Spirit of the Living God, you call to us with sighs too deep for words. Please be with us this hour as we seek to find renewal for our lives and become all that you want us to be.   Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

Good morning, again, everybody. We are glad you are here with us today. I hope your holidays were grand. You all did a really great job pitching in on so many different levels during Advent and Christmas. You found so many ways to share the message of Emmanuel – God with us, and for us, and deciding to love us. It is the message of God bringing light into dark places, bringing balance back into places of instability and volatility when things get out of whack. It is the message of things Christ has done for us.

 

If you are here today for the very first time, I extend a special word of welcome. You are getting in on the beginning of a brand new series we are beginning today. We are going to be focusing, during the next five or six weeks, on trying to get ’08 off to a good start. We are going to be focusing on something called “the principle of balance.” 

 

It is no coincidence that in the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction, Elizabeth Gilbert’s fascinating book, Eat, Pray, Love, is the number-one best seller, and has been for months.  How many of you have seen that? Evidently, it has struck a cord in our culture.  

 

Like many in our culture, Elizabeth said, in her book, it seems she had everything and anything one could possibly want – a marriage, a country home, a very successful career, more than she could say grace over. But instead of finding meaning and significance in those wonderful things, she felt consumed by a spirit of panic and confusion. How in the world could that be? 

 

So leaving those things behind, what she called those “outward marks of success,” she set out to find what she called “balance.” Isn’t that interesting? Evidently she is not alone. There are millions searching for the same thing. 

 

The good news today is that you don’t have to go to Italy, India, or Indonesia to find it. Balance in our personal lives can be achieved right here. But as James Barber, in his book, The Forever Factor, says, “Balance in human existence doesn’t happen spontaneously. It doesn’t happen automatically. Balance in your life and my life has to be chosen. We have to be intentional about it. We have to put it into place, or it won’t happen.”

 

So, let’s get started. Let’s acknowledge it. Let’s say it right up front. The entire world is based on the principle of balance. You know, and I know planet Earth is tilted at a certain angle. It rotates a certain number of miles per hour. If it gets a little closer to the sun, we burn up. If it gets a little further away, we freeze. If we have a little more global warming, we melt. Life on planet Earth is based on the principle of balance. 

 

Our people and our leaders better get the message. It is based on balance. Without balance, buildings collapse. Without balance, bridges fall down. Those tornados – that system that came roaring through the Midwest just a week or two ago – are about balance. Things were out of balance that day. We had hot air and cold air. What does nature do? Nature doesn’t like things to be imbalanced. That is what storms are all about – putting things back in balance.

 

Our bodies, our minds, our spirits become sick, they say, when an imbalance occurs. Health, the doctors tell us, comes to our bodies, our minds, our souls, our whole bodies when we are restored to balance. When you think about it, everything, everywhere you look, all focuses on that sense of equilibrium, that universal principle of balance. Do you think the Creator of the universe is trying to tell us something? I think so. 

 

So let’s get started.

 

God wants our personal lives to be in balance, just like God wants the universe, the world to be in balance. 

 

Proverbs 28:2 says, “A person of understanding and knowledge maintains order.” 

 

First Corinthians 14:33 says, “For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace, of harmony, of balance.” 

 

Of course, the great piece in Ecclesiastes 3, that we read all the time, where the Wise One of old says, “There is a time for everything: there is a time for peace, there is a time for war, there is a time to plant, there is a time to sow and reap, there is a time to live and there is a time to die, there is a time to love and there is a time to hate, there is a time to work and there is a time to play. There is a time for everything.”

 

You see… Balance. God wants and intends for us to live balanced lives.

 

Things can get out of whack. Imbalance creates problems. Our problems develop when imbalance occurs. I hear people talk about sleep. I hear them talk about eating, about work, and play. I hear them talk about money, and sex, and power, things all out of balance. Someone once said that often our lives are like very poor photographs – over-exposed and under-developed.  

 

We tend to work on our public lives: how we look, how we smile, how we talk, how we dress, how we present ourselves in public. A lot of us are living very over-exposed lives. We know a lot of people. We have lots of contacts. We have lots of things to do in public. We try to impress everyone we see. But when we shelve our private lives, when they become under-developed, we lose our balance. 

 

The result is, first of all, frustration. Have you ever seen that guy on television who has those little, skinny sticks and a stack of dishes? He starts out with one little, tiny pole and one little dish. He has the ability to twirl it around and get it spinning. He has the talent to get it perfectly balanced. He sets it down and goes to another pole and another dish and starts doing the same thing. If he is really good, he can get three, and then four, maybe five, or more going. Of course, you know what the problem is. Just about the time everything is in balance, the first one starts to wobble a little. He runs back and gets it going again and again. He tries to get them all going at the same time. 

