Margins
Pastor Steven Osborne
Transcribed by PulpitAI (with edits)
Today’s focus is “Margins,” and we’re talking about leaving room for God to work, and then for the next three weeks we’re gonna look at “Discipleship,” and then we’re gonna jump right in the book of 1 Corinthians, so really excited for that.
And so I thought this is fitting for us as we get to celebrate another day off, you know, with Labor Day weekend, and how do we even use this time, this weekend with this extra day, to just kind of reflect and prepare our lives for this fall and for winter and the busyness of school and work and church activities and to make sure that we stay healthy?
Now, I don’t know if any of you have done any traveling. Any traveling, airport? Have any of you done this, like with your suitcase, right? There’s been some moments. I think one of the first times we came to the U.S., our suitcases were over the weight limit, and we had to stop and in front of all the people, long lines, had to try and switch over, you know, different weight and clothing articles and stuff like that to just kind of make it happen. I don’t know if we even paid more, but it was just like, “Oh man, this is so embarrassing.” Right? And everyone can kind of see all of your stuff here. It’s like, “Ugh,” and everything is kind of just popping out.
Margins Are Important
And I think even in life, and especially in just the busyness of life—and let me just say this first of all, this will be a great sermon, and I actually wish I can just sit there and let Hailey kind of read this, because I need to hear this, right? And so I’m with you this morning as we talk about margins in our lives.
But a lot of times it’s just, life is so busy, and there’s so many things that’s going on and with all of the activities, and we’re trying to force all of these things on our calendar. And then, you know, a lot of times it’s like, it can be overwhelming, and our suitcases and our lives can really look messy.
A pastor was known for always being busy. His calendar was packed from morning to night. And one day his wife asked him, “When do you plan to take a break?”
The pastor replied, “Oh, I’ll rest when I get to heaven.”
His wife quickly shot back, “Well at this rate, you’ll be getting there a lot sooner than you think.” Right?
There’s a book—I haven’t read the book. Dean told me about it several weeks ago when I shared on the topic for today. And the book is called Margins by Dr. Richard Swenson. I just looked at some of the highlights. Like I said, I just didn’t get time to read it, but some important things that he shares with us, it says:
He teaches us about the importance of creating space in our lives—space for rest, space for relationships, and for God. We often live on the edge, filling every moment with activity, striving to be productive, and leaving no room for pause. But God designed us for more than just constant activity. He created us to live within rhythms of work and rest.
And so again, it is just so easy to kind of go, go, go, and to think that that is what life is all about, but there is so much more. God created us for more of a healthy balance. And yes, we need to work hard, and we also need to rest and have healthy rhythms in our lives.
Cultural Differences
Over the next several weeks, you might meet several exchange students. This there’s another family that’s gonna host two exchange students—one from France and one from Thailand—and we’re getting an exchange student somewhere this week, we think, from Italy. And we got to meet the mom and our new “daughter.” And, well first of all, she was sitting there with her short-sleeve t-shirt, and just talking to them, and I said, “Well, I hope you have a jacket.”
And she’s like, “I don’t wear jackets.”
And her mom said, “Well, she even goes skiing with a t-shirt.”
I said, “Well, keep holding onto that dream. Bring a jacket.”
But in any case, in all of our research in preparing for this new exchange student, we looked up Italy, and I tried to look a little bit at the Italian culture. And there was a one video that I watched about somebody that moved to Italy, and they said that at the beginning, something that was really hard was just how—in our American culture, we’re so busy, but things are way slower in Italy, and how in the beginning that drove her nuts. And she was just like, “How do I do this? How do I slow down,” you know, “not be in this constant rush of things.” So we will see how, what type of culture clash we will have here in the next several months with our new Italian daughter.
But it is. I think, especially here in America, it’s just, man, it is so “go, go, go,” and our calendars are just so full.
Definitions of “Margins”
I appreciate this definition kind of on “margin” from this book. He says it is “the space between our load and our limits.” He reminds us that when we live without margins, we are constantly on the brink of exhaustion. Right? And so it is a wonderful picture to think about, “What is my load, and what is my limits?” And it is something that we have to pay attention to. A lot of times it’s not always easy for us to understand, I have only so much capability, and I can only take so much and not to overload, because it can really lead to destruction when we don’t have a healthy balance.
Some other definitions for us around “margins”:
It refers to the intentional space between our activities, responsibilities, and commitments to allow time for rest, recovery and renewal.
Margins are the extra time, energy, or resources we set aside as a buffer to handle unexpected challenges or emergencies.
