Marriage and Singleness

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Message M1: Marriage and Singleness October 26, 2008

Title: Marriage, Singleness and Mutual Submission

Text: Ephesians 5: 18, 21-30

Big Idea: When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, whether we are married or single, we will pour ourselves out in love for others.

We know from life experience that certain truths are counter-intuitive.

After the terrorist attacks on September 11, Rudy Giuliani, who was then the mayor of New York City, was hailed for his able leadership during a time of crisis.

When Mayor Giuliani was asked how he was able to lead under such great pressure, he said, “My father taught me that the greater the crisis we face, the more calm we must become. So I try to practice that. The greater the crisis, the calmer I seek to be.”

It is paradoxical. It is counter-intuitive. We would tend to think that in the midst of a great crisis we would need to become more intense, more tight-fisted. But great leadership is exercised by those who can remain calm in a crisis.

The Boston Celtics basketball star, Larry Bird, used to say at critical moments in the game the court would get quiet and the players would seem to be moving in slow motion. The great athletes are able to perform at their peak during the critical moments of a game because they are able to relax.

Studies have shown that the optimal heart beat for peak performance is between 115 and 145 beats per minute. Once our heart beat goes above that, our performance tends to diminish because we are over-aroused. That is part of why some athletes tend to choke during the most important part of the game, and other athletes tend to flourish.

One would think, that in sports, great performance would come out of intense, clench-fisted effort. The fact is that part of great performance as an athlete is about relaxing on the court, on the field. It’s counter-intuitive.

This principle of paradox is also true in relationships, in a marriage, in particular. The word “submission” is an offensive word to many people in our culture. And, on first impression, it would seem to be the last thing that would help a relationship. We tend to think that to get the most out of a relationship, we have to hold on to our rights—have to grab as much as we can from the other person. But if we are able to let go and give (or “submit”) we will find that our relationships, whether they are as married or as single people, flourish.

Today we are going to begin a series that will cover aspects of both marriage and singleness in the Spirit. Today we are going to tackle the very controversial subject (just warning you) of what submission likes in a marriage and then briefly as people who are single.

Hear the apostle Paul and what the Spirit of God may say through him to us today.

If you have your Bibles, please turn to Ephesians 5: 21-33

²¹ Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

²² Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing ^[b] her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸ In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ After all, people have never hated their own bodies, but they feed and care for them, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰ for we are members of his body. ³¹ "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." ^{[c] 32} This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³ However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

This famous passage on marriage is preceded by Ephesians 5:18.

¹⁸ Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

In fact in the Greek from vs. 18 to 23 is one continuous sentence.

Paul in Ephesians 5:18 calls us to be filled with the Holy Spirit—“don’t be drunk on wine but be filled with the Spirit.” Perhaps the biggest cause for conflict and breakdown in both marriages and the relationships of single people is self-centeredness.

All of us are self-centered in ways that we are probably not even aware of.

Aristotle says, says if when we are a soldier in a war, for example, and an arrow is shot through the sky and hits someone beside us, and not us, we think “What good luck that it wasn’t me.” We tend to define reality and good fortune in terms of what’s good for us.

When two people do that in a relationship, it tends to kill the relationship.

When we are filled with the Spirit of Jesus, a Spirit which (according to Philippians 2) looks out for not just our own interests, but also for the interests of others…. we will find ourselves becoming more giving people… willing to pour ourselves out for people…. It is as we are filled with the Holy Spirit that we can live out the kind of relationships that God has called us into, whether we are married or single.

What’s the most radical and culturally disturbing aspect of the Ephesians text?

Isn’t it the line, “Wives submit to your husbands?

But that wouldn’t have been the case in Paul’s day.

The radical statement in Paul’s day would have been, Ephesians 5:21

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This would have been a radical statement in Paul’s culture. In Paul’s world it was typical to call on wives to submit to their husbands; slaves to submit to their masters. But to call on husbands and wives and members of households to submit to each other was radical. The call for husbands to love their wives would have also been unheard of.

“Wives submit to your husbands” sounds offensive to us today.

