STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES

I. INTRODUCTION

Consider for just a moment your average day:  The early morning alarm goes off and you roll out of bed
very quickly, shower, run into the kitchen get a quick breakfast, and a few words with the family,  Get into
the car drive to work fighting the traffic. At work you face the continued demand or pressure or whatever
it is that you must face from the day to day pressures of the job.  The day comes to an end, you rush
home, get a quick dinner and off you go to some planned activity and then fight the traffic back home
again and get ready for bed to do it all over again and again and again.
You begin to realize that you are alive and functioning and there are times in the middle of it all you say,
“What am I doing this for?”  It’s very easy for you and I, even though we are Christians, to lose sight of
that which life is really all about and the real purpose of being alive here on this earth.  Because if we’re
really honest, its so easy for us, even to have time for God, but not really understand or appreciate the
great blessing and privilege it is to be His child.

II. GRAPHICS OF OUR DAY

1. One is on my desk and the desk of hundreds, our desk calendar.  It  has activities for a month and it is
filled.  Before we do anything we have to check our calendar.  You can identify with that I’m sure.
2. Another is our clocks.  They can tell us not only time, but date, and even buzzes when we want it to.
3. You know what its like to take a trip on the highway and drive 55, anymore.  I’m sure you have been
there.
4. You see, we have a difficult time slowing down and appreciating the thrill and the joy and the purpose
of being alive.  We contact more people today that we have ever before.  We have more relationships
than ever before, but you know, as well as I, that there are more lonely people out there than ever
before.  Someone has said, “we buy food we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to keep up with
people we don’t even like.”

III. WE NEED TO STOP!

1. We need to stop as Christians, put on the brakes and evaluate what our lives are all about.
2. YOU GOTTAA STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES.  We need to count our blessings every day.  Once we do
that we are going to find the road to heaven is rough and rocky if we don’t stop and smell the roses
along the way.
3. Read the book of Ecclesiastes.  It is an amazing book from a man, inspired of the Holy Spirit, who had
everything.  He had the world on a string.


a. “Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What profit hath a man for all his
labor which he taketh under the sun?” Eccl. 1:2,3  Really, if we could put the brakes on in life, we could
identify with Solomon.
b. Eccl. 3:1-8. It seems that Solomon is saying, as you read this, that in the middle of this meaningless
world these meaningless things you get warped up in, we ought to just STOP, take the time and look at
what life is really all about.  There is a time for everything.
c. Eccl. 12:13-“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole mater:  Fear God, and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.”

IV. THINK ABOUT JESUS.

A. The life of Christ.

1. He was a busy  man.  His ministry lasted three years and covered many miles.  He gave himself totally
to reaching out to man and taught as no one had ever done before.  He touched the lives of thousands,
healed them, and raised the dead.  He was able to confront the challenges that were before him.
2. Mark  6:31—“And he said unto them, come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a  while:  
for there were many coming and going and they had no leisure so much as to eat.”
3. Mark 5:25-35—Going from one place to the other he took time to heal the woman with an issue of blood
for 12 years.
4. Jesus went many times to be alone.  Mark 10:13-16.
5. This demonstrates to us something we need to understand today.  I believe that Jesus recognized that
if he was going to be able to face the pressure of the challenge that was before he, he was going to have
to begin with God.
6. Matt. 14:13; Matt. 14:23; Matt. 15:29 al demonstrate this point.  Jesus recognized the need to apply the
brakes , to go off and be alone with God.

B. Jesus and the Storm.  Matthew 8:23-27

1. “What manner of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him.”
2. I  suggest to you today, that there is a storm out there.  There are times that it is ferocious and the
pressure of the things around us become so great that we become afraid.  
3. Thee are times in all our lives when we just don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.  I know you
can identify with that you have been there.
4. The key, the answer is demonstrated by Jesus as he was able to go off to a quiet place and rest.

