Online Sermon Archive

Tom Sacco
“Where’s Your Ice Cream Cone?”
July 22, 2007

You probably all remember that commercial that has a line in it that goes something like, “It’s 10:00 o’clock, do you know where your kids are?”

Well, I’m here today to ask you,
“Do you know where your ice cream cone is?”

Many of you have probably heard this story from Luke a thousand times. The story of Mary & Martha highlights the importance of our love for God.

Martha “welcomed Jesus into her home.” and she sets about preparing this lavish feast. Custom has it, Jesus was invited, therefore he must eat, and Martha is fulfilling the role assigned to her by society. In doing so, she allows the secondary matters of life to distract her from hearing the Word of God.

Twice in 2 verses, it says Martha was “distracted”. The original language says that she was "pulled around in many different directions."

Not only was Martha distracted and consumed with what needed to be done, she was also distressed with what Mary wasn’t doing. So much so that she actually began to boss Jesus around. In vs. 40, she says to Jesus, “Tell her then to help me.” Can you imagine ordering God around? But that’s exactly what she did. "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.”Martha presumes to tell Jesus what to do; Mary lets Jesus tell her what to do.

Martha was putting duty before devotion. She was putting physical nourishment ahead of spiritual nourishment. She was focused on trying to please Jesus with good food, rather than stepping back and letting Jesus nourish her with his words

This is what happens when we’re doing too much of a good thing. Tension and frustration beat us down when we are performing the wrong tasks or trying to cram too many of the right activities into a given period.

 One of the new focuses that is coming to the forefront in corporate America is this notion of Work Life balance and how we can get so wrapped up in our careers “doing” the job 24/7 that we lose focus on those other essential parts of our lives. This includes spending time with our families and being able to have time set aside, other than Sunday morning, to focus on our spiritual life with God. We don’t take important time to just read the Bible and be nourished by God’s word. We get distracted.

How many of you understand where I am coming from? How many of you are like me that when push comes to shove and life just gets busy, your devotion time with the Lord is often pushed aside? We don’t consciously say, “You know, time with the Lord just doesn’t matter. God will understand. It’s not like He needs me to spend time with Him.”

If you really think about it, you are setting the Lord aside in order to take care of business, in order to do what you think is really important. Yet, what we would consider an important obligation, God considers a distraction.

Myth #1: Busy equals important.

We think when we’re really busy it means we’re really living.- actually, being overly busy cuts us off from the time we need to spend cultivating the important relationships in our life: with our spouse, our kids and grand kids, our family and friends, our God.

Myth #2: Someone wins the rat race.

This is a lie because the rat race is all about "what you do" and God is more interested in "who we are."

God will not ask on judgment day, "How busy were you?" Rather, He will ask, "Are you like Jesus?"

Myth #3: Hurrying will buy us more time.

All this technology we now have was supposed to create tons of free time but, instead of enjoying it, we fill up that “free time” with more work.  “Got more time, so I can do more work.”  Maybe if we deliberately slowed down, took a step back from our frenzied activity, that would give us the perspective to be able to see which things in our lives are really worth doing.

Years ago in the deep jungles of Africa, a traveler was making a long trek. Natives of the area were hired to carry the loads. The first day they marched rapidly and went far. The traveler had high hopes of a speedy journey. But the second morning these jungle tribesmen refused to move.

For some strange reason they just sat and rested. When asked about the reason for this strange behavior, the traveler was informed that they had gone too fast the first day, and that they were now waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies.

There are times when our lives move so fast, that we need to slow down and let our souls catch up with us -- not literally, but figuratively.

Myth #4: "Down time" is wasted.

We are made to feel guilty if we aren’t constantly "doing something." How many of you have laptops or Blackberrys or even cell phones. This is our society’s way of not letting you waste your downtime.  Now you can be attached to your careers even when you leave the office. Remember those days when 5:00 came around and you knew your focus can change to your families and other outside activities and you didn’t have to worry about what you left behind the doors of corporate America. Well now they become a part of your waking and sleeping moments. Remember, God instituted the Sabbath into this system called life, and Scripture is filled with the mention of "God’s rest." Why can’t we?

We must find a balance between "go and do" and "sit and listen." The life of a disciple requires both.

We will rarely find God in the hectic moments in our lives, but we will often find Him in the quiet moments.

Ps 37:7 tells us, "Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him." Ps 46:10, "Be still, and know that I am God." But we are too much like Martha. For we live in a Martha world.  Like Martha, we are easily distracted by the busy world. We need to be like Mary. There are times when we need to just stop and be quiet and still, and rest in the simple presence of the Lord.

It is good for our own soul, it is good for our relationship with others, and it is good for our relationship with God.

Several years ago, newspapers told how a new Navy jet fighter shot itself down. Flying at supersonic speed, it ran into the shells it had fired only a few seconds before.  The jet was traveling too fast!

Some of us are traveling through our lives too fast. We’re going to find ourselves in a mode of self destruction. There come times when we need to slow down and let our souls catch up with us, and even though we live in a Martha world, we need to be still and quietly rest in the presence of God.

The ultimate tragedy of the busy life is the same as the tragedy that Martha faced – when offered the opportunity to sit at Jesus’ feet,  she (and we) can’t spare Jesus any time.

Our culture promotes busyness. People expect us to be busy, maybe even overworked. It’s become a status symbol in our society - if we’re busy, we’re important; if we’re not busy, we’re considered lazy or expendable. Busyness is our security blanket. It’s validation. It’s also a good excuse for not dealing with the first things in our lives.

A woman entered a Haagen-Dazs in the Kansas City Plaza for an ice-cream cone. While she was ordering, another customer entered the store. She placed her order, turned and found herself staring face to face with Paul Newman. He was in town filming a movie. His blue eyes made her knees buckle. She finished paying and quickly walked out of the store with her heart still pounding. Gaining her composure she suddenly realized she didn’t have her cone; she turned to go back in. At the door she met Paul Newman who was coming out. He said to her, "Are you looking for your ice-cream cone?" Unable to utter a word she nodded yes. "You put it in your purse with your change."

When was the last time the presence of God made you forget what was going on around you?

Made you forget the dishes? Made you forget to watch the ball game? Made you forget the bank account?

Made you forget where...you put your ice cream cone?