Fix Your Eyes

Good morning. If you happen to be new around Beltway Park, I just want you to know it's an honor to have you here with us. We are, uh, a church that meets in multiple locations at the same time. We have a south campus, we have a north campus in the, um, greater Abilene area. Probably greater Abilene is a little overstatement, but that's okay. Makes us feel good about ourselves. And then we have our online campus that have people in the region that can't make it to a physical campus for various reasons on a given week. We also have people around the world joining us. And we do it all for one reason. We are a people on a journey. A journey to become like Jesus. Because we are convinced as we become more and more like Jesus, we actually get to live in the abundant life for He died died for us to have.

I want you to hear me. One of the greatest ways we can actually honor Jesus, especially a Jesus who went to the cross, is to live in what He died for us to have. To show the world the greatness of who He is. We, as a church, are on a journey to the cross. And the cross, what you might call the cross event, Jesus being lifted up on a cross, dying, being buried, and being raised again victorious over death, hell, and the grave, is the crux event of human existence. Until Jesus returns and fully establishes His kingdom, then the cross is the place that we most clearly see the reality of God. But we must also, at the cross, we see another reality, and that reality is this life at times is hard. I mean, you look at the cross and we know that life at times is unfair. Life occasionally, and sometimes often, life is difficult. And I, I understand we all want that to be different, don't we?

I mean, if, if you want to know the truth, that is why modern advertising works. Modern advertising promises things to you and I that can come to us. If you buy this product, if you buy into this idea, that you can get what you desire in life, but you don't have to work hard at it. We'll give it to you easily and conveniently. All you got to do is get this product. I remember growing up as a kid and, you know, we would have advertising. I mean, even back in the '70s, there was advertising, and we would see a product that we, we wanted because it promised that this said thing would happen. And then maybe somebody in my little group in the neighborhood, they would doubt that. It's like, "You really think that's going to do what it says it's going to do?" And we'd say, "Oh, oh, there's absolutely truth. If it's advertised on TV, it has to be true." Some of you remember, 'cause they had just passed a law called truth in advertising. And so we actually thought the government was going to enforce truth in advertising. So if it's on TV, it's got to be true. Now, I understand that's laughable even for the 1970s. I think we wanted to believe that that would happen. Not because we were like purists legally. We just wanted to believe the promise of what was being advertised. I mean, when you're a 12-year-old boy and you think the one thing I need to make my life complete is a girlfriend, then what you want to believe desperately is all I got to do is use a certain body spray and boom, I'm going to have a girlfriend. Right? You don't want to believe that you have to do the hard work of learning to relate to somebody of the opposite gender. You definitely don't want to believe that it could be, and this is radical, personal hygiene habits, a 12-year-old. You know what I'm saying, right? You just want to believe if I do this body spray, it is why middle school boys' locker rooms smell the way they do. You want to believe it'll come easily and conveniently.

And we can laugh that it's like 12-year-old boys, but I'm just going to tell you, it's not just 12-year-old boys. It's all of us. It's like, I would say most of us don't believe that advertisers are completely truthful. We don't believe the government's enforcing that. But we still want to believe what they, they're selling. And I know this 'cause I see the products that are being sold. There's all sorts of big promises, like radical things like rapid weight loss. You know what I'm talking about, right? Like a few years ago, I saw a product. It is from a remote area in China and it makes an amazing promise. It says, "If you can drink a cup of tea, I can do that. I'll show you how to lose up to." Say, "up to." That's your truth in advertising, by the way. Up to means it could be zero. But that's not what we see, right? We see 25 pounds in what? 30 days. And we want to believe if I just do the tea, that is going to happen. We desperately want to believe it. By the way, that might be true. I'm just telling you, I've traveled all around the world and if you drink some water in some places that I've been, something will happen to your body and you will feel like you've lost 25 pounds in far less than 30 days. Right? This tea might be the exact same thing. They just need to be honest. Monetzuma's revenge, the Darr's friend, right? You get what I'm saying? We desperately want to believe that the things we want in life will come quickly and easily. We want to be rich without risk and work. We want to be thin without changing our lifestyle. We want to be strong without strain. We want to be happy without hard choices in life.

