Sermon: Make Sure NOW of Your Focus
#1637
John W. Ritenbaugh
Given 05-Feb-22; 40 minutes
description: The world's religions have disparagingly referred to the Exodus as "wilderness wanderings," when in actuality they were not wandering at all but were being led by Almighty God during their 40-year trek through the wilderness. Today, God is leading His called-out ones on a spiritual trek. Like their forbears on the Sinai, though God provides the leadership, they are prone to annoying distractions which could scuttle their salvation. George Peabody once proclaimed, "Our task is not to bring order out of chaos, but to get work done in the midst of chaos." God's people are currently battling tornadic forces of chaos and confusion as the leaders of Jacob's offspring and the rulers of the world are submitting to the nefarious agenda of the prince and power of the air. During the next five years, chaos, confusion, and distractions will increase exponentially, requiring us to develop a plan to stay focused on a fixed goal, namely the Kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33). Distractions mean that the mind is being pulled and drawn off course. Everybody is subject to distractions of varying intensity. Demas became distracted by pulls of the world, which may have started by small incremental seemingly innocent thoughts, but accumulated incrementally and exponentially, scuttling his conversion. Distractions are momentary breaks in thought which can lead to randomness and confusion. The warnings Paul gave about neglect in Hebrews were the result of taking the focus away from God's plan as revealed by His word. In these dangerous times the world has been experiencing, to be without a focus as well as a plan to maintain the focus is dangerous. Focus needs to be safeguarded by a plan to counterattack the destructive distractions from media and political forces.
transcript:
This sermon is continuing a fairly long sermon series that began just about the time that 2021 began, with several sermons that picked up on the theme of our calling, likening it to what Israel experienced beginning with their bondage in Egypt. (I was getting ready for the Feast of of Trumpets even way back then.) But God rescued them from their bondage by means of His miraculous interventions and then began a 40-year-long trek through the wilderness, during which they experienced a multitude of painful rescues, all of which were needed because of Israel's sinfulness.
As God began moving the Israelitish people into the locations that He wanted them to live in and they spread the Word of God along with them as they got to that destination, the world got into the bad habit of labeling the Israelites movements as wilderness wanderings. As God clearly shows in His words, He was leading those movements. With Him leading they were not wandering one step, they were headed toward a pre-selected-by-God destination at the end of their pilgrimage.
Now, we modern Christians are each of us on our own personal God-led pilgrimage to a destination to the Kingdom of God, facing trials that are parts of our preparations for living in that Kingdom. We need to know that it is God who chooses our calling and is part of the leadership as He guides us during our calling, as we are being created.
These sermons are designed to give us a small bit of aid for success in our individual pilgrimage. Now, I began my Trumpet's morning sermon with a quote from a man by the name of George Peabody, who was an American banker working in London, England, and he said this to his fellow laborers at the beginning of a project they were involved in. And I believe it is fitting in our situation too over the next number of years. Think of this quote in terms of your relationship with Jesus and the Father, and what is looming on the horizon in regard to the times that we are living in.
George Peabody said, "Our task is not to bring order out of chaos, but to get work done in the midst of chaos."
I want you to think of this in regard to what the world might be like five years from now. How bad is it going to be? And we are still having to bear up under, gratefully, for what God has given to us. We just cannot abandon it if we want to be in His Kingdom. We are going to have to work right on through the chaos that might lie ahead of us. And so George Peabody was predicting that the chaos of a busy workplace was not going to magically disappear. They were going to have to bear with it and work through it despite the impact that it would have upon their work.
Now, my thoughts for us considering what continues happening in the internal political, religious, educational, and social functions of the United States, in light of our responsibility to God in our calling is this: what we have to do is truly set a course and then work at our calling without allowing the seemingly endless distractions that are taking place in the world deter us from God's salvation. I do not know what the next five years are going to carry for us in regard to doing this work.
My Trumpet's morning sermon was dominated by thoughts and examples to show you that even what we might pass off as nothing more than a minor distraction can become the cause of a very serious problem within our calling if it is not taken care of. I gave you examples of a few distractions that were literally root causes of even deaths:
Recall that I gave you an example from the movie "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," in which the film's director purposely inserted a distraction within a certain scene and that distraction became part of the movie. I also gave you a real life example that occurred during moon flight Apollo 13, in which three men would have died if the pilot's concentration was allowed to be broken by a distraction. And third was another true life example that literally led to the death of Karl Wallenda.