C. Our Problem today.

1. We have a problem to contend with today.  It’s a problem we have developed for ourselves, and I
guess that many of us have a hard time dealing with it.
2. The problem is we made a busy life of virtue.  If we keep busy, if we can just do all kinds of things, we
take pride in our being busy.
3. I have heard people say that they not had any time with their family in several weeks.  Shame, Shame.
4. There is no virtue in being overly busy, being caught up in doing things that we don’t have any control
of life anymore.
5. If you don’t gather anything out of this lesson as you read it but this one point, I want you to hang on to
it and think about it a great deal.  If we are going to be successful in the church of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ, we are going to have to be personally in touch with God ourselves.
6. I stand before you and preach all day, but when I leave the pulpit if I don’t have that living, personal
relationship with my father, if I am not able to stop and get it together with him, then I really can’t be of
much service to you or anyone else.  You can teach a Bible class every night this week, be on the go and
involved in every direction you can go, but if you are not personally in touch with God I believe you are
just spinning your wheels.  Jesus found it necessary to stop and rest, so should we.

V. HANDLING FAST PACE AND PRESSURE TODAY.

A. Stop and rest awhile.

1. Be able to realize that if Jesus needed to go off and be alone and rest, we need to do the same.  
Recharge your battery.
2. If you are too tired to adequately, honestly worship God, then you need to rest a while.  If you find
yourself too wrapped up and too busy to reach out to others and serve God in the basic working of the
congregation, then maybe one of the problems is that you got more business than you have a right to
have.
3. Psalm 23:1-3—can you say that today?  Smell the roses along the way.

B. Stop and enjoy.

1. It is so easy today to be busy making a living, that you never really enjoy life.  I’m sure that you can
identify with that.  Flowers are made for our enjoyment.
2. Psalm 19:1-4; Psalm 8:1-9  How many times have you gotten home from work tired, depressed, and a
little one comes running up and ask you to play.  Your response is, “Not now, daddy’s tired.”  You know
what?  Those children will be gone one day.  I don’t care had tired, depressed or busy you are take time
to smell the roses of your children now, today.  They will soon be gone.  Jesus left us the example, to
take time and rest awhile.

C. Stop and reflect on the Word of God.

1. Psalm 1:1-3.  Could it be said of you that you are a reflector or a mediator on the Word of God?  
2. We think about our job, our vacations, sports, weather, everything under the sun, but do we ever just
sit down and reflect on our God and His Word.
3. One thing that Satan wants you to do in this busy world is to keep you so busy that you don’t have time
to stop and reflect on the Word of God.

4. Notice how often Jesus went aside and prayed.
a. Matthew 4—temptations
b. Luke 6:12—selection of apostles—all night in prayer
c. Luke 5:16—withdrew himself to wilderness and prayed
d. Mark 1:35—rose early in morning and went to solitary place to pray
e. Matthew 26:39—Gethsemane
f. Mark  6:46—following feeding of five thousand
g. John 17—prayer of unity

5. Now honestly, how much time did you spend last week in prayer to God?  I know what you are feeling.  I
know what you are thinking.  Isn’t it sad, almost tragic for us to be living here on this earth and we have
direct access to the God of heaven through Jesus Christ any time we want it, and for me to be so busy ,
so involved with living we don’t stop along the way and talk with our God.  Tell me if I’m wrong, but I can’t
find in the New Testament where prayer is any more limited today than it was in Bible times.  I believe
there are some limitations on man today.  I don’t think man has the power that God gave man back then.  
But prayer is the same powerful resource that God always intended for it to be. If we want this
congregation to grow and see its full potential, we’ve got to be a praying church.

6. Fathers listen to this.
“One night a sleepy boy knelt beside my bed.
He smiled.  He looked into my eyes and this is what he said.
Daddy, my daddy you’ve taught me lots today.
So daddy, my daddy would you teach me how to pray.
You’ve brought me home a brand new kite and you showed me how to fly.  And there ain’t no other kid on
the block whose dad can knock a ball so high.
I’d like to thank God for you but I don’t know what to say.
So daddy, my daddy would you teach me to pray.
I had to turn and leave his room and he began to cry.
I didn’t want my boy to know that so did I, his best pal forsakes him, but what was there to say.
For his daddy had forgotten how to pray.

7. What a challenge it is for us in this busy, busy world we live in not to lose sight of our dependence
upon God and to stop along the way and take advantage of prayer.

8. The roses are there, it is up to us to stop and smell then, rest awhile, enjoy life, reflect and study the
Word of God, teach our sons to pray and stop and touch the lives of others along the way.  


------------Bill Young