So, it is important to understand the cultural context in which Paul is giving this call.

Though Paul is seen as conservative and traditional by many people who would read him today, Paul was seen as being a subversively progressive in his own day and empowering to women.

How so?

In a culture that was very patriarchal and did not recognize the leadership of women, Paul recognizes the gifts and the leadership among women. In Romans 16, for example we see Paul affirming the leadership of many women in the church, including, Junia, who occupies the office of apostle, the highest position of leadership that someone could hold in the church of Paul’s day.

1 Cor 7 Paul says that the wife has authority over husband’s body.

1 Cor. 7 Paul says if a wife is married to and unbelieving husband and he does not want to stay with her because of her faith in Christ, she is free from the marriage. That statement would have been surprising for people, because in Paul’s day it was the assumption that a wife would take the gods of her husband.

As I mentioned a few moments ago, while it was very common for people in Paul’s day to talk about wives submitting to husbands, the talk of mutual submission in a household was unheard of. It was unheard for husbands to lay down their lives for their wives.

So Paul would have been seen as a liberal subversive in his own day, a person who sought to affirm the value, leadership, and rights of women.

Part of the reason why Paul in Ephesians 5 calls on women to submit to their husbands is so that he does not unnecessarily offend people outside of the faith who may think he is destroying an important traditional family structure. This is why Paul in Titus 2:5 says to women, “be subject to your husbands, so that no-one will malign the work of God.”

What would have stood out to Paul’s hearers in Ephesus is the call in Chapter 5, vs. 21 (because it was so counter-cultural), the call to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

In a healthy marriage the norm is mutual submission.

Wives submitting to husbands, yet but husbands submitting to wives.

Paul says submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. It’s out of devotion to God that we submit to each other…

Even secular people understand this idea—though they use different language.

One of the most helpful pieces of counsel that I have received before being married to Sakiko came from one of John Gottman’s books. He said, “Let your spouse influence you.”

Men who allow their wives influence them tend to have happier marriages and are less likely to divorce.

Marriages where husband and wife are seen as equal (different), but equal are far happier.

Patriarchal marriages tend be much less happy and healthy—with more incidences of violence and depression and marriage failure.

According to John Gottman, when a man is not willing to share his power with his wife, there is an 81% chance their marriage will self-destruct.

Does the call to mutual submission mean that Paul doesn’t believe there are any role distinctions between men and women?

No.

It’s interesting that Paul uses different language as he calls men and women to be faithful in marriage.

He calls on husbands to love their wives and cherish them.

But in vs. 33 he calls on wife to respect their husbands.

(But, of course, the reverse is also true, husbands are to respect their wives and wives are to love their husbands—but it’s interesting that language Paul uses different language to exhort husband and wife).

Part of what this distinction of language suggests is that Paul believes that while men and women are equal, there are real differences between them. Paul and the Bible in general affirm that there is a nature difference between men and women (though of course there is overlap between so-called male and female qualities people and exceptions to what is generally the rule).

I remember being in a conversation fairly recently with a feminist scholar who told me that she had believed that the gender differences between male and female were just a result of our social environment. But as the result of having kids of her own, she said that that view of hers has been seriously challenged (and are now frankly more in line with current social science research). She notices that her son, though she encourages him to be gentle, loves to make weapons out of things. He will take a stick and make it into a sword, whereas her daughter tends to be much more gentle and peaceful. Studies have shown that if there is an object in the room, the boy tends to knock it over or grow through it, whereas the girl will typically go around it. Obviously, there are exceptions, but generally speaking boys tend to be more aggressive than girls, and girls tend to be gentler than boys.

As Carol Gilligan has pointed out in her landmark book, A Different Voice, that even when and men and women have exactly the same job, they tend to go about it a different way. A man tends to be more independent, a woman more interdependent. A man tends to care for others so he can achieve some sort of impact. A woman tends to want to achieve something in order to care for people. Again obviously there is overlap between male and females qualities and exceptions to the general rule.

What does Paul mean when he says the husband is head of the wife in vs. 23? This is could be quite inflammatory if not read in the context of the whole passage.