 

Folks, a lot of people are living their lives just like that. They are running from this to that, working on this area of their life a little and getting it going, and then leaving it, and going to another area of their life, and get it going a little. Then, about the time things seem to be in balance, something at the beginning starts to fall. Do you know what I am talking about? Frustration. That is very frustrating. Frustration is the result of imbalance in our personal lives.

 

The second result is fatigue. Ever buy a new set of tires for your car? I hate to do that, but sometimes I have to. What is the first thing you do when you buy a new set of tires? You have to have them balanced. If you don’t, what happens? They start to vibrate. They rub the wrong way. A bald spot develops, and BAM! The tire blows out. Tires blow out, but people burn out. They wear out. They get tired. We get fatigued, because of the imbalance in your life and mine.

 

In our text today, we see Jesus. I have heard and read this text and offered it during Epiphany a thousand times. I have never seen it in this light. Here is a model of balance – the way God intends life to be. 

 

Luke 2:52 says, “Jesus increased in wisdom. (He grew intellectually). He grew in stature. (He grew physically). He grew in favor with God. (He grew spiritually.) And he grew in favor with man, with human beings, with other people. (He grew socially.)”

 

That is called balance. That is what I want us to look at over the next five weeks. I want us to look at these areas. Today I just simply want to give you an overview and hope we “Get It Straight in ’08.” This is a great season to be doing that. 

 

There are five areas of our lives in which we need to keep balance.

 

We need to have mental balance. 

 

Romans 12:2 says, “Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by your will power.” No. It doesn’t say that. “…Be transformed by working harder.” No. It doesn’t say that. “…Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” It does say that.  

 

Philosophers used to say it this way: “I think, therefore, I am.” That is right. We all learned that. What we think, what we spend time thinking about, has a great deal to do with what goes on with our mental balance. 

 

There is a bunch of junk out there. There is a world of junk that would just love to infiltrate and play with your mind. Quite frankly, there is a lot of it, and you have to watch it nowadays. 

 

The key to balancing your mind is screening. It is sort of like what you do with your phone calls – screening. What are you going to invite into your mind? What you are going to think about? Are you choosing things that are true? Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and if you know the truth, that truth will set you free.” 

 

That is what he said. Freedom comes from knowing the truth: mental balance. That is what we are going to talk about next week.

 

We need to have physical balance. Everybody has been talking about that these last couple of weeks. 

 

First Corinthians 6 says, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?” 

 

Your body, my body is a temple. It is where God chooses to live – not here in this building, not in any other place – but right here in your body. So don’t put it down. Don’t denigrate it. Don’t destroy it. Don’t let that happen. It is a sacred place. Your body is sacred. 

     

Kenneth Cooper, the man who is credited for the word we call “aerobics,” tells a great story about a 46-year-old woman who came to see him with back pain that was just killing her. She couldn’t walk 75 feet without having to sit down. She was stooped over. She couldn’t stand up straight, and she had constant pain. It was just killing her. 

 

The interesting thing was lots of people have back pain, but the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong. There was no disease. There was no arthritis. There was no degeneration of the bones. There was no slipped disc. There was nothing. 

 

So, he put her on a treadmill, and she found if she set it at a certain angle, she could walk 25 whole seconds without pain. Interesting. She started doing that a couple times a day. Soon, she found she could lower that treadmill little by little until finally she was walking on a very flat surface without pain for the first time in months. Next, she started a very slow, gradual jogging, and eventually, she was up to three, five, ten miles at each outing, and pain free. 

 

Within a year, this 46-year-old woman, according to Cooper, was running marathons. Her best time: three hours and three minutes. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t drive that far in three hours and three minutes. 

 

We are talking physical balance here - getting our physical lives in shape. We need it. I need it, and it is not too late to start.

 

We need to have spiritual balance. 

 

Second Peter 3 says, “Grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” 

 

Two things: grace and knowledge. Knowledge: there is a lot to learn about God. Are you learning? There is a lot to learn about Christ. There is a lot to learn about the kingdom and about forgiveness. There is a lot to learn about compassion, and life, and death, and healing, and faith, and hope, and love, and justice, and heaven, and hell. There is a lot to learn. 

 

Grace is when we take that knowledge, and we start applying it to your life, my life, everyday kinds of stuff so that we trust God more and more all the time. When we trust, we become more of what God wants us to be, but we have to get our spiritual lives in balance.  

 

We need emotional balance.  

 

Galatians 5 says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” 

 

Those nine qualities are the qualities of emotional stability, emotional balance. When you and I are in emotional balance, we don’t get blown away when crises come. Our emotional balance enables us, helps us deal with the crises that come to your life and mine. It doesn’t matter what it is: transitions, turning points, or emergencies. These things require our emotional balance. When we have it, they don’t blow us away. We handle it.

 

We need social balance. 

