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University SDA Church- East Lansing

Jermaine Gayle

Words of Wisdom for Workhorses

My title, Words of Wisdom for Workhorses.

In your different areas of service or work, I'm sure you might understand what I'm talking about when I say a workhorse.

Before we go any further, let's pray together, shall we?

We ask dear God that your word may speak to us and that as a result of coming in contact with that which has power, your Holy Spirit may allow those very same words we read to encourage us, to challenge us, and to lead us into a closer walk with you.

It's our desire, we pray from our hearts, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Come with me to the museum that I call the Seated American Museum.

We have gathered in my imaginative museum a number of collectibles, a vast array of all the places where we sit.

Come with me and use your imagination and allow your mind to capture the stories that these sitting places tell.

We're gonna start here in this corner with our first item in this museum.

It comes from the living rooms of many homes and families.

This sofa has seen lots of laughter and lots of tears, heard many sounds and smelled many smells, seen husbands, wives and children fast asleep on its soft cushion.

The American sofa is well used, isn't it?

When the guests come over, that's where they go.

Over here in the center of my museum we have the famous dining room chair, another place where we sit.

See this 1 is quite dusty because it's not used as often as it used to be because most families don't do dinner together anymore in America.

Over here we have another 1 you might recognize this the American classroom sitting area.

Be careful when you touch this 1 because if you search underneath you might find gum from the 90s.

The American classroom, that's another sitting area.

Ah, another place where we sit often, don't we?

Don't be offended, you're not gonna stand for the sermon, it's okay, right?

This sitting area seems to be losing its hold on the American society as people no longer desire to be in church like they used to be.

But still it's in the museum because it illustrates another area where we spend time, if once a week and for a few hours.

This is where families lose fathers and mothers.

You know those dreaded phone calls often you have to make, hey, running late again, stuck in the office, I won't be home in time for dinner.

So go ahead, eat dinner, put the kids to bed, I'll be home soon.

Be careful when you touch the office chair because it's soft, it's cushiony, it's comfortable, and it's gravitational pull, it's extremely strong.

Hours upon hours spent in this seating area.

But then this 1 is more concerning, the last 1.

This is the sofa in the doctor's waiting room.

I actually learned about this particular 1, not this exact sofa, or what do you call this?

Okay, I have a lot of different examples out there.

I learned something very fascinating about these kind of seats in the doctor's office.

There was a really good book, it's called Type a behavior and your heart.

And why type A personalities, the 2 doctors that wrote this book, try to find out why is it that type A personalities are more prone to heart attacks.

He discovered, 1 of these doctors, he discovered that 1 of the days he came out of his office He noticed that the way the chair in the waiting area needed to be reupholstered And so he hired a company Called a guy and the guy was supposed to come in and he came in and he examined the chair and he's saying okay Yes, we can reupholster this but then he identified something curious so he asked the doctor wait what do you guys do here and the doctor's response was we are cardiologists the doctors are quite curious Why did he ask this question being a upholsterer?

He said, I just noticed that in your office, in your waiting room, these chairs only get worn down in 1 section, the front edge.

Because that's where people usually sit as they nervously wait for the results.

The front edge of the cardiologist chair.

It makes sense because in America the leading cause of death is heart attacks.

Going from America down to the state of Michigan, more broadly come narrowly to our state, the leading cause of death in Michigan, you guessed it right, heart attacks.

In November of last year, the European Heart Journal published its findings from a global study involving about 15, 000 participants from all across the globe.

Based on a 1 week's worth of data, they concluded that the average person, now listen to me carefully, the average person sleeps 7.7 hours a day, stands 3.1 hours a day, actively moves 2.8 hours a day, and sits 10.4 hours every day.

Now you're probably calculating in your mind, am I going to be sitting for the rest of today?

Yes, the average person spends most of their lives sitting.

And that's why we took a trip through the seated American museum.

You think I might have a good business strategy here?

You know, some of you might come to visit.

It seems that the more we advance in our modern age, the more we sit.

The more sophisticated we become, the more sedentary our lifestyle.

I believe that Moses could sympathize with the modern man.

Now, Moses, by the way, was well advanced beyond us.

If Moses were to submit a resume to the Michigan conference all the churches in Michigan would be vying for his attention including ours.

I might be qualified to be Moses assistant But I know that there's trouble with assistants meaning Aaron.

He was smarter than a Harvard, Cambridge, and Yale graduate combined.

If he were to put his name on the docket for president, Moses would garner a lot of votes, just on account of his experience.

Moses was well advanced in his multiple careers.

He was a shepherd with a 40-year track record.

Imagine a leader in his 80s with Moses's caliber.

Turn with me to the Bible, so the book of Exodus chapter 18 and verse 13.

The Bible tells us that Moses was busy at work.

The Bible tells us, and so it was, on the next day that Moses, what everyone?

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Words of Wisdom for Workhorses

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