All of us. I'm going to continue for the
next few weeks in focusing on focus. Sounds funny. Think about it for a second.
What are we focused on today? I mean, what are you thinking
about right now? Could it be, you know, what's going on with
the temperature in here? Or, I wonder if it's going to
rain today? Or, oh, what's Tiffin's been
up to? What's his hair going to look
like next week? Um, whatever. Is he growing his beard back
out? Is my child okay? Am I getting COVID? Oh no, I
forgot to turn off the iron. Or the pink elephant. What is
it that you're thinking about? Your mind, our minds are always
and forever all over the place until they're not. And then they're
honed in. And they're honed in on whatever
it is that they're honed in on. Now the world would tell you,
you could go online today and you could find a plethora of
motivational teachers and instructors and people who are like, you've
got to do this to focus. You've got to climb this mountain.
You've got to get this ladder. You've got to do this. You've
got to be this. You have other people who will
tell you how to be mindful. That's a big buzzword now. It's
funny. for a little over two years of me thinking about being
mindful and present and embodied. And now it was like, everybody's
thinking about these things. It shows you how easily it is
that we are fed things that we think that we are uniquely discovering. But yet just the subtleties of
everything that we are exposed to begins to feed us and grow
inside of us, our thoughts. What are you thinking about right
now? What is your focus in the context of your spiritual life?
What is your focus in your health? What is your focus in your job
or your future, your retirement, your plans? What is your hobbies? The focus that you have with
your hobbies, with your parenting. Whatever it may be, our minds
are going to focus on something. What captures our mind, our mental
energy, our emotional energy? I want you to understand that
what we think, these are our emotions. These are our thoughts. And I'm
here to tell you, as I've said a thousand times over, these
things, no matter what you're taught, are not up to you. What
goes on in our minds is not up to us. We can't stop that. As someone who has suffered from
obsessive compulsive disorder to a degree since I was 17, it
is impossible to stop faults. It's debilitating. on crazy thoughts. Here's a benign one. I've always
kept fish. I don't keep fish anymore because
you know the story. One Sunday morning I hear water running
and this 75 gallon tank is just bursting. It's just running down
the hall of my house. No more fish. But I can't tell
you the number of years that I've walked by to admire. And
I've had almost 80 fish in one tank. And I knew every one of
them individually. I knew them. I didn't name them.
I'm not there. But I knew them. I knew how they
acted. I knew what they looked like. I could tell when one was
off, when one wasn't acting the exact same way. That fish never
comes to the right-hand corner of the thing. Something's wrong.
And Robin would go, are you kidding me? Something's wrong. Next thing
I know, belly up. Told you. Fish is going to die. But there's always been times
where I walk through it and I admire that and I think, I wonder if I knock
this thing with a crescent wrench, what it would sound like? Have
you ever had a crazy thought like that? Or just feel compelled
all of a sudden to just, I just want to bust this fish tank.
Of course I'm not going to. Crazy? Not going to. I'm like, why are you thinking
that stupid thing? And you have this urge, this
compulsion, like, I just wanna bust it. Now, what does your
mind do, crazily? Do you talk to yourself? Do you
talk to others? See, that's the big thing that
I had a problem with until this year. If you and I had a meeting
and it was gonna be a little intense, I'd role play that sucker
for like 72 hours straight, like a record. this scenario, that
scenario, and it wouldn't even be like that. It would be literally
like first person. And we'd be talking. I'd go to
bed, I'd wake up mad with you because of what you said to me
in my brain. And we'd get together and I'm
like, okay, this isn't real. So you get the point, right?
There's a lot of things that we wish we could do differently
in our thoughts. And there are always some people ready to come
along and sell us some products, or some books, or some thoughts,
or some ideas, or a workshop, or a conference that'll teach
us how to focus our minds. And we'll go like, yahoo! And
all we're doing is focusing our minds on focusing our minds on
focusing. and then we can never really get away from it. It's
just like in our Christian life, when we focus our minds and our
thoughts and our attentions on our sin, and we focus our thoughts
and attentions and energy on our sinfulness, and we try to
overcome it, then we are doing nothing but falling prey to the
flesh and are not walking by the Spirit, and it is not renewing
our mind. Think about it for a second.
That's where fear comes in. That's where anxiety comes in.
That's where all of these things. And I'm tired of being tired
of fear. And beloved, I'm telling you
right now that almost all of us are in the place that we're
in today because of the things that we think about. And I'll
never forget in my mid-20s having this crisis of sorts. You're
an adult and you realize that all the stupid things your parents
try to tell you were actually right. And you're like, oh, what a crazy
thing. And I'll never forget that a mentor of mine, maybe
30 years my senior, said to me, James, you just gotta change
the way you think. You just gotta think differently. If you change
the way you think, your life's gonna be great. And so I spent
20 years trying to change the way I thought. every single day,
arresting my thoughts, reworking my thoughts, posturing myself
to myself, not to you and others, but to myself, posturing myself
before me, before the mirror of my own consciousness going,
okay, this is how we think, this is how we speak, this is how
we walk, this is how we approach. Come on, how many men in here
were not taught how to shake a hand? And how many of us men who learned
how to shake a hand correctly, according to the populace, have
felt a little less confident about somebody else's masculinity
when we shook their hand? It's a wet noodle. I won't call
that guy when I'm in the ditch. And they can be this big. It's just the way we are. We
think and we posture in this silliness. And it affects everything,
especially our lives as Christians. We are not free because the culture
has told us who we ought to be. We're not free because we've
got all these isms and intimisms and all these other things that
we've created in our theological circles over a thousand years
in church history. And we've come to learn all these
things and unconsciously, we are operating in parameters that
are literally shackles. I said this to someone yesterday
having this conversation. I wasn't in a very good mood
yesterday, and it's okay to not be in a good mood. It doesn't
affect my joy. Now, if my mood is tethered to
my joy, there's very little of it in those days. But I thought
about this and I said it, and I posted it somewhere. I don't
know if some of you might have seen it, but I think sometimes spiritual abuse
comes in the form Of me, as the pastor, knowing things that you
can't know. Me, as the spiritual one, studying
25,000 hours a week. I see things in the Bible that
your little old tiny hearts just don't have time to see. That's
baloney. So what's the role of the elder?
