Staying Focused in a Distracting World

You'll never look at him the same again. Grab your message notes as we continue our series stronger, taller, deeper, a series on spiritual growth. And what I want to do this morning is talk about the primary enemy of your spiritual growth. I want to talk about the biggest danger to your spiritual growth as a Christian. And what do you think that is? Temptation? No. Anxiety? No. Gripping fear about the future of the 49ers? No, not even that. It's one word, distraction. Distraction. That is the biggest danger to your spiritual growth. That is the biggest danger to the health of your relationships. That is the biggest danger to your own personal happiness.

And what I want to do this morning is I want to talk about the problem and then the cure and then some examples of what the cure looks like. So first, what is the problem? You know what I believe? I believe our culture is pathologically distracting. Would you agree with that? Let me just give you some examples of this. Paul Borthwick in his book Simplify talks about how when Whole Foods opened up, anybody ever, show of hands, anybody ever shop at Whole Foods? Whole paycheck? You know what I'm talking about. When it opened up, it sold two kinds of lettuce. Now you go into Whole Foods, they sell 40 types of lettuce. And you have to spend time, I have actually found myself spending like 15 minutes in the produce section practically praying, which lettuce is your will for my life, Lord? It's so hard to decide.

Frito-Lay started with just two chips, corn and potato. Now they have 60 varieties of chips. Starbucks, somebody calculated there are 1000 different ways to order coffee there. Do we need this many options? What about TV? First there was broadcast with three channels and then there was cable with 70 and then satellite with 700 and then Netflix Instant View with nine thousand five hundred options and add to that YouTube with millions and Vimeo and Hulu and Amazon and you can spend eternity just deciding what to watch.

And it all adds up to what Paul Borthwick calls option overload where you are just overwhelmed by options and this leads to three things, jot these down in your notes. Inability to make commitments. Why? Because everybody wants to keep all their options open all the time, right? Committing to just one person for life or one church to attend or one school to go to college to or to bring your kids to school to. It only lasts until some better option comes along. How many times have you thought this or heard this just keeping my options open, man?

And then an inability to think clearly. We can't even think clearly enough to make decisions about what to spend time making decisions about. Or to discern what is important and what's not important and an inability to rest, to even get quiet. One counselor calls it out of control syndrome. Have you noticed everybody seems to be just walking around wired all the time? Just buzzed with nervous energy all the time unable to focus. I feel like everybody's been telling me lately. Yeah, you know, I'm a little ADD. Does it seem like everybody's saying that we cannot all be a little ADD? I think some of us, a lot of us, the culture is making us this way.

The problem is a pathologically distracting culture and for Christians it is true and our little subculture too, option overload. There are so many podcasts and books and websites and radio shows that want to teach you all the things you need to know in order to be a good Christian. You know, the good news is there's never been so many books out about how to be a good Christian. The bad news is there's never been so many books out about how to be a good Christian.

And I want to give you an example. Yesterday afternoon I went on to Amazon. These are actual Christian books you could order as of this weekend on Amazon. How to be a Christian is a very thick book. And if you master that you need how to be a good Christian, right? And if you get that one down you need how to be a successful Christian. But if you read those you're just getting started. There's way more info that you need to know. Like how should Christians vote? A lot of people want to teach you that one. How to run your business by the book. How to give a Christian wedding toast. Do we really need this book?

But there's more. How to interpret dreams and visions. How to discipline a child. Weight loss for Christians. Is this different than weight loss for Buddhists? Apparently it is. There's dancing with Jesus. You can learn all his moves. 52 things that Christian wives need from husbands. There's 52! And there's more. There's no end. More actual books. The potato that wasn't a Christian. I have no idea what this is about. Order it today. The Bible cure for irritable bowel syndrome. There's a Bible cure. And does God ever speak through cats? You need to know this.

Just a quick show of hands. How many of you believe God does speak through cats? How many of you believe Satan? No, just kidding. I won't go there. But the problem is, here's the problem with all of this. Some of these books might have great stuff. Listen, the problem is we can unintentionally give the impression that Christian growth is complicated. That there's thousands of keys to living the Christian life. And the reason you're not successful in living the Christian life, the reason you still have anxiety, the reason that your kids aren't disciplined, the reason that you're gaining weight, the reason that you don't know how to give the right wedding toast is you don't know all the different keys. And it's also complicating that a lot of people just give up because you can't keep up with all the options.