 

I am talking about relationships here. You all know this. You can have a lot of things right in your life, but if your relationships are lousy, life stinks. Doesn’t it? It is not fun. It is not good. You can be a millionaire. You can be successful. You can be influential. You can be well known, but if your relationships are rotten, life reeks.  

 

Romans 12 says, “Live in harmony (live in balance) with one another. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live in peace with everyone.” 

 

That is harmony. That is social balance. You know… it is amazing. Most of us have been told… I have been told… I have even told my own children, “What you have to do is concentrate. You have to get focused. You have to pick one thing in this life and give yourself to it. That is the only path to success.” 

 

Have you heard this? I know you have. 

 

Charles Garfield, from the University of California at San Francisco, in his article, “Seven Secrets of Peak Performers,” says his study of 1,500 outstanding achievers in all walks of life, business, education, athletics, medicine, law, whatever, says basically that principle is not so. “No,” he says, “the number one characteristic I found in top performers, high performance, is guess what? Balance. People who live well-rounded lives, have balance.” 

 

A lot of us have been sold a bill of goods. We have been told we have to make choices. We have been told, in order to have a successful career, we have to set aside and shelve our personal lives. That is hogwash. The truth is, people who pour themselves into their careers or anything else and shelve their personal lives eventually find their careers suffering. Any time any part of your life becomes all-important, everything, including that part, will crumble because balance is a universal principle. It is a God-given universal principle. 

 

So, finally, today… How? How do we get started? Three things very quickly:

 

Step 1: Take an inventory. Look at your life. Where am I in balance? Where am I out of balance? What is missing? 

 

Remember the story, in the Scripture, called the Prodigal Son? There was a man who was out of balance. A young man, all of a sudden, came into a lot of wealth, and went out and blew it all, and ended up living in a pigsty. He came to a turning point. Luke 15 says, “He came to his senses.” He took a hard look at himself. He said, “I don’t want to live like this. This stinks. I have to get my life back in balance.” 

 

I want to challenge you to join me in the next five weeks to get our lives back in balance: socially, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and mentally. Let’s get in balance. I want you to go home and do a personal check-up. If you are really serious about joining us in this, I want you to ask your mate for an evaluation of you. If you don’t have a mate, get a best friend. The reason I want to ask you to do this is because you and I have some blind spots. We all do. We have some blind spots. I want you to get a second opinion.

 

Step 2: Write down a plan of action. 

Ephesians 5 says, “Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise persons.” 

 

We are not talking about will power here. We hear a lot about will power these days. So many want to tell us it is all about will power. That is not what we are talking about. You need a plan. 

 

Step 3: Establish Christ at the center of your life. 

I don’t know much about physics, but they tell me that, in terms of a wheel that goes round and round, all the power has to come through that point called the hub. Then it gets distributed out to the spokes. When it gets distributed out to the spokes, that wheel turns around. I want to suggest to you, in like manner, when you put the Spirit of the Living Christ at the very center of your life, the very hub of your life, that power, which is that Spirit, can come through that center and go out into all of these areas we are going to be talking about. The Spirit can create balance, the balance God wants in my life, your life, the world’s life. 

 

That is why I believe Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all the rest will be given to you.” 

 

It will become the hub, the focus. 

 

I visit with lots of people, in lots of times and places, and it is sort of the message that continues to come down to me in any variety of ways. It boils down to this: “My life is falling apart for one reason or another or a dozen reasons. How do I put it back together?” 

 

Colossians 1 says, “Jesus is the image, the picture, the face of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. All things were created by him and for him. In him all things pull together.” 

 

Are you or somebody you know or love having a hard time getting life balanced? Are things out of whack? I think this is where it starts. Choose him. Put him first. Put him at the center and watch. Watch him pull things back together. This is not will power. This is not self-help. Balance starts with Christ at the center, at the hub. If we do that, I believe this new season, this new year that has begun, can involve some marvelous new things. And, if that is the case, and if this is something you want, I am going to ask you to pray, in your heart, the prayer I am going to share right now with you. Just pray it in your heart now as I speak the words.

 

Lord, this may be the very first time I have asked this. It may be the fiftieth time.   Either way, I humbly, yet boldly, unashamedly ask you to be the focal point, the hub, the center of my life. Believing, Lord, that with you there, whatever is going on in my life will be brought into balance. I love you. I need you. I need your help. I can’t pull this off by myself. Help me this season to get it straight. Help me balance my life’s demands, and help me become all that you, Lord, want me to be. I ask it in Jesus’ name.

 

And all the people say… “Amen.”

 

 

Re-creating Spirit, thank you for making us new and renewed! Help us to walk in the ways of Jesus. When we walk by faith, our balance will be steady. When we walk in the love of Christ, we can give to the world what you’ve given us already. Amen.