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Sermons and messages from Pastor Jason White and others at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Tyler, TX
Well, today we are continuing the message series that we've been in the last several weeks called rhythms of grace, where we've been looking at a fresh taking a fresh look at the spiritual disciplines. And y'all for this particular message today, I had to really do some serious research. I mean, I had to really dive into a lot of things. I had to go, you know, deep, and I found out some things that I didn't know before. For example, did you know that goldfish have an attention span of nine seconds? It's true. Look it up. I don't know who does the research and how they figure these things out. But goldfish can apparently focus on something for nine seconds. I find that fascinating. I mean, it's a little goldfish. I think it'd be like one second or two seconds. It's like nine seconds. This is the kind of things that I found out through the deep research and serious study that I was doing for our message this week, I wish I would have stopped there, because as I continued to read on, I read in that same study that Human beings have an attention span of
eight seconds.
Apparently we have become so distracted by everything else going on in our world today that a goldfish can hold its attention longer than you and I can on something. But is that really that surprising when we carry around one of these in our pocket in each and every single moment of our days. Did you know that the average person checks their phone 150
times per day? Did you know that you were checking your phone on average, 150
times per day. Not only that, apparently 60% of us cannot go literally, more than 10 minutes without checking our phone. But even worse than that, there are 30% of us who can go only 30 seconds before they have to check their phone. That means that by the time this message is over, six out of every 10 of you will check your phone at least three times, and three out of every 10 of you will check your phone no less than 60 times before I finish this message today and I'm watching i'll know who you are by the end of the time. No wonder that we have an attention span that is lower than a goldfish. They don't have phones, right? These things are so distracting. But it's not just the phone, it's all the stuff, right? According to another study that I looked at, the average American spends seven hours and three minutes looking at a screen every single day, TV, phone, laptop, whatever, iPad, not only that, but according to a Nielsen study, Americans over the age of 18, because you thought whenever I said that, oh, that's mostly kids that are on their devices the whole time. But according to this Nielsen study, Americans over the age of 18 years old spend more time than that, eight hours and 34 minutes looking at a screen each day. I don't know. Maybe that has something to do with work and having to use devices and all of those things. But regardless, we're constantly looking at a screen. We're constantly scrolling from one thing to the next, drawing our attention from this to that as a matter of fact, did you know that the average person switches 566
times per task in one day? 566
times between tasks every single day. Guys, we live in a hyper distracted, attention deficit world,
and it is not having a positive effect on our lives.
Andrew Sullivan wrote an article a few years ago titled, I used to be human.
He says, Has our enslavement to dopamine, to the instant hits of validation that come with a well crafted social media post made us happier. I suspect that it has simply made us less unhappy, or rather less aware of our unhappiness and.
Our phones are merely new and powerful antidepressants of a non pharmaceutical variety. Ouch.
He goes on and says, this new epidemic of distraction is our civilization's specific weakness, and its threat is not so much to our minds, even though, as they shape it, shift under the pressure the threat is to our souls at this rate, if the noise does not relent, we might even forget that we have any
that was written in 2016
eight years later. Imagine that it's even worse, guys, we live in a hyper, distracted, attention deficit world, and it is affecting our mental health, our souls, our ability to live in real, authentic community with others, and even experiencing the intimate relationship that we were created to have with Jesus, one well known Christian writer and theologian wrote this in one of his books. It is clear that we are usually surrounded by so much inner and outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when He is speaking to us now, based on the statistics and all the things that I read to you and we've talked about already this morning, and hearing this particular quote written from this theologian, you would probably think that was within the last year or two, is written in today's day and age. But this is written from Henry now one in 1981
and so if you think about him, noticing that there was so much inner and outer noise in people's lives over 40 years ago that it was hard for them to hear when God was speaking to them. Think about what that means for us today, when 60% of us cannot go for more than 10 minutes without picking up our phones to check them
my guess
is that you feel that too,
that you feel the pull to check your phone to see what's happening on social media, the fear of whatever it is that you're missing out on. You feel the need to check it to know what's going on in the world. You feel the distractedness in your own life, the lack of focus. You feel the lack of real, genuine relationships with others, and you feel the lack of intimacy with Jesus, and you deeply desire to experience the abundant life that you have in Him. And
so what's the answer?
There anything that we can do? There any hope if we live in a hyper, distracted, attention deficit world?
