Our sermon title this morning is What are You Focused On?
Sometimes life just gets hard, doesn't it?
So many things piling up all around us.
It's just hard to keep focus in my sermon preparation when I sit
there and read and study and meditate and think.
I think of all kinds of scenarios in the church that go
on, for instance, a stay at home mom throughout the week, little
ones clinging to her knees and she's got something in the stove
and she's got the washer and the dryer going and the phone stuck
to her ear and making appointments with the doctor.
You know, you get what I'm talking about.
And never ending continuing cycle of things to do and it
just doesn't seem to stop, right.
Or maybe you're the coffee shop waiting in line person behind
the counter, desperately trying to make sure that the the line
keeps going and keep filling the cups and serving the customers.
And then somebody from the back just shoves forward and you gave
me the wrong latte latte, whatever that is.
And and they want some change. And I just happened to me
yesterday is watching this person behind the counter, felt
sorry for this individual. Doing your very best and of
course, mistakes happen and then trying to focus so hard on
getting everything right and somebody just that we're not
mean about it, but also not very polite.
I felt sorry for this person. This story after story.
We can mention whether it's health in the hospital,
complications and work. And you get the idea from all
sides. You feel like so much is
crowding in the stressful situations and problems.
And yeah, it it, it, it tends to distract a person.
Or maybe a bit more on a spiritual level.
Perhaps when you feel life is losing its focus, you just don't
know anymore. Am I still on the right track?
Is life? Life doesn't seem to make sense
anymore. Things don't add up anymore.
Or maybe worse, opportunity comes along.
So attractive, so inviting, so powerful, and so easy.
You start losing your moral compass.
You're not sure about your faith anymore.
You're not sure what direction to go anymore.
And then there's this voice inside you that tells you that
it's OK, you deserve some pleasure, you earned it.
Who will know it's OK? How does one keep focus when
there's so many reasons to just compromise, to check out, take
an exit and escape? One thing we know about Jesus,
when we read the gospels, when we study his word, Jesus always
maintained focus. I don't think there's a single
place in the Bible where we can say, oh, you lost it here, He
got distracted there. No, Jesus never lost focus.
He never got distracted one single time.
We do from time to time at least.
I do have to do course correction.
Jesus never had to do course correction.
But then when I do lose focus, how do I get back?
I have to repent or reshuffle. There's a million things that
can cause this, but Jesus kept focus at all times.
It's safe to say that Jesus always knew what he was about.
At all times, in all places, in every circumstance, He knew what
he was about. This morning we're continuing
our sermon series through the Gospel of Mark.
We started some weeks ago and last Sunday we ended where Jesus
had healed a man on the Sabbath, Chapter 3, verse one to six.
And Jesus had entered the synagogue and there he saw a man
with a withered hand. And the people already kind of
knew what he was up to what what he was doing.
And so what's he going to do this time the Sabbath?
He's going to heal this guy. Jesus is watching that, knows
they're watching him, and he knows what they're thinking.
And then he asked the question, is it right on Sabbath to heal
or is it not right? They don't respond and he's
angry at their callousness, their arrogance, and their
pride. And he reaches out, heals the
man with a withered hand, and they immediately leave.
And they go out and scheme with the Herodians how when we kill
him, verse 6, it says, I'm just repeating a verse from last
week. The Pharisees went out
immediately and plotted with Herodians against him, how they
might destroy him. Did that cause Jesus to lose
focus? No, it didn't phase him in the
least. You see, the difference between
Jesus and the Pharisees was vast.
It was a big difference. You see the Pharisees, they were
rule makers, rule focused, rule keepers, ruling forces, rule
worshippers. They're focused too on the the
wrong thing. In their world, it was all about
rules, and people served rules and worshiped rules.
You existed for the purpose of rules.
Jesus was different. Jesus was a relationship
builder. Relationship focused.
Any rules that existed were a value only in so far as they
were useful for serving people in their worship of God.
Sabbath included. With Jesus it was about
relationships and whatever did not serve that was expendable.
