Don’t get distracted

Sermon • Submitted 8 months ago • Presented 8 months ago

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Philippians 1:9-11 9 I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. 10 For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return.11 May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God. NLT

Denial of service video, wonderhunt?

Dominant theme: Let us discern and judge what really matters

Function statement: i will grow in love of knowledge of that which is good so that I can be filled with righteousness

intro

have you ever paid attention to Service dogs? Like really well trained dogs, or dogs at a training event? They never take their eyes off of their trainer and they never do anything without hearing a command first from their trainer. Their eyes are glued to them, even when the trainer is calm and just standing our lounging the dog is waiting. with open ears for threats and commands.

In one of the videos I saw that was apparently some defense show case an attacker comes to this person and starts acting odd and getting close to the trainer. You would think the best dog would immediately attack what was a possible threat, but that is not what the dog did at all. The dog kept its eyes perfectly on its trainer. when the attacker steps in between the dog and the trainer the dog just quickly maneuvers to get back to position to watch the trainer. and only when the trainer gives a command does the dog go into attack mode. It was incredible to watch.

Even when the world demands their attention they are not distracted by anything.

That is what Paul seems to be telling us to focus on in our text today as we look at Philippians 1:9-11.

In only three short verses Paul lays out the mission and vision of Christians. Paul prays that we would grow in love and discernment, so that we may live pure and blameless until Christ returns. That’s our north star. That is our purpose.

Paul tells the church in Philippi that he is earnestly praying their love would grow more and more. But to make sure he is understood here Paul uses the greek word we have all heard Agape, sacrificial love. not feelings that go to and fro love, not love regulated by the constant flux of our emotions, not love determined by what blessings God give us today or tomorrow, but eternal love that never changes.

And to make that clear he adds the last part of this first verse, that your knowledge and understanding would grow. The love that Paul wants us to grow in comes from our knowledge of God. Our knowledge of Christ and him crucified. Like dogs in training or service dogs we are glued to God, seeking to know everything there is to know about his word, his characters, and his will.

But it is not just knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Know, even James the brother of Jesus tells us that demons know God and fear him. What Paul wants us to grow in is a saving knowledge of God. It helps to look at these three verses as logical thinking. If doing A leads to B, then you can expect B to lead to C. it is a simple logical statements.

So bear with me just a second as I explain it, if you continue to grow in love of knowledge of God, you will know what really matters. and If you really know what is important and what is excellent, then during Jesus’ return you will be viewed as pure and blameless. and if you are viewed as pure and blameless, it is because you were filled with the righteousness that comes through Christ.

So lets walk through it backwards, Paul says simply, I hope when Christ returns you are found without sin, justified before God.

okay, so how do we get there? You have to know what is important, and hold to it. And it starts with loving God, following Jesus, and being filled with the Holy Spirit.

So what is important, that is what we are wondering right? How do we find out what is important? Well, it is simple, we spend time with God in prayer, through reading scripture, and the other spiritual habits and practices of Jesus.

Paul tells us clearly what to focus on in chapter 4 of this very same book, If the same book answers your own question from somewhere else, that is how you know you are on the right track.

Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” ESV

think about the things that are good, think about the things that reflect who Jesus is.

Paul writes in the book of Colossians the exact same thing but with different language. Colossians 3:1–3 “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ” ESV

Seek that which is above. Think about what Jesus care about, and then care about those things. Justice, goodness, love, compassion, care for the elderly, orphans, and widows, outcasts and the marginalized, and the least of these.. Care about such things!

Sounds simple enough right? But heres the thing church, caring about the things of God is only half the battle. In fact, I think it is the easy part. The hard part is not getting distracted. the hard part is going out into the world and living a life with people, at work, at home, when your hungry, tired, emotional, and still caring about the things of God. The hard part is having free time and choosing to read your Bible, pray, or visit the sick in your community instead doing the inevitable clicking of the tv remote and swiping of the phone.

One quick glance, one moment looking away from your trainer and.. you have missed it. You missed the command!

Do you know in my mind, the greatest card the enemy can play in our lives in this culture right now? Distraction.

It is so easy we don’t even see it. One buzz of the phone, one pop up of an email, one ad on screen, one episode, one hour of play. It is everywhere.