So what do you do about it? Let's talk about the cure. Because believe it or not, when the Bible was first written, you know, the New Testament days, 2000 years ago, people even then needed to hear this. They were busy. They were distracted. They felt like they had option overload too. How do I know? Do you remember when Jesus told Martha, "You are worried and upset about many things." But few things are needed or indeed only one, only one, only one. You remember the setting? Martha, one of two sisters, is rushing around distracted by life. And Mary is doing one thing. And what was it? Do you know the story? Shout it out. What was she doing? She was sitting at the feet of Jesus. She was focused on Jesus.

And I want to suggest, based on the authority of Scripture, that consistent focus on Jesus is the one thing that you need. It doesn't feel like it, but it is. Have you discovered yet that focus like this is such a key to faith? Some of you have been harassed and distracted by angry thoughts towards somebody in your life. You have been thinking them since you got here today. Or fearful thoughts about news headlines or overwhelming thoughts about life choices ahead of you. Listen, choose to focus on the one relationship that never changes. The one truth that is always consistent. The one person who is always steady.

And if you start looking for it, this concept is all throughout the Bible. I mean, it is practically on every page. You just start looking for it. For example, this isn't in your notes, but here's kind of like a little extra for you. 2 Corinthians 11:3, write down the reference there in your notes. Paul says, I love this verse, but I'm afraid that just watch this, just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, you may somehow be led astray from what? Your simple and pure devotion to Christ. He's saying just keep it simple, keep it pure.

You know, if you've, how many of you have ever coached kids in anything? Kids basketball, football, little league, or anything like that? A lot of you, right? What is the number one thing that coaches tell their kids in any sport involving a ball? What do they say? Keep your eye on the ball. For seven-year-olds, that solves all the strategy problems in any game. It works in any game. Just keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the ball. It's not complicated, kids. Keep your eye on the ball.

Listen, when it comes to your faith, just keep your eyes on Jesus. Eyes on Jesus. You know, specifically there's a word that expresses this in the Bible. I love this. Jesus brings it up to the disciples in the upper room. The night he's betrayed. He says, abide in me and I in you. This is from John 15:4, "As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me." That word abide, I love it. Would you say that word with me? Say it. Abide. Say it one more time. Abide.

Some of the newer translations translate it with words like live or remain, but I love this word. The word in Greek is much richer than that. Abide is used 82 times in the Bible and its definition is to inhabit, to be consistent, to stay in a relationship, to remain. Now hang on, I want you to please stay on page one of your notes here because I just want to explore this word abide for a couple of minutes. Jesus is saying to the disciples, you want to know the secret to a deeper spiritual life, stronger, taller, deeper. It's not a secret actually. It's, we make it so complicated. Just abide. Eyes on Jesus.

It's amazing how simple it really is. When we look at all the things that distract us and all the things that can get us into trouble and all the things that bring us down and all the things that hold us back, it's amazing how simple the solution really is. Eyes on Jesus. Because it's when I take my eyes off of him, it's when you take your eyes off of him, when you let life break your concentration on him, when you let life get in the way of the word of God working its way into your life, that's when you sink beneath the waves. It's so simple. It's not complicated. Think about, focus on, be with, pray to, worship Jesus. Not just once in a while, not just once a week on Sunday mornings, but as a habit of thought, abide with him.

Hudson Taylor was the pioneer missionary to China. If only all missionaries had operated the way Hudson Taylor operated in the early 1800s. He was really quite radical when he went to China and he said, "Our goal is not to bring the British Empire to China." He was British. "Our goal is not to bring the English language to China. Our goal is not to bring suits and ties to China. Our goal is not to bring our culture to China. Our goal is to bring Christ to China." And he was the first one in the modern era who really distinguished between culture and Christ.