The nature of the Pharisees was different.
Proud, arrogant, legalistic, controlling and forceful.
Jesus was kind, relational, gentle and loving.
Yes, he was confronted. He We will find out that today
as well. You see, it's like this people.
The nature of a person's character always reveals itself
in the time of testing. And Jesus was tested here, but
so were they. This was a test for them as
well. And how do they respond?
I find it interesting how quickly some people have this
mindset of get rid of the competition, get rid of the the
other party, get rid of this so and so.
It's not how God approaches things.
Yes, God does put an end to sin at some point, but he's a
gracious God. He's patient, He loves people,
allows sin to go for a while, trusting, hoping and wanting and
giving people opportunity to repent and return to Him.
And he does not prevent them from sowing their seeds.
He does allow that because we have free choice.
And if you read the history of the Pharisees, while Jerusalem,
Judea in general, Jerusalem was destroyed not too many years
after Jesus left this earth and it was was kind of eliminated.
Temple was destroyed, Jerusalem was destroyed and their way of
worship ended in that location, but the church continued on.
How easily do we lose focus when things do not go our way?
The question is not will we be challenged or not?
The question is what will we do when we are?
When threats come and tests come, we have a choice.
How will we deal with it? Will we look for an escape and
easy Rd. out or what's God teaching us here?
When tests come, that's not the time to become disheartened,
afraid, worried, and paralyzed with fear.
So this morning we're going to read again a lengthy passage of
Scripture. Mark chapter 3, verse 7 to 34.
It's the end of the chapter and the objective of this passage.
What we want to get out of here is not so much the intricacies
of all the things Jesus did. He did a lot of good stuff and
we could have sermons on that, but more so, the overall view of
how did Jesus handle life? How did he respond to the issues
that he faced? What was his response to life in
general? What was his focus?
So let's read that passage. Mark chapter 3, beginning verse
7. If you have your Bibles or your
phones, just take them out. Matthew Mark, chapter 3,
beginning verse 7. But Jesus withdrew his disciples
to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed
him, and from Judea and Jerusalem, Idumea, and beyond
the Jordan, and those from Tyre and Sidon.
A great multitude, when they heard how many things he was
doing, came to him. So he told his disciples that a
small boat should be kept ready for him because of the
multitude, lest they should crush Him.
For he healed many, so that as many as had afflictions pressed
about him to touch him. And the unclean spirits,
whenever they saw him, fell down before him and cried out,
saying, You're the Son of God. But he sternly warned them that
they should not make him known, and he went up on the mountain
and called him those he himself wanted, and they came to him.
Then he appointed 12 that they might be with him, and that he
might send them out to preach and have power to heal sickness
in the cast out demons. Simon, to whom he gave the name
Peter Simon, James the son of Zebedee.
And John the brother of James to me gave the name Bo Nergus, that
is sons of Thunder, Andrew and Philip Bartholomew, Matthew
Thomas. James the son of Alphaeus,
Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanite and Judas Iscariot, who also
betrayed him. And they went into a house.
Then the molded came together again so that they could not eat
so much as eat bread. But when his own people heard
about this, they went out to lay hold of him before they said
he's out of his mind. And the scribes came down from
Jerusalem and said he is Belzibob by the ruler of the
demons. He cast out demons, so he called
him to himself and said to them in parables.
How can Satan cast out Satan? If a Kingdom is divided against
itself, that Kingdom cannot stand.
And if a house is divided against itself, that house
cannot stand. And if Satan has risen up
against himself, he's and is divided, he cannot stand, but
has an end. No one can enter a strong man's
house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong
man, and then he will plunder his house.
Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons
of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter.
But he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never has
forgiveness that the subject, but is subject to eternal
condemnation, because they said He has an unclean spirit.
Then his brothers and his mother came standing outside, they said
sent to him, calling him, and a multitude was sitting around
him. And they said to him, look, your
mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.
But he answered them saying, who's my mother or my brother?
