. Was Mary lazy? Was she unaware of the dishes in the sink, the shoes in front of the couch, the unmade bed, the unclean bathroom, and the dirty windows?
I don’t think that Mary was unaware of these things. I just think that she was more aware of Jesus.
I mean, how often are you given the opportunity to host the Son of God in your home and listen to Him face to face? Martha, on the other hand, was more aware of the tasks that had to be completed, than she was with the physical presence of Jesus.
And so Martha allows her distraction to interrupt this holy moment. Martha tells Jesus, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me.”
And Jesus tells Martha, “You are distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Do you know what Jesus was telling Martha? Simplify your life. Stay focused on me. Don’t let anything get in the way of our relationship. Arrange your life in such a way that nothing gets between us. Keep your life simple.
What kind of distractions do we allow to get in the way of our relationship with Jesus Christ? I think it all boils down to external distractions and internal distractions.
What are some external distractions that can get in the way of us having a vital and growing relationship with Jesus Christ?
External factors are distractions that are beyond our control.
If you are ever preparing for a ministry event that will touch lives for Jesus Christ, expect there to be lots and lots of external distractions getting in your way.
Just think about the Book of Acts in the New Testament. There were a lot of external distractions that the apostles had to face. It’s amazing. They were thrown in prison, beaten, & often misunderstood by the crowds as they shared the good news of their faith.
Whenever you try to do something good in the name of Christ, expect external distractions to come your way. But in the midst of those external distractions that are beyond our control, let us also keep in mind that Jesus promises to see us through those distractions.
Oswald Chambers the great Christian writer from the last century and who has written the great devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest, says this about the trials and external problems that we face as Christians. “If you are going to be used by God, he will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all; they are meant to make you useful in God’s hands.”
God allows us to encounter external distractions so that we can be more useful in His hands.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism once commented during a period of time in his ministry that he must have been doing something wrong because things were going so smoothly for him.
Churches that aren’t experiencing problems and frustrations are probably not being faithful in their mission. Christians that aren’t experiencing problems and frustrations are probably not being faithful in their mission. Jesus himself said, “You will experience tribulations in this world. Count on it.”
The keys to handling these external distractions are for us to number one, 1) Expect distractions to happen, and 2) Stay focused on what God wants you to do. If what we are doing is what God wants us to do, then we don’t need to worry about the external distractions.
Cicero once said, “The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.” William Shakespeare said, “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
In our scripture from Luke’s Gospel, Martha allowed an external distraction, the need to get the house ready for Jesus, to get in the way of her main mission which was to be with Jesus and grow in a personal relationship with Jesus. She allowed an external distraction, which was the need to provide hospitality to get in the way of what was most important in that moment.
I understand these external distractions all too well. In one of the churches I served, I was about to process up the sanctuary aisle to begin worship one Sunday morning when someone came up to me, grabbed my worship stoles and said, “the downstairs toilet is running over!” And so, we had to delay worship so that we could figure out what to do.
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. On Friday, NPR interviewed a 60 year old man who shared how his father helped with the mission. The man was only ten years old at the time.
When the ship was leaving the moon to return to earth, a satellite dish bearing had broken and his dad needed to think of a solution. Without that bearing in the satellite dish fixed, they wouldn’t be able to communicate with the astronauts during the return trip.
The problem was that nobody at the command center could reach back to a bearing through a small hole in the satellite dish that needed to be greased so his father went home and woke up his son and brought him to the station. This ten year old’s arm was small enough to fit through the hole to grease the bearing. And sure enough, the satellite started working again.
That ten year old boy who is now 60 telling this story, shared how he was so proud of his dad for thinking of a solution to what was a major problem and he was glad he could help him.
External distractions will come our way. They happen to all of us. The question is how do we handle those external distractions so they don’t take away our focus on Christ.
But in addition to external distractions, we also have to deal with internal distractions. Unlike external distractions, internal distractions are things that we can control more or less.
But in addition to external distractions, we also have to deal with internal distractions. Unlike external distractions, internal distractions are things that we can control more or less.
For example, even though Martha was dealing with the external distraction of needing to get the house ready for Jesus, she didn’t need to interrupt Jesus and Mary like she did. In trying to avoid a social faux pa in not providing hospitality, Martha actually committed a faux pa when she interrupted them.
A good friend of mine served on staff at a large church and he was telling me that his church bought over a hundred devotional books for people in the church who wanted to intentionally read scripture throughout the year. When I talked to my friend a few months later, I asked him how things were going with the devotional books. And he said, “Most people had let the discipline of reading the scriptures every day go by the wayside. Most of the people were not even reading the devotional book anymore.”
Sometimes, it’s just a matter that we don’t follow through with our commitments and keeping our focus on Christ. We allow internal distractions to get in the way of what is most important. Why did people in my friend’s church stop reading the devotional book? They found other things that they wanted to do with their time.
