Amazing Grace Baptist Church Mount Airy · Amazing Grace Baptist Church

"The Servant Who Was Just Too Busy" - Pastor Jonathan Barker - Sunday Evening - 11/16/25

·34 min·3 clips

Distraction is often more dangerous than disobedience because we don't notice when it happens.

This sermon by Pastor Jonathan Barker examines the spiritual danger of becoming distracted by good things at the expense of God's primary commands. Barker, the pastor of Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Mount Airy, North Carolina, bases his message on the story of a negligent servant from 1 Kings chapter 20. He connects this biblical narrative to a prior teaching on time management from the Magnify Conference, focusing on the concept of redeeming time from Ephesians. The central text is 1 Kings 20:39-43, where a servant is commanded to guard a prisoner with the warning that his own life will be forfeit if the man escapes. Barker highlights the servant's excuse that he was "busy here and there" when the prisoner went missing, leading to the king's judgment. The pastor outlines three main points: the definite mandate from God, the danger of a distracted mind, and the resulting displeasure of the master. He argues that God's commandments, like sharing the gospel or guarding one's family, are clear, and the problem is not clarity but misplaced priority. Barker claims the servant in the story wasn't wicked or rebellious but simply distracted by other activities. He asserts that the devil doesn't need to make believers bad; he can just make them busy with good things to pull them from the best things. The pastor provides a practical exercise, suggesting listeners journal a full day to audit how much time is spent on social media or entertainment versus prayer and Bible reading. He shares a personal anecdote about a phone call with another pastor who challenged a woman claiming she had no time for Scripture by meticulously reviewing her daily schedule. A key insight is that distraction is often more dangerous than outright disobedience because it goes unnoticed. Barker emphasizes that every "yes" to one request is a "no" to something else, often to one's own family or spiritual disciplines. He states that the servant chose his own consequences through neglect, illustrated by the king's declaration, "thyself hast decided it." The sermon closes with a powerful analogy of a mother who accidentally leaves her baby on a rooftop not from lack of love, but from being pulled away by a phone call and other tasks. The tone is pastoral, exhortative, and conversational, blending direct biblical teaching with relatable personal stories and practical application. Barker frequently engages the live congregation with rhetorical questions and uses plain, vivid language. This episode would deeply resonate with Christian listeners seeking a challenge against busyness and a call to refocus on spiritual and familial priorities. Those disinterested in evangelical Christian preaching or seeking a non-religious discussion on productivity would likely want to skip it.

As heard by us

A sermon about how ordinary busyness can turn into quiet spiritual drift.

Jonathan Barker builds the sermon around a simple question from 1 Kings 20: what happens when a servant has a clear assignment but lets ordinary busyness pull him off course? The answer lands plainly.

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Why you'd press play

You want a sermon about how being busy here and there can crowd out obedience.

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