From Busyness To The Business That Matters

January 4, 2026

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Our meditation text comes from Psalm 103, verses 13
through 14.
If we can read it together whenit's on the screen, I'd
appreciate it.
Here we go.
As a father has compassion onhis children, so the Lord has
compassion on those who fearhim.
Amen.

(00:21):
What a wonderful word.
And then our main text comesfrom Luke chapter 2, verse 49.
I'm gonna read the King JamesVersion for Jada Jackson.
Amen.
Bless you, Jay.
For some of y'all King Jameslovers, because it really brings
out the flavor that needs to bebrought out.
I want to encourage you to readall of Luke chapter 2, forms the

(00:42):
context for which we willpreach.
But for time's sake, I want tofocus on verse 49, and obviously
we'll refer to the narrative inwhich we find this text.
Luke chapter 2.
Verse 49.
And here's what it says.
And he said to them, Why did youseek me?

(01:03):
Did you know that I must beabout my father's business?
Did you know I must be about myfather's business?
If you have a differenttranslation from the King James
Version, the others are gonnasay, in my father's house.
But what the King James says, itjust brings out the idiom.

(01:23):
To say you're in my father'shouse is to be about your
father's business.
That's the whole point.
King James just went a stepfurther.
We praise God.
And so I want to talk about frombusyness to the business that
matters.
From busyness to the businessthat matters.
It is an understatement to saythat we are a culture of

(01:46):
busyness.
Over half Americans surveyedtoday say that there's not
enough time in a day to completeall the tasks they must do.
We are a culture of business.
Some of you, even here today,made your way to the house of
the Lord, but you feel theweight of dizziness that 2026

(02:11):
invites.
It was Meyer Freeman whooriginally coined the phrase
hurry sickness.
After examining several of hispatients, he noticed that his
most at-risk patients live witha sense of hurry.
Thus the phrase hurry sickness.
In a word, the busier we are,the more susceptible we are to

(02:35):
chronic physical and mentalhealth issues.
Before the invention of thelight bulb, the average American
slept 11 hours per night.
Now we average six or sevenhours per night, and we wonder
why we're so exhausted.
Tell your neighbor you're toobusy.

(02:57):
Tell her my age right now, but Iremember a time when just about
nothing was open on Sunday.
Only thing that was open onSunday was church.
And if you forgot to purchasesomething for the Sunday dinner,
you just was up a creek withouta paddle.
And I surely don't want to goback to the old days, amen.

(03:19):
But it seems to me that theslower pace of life was a better
place of life for all, a betterpace of life for all of us.
It just seems back then, whensomebody called you and they got
a busy signal, they just calledyou back.
And you know what?
They were okay.

(03:40):
Slower pace of life was a betterplace of life for everybody.
Even back then, on TV, you onlyhad about eight channels.
Well, really there were 12, butyour TV could only pick up about
eight.
Any Magnavox TV?

(04:02):
Alright.
And the other four wasn't worthwatching, anyhow.
But anyway, we live in a daywhere you can get a thousand
channels on your TV.
And we may still only watch twoor three channels.
Slower pace of life was a betterpace of life for all of us.
Corey Tin Boone, a Christianwhose family helped many Jews

(04:23):
during the Nazi occupation of acountry during World War II,
said this.
If the devil can't make you sin,he'll make you busy.
And though you won't find anyscriptures condemning busyness
as sin, it does have the sameeffect.

(04:43):
It will cut your connection withGod, it will cut your connection
from the people that you lovethe most, and it can do
irreparable harm to your soul.
Tell your neighbor, we're toobusy.
How do we move from busyness tothe business that matters?
John Mark Comer defines busynesslike this.

(05:05):
He said it's a malaise in whicha person feels chronically short
of time and so tends to performevery task faster.
And this person easily getsfrustrated when encountering any
kind of delay.
How many of y'all hate waiting?

(05:25):
Tell your neighbor, we're toobusy.
And if we're not careful, we'regonna miss what God is doing.
When I think of busyness, Ithink of Mary and Martha and
Bethany when Jesus came to seethem on that final week before
he was crucified.
Mary did the right thing.
She understands it's aboutgetting in God's presence.

(05:45):
The Bible says she was at thefeet of Jesus, listening to his
word.
Posture of discipleship.
Martha was busy making all kindsof preparations.
Jesus, observing her behavior,said, Sweetheart, you worried
and stressed out and anxiousabout so many things.
Don't miss what Jesus is saying.