But what does the word distract mean? It means to "draw or divert the mind from something claiming attention." Is God's calling of you claiming your attention? It also means "to draw the mind in conflicting directions," thus confusing. Now recall this statement that I am going to give you from near the beginning of that Trumpet's sermon. Listen: everybody is subject to distractions of some measure of intensity. Nobody, nobody in the world can completely avoid them. If you have a mind, if you have eyes, if you have ears, you are subject to distractions. But one means of lessening their impact to some degree is to be so concentrated on attaining a fixed goal it takes a fairly disturbing event to knock the mind off track.
But know this well, even the concentrated fixation of a fixed goal, though it helps greatly, is not a perfect solution because a distraction's power is often so persistently forceful nobody can resist them entirely.
Now, distractions normally add nothing glorious and truly worthwhile to what God through Jesus Christ has blessed us with. Most distractions are minor, causing us to overlook a detail or to miss installing something or leaving something undone or becoming indifferent to some detail. A distraction only rarely adds something truly beneficial. The one I have just stated is basically now my Trumpet's morning sermon ended, but it really was not quite ended because I wanted to begin this sermon with where I ended the Trumpet's sermon. I have done that now. So this is how I really intended ending it but nonetheless, I think some of what I intended saying did get lost and that was my fault.
Distractions can really, really be irritating. But that is not my concern here at this point in my message. This is because I am thinking right now of about Demas. Demas was a church member. He is mentioned in at least three scriptures in the Bible, but we are going to look at only one scripture to show you that the appeal of a distraction can take you right out of the church. Turn with me to II Timothy chapter 4. The apostle Paul writes this to Timothy,
II Timothy 4:9-10 Be diligent to come to me quickly; for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica—Crescens for Galatia, Titus also for Dalmatia.
Demas seemed to be in the apostle Paul's traveling group for a fairly long period of time. However, he abandoned the apostle while Paul was in prison. Paul went to prison, Demas fled the coop. As Paul generalized in his letter to Timothy, Demas "loved this present world." Distraction from the world, through the appeal of the world, ultimately separated him from God. What happened to his mind and thus to his conversion? Why could he not hold it? What thoughts entered into his thinking, even though he had the apostle Paul's leadership virtually side-by-side with him day and night for at least several years. Nobody knows. We only know that he diverted off from his conversion.
However, the simple reality is that some distracting thoughts did enter the Demas' mind and supported his original distraction. He did not get rid of it right away. Apparently he kept thinking about the world, and then more things came that attracted his attention and added to the strength of the distraction. It started out as such a simple thing. Distractions are not, for the most part, complex at all. But that secondary distraction pulled and diverted him right back into the world as he abandoned Paul, the church of God, and apparently his salvation. And it is very likely that it began with nothing more than a quick thought.
But as a general rule, the very first item distractions produce, I believe is, at the very least, a momentary break in thought away from directness of thought in the distracted person's mind. And what is the person distracted to? It is away from the goal the person had in mind to accomplish in the first place. The distracted person may recover very quickly. But nonetheless, at least a minor distraction did occur and with it a brief stoppage of production on whatever the distracted person was working on, and thus the potential for damage even to one's salvation has in reality already occurred.
Now, what the person does after that is very important. The thing to do is treat it quickly or there is a strong possibility it will grow, just like it did with Demas. However, what occasionally enters the mind instead is a literal mental diversion toward randomness in thinking. That is what distractions do. They start breaking up your thinking and get you turned in another direction. It may only take a couple of seconds for it to occur. But there is a power there that, if it is the right subject and the right imagery, you can be pulled away from what you were doing. And so randomness in thinking by the distracted one is the first product and instead he or she makes an effort toward resolving the new thought. But the distraction did its job through the diversion.
Very often it is combined with at least a small measure of confusion. We may think, or we may even say something like, "Oh no! Where where was I?" We may not say it out loud, we say it to ourselves, "Now what was I doing when this occurred?" The disruption may then continue on to include more wasting time in order to get your thinking back on track to what it was at the first. Or, a measure of neglect of what one was going to say or do along with a small measure of carelessness and making some adjustments to contain any further digression from the original diversion. I know from my own experience that sometimes the distraction that I have is so strong, I have got to work to get back on thought track again.