In fact, he eventually became just as culturally Chinese as he possibly could to show that it's not about culture, it's about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. But the work was so hard that he pushed himself to the breaking point. His friends thought he was having a nervous breakdown. He thought of quitting. And then a friend named John McCarthy sent him a letter that he said changed his life. McCarthy told him about abiding in Christ. Hudson Taylor reads this letter there in China on September 4th, 1869, and his eyes are opened. To his sister in England, he later wrote, "As I read, I saw it all. I simply looked to Jesus and when I saw him, oh how the joy flowed. How to get faith strengthened, watch this, not by striving after faith, but by resting in the faithful one."

This idea has a lot of personal application to me. Many of you know when my father was dying of cancer, I have his personal journal which means so much to me. And he says in this journal, he keeps being distracted by understandable thoughts. Specifically, he says thoughts of my son who is four years old, my daughter who's a year and a half, and my wife who will take care of him when I'm gone, and then thoughts of anger, why hasn't God healed me? And then he said the answer to all these thoughts is to focus on Jesus.

And friends of his who I still know who are elderly men now, they often tell me that when they would come into his hospital room, he was singing that old song, "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace." That is the key to all the distractions, the political distractions, and the fearful distractions, and the anxious distractions, just eyes on Jesus.

So that's the problem and the cure, but, you know, abiding, I understand, it can sound so vague, right? What does it look like when somebody abides in Christ? Do they just sit around in the lotus position all the time, you know? Do they just kind of smile mysteriously? How's it going? Just a Biden man, just a Biden, you know? What does it look like? Do they read the Bible 24/7, "Abiding?" Great. What's it look like? Well, the Apostle John, who first heard Jesus when he was a young man say, "Abide in me," when he's an elderly man, gives us some examples in a book of the Bible called 1 John chapter 2. He wrote this to the early church in the latter half of the first century. This is on page 2 of your notes.

John says, "Here are some marks of someone abiding in Christ." And this is very practical because if you are not seeing these things in your life, you need to ask, "Am I abiding?" Don't go, "Oh, I need to do that." These are all natural results of abiding. Abiding comes first, and then come these marks of somebody abiding in Christ. So, he says all these things in 1 John 2, he keeps talking about abiding in that chapter. So, let's look at all the times he says the word "abide" in 1 John 2 to see some marks of somebody consistently abiding in Christ.

Number one, they're consistently Christ-like. Consistently Christ-like. Listen to John's words in 1 John 2:6. "He who says he abides in him in Jesus ought himself to walk just as he walked." Now, I don't know about you, but that's kind of intimidating because who can live like Jesus lived? I mean, I think he was pretty one-of-a-kind, right? Well, would you go back to Jesus' own analogy in John 15? He says, "As a branch." You're like a branch plugged into a grapevine. So, I want you to look at this time lapse of a vineyard. Do you notice something when you look at the screen here at this time lapse video? The grape branches don't instantly have huge clusters of grapes. Days go by, months before they do. They grow and change in small, daily increments, daily increments of staying connected to the vine.

And this is you. You're not instantly going to have fully formed Christ-like character, but incrementally, day by day, you will resemble more and more Jesus Christ. Not through some self-help formula, not by trying harder, not by beating yourself up, but by just staying connected to the vine, you'll bear fruit. What? The fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, all that, the character change listed in Galatians 5. We're not talking about results, success. We're talking about character. That happens when you are just with Jesus consistently, daily. Your character will change.

How will it change? Well, point two, then you will be consistently caring, consistently caring. Now before you go, oh, consistently caring, that's, that sounds like Mr. Rogers, you know, care for one another. I want you to look at the challenge here. John says in verse 10, "He who loves his brother abides in the light." If you are abiding in the light of the world, Jesus Christ, the tell is not that you become a Bible brainiac. The tell is not that you become super judgmental and religious. The tell is that you care for your brother and your sister.

Now I'll tell you why this is so important because on its surface, everybody go, that's absolutely, I agree. Let me tell you a sports story. I'm always happy this time of year because football starts up again. Any other fellow football fans with me here today? I love football. I love college football. I love pro football. And I love football stories. And one of my favorite ones, I don't know, this captures my imagination, is when Georgia played Tennessee in 2001. They were a massive underdog. Georgia goes to play Tennessee at Tennessee Stadium. They hadn't won a game there in decades. In anybody's living memory, they had never won a game there, right? It is their new coach, Mark Rick, first game of his first season. He's unproven as a head coach. He's never been a head coach before. Georgia is vastly undermanned, undersized, and everybody thought that they were just going to get a trounce by Tennessee.

