The Elimination of Hurry (Part 3): If The Solution Was More Time (Which It Isn’t)

Welcome to Heaven Earth Church.

My name is Ross Stackhouse.

I'm the founding pastor of Heaven Earth Church.

From the beginning, our heart was to be a church for people who

don't fit neatly into church.

Our heart is to meet people where they are, to learn their stories,

to honor their stories.

Because in every human story is God's story.

In this podcast, you'll hear more about the people who now call

Heaven Earth Church home.

Their stories, in many cases of misfits who are discovering or

rediscovering faith.

If you want to know more about us, you can go to heavenorthchurch.org

Otherwise, we invite you now into the story.

Hello, good people.

Brad Miller here, the producer of the Heaven Earth Church podcast.

One of the main benefits of being a part of the Heaven Earth

Church community is our Sunday morning conversations taught by founding

pastor Ross Stackhouse.

You can watch and participate in the Sunday morning conversation

this Sunday morning, 9:30am Eastern time at YouTube.com heavenerthchurch.

The audio version of the Sunday morning conversation is available

here on the podcast, which you can find at Apple Podcasts, Spotify

and on the website, which is heavenearthchurch.org Here now is

part three of Pastor Ross Stackhouse's message series on eliminating

hurry.

The title is if the solution was more time, which it isn't.

Lord, speak to us and help us to hear something that we could not

hear on our own.

Teach us your ways, the way of life, an eternal kind of life in

Jesus.

It's in his name I pray.

Amen.

So I've told you before, I was in Greece in 2011 on this project

with a professor for about a month.

And we were in this little village that is called Ancient Corinth.

So the letter to the Corinthians that place Corinth.

And my first time driving to the job site, I didn't know what

I was getting in for, what I was in for.

There was a man who was very experienced.

We got in this little itty bitty car on this road, like you

think country road here, ain't nothing like that.

Two cars shouldn't fit on this road, all right?

And this guy is driving like it's like the Indy 500.

And I was like, oh my God, I've only been married for a year

to my wife and I'm gonna die on some road out here in nowhere

in Greece.

This guy.

And I see a car coming up and I was like, okay, he's gonna slow

down now.

It was like a.

He accepted it as a challenge.

I know none of you do that when you drive.

He was like, oh, there's a car coming every day.

So every day when I drove to the job site, I had to accept that

today might be my day because we were on a road that was.

The probability of destruction was high.

The probably.

Luckily I lived.

Did you know I made it very cool.

I'm happy for that.

Here's my question for you.

What roads are you traveling?

What are your.

What's your.

What rhythms are you living?

So these are the roads you're traveling day in and day out.

Your rhythms, your routines.

What's your routine?

What roads are you traveling daily?

And here's the next question.

Are the roads you're traveling causing destruction to your body,

mind and spirit?

I'm going to ask you that again in a second and you'll see

why.

You may have heard Jesus this verse before.

This happens in what is called Jesus Sermon on the Mount.

It's the longest block of teaching, continuous teaching that

Jesus has in the New Testament.

It's in Matthew, this is chapter seven.

Jesus says, go in through the narrow gate.

The gate that leads to destruction is broad and the road

wide.

So many people enter through it, but the gate that leads to life

is narrow and the road difficult, so few people find it.

Now again, it's going to be your turn to talk in just a minute.

But in some of the circles that I grew up in, maybe I'll ask

you, what does that word destruction equal?

Anybody?

Heather Harris, help me out.

In some of the circles we grew up in, Heather, what would that word

destruction equal?

There, try it again.

What was that, Courtney?

A little louder for the people.

Hell.

Oh, okay.

She got it.

Bang.

That's what this verse means, going through the narrow gate.

The gate that leads to destruction is broad.

So I heard that interpretation all the time for a lot of the Christian

circles in which I grew up.

The basics of what Christianity is about is that most

people are destined to go to this eternal place deservingly of

torment, punishment.

It's a just punishment for being born with sin.

Many people will end there.

Few people will enter into life because this Jesus showed up

on the scene, died for our sins, to open up a narrow gate and

a narrow road that leads to life.