Oversight. Management. Leading by example. Not being the boss. Not stifling people. Not jerking
a knot, folks. Some of my grandmothers used
to always say, boy, I'm gonna jerk a knot in you. I've always wondered
what that would look like. I know what it feels like, I just wonder
what it would look like in reality, if it was literal. And the truth be known is that,
I've said it a thousand times, if I've said it once, is that
you can know exactly what I know if you read the Bible. And if
you're not reading the Bible and all you're doing is you've
got your mind and your ears open and you're just taking what I
say as gospel, yep, pastor's right, amen. You know, the loudest
amens are the least intelligent in the scripture. Have you ever
noticed that? Probably not. You've been in congregations
where you've got the amen corner, everybody, amen. And when conflict
comes, who are usually at the center of that, the amen corner?
Because amen, amen is something in the amen corner doesn't fit
anymore with what's been said and the amen comes out, hey,
wait a minute. And then it's a conflict of interest, it's
a conflict of opinion, it's a conflict of what? Thoughts. It's a conflict
of focus. For those of you who are philosophy
interest nerds, you'll know that philosophers often have contemplated,
and even scientists and doctors have often contemplated, that
the physical body and the mental body are two separate entities.
That's not true. But we could argue that it is,
and we could argue that it isn't, and we could argue that it doesn't
matter. But don't you have both? Don't you have eyes? Don't you
have ears? Don't you have a nose? Don't you have a stomach? Now
isn't your stomach sometimes upset when you eat the wrong
thing, or when you don't eat enough, or when you have an illness?
And isn't your stomach also upset sometimes when your mind is not
right? And isn't it sometimes that when you eat something,
your stomach gets hurt, and then when your stomach starts hurting,
your mind starts being worried that maybe I have cancer. No,
it's called cornflakes. It's called shrimp sauce. It's
called whatever, MSG. Your mind and your body are tethered
together. They're not separated. And one thing leads to another.
That's why the New Testament letters, that's why the apostles
are huge on focusing the application of right theology and thinking
about these things and then doing these things. Taking care of
our bodies and taking care of our relationships as well as
taking care of our thoughts because everything is intertwined. I've
been teaching like this since what, April? I've been teaching
about these things since April, and I have lost so many knuckle-headed
followers. It's been amazing how freeing
it has been because, oh, Tiffin's is turning into a philosophical
guru. I'm just trying to be healthy.
I'm trying to be healthy in my mind, in my body, in my relationships.
And I'll tell you right now, if my spiritual health isn't
growing, none of those things are going to work. And it's all tied together. What
captures our mental and emotional energy isn't up to us. It's deeply intertwined with
our bodies. Our material surroundings and the people we engage with
are tied together. Why does this matter as Christians?
Because it points us toward the transformative power of God's
sovereign grace. The ultimate, and a word that
I've been using since I was 22 years old, anchor. anchor, the
anchor of our attention, the anchor of our joy. What does
an anchor do but hold the greatest ship in place? What is Christ
but the finisher and the founder of our faith? Hebrews 12. And so today we're going to traverse
a landscape of scripture, about five or six different places.
We're going to unpack the gospel. We're going to explore how this
grace allows us to live rich, purpose-filled lives, filled
with authentic love for God and his people. And understanding
that it all comes down to the culmination of this all-inspiring
sovereignty of God and Christ who gave his life for us. The
gospel of grace, which is sovereign and free. Now, I don't know about
you, but there are some friends of mine who don't have smartphones.
And I envy them. I envy them. I mean, I forgot
what it's like to take out the paper bank statement and reconcile
it with a pencil. I forgot what it was like to,
you know, write a check to the company and go to the post office
and buy the roller stamps. I forgot what it's like to, you
know, pay the guy who comes to help you fix the porch with a
paper check and he has to go cash it at the church, at the
bank. I forgot what it's like, you
know, to fill out the 1040. I forgot what it's like to have
to call and talk to the secretary to find out what your calendar
is. You know, I've forgotten what it's like and I don't miss
it. I don't envy that. I envy the freedom from stress
and frustration, the freedom from people and what they can
do to us, right? Sometimes the freedom from wasting
of time. But beloved, we have to have
some smartphones in today's economy to function. I mean, when's the
last time you read a map? I can read a map blind. I can
read a map. And honestly, maps are better
to me than a GPS. So when I go on a trip, I always
look at the map first and it's in my head. So when the GPS goes
turn left, I go, not happening. Not happening. But for the most
part, we don't go anywhere with anything that's not on our smartphone. Social media, I mean, I had a
friend of mine tell me just a couple of weeks ago how they've gotten
off social media and they've gotten 15 to 20 hours of their
week back. I'm going, really? What are you doing with it? I don't know. There's a theological
principle that's been coined through the ages since the Reformation,
really, called Imagio Dei. I mean, it's older than that,
the image of God, but it became very standard with the population,
not just the academics. when Protestants came about and
people began to read the Bible for themselves, and then, you
know, in the 17th century when it was actually published for
the common man in the King's English, authorized by, what, Parliament,
1611, and all the subsequent variations. But this principle
of the Immagio Dei we find in Genesis. We find that in the
image of God, He created them. man and woman. And that has been debated philosophically,
that's been debated theologically, it's been debated denominationally,
it's been debated in the academic circles of seminaries, across
all manner of headiness. And no one has really ever been
able to come to the place of understanding the essence of
that until they simplify it. And one thing that I find that
I somewhat agree with as I read scripture, according to the apostles'
interpretation of the Old Testament theology, is that I believe that
we are made in the image of God by and large because we think. And the difference in the other
great apes and us is that we literally think to our own demise. Why so? Because of the fall,
our thoughts are flawed. It's amazing. It's amazing. Because we are able to give attention
to something, to the level that we do, this is, I believe, one
of the foundations of being in the image of God. Now we know,
if those of you who want to understand the reality of what the image
of God is in that imagery, then you can go listen to the beginnings
of Genesis that I preached a couple of years ago, where I believe
the true image bearer of God is Jesus Christ, the man. and
that we being found in him then are perfected in Christ as an
imputed righteousness, one day to be glorified exactly as he
is and we share in the absolute essence of his glory. That means
as he is seen, we get to share in his righteousness because
we will be righteous in our recreated selves. So God's sovereign grace
allows us then, in being made and fashioned in the image of
God, to direct our attention toward Him, despite the noise
and the distractions of life. Because, I mean, let's be honest.