Yes, there is hope. There is an answer to this. We even see it in the life of Jesus, in His earthly life, when he lived in the middle of much noise around him, in the busyness of his world. Dr Luke writes this in chapter five, verse 15, talking about Jesus. It says, yet the news about Him spread all the more. This was after he had just healed someone with leprosy, and so the news about him began to spread all the more. And Luke says, so that the crowds of people came to hear Him and to be healed of their sickness. As soon as word got out about who Jesus was and the kind of things that he was doing, all of a sudden there was more noise in Jesus's life, there were more people around, there were more conversations, there were more interactions, there were more tasks to complete, there were more requests. He was constantly moving from one thing to the next, but Luke says, right after making us aware of how much it increased when they became aware of who Jesus was and what he was doing, he says, but Jesus often withdrew
to lonely places
and prayed. This word lonely, right here it's translated lonely in our English Bibles is aramos in Greek, and aramos can be translated lonely. It can be translated quiet place. It can be translated, solitary place. Luke is trying to tell us that Jesus withdrew to quiet, solitary places, and that he prayed.
And he's not saying that he did this once in His earthly ministry once in his lifetime, because he uses this word here and says, Even though Jesus began to experience more noise and more interaction and more busyness and more tasks that he often he was in a habit. He was in a rhythm of withdrawing the.
Quiet in solitary places and spending in time in prayer with God. It's
not the only place that we see this in Scripture. There's a number of places I don't have time to read them all. Let me just make you aware of a few. In Mark, chapter one, verse 35 he says, very early in the morning. While it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house where he went off to a solitary place where he prayed. Luke says, again in chapter six, verses 12, same gospel we were looking at Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. Matthew says, When Jesus heard that John the Baptist, had been beheaded, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. And I could keep going and make you aware of more and more and more times that Jesus
left for a quiet, solitary place. This was a regular rhythm for Jesus. This was part of his lifestyle. He regularly pulled away from the noise, he regularly pulled away from the crowds. He regularly pulled away from his tasks and his distractions, and he spent time alone with God, the Father. And during that time alone, he prayed and he listened,
he experienced the intimate relationship that he had with God the Father. This was a regular rhythm of Jesus's life.
But why?
I mean, Wasn't he in constant union with God the Father. Yeah, he was, I mean, wasn't whenever he was doing his miracles. Wasn't that God the Father at work in Him and through Him, yes, whenever he went and he taught? Wasn't that God the Father speaking in Him and through Him? Yes. And so, if he was interacting with God all of the time and all of these things were happening through him. Why in the world would he have to leave to go to a solitary space to spend time with God if he was spending all this time with him already?
The answer, I think, is a couple of things. Number one is we know that Jesus was fully human. He was born into this world, fully God, but also fully human. He experienced everything that it means to be human, what you and I experience as human beings and human beings face noise. Human beings face distractions. We face temptations, which means Jesus faced noise. He faced distractions. He faced temptations, and so maybe Jesus, being fully human, had to pull away from the noise and the distractions and the temptations, to clearly hear the father's voice at times, to focus on Him, to talk to him, to enjoy the intimacy that he shared with him, and to even prepare him for what the Father was going to be doing in Him and through Him as He entered back into the noise of the world. I
believe that's one reason that Jesus pulled away and was in this regular rhythm. But the other reason, I believe, is from what we see in Scripture and what we're taught about the way God often speaks to His people. One example of that is in First Kings, chapter 19, whenever we see that the prophet Elijah has an encounter with the Lord, let me show you what it says there in First Kings, chapter 19. This is beginning in verse nine, and it says in the word of the Lord came to him, What are you doing here? Elijah, he replied, I have been very zealous for the Lord, God Almighty, the Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too. The Lord said, go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire.
The Lord was not in the fire,
and after the fire
came a gentle
whisper.
King James. Version is translated a still
small
voice,
God revealed Himself to Elijah
through a gentle
whisper,
through a still.
A small voice,
if God speaks through a gentle whisper.
And maybe just maybe, that's why we're told this in 40 Psalm, 4610
Be still
and know
that I am God.
I speak through a gentle whisper and a still, small voice. So Be still
and know that I am God. Pull away from the things that are going on, and be still and know that I am God, that's really hard to do in the middle of so much noise and chaos in all of the tasks in our to do list and the screens and everything else that's going on. Jim Elliot,
famous missionary, actually wrote this in the 1950s he says, I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize three elements, noise, hurry and crowds. Satan is quite aware of the power of silence,
Be still and know that I am God.
When is the last time you
were still?
When is the last time you were listening for the voice, the gentle whisper of God.
This was a regular part of the life of Jesus. He was in a rhythm of being still and knowing God, the Father. He was in a rhythm of getting away and spending time in solitude and experiencing the intimate relationship that he had with his father.
