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Let's begin reading in Genesis
chapter 1, Genesis chapter 1, reading from verse 26. And God said, let us make man
in our image after our likeness. and let them have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in
his own image. In the image of God created he
him. Male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God
said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the
earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing
that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have
given you every herb-bearing seed which is upon the face of
all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of
a tree-yielding seed, To you it shall be for meat. And to
every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and
to everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life,
I have given every green herb for meat. And it was so. And God saw everything that he
had made. And behold, it was very good.
And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Amen. May God bless His Word to us. Let's unite our hearts in prayer. Great God of order, we confess
that sin has brought disorder, confusion and chaos into thy
world and into our lives. We confess that our lives often
show forth the fruits of that lawlessness. We pray for Thy
help to glorify Thee by seeking Thy re-creating work in us, bringing
order where there is chaos, bringing law where there is lawlessness.
We pray for help to bring every area of our lives under Thy dominion
and Thy control. In Jesus' name, Amen. Does your desk glorify God? You may want to substitute in
that question for desk, kitchen, cupboards, or garage, as you
say, or garden, yard, as you say. You can bring many things
into this question. You might be asking yourself,
well really, is this a topic for a Sunday? Is this a topic for Bible study? And to that I might reply, well,
is there any area of life that we can say to God, no entry? Is there any area of our lives
that we can say the Bible is not relevant to? My father, when he visits people
in his pastoral work, one of the questions he sometimes says,
especially if it's a non-Christian home, he'll say, Name one subject,
any subject, any topic, and I'll find a Bible verse that has something
to say about that subject. And people usually think, oh,
that's easy, I can find anything. Many things in this world, especially
this modern world, that the Bible says nothing about. And yet,
to this day, as far as I know, my father hasn't been stumped.
because the Bible does have something to say, something to say about
every area of life, every topic. Now, the Bible isn't exhaustive
about every area of life, but it gives us sufficient truth,
principles, teaching to enable us to apply that to every area
of life. You take, for example, clothing. You can't go anywhere in the
Bible and find out what colour of clothes we have to wear, what
length of clothes we have to wear, what style of clothes we
have to wear, but we are given basic principles such as modesty
and humility and not being extravagant and many others and we apply
that and work it out with the help of God. And so it is in
this area also. Of course we can't go anywhere
in the Bible and find out how we should organize our desk,
our home office, our home administration. We can't go anywhere in the Bible
and find a list of things, how to organize a garage for example. But there are sufficient principles
in the Bible to get us started to keep us on the right track
and avoid error. But also the Bible gives us,
as it were, spectacles with which we can view this world. Biblical spectacles and learn
from the world. That was one of Calvin's great
points. He spoke of the Bible giving
us spectacles that enable us to see God's wisdom not just
in his word, but also in many areas of life. And so, he says,
if we are biblically taught, we can look at areas that the
world has excelled in, and done well in, and researched in, and
using biblical spectacles, take God's wisdom as they have discovered
it, and use it for our benefit. This might apply, for example,
in areas of medicine. But anyway, back to the desk. I'd like to look, first of all,
at the beauty of organisation. Genesis 1 shows us this very
clearly. We see, first of all, the example
of God. God could have spoken everything
in the world into existence out of nothing perfectly. But he
didn't. You remember the Bible opens
with the earth without form and void. It was empty and it was
formless. God made that. He started by
making something that was without form and that was void. And then from that he created
this world into existence, the trees and the grass and the animals
and so on. He started with without form
and void and shaped that, formed that, spoke that into perfect
organisation. Now why did God do this? Partly, of course, to give us
an example of what he does in conversion. He comes into our
formlessness, our emptiness, and he speaks the word of life
into our souls and so creates order again. He takes our lawlessness,
our anarchy, and speaks to create in us a love of law and a love
of order. And also, of course, this is
an example, not just of salvation, but of how we are to live in
this now, sadly, once again, disordered, fallen world because
of sin. We are to find formlessness and
emptiness and to reshape it and form it into orderliness and
fullness. So we have the example of God. Secondly, we have the image of
God. Also in Genesis chapter 1, we're told God created man
in his own image, and the image of God created he him, male and
female created he them. In other words, we are to be
God's image bearers. We are to be like God in this
world. We are to show forth the character
of God in our daily living. Just as he took what was formless
and empty and filled it and organised it as image bearers, so our lives
should be. And to the extent that we are
not organised, that we are chaotic, then we are not showing forth
the image of God. And then thirdly, there's the
mandate of God. You notice straight after verse
27, God says, Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it,
have dominion over the fish of the sea. He's saying, here's
your mandate. Whatever you do in life, it's
to reflect this mandate, this general order. Be fruitful, multiply,
replenish and subdue. Have dominion. There's to be
a ruling. There's to be man, woman coming
and bringing what is chaotic and disorganized under their
control. So, there's the mandate of God.