I don't want you to raise your hand, but I mean, do you still
use a paper copy of the Bible? I do. I do, but when I'm riding,
driving, or out with somebody or whatever, I mean, I use the
little app, the Bible app, and I use it, and I listen to it,
and I try to put it in. If I'm cutting the grass, I can
put it in and do it. But moreover, what happens typically
when we're distracted, when we're feeling a certain way, when we're
frustrated? Is the word of God our first impulse, or is it something
else? Do we try to distract ourselves
by going to something else? And let's just be honest, we
usually go to something else. Even if it is spiritual in mind,
I'd much rather historically read a theological journal than
to study Galatians 1. It's so fascinating to sit down
and read 25 opinions on the Imagio Dei rather than just read Genesis
1 and let the Spirit of God rest and begin to teach me and grow
me in these things. Then let's take it a step further,
take it outside of the spiritual sense. It's much easier to just
go play chess, or to go shoot non-ball, or to go to the range
and blow up some Tannerite, or to go on a bike ride, or to swim. It's much easier to go do some
of these other things than it is to focus our attention on
the Lord. And when we don't, and then we
come to church, we gather, and then the preacher's like, you
are wasting your life! I mean, he's a liar, because
he's wasting his life too, even though that may be spiritual
things. I may have 5,000 books in my house, and they most, all
of them may have something to do with biblical things, but
it doesn't mean because I'm reading them that I'm focused on Christ.
It's because I'm having theological discussion, does not mean I'm
worshiping God at all. I mean, how many times past Sunday, how
many ways can you skin a cat? How many ways do we have to interpret
justification by faith? How many times do we have to
repeat the same old thing before we get up off our butts and live
life according to the gospel? The point of the assembly is
not to come in here and indoctrinate us into heady philosophers as
theologians. Theological philosophy, I think,
is one of the most damning things that ever happened to the American
church, especially in the context of the Reformed tradition and
sovereign grace. that we love it so much. And some of you who
don't love it, what happens? You feel left out. And so if
there's anything in the body of Christ that happens in the
context of the assembly that causes a small or large section
of our people to feel left out, then it's not according to the
instruction of the Bible. You shouldn't be left out when
you hear the teaching of the Word. There should be something
in the teaching of the Word that approaches your senses, that
approaches your cognition, the way you think, and that's what
you're hearing, and that applies to your life presently in every
area of your life, and some of those areas that I've been talking
about in the weeks past. Psychologically, mentally, emotionally,
physically, relationally, society, all the things. Where we are,
our faith intersects. So I've come up with about five
things today that I want to talk about. Turn to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10. And we're going
to end up in Hebrews chapter 12. So there's your about four
little stops along the way that you know them all. Don't worry
about it. Nothing new. But before we get there, I want
to give a rebuttal. that what I'm doing, because
this was offered to me two weeks ago, what you're doing right
now, pastor, is not exposition. You've left expositional authority.
Okay. Six quick points about expositional
authority. Now, what does that mean? First,
exposition, the word expose, or out of, ex out of, versus
what? To impose. So if I'm gonna expose
the word of God, exposition means I read the Bible, and out of
the Bible's written word comes its meaning. That I don't get
to imply or point and say, okay, people do word studies, you know,
the word study. Folks, words are important, but
words and their definitions do not define how it's used. What defines how a word, and
what a word means? The context. where it's sitting
in the context of the conversation. And a sentence can't be taken
outside of its context or it doesn't make sense. It's like,
and I use this as an illustration to help understand that, we know
that a what? A recipe book has a lot of things
in it. It has some instruction and some
ingredients and without the context You can have all the ingredients,
but you can't make the dish. You have to have it in the, I
mean, you can't just get nutmeg, water, milk, and dog food and
make anything, even though it's all in the book. It's in the
book. It's in this section. Look at this whole paragraph.
There's a paragraph right here, and there's a list. Now that's a shopping list so
that when you're cooking you can give your dogs some food
so they don't try to get the biscuits that you're making. You see what
I'm saying? You've got to know what's being said. So words and
their meanings are not as important as the way they're used. I misuse
words all the time. And thank God for my beloved
wife who will tell me privately, you don't ever want to say that
word again because it doesn't mean what you think it means. You have misquoted.
I don't know what you're trying to say, but that's not what you're
saying. You're going to embarrass yourself. And she's right every time. I
mean, that ain't right. Look it up. Well, by golly, you
know, my great uncle used to use that word. Yeah, he was born
in 1870. I mean, don't don't use those words. Don't use those
words. So exposition. other exegetical,
that the meaning comes out of the text. So point number one
is that when we look at the New Testament writing, we see a broad
exegetical framework. Exegesis doesn't mean verse-by-verse
commentary. Matter of fact, a verse-by-verse
commentary is not useful. That's why I don't believe pastors
ought to read commentaries in order to understand it. I think
they ought to read commentaries in order to broaden their understanding,
to broaden their understanding of other people's ideas. But
the Bible teaches us that. So for example, if I read, I'll
give you some examples in a minute. But it doesn't always mean, it
can also involve topical things, topical ideas that are faithful
to the text. How do we test that? Through
the context and through the whole, through exegetical understanding.
This teaching that I'm doing maintains, I believe, the integrity
and the fidelity of tying theological principles directly to scripture.
as a broad exegetical framework. It's out of Scripture. Secondly,
point two, Scripture-driven theological principles. And this is big because
when it comes to application, if you look at the New Testament,
we'll see it in a minute, this whole idea These six points and the way
I'm teaching now emphasizes theological principles that are derived directly
from scripture. Each point begins with a biblical
text, which is then expounded upon to connect it to the overarching
theme of the teaching, or what I'd say the meta-narrative of
the Bible in itself. So in essence, a form of exegetical
teaching, even though it may not be the strictest sense of
verse by verse, it is still exegesis, because the meaning comes from
the text. The third thing I want you to
understand is that there is contextual integrity with what I'm doing.
