Integrating God in All of Life
(Intro: A division (dichotomy) that needs to die)
Let me begin this morning by presenting a few questions… just to stir our thinking:
• Where are you most likely to be honoring God… here on Sundays… or Monday at work?
• Do you sense any real spiritual significance in your work? … neighborhood? … sleep?
• Is praying more spiritual than playing? Is God involved in one more than the other?
For most of us… those questions may have stretched our perspective a little bit…
> because we have divided up our lives in ways never intended… and more importantly…
ways that aren’t real.
I want to help us confront a division that is so natural it can influence our lives more than we
know… the division between what we perceive as spiritual and secular… between what we
deem spiritually relevant and spiritually irrelevant… between what is part of the “Christian life”
and everything else.
There is a false division of life… even if unclear or unconscious… that can cause us to
compartmentalize and confine our spiritual growth. The result is that…
• We deem full time ministers and missionaries to have the only spiritual vocations.
• Our spiritual lives become less dynamic and daily… and become safely divided…. but
strangely divided.
We sense we are living two lives.
For 166 of the 168 hours in the week we lose our sense of God’s interest and involvement.
> This morning…I want to help us think about all the other aspects and activities of our lives …
about integrating God into all of our life.
Beginning a series entitled “INTEGRATE: Spirituality in Everyday Life.”
Today… start with the underlying foundations and formation of an integrated spiritual life.
We see in this tendency throughout history…
From the start… God called people to special times of dedicated activities… but over time these
activities that were called upon to convene or culminate God’s relationship with His people…
began to capture it… and in the minds of people… their awareness of God was so focused on such
times… that people grew to divide what we would deem the ‘religious’ activities from all others.
Mastered by the religious leaders…. And still today… those called to pastoral leadership, such
as myself, can perpetuate.
It’s a tendency we all have to face.
Most of us develop a relative comfort knowing how to engage in our corporate worship of
God… and the activities that are involved when gathered. But the truth is that we’re often less
clear on how to integrate the commitment to Christ into the rest of our week,,, and all the various
roles and activities.
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This tendency can certainly ease of lot of tensions… because it’s simpler and safer to focus on the
familiar. If I tend to keep my sense of spiritual life focused on that which I engage in when we
gather…
The challenges and compromises I make in the rest of my life may not be so significant.
I can probably enjoy a lot more confidence that I’m doing well here… than if I were to focus on
how my spiritual life is lived out during the rest of my life… how it might be experienced and
assessed by my wife, kids. Co-workers, and neighbors.
Jesus operated out of an entirely different reality… an undivided reality…. just
life and His Father at work in it.
Perhaps some of the most profound words that capture his life… are those which begin the
descriptions of his various encounters…“As he walked”… As he talked… As they ate…
> His life affirms that God is at work in all areas of life… all aspects and activities.
(Paul) - The significance was captured by one who had become a master of religion… the
apostle Paul. He addresses this in several of his letters to the first churches… in particular in book
of Colossians.
The Church in Colossae faced confusion usually identified as a type of early Gnosticism,
• False teachers taught that God did not create the world because in their view matter was evil
and God cannot create evil.
• Believing that matter was evil, they argued that God would not have come to earth as a human
in bodily form.
• They emphasized asceticism and outward religious rituals.
Col. 1:15-17, 19-20
He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16For by him all
things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17He is before all
things, and in him all things hold together.
…For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20and through him to reconcile to
himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood,
shed on the cross.
Col. 3:1-3, 5, 8, 12, 17 (NIV)
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is
seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you
died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
…Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity,
lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
…But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and
filthy language from your lips.
…Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion,
kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
…And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Col. 3:22-24
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Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and
to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23Whatever you do,
work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24since you know that you
will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
I. Foundations for an Integrated Spiritual Life
1. God Himself has created a world which is time-bound and temporary (2 Pet.
3:10–11). Yet He values His work, declaring it to be “very good,” good by its
very nature (Gen. 1:31; Ps. 119:68; Acts 14:17).
In re-establishing the Lordship of Christ for the Colossians, Paul begins by affirming that Jesus is
the Agent of creation, and indeed the Agent of everything created. This of course hearkens back to
the Genesis narrative. God created all things. God has a claim on all things.
> In some way, all things were created for the glory of God and the good of humanity. This
world is good. The problem of sin is not the creation. So this means that in some way,
everything in creation, or all the potential within creation that humans are able to discover,
manipulate, and cultivate, draws back to the creative purposes and character of God.