So Mark Rick gives a pep talk to his players before the game. And I want you to listen carefully to what he says. He says, "Listen, there will be many moments during this game when you feel outgunned, outmanned, outstrategized. Do not be distracted by what is happening to you." He said, "Believe in the plan. Stick with the plan." And he told his players, "Say those two sentences with me so you see them too. Believe in the plan. Stick with the plan." Say that again. "Believe in the plan. Stick with the plan." One more time. "Believe in the plan. Stick with the plan."

And sure enough, Tennessee jumps out to a huge early lead, and everybody's going crazy. The players are starting to get worried. And all Mark Rick did when he walked up and down the bench is he said, "Listen, fellas, we are not going to throw a Hail Mary. We're not going to go crazy and throw a bunch of things that aren't in the play. We're going to stick with the two-minute drills and the regular drills that we've been practicing them all summer and all week long. Just believe in the plan and stick with the plan." Well, they did, and slowly they caught up. And with 10 seconds left, and one of the most incredible comebacks in college football history, Georgia beats Tennessee, and it's the upset that makes news headlines in the sporting world for like the next week.

And every interview they ask Mark Rick and all the players, "How did you do it? How did you keep your composure?" And they said, "Well, Coach just told us, what did he tell him? Believe in the plan and stick with the plan. Why do I bring that up? Just because I like football. That has nothing to do with the sermon." No, here's why I brought it up. My wife teaches seminars at Mount Hermon. She taught them all summer long. And they asked, she's a world religion teacher, adjunct professor at Western Seminary, and they asked her this summer to teach about Islamic extremism because everybody's afraid of it. It's making the news every day, right?

And so she teaches what their beliefs are and so on. And in the last 10 minutes of every class, she asks the class, "So class, what are we as Christians to do? What's our Christian response to be?" And she says in virtually every class, people are really worked up. And she says, "People just jump to their feet." And she said, "I wish I could say I'm exaggerating, but they literally jump to their feet and say things like, 'Bomb Syria.'" And somebody else jumps up and says, "Kick out all Muslim immigrants!" And they just really get fired up. She says, "Wait, wait. I'm not talking about political solutions. We have politicians to make those." What I asked was, "What's the Christian response?" As Christians, as an individual Christian, what's your response? And there's silence.

And then she asks them, "What's the plan? Did our coach have a plan for this? Was the first century New Testament written to Christians who were being beheaded? Yes. Who were being fed to lions? Yes. Who were seeding the future church with their own blood? Absolutely. So what was the plan? Pray for your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Love your enemies. Love God. Love people. That's the plan. Believe in the plan. Stick with the plan." And then she gives examples of amazing ways that missionaries are making headway in countries when they stick with the plan. Listen, when you find yourself panicking or kind of going, "What are we going to do about this that's in the news?" Calm down. That's a distraction. Take a deep breath and abide in Christ and then believe in the plan. Stick with the plan.

Let me just give you a very personal thing here. I just saw this. Adrienne Moreno drew my attention to this. This was just posted this morning today. How many of you know Bola Taylor? Can I see a show of hands? She is a missionary. She and her husband can't are missionaries. We support in China, rather in Japan. And in Japan, they have an amazing gospel music ministry. Bola is dying. She has cancer. And I don't know how this got there, but a columnist in the Huffington Post this morning told Bola's story. And I don't think this guy's a believer. He says some kind of cynical things about religion and religious believers in this article. But he says, "Bola Taylor impresses me."

Let me just read you a couple of paragraphs. "Bola Taylor, a jazz gospel singer who has spent the last 20 years of her life combining her musical talents with missionary work in Japan, has announced she has inoperable cancer and will be performing her final concert on September 21st. Taylor, along with her husband, can't have been at the forefront of one of the most curious happenings in the history of the sometimes strained relationship between the Japanese and the Christian religion. And that is the surging popularity of gospel choirs. As co-founders of the Hallelujah gospel family, the Taylors have led thousands of Japanese into the experience of singing in gospel choirs for themselves and some of them into faith and into church." And he goes on and talks about how so many Christians seem fake to him when they encounter difficulty. And he says, "Not Taylor."