The context is telling us that the husband is not called to be the “head” to boss his wife around, but rather (vs. 25) to be like Jesus Christ to his wife—i.e., to never use his position as husband for his own advantage, but to pour himself out for her so that she becomes more beautiful. Being a head like Jesus, is not permission to boss someone round, but to lay your life down for them.

Part of the reason Paul calls on men to pour out their lives for their wives like Jesus Christ, I believe, is because we men can at times be very dominant in a self-serving, sinful way, but we can also be tempted to evade responsibility, as well. This tendency to evade responsibility and be passive can be traced back to our ancient forbear Adam, who when asked by God, “Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not eat from?” Adam doesn’t say yes or no, but he says, “The woman, she gave me some of the fruit and I ate it.” Men can be dominant, but men can also evade responsibility and be passive.

When I was teaching in the Philippines a couple of years ago, my host was telling me that in many cases the Philippine household is actually run by the woman. The woman is not only taking care of the kids, but she’s the one who’s out working--she is the breadwinner. The husband is often just sitting at home watching TV, using the money that that his wife earns on his girlfriends.

I asked my host. “Do women like that kind of privileged position of being leader of the household, the breadwinner?” My host Stephen said, “You know, most women would just love if their husbands would take some initiative and responsibility in the home.”

To illustrate a little closer to home, in almost all cases that I am aware of, even if a woman is a greater leader, she prefers to be in a romantic relationship where the man initiates and take responsibility.

Even if the woman knows that she really wants to marry a man, in every culture that I am aware of, a woman prefers it if the man proposes.

As a pastor, I’ve been heard many proposal stories. I’ve never heard a woman say, “I’m really angry, because I wanted to pop the question, but he beat me to it.”

What Paul is saying here in this passage when he talks about the husband being a head like Jesus Christ, that he is to pour himself out in love for his wife as Christ has done for the church. Paul says, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and laid his life down for it.” A husband is to use his role not for his own selfish advantage, but for the benefit of his wife.

Two qualifiers…

When Paul does call on wives to submit to their husbands (and remember submission goes both ways), the wife’s submission to the husband is never unconditional.

If the husband asks the wife to do something that is clearly out of the will of God, in the same way that we are to disobey government if we are asked by government (Acts 5) to… a wife would be called to disobey her husband in that kind of situation, and vice versa.

When a husband suggests something ridiculous, the wife should oppose that.

So what does it mean for a wife to support her husband? I think it’s when her husband takes initiatives in a way that reflects Jesus Christ… then part of what the wife does is to affirm that and when you do that… your husband becomes more of man in the best sense and most loving sense…

At a wedding sometimes I turn to the groom and say… As Adam sang over Eve in Genesis 2, “so cherish your wife and she’ll blossom like a beautiful flower…” I turn to the bride and say, “ If you respect your husband, and make him feel like a champion, he’ll be a champion of a man in the best sense of that word…”

Paul, in Ephesians 5:21, talks about mutual submission, not just within marriages, but within the larger Christian family where there are married and single people. Paul also calls us to exercise mutual submission within the larger family of Christ.

We live in a culture that prizes autonomy and individualism and freedom from any kind of obligation, perhaps above all else. Paul, in Ephesians 5, said that husbands are to love their wives like Jesus Christ, by pouring out their lives for him. The Scriptures teach us that when we give our lives to God, we become part of God’s family, that we are brothers and sisters.

The Scripture teaches us that we are our brother’s keeper; we are our sister’s keeper.

Part of what this means that we are willing to pour out our lives for each other.

There are many different applications of this, of course, but one of the applications is that we will speak the truth in love.

In Lauren Winner’s book, Real Sex, she describes a scene from Danielle Crittenden’s novel, Amanda Bright@Home: “One night Amanda Bright’s best friend Susie comes for dinner, with her new boyfriend in tow. Amanda is charmed by the beau, but just before dessert Susie tells Amanda that he is married. Amanda is shocked and angry and is worried about her friend. Amanda’s husband Bob pooh-poohs her concerns, insisting that Susie is a grown-up and that her affairs are her…well, her affairs. Amanda finds herself convinced by Bob’s reasoning.”