2. God’s purpose is to reconcile ALL aspects of creation.
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING IS ULTIMATELY CHRIST
Albert Einstein dreamed of finding a single theory that would embrace all of nature’s
laws. But in his quest for this unified theory, Einstein came up empty-handed. Others
followed and pursued what has come to be known as the Theory of Everything, seeking to
define all the laws of the universe in one theory. Proponents of the theory of everything see
the universe as a grand cosmic symphony.
If the universe is a grand cosmic symphony, who’s writing the music? Who’s
conducting the orchestra?
> In Colossians 1, Paul writes the “original” theory of everything. For Paul,
Jesus is the source of holding life together.
From Sermon Central sermon Holding Life Together When It Feels Like Its Falling Apart
by Richard Burkey
3. God cares about the everyday needs of people as well as their spiritual
needs. He cares whether people have food, clothing, shelter, and so forth. To
the extent that one’s job or role is serving the needs of people, He values it
because He values people.
Saving souls… relationship…? YES… but people he created and loves in the very bodies and
needs he created.
When Jesus achieved the redemption by means of His life, death, and resurrection, was the object of His
work to just save souls? It is easy to read it that way, and that is certainly one way that the Gospel has been
understood. But when we read passages such as Col. 1:20 (“…to reconcile all things in heaven and on
earth…”), as well as similar passages in Ephesians, we see that somehow, God has a larger, cosmic
perspective.
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4. God promises rewards to people in everyday work, based on their attitude
and conduct (Eph. 6:7–9; Col. 3:23–4:1).
Ephes. 6:7-8
“Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, 8because you know that
the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.”
5. What sanctifies our lives is not a matter of separating out any particular
aspect or activity but of incorporating Christ into it.
A quick read of the text may seem to imply a separation from worldly affairs…
Col. 3:2 – “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
> But that is why I included a portion of what follows and defines what is intended… it is not
speaking of separating out any particular outward aspect or activity in life… but of the inner
nature at work in us.
Picked up in verses 5, 8, and 12
…Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality,
impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
…But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander,
and filthy language from your lips.
…Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with
compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
> The nature of a sanctified life is more a matter of character than context.
Jesus to religious leaders… ‘wash the inside of the cup…’
Doesn’t the Bible talk of some aspects of life as being more ‘sacred’ and separated out from
the world?
1. What about the Biblical reference to some things as ‘sacred’, such as the ‘sacred portion’
of resources the people were to give to God?
> Yes there is a sense of that which was to be deemed ‘sacred’ meaning ‘set aside’… but as Jesus
makes clear, it was never to imply that the remaining portion was to be considered irrelevant. How
I manage all my resources involves God and my spiritual growth. The ‘sacred portion’ was to be
understood to have a specific purpose… how I manage the rest is then a further process that
involves other principles and potential for spiritual growth. The rest is not bad or beyond God.
(The same sense could be applied to prayer.. pray is communication set aside and focused on
God… but the rest of our speech is far from irrelevant.)
2. What about Jesus’ emphasis on intimacy over activity, particularly in his contrast with
Mary and Martha? Didn’t Jesus tell Martha that Mary had chosen something better in sitting at
his feet rather than working to prepare a meal?
> Yes… Mary sitting at his feet was the better choice… but 1) he didn’t denounce the activity of
serving, and 2) he isn’t sitting in one place any more.
Immediately after his resurrection he meets his followers while fishing… and has a meal… others
while they are walking… and comes over for a meal.
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There is certainly something unique about focused time… in worship and prayer… just as Jesus
did so often… I need to be centered, to engage, to listen… I need to join in the corporate
worship… where just as He said… I feel His unique presence… manifest presence. But just like
Christ… I then must join Him in the world… accompanied by the Spirit….
> God wants us to become “Whatever We Do People.”
(Wherever and Whatever)
The key isn’t about not dismissing some aspects of life as less spiritual but rather honoring and
heeding God’s involvement in them.
Romans 12:1 (MsgB)
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your
sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
1 Cor. 10:31 (NIV)
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
II. Formation of an Integrated Spiritual Life
My life will become more integrated as I…
1. Recognize Christ as the true and integrating center of life.
Webster Dictionary defines the word “Center as a place or point at which activity is
concentrated or toward”.
DISCOVERING WE’RE NOT CENTER OF LIFE LIKE EARTH NOT CENTER TO SUN
Galileo, a devout Christian, helped to bring us to a clearer understanding of things. All the
planets revolve around the sun, in fact. The planet we call home is but one of a family of
planets.
