What if I told you that God could be seen in the most ordinary things every day?
What if I told you that every day, ordinary events could teach us extraordinary eternal truths? Would you believe me?
Welcome back to season 6 of the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! My name is BJ Sipe, and I am a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. In our next few moments together, we hope to learn some of the most important lessons from some of the simplest things in life. Thank you for taking this journey with me.
If you were to look at an arial shot of our neighborhood, you would see some wonderfully kept yards from our hard-working neighbors. Immaculate lines, well-tended to gardens, and freshly cut grass are a common sight in most of our subdivision. And then, there is our house. Between three children and three fur babies, our yard has turned us into one of “those neighbors”. Toys everywhere, a swing set, a trampoline, shoes scattered across the yard…and now, something even more spectacular that is bound to grab everyone’s attention: a six-foot tall, six-foot-wide inflatable cow. Yes, you read that right – and yes, it was my idea.
I hate buying the kids those little pools each year because they completely destroy the grass beneath them in the yard, so this year I was looking for something different. I had taken the kids with me to Sam’s Club for our monthly big grocery shop, when we went down the aisle with all of the outdoor toys – these included pools, floaties, sprinklers, etc. When what would my kids spot but two gigantic blow-up sprinklers – a 7-foot-tall giraffe and a 6-foot-tall cow. I couldn’t argue with the price – they only wanted $30 for one of these massive blow-up sprinklers. I thought about it and told the kids that they had to pick one – and of course, they decided together to pick the heifer.
We got it home, blew it up, and connected it to the hose. It’s the dumbest and funniest looking thing you’ve ever seen, with water that jets from between its horns and from its udders in the front. They were so excited to play with it, so they got their swimsuits on and start running through cow water all afternoon. Well, that lasted a grand total of one day, because the kids discovered another way of playing with this inflated smiling beef: as a blob or a bounce house. Day after day, this is how the cow has been used: two of the kids sit on top of the cow after laying it down while the third child runs and jumps on the other side, sending the two kids flying. It is a hoot to watch! Now even all of the neighbor kids have joined in, and at any given time we have 3-6 children all jumping on an inflatable sprinkler – not at all using it for its intended purpose. But hey, they’re having a great time. No harm, no foul – even if it makes me the laughingstock of the neighborhood.
No harm, no foul when it comes to using a large inflatable sprinkler for something other than it’s intended purpose, but not so much the case when it comes to misusing the things that God has designed and given to us for his purposes. God is the giver of every good and perfect gift, and in his infinite wisdom has given us many things for our good – the church, marriage, truth, etc. And yet, more often than not, man will reject the gifts that God has given to us and “repurpose” them for their own good pleasure rather than for the Lords. We read in Isaiah 65:2, “I spread out my hands all day long to a rebellious people who walk in the path that is not good, following their own thoughts.” God had directed Israel in what was right – had given them good things – but they rejected them. Instead, they “repurposed” the good things of God for what seemed good to them in their own sight. My friends, if we are not careful, we can do the very same thing ourselves.
Consider the church, for a moment. We are instructed in Ephesians 4:11-13 the following, “And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.” God has designed the church to be a spiritual family that builds one another up. When we come together to worship God, we are also coming together to be equipped for work – to go out to serve. The church is one of the greatest gifts that God has given to us – and yet, for many, that gift was not what they wanted. In many places, man has rejected the design and purpose of the church and turned it into something that God never designed or had in mind. Rather than asking, “how can I serve as a member of the Lord’s church?” now people in many places of worship come with the mind of a consumer, asking, “what can the church do for me?” In order to fill seats, churches have turned themselves into places of entertainment – not places for edification. Seats and stomachs are full, but hearts are empty and devoid of Christ.
What about marriage? One of the greatest gifts that God has ever given to us while on this earth is that of the marriage union between a husband and a wife. We read in Ecclesiastes 9:9, “Enjoy life with the wife you love all the days of your fleeting life, which has been given to you under the sun, all your fleeting days. For that is your portion in life and in your struggle under the sun.” God’s design for marriage is perfect and full of blessing, enriching an already rich life that our Creator has given to us. But for so many, God’s design for marriage is not what they wanted, and so they have rejected it and abused marriage to be an invention of their own. Adulterous relationships, homosexuality, or simply living together outside of marriage are common practice in our culture today – and yet all of these are an outright rejection of God’s beautiful design from the very beginning. We would do well to remember the words of Hebrews 13:4, “Marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.”
Or finally, what about truth? Unfortunately, many look to God’s Word as restrictive, as a bunch of rules that a manipulative and controlling God has forced upon his creation. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth of God’s Word is an expression of his grace and freeing to the one who comes to know & live by it. Jesus teaches us in John 8:31-32, “Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” There is true freedom in Christ when we come to know him – freedom from slavery to sin and the deceitful desires of this world and our flesh. And yet, for many, they reject the gift of truth and exchange it for their own – much like Israel of Isaiah 65. We read Paul’s warning to the young evangelist Timothy in 2 Tim. 4:3-4, “For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths.” We cannot distort the truth of God’s Word and manipulate it into what we want it to be. In all things, we must submit and align ourselves to the authority of Scripture. One day each of us will stand in judgment before Christ and be judged by his words – if we twist them, it is only to our own destruction. But if we submit to them, they are gift from God, leading to our salvation.
My friends, we cannot repurpose the wonderful gifts that come from the mind of God. He has designed and created things with good reason – far beyond these three examples that we looked at today. In all things, may we seek to do God’s work in God’s way, according to his purpose and design for each of us in our lives.
This has been season 6 episode 15 of the Set Your Mind Above Podcast – and I’m so thankful that we had this time to grow together! A new episode is dropped each Friday of the week. If you’re able to, go ahead and like and subscribe to the podcast, give us a good rating, and tune in next week. Even more important, share the spiritual truths that we learned today with someone else. And more than anything my friends, always remember the following: know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.