We live in a culture that believes that our affairs are our affairs. People’s business is their business. But the Bible teaches that if we belong to the family of God, what is going on in your life is my business, what is going on in my life is your business, because I am your brother and you are my sister or my brother we care for each other.

Part of what mutual submission in the family of Christ means is that on the one hand we are willing to pour out our lives for each other by speaking the truth in love, but we are also willing to submit to our brothers and sisters, if, and as, they call us to the way of Christ.

In the 1990s I spent a summer in Singapore. I was doing ministry internship there. I was hosted by a group called Eagles Communication, a band of brothers and sisters who dedicated themselves to serve the Lord through this ministry called The Eagles. Early on they took a vow that for the first couple years of ministry none of them would marry so they could really focus on God and the work that God was calling them to. Since that period of a couple of years have passed, and a number of the people from the community have gotten married. But The Eagles will say that none of them will get married unless their decision to marry this person has been affirmed by the community. This is really unusual in our day and age, but I think healthy.

If you are single and thinking about marrying someone, and all your friends, and particularly your Christian friends, are dead against it, your family is against it, it would be wise to submit to that, assuming your friends have reasonably good judgment (and are not completely nuts).

What makes it work for The Eagles is the fact that are committed to doing life together, not just working together in ministry, but doing meals, playing tennis, shopping together. It is hard to call people to the way of Christ when it relates to their personal life, their romance lives, their terms of Sabbath-keeping, their financial lives. But if we are in close relationship with people, it can be done.

I remember conversations with close friends where I have asked them, “How are you doing with your fiancé? Are you tempted sexually?” Or, with a married person, “Are you tempted to be unfaithful?” Those questions just don’t come out of the blue. They come out of relationships where we have worked together, run together, biked together, done life together. In almost all cases, those kinds of questions have been deeply appreciated, and, likewise, when people have spoken into my life I have been deeply appreciative. For example, when I was working in Japan and a couple of people started to express their concerns that I was becoming too materialistic, I was really challenged by that. I was led to give more away, to work less and give more away.

Part of what it means to be a member of a healthy family is that we submit to each other. If we are married, as husband and wife, or if we are single, that we submit to each other in the family of God.

How we do become secure, humble, and open to love? It’s by being filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit. When we are filled with the Spirit of Jesus, we become confident and humble enough like Jesus to pour out our lives for others and to submit to each other.

Let’s pray (invitation to respond).

Finding Our Calling (Oct 12, 08)

Sermon Notes Work M5

Title: Finding Our Calling

Texts: Eph. 2: 10; 1 Cor. 12:7

The movie Simon Birch is a story of a 12-year-old boy named Simon, who despite his miniature size and abnormally small heart, senses that God has a plan for him.

Show clip:

The small-town’s tired minister doubts that God could have a plan for small Simon Birch. In a conversation between Simon, the 12-year-old boy, and his minister, Simon asks, “Does God have a plan for us?” The minister hesitantly replies, “I like to think he does.” Simon Birch says enthusiastically, “Me, too! I think I am made the way I am for a reason.” The minister coolly states, “I am glad that your faith helps you deal with your, you know, your condition.” “That’s not what I mean,” Simon states. “I think I am God’s instrument. He is going to use me to carry out his plan.” The minister says, “It is wonderful to have faith, son, but let’s not overdo it.”

Could God have a plan for someone who was born in a miniature body like Simon Birch? Could God have a plan and a call for ordinary people like us who do not fill the pages of Scripture?

Throughout the scriptures we see that God calls people to himself… and then calls them to do a work for him. We see this dramatically in the lives of people like Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Elijah, Esther, Mary, and Paul. We see this throughout the pages of Scripture.

But could God have a plan for someone like Simon Birch? Could God have a plan and a call for ordinary people like us?

Today we’re going to look at how each of has a call (or series of calls) from God and how we discover that call.