And I don’t know if you have experienced that, but you know, a lot of times when your calendar is already so full and you’re already emotionally on overdrive and overloaded, right, and then there’s an emergency and you don’t have that capacity, it’s like, man, that just creates chaos in our lives.
Margins serve as boundaries that protect what is most important in our lives, such as our relationships, spiritual practices, and personal well-being.
Examples From Jesus
Now, when we look at the life of Jesus—because I think he is the ideal person to look at—what are some examples of margins that we see in his life? Well, here’s several.
Jesus often withdrew from the crowds to spend time alone with God. In Luke 5:16, it says, “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
Now, Jesus was connected, right? Jesus is part of the Trinity. He’s got the Holy Spirit. He probably doesn’t need rest in the same way, and yet we see him resting and spending time with the Father.
Even when the demands of ministry were high, Jesus took time to rest. In Mark chapter 6:31, after the disciples reported back to Jesus about their work, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Now again, just when I think about, you know, maybe as a disciple, and you see how Jesus is working in your life, you’re preaching the gospel, there’s people coming to know Jesus, there’s healings, there’s miracles, there’s deliverance—all kinds of things that’s happening. And they’re coming to Jesus, and they’re reporting about all of the good stuff. It’s like, “Hey, let’s go! Let’s go! There’s more to do. There’s so much ministry needs. Look at all of the sick people and those people that are in bondage. Let’s do more.” And like I said, even in our world and our culture, there will always be more needs, and more ministry needs, and things that we can do to make our world a better place.
But instead of Jesus giving just high fives, he actually takes them and says, “Hey, let’s go and rest. Let’s spend some time alone.”
And so good question for us this morning. Hopefully the summer you were able to just rest, right? But again, we know that this winter is long, right? Our exchange students are gonna find that out, right? It’s like, man, 14 months of winter that’s ahead of us is brutal, and so we can’t wait till June to say, “Oh it’s summer again, now we’re gonna rest.” We have to build some of those healthy rhythms in our lives so that we can stay healthy and spiritually renewed throughout the year.
Jesus didn’t try to meet every demand placed on him. In John 6:15, after feeding the five thousand, the people wanted to make him king by force. Instead of staying and meeting their expectations, Jesus withdrew to a mountain by himself.
And again, successful ministry, there’ll be a temptation, everyone is shouting out, it’s like, “Oh, you’re the next king. Let’s make you king.” Right? “You’re the savior,” at least in context of what they had for that moment. And again, in our human nature, that would be easy, like, “Oh, the people need me. I can sacrifice. I can do a little bit more,” right? And it’s so easy for us to kind of play into that, but not Jesus. He said, hey, he doesn’t need to minister to every need in the that moment.
And then I appreciate this:
Jesus intentionally spent time with his disciples teaching, mentoring, and investing in them. In Mark chapter 3 it says, “He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach.” Jesus created margin in his life to build deep, meaningful relationships with his disciples, knowing that this investment would be crucial for the future of his mission.
Now again, we don’t have a clear picture of exactly how much time Jesus spent with all of the disciples and what that calendar exactly looked like, but imagine Jesus just kind of called the disciples, and he got so busy with life and ministry and all of the needs, that he just didn’t have the time to invest in the disciples. And obviously we understand the importance of the ministry of the disciples and their role in the early church. So Jesus knew he needed to create that time to invest in their lives and to show them the healthy path.
And so even in our lives, right, it’s like, who are we mentoring? Who are we speaking into? Do we even have that capacity within our calendar?
We just met a new lady that Venessa really connects well with, and we just really like her and her personality and her family, and we’re like, “Man, how do we create space and margin for this relationship?” And you know, Venessa and I had this conversation, just like, “Yeah, where do we fit that in,” right, “for new relationships?” And it’s like, well that is sad, right, that our calendars and our life is so busy that we kind of have to think through how do we create space for an extra relationship.
Space for a Relationship with God
Now when we think about our relationship with God, and even for most of us sitting here today or if you’re watching online, you might have different ideas about what a relationship with God might look like. And maybe you’re thinking, “Oh, I kind of have to just burn out for Jesus,” right? “I gotta be this Jesus freak and just go, go, go, 24/7,” right, “and that is what God wants from us.”
And actually when we look at Exodus chapter 20, where it talks about just keeping the Sabbath, right, it says:
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work…”
Now a lot of conversation and, you know, sermons around this topic, but what we know this morning is God gave us an example of resting. And so God rested on the seventh day, and he gave this gift of the Sabbath day to his children and says, “Man, create this margin in your life to rest, to be restored, to build relationship with me.”