And then he interviews Bola in this Huffington Post column today. "How is my heart in all this, you ask?" Bola says, "You know the unexplainable peace that can only come from God. He has apportioned that to me abundantly. Should the Lord decide to heal me, I have no doubt he could do that. I just hope my heart would be strong enough to take that shock." She says, "I know where I'm going. Just make sure you get there too. I've lived well according to God's plan. I pray I die well also to show people the confidence you can have if you focus on Jesus as your Redeemer." Do you understand the difference it makes when you just abide in Christ, when you focus on Christ, when you stick with the plan?

And then the third example John gives of what it looks like to abide, you're consistently in the Word. Verse 14, "You are strong because the Word of God abides in you. It changes you." And I want to show you a living illustration of this, somebody who's learned what abiding in Christ and specifically abiding in His Word is all about. Show of hands, how many of you are familiar with the Freedom Women Center? Can I see a show of hands, Freedom Women Center? You got to know this ministry. What they do is they take women often from off the street who are addicted to drugs or alcohol and they help them get sober and they disciple them in Christ. And there's a young woman named Janice Henke that you see here at Twin Lakes Church and she has just completed her program there at the Freedom Women Center and has a very interesting faith story. I want you to watch the screen.

I was always just very performance-based, very, I was a dancer in theater constantly just performing. I was a trophy child, like I like to say. That lifestyle kind of led to me stumbling upon eating disorders. After high school, you know, some things in my family happened and I decided I just wanted to run away. So I became really good at that and I moved to San Francisco when I was 18 and I danced and on the outside things like they looked amazing. I mean it looked like my dreams are finally coming true. I was dancing for an amazing company in San Francisco. I had all these wonderful friends but on the inside I just, I never felt fulfilled. I never felt like I was satisfied and I thought moving to Los Angeles was gonna fill that void. I really thought that me doing music videos or me going and doing this shoot or me working for this company or doing this, having these accolades, that would make me just successful. That would make me happy and push came to shove and I ended up just giving into my eating disorder even more and purging six times a day, just looking for the next thing to eat so I can fill this hunger that I always had that could never be ceased or punched. It just, I was always going and looking and more and more and more.

It was while I was living in LA that I got my first DUI and I decided to move home and I just felt like a failure. I felt like I had everything and I lost it so I got even deeper and darker. But on March 7th in 2011 I got saved in a little church. You know from that day forward I vowed that I was gonna do things God's way and I was gonna go ahead and I was just gonna be faithful and I wasn't gonna use alcohol anymore. I wasn't gonna take drugs anymore and I wasn't gonna make myself purge anymore. I was just, I could do this, me and God. It was cool for a while. For about six or seven months it was amazing and I really felt connected with God. I was going to church constantly. I was probably addicted to church. I was just, anything I could do, I'd do it. When we scrubbed the floor, I'll scrub the floor. Like whatever you need. It didn't last because my foundation wasn't strong. I just spiraled down.

So after this horrific car accident that I had been in, I finally realized that this is my rock bottom. It's life or death for me now and I heard about Teen Challenge and three days later I moved in. I was consistently just fed the Word of God. I was consistently being prayed for and so by the grace of God I'm here today and I just got my 18 month chip on Monday. That's amazing. I never thought that would happen. That's all because of God. Abiding in Christ's love. Just being with Him every day. Not just saying that prayer. Jesus, help me when you're in trouble, okay? It's literally opening up your Bible in the morning. Just ready to hear from Him. I know that I'm called. I know that I'm chosen. I know that I'm a royal priesthood. I'm a princess. I'm God's princess. Like how could I think these horrible things about myself when I'm a child of God? When I literally am His princess. He gives me a crown of wisdom when I seek Him out. There's just, I just go on all day. There's so many scriptures that have just meant the world to me. I'm just, I'm super thankful and I'm super just happy to know Him like I know Him.