John Mark Comer writes that Western culture is arguably built around the denial of death through the coping mechanism of distraction.

To put it another way, Western cultures current foundation is built on the idea of helping us ignore that we are going to die and that we are in need of a savior through distracting us with a million little things.

one study in 2016 said the average American taps their phone and touches it 2617 times a day, with extreme users being up to 5,400. and we actually check it and interact with it 96- 150 times a day.

The average American uses social media for over 2 hours a day.

You know i’m not a fan of tik tok, I don’t use instagram except to post church stuff, and twitter is a toxic minefield i dare not interact with.

But all this stuff is about to get so much worse.

I recently read that OPEN AI, the company behind CHATGPT is creating its own social media platform, like we don’t have enough. But the way it is going to stand out? All the content there is AI generated. Their is no Human generated content.

They allege that all content will be posted by humans, posted by our friends but we have no real way of knowing if that is going to actually be true. But every video, every post, everything, is done by AI.

That friends, is not that which is excellent and good. That is brain dead, senseless, slop veiled as distraction.

But it isn’t just our phones and our social media accounts. There is actually a far more nefarious form of distraction painfully present in our culture I don’t think any of us avoid well.

The politics of our country, brandished through news pundits and influencers breathes guilt and fear like puppeteers tugging at the strings of our soul. Vying for our attention, vying for our emotion. These people, who really just want more money from more views and clicks, will pull the fire alarm on everything.

NO matter what it is, no matter how small and insignificant it truly is, they scream from the rooftops like Chicken little the sky is falling. how many elections in a row have we heard this is the most consequential election of our lifetime?

How many times have our deepest emotions been stoked with newscasters calling everyone evil. magnifying an issue as the end of democracy, and warning that we are on the brink of civil war?

This right gone, that right gone, they proclaim! Every word is dripping with fear and dread warning us of what is to come. telling us we have to.. fight back, listen up, and… pay attention.

They tell you to listen up and pay attention not to warn you that your soul is drifting away from Christ but to snatch it from your chest and hold it hostage . Because if you paid attention to what really mattered, if you looked at the things above, if you set your eyes on Jesus and him alone, you would not be distracted…

Comer says it better than I can.. “Powerful forces have a vested interest in our believing the myth (and it is a myth) that we are following no one at all. Many of the cultural liturgies that indoctrinate us daily- "Be true to your-self," "You do you, "Speak your truth" can be traced back to sources with a nefarious agenda.* If "they" (whether multinational corporations, politicians, anti-democratic government agents, marketing departments, influencers who just want more followers, etc., etc.) can make us believe that each person is a blank slate, just following the inner compass of our "authentic self" in an upward march to happiness, then they can keep us blind to all the ways we've been "discipled" formed and manipulated by their desires.

Any skilled con artist knows the key to deceiving your mark is to get them to believe your scheme was their idea. Translation: The key to getting people to follow you is to convince them they aren't following anyone at all.”

If we were all to one day simultaneously discover what is truly important, and fall in love with it, and follow it, all those marketing departments would run out of funds. All these social media platforms and their algorithms manipulating us through anger and fear would have their stock fall out of the sky and we would recognize what little value they bring to our lives. And all those pundits spreading lies and half truths would be out of a job. Those hundred million dollar athlete contracts would cease. And the billion dollar movies would dry up.

Because we would recognize the only thing truly deserving of our time… is Jesus.

And heres why it all matters, here is why we can’t be both distracted by the culture, and the tech, and our followers, and our news casters. There is no best case scenario, there is no equality, there is no making it work with both. One thing will control. One thing sets our minds on how to feel, what to do, and what to value.

There is no way to hold a life with Jesus in one hand and a distraction in the other.

Heres is how John Mark Comer explains it one more time “And this matters, because whatever we "abide" in will determine the "fruit" of our lives, for good or for ill.

If we are rooted in the infinite scroll of social media, it will form us, likely into people who are angry, anxious, arrogant, simplistic, and distracted."

If we are rooted in the endless queues of our streaming platforms of choice, they will form us too, likely into people who are lustful, restless, and bored, never present to what is ...

If we are rooted in the pursuit of hedonism-another drink, another toke, or another hookup to take the edge off the pain and let us find a moment's peace that will form us as well, likely into people who are compulsive, addictive, and running from our pain and, simultaneously, our healing.”