And he looked around in the circle, those who sat around
about him, and said, here are my mother and my brothers, for
whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister and
mother. Thus far, the reading of God's
Word. Again, as I said before, the
objective here is not to look at these individual passages and
pull out the intricacies of it all, but in an overall view, how
did Jesus deal with life? Well, the Pharisees were focused
on criticizing and running down, maligning and tearing down,
plotting his destruction. Jesus did not let that occupy
his mind. He did not let that distract
him. Just think for a moment, we can
choose who we want to reflect. Jesus was focused on serving and
helping and spreading the gospel.
Regardless. The Pharisees were trying to
eliminate, to get rid of Jesus. Jesus had come to fulfill and
complete a mission and His focus was not on what others were
thinking, what they were saying, what they were doing.
He had more important things to deal with.
He was not allowing anything to keep him from focusing on the
mission God had for him. Jesus focused on teaching and
healing. He didn't stay in one area.
He moved around a bit. He became known far and wide
very quickly by modern standards.
Jesus did not even travel far. We must remember that wherever
He walked, He went. He walked.
But news spread fast. The news of his miracles, that
he performed the spread like wildfire.
And it says #7 Jesus withdrew his with his disciples to the
sea, and a great molded from Galilee followed him, and from
Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and beyond the Jordan goes from Tyre
and Sidon and a great multitude. And he heard how many things he
was doing came to This is a massive crowd, the distance from
the points. If you would look at a map on a
online, you would take a take a map from ancient Palestine where
Sidon is up north by the sea and then go down South to this place
called Idumea and then beyond Jordan going to the east.
That's a vast territory. And I checked on Google if it's
accurate. I can't say for sure if it is,
but give or take about 280 kilometers.
So from the top to the bottom of that section plus the width of
it, that's a huge area. All these people came to Jesus.
That's quite a popularity. And Jerusalem as well.
They came. It got so busy.
It says in verse 9 that the disciples, he told his disciples
a small boat should be kept ready for him because the mold
is less. They should crush him.
He was famous. Crowds are eager to come around.
Crowds are eager to get near, to have an have access to them.
They're obsessed with one thing, get close to Jesus.
And I don't blame them like I would too.
I mean especially if you were sick or something.
They wanted to see a miracle or experience a miracle and so
Jesus took some measures to not let things get out of hand.
He wants a boat so he can stay kind of focused and not get
overrun by the crowd and keep on doing what he's doing.
It says in verse 10, he healed many so as many had as
afflictions pressed about him to touch him.
That's all they needed. Unclean spirits whenever they
saw him, fell down before him, cried out saying you're the son
of God. He sternly warns them shouldn't
make him known. They still did.
Jesus kept his mission, his focus on the mission, doing his
work from a human standpoint. I think I would have been
tempted to let this kind of distract me, get to me, maybe,
maybe get people on my side. Maybe I can create a system,
maybe a maybe a movement of some kind.
Hey, there's an opportunity here.
There's a chance. I mean, what better way, right?
His focus was not that. His focus was to bring people
into connection with God. Jesus never followed up any
opportunity to gain control or power over people.
That was not his objective. That was not his mission.
He had not come to be just another earthly leader who was
after numbers and power and fame control.
Jesus focused on what God had sent him for to bring the gospel
to people to heal them. The numbers in the crowds that
was a by product of what his we was doing, what he was
faithfully doing. You see friends, that never
lasts. However, crowds never do.
The only thing that lasts is a relationship and of course, in a
few years from when this started was we read toward the ends of
the gospel. In the end of the gospel, every
gospel tells a story. Jesus was crucified.
It was only a three-year thing. In the end, it doesn't matter
the numbers and the stats. What matters is the
relationships. Jesus had come as God in the
flesh to demonstrate his love for the people to bring people
into relationship only three years and in this three-year
time spent right early on, it's he had another focus and that
was to prepare apostles to help him with the work.
It's noteworthy. It's not that just Jesus does
this alone. He's not a one man show.
He's not a one man worker. Jesus could have made himself
into an idol. It's all about me as a man.
