May grace, mercy and peace be to each of you from God our Father and our resurrected Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen
Let’s pray
“Father, we know we are guilty of being in your way on many occasions. Help us understand that you want the very best for our lives, and you are the only one who knows what that actually is. Allow us to deepen our trust in you. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
Welcome back for the third week of our series, “Focus.” I hope you have enjoyed the content the last few weeks as we laid the foundation for our focus.
In week 1, we talked about focusing on the good things in life. There are certain things that the world cannot give us, things that can only come from the Holy Spirit. Paul calls us to be constantly thinking about these things, rather than worldly, temporary things.
Last week, we looked at a story from Matthew’s gospel where Peter and the other disciples are caught in a storm. Peter takes a giant step of faith, and steps out of the boat to walk on the water to Jesus. Then, we saw firsthand, when Peter started to sink, what happens when someone loses their focus on Christ, and instead chooses to look at the distractions around them.
Now that the foundation for our focus is laid, I want us to take this concept of focus a step further.
I read a story of about Steve Jobs. He was a former CEO of Apple and led them to become one of the largest companies in the world. The author concluded that his brilliant creation of the iPhone and other Apple products did not end up being the success they were after one attempt.
Many Apple products had to be significantly modified day after day to achieve what Steve and his team wanted to achieve. I am sure there were many times, when he could have chosen to focus on the past failures and simply give up.
However, he was able to keep moving forward because he knew that once he had improved the iPhone and the other Apple products, they would be amazing.
Steve Jobs, and others like him, had a choice to make every day of their lives … “Am I going to choose to be focused on my past failures, or my future?” The industry leaders we still read about today are those that chose the latter.
Similar to these men and women, I believe we have the same choice in our relationship with Jesus Christ. We know about negative thoughts and distractions that will try to weigh us down.
Today, I want us to learn how to focus better on our future. This is not a future we can imagine for ourselves. It is not even one we can achieve for ourselves.
I believe today, God’s desire is to help us understand the importance of walking with Him every step of the way and allowing Him to direct our steps. Here is what the Book of Proverbs says…
“Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise.
Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” Proverbs 19:20-21
So, before I break down a few key elements involved in focusing on our future, in general what does the Bible say about our future?
I think there is a clear answer in the familiar words of Jeremiah 29:11 regarding God’s view of our future. These words are from the prophet Jeremiah are from the middle of a letter he wrote to the exiled Israelites living in Babylon at the time. This what he said in verse 11…
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
I could preach a lot from this one verse, but for today, I want us to focus on one key element in it … God promises us HOPE and a FUTURE.
I wonder how many of us have tried to create a future all on our own. We are so often tempted to dream it up, and then make it happen all by ourselves.
But think about this … God through Jeremiah is writing to a group of exiles who do not have any hope. They are essentially living the life of a slave.
But these words PROMISE them that God has a plan for their future. Just like today, I need you to understand that God has a wonderful plan for our futures.
Sometimes, it’s hard to believe, and it often does not make sense to keep trusting His promise of a plan, if we do not see or experience it.
But believe me when I say, God’s plans are much better than our plans. Remember what God said in our second lesson today in Isaiah 55…
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
Once we understand this truth, we will begin to move out of God’s way in our life. For many of us, we have been praying for God to be more active in our lives. However, for God to be more active in our lives, we have to move OUT of His way.
We need to relinquish control and let Him do the work.
Many different things tend to keep us WANTING to be in charge, to be in control. When we do that, we put things in God’s way. And all we are doing when we get in His way, is prevent Him from doing something incredible in and through us.
So, the first obstacle for us to think about is our Past.
The truth is we all have a past. When I say past, I am talking about the things we are not proud of when we look back on our life. I mean all the things also that cause shame and guilt because of past decisions choices.
Chances are you have some sort of story from your past of which you are not proud. The Israelites got to a similar place in the Old Testament, where they simply did not know if they could trust God anymore.
If we look at Exodus 16, we see Moses leading all of the Israelites. They were set free from slavery and oppression in Egypt. However, in Exodus 16:3, we hear some complaining going on within the Israelites, and the complaining was directed at Moses, God’s appointed leader…
“If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Exodus 16:3
You see, this seems to be the other side of the coin of our past. For some of us, because past scars and frustrations weigh us down, we have trouble trusting God for the future.