Don't you love that faith story? I love hearing how people come to faith in Christ and maturity in Christ. But one of the things I love about Janice's faith story is her honesty about how her initial enthusiasm didn't last. And did you catch what she said? Why not? She had no foundation. And now what's different, she repeated this word two or three times, consistency. Abiding in Christ's love and abiding in the Word. And I gotta say, that's one of the reasons two weeks from today we're launching this fall Bible study called The Seven based on the book of Revelation, the first three chapters. And some of you are going, you just made fun of all those other Christian books and now here's yours. How is this any different? Fair enough.

What Jesus says to the seven churches in Revelation is very simple. He says, again and again, He says, "Hold on to what you heard in the beginning. Remember what you heard." He's telling them to stay focused on what's very simple, the gospel. And we all need this. And imagine if we all in little daily increments practice abiding together with Christ by reading His words to the churches in Revelation. Imagine how that might change us as a church, as individuals, just imagine it. As always, 100% of the book proceeds go right back to the church. None of us get one cent from these and the books and the audiobooks are available starting this morning.

So if you're abiding in Christ, you'll know because you're consistently Christ-like in little daily increments, consistently caring, you're sticking with that plan, consistently in the Word. And finally, and this may be the most important of all, you're consistently gospel-focused. Consistently gospel-focused. What do I mean by that? Look at how John puts it. This is a very important verse, 1 John 2:24. "Let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning." If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you will also abide in the Son and in the Father. Did you notice that the word abide appears three times in that one verse? And twice he says, "Stick to not some new distracting teaching but what you heard from the beginning." John is making a very important point.

We sometimes think, "I need something new, some new teaching to get deeper. The gospel's for spiritual babies but I have to move on to to something deeper." John is saying the gospel that you heard from the beginning is not just the ABCs, it's the A to Z of the Christian life. You want to grow, you don't need 87 books with 158 new keys. Just go back to what you know, what you've received. Just keep preaching the gospel to yourself. Christianity is not about trying harder to be better, it's about abiding in Jesus. Eyes on Jesus. Some of you walked in so distracted by grief, by anxiety, by anger, by politics, by news headlines, by some relationship, and God is offering you this opportunity to refocus and abide in Christ.

Let me close with this and then we'll sing one last song. I promise I will not talk every week of my mother's death three months ago but I'll tell you this one story because this was so meaningful to me. About three weeks ago I'm in San Jose and I decided to go visit Mom's grave for the first time since the funeral, the first time on my own, of course then there were more people there. She's buried with my dad at La Scatus Memorial Cemetery and as I drive over there I had some errands to do over in the South Bay and so as I'm driving over there to the cemetery, I feel myself slipping from kind of a healthy perspective, a healthy grief. Grief is healthy, grief is good, sorrow's okay, sadness is okay, but I find myself slipping into self-pity and anger and kind of unhealthy places and it's starting to build up in me.

Well, if you believe God can speak through cats then you probably believe God can speak through iPods on random play, because I had my iPod which has thousands of songs. I mean everything ranging from Beethoven to the Archies is on this iPod and I have it just on random. It's playing thousands of songs randomly and as I drive into the cemetery a song comes on that I'd forgotten I even had on my iPod. "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace." And with tears streaming down my face I just said, "Thank you God," and I was re-centered on Christ.

John closes his chapter with these words and I'll leave you with these two, "And now little children abide in him." It's really that simple. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this reminder that for Christians, since Christ is in our name, it's all about abiding in Christ. That's where we can find common ground with other Christians with whom we might disagree on a variety of issues. That's where we can find comfort when the news headlines make us anxious. That's where we can find focus when we're distracted by the option overload of daily life. Help us to simply learn how to be with you, abide with you, think about you, your passion for us, your love for the world.

And God, I pray, if anybody here right now needs to begin a relationship with you, they would say something like this, "Lord, it all sounds good to me. I don't understand it, but it sounds wonderful and so now I simply receive you into my heart. Help me to learn a life of abiding in you, the one who came to us to abide with us and then die on a cross for us and rise again so that we could abide with you forever." In Jesus' name, amen.