But that was not his focus. He came to do the work, yes, to
teach, yes, to train, yes, but not just by himself.
It says in verse 13 he went up on a mountain and called to him.
Those himself he wanted and they came to him.
Now Mark's a very abbreviated gospel.
It says in verse 14. Then he appointed 12 that they
might be with him, that he might send them out to preach.
We have the list of names that Mark mentions here and and we've
read that, but I want to go out to the to the gospel of Luke and
read Luke's account of how this happened.
And there's Luke's a bit more detailed in Luke chapter 6,
verse 12. He says it came to pass in those
days that he went out to the mountain to pray and continued
all night in prayer to God. And when it was his day he
called him disciples to himself, and from them he chose 12 whom
he also named apostles. Simon, whom he also named Peter,
Andrew his brother James and John, Philip, Bartholomew,
Matthew and Thomas. James the son of Alpheus and
Simon called the Zealot Judas the son of James and Judas
Iscariot, who also became a traitor.
Luke mentions that Jesus did this after he prayed all night,
that it tells us how he did it. What's noteworthy here is not
just that he picked some men, but who he picked.
There's a guy in this group named Matthew.
We talked about him last Sunday. His name is Levi in the Hebrew,
I believe, and the Greek would be Matthew, as far as I
understand it. But these, these names are
important. And Simon, these two guys are
important. And if you think about it, you
couldn't have had not have had more opposite personalities than
these two guys. Matthew the tax collector.
Simon the Zealot. They were not friends.
The math, the math, the tax collectors.
They worked for the Romans. Jewish men worked for the
Romans, collecting Texas taxes, collecting money, giving to the
Roman government, and pocketing some of themselves.
Jews did not like these people at all.
Simon the Zealot. He was one of the extremists who
didn't like these people. The Zealots hated Romans, and
humanly speaking, this was a recipe for trouble.
Imagine Jesus would have an HR person.
You know, I'm thinking I'm going to hire myself or get myself
some of the apostles who will follow me.
How about these two? He would say, oh, no, no, no,
no, no, they're enemies. That's a bad formula.
It's a recipe for trouble. See, Jesus chose his disciples
based on what he was focusing on, based on what he wanted them
to become, not what they had been.
His focus was very different. I'm not saying we should never
take a person's past as history into consideration.
Of course we should, because the past always impacts the future.
But in this case here, these men had followed the call.
They were willing to leave everything behind, come to
follow Jesus. Jesus was not focusing where
they've been, He's focusing where he wants them to be.
What Jesus disciples had in common was not their past.
What they had in common was who they're following.
That makes all the difference. These 12 men for the most part
had a very different history, some very checkered history, you
could call it later. However, during the Passover
meal it would come out that they were still not quite aligned.
There was still bickering amongst themselves who should
have what position in the coming Kingdom, which they were sure
Jesus was going to shortly introduce, which he didn't.
He did introduce a Kingdom, but not that one.
Jesus did not focus or dwell on their past.
He focused on where am I taking these guys?
So it's different as they were men like Matthew and Simon the
Simon the Zealot, both were God's chosen vessels of service.
You see, when Christ becomes the focus, what matters to Christ
rises to the top. All other things become less
significant. The question I have is, how
should we do it? How should we lead?
How should we serve? Maybe you're in a place this
morning where you're focusing on your past.
Yep, I done it. I'm all messed up.
Is that what Jesus focusing on? You can be at peace because
Jesus already paid for. That that's paid for doesn't
mean that it won't impact the future.
But that's not your benchmark. That's not your reference point.
Where's Jesus focusing on in your life?
You see, so often we and Jesus don't have the same focus.
Maybe you're focusing in your past.
He's focusing on your future. If he's not focusing on your
past, why are you? When he just called these men,
he didn't want to just have a club, a get together.
He wanted a group of men, a group of disciples, apostles who
were going to carry his message to the corners of the world.
