fine. You're doing splendidly Speeded up. Yeah, yeah. I had not take note of but I will this morning. Is that when that clip started, I heard lots of whispering of parents and grandparents leaning over describing who that was the people that was next to him. But but who would have guessed that Something from a scene from the 50s would really be prophetic in the struggle of now in 2020 and that is that much of life can feel like that assembly line that we cannot keep up with. In fact, my favorite line in that scene is when lucy says that I feel like we're fighting a losing game. I feel like we're fighting a losing game and they're and they're hurting, they can't keep up, they can't keep up and so they're doing what they can to keep up. But the end result of that, it was just that the belt was going to go faster and see this morning we want to talk about the assembly line feel where we feel like we can't keep up and even if we get everything done, the end result is just more and more and more and faster and more. It used to be described as one of the fears of early development of technology in the last 50 years was that they were afraid humans weren't gonna know what to do with all their extra free time. And that really technology in some ways has made life faster But it's also made life more chaotic. So we're walking through a series to start off 2020 with a series entitled starting line. In week one, We set healthy foundation and we talked about how a healthy foundation for 2020 is not set on a principle, but on a person and that person is Jesus. And if you don't have a relationship with jesus, if if God is not first in your life, then your life is out of order and things aren't going to fall in line. And then in week two, we talked about how to establish healthy habits and how healthy habits are really consistent behaviors that meet specific needs. And we said that if you want spiritual fruit in your life, you have to regularly and consistently plant spiritual seeds in your life. And then last week, week three of our series, we talked about what is your primary priority. In other words, If there was a new story on your life, what would be the lead and if you make the right decision, then that can ultimately change your direction and that if jesus is the lead in your life, then we should show that publicly. And one of the ways we can show that publicly is is to take that step of faith and to be baptized, which we're gonna celebrate this next week. And now we wrap up our series this morning and I want to talk not about the Foundation, not about habits, not about your priority, but I want to talk about our focus where where is your mind as you go into this new year and how can we clearly see what God has called us to see if you're taking notes. I want you to write this down and it's that focus freeze focus frees you to live by design. Focus frees you to live by design. Focus doesn't make things appear, but rather it allows you to see them clearly driving here this morning with our incredible setup team. In fact, can we just pause for a moment and can we just give a round of applause? Just thanking all those who serve and set up every single week? And by the way, if you clapped, you've now volunteered for that team next week, seven a.m. Well we'll see you there so thank you so much. You know what driving in for set up this morning and the sun is coming up and it's interesting that as the sun comes up, it's not like the world all of a sudden exists, but when the sun rises, I can now see the world as I should and jesus as like God has like his word as light exposes us to reality, both good and bad of how we should see the world and so our focus, when we focus correctly allows us to see things as we should. Now I say focus frees us to live by design because there are alternatives. Some people choose to live by default in other words, they just let the world come to them and it sounds nice at first but it's really passive right as well. It happened, yep, this happened and in some ways that it feels nice to say, oh yeah, the world just comes to you. But what you've basically done is said, Hey, I don't want to make decisions, so I'm gonna let everybody else make decisions for me. And the truth is, if you don't prioritize your life, somebody else will and now you're living by default instead of living by design. No others choose to live by distraction. I think about the dog from the cartoon movie up squirrel. Never have we lived in an age so susceptible to distraction that you in a moment's notice can be reading about what's happening across the other side of the world and we are constantly surrounded by noise. But the question is, do you hear the music amidst the noise? Can you find the rhythm amidst the chaos? Some people just choose to embrace the distraction, but they never end up getting where they want to go. No others live by drudgery. These are people who are stuck. Maybe they're stuck in their circumstances, Maybe they're stuck in their situation. Maybe they're stuck in their past. Like Uncle rico from napoleon dynamite. Have you seen that cinematic classic? I can't even say that with a straight face, but if you've seen napoleon dynamite, if you have this character, Uncle rico who is still living in a van, which is really creepy as I start to think about it more on stage. But anyway, he's, he still lives in the fact that if he would have been put in the fourth quarter, the championship game, they could have won, you throw a football over a mountain, right? And he, his whole life was defined by a moment in the past and he was just stuck. And some of you might know someone in your life who just is stuck in a moment and in the past. And so they live a life by drudgery there. Just plugging along, no joy, no purpose, no future. Just well this happened and that's it than others live a life of disinterest. We call them teenagers, right? How are you doing fine? What? I don't, I don't know if like there's, I don't know where the human condition came from that we get that look right, But all kids give this look right there, just like you give a task to someone and they just look at you like you don't exist or that you're a creature from another planet, you know, whatever. Like I don't know where the idea of whatever became a complete sentence. But