(06:07):
In all your preparations for thecoming of Jesus, you're gonna
miss the coming of Jesus.
And if we're not careful, y'all,we we can say we're seeking and
need God, but never putourselves in a place where we
can actually experience thecoming of God in our lives
because we're too busy.

(06:29):
And that's kind of what we see alittle bit in our text this
morning here when it talks aboutJesus.
Early in his life, he heunderstands what is important.
It's not about being busy, it'sabout be focusing on the things
that really matter in life.
With all that Jesus accomplishedin three years of ministry, he
never seemed too busy.

(06:51):
Wasn't too busy to talk toNicodemus, wasn't too busy to
talk to the Samaritan woman atthe well, wasn't too busy to
stop and heal that woman thathad an issue of blood for 12
years.
And somebody can testify inhere.
He's never too busy to hear yourprayer and answer what you need.

(07:12):
Out of all that Jesus did inthree years, and most believe he
accomplished in three years whatmany of us couldn't even
accomplish in a century.
He never seemed too busy becausehe was focused on the things
that really matter.
Every time I read this text, Ithink every parent ought to
breathe a sigh of relief whenthey hear this story from Jesus'

(07:37):
childhood.
I believe, in one sense, Maryhere shares this story with Luke
to encourage every parent withchildren.
In a word, she's saying to everyparent, you think your child is
something.
Let me tell you what Jesus didto us.
Joseph and Mary were so busywith Passover celebrations, so

(07:58):
busy with travel to and fromJerusalem that they lost track
of Jesus at the age of 12.
Imagine that going a whole dayand you don't even know where
your child is because you're toobusy.
And then beyond that, it takesthree days just to find out
where they are.
That's what happened to Mary andJoseph here.

(08:20):
And I need to tell some parents,you a better parent than you
think you really are.
They went three days and losttheir child.
At least you can keep up withyours.
Amen.
And so after Joseph and Maryreturned to Jerusalem, where do
they find Jesus?
They find him in the temple.
And Mary says, Boy, you haveworried us.

(08:43):
And and why have you done thisto us?
And Jesus said, Didn't you knowI was in my father's house?
Didn't you know I was about myfather's business?
And here's what Jesus is saying,and and why the temple became
more important, even moreimportant than family, because I
know we struggle with that.
This is what he understands, andhere's my thesis statement.

(09:04):
Nobody cares for us like ourfather.
Jesus said, out of all thethings I'm gonna be involved in,
the Passover is important,Sabbath is important, mom and
dad is important.
Yeah, I have a responsibility tohonor their authority, but at
the end of the day, the mostimportant thing that I have in
my life is that nobody is gonnacare for me like my father.

(09:27):
Now, there are two things I needto say here at the forefront
about Father because I alreadyknow that's an issue.
Number one, I don't have thetime to chase down all the
Trinitarian implications ofFather in this text.
Because this is really the firsttime that we get a glimpse of
God as the Father of Jesus or asour Father.

(09:47):
I don't have time to chase allthat.
I don't have time to deal withall the criticisms and some of
the alleged issues ofpatriarchy.
Don't have time to chase allthat.
You want to talk to me afterservice?
We'll talk about it then.
Secondly, I already know that alot of us struggle with the
image of Father for manyreasons.
To you, I said, God neverpromised that we would have

(10:08):
perfect parents.
And if you're mad because youdidn't have a perfect parent, it
tells me you ain't neverfathered or mothered a child.
God never promised us withperfect parents.
I'm surely not dismissing what aparent ought to do.
But secondly, you don't thinkthat they didn't have imperfect
fathers in that day, even thoughJesus emphasized this image?

(10:32):
You don't think that when Jesusgave the Lord's setup prayer
where we're told to pray ourFather, that there were
imperfect there weren't anyimperfect fathers in that day?
Matter of fact, we can go so farto say that when we look at the
earthly ministry of Jesus, whenhe began to minister as an adult
male, there's very little to nomention of his stepfather Joseph

(10:55):
in his life.
And many scholars have concludedthat by the time Jesus became a
grown man, his father Joseph haddied.
If anything, Jesus is sensitiveto the absence of a father or a
father figure in his life.
And yet, he wants us to knowthat one of the most important

(11:16):
images that we ought to cherishin our life is this image of God
as a father.
It's one of the most significantthings he does.
He shows us that the supremequintessential nature of God in
all creation is that of afather.
It's the one image he choosesout of all the images he could

(11:37):
have chosen.
He didn't choose the glory cloudin the Old Testament and all the
judgment and wrath that camewith that glory cloud.
He didn't choose a consumingfire that would put fear in the
lives of the people of God.
He didn't choose a throne thatGod would sit on in judgment of
those who are not.