And it wasn't going to be easy. We find to the Gospels that he
often mentions the cross. The journey is not going to be
easy. Jesus did not focus on making
life easy for his apostles. He focused on preparing his
apostles. That's a different focus.
Our culture, we usually want to make things easy, more
convenient, more doable. It's far better nothing.
We should never do anything like that.
We have to prepare ourselves for ministry no matter what comes.
Even though Jesus was doing a lot of ministry and teaching and
healing, He still had to have her deal with the problems that
they were throwing at him. There was opposition didn't turn
a blind eye to it. Even while he did not focus on
what they were doing, He did address it.
And so he exposed and so he focused on exposing the issues.
He's focused on exposing spiritual darkness and
corruption. He did that.
That's a hard one because it's so unpleasant.
It's difficult, causes pain. He exposed the works of darkness
in the hearts of the religious leaders, and not because he
needed to or I need to defend myself or anything like that.
That was not the point. These men needed to see that
they were in the wrong. They were blind, they were
proud, they were arrogant, and the crowd needed to see it.
They were not real. They were religious, but they
were lost. They didn't think that there's
anything wrong with their lives. Jesus was the issue in their
mind. Notice what the people, the
leaders said about him, how they viewed him.
Verse 20, it says the multitude came together again so that they
could not so much as eat bread. But when his own people, his own
people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of him.
We've got to grab him, take him. He's out of his mind.
He's nuts. He's gone, whatever.
And the scribes come down from Jerusalem, they add to this, Oh,
he's got bells above by the ruler of demons.
He casts out demons, just completely Nicks him out.
Just just cancel him, just cut him off his own people.
Maybe there were his friends, his neighbors, doesn't say who
they were, but later on we do. His mom, his mother and his
brothers thinking sisters came along.
They thought similar things. We need to help him.
The Pharisees, they were brutal, they call him possessed.
His driving at demons by Satan himself.
What a thing to say. But you see, that's all they
could do. They had no other hold on Jesus.
They couldn't deny the miracles they were, they were real, they
were happening, couldn't deny that.
So the only thing they can do is tear him down, categorize him.
So Jesus confronts their sin. He says he called them to
himself and said to them in parables.
How can Satan cast out Satan? If a Kingdom is divided against
itself, that Kingdom cannot stand.
If a house is divided against self, that cannot stand.
And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided,
he cannot stand but has an end. No one can enter a strong man's
house and plunders goods unless he first binds A strongman, then
he will plunder his house. Sometimes Jesus didn't bother
with the religious leaders. He heard them, sometimes engaged
them, but this time he called him to himself.
He called him. He used parables to explain his
position, and it very clearly comes out where he's focused.
The truth is not that. The truth is that no house can
stand who's divided against itself.
Any organization, any group that attacks itself dies.
I'm reminded of a disease that we talk about a lot in our time.
It's called cancer. And of course there's all kinds
of research being done trying to cure, but really what cancer is,
it's, it's something that lives off the person it's trying.
It lives off the person it's killing.
Cancer is a disease where some cells in the body go rogue and
start attacking the body and, and the end cancer may kill the
body, but then the cancer itself dies because it killed its host.
She's telling the religious leaders Satan can't cast out
Satan. That's not how it works.
Then he uses the parable of the strongman.
He says a strong man can keep watching his house only if
there's nobody who comes along who's stronger.
And then so Jesus telling this parable that Satan's been
holding God's created people hostage and possession, but
here's Jesus the strongman, He's overpowering them.
But then he says something so drastic, it's caused many people
a lot of fear and a lot of worry.
And he says in verse 28, I say to you, all sins will be
forgiven. The sons of men, whoever
blasphemes they may blasphemes they may utter, but who
blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiven us,
but is subject to eternal condemnation because they said
he has an unclean spirit. He has confronted them for that.
These people had no idea of what they were messing with, what
they were playing with, what they were, who they were
attacking. Jesus had come in love and
compassion to help all people, but these Pharisees were not
willing to accept that, that they needed help, but they had
sinned, that they needed to repent of anything for Jesus,
even to insinuate and mention sin in their lives.
