What weighs on you? Do you feel the weight of job pressures or paying the bills or family expectations or relationship problems? When things weigh on us they monopolize our mental and emotional resources. They can keep us up at night. We find ourselves thinking about them unexpectedly.

The word “glory” means weight. When we talk about the glory of God, we are talking about his weight, his significance. Does God ever weigh on you? Do you find yourself thinking about him? Does what he is up to ever keep you up at night? How often do you expend mental and emotional resources on God?

We agree that we need to bring God glory in our lives, but maybe we don’t always agree on what that looks like. For me, it doesn’t mean that I have to adopt a bunch of spiritual-sounding flowery language or always have a “Praise God” smile on my face. For me, glorifying God means that he carries some (most? all?) weight in my life. I am conscious of him. I keep him in the equation.

There’s probably more to write about this, but if I do, I’ll be late to church. So let’s talk about it more.

Made to Worship-Chris Tomlin: www.christomlin.com 

Enough-Chris Tomlin 

Blessed Be Your Name: www.mattredman.com 

A Greater Song: www.paulbaloche.com 

You’re Worthy of Our Praise-David Ruis: www.vmg.com 

Holy is the Lord-Chris Tomlin 

Click to listen to Land of My Sojourn by Rich Mullins.

And the coal trucks come a-runnin’
With their bellies full of coal
And their big wheels a-hummin’
Down this road that lies open like the soul of a woman
Who hid the spies who were lookin’
For the land of the milk and the honey
And this road she is a woman
She was made from a rib
Cut from the sides of these mountains
Oh these great sleeping Adams
Who are lonely even here in paradise
Lonely for somebody to kiss them
and I’ll sing my song, and I’ll sing my song
In the land of my sojourn

And the lady in the harbor
She still holds her torch out
To those huddled masses who are
Yearning for a freedom that still eludes them
The immigrant’s children see their brightest dreams shattered
Here on the New Jersey shoreline in the
Greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos
But some mendicants wander off into a cathedral
And they stoop in the silence
And there their prayers are still whispered
And I’ll sing their song, and I’ll sing their song
In the land of my sojourn

Nobody tells you when you get born here
How much you’ll come to love it
And how you’ll never belong here
So I call you my country
And I’ll be lonely for my home
And I wish that I could take you there with me

And down the brown brick spine of some dirty blind alley
All those drain pipes are drippin’ out the last Sons Of Thunder
While off in the distance the smoke stacks
Were belching back this city’s best answer

And the countryside was pocked
With all of those mail pouch posters
Thrown up on the rotting sideboards of
These rundown stables like the one that Christ was born in
When the old world started dying
And the new world started coming on
And I’ll sing His song, and I’ll sing His song
In the land of my sojourn

In the land of my sojourn
And I will sing His song
In the land of my sojourn

I don’t know about you, but I get tired of the tests in life. I get tired of the constant pressure that if everything could be or is a test from God then I’ve got to always be on my toes. I get worn out by always wondering if this experience is really something different. And the more tired I get, the more likely I am to not pass the test.

I shared with a couple of my closest friends yesterday that I am in a very worn out place right now, which I came to realize when a song on the radio made me cry while I was driving back to work from my lunch break. (I felt like such an idiot.) I am physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. And I’ve got to be honest with you, today’s chapter in PDL didn’t encourage me, it exhausted me more. I am already feeling whipped and now I’ve got to think about the fact that God is taking notes on how fast I drive and if I chat with the clerk at the grocery store.

There is probably a better way to think about this, and if I weren’t so drained, I’d probably be able to come up with it. But that is not the case this morning, so I am relying on you, my friends, to help me. This is life together. And I bet I am not the only one in this boat today.

How can we view life as a test and a trust without being overwhelmed by the pressure?
How can we know that God evaluates us without seeing him as out to get us?
How can we keep from bonking even when we are very tired?

I almost wrote “Tomorrow makes today matter.” But that would not be true. Today matters. It has some intrinsic value all on its own. Tomorrow simply makes it matter more.

We can call it lots of things - this life, here and now, our earthly life, time and space. I will simply call it “today.” It matters, and the things I do in it matter. My job matters. Mowing the lawn matters. Folding the laundry matters. Kissing my wife matters. Wrestling with my kids matters. My interactions with friends and strangers alike matter.

How I handle everyday events and tasks and relationships makes a difference in my quality of life, my sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, my mood. I mow the lawn because the house looks better when the lawn is mowed. I fold the laundry because it is a big hassle pawing through the basket looking for something to wear. I work hard at my job because I need a paycheck and I care about my customers. On and on … Today matters.