And then, there's the pleasure of God when God looked at this
world that He filled and organized. By the word of His power, we
read in verse 31, God saw everything that He had made and behold,
it was very good. God takes pleasure in what is
filled and in what is organized. He looks at it all and He says,
very good. And wherever God sees that in
the world, in our lives, He says, very good. Then lastly, in the
New Testament, in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, This is speaking
of worship, but the same principle applies in every area of life. 1 Corinthians 14, 33, God is
not the author of confusion. Wherever there is confusion,
chaos, disorganization, He's saying God is not there. That's not what God wants it
to be left like. And then also in verse 40, let
all things be done decently and in order. So I hope you can see
from Genesis and also 1 Corinthians 14, and there are other verses,
the beauty, in God's eyes, the beauty of organization, of order,
of things in their right place, of things not being formless
and empty, but being shaped and filled and put in their right
places. The beauty of organisation. Briefly,
secondly, the benefits of organisation One benefit, of course, is we
get more time on our hands. Though it takes time to get organised,
we gain time because we're not looking for things all the time. We're a lot more efficient. We gain time. It's one of the
ways we redeem time. Secondly, we gain peace. Is it not incredibly stressful
to live in the midst of chaos and disorganization, to not know
where things are, to be always looking for them, to be losing
things, to have things broken and damaged because they're not
properly looked after. It just adds to the stress and
strain of life. God is not the author of confusion,
but of peace, it says. It's saying where there is order,
there is a lot more peace. And thirdly, there's the benefit
of an increased witness, a better witness. I'm not saying that
if your desk, your home office, your home administration is efficient
and effective that that's going to convert anyone. What I am
saying is though that if it's the opposite, it can have a damaging
effect on your witness. A chaotic life, a chaotic home,
a chaotic anything really does not commend you to people. It can really damage your credibility
as a Christian, especially if the result of your disorganization
is you're failing to keep appointments, you're failing to return letters
and correspondence and phone calls and so on. The consequences
are quite great, the benefits of being organised are great,
even in terms of our Christian witness. Thirdly, there are admittedly
many barriers to organisation, many problems and obstacles that
we face as we try and go about the business of getting organised. If it was so easy, we would all
be perfect at it and we're far from it. I would say there are
three categories of barriers to organisation. There are first
of all physical barriers or physical problems. For example, you have
no storage. either in terms of a large area
or in terms of containers and things like that to put it in.
Or you have inconvenient storage. I remember one time in my own
life I had quite a small office and where I was keeping my files
and other things, letters, was in another part, it was actually
in another building. And the result was my office
became just a heap of paper, all mounted up, because it was
just so inconvenient to actually get organized, get going, get
up, get out into the cold, and go back into the house and get
things put in the right place. And so that inconvenience was
a great barrier to being organized. Then you might have too complicated
a storage system. We're such creatures of extreme,
we go from none to just to the nth degree, super, hyper, organized. But then instead of having ten
files, you've got a hundred files with one piece of paper in each.
And so you've made no progress really, you've organized your
chaos into organized chaos. So over-complexity also can have
the impact of making you inefficient and disorganized. Then, of course,
the classic is just simply too much stuff for your storage. You've got 100 units of storage,
but you've got 200 units of stuff, and you just can't put it all
together. So there are physical barriers that you have to think
through and work through, how I'm going to overcome these.