Others of us may be like the Israelites here. We remember the past as better than it actually was, and would rather go back because at least we knew WHAT to expect.
Trusting God with your future obviously can be a scary thing. You do not know exactly what it will hold, what you will have to walk through, where He will take you, or what it will cost you.
There are many unknowns, which is why we are tempted to move TOWARD comfort. In addition, if we aren’t careful, our past comfort may have the potential to hold us back from our best future.
It is a risky business walking with God, allowing Him to guide your steps. Even if we aren’t too focused on our past, and we don’t allow this to hold us back, there seems to always be the temptation to press pause on God in the present.
I wonder how many of us have read verses like Jeremiah 29:11, and have been tempted to ONLY focus on our future. And in return, we convince ourselves it’s alright to move God out of the picture right now in the present. This brings me to my next point the Present.
The future God wants to bring you into has a role to play in your life right now. For example, what are you doing now to prepare for what is next?
God doesn’t want to just be the God of your future. He desires to have your full attention and obedience right now. But here’s the problem … some of us have a tendency to control our present, knowing that God’s got our future.
There was actually a well-known person in scripture who seemed to do the same thing. Let’s see what we can learn from him.
In 2 Samuel 11, the Bible tells us a familiar story of David when he was king over Israel.
One day King David was alone in the city and saw a woman, named Bathsheba, bathing. In a moment of weakness, he called for her and slept with her. The story goes on to tell us David actually had Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, killed in battle to try to cover up his sin.
However, God was able to call out David’s sin, and STILL use him in mighty ways. However, in this moment, David was not focused on the covenant promise the Lord had made with him just chapters before. He was not focused on the future that God had mapped out for him.
He was only focused on his own, selfish desires in the present. Similar to David, we are called to be representations of God to the world around us.
When sin gets in the way, it has the potential to distort how those around us view God. Giving up control to God does not just happen in our future; it needs to happen every single moment of every single day. It needs to happen in our decisions and choices every day.
This is what we call living a Christ-like life. In church language we call this sanctification … making choices and decisions every day based on our understanding of God’s Living Word applied to your daily life.
This is what it has to look like every day for us. To get to God’s future for us, we have to move out of His way in the present. Finally, the third prominent factor that often keeps us in God’s way when He is trying to lead us is Pride.
I am sure this is not a surprise to anyone. We often talk about the terrible consequence of the sin of pride.
Israel faced this same struggle in Joshua chapter 7. The walls of Jericho fall, and victory is won after they followed the Lord’s commands. Next, they came to Ai (a town near Jericho). Joshua, the leader at the time, sent some men to check out the land of Ai before attacking it.
When the men returned, this is what they said to Joshua, “There’s no need for all of us to go up there; it won’t take more than two or three thousand men to attack Ai.”
Therefore, Joshua sent 3,000 men and, wouldn’t you guess, they lost the battle. They wanted to do this on their own. They did not want to seek out God’s leading on how to win this battle.
Our pride, our overconfidence, will often get in the way of what God intends to do in and through us.
Which is why, once again, this entire concept of focusing on our future comes back to humility. God desires we play the background, rather than the forefront of our lives and our stories. For Israel, this was difficult.
Here is what Israel was struggling with … one could say the Israelites were trying so hard to put God at the top of their priority list, when what God wanted was to DESIGN the list.
Some of us have been doing the same thing, when it comes to both our present and our future hopes and dreams. We try to make God our number one priority on OUR list, rather than allowing Him to CREATE the list.
(Hold up a piece of paper that says “God’s plan for my life” at the top. Leave the rest of the page blank, except the very bottom that has a place for them to sign their name.)
On your way out today, please receive one of these pieces of paper and take it home with you. Think about all the things you have on your priority list for today, tomorrow, and your future.
Are you willing to sign this piece of paper, not knowing what God has in store for you today, tomorrow, and in the future?
I believe if we are going to learn to focus on our future, we have to get out of God’s way. We have to check our ego at the door. We have to remove God from our priority list, so that He can create our priority list. Amen
Let’s pray together.
“God, as people infected with sinful desires, we know we often make poor choices. Help us to fully understand how our past, present and pride put us in the way of God working His plans in our lives. Help us stay focused on you always. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”