So I respect the context of each scripture cited. I'm not going
to abuse. So for example, I'm not going
to go to a Philippians 4 and just say, hey, you want on that
new ball game? In Christ you can do all things.
That's an outside of the meaning context. So if I apply I can
do all things in Christ to other areas of life, I must do so with
congruence and integrity for the rest of the text, to know
that when I apply it, it also comes. So how does that work
for you? Well, instead of me coming here and preaching for
40 minutes on Ephesians 1 through 4, and then so I can get to a
40-minute sermon on segueing into application, you'd be sitting
here, like with Spurgeon, three to five hours for a sermon. And then I'm gonna say, now go
apply this to your life. Heck, I gotta go to bed. It's time
for dinner. Gotta go to work in the morning.
The fourth thing is you need to understand the depth of engagement
with the text. Exegetical teaching is often
prized for its depth. But it's not deep. It's just
the surface. It surfs among the surface of
it. And it teaches itself. Like,
go to 1 Peter and read that thing. Man, there is nobody in the world
that can't preach 1 Peter chapter 1. It just, I give that sometimes
to pastors and trainers. They take this, or Colossians,
man, it just preaches itself. You just read it, say, you got
it? Okay, and read it again. It's exposition, it just does
itself. So it's not death. Teaching that
I'm doing right now may not drill down into the granular details
of the language or the historical context. It does dive deep into
the theological and practical implications and applications
of the text. And so I aim to go beyond the
surface level understanding, to the meat and the potatoes
of actually getting in life. But at the same time, some people
who would do what I'm trying to accomplish would say, hey,
there's four ways to be a better dad. There's six ways to be a
better wife. Here's, you know, whatever. That's
not biblical. unless it's exegetical. So if
I tell you there's five ways for you to overcome anxiety and
what I've done is exegetical, don't throw out the baby with
the bathwater just because I simplified it with a five-point outline.
Makes sense? I hate outlines. They stifle
me. But sometimes they're necessary.
There's a theological cohesion and a gospel focus. The way I'm
teaching today and recently is designed to provide a cohesive
theological narrative centered around the concept of sovereign
grace, a cornerstone of our faith. The gospel is not sprinkled in,
it's an integral part of everything that I'm teaching, serving as
the apex of the teaching. And finally, I'm acknowledging
different approaches. For a quarter century, I've been
hard-nosed into exposition. I've been focused in this way
of not even wanting to breathe outside the particular passes
that I'm in, not to use approved text at all. And beloved, I've
abused the Bible in that way by ignoring things. And in doing so, when the rubber
hits the road and we have to deal with something corrective
or instructive in our congregation, some people who are involved
in the offense are like, oh, you're not gonna tell me what
to do now. You see what I'm saying? You haven't been telling me what
to do at all for 10 years, now you're gonna tell me what to
do? No, no, the word of God needs, we can approach it differently.
Like if you've got 10 minutes to teach, you can't expose John
1.1. But you can teach it. And you can go to John 1, you
can go to Hebrews 1, you can go to Colossians 1, and you can
go to all these great verses and you can prove the point that
John makes. There are different approaches
in preaching and teaching. Exegetical preaching is valuable
for deep scriptural understanding, but sometimes that exegetical
preaching needs to be topical or thematic. And it has its place,
especially when, as recently, we've been addressing specific
issues of concept, like the idea today of paying attention and
our focus in the context of our spiritual lives. Quick, six quick
examples of this is Paul's letter to the Galatians. He writes to
the Galatian people about a specific problem, the influence of the
Judaizers who insisted on circumcision and adherence to Jewish laws
for salvation. So the entire letter serves as a thematic discourse
of grace versus legalism. The whole thing. It's a thematic. He approaches the Old Testament
46 times in that letter, but he never expositionally, verse
by verse, commentates on it. He just imposes it. So the authority
on the topic is undergirded by the exposition of the theology
of Moses. 1 Corinthians, chapter 13 specifically,
the love chapter. I mean, think about that. Paul
deviates from addressing the Corinthian Church's specific
problems and gives them a thematic exposition on love. And I've
preached that text in the context of Psalm 40 and even in 1 Timothy
over the last year. He isn't expounded on any particular
Old Testament passage, but rather discussing the topic of love
in a concentrated manner. Ephesians 6, the armor of God. It's a thematic, topical metaphor
of a Roman soldier's armor that teaches about spiritual warfare. He tackles the theme of spiritual
preparedness and resistance against evil, but he's not performing
a verse-by-verse of exegesis of an Old Testament text. But
it's there. James on faith and works. This isn't an exposition
of Old Testament literature, rather a thematic discussion
intended to clarify misunderstandings about the relationship between
saving, believing, faith, I don't even want to say saving faith
anymore, resting faith, believing, trusting, and action, doing,
and living, which is why I'm teaching what I'm doing. Peter,
1 Peter 3, suffering for righteousness sake, is a topical discourse
on suffering for the sake of righteousness. John's letters,
1 John specifically, It's not a treatise on how you know someone's
saved. It's a treatise on because you are in Christ, you are to
know him and you know him best when you love one another. If
you're not loving and you say you know Christ, you're lying.
You don't know anything about Christ. It doesn't mean you're
not a brother or sister. It just means that you're ignorant. You see, these aren't Old Testament
exposition, but the thematic teachings aimed at Christian
life. All that being said, Luke chapter
10, verse 38. Sorry to give that long rebuttal,
but it's necessary. And I'm welcome any feedback.
Verse 38, now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village.
Who went on what way? And Jesus was teaching and walking
from village to village with his disciples. And a woman named
Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called
Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.
