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July 26 – Valuing What Matters · The Daily Ripples Podcast

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Well,
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welcome back everybody to the Daily Ripples
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podcast. It's Sunday and that means it's just
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me here today, Pastor Mike. As Corey mentioned yesterday,
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going forward we're going to try a new routine
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of during the week we'll have both of us
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on there or one or the other with some guests, and then on Saturdays
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Corey will take and run with our devotional and I'll have Sundays.
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And today is Sunday, July 26th, And our devotional
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today is titled Valuing What Matters. Now,
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the funny thing about this one up front is I'll tell you, it's a little
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bit strange for me. Sometimes I get these little God winks
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that happen because this morning, separately planned
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and according to what we call the Revised Common Lectionary in A Life
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of Faith, the Scripture passages that I'm covering at
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both of the churches that I serve today are from Matthew
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chapter 13 and their parables. And as I sat down
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with today's Daily Ripple, you know,
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honestly, they're all saying the same thing. You know, I wrote
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this devotional months ago. It's based on the source material,
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obviously, of the Daily Reflections from Alcoholics Anonymous. And the
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preaching text is out of the lectionary, but they landed on the same day saying
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basically the same thing. And so we're going to lean into that intentionally
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today. Now, if you are a parishioner of one of the churches that I serve
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and you're listening to this this morning between the hours of 4:00
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AM and 9:00 AM when the first service starts, that does not mean that
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you get to skip church today. All right. Now that we've got that out of
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the way, the stone. I show what I value
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by what I am willing to give. Ripple 1 is practical.
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Today, I will take responsibility for what supports my life.
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I will not rely on others to carry what I benefit from. Benefit from.
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Whether it is time, effort, or resources, I will give willingly and
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consistently. Ripple 2: Spiritual. The Father calls
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me to live with integrity, not just receive but also
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give. Jesus shows a life poured out, not held back.
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The Holy Spirit moves me from passive dependence to active participation.
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As I give from a willing heart, I honor what has been given to me
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and grow in gratitude and responsibility. And of course,
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we will save our prayer for the end of the episode.
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Now, let's start where the practical side starts today.
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I think a lot of times that practical application, and that's why that ripple comes
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first, is that many times all we can control is
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what we do with our hands and feet and the practical side, and the spiritual
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is what God does within us as we move
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along on this journey of recovery and on this journey of faith.
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And it says, I will not rely on others to carry what I benefit from.
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In rooms of recovery, in 12-step programs, we have
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a word for that. And especially in the fellowship that's known
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as Alcoholics Anonymous, they have a 7th tradition.
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And it says that every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside
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contributions. And ironically
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enough, it's funny, 'cause just a couple of minutes ago, as I was sitting down
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to record this, Corey had sent me a text saying, hey, what if on
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some of these, you know, wave or extra episodes we do, we dig into
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the traditions? Or at least I think that's what he meant with his text
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message shorthand. But when we hear this tradition, the 7th tradition,
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you know, we think about that basket going around the room.
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You know, in every recovery meeting, they pass a basket about halfway
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through the meeting, most of the meetings that I've been in anyway.
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And yes, that's a part of it. But what
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we're trying to get at here is bigger than $1 or even $3 in
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a basket. I think most of us know that even
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when we don't say it out loud, but here's the honest
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question about that when you show up at a recovery meeting or if
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you show up at a church. The honest or the more honest questions are not,
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did I put $1 or $3 or $50 in
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a communion plate or what have you? But the more
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searching questions are, who made the coffee this morning?
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You know, who showed up to unlock the doors? Who set up those chairs?
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Who's been the treasurer for 6 years because nobody else would do it?
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And who's standing at the door shaking hands with the new guy at the
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moment that everybody else has already left for their cars?
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Or in the case of recovery meetings, a lot of times going outside to
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have a little cancer stick, as we say.
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But if I've been sitting in a room for years receiving
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everything that the room gives me, and I've never once
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carried a single part of the load that keeps those
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rooms open, then I'm relying on somebody else to carry what I
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benefit from. And that's what this ripple is putting a finger on. It's not the
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money. It's not about money and resources. It's about carrying the load
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together. And that should convict
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people who attend church as well, maybe more so even than it does
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in recovery, because in a church we have a whole vocabulary for consuming
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without contributing. We call that attendance.