And I will admit, in some ways, the modern world has made life easier. You know, we talk about first-world problems, right? But in other ways, the modern world, first-world issues still exist. Life's still hard. I mean, there's no escaping the reality that at times, no matter if we're in the modern 21st-century world, if we're in the first world or in other places, life at times is hard. And when Jesus was lifted up on that cross, He was telling you and I, He completely understands that reality. But He does more than just understand. The night before He was crucified, knowing He was going to be lifted on that cross, Jesus said, "I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace." Man, the first part of John 16:33 is on so many coffee mugs. The second part never makes a coffee mug. "In this world, you will have trouble." And we think, man, those two ideas can't exist because we think peace is the absence of trouble. But Jesus says, "No, no, you can have peace in the midst of trouble, but in this world, you're going to have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world." Jesus, who overcame death, hell, and the grave, promises to give us strength. Somebody shout strength in the midst of this difficult world. He's going to give us strength to overcome.

You see, our God gives strength for the battles of life. It is not just what He does, it's who He is. If we go back from the time of Jesus being crucified, probably about 1,400 years, God uses a man named Moses to bring the children of Israel out of Egyptian captivity. You might have seen movies about this man. There are 10 plagues, the last of which is called the Passover. God sent the angel of death. And any house that wasn't protected by the blood of the lamb, the firstborn of that house dies. Pharaoh, the most powerful man on planet Earth, releases the children of Israel into the wildernesses. Millions of them go out of captivity, out of slavery. Pharaoh changed his mind, right? And went after them because of the Passover. Hey, just a little side note, by the way, on Wednesday, April 16th, we're going to have a Passover meal. And I tell you this because it's a completely different way of looking at the season of Easter. If you've never done a Passover meal, it is incredible how everything speaks about Jesus. The whole Passover, even the way it's celebrated by modern Judaism, which doesn't believe Jesus is the Messiah, it still speaks of Jesus. And we got a friend coming in by the name of Jonathan Bis. Never done, um, one of our Passover meals. Jonathan leads this incredible ministry called Jewish Voice Ministry International. Jonathan has seen tens of thousands of Jewish men and women profess Jesus as the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world. He is phenomenal. And you get to know a few weeks out before tickets like really go on sale. You get to know right now because we have limited number of tickets. You want to get a ticket. The Park News will tell you how to go online and get one. And the cool news is that all the proceeds go to help our short-term mission trip teams that are going all around the world to partner with our partners for the sake of the gospel. And you are going to lead into that Easter season, the celebration of the resurrection with a whole new perspective of the grandness of Jesus.

Anyway, 10 plagues, God releases the children of Israel. Pharaoh follows, changed his mind. They go to the waters of the Red Sea. God parts the waters of the Red Sea. Children of Israel walk across on dry land. Pharaoh tries to follow. His armies are swallowed up. I mean, Israel is on top of the world. They get into the wilderness like, "How are millions of people going to eat?" And God brings a breadlike substance called manna. Every morning, He just feeds them. When they need water, He changed bitter water into sweet water. He brought water from a rock. I mean, God was doing all this for Israel. And I'm sure Israel's thinking, "This is awesome. God's doing it all. We don't have to do anything. He is just taking care of life." But then the scripture says the Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. The reality of life hits. The battle came. Israel had to fight. Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of our men. We got to go out and fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow, I'm going to stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands." So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill. And as long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning. But whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. So when Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and they put it under him and they sat on it. He sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, one on the other, so that his hands remained steady until sunset. Think about that for a second. Have you ever held up your hands for more than like a handful of minutes? Can you imagine even somebody holding them up, what that did? So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword. God gave Israel strength for the battle. Remember, Israel had been slaves at this point for four generations. They weren't trained soldiers. They hadn't been in a battle. None of them have faced anything like that. God worked a miracle to give them a victory here. But notice the way God worked the victory was through them. God didn't take the battle away from Israel. He gave Israel strength in the battle.

