Sermon: Living a Three Dimensional Life; Part 1 Length

A mechanic was removing a cylinder head from the motor of a Harley-Davidson when he spotted a well-known heart surgeon in his shop. The surgeon was there waiting for the service manager to come take a look at his bike.

The mechanic shouted across the garage, "Hey, Doc, can I ask you question?"

The surgeon, a bit surprised, walked over to the mechanic working on the motorcycle. The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, "So Doc, look at this engine. I open its heart, take valves out, fix 'em, put 'em back in, and when I finish, it works just like new."

"Yes, so what's your question?" the doc asks.

"Well, how come I get such a small salary and you get the really big bucks, when you and I are doing basically the same work?"

The surgeon paused, smiled and leaned over, and whispered to the mechanic, "Try doing it with the engine running."

Today I want to start a three part sermon series about living a complete three dimensional life. If you have ever built an addition to your house or even painted a room you are familiar with the idea of length, width, and height. These are concepts that we learn early in elementary math and they are at least one mathematical concept that we use almost every. For the next few weeks I want to take these mathematical concepts and apply them in a different way. I want to talk about we must be equal in all aspects of our life in order to live an abundant life, which is the kind of life the God wants us to live.

In Revelation 21:16, John the Revelator describes the new city of Jerusalem that is going to come after we are called home to Jesus. This city is equal in length, width, and height because God likes things to be equal, he likes balance, and so we should be equal in length, width, and height in our lives. The metaphor of length, width, and height needs to be explained before I continue. The length of our lives is our relationship with ourselves, how we see ourselves and how we feel about ourselves. Width refers to our relationship with other people or “our neighbors” as Jesus puts it. Finally, height is our relationship with God and how our spiritual connection is maintained and strengthened. Each of these dimensions in our lives must be addressed and sustained in order to live an abundant life. If one dimension is overloaded or neglected their will be an adverse affect on our lives. So we must maintain a balance in order to live as God intended.

Today, I want to focus on the length of our lives. That is the relationship we have with ourselves. Some psychiatrists call this self-esteem or our self-image. Many times we as Christians have been taught to focus all our attention on helping other people and as a result we forget to take care of ourselves. Not that helping those who are less fortunate is a bad thing, but we also must be aware of our own needs. If we neglect this part our lives it could cause depression, suicidal tendencies, and other mental problems. Many people do not have positive self-images and either ignore them or they put them on the back-burner by busying themselves in their work or in their hobbies, or in their family. Ignoring or neglecting these things can be potentially dangerous.

On the opposite side of the spectrum there are those who spend their entire time and attention on themselves. We call them narcissists, egotists, selfish, and self-centered. These are the people who are so focused on their own self-interest that they ignore the other two dimensions in their lives. They tend to have poor relationships with family and friends and also have poor relationships with God. This demonstrates the need for balance in the length of our lives.

There are certain things we can do to help the length in our lives. First is to accept the fact that we are all created special by God. Genesis 1 and 2 state specifically that we are created in the image of God. This makes us unique among 1-2 million different species of animals on Earth. Humans were created special by God and we are cared for specifically by God. Jesus told his disciples that God cares the sparrows and that we are worth much more than sparrows. God even knows the numbers of the hairs on our heads. For some of us, those numbers are fewer than others, but the point is that we are highly valued; we are precious in the eyes of God, even though we are not perfect.

God created us not as a group but as individuals. As individuals we have individual gifts and limitations and in order to be in full length we must fully understand our God given gifts and limitations. We are all given special and unique talents. Some of us are good at public speaking, preaching, counseling, being a pastor, others are good at math. My roommate at UAH graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and he would bring in homework that would blow my mind. I couldn’t do thermodynamic physics and he isn’t good at speaking to a crowd. He can tear down an engine and put it back again. I can change the oil and change a flat but that’s about it. There are things we are good at and things that we are not so good at. The way to lead a happy life and to be strong in length is to accept our strengths and our weaknesses and to be happy in those strengths and weaknesses. Don’t try to be a Ferrari when you are a Chevy, because I will tell you something, a Chevy can do a lot of things that a Ferrari can’t do. We must be willing to accept ourselves as the person that God made in his own image with the special gifts and limitations.

This leads to the third and final way to live a full length life and that is to always have a positive frame of mind. We remember that old saying about the glass being half full or half empty and it is true that the way we look at life affects the way we feel. If we think the world is out to get us then you will see every little thing that goes wrong, but if we maintain a positive attitude then we life brings its trials and tribulations we can work through them much better. We can look at problems as obstacles set in our way by God or by the Devil or by some other unseen force or we can see problems as new challenges that will teach us lessons that will help us in the future. When we keep a positive attitude then we walk with a quicker step and with a smile on our face. And why shouldn’t we be positive, we are children of God, blessed by his grace every day of our lives. We are the blood bought children of God and that is the reason we should always have a positive outlook on things.

It does not happen overnight and even when we achieve this positive, abundant life it takes work to maintain it. We have to work to take things in stride. That is something I especially have to work on. I tend to see the negative in every situation. I tend to see only what can go wrong instead of what can go right. I have to work to keep a positive attitude. We have to use positive words. We have to say “can” instead of “cannot”, we have to say “God is in control and he only wants what’s best for me” instead of “Why does God do this to me?” or “God is punishing me”. When we use positive words and positive then we begin to see our attitudes change and we begin to see the length dimension in our lives become strong.

God wants us to live an abundant life and to live a life of balance. We should not ignore the relationship with ourselves and also we should be obsessed with ourselves either. We should recognize that we are specially created by God and we are created with gifts and limitations. When we embrace all these things and when we think positive thoughts and speak positive words then the length dimension becomes strong and we then can focus on the other dimensions in our lives.