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And there's nothing wrong with showing up, but showing up is not the same thing
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as carrying something. And I've been
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so blessed in the congregations that I've served to see that
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just about everybody who's there, and they are smaller congregations,
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which sometimes makes it harder and sometimes makes it easier, to be honest.
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But in those smaller congregations, you truly do see everybody
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pitching in and carrying the load together. Now, are there one or two people who
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end up carrying the lion's share of things like setting up
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and coffee and unlocking doors? Of course there are.
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Here's looking at you, Brother Colin. But this,
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for both of us, whether we're in the rooms of recovery or whether
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we are planning on going to church later this morning, or we already have
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if you're listening to this later in the day, But this is where the parables
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come in that I mentioned at the beginning. And this is kind of where it
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gets beautiful, at least for me, because this was a God wink. In Matthew 13:44-46,
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and this is from the NRSV: The kingdom
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of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone
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found and hid. Then in his joy, he goes and sells
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all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of
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heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls.
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On finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had
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and bought it. Now these 2
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stories, or these 2 parables, are a little bit different. You know,
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the first man is out working a field, you know,
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somebody else's field probably, and it's not anything
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that he owns. He's just doing a day's labor, but he trips over a treasure
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that he wasn't even looking for. And the second man has spent his entire
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career probably hunting for these fine pearls, and at
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last he finds the one that's worth more than everything else
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combined. The first guy just kind of stumbled on it,
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but the second one had been searching for years, but they respond exactly
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the same way. They sell everything that they own to get it.
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And I think that we need to hear something in that because it's the whole
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point of today's stone. You know, neither of those people described
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in the parables is described making a sacrifice. Matthew says of
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the first man that he sold all that he had in his joy.
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So he wasn't having a bad attitude about it,
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you might say. He was happy to sell everything that he had. That's not
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grim math. That's a man who is
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not afraid of doing what it takes. He's not doing
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the responsible thing, in other words, with his teeth clenched. He's seen something
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that's worth having, And you might say that he can't
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get rid of the rest of his crap fast enough to get
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the one thing that really matters. Because when you know what something is worth,
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giving everything for it doesn't feel like losing it. It feels like
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it's the only sane thing to do. That reminds
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me of when I first came into the rooms of recovery myself,
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because they told me that I had to go to all these meetings.
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And at first, I didn't know if I wanted to spend the time.
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I was reluctant in trying to to find
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this treasure. But over time, what I found is that,
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you know, what I found in the rooms of recovery, my sobriety and the life
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that I have today was worth giving up everything else that I have.
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And I've seen that with other people in rooms of recovery. I've watched a person
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who couldn't be trusted with a $20 bill 3 years ago drive
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90 minutes each way on his own gas on a Tuesday night
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to sit with somebody that they've never met. You know, these are people
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who nobody is making them do this for each other.
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Nobody is paying us to work with new
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people in the recovery. We just know what we have been handed,
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and we know what that's worth, and we can't help ourselves. And that's the treasure
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in the field, or that's the pearl. The Big Book gives us the same thing
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over on page 59. And, and I know, Corey, if you're listening,
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you're probably proud right now I actually quoted a page number. But it tells
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us on page 59 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that half measures avail
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us nothing. And it also tells us to turn ourselves over
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with complete abandon, and complete abandon is just our recovery way
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of saying the same thing. He sold all that he had.
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That was complete abandon. So our practical question today,
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and one that I'd invite all of us to sit with honestly,
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is this: to look at where your time actually goes.
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Look at where your effort really goes, because that's your answer. The stone says,
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I show what I value by what I'm willing to give. It doesn't say,
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I show what I value by what I say I value.
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Your calendar, your effort, your— even your bank account at times have
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already got that answer written down. They already show what
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you value. The only question is whether you like what they're saying.
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And if you don't like what they're saying, guess what? You could change that.
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And that can be changed even starting today. But let's move on to
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the spiritual side, because today it walks all 3 persons of the Trinity,
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and the parables walk right alongside it. It says, the Father calls me to live
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with integrity, not just receive, but also give.