It takes a real commitment for us to keep things simple in our Christian faith.
One of the ways that we seek to keep things simple here in our church is to have a very clear mission and a very clear strategy in living out our mission. We don’t want to over complicate what we are about here as a church.
So, our clear mission is that we make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of our community and world. And our clear strategy to make that happen is for each person in our church to have a Loving Faith, a Learning Faith, and a Living Faith. I call this our 3 “L” discipleship strategy.
I pray this strategy every single morning at 11 o’clock. I call it the “L” prayer @ Eleven. “Lord, lead us in having a Loving Faith, a Learning Faith, and a Living Faith.”
We even have the ministries of our church fall under one of those “L’s.”
A Loving Faith ministry is any ministry that helps us to love God and love each other. A Learning Faith ministry is any ministry that helps us to learn about our faith. A Living Faith ministry is any ministry that helps us to live our our faith by serving others.
How simple is that? We make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world by having a Loving Faith, a Learning Faith, and a Living Faith.
Last month, before the vacation season, I encouraged us to keep three things in mind for these summer months. The first thing was for us to enjoy the summer. Enjoy this beautiful time of the year. The second thing was for us to keep practicing the spiritual disciplines of our faith like attending weekly worship, praying, reading the Bible, and serving.
And then the third thing I shared was for us to look forward to an incredible church-wide event that our church will be hosting next month on August 16 and 17, Friday dinner through Saturday afternoon. We’re calling it “Faith Builders” to help us strengthen the relationships we have inside as well as outside our church.
A good friend of mine, Rev. Jeff Motter will be our retreat leader for this event. I mention this in the sermon today for two reasons. First of all, we are receiving reservations for this event. But secondly, I mention it because this retreat will help our church to keep things simple which is our worship theme for today.
Church doesn’t have to be all that complicated. Being part of a church family is all about having healthy and growing relationships with each other and with the people in our community. Yes, it’s really that simple. It’s all about having healthy relationships.
When I was ordained an Elder in the United Methodist Church back in 1991, a dear friend of mine, my spiritual mentor gave me a wonderful gift. It was a small New Testament bible that could fit in the glove compartment of my car. It’s been my constant road companion in all my cars since 1991. In fact, I used this bible this past week when I was making a hospital visit.
My friend knew that this little bible would come in handy for me when I would be out making pastoral visits. And knowing how easy it can be in the pastoral ministry to focus on things that really don’t matter, compared to keeping our focus on Christ, he wrote these words inside that little bible.
Sometimes, I will open it up and remind myself of his words to me. It says, “Robert, stay focused on Christ!”
Mary teaches us what it means to keep our focus on Christ. She teaches us how to overcome the external distractions and even the internal distractions that may come our way.
How do you and I keep our focus on Christ and not on things that aren’t really all that important? Remember today’s vanity license plate message…
KISS.
Keep it simple, saint.
License Plate Sightings: KISS
Sermon Discussion Questions
Luke 10:38-42
July 21, 2019
We are beginning a 7-week sermon series on “License Plate Sightings” in which we will be looking at a vanity license plate messages that corresponds to Jesus’ teachings from the Gospel of Luke. Vanity license plates often will have a subtle way of stating something fun or important to the other drivers on the road.
Share an interesting vanity license message that you have seen. Why do you think the driver chose that message?
Sunday’s vanity plate message is KISS which stands for “Keep it Simple, Saint.” This is what Mary teaches us to do from our Luke scripture passage because she didn’t allow the distractions around her to get in the way of keeping her primary focus on Jesus.
Read Luke 10:38-42 which is the story about Mary and Martha.
Why do you think that Martha was distracted? Why wasn’t Mary distracted?
Pastor Robert shared that that there are external and internal distractions that can keep us from our focus on Christ. External distractions are out of our control but there are two things for us to keep in mind when facing them. 1) Know that they will happen and we can’t avoid them. 2) Stay focused on what God wants you to do.
Share some external distractions that you have faced or that you are facing now?
In addition to external distractions that are out of our control, we also face internal distractions that are in our control, like making our faith a priority in our lives. One of the ways that our church helps one another to KISS, is by emphasizing the “3 ‘L’ Discipleship” strategy. We encourage each other to be involved in at least one ministry in each of these three “L’s.” These include having a LOVING FAITH, a LEARNING FAITH, and a LIVING FAITH. Go to our church website and at the top of our homepage there are 3 tabs that will list our ministries.
How can these “3 ‘L’” ministries KISS? Why are all three areas important?
Pastor Robert shared that a friend of his always reminded him to “stay focused on Jesus.” Even though his friend has passed away, he will always remember these words.
Share at least one way that you can KISS beginning this week.
Pray our church’s “L” Prayer @ Eleven Prayer each day at 11 am. “Lord, lead us in having a Loving Faith, a Learning Faith, and a Living Faith. Amen.”
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