Where is Your Focus?

We are continuing with our sermon series “Who Are You Following?”. We have been looking at how we have a choice and that choice can effect how we act and what we say. You can find the previous sermons on our You Tube channel.

This week we discover that who you focus on can affect your relationship with God and those around you. Our scripture comes from Mark 8:27-38.

27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” 28 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

29 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” 30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

Please pray with me…

Our scripture for today begins with Jesus asking a question. He wants to know if his mission and ministry is working. He asks the disciples “what are people saying about me?” He wants to know the word of mouth the rumors concerning him.

We discover that the people are viewing him as a person who is associated with the coming of the Messiah, but the people do not yet believe that Jesus could be the Messiah. They have not received enough evidence to believe.

They are unwilling to place their focus on Jesus. They still are being affected by outside influences. They are listening to those around them instead of allowing the message of Jesus to be their focus. They have not yet accepted Jesus as the way, the truth and the life.

(Transition)

One aspect of our faith that can lead to us being unwilling to become closer to God or unwilling to make changes in our lives that will allow us to become more holy, is that we have become comfortable in our faith.

I was at a church, and someone had become a new believer. He was attempting to let all of those around him know about Jesus. He had discovered the way, the truth, and the life. He wanted everyone else to discover what he had.

He was very vocal about his faith. A bunch of us were together talking about how vocal he was, and someone brought up that it may take a little time but eventually he will become like us, meaning he won’t be so enthusiastic about sharing how he had become a follower of Jesus.

We all laughed, but after leaving I realized how sad that was. I started thinking about who is right and who is wrong. Why am I not like this new follower? Why am I not letting everyone around me know about the gift that I have received by becoming a follower of Jesus?

The reason is easy, I and those around me and probably many of you are comfortable in our faith. We believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, and we don’t want to rock the boat and speak to loudly about what God has done for us.

Our focus is on us and the fact that we are saved. Jesus says to his disciples, but I believe also to us, that we are to tell of him in our communities, to those around us. We are to let the world know about the love of Jesus.

(Transition)

I believe this is where a majority of those that want to believe that Jesus is associated with the coming of the Messiah but that he is not the Messiah are coming from. They want the Messiah to come but they are afraid of what that means.

Especially since Jesus was not the Messiah they were expecting. They were expecting a Messiah that would conquer their enemies and would call out in this case the Romans for their mistreatment.

This was not what Jesus was doing. His focus seemed to be on love. He spoke of love your neighbor and that includes your enemy. He often would complain more about the actions of the Pharisees than he did the actions of the Romans.

Their focus was more on not rocking the boat. They wanted to make sure their relationship with their neighbor was good even if that meant that the neighbor would never know about the love of Jesus.

They were comfortable in their faith. They were afraid if they said the wrong thing they may find themselves kicked out of the synagogue. Blacklisted for speaking out to loudly about the Jewish Messiah that the Jewish people had been waiting to come.

(Transition)

The first question leads to Jesus asking another question. “Who do you say that I am?” We receive a quick response this time as Peter answers, “You are the Messiah.” They have received enough evidence. They have seen that Jesus meets the criteria to be the Jewish Messiah.Jesus accepts their answer and now lets them know of the plan.

Just a reminder, the Jewish people were looking for a conquering Messiah and that was not the message given to the disciples by Jesus. His message is that he will be conquered.

He will be rejected by the Jewish religious leaders and then he will be killed. He follows that up with an important statement, I will come back to life after three days. Jesus is letting them know he will by conquered but in the end, he will be the one who will conquer death.

(Transition)

Have you ever had someone pile on bad news and more bad news, and they end with good news but all you focus on or remember is the bad news. I think that is what happened to Peter. He became so focused on Jesus being conquered that he missed the important part of Jesus’ statement.

This can happen to us in life. We can have negative event after negative event lead to us not remembering that we have a promise. A promise from God that our souls will also conquer death. We may suffer here on earth, but we will receive our reward in Heaven.

It can at times be hard to keep faith when the bad things seem to happen more often than the good. It may lead you to doubt, to wonder if there is a God, Is God with me even during the worst of times.

Francesca Battistelli sings a song called “God Is Good.” In the song this is the course, “Joy comes, tears fall. I'm learning there is beauty in it all. It's not hard to find it, you just have to look Oh, God is good.”

The good, the bad, and the ugly. God is with us, God is good. I know it’s easier said than done to live our lives with this in mind. That is why scripture is so important. We have examples of God being with people and helping people through tough circumstances.

We also have proof that we are not always going to get it right. Peter in today’s text tells Jesus, the one he has just called the Messiah, that he doesn’t know what he is talking about. He is telling him you don’t know how your story here on earth is going to end.

Again, Jesus said his story will have a happy ending, Peter just was so caught up in the negative that he didn’t hear it. He was just like those that didn’t believe. Peter couldn’t believe that the Jewish Messiah would not be the conquering hero.