That was kind of always Christianity's hammer.

You heard the phrase, I've said it before.

When you got a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail.

Here's my thing.

First of all, that's a poor representation of what the good news

is.

The good news is so much bigger.

So Much bigger.

I've told you before, in Luke chapter nine, Jesus sends out his

disciples.

Two by two.

They go to neighboring villages.

Jesus gives them power and authority over demons.

He tells them to go heal, go teach, go do this stuff that I'm

about.

They go do it, they come back.

And it said that they.

They proclaim the good news of God's kingdom.

It's Luke, chapter nine.

Is Jesus dead yet?

Well, I guess the good news must be bigger because if they're

proclaiming the good news of God's kingdom before he's dead, it

must be bigger.

And praise God, it is.

Jesus says in Revelation, behold, I am making all things new.

The good news is that Jesus has come here to renew this creation,

to bring the kingdom of the heavens to earth.

Ross, we've heard this so many times, we got to keep hearing it

because that other message is so prominent out there.

That's why the name of our church is Heaven Earth.

Jesus says the kingdom of the heavens has come near.

He prays, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it

is in heaven.

Jesus comes to save this entire creation, to restore it, to

drag evil kicking and screaming into the light, and to

destroy it.

Which means he'll destroy the evil that's taken over our hearts

too.

So it is part of it.

We got some work to do.

Did you know.

And the reason I bring that up today is that when we take a verse

like this, just reduce it to a heaven and hell version of Christianity

that's in a box that's about this big, we're actually making this

verse easier on ourselves.

Because if that's not it, we got a hard question to ask of ourselves.

We have to ask ourselves what broad gates I going through in my

life right here, right now, and wide interstate roads am I traveling.

And I'm doing it so much all the time as my normal.

And those broad gates and those wide paved roads are doing

destruction and violence to my soul.

They are keeping me from the eternal kind of life that Jesus destined

for me to live right here and right now.

And yes, later.

Ross, you have no basis for this.

I did my homework.

Do you guys want to learn a little Greek today?

I knew you did.

That's why you came to church.

You were.

I can't wait.

Here's the word.

Say it with me.

Apuleia, you're going to tell your friends this week.

Hey, can I tell you about this word?

Say it again.

Apolea.

One of the dudes that knows Greek.

Best guy by the name of Bill Mount.

Says it means destruction, ruin, or waste.

So, for example, let me see if I got that in here.

I do.

Isn't that cool?

No, I don't.

No, I don't.

I lied.

Darn it.

Sometimes you think you got it together and you just don't.

Nope.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

There it is.

There's a question.

There's a story.

In Mark and Matthew, when a woman enters the room, Jesus is eating

with Simon the leper.

Did I tell you today that Jesus specializes in weird?

Nobody would go be next to a leper, let alone eat with them, because

you would then be ritually unclean.

Jesus is not worried about that.

He came to heal the sick, so lepers were his friends.

So he goes into this home, he's eating, having meal with Simon

the leper.

And this woman, how dare she interrupts the party, has this expensive

jar, alabaster jar of perfume, and she breaks it, anoints Jesus

head with it.

An odd thing to do at supper, but she's excited about Jesus.

Sometimes I think to myself, am I so nervous about how people

will perceive my adoration of Jesus that I don't express it?

She's not worried about that.

She's like, I really appreciate this guy and I want him

to know it.

And the disciples, they're so smart.

I need to say it again.

Guys, three years they're with him, and they always say the wrong

thing.

They always miss what the point is.

Always they get all sanctimonious.

Do you know what that means?

Like, when you want to show how you're right and righteous and

holy and you want everybody else to see it, they go, jesus, why

this?

Say the word.

Why this waste?

We could have sold this perfume and given it to the poor.

Sanctimonious.

Jesus knows they're going to spend their whole careers serving

the poor.

He's like, don't hate on her.

So that word gets used a lot of ways, and it doesn't equal hell.

It literally means waste, destruction, ruin.

And so I ask you now, again, and now I really want your feedback.