So Moses, verse 15, says, built an altar and he called it the Lord. Yahweh Nissi, for He said, "Hands were lifted to the throne of the Lord." See right there, Exodus 17:15 is a name of our God. Another insight into who He is. In the ancient Hebrew language, it is Yahweh Nissi. The Lord is our banner. I am your banner. And I know that on first read, it's like it's hard for us to really grab the significance of this, 'cause we hear the word banner, we hear something different than the people of the day heard. We hear the word banner, we're probably thinking, many of you, like March Madness, basketball, and there's banners that hang from arenas and they commemorate championships. Or we may be thinking around the church, we have banners that have scriptures on them for or words of encouragement and things such as that. And those are all good things, but we're beginning to wonder, why in the world would God associate himself with something like that? But that's not what they would have thought of in the day He gave this word. In the ancient world, banners were about one thing. Battle. That's it. In the ancient world, when an army went to battle against another army, that army was led by men carrying a banner. And that banner had a huge purpose. You see, in the chaos of battle, you can imagine. Most of us have never fought in a battle. We definitely haven't fought like they fought in days of old. You got to remember, when Israel fought the Amalekites, it was before the Iron Age. They didn't have swords. They didn't have spears. They had wooden products. They had rocks. It was hand-to-hand combat. I mean, they were going at it. You can just imagine if thousands from one side, thousands from another, they're in hand-to-hand combat. Things get chaotic and a person could lose his reference, not knowing which way he needed to move forward, how how he needed to advance. So if a soldier was in the midst of the chaos of a battle, he would look up and he would find the banner somewhere and he would know that's the way I need to go. See, banners were a source of guidance in their life in the bedlam of battle. A soldier could become discouraged. He'd see a fallen comrade, a fallen comrade, think, "Maybe we're losing. Maybe we're not being victorious." And he could look up, but he could see the banner moving forward. And he would go, "Our army is moving forward. Our army is being victorious." And it was a source of encouragement and a source of life in the midst of what is difficult.

Can we be honest enough to say that sometimes life feels like a battle? Now, I'm not trying to overstate it. I, I understand that when I talk about life being a battle, it's different than the Amalekites and the Israelites. I know we're not hitting each other, trying to kill each other with sticks and rocks and things such as that. But 1 Corinthians 10 tells us that Israel in the wilderness is an image of life, that what happened to them serves as an example to you and I. It took place as an example to guide us in life. Life in many ways, it feels like a battle. Come on. Even the good parts of life feel that way, right? Like God has called some of us to a place of marriage, and we would all say marriage is awesome. It is wonderful. It is great. But we also got to be honest to say marriage is at times hard work, right? Marriage sometimes feels like a battle. And all God's people who are married said, "Nothing." You're smarter than that, right? 'Cause you're sitting by your spouse and you're like, "No, baby. Our life is awesome all the time, right?" No. Oneness in marriage has to be battled for. It doesn't just happen. But the same is true with being single. There are a lot of joys being single. By the way, I want to talk to all my single people. Sometimes in the world today, especially in the church, we talk about singleness almost as if it's a lesser state than marriage. Scripture doesn't hold that at all. In fact, the scripture is very clear, in my opinion, that marriage and singleness are equal states, just different. If you really want a challenge, then the Bible actually probably indicates that singleness is a higher state of spirituality. I don't think that's what it says, but you could argue that. I'm just saying singleness is awesome and it's great. Has lots of joys. It has difficulties as well. There's things that have to be battled for. You know what I'm saying? The good stuff of life is that way. Children, how many of you have children? Put your hands up high. You know what I'm saying? Children are awesome. Children bring a lot of joy. Raising a child in today's world is as hard as, and I can't say the word, right? You know, it's work. You know what I'm saying? Greatest joys come with our kids. Some of the greatest griefs we have to battle. One of the things the Lord did, and my wife and I, one of the greatest things He did for our faith journey was have us adopt our third child out of the Texas foster system. We love her. It's incredible. I'm just telling you, every day she was in our home is like a battle. Still, as an adult, sometimes things feel like a battle in life. Our families have to be battled for. Amen. By the way, in three weeks, another side note, in three weeks, we have what we call Easter. Easter is the society's word for the celebration of the resurrection, the focus on the resurrection. Want you to know we have all our normal service times. We start on Thursday, and then we have Sunday services, two of them, at each of our campuses. We add a Saturday service for Easter weekend because of the number of people who are coming. But what excites me about this Easter is we're going to begin a journey talking about how we can battle to take back our families. It is time that we go to war on behalf of our families and what God wants to do in our families. And so if you have children at home, if you have grown children, if you're saying, "None of it really matters." I'm just telling you, the resurrection says God has strength. He has power for us not only to battle well for our families, but to find victory for our families. Amen. We're going to talk about that. And one thing you can do is there's people in your world who have no hope for their families. They need the hope of Jesus for their own lives and they need hope for their families. And maybe you could help them take a step of hope by just inviting them that weekend. You'd be surprised. People will attend Easter weekend that will attend no other time with you. Maybe the Lord's stirring right now that there's some people you need to invite. And we're going to see God do some miraculous things in the lives of our families.