Then there are external difficulties we face. One of them is our workload
can be too great. We all have a capacity, but when
we exceed it, one of the results is we just get far too much stuff
in our lives, and in our desks, and on our floors, and on our
shelves, and it just overflows. We've just taken on too much,
or too much has been put on us. oftentimes, so we are overloaded. Transition, change, change of
job, change of family circumstances, another child, change of home,
all these things, external factors, tend to disorganise us, at least
for a time. Technology, we get a new computer,
and we think it's going to make us even more efficient and effective,
but There's such a learning curve that actually things go backwards
for a long time. Or you might have an uncooperative
partner. You might be super organized
but your wife or your husband isn't and you're living in a
relatively confined space. You can have great frustrations
maybe. in trying to maintain the beauty
of organisation when somebody sees no beauty in it at all,
or at least not a beauty worth pursuing. So, there are physical
problems, there are external problems. Thirdly, there are
psychological problems. What do I mean by that? Well,
there are some people, I kind of describe them as kings of
chaos. kings of chaos. There is chaos
but they are the king of it. They rule in the midst of it.
I remember going into a minister's study once. It was actually the
largest room in the house and I now know why. It was like walking
into the Starship Enterprise. There were computers and machines
banked around the walls There were shelves up to the ceiling,
there were filing cabinets all over the place, piles of papers,
a few desks, not just one, but the man thrived in it. It was chaos, but it was his
chaos, and it gave him a sense of importance, actually. You know, I am so busy, I've
got so much going on, I've got so much paper, it was like You
know, I'm really something. So he had this sense of power. Nobody else knew a thing that
was going on in that office. Nobody could find anything in
it. But he could, and he kind of
thrived in it. That's a psychological problem,
obviously. Another psychological problem?
is the sense of these creative people, they think, if I get
too clinical and organized, I'll lose my creativity. I'll no longer
be inspired. So you go into most artists'
workshops or galleries, whatever, and it's like that, isn't it? If I get too organized, then
I'll lose the muse, or I'll lose the ability to create. That's a psychological problem,
isn't it? And then there's the sense of
sentimental attachment. You get attached to things. You've
absolutely no use for them whatsoever. You've not used them for years
and you're not going to, but you're attached to them. They've
just always been there. They give you a sense of, well,
it's me, but it's actually not doing anything for me. It's just
there. But, you know, you're sentimentally
attached to it. That's a psychological problem.
You've got the idea of, well, organization is boring. I mean,
it's much more exciting. I mean, who likes doing it? Well,
there are some. But, you know, on the whole,
there are much better things you can be doing. And it's boring
to just get down and get filing and organizing and boxing. And,
of course, procrastination. I'll do it tomorrow, or I'll
do it next week, or I'll wait till the piles get higher. These
are all great barriers, and we must face them, and we must be
honest with ourselves, and say, yep, these are problems for me,
there are obstacles for me, there's something in my own psyche that
I need to address here, or there's an external factor I need to
address, or there's a physical area that I can do something
about. But it's just like self-examination,
we have to look around and see What is causing this problem? Barriers to organisation. I'd
like to then give you a blueprint for organisation. A lot of this
is common sense, I know, but sometimes, again, we just need
to have it brought before us again. There's an acronym that I came
across in a book called Effective Pastoring. I think that's what
it's called. Trash. T-R-A-S-H. Each of these letters stand for
T. Throw it away. R. I'll go over these in a bit
more detail. Reroute it. A. Act on it. S. Save it. H. Halt it. First of all, T,
throw it away. I don't think I need to expand
on that, do I? R, reroute it, meaning delegate
it. Sometimes in a home, one, the
husband or the wife, may be carrying far too much of the administrative
load, causing the disorganisation. and therefore it might be time
to delegate it, to reroute at least some of the work in order
to get some order back again. Thirdly, act upon it. Don't procrastinate. Do it. So for every piece of paper that
comes into the office, or every email, you either trash it, you
reroute it, you act upon it. I think there are There will
be four areas that require constant action to keep our lives and
our homes organized. One is our diaries, our calendars. Whenever, I've learned this through
bitter experience, whenever you're given a date that you have to
do something, enter it immediately. immediately. Secondly, sync your
calendars and diaries with your wife, husband, children. Make