What is your normal that's doing destruction to your soul?

It's a broad gate in an interstate that has traveled widely,

and you're traveling it, too, and it's doing violence to your soul.

If you're new to us, I actually get feedback at this time.

You can holler out an answer.

Distractions.

Crystal, we've been talking about.

We're in a series called Eliminating Hurry.

We've said distraction.

Some people.

I'm not in a hurry.

I Sit in a comatose state on my couch at night watching my favorite

Netflix show while I'm doom scrolling.

Anyone feel attacked right now?

I'm not in a hurry.

I'm like in a. I'm not doing distraction is hurry.

Remember we talked about that.

Because sometimes when we're distracting ourselves, we're running

in a hurried manner from our pain, from our misery, from our trauma.

We may not be using substances or alcohol.

We may be using those too.

We're trying to run in a hurried manner from our pain.

What else?

What?

Broad gate.

Worry.

Worry is a normal road in our world, isn't it?

So glad you mentioned that.

That'll come up later.

What else?

Interstate that you're traveling.

Broad gate that you're entering through.

It's widely traveled.

It's normal in our neck of the woods.

And it's doing violence to your soul.

Nick Ann Bingus Pride.

I'll just give an amen to that.

Ego, age and pain, self doubt.

Back to the age and pain thing.

I don't think anyone.

Any of us can avoid traveling that road.

Has anyone figured that out yet?

I think we're all.

I think by the from the time you get here to the time you leave,

you will have aged one hour.

Can't avoid it.

But perhaps.

Sorry, did that hit too hard?

I'm sorry.

Sorry.

Yeah.

But what you may bring up is what is a wide road is our relationship

with our aging and our pain, our relationship with our mortality.

A lot of the reasons we're hurried, distracted, busy is because

we're running from our mortality.

We know our time is short and buddy, we're trying to avoid that

with everything we've got.

What else?

Wide road.

Wide, broad gate, easy to enter through.

We worry too much about fitting in.

We want to fit in.

We want.

We don't want to not be one of the.

We want to sit at the cool kids lunch table.

I don't.

Okay.

Right on, man.

What else?

Wide roads.

People pleasing.

I've never struggled with that.

It must be tough.

It's tough in the back.

Stress about something we can't control.

A wide road is.

We desperately want to control our situations.

We hate as most.

Wide road.

We hate uncertainty in our culture.

Mystery is no mystery.

Joanna Best.

And then like, I'll sit down.

Analysis.

Paralysis.

You set up the whole plan.

You've got everything mapped out.

And it took you so long to map out the plan that you don't do it.

What else?

Depression.

Yeah.

Alicia.

Doing enough.

Being enough.

The scarcity, mindset.

Joey.

Anger.

Road rage.

I Know somebody that I'm very close with.

Like, as close as you can be with another human in this life.

Joey.

It might have been her bro.

May have been, I don't know, crystal.

Self hatred.

Yeah.

Shame.

Shame is a very wide, wide gate in our time, especially if you

come out of trauma.

A lot of people, many of us, carry with us shame out of trauma.

It's not just, I don't feel good about this thing I did.

I don't feel good about me.

I saw another hand somewhere right there.

So, like, something about, like, yelling, for instance.

My dad's reel hurts me a lot.

And then I find myself yelling beside my mom, and it's really hard

for me to, like, rise above.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A wide gate that we pass through is we.

We repeat the patterns of our family system, our family of origin,

without examining them.

So we just carry forward the tendencies that came from our system,

and we don't step back and go, is that good for my soul, body, mind?

Anybody else?

Vanity?

Yeah, for sure.

Wide, wide gate.

Oh, don't go there yet.

Sorry.

All right.

We better keep going.

Yeah.

Obviously.

We're in a series called the Eliminating Hurry.

Paul, did you have your hand up, by the way?

Are you good?

Okay.

One of the wide roads that we.

Oh, I just got a text.

This is a first.

I got a text with an answer while I'm preaching cynicism.

Oh, man, I could go on that one for a while.

Stay on the.

Stay on.