But it's not just families where we have to fight. It's not just marriages. Most of the arenas of human existence that have value are places we have to battle. That is why our God is Yahweh Nissi. You see, radical God focus gives us strength for the battles of life. Don't minimize this. I mean, you're tempted right now to go, "Yeah, yeah, I know that." Don't minimize this reality. This is massive for you and I. Huge. You see, as I was contemplating this name of God this week, Yahweh Nissi, all of a sudden, scripture started coming to me. It's amazing how often the scripture implores us to a radical God focus. The Hebrew writer says, "Let us throw off everything that hinders." We love that. "The sin that so easily entangles." We go, "Yes, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out before us." We're going, "Yeah, how do I do it?" "Let us what? Fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith." You see, radical God focus gives us strength in life. Radical God focus gives us the ability to persevere, the power to run our race and to finish our race. We fix our eyes. Say, "Fix our eyes." Not only there, the Apostle Paul wrote to a church of Jesus followers like us, the church of Corinth. He says, "We are not a people who lose heart." In other words, we're not a people who are overcome by discouragement, though outwardly we are wasting away. The world is difficult. The world is problematic. The world has struggles, but inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For this world is light and momentary and it's achieving for us something in eternity that far outweighs whatever we might go through. So this is what we do. We fix our eyes in the midst of the battle. We look up and we see the banner. Fix our eyes not on what we see, but what is unseen. All this world is temporary. It's going to go away. What is unseen, but yet we see it by faith, is eternal. We fix our eyes there. Radical God focus. It empowers us to overcome the inevitable, inevitable discouragement of this difficult world. I could give you lots of these. One more. "You will keep in perfect peace." There's not a one of us that don't want perfect peace. "All who trust in you." How do we trust in you? "All whose thoughts are fixed on you." Radical God focus brings peace in the midst of the fight that is often life. Come on. Are you grabbing hold of this? When the scripture shouts to you and I that He is Yahweh Nissi, that He is our banner, God is telling you and I, "Hey, you can't just glance at Me on occasion for direction. You can't grasp on Me just so often. You have to fix your gaze on Me. You have to fix your gaze of life upon Me." It's like putting on a set of glasses and everything you see in life through Him. Everything you do. It's like orienting our whole life around Him. It feels like what we often do as followers of Jesus today. I do this. It's like, I, I come to church and I go, "Oh yeah, I need to, I need to focus." And I might come to church every two, every three weeks, or I have this moment where like a worship song comes. Oh yeah, I need to fix. But most of my life, I'm just, I'm just kind of living life. And God's saying, "No, no, no. You can't glance occasionally. Yahweh Nissi, fix your gaze. Orient your life."

I was thinking about David as he battled the giant named Goliath. There's a TV series that maybe you've seen on Amazon on the life of David. It's interesting to watch. By the way, about half of it's biblical. Now, I'm not saying it's anti-biblical. You got to read the Bible. Anytime you see shows, there's artistic license and then they just make up some stuff. So, you got to know what they made up, what they didn't make up. It's really interesting. But it, it's leading up to fighting Goliath. And I was looking at the text again, 2 Samuel 17, 1st Samuel 17, and I was amazed the number of times he mentioned God. He really didn't talk about the giant much. Talked about God a lot. He ran at the giant because he was seeing the giant through his lenses of God. He had this fixation on the reality of God. You see, when we fix our eyes, when we have a radical God focus, it gives us a strength for the battle of life. That is why one of the primary tactics, I'm going to challenge, maybe even the foundational tactic of the enemy, is to merely distract us from God. See, the scripture tells us that we are not to be unaware of the devil's schemes. Now, I know in original context, this is about bitterness and unforgiveness. But truth is, God shows us different ways the enemy attacks, different things he does in our lives. We're not to be unaware of how he works. And I'm going to tell you, distraction is one of the foundational things the enemy does in our life. Distraction is often the first step to destruction because our power, our strength comes from our radical God focus. So if the enemy wants to do anything, he wants to distract us from God.