(11:58):
No, he gives us the image of theFather.
Why?
Because he wanted us to know forall time, whenever you think
about God, God cares for you.
Cares for you.
And in a word, he's saying, Thisfather cares.
This father forgives.
This father restores.

(12:19):
This father is present.
This father blesses.
And yes, this father iscompassionate.
Meditation text says, as afather has compassion on his
children, so the Lord hascompassion on us.
This father cares.
And Jesus hides out in thetemple because he knows his
father cares for him.

(12:41):
And in that relationship withhim, that's how we grow and
become the fullness that Godwants us to become.
When we know our father cares,our heavenly father.
That he's always there for us.
He's working in our lives.
He has a purpose for our lives.
We may not always agree withwhat he allows and doesn't

(13:03):
allow, but we have a God who islike a father who actually cares
for us.
That's what he does.
And in this, we learn what itmeans to move from busyness to
the business that reallymatters.
Let me run through this veryquickly.
Number one, how do we do that?
First of all, we learn early onin Jesus' life that to move from

(13:27):
busyness to the business thatmatters, we've got to engage
some essential tasks.
We've got to engage someessential tasks.
In verse 42, it talks about howJesus at the age of 12 practiced
the custom of the feast.
This was something that was aregular routine, the Passover

(13:47):
and many other feast days.
These were customs, these wereroutines that God had
implemented in the Torah, in thelaw, in which Israel were to
engage God.
And it's a word about that everyday should be an encounter with
God with us.
We don't wait till Sundaymorning to reach God.
No, Sunday morning ought to bethe fruition, ought to be the

(14:09):
culmination of our time with Himevery single day of our lives.
It speaks of this routine weneed with God.
Our faith is a relationshipfaith, but with a real God, we
have to have some routines thatcause us to regularly engage
Him.
That's what we hope to completein this fast this year.

(14:32):
And anytime we do the fast,that's why when you do the fast,
yeah, you're gonna get hungryabout every three or four hours.
Some of us every three or fourminutes.
Amen.
Because in that, it ought toremind me how I need to engage
God that often.
God wants to be everything.
He doesn't just want to be Godon Sunday morning, he wants to

(14:53):
be God in every area of my life.
And what we're learning fromJesus is that he wants to
encounter us in every moment asmuch as we can.
Luke 4 and 16 says he used to goto the synagogue as a custom.
We would say Jesus went tochurch.

(15:14):
And I know we live in a daywhere folks say, Well, I don't
need to go to church.
Jesus went to church.
And if Jesus went to church,guess what I'm gonna do?
I'm going to church.
But the truth is, whateverhappens in church, it ought to
spill over on Monday, Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
That what I experience on Sundayought to be able to carry with
me on Monday, Tuesday,Wednesday.

(15:34):
Church ought to be theculmination of that.
Yeah, ah.
It's a routine that we need on aregular basis.
We need to meet God on a regularbasis.
And we see these essential tasksas well in the life of Jesus.
I'm 64 years old, and everyFriday, for me and my wife, that
is our date night.

(15:56):
That's the time we spendtogether with each other.
Don't call me, don't text me,don't come looking for me, don't
email me, don't knock on mydoor.
Not gonna answer, because that'sour time.
And really, when it comes tohaving time with God, and we'll
talk about this in futuresermons, because I'm gonna lay
this out.
We're gonna talk about thatquiet time.

(16:17):
You gotta guard your time withGod.
You have to set aside a specifictime every single day in which
you can engage God, two or threetimes a day.
And if you don't guard that, howmany of y'all know the devil
will come in and hijack it?
Dallas Willis said somethingthat was so profound.
I'm still I'm still justmesmerized by what he said.

(16:40):
He said, the problem with thechurch today is that we're so
caught up with faith in Christ,we forget about the faith of
Christ.
Faith in Christ, that speaks ofthe price he paid on the cross.
We surely need the faith inChrist.
That if it had not been for whathe did on the cross, we wouldn't
even be here today.

(17:02):
Because he paid an incrediblehigh price to give us salvation.
Anyone know he paid a price forus?
That's faith in Christ.
But now there's another elementof the gospel that is the faith
of Christ.
In other words, he paid theprice, but he also gave us a
pattern to follow.
So on the one hand, he died onthe cross for my sins.