But Martha, listen to this, beloved, was distracted. See, so if I'm gonna be an expositor,
if I'm gonna teach exegetically, why would I not focus on distraction? Am I just to ignore it? I mean,
let's be honest. How many of you have heard a
sermon on this text before? Okay. How many of you have ever
heard a sermon on distraction from this text? And if you did, it was probably
a little misogynistic. You women need to simmer down
now. I mean, you know, quit doing so much. I mean, come on. And it's all in jest, but it
still bites. It's not the point of the text.
But Martha was distracted with what? Much serving. And she went up and said, Lord,
do you not care my sister's left me to do all the work alone? Tell her to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha,
you're anxious. And you're troubled about a lot
of stuff. But one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better, good
portion, which will not be taken away from her. No. You can't
see what I feel in my body. My entire life has been Martha.
When I'm standing in this pulpit, I'm Martha. When I'm running
around here and all this, I'm Martha. When I'm hanging out
at a fellowship, I'm Martha. I got written up at a church
in 2001-2, I can't remember what it was, by the superior elders. I thought we were all co-equals,
but I guess not. Because I was not investing enough
relational time with others at the cost of the reputation of
the church's ideal and fellowship. And you need to fix that. You
can't have the same people talking to you every day. So what did
I learn to do? I learned to work a room like
a politician. What do I want to do? Go behind
the curtain. Go behind the curtain and read
a poem. and take a deep breath. I'm not
an extrovert. Very the opposite. So I live
my entire life like this, in ministry. Martha, Martha, Martha,
Martha. Looking at other people going,
Martha, Martha, Martha, Martha. Never to myself. But human attention is complex.
And that's my first point. The complexity of human attention,
what's the title of this message? The Grace-Focused Life, How Sovereign
Grace Shapes Our Attention, blah, blah, blah. Does it matter? No.
Gotta put something on the internet. Sermon 63, I don't, you know,
nobody looks at that. Here's this passage, it's Jesus,
who everybody's been looking for, and one person, Martha,
and another person, Mary, this is their home. One person has
focused on what we all focus on. Oh, you know, you come to
my house for a fellowship, it looks like a show place, right?
You come to my house today, I may have to move a box for you to
get in the front door. There might be a bag of rice in the
hallway that weighs 40 pounds that I just gave up and laid
it there. I mean, you don't know. And if I'm in the middle of doing
some towels, they may be on the sofa. And there used to be a
time where there were certain rooms in our house that we never
were allowed to go in. Because somebody might come by,
so you keep that room fancy. See what I mean? And I was raised
that way. Don't touch this. Don't go in
there. These doors stay shut. The doorbell rings. Everybody
walks in and thinks it's a mansion. Couldn't touch these antique
things and I'll never forget these same antique furnishings
in my grandmother's home when my children, my older four children,
were tiny toddlers. And one of them went in there
and took this porcelain Japanese bowl and assembled the top and
broke the whole thing into a billion pieces. And all I could do was
like, I'm driving back to Virginia. I was in Dublin. And I take that
thing in there trembling. I felt five again. Tell my grandmother
who's sewing. Hey, Grandma. Yeah. Look. I didn't know what to say.
She goes. She's running that hem. She reaches over here with
her right hand. She picks up the wastebasket. She says, right
here. She goes, no, look what it is. Woman, you're not seeing
this. This is the most precious thing in the world. And my child
has broken it. You know. She goes, put it in
the trash. My goodness, and never said another
word. And that's the point. And she
looks up, she stops, she goes, it has no eternal value, son.
Let it go. She didn't live like that when
she was 30. I'll snatch a knot and you had a different meaning. Human attention is complex. We
put our attention in all sorts of places. We put our attention
to things that aren't even real, but we have made them real. Mary
and Martha, they had things to do, but Martha was so concerned
about the house being presentable for the Lord Jesus. And Martha's
like, holy cow, the Lord Jesus. I don't know, can you say holy
cow and the Lord Jesus in the same sentence? That might not
be good. She sat down, she's like, teach, I don't care that
my underwear is over here and my bra is hanging in the window,
let's just go. And Martha was resentful. She
was doing what was good, and the point of it is she was distracted
from spiritual things. This isn't a text to teach us
that we shouldn't keep house, or that we shouldn't prepare,
or that we shouldn't take care of things. This is a text that
talks about when the one thing that is necessary, when the things
that we're anxious and troubled about are never-ending, when
do we put our attention on that which is most necessary? So various things, all sorts
of things influence where we direct our attention. Our physical
attention, our embodiment, where we are in our body, our environment,
the material context of our world, and the social interaction, the
social norms. See, this was all three of those. But the freedom of the gospel
of sovereign grace should lead us to Christ. When all of a sudden
we see the opportunity to take just a minute and just bask in
the glory of our Savior, let's just do it. Not because of guilt,
not because of fear, not because of anxiety. Our spiritual freedom
shouldn't be a cause for stress. The assembly shouldn't be a cause
for stress, but it is for some. So we as the elders, we as the
church family, we've got to decide what is it that causes it? Let's
get it out of here. But what has history said? Conviction's
good. But conviction in Christ is freedom
to take a deep breath and go, oh, wow, it's gone. I can rest because with conviction
in Christ is no condemnation. No condemnation leads us to celebration. Celebration leads us to being
grateful. Being grateful leads us to sit
down or dance or whatever it is we want to do when we're free.
Not hone in. That's why you hear me dig on
the Puritans so much. I used to love to read them and wonder
why I was always in need of some like psychotropics. I've got
to do something. I could climb Mount Everest naked
or something. I can't take this. Mary chose to set at the feet
of Jesus. And when Jesus left, she finished cleaning the house. Not just for spiritual things,
but also relationships. Because how do we love Christ
most? by loving each other. Sometimes, and we have to do
this as parents all the time, right? Sometimes we just have
to put everything aside and just love on people and then when
we're done we can go, oh! Now I can get back to the grind.