No rabbit holes.

Okay.

A wide gate, interstate, that so many of us.

Of us travel is this.

This busy, hurried, distracted life.

And it's connected, seriously, to all the things you just mentioned.

All of it.

Something that in the book.

His book, Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer, we work

more than I believe the data says than anyone Americans do.

We don't take Sabbath days off.

We don't have days of rest, boundary days of rest.

We go and go and go.

We distract, distract, distract, escape.

And it's doing violence to our souls.

We're doing so much that we don't have any connection with our

being, the One who made our being.

And so, oddly, as John Ortberg says.

Listen to this.

This quote gets me.

Whoo.

On the one hand, sorry.

Ortberg says this for many of us.

Did I put it in here?

I think I did.

Bam.

For many of us, the great danger is not that we will renounce

our faith.

It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied

that we will settle for a mediocre version of it.

We will Just skim our lives instead of actually living them.

Listen, folks, I've heard many people who are struggling with faith

and religion, and it's real.

They've come from an experience that made faith really,

really difficult.

They've come from a past that makes being in a church really hard,

full stop.

And I hear a lot of folks that are telling me about one thing, I

do it, too.

They're telling me about their struggle, and this is it.

They're not disillusioned with faith.

They're disappointed with the mediocre version of faith that they're

living.

They're treating faith as a hobby, something to dabble in when

you've got extra time, and they're just skimming the surface

of it.

And why isn't this working?

And so that's why this week, we're starting to talk more about

the solution to all this.

Some of you are like, God, get to the solution already.

Ross, we get it.

We got a problem.

Hey, before I get to it again, do you accept that you got a problem?

The 12 steps teaches it.

Jesus taught it first.

The first step is moving out of denial to acceptance and saying,

I need a power greater than me.

And with this one, folks, it is true.

Our willpower won't be enough.

It won't.

Just like the alcoholic we've had in our meeting so many times,

or the addict who wanted sobriety so bad and their willpower

wasn't enough because the sickness was too tough.

So the first step was acceptance and then surrender.

So that's what the solution starts with.

Today, I want to give a. I want to hand out two things today,

and we're going to keep talking about the solution the next

couple weeks.

On the one hand, I want to tell you that the solution to our

problem is certainly a spiritual one, like what we're going

through, if we're going to be healed of the sickness of busyness,

the hurried life, the distraction, which is so normal in

our culture, we have to start with our spirits.

We have to seek a spiritual solution from God to transform us

from the inside out.

Our willpower is not going to be enough.

And already, my friends, acceptance is a narrow gate.

Are you with me?

Because denial is the broad gate.

We talk a lot about the four rooms of change in here.

It goes contentment, denial, confusion, renewal.

Contentment, denial, confusion, renewal.

You can't skip to renewal.

We try hard.

We want to get to the solution right now.

So we leap to action with the gimmicks, the quick fixes.

We want to leap straight from the problem to the renewal.

We have to go from denial, the denial room to the confusion room.

Yay.

Do you like confusion, man?

I've seen it on so many people's faces in recovery church.

They've accepted that they have a problem for which willpower

won't be enough.

And you can see the confusion on their faces and in their bodies.

They're having a hard time.

I'm rejoicing because I know they've made the step that makes

everything else possible.

For many of us, we're hurrying because we hate confusion.

We heard it.

I told you, all these things are related.

We want control.

We want results.

We want to lead to action.

We want to get to renewal right now.

And so we're like, I'm changing.

It's game over.

I'm changing this time, Ross.

You're not going to stop me.

Watch changing.

It's happening.

And the rubber band effect starts happening.

You ever heard of that?

You in the present, the future, you're trying to get it.

Get to.

There's a rubber band.

Stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch, stretch.

Harder, harder, harder.

More confusion, more confusion.

Oh, it's stressful.

I hate confusion.

I want certainty.

I want the results.

Now you get sucked back to the comfort of what you've always known.

We need help.

It's a spiritual one.

We need Jesus to come into our hearts because he has come near,

guys, to bring the eternal to us.