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You know, Jesus, he started this whole run of parables in Matthew chapter
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13 with a mustard seed. For those who've been in my July
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sermon series, you probably already know this because a couple of
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weeks ago we covered this. But he says it's the smallest of all seeds.
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And that's our first pause, because technically there are seeds that are smaller
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than a mustard seed. And He says that it grows into the greatest of shrubs,
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which technically it doesn't really do that either. You know, a mustard
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seed grows into a scrappy, spreading bush, but Jesus is stretching this parable
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on both ends on purpose. He's saying that the start of our life
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of faith or the life of our recovery is smaller than you think, and the
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finish is more uncontainable than you could ever even
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imagine. And that's the part that I love about it, because a mustard plant isn't
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some stately tree that everybody plants for the view. It's closer to a weed.
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Once it's in the ground, it spreads, it gets into everything. The farmers
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back then had to manage it, not admire it.
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And that's what integrity looks like when God gets ahold of it. It's not tidy,
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it's not decorative. Your integrity gets into your marriage, it gets
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into your profession, into your work. It even gets into your bank account, how you
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spend your money, how you drive, what you say while you're driving.
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I'm talking to you, Christy. But anyway, and how you talk
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about people who aren't in the room. And sometimes it even gets into
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your integrity, gets into how you talk about people that you are in the rooms
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with. Are we giving others the same grace that we would want given
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to us? But we could have a whole other topic about that.
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But our faith, our recovery spreads into places that we never
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even planned on it going. And then Jesus talks in Matthew
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13 about yeast, and this one's sneaky because everywhere else in Matthew,
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yeast is a warning. He tells his followers
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repeatedly, beware of the yeast of the Pharisees.
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You might say it's his go-to picture of something corrupting that spreads
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through a whole community. But right here, he grabs the same image
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and flips it over because the exact quality that makes yeast dangerous
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in one story is what makes the kingdom of God unstoppable in this
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one. And the woman mixes it into 3 measures of flour, it tells
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us in the Gospel. And in our modern-day measurement, that's about 50 pounds.
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You know, that's not just a supper for a couple of friends.
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That's making bread for a whole village. You know, and that's how abundant
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the love of God, the grace of God, the saving power of God is
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for us. And that same grace and saving power and abundant love we can
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find in our rooms of recovery. If you're listening this morning and
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you're struggling with whether or not you will have a drink or use
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a substance to change your perspective and feelings today,
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just know that God is there with you even in that struggle.
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And he is attempting to speak to you to get
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you to reach out to a sponsor or a friend in recovery and just share
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what you're going through. But anyway,
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I couldn't go past that without speaking directly to any who
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might still be struggling today. But it tells us in this
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spiritual ripple that Jesus shows a life poured out, not held back.
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It says poured out. That's not measured
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out. You know, if you're pouring something, you're not exactly measuring it carefully. You're not
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rationing it, in other words. He didn't hold back a
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reserve in case the crowd turned out to be unworthy of it,
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and we need to hear that. He poured his entire life out,
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and that's the example that we have not to do what we normally do,
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because I know even myself, if I have the
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availability, you might say, I'm going to ration my time every time.
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I'm going to ration my life. You know what I mean?
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Yes, there's value in taking time for Sabbath keeping,
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taking time to rest, to make sure that we're
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being filled so that we can pour out for others, but that can
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quickly turn into an excuse as well. It can turn into,
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well, I don't have time right now for that,
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or, this person who's asking me, I've already helped
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them 3 times this month and they're asking for help again.
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Well, I think Jesus would say, well, so help them again.
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You know, stop doing the math about somebody before we help them. Just be
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those hands and feet. The last parable in this set in Matthew
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13 that we're talking about has something to say about that too, because Jesus talks
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about a net thrown into the sea that catches fish of every kind.
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And he says the sorting happens later at the shore, and it's
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very clearly not being done by the fishermen.
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In fact, we need to read that part,
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because he says in Matthew 13:47,
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it says, again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into
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the sea and caught fish of every kind. When it was full, they drew it
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ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets, but threw out the bad.