Setting boundaries doesn't mean elimination. Second thing I want you to see
this morning in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. You probably don't even
have to go there. You know what it is, right? You know what that
text says. For by grace you have been saved
through faith, and this not of your own doing, so that no one
can boast. What? Faith is not of your own
doing. Resting in the gospel is not your own doing. It's not
a decision that you've made, even though it is a willful act
of the mind continually. It is a gift of God through which
we suffer greatly, wondering, doubting, believing, not believing,
believing a lot, believing a little, hardly wondering, being scared,
being confident. So when we read on that text,
we know that grace, that God's grace is sufficient for salvation. What does that mean? Grace is
not a thing that God has and administers. This is where I
think some theological brothers and sisters get so bound up with
stuff. Oh, we got to get the doctrine of grace correct. Okay,
good. That's great. We want to get
the recipe right. We want to get the theology right. We want to get
the teaching right. That's what doctrine means, by the way. Get
the teaching correct. And that's a process. of learning to apply,
not just understanding, how do you understand something? You
apply it. I mean, I can read medical journals. I could read surgical notes.
I can memorize, and I could probably memorize an entire surgical procedure
down to the second with all of the different verbiage and walk
through it with another brain surgeon and they would think
that I was a brain surgeon, but if they put me in the room, I'm
going to kill the patient. Because then I don't have to
apply that. I don't have the knowledge. I have the words.
I have the talking points. That's not politicians. You know,
they don't think. They're just reading the talking
points that an expert marketer and an intelligent person has
written for them to read. That's why when somebody asks
them six weeks later, hey, what was your position again on such
and such? I mean, that's how we are in
the faith. That's how a lot of people are in the body. We have
these theological talking points, but we never apply grace. Grace
is the countenance of God toward His people. It's not a thing
that God has. It's not a power or some like
pew pew laser, spiritual spirit laser that he's shooting and
applying on people. Grace is not, does not exist as a thing. It is God. God is grace. Christ
is grace. And he's gracious toward his
people. Unmerited favor. And in the context of the gospel,
of the good report of Jesus, the holy anointed one of God,
which is what Christ means. His name is Jesus on this earth. This grace is when Christ gave
himself for us and accomplished salvation for us and finished
salvation for us and applied salvation to us. It's a done
deal. It was done, one and done. And
by the way, when we read the Bible, we see that there is an
eternal sense in which all God's people have an eternal hope in Christ. We see that there is a finished
sense in which all God's people have the secured, the salvation
was secured for them at the cross and we see there is an experiential
sense in which when we are granted faith at that moment, we're counted
righteous. But do you know what? There are
people who will argue that if you don't pick one of those three
things and make it your mountain, you're not saved. Can you believe
that? Now what text, exegetically,
are you gonna preach that's gonna make that work? None of them.
It's always a pretext. It's always a little piece pulled
out. God's grace is salvation, not human effort. So God's grace aligns our physical
state and our mental state to focus on Him. Our body language,
our posture in prayer, our acts of worship are all ways we can
direct our body's attention to grace, our mind's attention to
grace. What we do, that's why we don't have a willy-nilly worship
service. What y'all wanna do today? Y'all
wanna play patty cake for Jesus? And I used to, get this, I used
to love, as a child, for the small season that I was in church
as a child, I used to love song services. You know what I'm talking
about? Preacher's sick, something happens,
pianist gets up there, call a number, call a number, and just do do
do do, hour later. It was awesome. And then when
I got in the ministry, I hated song services. I'm like, that's
a bunch of nonsense. But if the songs we're singing
are exposition, it's not nonsense. It don't need to be the mainstay,
but you know what? There might be a time we just might need
to have a little bit of scripture reading and sing for 45 minutes.
It's the song's right. But never should we just be willy-nilly.
We just, whatever, it don't matter. We just, y'all wanna do Simon
Says real quick? I mean, you know what I'm saying? There's
a place and a time. And it doesn't mean that there's an order that is absolutely
mandatory, but there are things that are absolutely mandatory
for us to do in worship. And that is hear the word of
God read, prayer, the Lord's table, fellowship, songs of praise. All of these, some of these,
one or two of these, many of these, as much as we can. And
there's a manner, so even in worship, there's a manner in
which we can give our attention to spiritual things. Same thing
in our lives, there's a manner in which we can give attention
to spiritual things, that we can overcome the anxieties and
the constant noise of the world and focus spiritually for just
those brief moments in the middle of doing everything else. The third thing I want you to
see this morning is the gospel's influence on material context. 2 Corinthians
chapter 4. Y'all know this text. I won't
read the whole thing, but I sure do love to. I sure do love reading
chapter 4, but I have to read like the first three chapters
in my brain very quickly when I see therefore, because I know
why it's there. And then I immediately in my
mind go to Hebrews 11. Because we are not standing face-to-face.
I mean, we are standing face-to-face with God through Christ Jesus
one day. We see Him this way. We're not
looking through a veil. We're not looking through the
cloud or the tempest. But in chapter 4 of 2 Corinthians, look at verse 16. When our mind and our bodies
and our thoughts are focused Beloved, this is my journey this
week. That's what preaching is, okay? It's easy to lose heart. And so Paul says, so we don't
lose heart. Now, what has he talked about? Being crushed and
all sorts of things, body of death, all sorts of things like
that. He says, so we don't lose heart,
though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being
renewed day by day. For this light, momentary affliction is
preparing us, listen to these words, preparing us for an eternal
weight of glory beyond all comparison. I want to stop there for a minute. Put that wrist, pun intended,
upon your shoulders. Weight. Pastor Trey got me into, like,
heavy lifting some months ago. I'm very faithful to go once
every six weeks. Very faithful. Light lifting, every few days.
Heavy lifting, once every six weeks. Squatting, and pushing,
and pulling, and rowing. I've never picked anything else
in my life, and I never hope I have to. Why am I exercising
this way? A heavy weight. You get to the bottom and you're
like, I just want somebody to take this off of me now, please.
I don't want to stand back up. So how is an eternal weight?