Years ago, a man by the name of C.S. Lewis wrote a book, a great little book called "The Screwtape Letters." It's actually just about the schemes of the devil. And in that book, there's a senior-level demon basically discipling a junior-level demon on how to bring destruction to those who God loves. Again, great read. One quote from the senior demon where he says, "It is funny how mortals always picture us demons as putting things into their minds. In reality, our best work is done by keeping things out. Our best work is done merely by distraction." Distraction from a radical God focus has always been a scheme of the enemy. But let's be honest about the world we live in today. I think the enemy has more tools with which to work today to distract us than have ever existed in humanity. I mean, you know what I'm saying, right? There's just so much coming at us. Most of us have one of these on our person right now. I'm not going to preach against your phone. I got one. I'm just telling you, think about all the stuff it brings at us all the time. I mean, you have the internet. You have social media. You have podcasts that you can watch. You have text messages. You have direct messaging. Man, you can binge-watch stuff on your phone when you're not binge-watching it on the television show. I mean, there's talk radio. There's 24-hour news. There's audiobooks. There's all this stuff just coming at us, coming at us, coming at us, coming at us, fighting for our attention. And that's just the information. Now, let's talk about all the activities we can be a part of, all the places we can travel, all the hobbies we can be a part of. Let's talk about our kids' stuff. We get really personal when we talk about kids' activities, right? And all the stuff we have them a part of such such in life. And here's what's interesting. Most of it, I can't tell you is wrong. I mean, like, yeah, there's some stuff you can pull up on here that's just really vile. But most of the stuff we're engaged in, just stuff in a lot of ways, meaningless, trivial, fun. Nothing wrong with it. Even our activities, nothing wrong with it. But in the midst of all the possibilities that exist, will you take it from an old man who's been doing this a long time? Like, I've been following Jesus longer than most of you have been alive. Don't minimize how the enemy uses the okay stuff of life to distract us from what is most important in our lives. Distraction is a bigger deal than you think it is because we begin to step into self-reliance when we get distracted.

Years ago, I had a cup of Starbucks coffee and they used to put quotes from customers on Starbucks. They called it "The Way I See It." Just opinions of certain customers. It, it's amazing how all the opinions lean the same direction, but that's a different, um, thing altogether. But I kept this cup because it describes human reality so well. It's called "The Way I See It," number 247. And a guy named Bill said, "Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well be a figment of our imaginations for guidance? Why not," and notice this phrase, "search inside ourselves for the power to overcome? After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure." Now, let me be clear. Every line in that quote is counter to the Christian faith. But I don't know that Bill claimed to be a Christian, so we should expect that reality. The line that stood out for me is, "Why not search inside ourselves for the power to overcome?" When we get distracted from the reality of God and our God focus, that's exactly where we go. We go to ourselves to look for power. And that's where the enemy positions us to do more dangerous work in our lives. I'm going to be honest with you. You ready? I don't have the power for life. I look at the guy in the mirror and I know that on my own, I cannot beat the devil. I don't have enough power to overcome all the areas of life, all the problems. I can't handle the problems. I can't have little struggles. I can't have the difficulties of all the fallen world throws at me. I know some of you thinking, "David, you don't think too highly of yourself." It is really not a self-image issue. It is not an image of lack. I'm telling you, it is not a statement of lack, but a statement of design. I wasn't designed to fight the battles of life alone. Humanity was always made to live dependent on God. And then this thing called sin came in. And the foundation of sin is that I can do life without God and I can fight the battles of life alone. Which I would contend may be the stupidest thought humanity has ever had, because it's the foundation of all of our problems.

But good news, in the midst of a world like this, Yahweh Nissi was lifted up. This time not in the desert with a bunch of former slaves, but on a hill called Calvary. He was lifted up on a cross and there He showed us this. He showed us how much He loved us. How much He longs for us to have abundant life and how much He wants us to have strength. Just say strength for the reality of this life that is a battle. But we must focus. Radical God focus brings strength for every battle we're going to face in life.