It was terribly humbling for people back in Galileo’s time to realize that their planet was not the
centre of the universe. People reacted violently. Galileo was thrown in jail. How dare he suggest
that God had not made our home planet the exact centre of everything created?
The earth is not the centre of the universe. Science has proven it.
And we ourselves are not the centre of existence. God’s Word let’s us in on that one.
> This implies confronting what your life may evolve around… but it also
means…
He alone can hold life together… He is the constant… the continuity of our
lives.
Gets hard trying to answer to so many voices and bosses in our life… and the god
news is that there is ultimately ONE…. one central leader.
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2. Shift from seeing Sunday gatherings as central to that of corporately
celebrating and centering the life that is always at hand.
From primary to preparatory to an integrated everyday life.
I realize that some may hear that I’m stating that gathering with the corporate local body is
not critical. I believe it’s essential…
• I’ve never felt that more. we need to gather… but in connection with the way we then live in
relationship to God in every aspect and activity of our daily lives.
• This was the way of Jesus… who went to the weekly synagogue regularly (‘as was his
custom’).
• The early church understood this. It’s a matter of integration rather than separation.
3. Seek the heart and mind of God in every sphere of my life.
We need a paradigm shift… new perspective.
As someone once noted… one small shift can make all the difference in what we see… as noted
in the littlest shift in space between:
God is nowhere…to….God is now here
God is like air… always around us.
We live surrounded by God. We live and breathe God just as we live and breathe air. To know that either air
or God is present, we need only to pause and reflect for an instant to see that we are immersed in them.
Fr. Gerald Weber in U.S. Catholic (March 1992). Christianity Today, Vol. 36, no. 8
Our awareness begin with our assumptions that he is… but then giving Him leadership…
centrality.
My daughter loves to draw pictures… and always wants to share them saying: This I drew
for you daddy… or this one is for mommy… or for both of you.
> God says draw it for me… work for me… play for me… rest for me… and so forth.
Potential Ideas / Illustrations NOT USED:
Match Up with God?
[Frank] Lubauch states that he started [his] minute-to-minute practicing of God’s presence
by "trying to line up my actions with the will of God about every fifteen minutes or every half
hour." Most of us would fall far short of doing so once a week. We excuse ourselves by
stating we are too busy with our everyday priorities to move toward a more God-centered
life. We feel this minute-by-minute approach is a discipline for full-time religious professionals
in our midst, but not for us.
Jim Smoke in Whatever Happened to Ordinary Christians? Christianity Today, Vol. 33, no. 9
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Question 10. The group may have trouble with the idea of doing something in Jesus’ name. In the
Bible a name indicated the essential character of a person. Paul has shown that Jesus is lord of all
as the Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, Reconciler and the One in whom the fullness of Deity dwells.
So if we do or say something in Jesus’ name, it must be consistent with Jesus’ character and will.
As his representatives, we act or speak as he would if he were bodily present.
Everyday Spirituality
Spiritual experiences are not a matter of finding God, nor are they a matter of waiting till God
fairly screams, "Look, here I am!" Spiritual experiences surround us. We fall over them
dozens of times a day. We can’t avoid them if we try. A spiritual experience is simply a
matter of recognizing and acknowledging our relationship to God in whatever is going on in
our lives at the moment. God is involved in all we do and does not pop in and out of our lives.
We live surrounded by God. We live and breathe God just as we live and breathe air. To know
that either air or God is present, we need only to pause and reflect for an instant to see that
we are immersed in them.
Fr. Gerald Weber in U.S. Catholic (March 1992). Christianity Today, Vol. 36, no. 8
Who Do You Serve?
While traveling in Ghana, I learned that in the dominant language of Ghana the only way to ask
the question, "What is your religion?" is to ask, "Whom do you serve?" I like that. Regardless of
denominational loyalties and official creeds, your true god is the one you serve.
God in the Commonplace
If God does not enter your kitchen, there is something wrong with your kitchen. If you can’t
take God into your recreation, there is something wrong with your play. We all believe in the
God of the heroic. What we need most these days is the God of the humdrum, the
commonplace, the everyday.
Peter Marshall, Sr., Leadership, Vol. 17, no. 2
Redeeming the Time
During World War II, economist E. F. Schumacher, then a young statistician, worked on a
farm. Each day he would count the 32 head of cattle, then turn his attention elsewhere. One
day an old farmer told him that if he counted the cattle, they wouldn’t flourish. Sure enough,
one day he counted only 31; one was dead in the bushes. Now Schumacher understood the
farmer: you must watch the quality of each beast. "Look him in the eye. Study the sheen on
his coat." You may not know how many cattle you have, but you might save the life of one
that is sick.