But guess where Jesus lives now?
Yeah, he lives in heaven, and he's sitting at the right hand of God, the Father. But we know that the apostle Paul writes in Galatians 220 I've been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live. But Christ lives in me. Not only is he in heaven sitting at the right hand of the Father through the power of the Spirit, Christ dwells in you. So here's my point, if Christ, Christ dwells in you because you put your faith and trust in Him to be your Lord and Savior. So if he lives in you, and during His earthly ministry and his life, he was in a rhythm of spending time in silence and solitude, then you can expect
him to lead you into this same rhythm in your own life.
Jesus gave his life for you so that he could put his life in you and then begin to express his life through you. One of the ways that he will express his life through you is to lead you into a rhythm of solitude and silence. Why? Because it was part of his life. And if he expresses his life through you, then you can expect to see whatever it is that Jesus did in his life come through your life in some way, shape or form.
And so if Jesus lives in you, we expect him to be leading us. We expect him to pull us away from our tasks and our distractions in our screens and all of those things into this rhythm silence to a rhythm of solitude,
my guess is that you feel that that you feel that pull in your own life. You feel him trying to pull you away from the noise. You feel Jesus trying to pull you away from the busyness. You feel him trying to pull you away from all the distractions so that you can just be still and know that He is God.
The reason that I know this to be true in your life is because I know it's true in my own life, I feel that tug every now and then to pull away and to be in this rhythm of spending time in silence and solitude and just being still and knowing that He is God.
As a matter of fact, I had one of those experiences just this week. As I was going into this week, it was going to be a busy week. I knew it was going to be a busy week, but when Monday hit, I mean, it all just I could, I could feel it. I could feel the anxiety and the stress. And, you know, I had my regular message to prepare. I was supposed to speak at this men's event out of town and do two different messages on Friday night, and I hadn't even started preparing for those. And so I had to write my normal Sunday sermon. Then I had to write two other sermons. And then I had a lot of things going on here, and then there's just been a lot of.
Noise and things that I've been listening to and giving attention to and dwelling about, things in my own life, and people that I love, and I just started to really feel the anxiety late Monday afternoon, well, I left here, and I was driving in my truck, and I began to change radio stations, just trying to find something to listen to and escape and take my mind off of it in that particular moment. And I kid you not, the very first button that I pushed in the next station that it went to, it was playing Guns and Roses, November, rain. Don't judge me.
I'm a child of the early 90s and late 80s. And yes, I listened to Guns N Roses, and I knew the song. And I am not kidding you when I say that, the moment that I recognized it was that song that it was in the part of the song where he was singing these lyrics right then in that moment, do you need some time on your own. Do you need some time all alone? Oh, everybody needs some time on their own. Oh, don't you know you need some time all alone. And I just busted out laughing. I mean, I just died right there, going, Are you kidding me, Jesus, like you're seriously speaking to me through a Guns and Roses song right now in this moment. I mean, this goes back to what we talked about a few weeks ago, right that we're acutely aware of Jesus's presence and that he's speaking to us out of his personality and sometimes in ways that we never would expect. And if we don't know that Jesus can be playful at times, we wouldn't know to expect this kind of thing as
great as that moment was. I'm not done yet. The story is not over, because while I'm dying and busting out laughing at the fact that Jesus is speaking to me through a Guns and Roses, song, of all songs that could have been on the radio at that particular time, someone calls me, and I am connected to the Bluetooth, which means, you know what happens, it interrupted the song so that I could hear the phone ringing, and at this point, I'm just mad. You're interrupting my moment with Jesus. I'm having a great laugh right now about him speaking to me, who in the world is calling me? You'll never guess who it was. It was the guy from the men's event that was in charge of the whole thing. And he's saying, hey, due to some things that have come up, we've decided that we're gonna have to postpone the event this Friday. And so not only in this moment was Jesus speaking to me through a Guns N Roses song about me needing to get away and spend some time on my own, he actually cleared my schedule so that I could do so.
Right?
In other words, if Jesus dwells in you, He will lead you one way or another
into a rhythm, silence, solitude.
You'll feel his tug to get away. You'll feel him saying, Be still and know that I am God. So
what does this rhythm of silence and solitude look like? I mean, what does it really? What do you do during a time of silence and solitude?
I don't know, Be still and know that he's God. That's a good starting place.