(17:24):
But on the other hand, he saysto me, Let a man deny himself,
take up his cross and follow me.
There's a price he paid, butthere's also a pattern in which
we gotta follow.
And those are the essentialtasks that God is looking for in
our lives for 2026.
We've got to be willing toembrace the full gospel of Jesus

(17:47):
Christ.
That's number one.
Number two, we've got to havesome essential training.
And what I love about this textwhen Jesus says, Didn't you know
I was about my father'sbusiness, or I was in my
father's house, he's puttinghimself in a position where he
can be trained by his father.
In a word, Jesus had to learnwhat was near and dear to the

(18:09):
heart of God.
Hebrews says he learnedobedience.
The Son of the living God had tolearn to obey the Father.
And if Jesus had to learn toobey the, I know we don't like
that word obey, but if Jesus hadto learn to obey the Father,
what does that say about you andme?
He learned what was near anddear to the heart of God.

(18:32):
And in this text, we see thateven Jesus had to be disciple.
Discipleship is what reallymatters to God the most.
What is discipleship?
It's God's way of making us morelike Him.
God wants us not just to besaved in name, He wants us to be

(18:54):
saved through and through in ourhearts and everything we do.
It's in my head, it's in myheart, it's in my hands, it's in
my feet, it's in my talk, it'sin my ears, it's everything
about He wants everything toreflect Him.
Matter of fact, if you want toknow what discipleship is, here
it is.
It's kind of like what we usedto sell years ago in churches.

(19:17):
We used to sell those CDs,preach a sermon, slap it on a
CD.
Some of y'all still got CDplayers in your car.
You need a new car, right?
Slap it in a CD player.
Young folks say, What is a CDplayer?
Google it, you'll find out.
Go Google it.
Well, whenever we would do theCDs, they take and make a master

(19:38):
CD.
And then with the master CD,they put it in what's called a
replicator or a duplicator.
And the duplicator would makecopies of the master.
So even though you didn't havethe master CD, you knew what was
on the master by the copy.
Y'all don't hear me.
Y'all don't hear me.
God wants us to be copies of themaster so that they may not ever

(20:03):
see the master, but they canlook at the copy and discover
exactly.
Y'all don't remember.
Discipleship.
It's in the passage.
It's in the passage.
Didn't you know I was about myfather's business?
Now, when we read this passage,we can see and feel Mary's

(20:24):
emotion and stress.
Why would you worry us likethis?
Some of you mothers can reallyconnect to this.
What is wrong with you, child?
That's what she wanted to say.
Have you lost your mind?
You act like you don't belong tome?
That's what she wanted to say.
Come on, y'all, you know.
So we feel her emotion.

(20:47):
But based on the grammar of theGreek, Jesus has emotion.
He's like, what are you talkingabout?
Didn't you know?
You had to know.
Matter of fact, it's like this.
Of all people that ought toknow, you should know more that
Joseph is just my stepdaddy.

(21:11):
Didn't you know I was about myfather's business?
Don't miss what's going on.
On one hand, Mary is a littleupset because Jesus lost.
That's the obvious point.
The other hand, the other pointis, at the age of 12, every
Jewish boy spent time with theirearthly father.

(21:32):
He trained them in Torah, hetrained them in the stories of
scripture, trained them in thefeast days, and even trained him
to have a skill or trade.
At year 12, the child wassupposed to spend time with his
dad.
Why?
Because at 13 he became anadult.
So Mary's upset.
This is the most important yearof your life.

(21:54):
Why would you not spend timewith your stepdaddy?
Jesus said, What What are youtalking about?
I am spending time with myfather.
So, what is Jesus saying in thispassage?
I need discipleship.

(22:15):
How can you be a Christian andnot be disciple?
Can I really say it like I wantto?
Are y'all ready for this?
I love, and I'm not criticizing,but that's how it's gonna be
received.
But I gotta say it.
I love our full year in review.

(22:35):
We did a lot of wonderfulthings.
A lot of good things.
But we need way morediscipleship.
We we watch this.
We know how to have a lot offun.

(22:59):
But fun is not discipleship.
If I can have fun and still cussyou out of the end of the event.
Discipleship takes on thecharacter of God where I act
more like him.
So after the event, we need morediscipleship.

(23:24):
Matter of fact, here'sdiscipleship.
Here's discipleship.
We need more service.
Jesus said, I came not to beserved, but to serve and to give
my life as a ransom for many.
So the life of a believer,listen, and this is not just a
call for us to work in churchand all that kind of stuff.
No.

