WHERE IS YOUR FOCUS?

This morning I believe I have a word from God for us as a body. I believe that this season we have been in for quite some time now has done such damage to people that indeed there has to be a great reset. And I don’t mean a reset in the way maybe you’ve seen it online talked about. That word has been used many times over the last couple years, but the great reset I am talking about is of a Kingdom nature.

I am always so grateful to God when he brings me to His word in the midst of trial to bring me hope and confidence. This is the case yet again. As I have been dealing with this sickness this week I’ve asked myself:

Is it coincidence that we are in the middle of a series on the Kingdom of God when so many of us are hit with so many things?

Where is our focus? What is trying to draw our attention?

Is it coincidence that we are learning to put our priorities in the right place while we are being pulled in every direction to put our priorities elsewhere?

Where is our focus?

Is it coincidence that we are sick, beat down, crushed and bruised in the midst of our pursuit for understanding the great gift of God’s Kingdom?

Where is our focus?

Albert Einstein said, Coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous.

I’m not saying God is throwing things at us because we said, “We want to learn about the Kingdom.” And so God is like, “Oh really, I’m going to make it difficult.” That’s not how I see it at all.

Understanding the order of things and the design of God in our lives is very important. Let me give you an example. Kelley and I had this reoccurring theme happening in our lives where it seemed like every time we would come in to some extra money, an unexpected expense would come up immediately after.

I mean, this was happening so often I was getting very frustrated. And every time I would shake my fist at the heavens and say, “Why God do you allow the enemy to come in and take what you’ve just given us...” And every time I would shake my fist at the devil and say, “How dare you try to steal the blessing God has given us!”

And I thought for sure if I cursed the devil and prayed harder to God that this would change.

But it kept happening. Something didn’t seem right. Not until I saw the right perspective. Not until my focus shifted from the problem, from the enemy, to the provision. See, I was asking the wrong questions.

I was asking, “Why are you allowing this to be taken from me right after we got it?” When what I should have been asking was, “Did you bring this just in time for me to need it?”

See, I finally realized that God was providing before I needed the provision, and it was a gift of GRACE!

Instead of me having an unexpected expense that we were unprepared for, God was bringing the provision before hand so that when the unexpected expense came up we had what we needed. The issue was not in anything God was doing, and the issue was not whether it had anything to do with the devil trying to beat us down. Regardless of where the problem arose from, physical reality, we live in a world were things break and things need repaired and expenses happen, and God was simply providing for us as He said he would. Who cares whether the devil is involved or not, God WAS involved of that I am very sure. And when GOD is involved, then it doesn’t matter who else is.

So, when I say is it coincidence that we’re going through things as we are learning things? I think the timing of God is uncanny. I have seen more times than I can count where God leads me to some truth and shortly after I need that truth in my life, and it’s because He was gracious enough to bring me that truth in the first place, that I have it to rely on as I move through what it is I need to move through.

And I am confident of the fact that the purpose of God is for you and I to overcome, not to come up short.

Because, the bible says, in 1 John 4:4, …the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.

So, no matter what comes at us, no matter where it comes from, the Spirit of God who is in us is greater. Period.

And when I began to recognize that I was able to thank God instead of shake my fist at him. And the blessing was truly a blessing rather than a robbery. Because when you live feeling like you’re continually getting robbed from, even in the midst of being blessed, what feeling remains? Being robbed, not being blessed. But if gratitude and thanksgiving come from recognizing that God has yet again provided in the midst of trial and struggle, then gratitude and thanksgiving pave the way for what we will feel. And the bible says we enter his gates with thanksgiving, we enter his courts with praise, so when we give thanks and we give praise, we literally position ourselves in the courts of God, which is to say, under His authority.

What are we talking about these days? The Kingdom! What is the Kingdom? It is the authority, the domain, the rule and reign of the King.

Our daily purpose and task is to continually acknowledge and give up our own desire to take authority and to submit ourselves to the authority of Christ.