The title of my Trumpet's morning sermon was this: "Make Sure of Your Focus." That was sermon number one in this little series here and it featured learning a bit of what a hazard distraction is to making progress in any work we attempt to make progress on. Remember this again: nobody is immune to the disasters distractions can make of even the most noble-minded of projects and they can become a failure. Brethren, that is not going to stop us because I have resolved to make this issue plain. And I have begun by adjusting my title of the sermon by one notch. This sermon is now titled, "Make Sure NOW of Your Focus."
Do you have some thoughts in mind regarding what you want to overcome just as quickly as you possibly can? How long have you been carrying that problem along? So make sure now of your focus. The emphasis is to not delay getting started at least thinking about this possibility that these next five years or so are really going to be hectic. They are starting off in a roaring manner. Look at what is happening in this country. Now by that, I do not mean at this very moment, but I do mean that if you have not already a fairly fixed focus on a subject you want to meet and overcome by determined spiritual efforts, make good progress thinking through them, at least beginning to resolve the issue by forming a skeleton of a plan before much more time has passed.
Brethren, this cannot be waited on, the world is moving on. It is getting worse and more dangerous for us day by day, and it is not that our lives are in danger at this very moment, but since we cannot control the fact that we have distractions, something can begin.
My subject on Trumpet's morning was concerned with encouraging us to first grasp the importance of making your own strong and logical efforts to put together an organized plan that you can live with and use and thus make steady progress toward reaching the goals God may additionally assign. Now even focus all by itself is not enough. It is a great help when it is consistently used, but it remains to so easily get knocked off track because the possibility of distraction is so great. I believe that you know that, but what is your plan for throwing the distraction off and getting yourself back on track without taking your frustrations out on the rest of the family?
Focus is not difficult to grasp as a concept, but it is not easy to maintain because our spiritual world is literally almost overwhelmed by elements to distract us. It did not take Adam and Eve long to sin, did it? It does not appear that way in the Bible. We live in a much busier world than they ever had to go through. The potential distractions are so many that if they were persons, it would be like going to a department store on a huge sale day that begins the Christmas shopping season. And it is as though distractions are scrambling, perhaps even fighting, as it were, to get our attention. Because if these distractions were people, it is not that they are doing everything in their power to assist us towards salvation. Rather they are the other kind doing perhaps everything intentionally and directly in their power to hinder us from making it. The demons are still roaming around.
Now, why am I so concerned about little old distraction? You might think it had something to do with the book of Hebrews. It does, because distractions are primary motivators of neglect. That is what they do. They cause us to neglect what we were working on and turn our attention to something entirely different maybe—because distractions are primary motivators of neglect.
Turn with me to Hebrews the second chapter. I want you to notice this alert at the beginning of this chapter from the apostle who probably authored this epistle. And he does this after laying out the invaluable greatness of God's program in chapter 1. He continues working on it in chapter 2 to save us for a life forever in God's Family by exhorting us to be organized and sticking to the plan, to a plan, our plan.
Hebrews 2:1-4 Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. [Interesting word. Drift, as though we are being moved by the currents of the time or the currents of the stream, the currents of the river. And we do not even realize that is pushing us in a direction, maybe, we did not want to go.] For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?
If you would read through there maybe as many times as I have read through Hebrews, maybe that would affect you a little bit more differently than it affected me. But it really felt to me something that was aimed at me.
The apostle's purpose here in these first four verses is to impress us that God's purpose is so valuable and so great in terms of God's efforts, that when He is finished, absolutely no price can be set on it. Salvation is absolutely priceless! And what has really impressed me is that the apostle who wrote this epistle's concern is that what is a real problem that we must overcome is sheer neglect of what God has given us. Neglect. We just do not work on it. We do not put effort into it. We just accept it, and accepting it is good enough for a beginning.
But accepting it is not good enough for completing the course that God is giving us. And the apostle Paul says that the real problem is that that what we must overcome is sheer neglect of the invaluable information we have been given in order to make use of what is being done for us through these truths that we have been given, never having known at one time they even existed.