What is an eternal weight of glory? Have you ever just sat
and rested on the weightiness and the gravity and the heaviness
of God's glory? Nobody wants to see it. Okay,
you want to see it? Go to Moses. Go to Mount Sinai and look at
it. Go to the Exodus and look at it. Go to God's judgment and wrath
against Egypt, against all the other enemies
of God's people. Go see the Midianites. Go watch
what God did through Gideon. What did Gideon do? Scream, clap
some shields, or break some jars, no shields, and expose some torches,
and shout. What did Joshua do? Marched around
with some trumpets. And then God did it. You want
to see glory? You want to see who God really is? But all those
are nothing compared to when you see God's glory in Christ. You see, the Son of Man, the
Son of God, lay His life down for us. And we have all this stuff that
we worry about all the time. You ever known someone who just
all of a sudden came to you and said, you know what God's called
me to do? Get rid of everything and live in a van. I've got three
friends who've lived in vans for decades. Nothing wrong with
that. And as long as they don't try
to encourage me that that's what God's telling them I should do, I got
no problem with them. But you know what, it's easier.
It's easier than this rat race of wondering how we're gonna
handle it all, how to manage it all, how to deal with it all.
And if we tie it, the anxiety of management, if we tie it to hope and freedom
and joy, then we're gonna be in trouble. That's what Martha
did. That's what I've done. But the eternal weight of glory
that's beyond all comparison. So if there's something so weighty
that's sitting on our shoulders as believers that we can't think
about the weight we lifted yesterday. We can't think about the stuff
we've got to do tomorrow. We're just stuck. It's just sitting
there. I mean, we're just being pressed
down not by the justice of God, not in the sense where we don't
know how to overcome it. We don't want to move it. You
ever slept under a weighted blanket? It's strangely comforting. Strangely comforting. Except
for your ankles. It pushes your feet down a little
bit. I wore a weighted vest a lot
when I lived in California, when I'd walk or ride bikes, do rock
climbing, I wore a weighted vest, 70 pounds. And it's neat, but when you take
that thing off, you feel like you're about to float. You wear
it for a few hours, wear it for half a day, you take it off,
you're like, what in the world? Your steps, I mean, you're like,
you're jumping a little bit, I think the weight of glory beyond
all comparison is a little bit different. I think the weight
of glory beyond all comparison doesn't push us down, but it
takes all the weight of everything off that we're rising up. It's
counterintuitive to what we believe. What is our posture? What is
our focus? Where is our body? Where is our
mind and where are our thoughts in the context of taking on the
weight of glory? as we look to the things that
are seen, as we look not to the things that are seen. Here it
is, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen
are temporary, transient. They're just moving through.
The things that are unseen are eternal. This is so simple. What is wrong with me? You know how many times this
text goes through my mind a day? I don't know, because I'm trying
not to count things. I don't know. But I can tell
you that every hour it goes through my head, at least once. And one of two things happen
after that. I begin to punch myself in the head. proverbially,
you know, just metaphorically going, why can't you get this?
Or I just feel the release of that weight by meditating on the eternal
weight of glory. And you know what I'm able to do then? Whatever
I'm doing. Whether I'm looking at a Medicare
policy or whether I'm cutting my grass or whether I'm counseling
someone or whether I'm studying for the next sermon or whatever
it may be. This material world, God's sovereign
grace, allows us to put our attention outside of it. Not in a meditative
state, not in a trance, but in real ways. Two more things. The fourth thing,
and I'm going to beat this gong and cymbal and sound this alarm
over and over again. In Mark chapter 12, verse 31,
Jesus tells us, he says, love your neighbor as yourself. They
try to get Jesus in, they try to catch Him, you know, the lawyers
of the day, the lawyers aren't here today, but you know, the
lawyers of the day, they're like, hey, Jesus, you're wise and all,
what do you say, what's the greatest of all commandments? We got Him
now, He's gonna mess up. If He picks one, He's done. If He picks it wrong, And Jesus says, the greatest
of all commandments is to love the Lord your God with all your
heart and all your head and all your soul. And the second of equal standing,
get this, is what? The second of equal standing
to love your neighbor as you love yourself. And then he throws
them all in there, and all the laws of the prophet rest on these. Holy cow. Does that really give
you chills? Is that only, I mean, to be able
to see God, the holy, awesome creator of the cosmos, the eternal
one, sitting in a human body, speaking that way, going, This
is amazing. He just answered their question
and they can't say anything because they're guilty of the first two.
They don't even live the first two. And now they can't say anything
or they prove it. Awesome. I remember, I don't even know
when, probably middle school, when there's agape, you know,
people try to Englishize the Greek and make big deal out of
it. I remember people making bracelets
and shirts and all. Agape love, agape, it really
is. I mean, I'm not making fun of it, I'm just saying how we,
instead of living it out and sitting under the weight of glory
and understanding the love of God for us in Christ Jesus and
seeing the sovereignty of God over even the enemies of the
cross, God's grace allows us to put
our attention on loving others rather than arguing with them. God's grace allows us to put
our attention on loving our neighbor and loving our enemies. And oh,
that doesn't feel good to me in my flesh. I want to push the
weight of glory off, take the weight of justice on, and bury
myself in vengeance. See, that'd be a good monologue
for a Marvel movie, right? I'm done being kind with you.
Don't make me take glory off. You know, if I take off the grace,
you'll see the grave. But it's really the way it is.
We can live authentically in love with the people in our lives. We can authentically love others
around us in the social context. Selflessly. Sacrificially. But we also love ourselves. Not selfishly. See, and I talked,
what is that, three weeks ago I talked about that? It rubs
us wrong because we are shackled to the cultural expectations
of what love looks like in a selfless way, in an obligatory way, rather
than a responsive way. Are we responsible? And are we obliged to love? Absolutely,
but how? Through coercion, through guilt,
through pressure? No, through freedom. God's grace enables us to go
against the social norms and prejudices and allow us to love
others genuinely. But love at it cost. This is
where the rubber hits the road of persecution. You think theological
differences really cause persecution? It doesn't. I've never been persecuted
for theological differences, ever. I've been persecuted when
I chose to love people in spite of them. When I've chose to be kind and
gentle. So much so that the straw men have created a new thing.
Because once you find a door to freedom in the gospel, legalists
will find a way of closing that door. And here's the new straw man.