You are being formed. We were created by God to be formative creatures. In the beginning the Bible tells us we were FORMED in the image of God. but since the fall of human kind in the garden of eden, that image has been eroded. Every distraction, every sin, every alternative world view, every thing takes us away from God, begins to chip away at the image of God in us. Until one day, we no longer bear the image of Christ at all, and punishment is the only thing left.

God has created us as creatures who are formative, malleable, prone to be shaped into that which we digest in our mind and spirit. What you take in is what you become.

How we stop it? how do we keep ourselves from getting distracted?

Dallas Willard the Christian Philosopher writes this “The first and most basic thing we can and must do is to keep God before our minds. ...This is the fundamental secret of caring for our souls. Our part in thus practicing the presence of God is to direct and redirect our minds constantly to Him. In the early time of our practicing, we may well be challenged by our burdensome habits of dwelling on things less than God. But these are habits not the law of gravity— and can be broken. A new, grace-filled habit will replace the former ones as we take intentional steps toward keeping God before us. Soon our minds will return to God as the needle of a compass constantly returns to the north.... If God is the great longing of our souls, He will become the polestar of our inward beings.

Conclusion:

Let us remember then, what is the purpose of the Christian life? Why should you become a Christian? To get to heaven? No, the Bible does not say that anywhere. To experience eternity? No, not really. The purpose to all of it is to be like Jesus and be with Jesus forever. Jesus came for two reasons. To redeem us from sin, break the chains of death and buy us back from our falleness. Paul illustrates this point to us in this very passage, he hopes we will grow in love of knowledge of that which is excellent and good, so that you be filled with righteousness, justified before God, and live a life of holiness and purity until Christ returns.

The second reason he came is actually what has to happen first before the second can. The second reason was to invite people to disciple under him, go where he went and do what he did so that they may make more disciples of Jesus. It is through, and only through, being a disciple of Christ that eternal salvation is possible.

It is not from passing a theology test, or from handing out food to unhoused people on thanksgiving, it isn’t even from reading good christian books. The excellent things Paul mentions, the things that really matter, is the things of God. Are you following God. Are you yearning to know who God is make him the North Star of your life?

You are always being pulled in two directions. You are either being made to be more like Jesus, or more like the world. You are not a static being, you are incredibly malleable, we were all originally crafted in the image of God but since the fall of human kind that image has been tarnished, dirtied, or out right broken, so that we often far more resemble the hate, negativity, and anxieties of the world.

Paul tells us what to do to rectify this tragedy.

Romans 12:2 NLT Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

We must seek out Jesus, his way of life, do what he did, and then only then shall we reformed back into the image of God.

Like a crowd of people walking through wet cement we have, and we do, let the culture around us leave its image on us distorting the image God first gave us. This is all a tragic reversal of our original calling where are made in the image of God and we go out leaving God’s image everywhere we go.

That is why we are here. To be image bearers to the world.

Think about Jesus, study his words, follow his steps, and love like he loves.

the ancient Rabbi Yose Ben Yoezer explained discipleship like this and I can’t explain it in a better way,

"Let your house be a meeting place for the rabbis, and cover yourself in the dust of their feet, and drink in their words thirstily" - Yose Ben Yoezer

That is what you are called to do. Let your home, and your mind, and your habits, create opportunities for Jesus to speak life into you and form you back into the image of God. Let your love for God flourish, pay attention to what matters, and don’t get distracted by the world. And then, then you will be found pure and blameless before God.

Notes

he prays that knowledge may grow so that they may be found pure and blameless. “justified” implying the process is not done at baptism

if you grow in knowledge and salvation Jesus will produce righteousness in you

filled with, we don’t fill ourselves up

love is found in what is excellent, not warm fuzzy feelings. not emotions and feelings. But in Christ and him crucified. think of things above. of that which is excellent.

word study

abound perriseuo, over abudance,

may determine : test, scrutinize

ellikrenes : pure, sincere, observed in the sunlight and found pure. unmixed

questions

what really matters?

verses

1 cor 12:31 seek best gifts, more excellent way

colossians 3:2

philippians 4:8

quotes

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible Chapter 1