My husband Jeremiah and I moved to Abilene in 2019. In fact, we came to attend Beltway after he had attended a Word, Spirit, Power conference. Fast forward to 2022. We've been here a few years, you know, but we're like thriving. I would say we're coming up on year 13 of our marriage. Um, it was a regular Tuesday. We tell each other we love each other. We kissed each other goodnight. Um, it was his turn to tuck the kids in. We go to sleep and then around 1:00 in the morning on March 2nd, I awake to what I assume is my husband's snoring, which is very typical for him. But I very quickly realize that is not what's going on and he's actually in distress. Um, I'm trained in what to do, um, in emergency situations. So, I call 911, um, and I start CPR immediately on him. Like, we get going doing those things. Um, first responders come into the house. Um, one of the things I said was, "Lord, please shut the kids' ears." I asked them to do that because the last thing I wanted was trauma. For them to walk in and see their dad being resuscitated and not only them hear about it and how he came back, but have to experience it. And so, they're working on him. And I'm praying and I'm, I'm calling on with all the authority from Jesus Christ in me. I'm calling on heaven to come down and bring my husband back until the fireman gives me the news. He says, "Miss Young, we have done everything that we can, but we were unable to." I don't know what else he said because in that moment, everything inside me broke and I just fell to the ground. The Lord did shut the kids' ears. They hadn't woke up yet. At some point, like they do wake up and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, you know, here we go. Your daddy died." I said the words, "Your dad died while you were asleep and he is now in heaven with Jesus." I just remember like running up to you with Tristan and then just like crying and I literally, like, that's all I remember. We wouldn't find out till months later when the autopsy came back that he did have a heart attack. We know Jesus is near to the brokenhearted and He shows up in not just tangible ways, but supernatural ways. We would go to the breakfast table. We would go to our table and we would have morning devotional. The next day, we go to the breakfast table and we open up the devotional and the devotional is trusting God in trials and it's talking about Job and it says, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised." Am I really going to choose to trust that He is this, even though He just did something that I am really mad about? Worship is a big thing. We constantly have worship music playing in our house. So, one song that helped us like through it all was "Firm Foundation." And, um, Daddy had introduced it to us right, uh, when it came out, a little bit before he died. Right after he died, like listening to the lyrics, it just like, and we were like, "Okay, God." Like, you're with us through everything. I've never seen the, I've been a part of helping and serving others, but I've never seen the body of Christ in action like circle around, be the hands and feet of Jesus, circle around us and stay. They're willing to stay, learn with us, be coachable. We don't know what we're doing. They don't know what they're doing, but we're all talking to the same Jesus. He knows what He's doing. What I thought was going to take me out and take my kids out has actually been the thing that has grown our faith, I think, the most. Our circumstances are still here. It's still hard. Jeremiah is still not here. But I can choose to go higher and I can choose to give my affection and give my attention to Jesus. The Lord has been faithful, like you can't convince me otherwise. Yeah. That He is not faithful. He has shown up over and over. Psalms 30:11-12: "You have changed my sadness into a joyful dance. You have taken away my sorrow and surrounded me with joy. So I will not be silent. I will sing praise to you, Lord. You are my God. I will give you thanks forever." I would say for the person like sitting there thinking, "Yeah, but you don't know my heart, right?" Like, I'll say, you know, I might not. God does, but like God understands that. And I really truly believe like He weighs nothing. I would pray that He would open your eyes too, right? So that you could see and that you would know that you know because the things He's done in our lives, no human could do. Only God could do that.