That was an attack. And then their mind, Jesus was
the problem. Just put him in the lowest
place. They were cutting themselves
off. And I just want to mention this
about blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
It's a bit of a side note here. I've had people come to me and
ask me or talk to me. I think, Pastor, I may have
blasphemed the Holy Spirit. I'm worried about that I may
have committed the unpardonable sin.
What should I do? And they want my thoughts.
And my word to a person that comes with those kinds of
comments is simply this. If you're being reminded of
this, you're feeling you may have done it, then you probably
have not done it. I would say you haven't done it
because a person, the way I understand Scripture, wouldn't
be asking that question. If they had done it, they
wouldn't even be coming to church.
They wouldn't even want to know the gospel.
Can it happen? I believe it can.
Jesus says so. But in the case of a person
who's wondering about it, asking about it, that's not their case.
But that's not my focus this morning.
My focus is what was Jesus doing?
Well, it was not out of the woods.
Yet here in verse 31, it says his brothers and mother came and
standing outside, they sent him, calling him, and a multitude was
sitting around him. And they said to him, look, your
mother and your brothers are here seeking you.
He answered them saying, who's my mother and my brothers?
And he looked around the circle at us, those who sat about and
said, here are my mother and my brothers.
Forever does the will of God is my brother, my sister and my
mother. What a wonderful focus,
wonderful perception. Jesus focused on relationships
at the end. When it came to the bottom line,
Jesus did not focus on how many people he healed, didn't focus
how many demons he cast out, didn't focus on how many people
came to listen to him, how big, what size the crowds were, not
even what the Pharisee was saying about him.
His focus was what am I doing about the mission that my father
has given me? His own blood Relatives didn't
understand him. Jesus wasn't drawn to any of the
stuff. He could have worked it out so
that he could have maybe compromised, come to an
agreement of sorts and get along so to speak.
Nothing affected him. He was humble, He was simple,
not to any of what the world was into, not swayed even by his
family. He just focused on what the
Father had sent him for, to bring law sinners to repentance
into relationship with Christ in whatever circumstance they were.
He was about relationships. Jesus had a mission to fulfill.
He was tested, He was challenged, He was resisted, He
was opposed, maligned. Nothing stopped him.
Jesus kept His focus on His Father's calling, on his life.
Easy or hard made no difference. Convenient or difficult, none of
it mattered. Healing the sick, casting out
the demons, teaching the people, all of it together He continued
faithfully on for the time that God had for him.
I want us to ask this question of ourselves.
Can Jesus use me and you for His mission?
Are we focused enough for it? God has hardwired us to do 1, to
do things, go places, accomplish things.
That's all good. That's great, there's nothing
wrong with that. But it needs to be harnessed for
His Kingdom and the stories of life in this world.
It's important that we keep focus.
It's not the matter of who we are, where we are, but what
direction we're headed. We can't afford to drift, to go
with the flow and roll with the times.
We must stay the course. Jesus is our anchor.
He's our captain, our navigator. We must trust him.
We must focus on him alone. I want to close with a short
story about a man named Ernest Shackleton.
Some of you have read the book or one of his book, One of the
books. Years ago, I read the book
called The Endurance. I watched the movie.
It's incredibly fascinating, both the book and the movie.
In 1914, Shackleton sailed from England down to South toward the
Antarctic. He wanted to explore the
continent over land and, and just see the place.
He and his crew sailed on the ship called the Endurance.
And when they headed, they were close to Antarctica and, and the
Wettle Sea just off the coast. There they reached, they got
trapped in pack ice and and couldn't move.
The pack ice drifted and shifted and heaved and it started to
crush the ship. And after months of drifting,
the pressure of the ice floes in the ice chunks crushed the ship
and it sank in November of 1915. So he was, he was.
They were on the ice floes now with some supplies, some food
and three lifeboats, and there was no hope of rescue.