This is wise counsel for composition students as well. The one who asks "How many words do
you want?" invariably strings together a poor piece of writing. But the one who focuses on
the assignment--a childhood fear, a person I admire--writes something worth reading.
Evaluating my everyday use of time and resources, I noticed how often I tended to count and
measure--abstracting from a situation rather than living it. Take the routine of soft-boiling an
egg. After the water came to a boil--a goal for which I would wait impatiently--I would slowly
count to 100 while the egg cooked to the desired firmness. In this numerical mode, I would
keep an eye on the clock and sometimes snap at my husband, absorbed in the newspaper.
After reflecting, I tried a new way of measuring the cooking time for eggs--one I would have
scorned as a young wife and mother interested in "saving" time. Experimentation showed
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that the eggs are cooked to perfection after three Hail Marys [or three verses of a hymn]. I
watch the water with interest until it boils, then I use the boiling time to place myself in touch
with earlier generations of cooks who measured their recipes with litanies, using time to get
beyond it.
Sally Cunneen in The Christian Century. Leadership, Vol. 7, no. 3
MISSIONAL CHURCH AS INCARNATIONAL (NOT ATTRACTIONAL), MESSIANIC (NOT
DUALISTIC) AND APOSTOLIC (NOT HIERARCHICAL)
1. The missional church is incarnational, not attractional, in its ecclesiology. By incarnational we
mean it does not create sanctified spaces into which unbelievers must come to encounter the
gospel. Rather, the missional church disassembles itself and seeps into the cracks and crevices of a
society in order to be Christ to those who don’t yet know him.
2. The missional church is messianic, not dualistic, in its spirituality. That is, it adopts the
worldview of Jesus the Messiah, rather than that of the Greco-Roman empire. Instead of seeing the
world as divided between the sacred (religious) and profane (nonreligious), like Christ it sees the
world and God’s place in it as more holistic and integrated.
e talk routinely about the "world out there." What else can that mean other than that we, the church
people, are "in here"! This dualism has over 1,700 years created Christians that cannot relate their
interior faith to their exterior practice, and this affects their ethics, their lifestyles, and their
capacity to share their faith meaningfully with others. In Robert Banks’ groundbreaking book,
Redeeming the Routines, he identifies the enormous gap between belief and everyday life. He
points out that this gap shows up in ten worrying ways:
1. Few of us apply or know how to apply our belief to our work, or lack of work.
2. We only make minimal connections between our faith and our spare time activities.
3. We have little sense of a Christian approach to regular activities like domestic chores.
4. Our everyday attitudes are partly shaped by the dominant values of our society.
5. Many of our spiritual difficulties stem from the daily pressure we experience (lack of time,
exhaustion, family pressures, etc.).
6. Our everyday concerns receive little attention in the church.
7. Only occasionally do professional theologians address routine activities.
8. When addressed, everyday issues tend to be approached too theoretically.
9. Only a minority of Christians read religious books or attend theological
courses.
10. Most churchgoers reject the idea of a gap between their beliefs and their ways of life.
Banks quotes occasionally from an old book called Christianity and Real Life, written by William
Diehl, the sales manager of a major overseas steel corporation. Diehl, as a layman (terrible word,
but you understand its meaning), writes about the gap between the secular and the sacred in church
circles:
In the almost thirty years of my professional career, my church has never once suggested that there
be any type of accounting of my on-the-job ministry to others. My church has never once offered
to improve those skills which could make me a better minister, nor has it ever asked if I needed
any kind of support in what I was doing. There has never been an inquiry into the types of ethical
decisions I must face, or whether I seek to communicate the faith to my coworkers. I have never
been in a congregation where there was any type of public affirmation of a ministry in my career.
In short, I must conclude that my church really doesn’t have the least interest whether or how I
minister in my daily work.
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This credibility gap between the church world and the real world is, as Helmut Thielecke calls it, a
modern form of Docetism. We believe that it is so endemic in the contemporary church that it has
worked its way into the very fabric of all aspects of church life. Remove this Docetism, or
dualism, from church and a great deal of what the church has built and developed over 1,700 years
will fall away. Because the missional church, by its very nature, exists organically within its host
community, it has had to abandon Western Christianity’s dualistic worldview in favor of a whole-
of-life spirituality.