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So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out
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and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire,
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where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And this is where I'll
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remind everybody of one of my favorite phrases, and that is that God is God
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and I am not. And I am thankful that I don't have to sort out
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the fish, that that's God's job. And so if God is ultimately the one who
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decides the good from the bad fish, then God is ultimately the one who decides
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the good from the bad seeds or fish
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that we meet, whether it's in churches, in life, in rooms of recovery,
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whatever the case may be. Our job is not to categorize
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and condemn. Our job is to love and to serve.
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To truly live a life poured out, to value
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what really matters in our own lives, which is our recovery and
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our faith. And judging, condemning others, sorting them
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into good and bad is still not our job. Our job is to cast that
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net wide. Now, I know that I'm not the only
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person sitting here this morning who's quietly kind of pre-sorted somebody in your life.
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You know, well, this one won't get it, and I'm not going to talk to
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them, or this one's not ready, or this one's going to waste my time.
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But the literature does tell us not to chase a man who won't work with
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us. That's true in the recovery rooms, and that's wisdom. But there's a
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world of difference between letting somebody go after you've
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made the offer and never offering in the first place because you've already decided
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who they are, how it's going to go, and how it's going to turn out.
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The first is trusting God with the sorting, and the other
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is doing God's sorting for him. And then it tells
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us the Holy Spirit moves me from passive dependence to
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active participation. Well, I mean, in the rooms
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of recovery, wouldn't that be the 12th step? You have a spiritual awakening, it says,
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as a result of these steps, and then you carry it. It's not you awaken
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and then you sit down and take a nap. It's you awaken and then you
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go. And that reminds me of what I tell my parishioners
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at the end of every service that I preach. I always tell them to go
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and do all the good you can for all the people you can in all
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the places you can in all the ways you can. By all the means you
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can, and do it all for as long as you ever can. In the name
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of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, to go in
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peace. And that's kind of the marching orders that I leave
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my congregation with. And it's based off of something that John Wesley,
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the founder of Methodism, used to say. But Jesus ends
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this whole run of parables with one more line also,
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and it's the one that I keep going back to as well. It says in
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Matthew 13:52, therefore, every scribe who
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has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household
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who brings out of his treasure, what is new and what is old.
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Well, that's Jesus naming his own method out loud.
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He took the oldest and plainest things in that world— the seeds,
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the bread, the fields, the pearls, the nets— and
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he carried a brand new kingdom-sized truth inside of each and every one
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of them. And that's what we're doing here, honestly. You know, we take a book,
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the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that was written in 1939,
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and a book a lot older than that, which is the Bible, and we bring
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them out of the storeroom and try to make them plain for a Sunday morning
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in Memphis or wherever you're listening in 2026.
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It's old treasure being made new. That's our assignment. That's what both
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Corey and I try to do out of this. And the reason
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why is because this— these are the things that we value
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the most in life. You know, at the end of the big book,
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right there on page 164, it tells us to give freely
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of what we find. And that's the whole thing. It doesn't tell
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us to hoard what we find. It doesn't tell us to carefully
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evaluate and make sure you learn and know everything that you find. It says to
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give freely of what you find, because when we
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start to really understand what we've been given, giving it away
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stops feeling like a cost and it starts feeling like joy.
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And that's when you find out what you really value, not by what you say,
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but by what you were finally willing to let go of or to give up
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in order to gain this treasure or this pearl of
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immense value that we here call recovery from
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alcoholism and addiction. Well, let's pray together this morning.
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Father God, help me value what you have given me. Through your
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Holy Spirit, move me to give freely and responsibly.
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Shape my life through the example of Jesus and teach me to live
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with gratitude and integrity. Amen. And that's it for
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today, everybody. Corey will be back with you next Saturday. I'll see you next Sunday.
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And then tomorrow and all this week, we've got some great episodes
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lined up with both Corey and I. And if you want to read today's full
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devotional, head over to www.dailyripples.com.
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And if this show means anything to you, or if you have feedback or
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something else that you'd like to hear or see us do, reach out to us
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anytime at wave, W-A-V-E, at dailyripples.com.
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But for now, you know exactly what to do. Go and
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do all the good you can for all the people you can, in all
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the places you can, in all the ways you can, and by all the means
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that you can. And please do it all for as long as
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you ever can. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy
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Spirit, may you go in peace. And remember, you don't have to drink or use
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a drug today.