I have spoken or written on this verse a couple of times in the past, but I never formally looked up the term neglect in a fairly good English dictionary until I prepared this sermon. Previously, I felt the term was so common, I had no need to look it up. However, on this occasion, I took the time to do so and I am glad I did, because knowing this definition makes the apostle's warning to not neglect a great deal stronger. Now, why? Because a distraction is a major cause of neglect. The Reader's Digest Encyclopedic Dictionary says that neglects definition first means, "to simply fail to heed." Now here I am appealing to you to make sure that you do not let distraction stop you. Now, how many people are going to take what I am saying and heed what I am saying or fail to heed what was given to us through Jesus Christ in the gospel of the Kingdom of God? So that now we have the opportunity to not merely believe it, but to complete the course that is laid out for us.
The first definition is "to fail to heed." We just did not pay attention. We failed to heed. Second, "to disregard," third, "to ignore," and "to give little or no attention or care to." But what I think we need to isolate is, what is it that triggers the initial failure to heed? Something has to begin the process of failure. That is what we are talking about here. Do not ignore the warnings about failure or we will neglect what has been given to us.
The dictionary then added, this is kind of interesting, that in court cases if one is charged with neglecting or with disregarding or ignoring installing something like a safety measure during a project, the person is almost invariably deemed culpable and therefore to be blamed. He is guilty. Are you aware that there is a law in the Bible that touches on this very factor? The Israelites homes were often flat-roofed because of the low rainfall totals in that area of the world. Therefore the owners like to sit on the roofs in the cool of the evening after the day's work was accomplished. But the owners were required to put a fence around the edge of the roof to stop people from accidentally falling off the roof. It was flat, it was not tilted like ours and so they could step right off. It is right in the Book!
Now, do you think that neglect is something to ignore? Especially when the apostle tells us to beware that we do not neglect what we have been given. So in Jerusalem if the owner neglected or disregarded putting the fence around their roof, they were already guilty. There was no appeal that could stop the judge from charging them with guilt.
It is no wonder that the apostle charges us with this very strong possibility of death awaiting us if Jesus' words are not heeded, are ignored, disregarded, or given little attention in our lives. Begin now, brethren, to prepare what you are going to do through the next five years so that you are able to have the spiritual strength to throw off the distractions that are going to come flying at us from the world around us. How little is not said, but we must understand every word of God is in some way needful to God's purpose. Will someone have to arrive at the same conclusion regarding any one of us that we have arrived at the same destination as Demas during the life of the first century church. He left despite the powerful influence, strong influence, of somebody like the apostle Paul. But he did not heed the warning of the distraction that got into his mind, and the world took him right out of the church. He allowed it.
I gave the distraction subject during the morning sermon portion of the Feast of Trumpets with a specific purpose in mind. And that is because I feared that we may allow ourselves to become distracted by the almost overwhelming pressures exerted on us by the very distracting world that we live in. You may remember that I raised the subject of the next five years as possibly being the most difficult group of years yet for the true end-time Christians based on my personal evaluation of the confusion and fear-filled five years or so we already had experience being exerted by the political figures, educators, scientists, and so-called Christian educators during the recent voting period.
This sermon I have organized what I believe are going to be some news elements that we will be hearing of right on through the entire five years. Now, why these possibilities that I am going to name? I do not believe I am really going to name them too deeply here. I will save them and create a whole sermon out of them. Because the pressures from them are all ready even now in the news and they will continue in the news because they are of such a magnitude impacting on so many people we will continue to hear of them right on through the five years. In fact, it is my forecast that they are going to be in the news in greater proportion then than they are now because they are continuing to slowly grow in magnitude and intensity even now. These are not the kind of problems citizens normally kill one another over, but they do exert a constant pressure that wears away at our attitudes because they are so distracting.
Do you remember when I gave the definition of the word distraction, of where it came from? It came out of Latin and it comes from a word that means "to pull" and that is what distractions do. They pull our attention to them, to themselves. Now, they can become major distractions in our lives because each of these general problems contains several elements, each of which can balloon into major issues on its own.
Now, there are going to be some issues that will be in the news almost daily, and from which multitudes of problems are going to arise, and we are going to be reading about them even as they continue to arise because they have already arisen. And it is possible they will, to some degree, affect us emotionally as well. And some of them are already arisen, but they will intensify further, and some may affect us almost daily.
I am doing this because I thought it might be helpful to make some suggestions as to what a few elements of distraction from confusion might be around to wear us down and to lure us into neglecting this great salvation.
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