And I think it is very healthy for us—and kudos to all of you, you’re here today, right, kind of resting, taking care of your spiritual health and your emotional health and investing in your relationship with God, and so very grateful that we get to do that together. And I want to encourage you—because it’s so easy to go after this, and then again just kind of rush and do a million things—but to say, how do I take, you know, a full day to actually just rest and to be with people and to, you know, just enjoy my time and not just go running after one thing after another.
And then, I love this, Psalm 23. You know this passage well. It says:
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
And so just this beautiful picture of restoration, of rest. This is God’s heart for his people. He doesn’t want us to be burned out and where we’re on a place where we have absolutely nothing to give. He wants to lead us through those quiet waters, right, and he wants to refresh our soul.
Spiritual Life
Now some areas—and there is probably all kinds of examples, but we will be here all day if we have to look at all of the areas of margins in our life. So a couple things that I think is important for us as believers.
One area is our spiritual life.
One of the most critical areas where we need margin is in our spiritual life. Without adequate space for spiritual practices—like prayer, meditation on scripture, and worship—we can find our relationship with God becoming shallow and routine.
And believe me, this will happen. This will happen. If you don’t build that space into your life and where you just have time to pray and to meditate and to quiet your heart and to realize again, like, just like that passage in Psalms says, to be still and to know that God, you know, is here and that God is in control of our lives, it is easy to just get overwhelmed, and so we have to build healthy margins when it comes to our spiritual life.
Richard foster says:
“Solitude is more a state of mind and heart than it is a place. There is a solitude of the heart that can be maintained at all times.”
And so what he’s saying is just, you don’t have to go to Italy or to France to go into some monastery, right, and now say, “Okay, now I’m gonna lock myself up.” It is really just creating that space in our daily rhythms where we can connect with God and to bring our heart and our minds to him.
Emotional Health
And then emotional health. This is key.
When we are constantly busy, our emotions can become overwhelming, leading to stress, anxiety, and even depression. Creating emotional margins means allowing ourselves time to process our feelings, to rest emotionally, and to care for our mental well-being.
I shared with you several years ago when my dad passed away, we had some time in South Africa; it was kind of a unique situation where we had about three weeks in that time and just in that grieving process, and in that moment the Lord really showed us what it means to grieve well and how to take care of our emotional health. And a lot of times when we think about losing a loved one, we don’t always have three weeks, right? And so sometimes you hear the news, you have the funeral, and boom, you’re just off. You got to do work, and you have all kinds of responsibilities. And yet there’s still some grief and things that need to happen emotionally in our lives, and we’re just so busy that we don’t create that space and where we don’t allow the holy spirit to come and do a deep work.
C.S Lewis says:
“The bow cannot always be bent without fear of breaking.”
So even when we think about just stress, emotional stress, when you think about a branch, what he’s talking about is like, you can’t keep a branch in that tension the whole time. At some point it will break, right? And so a lot of times even with our lives, we’re under that stress the whole time. We don’t get an opportunity to just rest and to be in the peace of God.
A study conducted by the American Psychological Association in 2019 found that nearly 50% of American adults report feeling overwhelmed by their responsibilities. The study highlighted that many people feel there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything they need to do. This constant busyness can lead to chronic stress, which the APA identifies as a major contributor to mental health issues, including anxiety and depression.
And we have to look at—even if you agree or don’t agree with this, we have to look at our American culture and what is going on in our world, right? Think back, 20–30 years back, it’s like, you just didn’t hear about all of the anxieties and the mental health stuff. You know, and part of it might be that we just didn’t have social media and all of this stuff, but it just seems like our lives got so busy, and somewhere we will pay the price for that.
Finances
Then another important piece is finances.
Practicing financial margins means living below our means, avoiding debt, and setting aside savings. This allows us to be prepared for emergencies, to be generous when needs arise, and avoid the stress that comes with financial overextension.
And boy, I’ve experienced that back, you know, in my life as well. It’s like, it is just not fun.
Health
Practicing margins in health involves making time for physical exercise, proper nutrition, and adequate sleep.
This is—our bodies are the temple for the Holy Spirit, right? And we’ve talked about that even a little bit last week to say how, then, if we’re hosting the Holy Spirit, how do we say, “My body matters because God created it,” and we’re hosting something precious and special and a gift from God. And so then again, if I’m just run down and I’m unhealthy, then that’s not good, and that doesn’t reflect well as my testimony in Christ, and so we want to make sure that we have healthy margins.