Jesus gave the invitation, take up your cross, forsake all else, come and follow me. Submit yourself to my authority and see how life turns out! You won’t lose it, but you’ll save it!

So, this is where I feel like we are at this very moment. I feel like this is where we’ve been for these last couple years now, the reality that we are faced with a decision to be made in where we will put our focus, because I believe that this is a war for your attention.

Napoleon Hill said, The Number one reason people fail in life is because they listen to their friends, family and neighbors.

I read through an article on the top 10 reasons people fail, and the reasons mattered less than the overarching idea in all of the reasons.... people lost focus.

Whether it’s not enough planning, not wanting it enough, giving up, not having a concrete goal, the base is the same, the focus.

Well, when it comes to our lives, when it comes to our own personal sanity and emotional, spiritual, mental health, I believe the enemy, the devil, the one who would try to get in the way of what God wants to do in your life is constantly trying to introduce one particular thing for you to war against, to take up your time, to divide your focus. And that is: Fear.

The bible is FULL of verses where God is encouraging us NOT to be afraid. But never in our own strength, there’s always a direct connection to HOW, and it’s a matter of focus.

Psalm 34:4, I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.

The process… I prayed, or as the ESV says it, I sought the Lord

Proverbs 29:25, Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safety.

Again, other translations say, The fear of man lays a snare… What does that mean? The fear of man, or fearing people, is not being afraid of someone like they’ll hurt you, but it’s living in a constant state of pressure that we’re letting them down, they’ll think of us differently, they don’t like us, they don’t approve of us, we are always trying to measure up, but we can’t seem to.

And what is that? That’s trusting in someone else’s approval to validate our existence!

The solution… Trusting the Lord means safety.

1 John 4:16-18, We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgement, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.

Fear is real, no doubt about it. And we don’t need to feel down on ourselves for feeling fear, that’s not the point. The point is that when we DO feel afraid it is exposing in us an emptiness of God’s love in an area. It’s exposing a lie that the enemy is trying to use to draw our focus from God to the problem.

We have a saying, “you’re making a mountain out of a mole hill”. Why even have that saying? Because we do! When we focus on the problem at hand, it becomes all consuming. How is it that you can live with a pimple and not notice it’s there, until you do....and then, man, you can’t seem to shake it, it’s just there and the focus, and oh good Lord...

It’s the same with the things we face. Whether that is financial difficulty, relationship difficulty, sickness, covid. The goal of the enemy will ALWAYS be to implant fear into your heart for the worst case scenario.

The bible calls him the father of lies. calls him a wolf that comes in the night looking to devour us. Jesus says of the enemy that his goal is to kill, steal and destroy. We would be naive to think he’s not at the very center of trying to get us to love focus.

Remember what 1 John 4:18 says, this is so important to remember - If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.

God has not given us fear. God does not do anything to us out of fear. God does not USE fear. Not to change us, not to convince us, not to persuade us. God is ALWAYS leading us in love.

So, two scriptures that I want to look at this morning and then we need to look at what the solution is.

First, I want to look at Hebrews 2:14-15, which says, Because God’s children are human beings - made of flesh and blood - the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.

Jesus, in his death and resurrection invites us to believe in him and receive eternal life which breaks over us the fear of dying, because death has no power over our eternity.

The bible says the wages of sin is death, and that would be a death without the life of Christ, but BECAUSE of the death of Jesus Christ, once and for all the curse of death for the payment of sin is broken, and we now no longer live as slaves to this fear. We are no longer subject to it.

Now, I want to propose that this is not just the fear of death as a final descent into the grave, but the death of things in our lives. Death of relationships. Death of purpose. Death of finances. Death of career. Death of our emotions, our sanity, our intellect.

If the enemy is out to kill, steal and destroy, the best thing he can do is to convince you that everything you touch you kill, so that you make the conscious decision yourself to not touch anything, and then his work is done.

And I don’t know if you realize how powerful the mind is. The body follows the mind. We’ve talked about this before, our belief structures dictate our expectations, and when our expectations are negative because our belief structure is negative, our results are often negative, because we position ourselves, we shape our lives in a manner that we expect we deserve. When we live in a state of fearful surrender our lives will match our fears. The body listens to the mind.