[Applause] [Music] Can we be honest enough to say that's hard to believe? Anytime God intervenes like that, there is just a sense of awe. I mean, I have to confess, I, I think of a situation like Jennifer just described and I, I think, "I don't have what it takes to do that." You may be thinking the same thing. And the truth is, you don't. But God has said, "When certain battles hit, I'll provide a strength in that moment." I've done this a lot. And I've heard stories like that hundreds and hundreds of times of God providing a supernatural strength in a time that you think is an impossibility. And I've done it often enough now to believe, I just, I expect Him to show up because that's what He says He will do if we will just focus. Radical God focus. There is a strength that you cannot fathom. But it doesn't just happen. Please hear me. Radical God focus will not just casually occur. I, I wish it would. I wish I could tell you, "Hey, just listen to a sermon and my sermon's so awesome, you're automatically God-focused." That's not going to happen. There's not a sermon that awesome. We have to purpose it. That's why the scripture says, "Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things." That, by the way, is something you don't do one time in your life. It is an ongoing activity. Set your minds on things above. Then tomorrow, you know what you're going to need to do? Set your mind on things above. Tuesday, you know what you're going to need to do? Set your mind on things above. You see where this is going? 15 years from now, life circumstances are different. Set your mind on things above. So the question is this: What are we going to do in our lives to make sure our minds are set on things above? I mean, at this juncture, I was just going to give you a list of things you needed to do. Do this, do this, do this, do this, do this. But that's not my place to tell you that because the scripture doesn't tell us that. The scripture gives us tools. And what we need to do is ask God, "What are the things that I need to do in my life to set my mind on things above?" It's like, I know you need to engage the Bible, pure and simple. We need to engage it somehow, some form. But I can't tell you how to do it, the specifics. I know how the Lord's told me to do it. I know the way I work through it, but you just need to do it. If you're not sure what to do, just start reading the New Testament. I've told you that. Matthew through Revelation. Read it over and over again. Well, two things you'll find. Number one is as soon as you start reading the Bible, your mind is going to go haywire. Some of you have told me that. It's like my mind just gets chaotic. Like all these things come in. Almost like there's an enemy who wants to keep you distracted. Often I have to like lay my hand on my head. I did that a little hard. That kind of hurt. Um, and go, "I take captive all my thoughts to the obedience of Christ Jesus right now. My mind will be focused and I will see everything God wants me to see from His word today." I've been doing this 45 years. Still have to do it because the enemy wants to come against it. You'll say, "Man, I don't understand everything I read." Neither do I. Focus on what you do understand. You will understand plenty. If you deal with what you do understand, then read it again. Read it again. Read it again. Just do the New Testament. Pray throughout the day. What if prayer is not so much me getting God to do what I want as just to stay focused on Him and I hear Him about what He wants and just pray throughout the day. Set your phone alarm. Stop at certain times and pray. You can fast. You know, the purpose of fasting is to do without something that's pretty good in life so that I can focus more radically on God. It can be food. It can be social media. It could be TV. It could be all sorts of things. Whatever God would have you fast from. Make community a big part of your life. I was thinking today, it just hit me this morning. I've been following Jesus for 45 years. I have always been part of a small group. Always. I've never not been in a group. And it's awesome because I've made a discovery. I get tired in trying to focus on it, but my hands are up and I need people to help me, pure and simple. I've got friends in my life. I've got people in my life that just help me do that. I, I need my. That's why I come to church. I'm moving into a new chapter of my life where I will be legacy pastor. As legacy pastor, I'll be preaching here, um, about like I am now. But, you know, the Sundays I'm not preaching, for the first time in 38 years, I don't have to be at church. Like, I, I don't have a job on those Sundays. Like I don't have to come. Where am I going to be? I'm going to be right here. I'm just going to tell you straight up. I need church. Like, there's days I show up and I don't feel like worshiping. I know that shocks you. You're probably far more spiritual than I am, but I don't feel like it. But then all of you start worshiping and you start doing stuff and I just get drawn to it. I just need it. I don't know what it is you need. I just know this: I know you need to do whatever it takes to be focused on Him.

So, let's do this radical thing before we go. Both campuses, online people, I just want you to bow your heads and I want you to ask God right now. What do you need to do? What's one or two things, maybe three things the Spirit of God would show you right now? And you may just start debating, "How do I know this is God?" I'm going to tell you this: I know this, that if it's going to help you focus on God, the enemy is not giving you that idea. He doesn't do that. So, if it helps you focus on God, I say take a step right now. Trust that it's Him. If it's like, "Read a chapter of the Bible, get up 10 minutes early and read a chapter of the Bible before you go to work and say a quick prayer." Maybe pray the Lord's Prayer. Okay? Then do that. If it's, "Turn off talk radio on the way to work and listen to worship music." I don't know. It could, I mean, there's countless numbers of ideas. Ask right now. Spirit of God, show me what I need to do so I can be radically focused on God this [Music] week.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Yahweh Nissi, we turn our attention to You and we ask, Almighty, would You help us to keep our attention, the focus of our lives, to be upon You? We confess as a people, we are easily distracted. Forgive us for that. We don't want to be, and we want to be a people who fix our gaze on You. We want to fix our eyes on Jesus. We want to fix our eyes on the unseen. We want to fix our thoughts towards You. For that is where we have life. So would You give us an extra dose of grace today to do just that? We ask in Jesus' name. And the people of God said,