And he is inviting us into this eternal reality, this eternal

kind of life we can live right here, right now, not letting our

lives, our beautiful God created lives, go to waste.

He doesn't want to see our lives go to waste.

He doesn't want us to contribute to the waste that's destroying

our earth, destroying people, destroying our neighbors.

So full stop, you might be saying, ross, I need practical stuff

for my life.

We're gonna keep doing that.

We're going to, but we need this.

So before I do the practical thing, another minute of silence

with just you and God and the people around you, offer your silent

prayer to God about whatever it may be, whatever it may be in

this time, because I want to honor that the help we need is spiritual

first and foremost.

It.

Amen.

All right.

We're going to start talking more practically, too.

By the way, the solution is not more time to our hurried, distractive

lives.

And you're going to be like, man, if I just had eight more hours

in the day.

You ever said that.

Guess what?

If we had more time.

We do to that what we're already doing with the time we Got.

Let me.

I'll just eliminate that suspense for you.

The solution is not more time.

The solution is spiritual and it's super practical.

It's slowing down and simplifying our lives around what

matters.

Everybody good?

Good to go home and do that now.

Just go home and this is it.

Just do it.

Slowing down and simplifying our lives.

We have to part of accepting that we have the next step of acceptance.

So we accept we have a problem.

We know we need a spiritual.

We need something greater than ourselves.

We need the power of Jesus to intervene.

But we also have to accept this is part two of the message today.

Accept our limitations.

Celebrate them.

In his book the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, he talks about,

like, all these limitations we have that we actually have to embrace.

Limitations of time, limitations of gifting, limitations

from our family of origin.

Part of what we have to do is say, I.

As much as our world teaches, we have to experience it all.

We have to do it all.

Actually, I'm gonna say something that's really just blasphemous.

Listen, you actually cannot do everything you put your mind to.

Does that hurt your feelings?

You can't and you shouldn't.

Listen to this, you guys.

This is crazy.

There was this man.

His name was Jesus.

Listen to how he lived his life.

Listen.

First of all, he accepted a pretty big fat limitation.

He emptied himself as divinity and took the form of a servant.

Would you say that's a limitation?

He accepted the limitation of living in a human body.

He Listen to this.

Jesus spent 99% of his life in an area of small villages and towns

around a freshwater lake.

99% of his life.

You can't change the world doing that, can you?

He spent 99% of his life in some backwater small town where a

bunch of rejects lived.

Do you think he accepted his limitations?

He spent something like 90% of his life.

Wait for it.

Not in active ministry.

90% of his life, he was just working a job.

He was a carpenter, an artisan.

He grew up like a child, as we do.

He went through adolescence.

Yuck.

And he spent grueling hours learning a trade.

Even when he was in his ministry, he invested most of his

time and energy in a handful of core relationships.

Jesus did that.

When he did something miraculous, he did this weird thing.

He told people to keep it a secret.

How many of us, deep down, want to be popular and famous?

Not me.

I don't want to be a star.

I don't want to be the center of attention.

Good for you.

It's in Me.

It's true.

Jesus said, don't tell anybody about it, accepted his limitations.

He fasted for 40 days.

He practiced Sabbath.

How many of you think it's even possible to have a 24 hour boundary

space where you don't have any productivity?

You look at no emails, you don't do any social media.

You have an intentional 24 hour period of rest and enjoyment

with some core relationships.

How many of you, hey, we, this is a safe space.

How many of you are doing that right now?

24 hour period of no emails, no social media, no work, no productivity,

intentional rest, relationships, joy.

Did I say we got a problem?

I got way more to talk about than I can get to today.

So I need to accept my limitations right now, don't I?

Amanda, I could turn a two minute speech into a 45 minute one,

I swear.

Listen, I have one more story, then I have a question, then we'll

be done, okay?

Yesterday I practiced Sabbath.

I've not been good at it.

I'm not, but I've been doing it more my screen time this week,

guys, my average screen time was under four hours.

Some of you, like Ross, you need help where it's been.

That's a win.

I wasn't around my phone for most of the day.