(Transition)

This leads Jesus to make one of his famous statements, “Get behind me, Satan! you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” This is where we get the title of today’s sermon, “Where is Your Focus?”

Are you more focused on human concerns or on your relationship with God? I think we all know what the answer should be but again we also know we will fail. Jesus knows that it is Satan attempting to thwart his attempt to lead his disciples to understand that he will die but that he will also conquer death.

Satan is stuffing their ears so that they can’t hear the important part. Satan can also get in the way of our relationship with God. We can allow him to intervene in our lives in such a way that we forget the good news and focus on all of the bad news that is occurring around us.

(Transition)

Jesus next explains how to stop that from happening. He doesn’t just reprimand Peter for his failure he offers to Peter and all of those around him what it means to follow him and to keep Satan away.

He is telling those that the disciples had just told him do not believe that he is the Messiah along with his disciples. It is as if he believes that these people do not believe yet. He has the faith in the work of his Father to believe they will eventually understand he is the Messiah.

He tells them and us that we must live our lives different than those that do not follow Jesus. Our focus is to be on Jesus. We are to not allow the worries of the world to take away the joy of knowing our Lord and Savior.

This may mean we have to love those that don’t love us. We may have to serve those that are not like us. We may have to talk to those around us about the one who saved us and how he also desires to save them. Our focus needs to be not on us but on God and those around us.

(Transition)

This is where our election update comes in. The debate is over, and the divisiveness has ended. We all know that isn’t the case and that things will most likely get worse before they get better. We have to decide who we are focusing on.

We know someone greater than the next person who will become our President. We have a Lord and King for us to choose to follow. We may have to forgive and show love to those around us that disagree with us.

This does not mean you don’t follow your heart and the brain that God has given to you. You should vote who you are led to vote for. But you should do so with the understanding that God is greater and God can overcome.

(Transition)

We also have proof that we can live through it when the one we didn’t vote for wins. The last two elections have been won by different parties so most of you have either voted against a candidate that won or you don’t like any of them.

Either way most of us have survived having a President that we didn’t vote for or didn’t like. We need to focus on our relationship with God and those around us. We need to believe that God is at work even if he is working with someone we disagree with.

(Transition)

Jesus continues by pointing out that following him is not easy and that we may face consequences for our decision. We have to be willing to be uncomfortable in faith. We may have to be willing to step out of our comfort zone and walk the way of Jesus.

It is this second part that causes Peter to react the way he does. He has seen what has happened to those that followed others who claimed to be the Messiah and were proven to be false Messiahs. The followers were killed right along with their leader.

Jesus in some ways predicts the outcome for most of his disciples. They will face death because of their willingness to follow him. We hopefully won’t have to die sticking up for Jesus, but we should be willing to face consequences for following him.

(Transition)

Our first reading reminds us that Jesus did not leave us alone. He promised his disciples a helper and he provided one to each of us that believes he is our Savior. We call this helper the Holy Spirit. It is a connection with God that those disciples didn’t have when they pronounced that they believe.

We have available to us a close personal connection with God. The scripture points out that we have to decide where we are going to place our focus. Romans 8:5 tells us

“5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”

We have a choice to make. Are we going to walk and talk and act and react like the rest of the world or are we going to follow the example of Jesus. Are we going to let the world lead us or are we going to do what “the Spirit desires.”

Paul doesn’t leave us without an answer of what that means. It means that we are to choose to live lives of “life and peace.” Another way we can view this is that we are to be people of hope and peace.

We are to remember that we have received a promise from God that we have been saved and that we have eternal life. This understanding should give us hope in even the direst of circumstances.

(Transition)

The hope is not that everything is going to turn out perfect even though it might. We should have hope that even if events do not occur as we would desire that God will turn them into good. After all Jesus died a most gruesome death but that death is what gave us life as it set us free from sin and death.

God uses bad situations for good. God allows for good to come out of the bad. We as the song mentioned above says, “we have to look for it.” We may still struggle to find it; we may have to ask God about it.

We may also disagree that what we think is good is really worth the cost of what we lost, and I am not going to argue with that. What I know is that God is with us and will help us through what we are facing. We should have hope in God.

(Transition)

We also are to be people of peace. Our hope should lead to us having peace in all circumstances. God offers us a peace that passes all understanding. We need to grasp that peace and offer peace to those that we meet.

We show our love to those around us by being people of peace instead of people of conflict. This does not mean we don’t call out when we see mistreatment. Jesus didn’t keep quiet when he saw people being taken advantage of. What it does mean is that we speak in such a way that can lead to peace instead of division.

Where is your focus? Have you elevated the love of God above the love of the world? God calls for us to be people of love and peace. People that live in this world but not of this world. Let us do the best we can to show the world that our focus is on our loving, caring, God.

Let us pray…