A lot of preachers will say they're following the Lord because they're
kind and loving. You see, you go, oh, that's me. That's my pastor, that's my friend.
that God will not show them love and His wrath. You know, stupid
stuff like that. These are friends of mine who,
and when we think about this, I think that's terrible. Don't
post that on social media. But what gets us attention? What
gets us attention in the world when we start fussing about problems? We never get attention in the
world when we're just trying to work them out quietly. When
we're making, I mean, did the Underground Railroad put signs
up, billboards and newspaper articles? No, because they'd
have never succeeded. Beloved, we can love, but it's
gonna cost us. It's gonna cost us our comforts.
It's gonna cost us our comforts in our religious circles. It's
gonna cost us our comforts to be loving and kind and patient. in the culture around us. It's
going to cost us our comforts politically. It's going to cost
us our comforts in society. There's something really strange
when you don't know that people respect you. You don't know they
respect you until you see that they don't respect you. And then you find out why and
you go, wow, what do we do? But the ultimate focus of our
attention should be the redemptive work of Christ, the love of Christ. See, Christ's love should be
the benchmark for everything we do and every relationship
we have. And the fifth and final thing
is the redemptive work of Christ in that love should be our ultimate
focus. The last thing we'll do today
before the Lord's table is Hebrews 12. Therefore, since we are surrounded
by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight."
You see the theme? In every text that I've done,
it's not my intention, but it's the way God's exposition works. The weightiness, the weightiness,
the weightiness of attention, the weightiness of anxiety, the
weightiness of chores, the weightiness of application, the weightiness
of all this stuff. Let us lay aside every weight and let us
lay aside every sin that clings so closely and let us run. Let us run with endurance the
race. We're not running away, we're
running toward the finish line. Let us run with endurance the
race that is set before us. Why? Because God has set it before
us. What are we doing? Like Paul
said in 2 Corinthians, we're looking to the unseen. That's
what we do. When our attention, when our
focus, when our brains, when our thoughts are looking to the
unseen. We're looking to Jesus. It's one of these irritating
things here in the ESV. The founder and perfecter. There's no spell checker in the
world that allows that perfecter to be actually a word. It just
drives me nuts. It's a word of our faith. And then the prime example, here's
the culmination. I just read this verse and we
could have prayed and sang for the last hour, but here's the
point. Here's the example. Here's the reality. Looking to
Jesus, the founder of our faith, the one who gave it to us, the
foundation, the rock, the hope, the assurance, the tether, the
anchor, and the perfecter, the one who, with us, as we're running
the race, keeps us in the lane, keeps us moving forward, keeps
us from passing off that baton and going to the sidelines. We
are going to run because He is before us. Here is how He did it. Who? Jesus. For the joy that was set before
Him in the race, before Him, He endured the cross. Now get
that. What's your cross? We can name
them. The better question is what's
your joy? Are we focusing on the cross or are we focusing
on Christ? Better yet, are we focusing on the cross of Christ
and He's not there anymore. He's not in the grave anymore.
He is alive and He intercedes for us. He endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is, as I just said, seated at the
right hand of the throne of God. Now look at Timothy. I'd be remiss
if I didn't go here. Timothy in Dr. Luke's account of the apostles.
Acts. Timothy was a quiet, reserved
believer, serving widows and orphans in the name of Christ.
And the powers that be that hate the love that Timothy gave wanted
to try to persecute the Christians and they thought, what's the
mildest, the mildest? Little, what's the mildest little
mouse we could think of? The one that if we got rid of
him, oh my goodness, wouldn't it be amazing to do that? Wouldn't it be amazing to get
rid of? I'm talking, I said Timothy,
I meant Stephen. I'm so sorry, Timothy. Stephen in the book
of Acts. Because I want to go to Timothy after that but I don't
have time. Wouldn't it be amazing to get Stephen? and to lie about
him and get him arrested and to get him jailed. Let's have
Stephen arrested. But sentiment was so volatile
and so vitriol that when Stephen was there and they had more than
one witness to say, yeah, he's blaspheming, that the Pharisees,
Paul, he didn't change his name, Hebrew, Greek, same name, different
letters, different words. Paul, who was the authority of
the Sanhedrin, allowed the people to execute justice, judgment,
and capital punishment on Stephen. And Stephen didn't even deserve
it. But what did Stephen do? He opens
His mouth and He exegetes the Old Testament promise of Christ.
And He brings to the place where He is today. And as He's preaching
the gospel of Christ, of the Messiah, Christ and Messiah are
the same word, different languages. He says, and He came and you
killed Him. And they covered their ears and
they screamed so they could not hear his words. And they picked
up stones and they smashed his head until he died. But before he died, what did
he see? What really pushed him over the edge? When he's sitting
there on his knees before the first rock hits him, before they
had him, they were gnarling, he's sitting there and he looks
up and he says, behold, the Son of God at the right hand of the
Father, standing to receive me. Well, that was the end of it.
And he went. Looking past to the joy, he despised
the shame, despised the ridicule, And he looked to the one who
was seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus,
before him, allowed him to run the race and never let him go. That's an eternal weight of glory. And beloved, we can't muster
that. There's no three points in the
end here. This is how you do it. And a song just came in my
head. This is not how we do it. Christ
has done it. So we put our minds on Him. We
put our focus on Him. And today you're going to be
overrun by things of lesser gravity than Stephen. And it doesn't
make them any less hard. The fear of a child of an unseen
monster that doesn't exist in the closet is just as big as
the fear of death from a grown man in the body and in the mind. Don't minimize people's sufferings. Maximize their hope. Because the same Christ that
can protect our little minds from a make-believe monster has
kept us from the wrath of God. And there is no greater fear
than justice. And there's no greater hope than
grace. Let's pray. Father, may the good news of
Jesus Christ be our everlasting hope in the sense that we are
able to rest and rejoice and repeat. Father, take our minds
away from everything that is not profitable. Help us in the
midst of great suffering and stress to depend on one another
interdependently for prayer and for comfort. As we point each
other to the gospel, Lord, help me be that for others that they
may be that for me. Because you know me, Father.
And you know the turmoil that so easily besets my race. Help us to look and to see and
to run freely, not hindered by the weights and the sin of unbelief. As we take the table today, Father,
help us to see, see that Christ has suffered in His body, that
we have hope to live in ours, today and forever. In Jesus' name, amen.