Relationships
And next one here is relationships.
Margins in relationships involve prioritizing quality time with family, friends, and community.
And again this is areas that I see so many times it just falls apart because we don’t have the space in our lives to have healthy relationships. You know, I was convicted just thinking about calling my brother, like so many times I was like, “Oh, I need to call my brother, I need to reach out to him and work on that relationship,” and then just life gets busy and then another month is gone. It’s like, “Ugh, I didn’t call.” Right? And so to say, “How do I value and how do I make sure that my relationships are a priority?”
A study by the Pew Research Center found that busy schedules are one of the top reasons cited for not spending enough quality time with family and friends. This lack of time can strain relationships and lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness, despite being surrounded by people. The study emphasized that strong relationships are crucial for mental and emotional health, and that busyness can significantly undermine these connections.
Technology & Media
And then, big one for us right now, for all of us, right? I think every age is being impacted by this—technology and media.
Practicing margins in technology and media involves setting limits on screen time, social media use, and exposure to constant information.
I don’t have to add anything to that. You know.
Service & Ministry
And then lastly is just ministry. You know, this is an easy trap for all believers to fall into.
Margins and service and ministry mean ensuring that your involvement in church or community activities doesn’t lead to burnout.
And again, most of us, all of us are passionate about God’s kingdom; we’re passionate about volunteering; we’re passionate with doing all kinds of things in our community; and all of it is good, but if you burn out and you don’t have a healthy balance, then that’s not good. Nobody wins if you burn out and if you have nothing to give.
The Dangers
So, some dangers, right? And so take it/leave it. I know I’ve experienced some of this.
Without margins, we are more likely to experience burnout, characterized by physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion.
And strained relationships. If you’re not gonna be invested in relationships, don’t expect to have healthy relationships. It needs time. It needs your investment.
And then without margins, our spiritual life can become neglected. Don’t think you can just do life and don’t spend time with God—and you may might be able to get away for a week or two weeks, right, but then you haven’t spent time in the Word, you haven’t prayed, and then suddenly you go like, “Oh man, I’m dry,” and suddenly there’s some open doors in your life maybe for sin.
Next Steps
So several things—just two things here for next steps. I don’t want to overwhelm you this morning, but even just taking time today and tomorrow for those of you that have the privilege of having some time off, to look at your calendar, to assess your current commitments, to say, “Is this a healthy balance? Are all of these things important that’s on my calendar?” And even when you look at your calendar just to say, “Where do I create space for God?” Right? “Am I working him into the busyness of my calendar? Am I giving him my mornings? Am I giving him my evenings just to refuel?” And so be intentional. Look at that calendar. Put on your calendar that time with God, to study God’s Word. Put on there, say, “Hey, between these two times, or between different times, I’m gonna read God’s Word, I’m gonna spend some time just to be quiet,” and find that spot for you.
And then prioritize what matters most, right? If your relationship with God is important, then prioritize it. Think about your family. If your family is important, if your marriage is important, if your relationship with your kids are important, is your calendar reflecting all of that?
So just those two next steps. Want to encourage you to look through that.
You Can Be a Blessing
Now I want you to know that you can be a blessing. God wants to use your life, amen?
Okay that was weak. You can be a blessing. Can I hear an amen?
And God wants to use your life, amen, for his kingdom.
So as Christians we are called to serve others and to be active participants in God’s mission in the world.
And that is really what we want to be all about here at Salem.
However, without margin, we can become so preoccupied with our own lives that we miss opportunities to serve. Margins give us the freedom and flexibility to respond to God’s call and to minister to those in need.
And so for you to have that space and the capacity to even look at God’s kingdom and to look at the needs in your community, right, then you need that space. And so it’s easy for us to sit here today this morning to say, “Oh I want to do this, I want to do that for the kingdom of God,” but if you don’t prioritize that and if you don’t create that space, it will probably not happen.
Closing Prayer
And so this is my prayer for you this morning from Psalm 23. it says:
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
And here’s kind of my desire for all of us this morning:
my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
And so I pray that this fall, this winter, the rest of this year, that we will all be on a place where our cup really overflows, because it is beautiful when we get to do ministry from a place where our cup is overflowing, and not where we’re all broken and where we are empty and when we are dry. And so work on that in your life, spiritually, invite the Holy Spirit, spend time in prayer, and allow the Holy Spirit and God’s Word to minister to you and so that your cup can overflow. Because as you overflow, it will really impact people’s lives. People will see that. People will experience that peace and joy in your life.