sure you're all on the same calendar. And thirdly, check it every day. Don't assume, oh, I've got a
free day today. I've done that as well to my
costs and others. So, there's the diary, there's
the to-do lists, a daily and a weekly. There's accounts. It's so easy to let things pile
up in that way too, and you lose control, you don't know where
you are financially, even to the nearest $100 or $1,000. If
God was to look at your accounts, how you keep them, how you organise
them, especially at this time of year, I think it comes home
to us. filing tax returns. Does that
glorify God? Does that show that I am the image of God? Can God come and look at that
and say, very good? Can God look at that and say
it's been done decently and in order? Or are we saying that's
an area of my life that, well, you know, God's not interested
in. I can say no entry to. So, diary, to-do lists, accounts,
correspondence. Just to keep up with that, not
to let it pile up and return phone calls, emails, letters
and so on. So, throw it, reroute it, act
upon it, save it. And that's really speaking of
some kind of organized filing system for your administration. and H, halt it. How many things
are coming in to us that we actually, well you put it alright, I'll
read that, and then I'll read that, and then I'll read that,
and then about a year later you think, well I'm never going to
read that, so you just throw it. So why not halt it? Why allow it to pile up and intimidate
you and threaten you and challenge you and make you feel guilty
that you're not getting round to it, if you never are? it's
time to halt it, to say, stop sending me this stuff, this junk,
or even good stuff that you just can't get round to reading and
dealing with. So, a blueprint for organisation,
trash. But then finally, I'd like to
speak of the balance of organisation. I hope you don't think if you
came into my office you would find perfection, because you
certainly wouldn't. There's something called clean
desk syndrome, and those who suffer from it are superb organizers,
but they actually do little or nothing. My father always told
me, beware of anyone whose desk is too clean. And actually the
only person I ever met like that, there aren't many in the world
I don't think, but the only person I did meet who's every time you
went in it was spotless, the pens were perfect and the paper
weight and it was awesome, but he actually was very unproductive
because he spent the whole time organizing but not actually doing. Sometimes you've got to accept
a measure of disorganization. You can't achieve anything by
keeping everything perfect all the time. If you're, for example,
just now working on your tax return and you've got this pile
of that and this pile of that and you know where everything
is, there's no point in cleaning that up every night, is there?
Just to put it all out again. Somebody told me a good rule
that I've tried to follow At the end of every day, get your
desk 50% tidy. At the end of every week, aim
for about 90% tidy. And then at the end of every
month, aim for a 100% tidy and get back to normality again. It's just part of living in this
world, isn't it? A building site is the classic
example, isn't it? There has to be a measure of
everything seems to be out of place before anything is accomplished. And you might walk into somebody's
office and I hope you won't conclude from this like this, like you
see everything's a mess. This guy is not glorifying God
or this woman is just a disaster. If you went in every day for
every week for many years and it was like that, that's another
question. We have to keep a balance of aiming for the beauty of organisation
and yet also the beauty of productivity, of actually doing things that
glorify God and that serve Him. As is so often the case with
the Word of God, the truth is not at either extreme. And the
truth is not at the same place for every person as well in this
case. You can have somebody who, without
going to real extremes, can do an awful lot in a mess, at least
for a time. Then there's another person who
just can't function without things being relatively clean and tidy. So, again, a balance not judging
people by hour. standards of efficiency and organisation. But I'm sure most of us can at
least to some extent identify an area in our lives that we
can say is not beautiful, has not been beautiful for a long
time and without intervention is not going to be beautiful
either. So I would challenge you, whether it's a desk or a
kitchen or a garage or a car trunk or whatever, work on it and aim for the beauty
that shows forth the character and the nature of God. Let's
pray. Lord, we would confess before
Thee that so much of our lives is not reflective of who Thou
art. Continue Thy re-creative work
in us, moving us from formlessness and emptiness into organised
and full lives. We pray for Thy help. Enable
us not to tackle anything in our daily lives without seeking
Thy help, Thy Holy Spirit, for truly without Thee we can do
nothing. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Does your desk glorify God?
Series Child Rearing
| Sermon ID | 313092240522 |
| Duration | 35:59 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Language | English |
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