- The Shape of Things to Come by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, pp. 12, 13-14, 15, 16, 18-21+
DISCOVERING WE’RE NOT CENTER OF LIFE LIKE EARTH NOT CENTER TO SUN
People used to believe that the sun and all the planets revolved around the earth. From where the
naked eye could view the universe, standing on this fragile planet, it seemed that Earth was huge
and that all the stars, tiny points of light in the distance, were very small, inferior in fact to planet
earth.
The sun was thought to be the largest star. It was thought to exist solely to give us heat and
energy. It was understood that the sun must be very large, larger perhaps than Earth itself, but
nevertheless, no matter how big the sun was, it revolved around us.
We have learned a lot through science. Galileo, a devout Christian, helped to bring us to a clearer
understanding of things. All the planets revolve around the sun, in fact. The planet we call home is
but one of a family of planets.
It was terribly humbling for people back in Galileo’s time to realize that their planet was not the
centre of the universe. People reacted violently. Galileo was thrown in jail. How dare he suggest
that God had not made our home planet the exact centre of everything created?
When I was a child, I believed that all the world
existed in relationship to me. People lived in Russia somehow because they had some connection
to me. The fact that this made no sense didn’t matter at all to me. One night I lay in my bed and
realized for the first time that one day I would die.
I was nine and had been told that men lived to be 75
years old. I thought to myself, “I only have 66 years left to live. How will life exist after me? How
will the world get along without me? What purpose will it have without me? That just can’t be”
Webster Dictionary defines the word“Centre as a place or point at which activity is concentrated
or toward”. Well, it’s painful to realize that we are not the centre of the universe, but it has to
happen in order for us to mature. Although we would like to be the centre of the universe, we are
not. That’s terribly humbling. That something else - not us - might be the centre of things, can be
hard to swallow.
So, you see, the earth is not the centre of the universe. Science has proven it. And we ourselves
are not the centre of existence. God’s Word let’s us in on that one.
I don’t know what are the things in your life that compete for your time and energy, that demand
front and centre seats in your lives. Often it’s things that we give permission to. TV, I’ve noticed,
is terribly, terribly important to a lot of people. Being entertained is considered a right in our
culture. Some peoples’ lives revolve around watching their favorite shows, living vicariously
through TV characters and their experiences. TV is the centre of some peoples’ lives.
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Sometimes life revolves around money and its worries, or taking care of the family. This can
happen very easily. People we love have needs and problems and we want to help. To make a
difference, to lighten the load of people.
Sometimes people live for their work. The most important thing in life is that I do my job well.
For such folk, job performance, or their perception of how they’re doing matters the most. We ask
ourselves continually, “How am I doin’?”. Am I doing as well as so and so? What’s wrong with
me that I am not as efficient of as creative or as attractive as so and so?
Whatever it may be that your life revolves around, I want to suggest that it pales in comparison to
God’s intention for each of us.
From Sermon Central sermon, Jesus, Be the Centre, by Matthew Parker
English theologian Alister McGrath expresses this …
A knowledge of God the Creator cannot be isolated from knowledge
of his creation; Christians are expected to show respect, concern and
commitment to the world on account of a loyalty, obedience and love for
God its creator. The world does not have a direct claim to a Christian’s
loyalty; it is an indirect claim, resting on a recognition of the unique relation
of origin which exists between God and his creation. In revering nature as
God’s creation, one is worshipping God, not worshipping nature.
To be a Christian thus does not - indeed, cannot - mean renouncing
the world; for to renounce the world is to renounce the God who so
wondrously created it. The world, though fallen, is not evil. The Christian is
called to work in the world, in order to redeem the world. Commitment to
the world is a vital aspect of the working out of the Christian doctrine of
redemption. A failure to commit oneself to and work in the world is
tantamount to declaring that it cannot, and should not, be redeemed.
A. McGrath, Reformation Thought: An Introduction, 2nd. Ed., (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993),
p. 221-222.
SMALL GROUP QUESTIONS
1) How have I wrongly divided life between the spiritual and the non-spiritual? If you brought
the wall down between secular and sacred and saw your life as a whole rather than two parts,
how would you change?
2) In which area of your life is it most difficult to see God at work around you? Why?
3) What could you do to remind yourself of His presence in you in that area of your life?
10. How would doing everything “in the name of the Lord Jesus” transform what you have to say
and do today (Col. 3:17)?
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7. What does it mean to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly (Col. 3:16; see also Ephes. 5:18-
20)?
9. What is there about thankfulness that causes Paul to command it three different ways (Col.
3:15-17)?
This weekend’s Word focused on considering the danger of making a subtle division between
spitual and secualr