(23:44):
As a follower of Christ, yourlife should be dedicated to
blessing and serving andbenefiting somebody else.
If the essence of your life isabout what is being poured in
you, you've missed the message.
So, kind of like in thisbuilding, it's kind of like in

(24:04):
this building, or any otherbuilding you may go to, if you
go to your corporate office, orI know some of y'all like
Starbucks.
Any Starbucks lovers in here?
You need to fast from that.
Okay.
Go to the doctor's office.
The wonderful thing when you gointo just about any building in

(24:26):
the city or in this country, youcan get Wi-Fi access.
Get Wi-Fi in here.
Get Wi-Fi in Starbucks.
Get Wi-Fi if you go toMcDonald's.
Even though I don't plan to staythere that long.
Just about any building.
But the only reason why theWi-Fi works is because there are

(24:48):
servers that work together insuch a way that one signal can
be accessed by all people.
And if the people of God wouldrecognize that if we would just

(25:09):
be servers that work together,they'll get the one signal of
the gospel.
Let me wrap this up.
We must embrace some essentialtransitions.
And here we see in verse 51,Jesus goes back home.
He subjected himself to hisparents until he was 13.

(25:31):
And from the age of 13 to 30, wehear nothing about him.
That was a significanttransition in his life.
And we've got to embracetransitions in our life.
Here's my point.
You have to choose.
When you know God cares for you,you have to transition and be

(25:52):
intentional and choosediscipleship as a priority in
your life.
You have to choose it.
You have to make that apriority.
The fast is a time of transitionto learning what matters to God
most.
It's a choice.
It's not gonna happen byosmosis, it's not gonna fall out

(26:14):
of the sky, you're not gonnapick it up in a book.
You have to choose and beintentional that this is the
priority for 2026 for my life.
Don't do like most people whomake a New Year's resolution
about exercise.
They pack out, like today, Iguarantee, today, yesterday, and

(26:36):
tomorrow.
They'll pack out the exerciseplaces and outlets, LA fitness
and all that.
Give it about a week and a half,it'll go right back to normal.
And I say, just don't pay, justdon't do it.
You can save yourself somemoney.
You have to decide to becommitted to it.

(26:59):
That's the only way it happens.
And because Jesus knew hisfather cared, that's why he
submitted himself to it.
He knew his father cared forhim.
And he submitted to this processof discipleship.
My point is, God cares for us.
That's why we do it.
Not doing it trying to impressanybody, not doing it because we

(27:20):
want attention, not doing itbecause we need grinding points
or we need to be on the stageand receive a trophy.
We do it because we know Godcares for us.
We do it because we believe thisis what's best for our lives.
So it's kind of like that littlegirl told her teacher when they
were in a brutal blizzardsomewhere up in North Dakota.

(27:42):
And when school, the blizzardhit much harder than they
thought.
It was brutal, it was blinding.
She told her her teachersomething that stayed with the
teacher.
It was a bad blizzard.
Very low temperatures, negativetemperatures.
One by one, parents began topick up their children.

(28:02):
Teacher turns to the little girland says, Look, all the parents
are coming to pick up theirchildren.
I don't know if your parents arecoming to get you.
Look like we're gonna have tohunker down and try to ride this
storm out.
I got a bucket of coal that wecan use for fire.
And I got a sandwich, maybe wecan make it to the day.
Little girl sternly snapped backand said, No, my daddy coming to

(28:25):
get me.
Because my I know he's coming toget me.
Don't even tell me.
Well, how can you be so sure?
It's a blinding blizzard.
Everybody else has come to pickup their kids.
No one has come for you.
It's getting dark outside.
She said, My mother taught methat my heavenly father cares
for me.
And I just believe my heavenlyfather will tell my earthly

(28:48):
father to come and pick me up.
He is not gonna leave me in thisblizzard all night.
Time elapsed.
Finally, late in the evening,there was a man tracking through
the blizzard, came into thatlittle schoolhouse, began to
wrap them up, both of them up,the teacher and the little girl.

(29:09):
And he tied a rope aroundhimself and around them and and
and walked them out, and theytracked all the way back home
and made it safely.
And so the little girl turned tothe teacher when they made it
home.
I told you that my father wascoming.

(29:30):
Watch this, because my fathercares about me.
You figure out which fathershe's talking about on the way
home.
All I'm simply trying to say,when you know God cares for you
that much, is it asking too muchfor him for us to do what is
clear, clearly near and dear tohis heart.

(29:51):
That discipleship and being whatGod calls us to be, that's what
is on his heart.
If Jesus did it, we ought to dothe same thing too.
That's my word for us today.
Let me say a few things and wrapthis thing up.