We went out to the apple orchard in Pleasant View.

Jesus is from a town like that.

Not exactly.

And I was so fully present, you guys, and my soul was going,

oh man.

Do you feel that I was seeing God in all of the ordinary things?

Even as I was sweating profusely because did you know it's

been hot and humid?

We wanted to pick some apples and we were down to the last group

of trees we could pick from.

And of course we said, where are those trees, sir?

He's like, they're over there.

And oh, by the way, you have to go to the trees all the way in

the back of that row.

I'm like, okay, cool.

I was so present though.

My mind is healing, my soul is healing from being distracted, Hurried.

So I was fully present and I watched as my two older ones ran

down the row of the orchard.

And it was so holy, so sacred.

And it's been there all along, all along.

And so I'm tasting what this eternal kind of life is like.

Because it ain't over yet.

This battle ain't over.

That broad gate is waiting for me.

That broad road is right there.

So here's what I want to ask you.

We have five more minutes.

I'm going to take them.

I want you to think about, write it down on a phone.

Whatever you got to do, write it down in your mind.

If I were slick, I would have had paper for you.

I don't get over it.

So what are the three things that are most important to you?

Take a minute to think about that.

What is most important to you?

What is the most?

These are the things that you value the most or you wish you valued

the most.

How we spend our time is how we spend our lives.

What do you value the most?

What is the most important thing to you?

What are the most important things?

Because of time.

I'm not going to ask you to share back what you wrote down, but

I do would like to see a show of hands.

How many of you on your list?

We're almost done.

Put you on the list.

All right, Now, I don't do this often, so I'm going to use one

of my few times I got to do this.

All of you need to put you on that list.

All of you.

Because until we do, until we see how important we are to God,

we're going to keep hurrying, we're going to keep busying ourselves.

We're going to approach life with scarcity, with a sense of self

doubt and insecurity that's going to run rampant and it's going

to destroy us.

Jesus came to this earth and drew near to you because you are

valued.

He didn't draw near so that you could like, earn a spot with

him.

And so strangely, when we slow down our lives.

I've been doing extended stillness and silence, you guys.

Like I said, I'm hearing how just sitting in a spot and doing

nothing.

Sitting there, still doing nothing.

Enough.

Elisha said it, if I achieve nothing, God feels the same about

me.

We've said it before, when God said to Jesus, the voice of the Father

came upon Jesus.

This is my son, in whom I'm well pleased.

Had Jesus done any ministry yet?

Zip.

Zip.

Until we see how valued we are in God's eyes before we have done

anything, we will continue to run around trying to achieve something,

to gain our worth.

So put yourself on the list, simplify and slow down your life

around that.

The next two weeks, we're gonna.

We're gonna keep talking about the solution to this next three weeks.

So we're just getting a start.

Okay, let's pray.

And then we're gonna sing one song, one more song to end for the

day.

God, our willpower is not enough.

We know that.

And so help us intervene.

Give us power and might from heaven to slow down and simplify

our lives around what matters, giving us awareness and courage to

face and accept our limitations.

Bless us in these things.

In Jesus name, Amen.

Thank you for participating in the conversation happening at Heaven

Earth Church.

Your next opportunity to do so live is this Sunday morning, 9:30am

Eastern Time, either at the main campus at 309 East Main in Whiteland,

Indiana or online at YouTube Live.

That'[email protected] heavenerthchurch the audio podcast

is always available at Apple Podcast and on Spotify.

You can help others find out about the Heaven Earth Church podcast

by going to Apple Podcasts and or Spotify and leaving a five star

rating annual review.

Instructions on how to do just that and links are in the show notes.

You can always find out more by going to the church website heavenearthchurch.org

we.

Want to thank you for spending time with us today.

My name is Ross Stackhouse, the Pastor to Heaven Earth Church

and you may think out there that your story is over, but in fact

your faith story may just be beginning.

If you want more information about our church or you're interested

in a next step, you can go to heavenearthchurch.org otherwise we

look forward to being with you next time at the Heaven Earth Church

Podcast.