How would they survive? They camped on that ice flow for
months and the ice flow was actually drifting northward
towards warmer waters. And when the ice broke, they
took their lifeboats and sailed in an April 6th to 1916 reached
the the place called Elephant Island, a totally desert,
desolate uninhabited place. There were seals and and
Penguins but and freshwater as well.
But they couldn't stay there. There was no help.
And they had maps, they had a few crude instruments, few
simple instruments they had in back in those days.
And and Tackleton knew there was a place with favorable winds
that could reach a place called Georgia Island.
There was a whaling station where there he knew there was
people, there was humans living there, some islands closer, but
the winds were not favorable that they could do it.
So they set out with one boat and five guys, left 22 men
behind him on this elephant island.
And for 800 or so nautical miles, he sailed eastward,
northeastward, trying to reach Georgia Island.
An incredible journey of endurance and just just a strong
will and resolve to to not let this mission cost them their
lives. They hadn't gone to the
Antarctic, couldn't get reached out, but they now just want to
save their lives. They finally reached Georgia
Island on the wrong side in the in the whaling station to the
north side and they reached the South side.
Now they had to cross over and some of the men were by that
time the five men here he was was with him were so ill and
weak. It looked like scarecrows.
They couldn't sail around and the the boat was too too rough
by too bad shape by then. And so he and two, two other
guys walked over the island, over the mountain to the other
side. They trekked across uncharted
territory onto the island, over the top 36 hours nonstop,
treading steep climbing over glaciers and rocks.
Nobody ever done that before they reached the whaling
station. The people were shocked to see
these three human beings stumble into the camp into the into the
station. Well, they he's told a story and
he got a ship and went sailed around the other side of the
island, rescued his the rest of his crew that he left on the
beach there. And then he went back to
Elephant Island and after 4 attempts was able to make to the
shore to rescue his crew. He didn't achieve his goal of
crossing the Antarctic, but he kept everybody alive.
The voyage is not remember for journey, but for for what?
For the for the mission of the journey.
But for what he did, courage, survival, leadership under
pressure, why did I tell that story?
It's not a Bible story even, but it's a relevant story.
It was a man of resolve. He was focused.
He was so focused on doing what was best for his men.
He didn't lose a single one. If people in the temporal world
can show that resolve and that focus, why can't we as churches
do that? How focused are you and I on
God's mission? It is not fraught with such
risk. Not here anyway.
And know this country is where it is.
And we pray for our brothers and sisters and the countries where
they're martyred for their faith.
But what are our excuses? How easily do we just take the
easy Rd. give up, give in, try, take the off ramp?
Where's our focus? We live in a society today where
easy is better, convenient is better.
It's not healthy. We have so many commands in
Scripture pointing us to God to draw our attention to God, and
it's so difficult for us because we want it comfortable.
If there's a bit of opposition, a bit of pressure, a bit of
inconvenience, then, well, maybe it's not meant for me.
No, that which makes us shift our focus.
That is what has control of our lives.
There's a proverb that goes this way.
You don't measure loyalty by how people stand with you in the
sun, but how they stand with you in the storm.
Can Jesus count on us? Today we can decide to follow
Jesus, walk with Jesus. Look what he's looking at.
Focus on what he's focusing on The question we must we must ask
ourselves is what are we going to focus on?
Let's not focus on the past. That's not our benchmark.
Let's not focus on the present, not even on the future.
Let's focus on Jesus. Hebrews 12 verse one says
therefore we also since we're surrounded by so great cloud of
witnesses, let us lay aside every weight in the sin which so
easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race
that's set before us. And further in verse 2, looking
unto Jesus, focusing on Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the
cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand
of the throne of God. That's our goal, that's our aim,
That is our focus. Let us pray, Lord Jesus, you are
our rock. You are our foundation.
Help us to look to you continually, 100% of the time,
day and night. Help us to trust you fully, to
focus on You, regardless of what may come.
Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your mercy.
As we go into this week. Lord, give us strength for the
task energy. Give us wisdom and resolve to
focus on what you focus on. Give us courage to face the
challenges and then to serve with joy and we pray.
Amen.