Paul, in Ephesians 2: 10, tells us that we are God’s handiwork:

¹⁰ For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Before we were born, Scripture tells us, God had planned good works for us to do.

Our call to do those good works, will typically involve the use of certain gifts God has given us, certain passions, and meeting certain needs in our world.

If we give our lives over to God, we are also given certain spiritual gifts by God.

Paul says in 1 Cor. 12: 7 Now to each one the manifestation (or a gift) of the Spirit is given for the common good.

Some of the gifts that Paul lists include: service, teaching, encouraging, giving, leadership, mercy (Romans 12). Wisdom, discernment, and knowledge are listed (1 Cor 12). Other gifts are also mentioned in Ephesians 4. All the lists are samplings of gifts, none of them are exhaustive.

The calling God has for us will be determined, in part, by the gifts God has given us, Part of our call will also be determined by our passion, what we desire, love to do. Paul, in Philippians 2: 13, says for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Calling will also relate to the needs around us—as gifts are given as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:7, for the common good.

Frederick Buechner, the pastor and writer, has said, The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet. So, vocation, which comes from the root word “vocal,” which is related to the word “call,” relates to our gifts, but also to our passion, our desire to meet certain needs. Calling is not simply about the exercise of gifts and passions, but it is also about the meeting of needs in the world.

In a world that is affected by the sin virus, none of us will have a perfect landscape in which to exercise all of our gifts and our passions.

In the movie version of Babette’s Feast there are two beautiful sisters in a small poor Danish village near the Sea during the 18^th century. One of the sisters has an angelic singing voice, but has no opportunity to develop it. A famous opera singer from Paris who meets her when he happens to be passing through their small village says “In Paradise… you will forever be the great artist God intended you to be.” In this world though we may not have the perfect context to use all of our gifts, our calling will involve us using our gifts in the context that God places us.

Not only does sin compromise our capacity to use our gifts because we will never have the perfect “landscape” in which to use them, but sin compromises our interior landscape and causes us to pursue pseudo-callings, or false callings, that don’t reflect God’s design for us. Sometimes in “vocational” decisions we are overly influenced by money, or the prospect of power, or approval, the expectations of our family or society, and we choose a life path that will bring us one or more of these things, rather than pursuing what God has created us to be and do….

At this time I am going to invite David Bentall, who with his wife Alison, worships with us in our 3^rd service, to come and share part of his journey in discovering his call. Many of you would know who he is. His family is well-known and respected here in the Vancouver area and beyond for his leadership in construction business. You’ve seen the Bentall Towers downtown. When David was president of Dominion Construction, GM Place was built and he was also part of the team that helped create a successful Olympic bid. David is also as you’ll see a person of deep faith in Jesus Christ. Some of you would know his daughters Jennifer, Christy or Stephanie who worship here too.

At this time I am going to invite David to come and share part of his story with us.

How to Make a Life(Oct 5,2008)

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Message Work M4

Text: Genesis 3: 14-23; Exodus 20: 8-11

Title: How to Make a Life, Not Just a Living

Big Idea: We can be protected from over-work through Sabbath, giving money and time, and relationships.

We’re in this series on work and how our work relates to our relationship with God.

We’ve talked about how work is a gift, but the fact is many people have an uneasy relationship with work.

According to the Gallup poll that I cited a couple of weeks ago, 55% of workers say they have no enthusiasm for their job. According to that same Gallup poll, 1 in 5 have such a negative attitude toward their job that their companies would be better off if they called in sick, rather than actually coming in to work.

If work was intended to be a gift from God, why do some want to avoid work?

And why is it that others tend to over-work?

In Genesis 3 we read about the “fall” of humankind into sin.

Because men and women sinned, certain curses came into the world.

¹⁷ To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.

¹⁸ It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.

¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return."

²³ So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.