But tomorrow makes today matter more. Eternity impacts my earthly life. Maybe when I mow the lawn, I am not just making the house look better, I am caring for God’s creation like he told Adam and Eve to. Maybe when I fold the laundry, I am not just tidying up, I am making a small sacrifice for my wife mirroring in some way the sacrifice Jesus made for me. Maybe when I am working at my job, I am not just earning a paycheck, I am contributing the overall welfare of countless families whose livelihood is all interconnected with mine. Maybe when I wrestle with my kids, I am not just letting them get some energy out, I am reflecting the love and care of a God who comes down to us.

Today matters, but because tomorrow I may stand before God, it matters more. But I am not motivated by fear, like I am in big trouble with God if I do the wrong thing - Jesus took care of that. Rather, I am motivated by love, because I would love to please this God who has done so much for me - today … and tomorrow.

What do you think? How does your life change in light of eternity?

Everyone is driven by something. I am. You are. We all are. Whether we know it or not, whether we admit it or not, we are all driven by something. And given our complete tendency to do the wrong thing, most likely, we all struggle with being driven by the wrong things.

I have been pretty well immersed in this purpose-driven stuff since college. Like Aaron said on Sunday, he and I read Rick Warren’s book The Purpose-Driven Church near the end of our senior year. It was a revelation. I taught it in my first church, a congregation that desperately needed a renewed vision. In my second church, I was a youth and outreach pastor. I read and reread The Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry by Doug Fields. I chaired a committee that was charged with helping our church clarify and restructure around its purpose. In my last church, I taught a purpose-driven series every year I was there, including doing a 40 days of purpose campaign similar to Life Together. I have been to Purpose-Driven church conferences. I get a weekly pastors’ email from Rick Warren. I tell you all this so to give you a sense that this stuff has become a big part of how I view life and church.

But day-in-and-day-out, how purpose-driven am I, really? I spend a lot of time thinking about how to best care for my family, but that doesn’t necessarily make me purpose-driven. It might make me relationships-driven. I spend a lot of time thinking about Vintage, but that doesn’t necessarily make me purpose-driven. It might make me dream- or goal-driven. And I spend a lot of time thinking about how I can relax. But that might make me comfort-driven.

My intention to be purpose-driven does not always match my reality.

For me, to be purpose-driven, I have got to reorient or recalibrate my life, almost on a daily basis. I have got to ask myself the hard questions of why I do what I do. I need to creatively examine how I can step outside of my comfort zone to meet a need or to share Jesus. I have got to make relationships with friends a priority. I have got to be conscious of God in everything.

These are big challenges for me. But I am thrilled to have friends like you walking this journey with me. What drives you? Let’s talk about it.

For those of you who have read Gary Chapman’s, The Five Love Languages, I am a words of affirmation guy. The way I feel most loved is when that love is communicated verbally. There is something about those words of love that reshape the chaos of my soul into something orderly. (This makes things tough sometimes since I am married to a talk-is-cheap girl.)

Today’s chapter in The Purpose-Driven Life was a beautiful affirmation of God’s love for me that spoke deeply to my soul. As I was reading it, I kept thinking “God wants me.” It’s not that he needs me in some mechanical and remote sense. It is not that he puts up with me. It is not that he would rather engage himself in someone else’s life. He wants me.

I was having a divine Sally Field moment, “He likes me, he really likes me.”

I had very loving parents and a stable home. I did not have a traumatic childhood. I have a wife who adores me and children who come running when I get home from work. I am loved.

And yet … there is something about the realization that God loves me, planned me, wants me that brings a deep feeling of happiness and satisfaction to my soul. There is nothing more I need to do. There is nothing more I need to be. Here and now, God wants me.

How about you - how did today’s chapter strike you? How does God’s love make you feel?

We have been thinking and dreaming and praying about today for a long time. When we began planning for Vintage Fellowship, we had a “stratergery” in mind - launch weekly services in September building our base and then launch small groups in the Spring. It is now Spring, and small groups are being launched this week. I can here the A-Team guy in my head, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

But let me tell you about the temptation I’ve been feeling. I’ve been feeling like all of our planning and work could easily put the focus on us, on me. I’ve been feeling like what is happening right now in the life of our church could give us something to boast about. I’ve been feeling like we could do what we are doing and be successful and God wouldn’t need to be a part of it at all.

But it’s not all about me. And it is not about us. It’s about him.

Vintage exists for his purposes. I exist for his purposes. You exist for his purposes. Our small groups exist for his purposes.

In Colossians 1, a few verses after his prayer that we are currently camping on, Paul wrote about Jesus having the supremacy in everything. At Vintage, we say that our compelling mission is to exalt Jesus. And so, I am praying today that God would do something so profound in my life and in your life over the next 40 days that only he could get the credit. And that we would learn again how to focus completely on him.

How about you - are there times when you feel tempted to focus on yourself rather than God? Are there times that you sense that your life could go on pretty much unchanged without him? How can we all refocus on the supremacy of Jesus in our lives? What do you think? Let’s talk about it.