In all seriousness, it means you gotta carve out some time, first and foremost, right? I mean, you gotta carve out some time. Now this may be a small chunk of time every single day. It may be 15 minutes here, maybe multiple times a day, 30 minutes here, but there are other times when you're gonna feel him tugging you to pull away for longer. Maybe he needs to spend some time with you a half of a day, or he's saying, I'm pulling away for an entire day. Mark your entire calendar off for one day of silence and solitude. Who knows you may be so deep in it? He goes, I need a whole weekend or a whole week with you. In this case, right? Because you're one of those 30% people who can't go 30 seconds without but I mean, they may be saying that to you right now. When we say that we're not talking about a vacation, a lot of us say that, Oh my gosh, I just need to get away. I need to be on a cruise. I need to go on a vacation. And nothing wrong with that. Jesus might be speaking to you in those ways sometimes. I mean, he wants you to enjoy life, and I think he's involved in even our vacation time, but this is not vacation time. We're not talking about vacation we're talking about what Luke was writing about when he said Jesus often withdrew to solitary places to pray, to be still and know that He is God.
Yeah, and so when you do carve out some time, find a place away from your devices, leave them at home, put them away away from your to do list, away from your screens, away from the distractions of your life. What do you do? Well, it could be any number of things. Maybe go take a walk, go for a hike out in nature, sit still and watch a sunrise or a sun set. Go sit on your back porch. Maybe find a closet that you can lock yourself in and be quiet if you're at work and you feel Jesus saying this, maybe you gotta go to the restroom for a longer amount of time than usual, right? I mean, Jesus can meet you there too, right? Go sit still and just listen. Listen for his still, small voice. As you focus on Him, as you as Colossians three says, set your heart and your mind on Him, and as you sense His presence, and maybe he's speaking to you. Begin to talk to him. Spend some time in prayer. Tell him that you love him. Tell him about what's going on in your life. Invite Him into what's going on in your life. Maybe during this time of silence and solitude, you're you're renewing your mind to His truths. You're allowing him to remind you of His truths because you're getting so distracted in the world that Satan has found his way in and taken your eyes off of the truth, and you bought into the lies of the things that he said about you and whatever's going on in your life, and the character of who Jesus and God really is in the first place, and so he's going to renew your mind to the truth with those distractions away. Maybe you're spending time reading His word, dwelling on his words, meditating on his words, internalizing His words, His truth. Just get away from the noise. Get away from the distractions and guys truly enjoy his presence. Remember, this is not about a duty. This is not about a checklist. You don't just get away and say, yep, I did it. I was still for a little while, check it off my list, and I've done my godly duty and been in this rhythm of silence and solitude here. Remember, it's not the goal. The goal isn't to do silence and solitude. The goal is to experience intimacy. This is a means to the goal you pull away from the distractions to experience the intimacy that you were having a hard time experiencing in the moments, with the noise and the distractions and the screens and everything else going on in your world.
But then finally, as you sit there and you enjoy his presence, be looking for him to send you back into the world, Jesus didn't stay in his solitary place. He didn't stay wherever he went at those times he left those places. He's not calling us to be monks and to spend just time in silence and solitude in the woods, and never be around people or engage in the things going on in this world. So we look for him. We enjoy it, but then he sends us back after we've enjoyed his presence with even more of an awareness of his presence going into the things that he sends us back into. Here's how Henry now and puts it when he was talking about that very thing.
He says, Guys, the more time that we spend with God and Him alone in solitude, the more we will discover that God is with us at all times and in all places, then we will be able to recognize him even in the midst of a busy and active life. Once the solitude of time and space becomes a solitude of the heart, we will never have to leave that solitude. We will be able to live the spiritual life in any place at any time. Thus the discipline or rhythm of solitude enables us to live active lives in the world while remaining always in the presence of the living God.
Jesus pulls us away to enjoy his intimacy, to recognize his presence again, to hear from Him, to commune with Him, and then through that, it enables us to live out in the world with more of an awareness of his presence in our lives and in the activity and the noise that he will express his lives through us, in those very things that We had been missing in the middle of those things because we got too caught up in them and too distracted, and we're listening to the voice of the enemy rather than his voice. And so we get into this rhythm. He pulls us away. Jesus,
yes, it's.
You,
this is so good. Oh,
okay, it's time. Okay, it's time.
Here we go, crazy noise, but you're gonna experience it differently,
because now you're aware of the presence, what he's calling you into his activity, in the stuff that you're doing, rather than the things that you were so distracted with in the first place. So this week,
be looking and listening for Jesus to pull you away from the noise and the distractions and into this regular rhythm of pulling away in silence and solitude and sending you back into the world with that perspective and enablement to accomplish all that he's doing in you and through you and.