Here in Genesis 3 we read about some of the effects of the sin virus coming into the world. So it is with work. Work was intended to be a gift from God, something that God gave to human beings before the sin virus came into the world. But because of the sin virus, work has become complicated. In verse 17 we read that the ground has become cursed because of sin and “through painful toil, you will eat of it all the days of your life. By the sweat of your brow”

Work was meant to be a gift to us, but, because of sin, it can be marked with all kinds of frustration and complications. If you have you ever tried to cultivate a garden, you know how difficult it to get the lawn and flower bed just the way you want them to be, but how easy it is for weeds to come up out of nowhere.

Another of the complications that we experience because of sin is that our desires around work become disordered.

Work was meant to be a gift from God, but we can have extreme attitudes toward it. We can be lazy or we can over-work…

Monday is my day off. When Sakiko and I got married, she was shocked to see on a Monday, if we were out and it happened to be a nice day, there would be so many people on the beaches on a Monday during work hours—something you would never see in Japan. She would ask, “Aren’t these people supposed to be at work?” And I would say, “Some of them may be on vacation. Some people actually have Monday off. But it is likely that with such a nice day quite a few may have called in to say ‘I’m sick’.” According to a Reader’s Digest survey of their readers, 63% percent of people admitted they have called in sick to work when they weren’t sick.

As human beings we can be tempted towards laziness, but, on the other hand, we can also become workaholics and allow ourselves to be defined by our work.

When I was in working Japan, a phrase I would often hear was the “7-11 man,” the person who worked from 7 in the morning to 11 at night. Though technically my work day did not begin at 7 nor end at 11, my work day, in essence, began at 7:00 a.m. (because that was the time I left my apartment) and it was not until 11:10 p.m. I would arrive home at night from work. It was certainly true of Tokyo and it can be true of a laid-back city like Vancouver, that we can become workaholics defined by our work.

Even if we are not working from 7 to 11, we can make work a kind of idol, in that our identity can become too wrapped up in what we do, as opposed to who we are.

A couple of weeks ago when Penny Crosby was sharing here, she talked about how her husband Wayman was a successful entrepreneur, and she was for many years a homemaker, or volunteer Bible study leader working from home…. Whenever she would be at a party with her husband and his work colleagues, she would be terrified about the prospect of being asked the question, “What do you do?”

I was out of regular, full-time work for about 10 months, during my transition time from California to Vancouver. People were encouraging me to relax, but it’s hard to relax when you’re looking for work and wondering what you’ll do next… I had always been either a student or employed at corporation or church… it felt unsettling being this floating position.

Our identities can become too wrapped up in what we do, rather than who we are.

For a number of weeks we have talked about how working before the face of God can give us passion for our work, so that we do our work well. But the other side of the coin is that work can completely dominate us.

So this morning I want us to explore how we ensure work doesn’t become too important to us, an idol. How do we ensure that we establish not just a living through our work, but make a life while we work?

At this time I am going to invite Kevin Falk, a member of Tenth and a member of our board of elders, to come forward and share part of his journey with us:

Testimony: Kevin Falk

Personal Story

Growing up on a farm in northern BC has taught me the value of hard work.

During the summers I would work from the early morning until the mid evening cleaning the barns, feeding the animals and setting up the irrigation systems for our fields; and during the school months I would get home from school in the late afternoon, do a few chores until dinner, then homework in the evenings.

This certainly can teach a person about the blessings of hard work. But somewhere along the way I began to place my value and identity in this work.

Even as early as my elementary school days this was surfacing as a problem. I was a good student however my teachers were very concerned about my obsessive drive and extreme and unrealistic goal setting. I felt that by setting an extreme goal even if I missed the goal I would still exceed expectations. Everything was a competition to me.

As a child these outrageous goals became the basis for my work schedule – I had to achieve this goal. Almost every day I would work late into the night finishing “just one more thing”.

It is not surprising that these habits carried on into my post-education career.

Since 1994 I have founded 5 companies. I had built most of my identity around the seeking recognition and respect through the success (or failure) of these companies.

I became convinced that excessive work was the path to this recognition and respect.

From 1999 to 2007 I worked over 60 hours per week, and during some very intense periods this would increase to 80 hours sometimes including multiple trips to Seattle, or elsewhere, a week. I rarely took a vacation, and those few vacations I did manage to squeeze in included several hours of business per day.