This is why you see people who retire and don’t have purpose sometimes lose their way very quickly.

This is why marriages often suffer after the last child moves out for college because husband and wife realize they put all their energy into the kids, and now what do they have to live for?

This is why often times when a couple has been married for a very long time and they are advanced in years, when one passes, the other doesn’t last long. The purpose, the desire to live is removed, and when the desire is removed the body loses its desire.

And we are seeing this right now. Fear is pushed on those who are sick so heavily that they are struggling to keep their heads above water because they are constantly faced with the negative, what could go wrong.

I had a turning point on Thursday evening. Thursday was a hard day, my chest was hurting pretty bad and by the end of the day I was sitting in my chair in pain, fear was doing everything it could to climb all over me, and I’m having to fight off every thought of, “you’re going to end up in the hospital.” “All they’ll do is put you on a vent.” “They aren’t treating this...”

And I noticed I was spiraling hard. Until I realized what was going on. I had to make a choice. Where is my focus?

So I started, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will FEAR NO EVIL....for though art with me… Psalm 23:4

And I stopped right there… You are with me. You are with me. You are with me.

You are right here with me. You remove my fear. You fill me with peace. You are my peace. You are my hope.

And so I turned on the song I sent y’all on Friday morning. And I put it on repeat and let the word of God wash over me instead of the lies that wanted in.

Why? Because it’s on us to refocus. You are in control of your eyes. You are in control of your mind. You are in control of yourself. How do I know this, because of the second verse I want to look at this morning:

Romans 8:15, So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children.

And 2 Timothy 1:7 says, For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline. or Self-Control.

I remember I have not been given a spirit of fear, That’s not from God, so if it’s not from God it’s coming from 1 of 3 places, satan, someone else, me. And I have control over all three of those. I can stop listening to the enemy, I can stop listening to the other person, I can change what I am saying to myself. I have the control. I can change my focus.

That doesn’t make it easy, but it is necessary.

It doesn’t make it the first thing I think of, but the more I do it, the sooner I think of it.

Anxiety is a real thing. So is the power of the Spirit of God.

So, this is where the choice is made. Psalm 121

I look up to the mountains - does my help come from there?

My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!

He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber.

Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps.

The Lord himself watches over you! The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade.

The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon at night.

The Lord keeps you from all harm and watches over your life.

The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever.

Where do I look? To the mountains, no…to the high places? no.... my help comes from the Lord. And there is power in this. It is practical, but it is powerful.

Find scripture you can read over yourself in times of trouble.

Find scripture that brings you confidence when you are sad. When you are afraid. When you feel stressed. Find scripture that brings your focus back to the Kingdom of God. Pray, “God, I place my life under your authority. You are my comfort. You are my shield. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, whatever death is trying to get me, be that physical, or part of my life that is being threatened, YOU ARE WITH ME.... So I will fear no evil. I know fear does not come from you, so I choose to focus on your truth, and I ask that you would fill me with your love.”

And you work to refocus. You WORK to remind yourself. YOU TELL YOURSELF to focus on the truth.

You put music on that refocuses you. You put the word of God in your mouth. You pray and you tell your friends that you need encouragement. You turn social media off. You turn the news off. You turn the voices that aren’t speaking peace, speaking confidence, you turn them off. Let confidence surround you so your life responds in kind.

I’ve never met someone who got to the end of their life, who trusted God the whole way, upset that they did so.

Look to the Lord. Readjust your focus. Don’t let fear, which is inferior, it’s counter productive, it’s there to convince you of one thing only, death… But you’ve not been given a spirit of fear, which means whoever is trying to give you that doesn’t deserve your time. So you remind it you’ve been given a spirit of power, love and self-control, and you are choosing to focus on the Kingdom of Heaven, You are choosing to focus on Scripture. You are choosing to focus on the truth of who God is and what He says and you’ll read it, sing it, shout it until you get it!