By 2006 my companies were achieving some success, but looking back I may have begun to value the things I was controlling, instead of doing great work. The schedule I placed myself on would not allow me the rest required to be productive in the work I did. Over the years my business partner routinely attempted (first gently, and ultimately forcibly) to get me to see that I needed release control of some areas of the company in order to gain personal time and be happier and productive in the remaining areas.

As the company expanded it outgrew my ability to resolve ongoing and lingering problems by brute force and simply working more hours.

In 2006 I had begun to try to take a day a week off and realign my time priorities, however I did this half-heartedly, not delightfully. Just as we are called to tithe with a joyful heart, we are also called in Isaiah 58:13 to call the Sabbath a delight.

I would delightfully find excuses to work on my Sabbath.

I had placed my entire identity and pride in my company. This foolishness impacted my relationship with my company, friends and family. But through the grace and love of God, and the grace and love of my friends and family, these habits only ultimately cost me my pride.

In August 2007, with the encouragement of business partner, I left my company. After leaving my company, and Karla, our son Markus and I spent 2 months in Spain and I finally actually relaxed.

I now take the Sabbath delightfully every week.

If I know I’m required to work on my Sabbath (perhaps because of a conference or business travel) I will pick a different day for that week. My typical day usually involves going to church, relaxing, reading, and spending time with the family.

I recently have started a new company, and I now feel much more productive in my daily work. Amazingly also find I have also have time to travel, relax daily with my family, and read.

I rarely feel stressed out about my work and the deadlines I need to meet.

Tithing Time – Giving it Back

Honoring the Sabbath has protected me and my family from my tendency to overwork.

The practice of tithing has helped me to put work and money in perspective.

Being an entrepreneur means that Karla and I have had periods (sometimes lengthy) where I may have little or no income. In fact, during the first few years of our marriage we had very little. When I started my second company I had no income for almost a year, while Karla was a student at UBC.

However one thing that has been a wonderful blessing (regardless of income) for us is the gift of tithing, giving the first tenth of our income to God.

Thankfully I learned the gift of giving money prior to having any. I realized while in college, that if I did not start giving when I had little it would become much harder if I was ever blessed with anything.

Karla and I believe that all of our income belongs to God – when we consider supporting a ministry or a cause we will determine how much we are called to give – not how much we have.

Understandably this may seem odd, and perhaps even foolish to some, but even in times when we’ve had no income we’ve been called to give, and God has always provided.

We have been consistently blessed us through our giving. Mysteriously, before I tithed I always felt I needed more, since tithing (even when I have had little) I feel like I have enough.

I believe that through the blessing of being able to give my tithe God has taught me about the blessings of the Sabbath.

Through the blessing of the Sabbath, God has taught me to tithe my time. Therefore, I now devote approximately 10-15% of my workweek with businesses and organizations that require my services (but cannot afford them), this includes sitting on the board of Tenth Avenue.

I used to think I could substitute money for time. I used to feel that giving my financial tithe freed me from needing to be too involved in the Church. I would consider my tithe my good work and fail to give my time. Now I give both.

Part of the way we can prevent work from becoming too important… and part of the way we can make sure we have a life, and not just a living, is, as Kevin said, take Sabbath for rest and worship and for things that bring us life.

My wife says it’s important for me to sometimes waste time… and to do what I really enjoy doing: running in the woods with the dog, swimming, or sailing… these days it’s walking through the park with our baby Joe… it brings healing. Do you ever “waste” time in a way that restores you? Or is your life just dominated by work?

Kevin also spoke about giving.

Kevin talked about feeling like he had “enough” as a result of tithing. I feel the same. When I was in the corporate world, my first full-time ministry gig paid $200 and mysteriously in my soul, I felt I had enough… God always provided. I think that happened because of tithing—giving the first tenth.

Kevin also spoke about giving of his time.

Giving the first Tenth of our income is something God calls us to; we are to give 1/7 days to God as a Sabbath, but technically we’re not called to give 10% of time to serve. Kevin is seeking to do that voluntarily.

It has been said, “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give”.

Part of way we make a life and not just a living is by giving, not simply our tithe, but also of our time and energy to things other our “main work” as we able.

A third way beyond Sabbath and giving time and service that we can ensure we are protected from over-work and have a life not just a living is to take time for relationship and the joy that comes from being with people and doing what we love with people, whether it is sharing meals, or connecting in nature, or enjoying life together—whatever it is.

Some companies are designed so that our companies dominate our lives, rather than our families or our worship communities.

In The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work, Arlie Russell Hochschild says the average worker doesn't mind that work is increasingly eroding time at home. The workplace for many is becoming increasingly comfy and cozy, while home, with its diapers, dirty dishes, and divorce, is becoming increasingly harried and hectic. More people are saying, “I come to work to relax.” The downside is that the family and friends don’t get our time or only left-over time, when we are too tired to be really present.

Our work to personal life ratio will, of course, will look different in each stage of life. As a single person it is possible to become totally absorbed in your work. That is part of the reason why many companies prefer single people to married people, or divorced people to people who are married with kids. Single people can really give all of themselves to the company. There is nothing wrong, of course, with working hard and many of you here are in your 20s and 30s. Many young adults want a fairly sharp incline on the ramp of their career track (that’s natural for that stage of life and in my view in some ways healthy). But when you reach your 60s and 70s, if you are a typical person, you will find (this is what I hear over and over again) as you look back over your life, what gives most satisfaction is not necessarily be the achievements you have made at school or at work, but in the quality of the relationships that you have. So even if you’re young and single and ambitious, take time for friends and family.

If you are married, that will also cause your priorities to shift. Right after I got married, I immediately went on my first summer study sabbatical with my wife Sakiko. I ended up going to England to work on a potential doctoral dissertation proposal. I spent too much time that summer studying (The main library at Oxford was one where you could not check books out. You can read them in the library, and if you did not have a student status there, you could not enter the library, so it created a situation where Sakiko and I were not spending enough time in the first few weeks of our marriage.) I was acting like a single person. I regret that. If you get married, you are going to get to make a shift in the way you work your work/life balance (We’re going to a sermon on marriage and singleness in the Spirit next).

Sometimes we say no to say yes.

If you have children, as I am learning, you will learn that will require another shift in your life!

Wayman Crosby, a member here at Tenth, two weeks ago talked about a time when work was going very well… He said:

I think back to a time when I was working in Real Estate development and commuting primarily to the States. My business was strong and going well but as a family we were struggling. One of my kids had some real struggles where he needed his Dad. Somewhat fearfully because work was good, I made a very major career move so that I could stay home more with my family. By the worlds standards it was a crazy move and financially it cost me a lot for a long time but I felt at the time that I had to put my career on the altar for the sake of my family. It was hard at the time but looking back now it was the right decision!

Wayman has told me in private conversation the reason he and Penny sold their vacation homes at Whistler and Kelowna was because he was seeing that other families who were part of the church, but who spent most of their weekends away skiing or on the lake, were drifting from God, and that recreation seemed to become more important than God… He didn’t want that for himself or his family.

Sometimes we say no to work, so we can say yes to something more important.

Lead into communion.

In my life I know one of the reasons why I, at times, have been driven to work so hard, is so I can “look good” the eyes of others, but even more so in my own eyes. Many of us, I know, feel anxiously driven at school and at work because we feel like we have not done enough to be a truly worthy human beings.

What the Gospel tells us is that we are not received by God, the one person matters most in the universe, not on the basis of what we have done, but simply on the basis of his love.

At times we do feel deficient, but the Gospel tells us that if we are joined to Christ, we are not just accepted by God, but seen by God as perfect in Christ—perfect, not because we have never sinned, but perfect because we have been forgiven in Christ.

When we understand that we are seen as perfect in the eyes of the one person who matters, that we have his approval, we can rest. We don’t need to anxiously work to prove ourselves.

We know that God has loved us in this way, in the person of Jesus Christ.

On the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and broke it and said this is my body, broken for you…