somehow that is the case And I'm scared as my Children are becoming into that, growing into that age after working with students and youth ministry for over 12 years, you just see that and you see that excitement and I would see it in middle school and they'd be like, oh the pastors here, wow, wait, wait, wait, that's middle school summed up in a sentence. And then you get to high school and you walk in and you got the different cliques and groups at the lunch table and all you get from a high school teenager when you walk in as a youth pastor and you bring food and everything and the most you can hope for on your best day is one of these. So and you're like, what I've, we've been on trips together. I've poured my life into you. I can't even get a hand out of your pocket to say, hey, I get a, I don't even get a full what is up. I get a sub. But many people live this life of disinterest and while it's reality, I don't know about you, I don't want to be in that space. I don't want to live a life by default or by distraction or in drudgery or disinterest. But I want to live a life by design by design that God has called me to and one that my decisions can shape and that starts with my focus. Ancient philosopher roman guy named Seneca, he said this, he said it is not that we have a short time to live but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long if you know how to use it to come and practice these days for LASIK surgery and it's amazing medically how far we've come. I feel bad for whoever was the first person to go through that or the first however many. But now it's a pretty common practice. You can go in. I love the idea of lasers. I don't know why. Maybe it's just Star Wars and star trek and sci fi coming like, oh, lasers. But then did you know like I've seen a family, a couple family members go through this. You can watch the procedure. It's wild and terrifying at the same time. But like through these things, they can shape the eye to the point where now they can see more clearly. Well today, what I wanna do is in a spiritual sense, I want to, I want to perform a little bit of spiritual LASIK surgery. I want to restore our focus and to help us remember that on your way out. You're gonna receive those giants sunglasses that come from. Okay, I'm not doing that. But why are they so big? Right. Have you seen those? You know, I'm talking about. Okay. Anyway, so we do want to perform a little bit of spiritual LASIK surgery today and we want to dive into a topic. Sometimes we walk through a book, verse by verse in fact in february next month we're gonna be taking a look at a series called Living Hope. We're gonna be walking through The life of Peter and actually his writings as we study 1st Peter and so that's going to start up coming up here on the other side of our game day event message. But so I'm excited for that. But this morning I want to take this theological topic of focus and I want to walk through a little bit of the thread throughout scripture. And so you can see that this is a repeated and continual theme that if our focus is on God and on jesus and on his priorities and his heart, that frees us to live a life by design, I would encourage you to bring your bibles every week. If you don't own a bible, we have a free gift for you at the guest services table or you can download on a smart device and follow along. But also these verses are gonna be on the screen, we're walking through and sharing a couple different passages with you this morning. The first one comes from Matthew chapter six, Jesus is speaking, he's given his longest sermon. It's called the sermon on the Mount Matthew chapters five through seven and we're in the middle of this in Matthew chapter six and he's talking specifically about how people fight and face anxiety and being anxious And in the middle of preaching against the dangers of anxiety and having an anxious mind and heart. He has this verse and he shares this verse in Matthew 633. He says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you when you're feeling anxious when your circumstances feels chaotic around you? He's saying, seek first the Kingdom of God. Then you see this in the early church in Colossians chapter three Paul from prison is writing to the church at Colossians Colossians chapter three In Chapter two, he says things like take captive your thoughts and by taking taking captive and being rooted and built up in the faith in christ jesus. Do not be deceived. Do not be taken captive by false realities and false prophets and false worldviews. And so he says, do not let your mind wander or be taken captive. And that's in chapter two. Then in chapter three verses one and two, he says this If then you have been raised with christ seek the things that are above. Where christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. If you're a human being, I'm guessing you've lost stuff. Maybe some people are more prone to lose things than other people like your keys. Ah clothing items like different household things, objects, shoes, whatever it is, you probably have something that you tend to lose or misplace and it always comes back to where did you set it down last And when it comes to our focus, What paul is saying here is is where where do you set it down? Where have you placed your mindset? Where have you placed your thoughts because we are called to seek him first to set our minds on things above. We have not been created just for this world, but for the next and so there's this longing for home. Have you ever been on a long road trip? You've been gone somewhere and maybe it was uncomfortable, it wasn't, it wasn't great and you just can't wait to get home. Do we have that sense that feeling for heaven and for jesus himself saying, set your mind on things above, on heavenly things. On christ himself, paul? The same writer, same author to the church in philippi. In chapter four, he begins and he talks about how he says, do not be anxious about anything very similar to what Jesus says in Matthew six says, But in everything through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, give your request before the Lord and it says the piece, then the peace of God will guard your hearts beyond understanding. And then in verse eight and nine, he says this, he says finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things and what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me practice these things and the God of peace will be with you when you focus on God and the attributes of God and who God is, his spirit, his helper gives peace and you can elect collectively. You can take a deep breath because sometimes I feel in life it feels like we're fighting a losing game. We'll keep going and going and hustling and working and working and working and working. And even if we're successful, the end result is we just have more stuff to do and more things to manage and more people will be in charge of and you know, having more money might feel exciting, but then it's also more pressure. It's more, it's more everything is, it's there are battles that you face and so we keep thinking you need more and more and more and more and it's never enough and you find yourself pouring water into a bucket that has a hole in it. And so it doesn't matter how much water you pour into the bucket, you're never filled because it's always going out, it's always fleeting. It's temporary. And you're like man, I need more paul then to the church or to the romans romans. Chapter chapter 12 verses one and two, he says this, I appeal to you, therefore my brothers by the view of by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship More than just singing songs on a Sunday morning, how we live the choices we make, where our focus is not just on this hour, but the other 167 of the week, where our focus is where our heart is, where our mind is, where our decisions go. That is worship, it says do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That by testing you may discern what is the will of God and what is good and acceptable and perfect. And one more passage here on the screen, Jesus is speaking and he says, this was known as the Great Commandment. It's found in in several places in the Gospel, but here specifically in Mark 12 30 Jesus says, And you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, that's your emotions with all your soul. That's your spirit and identity with all your mind, Okay, that's your mental capacity and all your strength. That's your physical capacity. And in verse 31 talks about loving your neighbor as yourself. But I want to focus in on loving God with all that you are with all of your heart, your emotions with all of your soul, of your spiritual identity with all of your mind, where we're gonna spend most of our time this morning about the mental capacity about where your focus is what you think about, and then all your strength, your physical attributes and and really your will and your decisions that you make throughout life. So you see this repeated theme throughout scripture, but not only does jesus talk about it, and paul writes about it, but we see that in the narrative of scripture as well. For example, in Luke chapter seven, there's a pharisee which is seen as like a religious leader of that time, has Jesus over for dinner and while he makes the dinner about how awesome he is, that he gets to have jesus over this sinful woman who doesn't even have a name in scripture, makes her presence known and pours pours ointment on the feet of jesus and weeps and and just cries over and this pharisee is like who is this person here? Why, why is this person allowed to even exist? And jesus shares and allows it to happen, saying that he who or she who has forgiven much loves much. So instead of being focused on the details, the person was focused on jesus, mary and Martha were having a dinner party Kind of a Surprise one. And so Martha who was the doer of the, of the sisters okay of the family, started cleaning up and making up and doing all the chores and all those things where mary just zoned in on jesus and Martha goes to jesus and says jesus, can you make mary do something, I'm doing all the work and he doesn't condemn Martha for working, it's not a bad thing, in fact nothing will get done in our homes and in our workplaces if we didn't have those people, but he said no, that is not primary, that's not the focus right now because mary had her focus where it should be and that's on jesus himself. There's a story in Matthew 14, jesus walks on water, incredible story, peter the crazy one who we're going to study in a couple of weeks says God, if it's you call me out, I mean this storm was so bad that fishermen were scared for their lives, but yet he says jesus that you call me out, he says come just kidding jesus next time maybe a little more shallow, but he says okay and so looking at jesus, he looks out, he looks out and he looks into the eyes of jesus and when his focus is on jesus himself he starts walking on the water as soon as he loses focus and he sees the winds and the waves on either side. That is when he fell and jesus picked him up, they got back in the boat and moved forward, Jesus had a clear focus as well. I already read Mark chapter 12, that's seen as the great commandment to love God and to love others, But when he died on the cross and rose again, some of his last words in Matthew, Matthew 28 known as the Great Commission, he says go and make disciples, you see the church does not have a mission, the mission of God has a church. God talked about bringing his kingdom down his kingdom come, he challenges his disciples to go and make disciples and out of that movement the church launches and begins and so we see that really our job is to build people and God's job is to build his church and so his focus, his mission is clear. Author and speaker, john Maxwell puts it this way, he says you cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything right, we get so worked up. Oh my goodness, oh my oh wow! But we lost focus. Have we taken our eyes off of jesus? We're taking our eyes off where he's called us to now in preparation for this series, really dope into scripture and how healthy rhythms and habits really are biblical concepts but also uh read the different books that are out there on leadership and productivity and those things and there are some great resources, I can make some recommendations if you if you like that stuff like essential ISm by Greg McCown. one thing by Gary Keller, deep work by cal Newport, uh Michael Hi, it's got some awesome stuff like free to focus and best year ever those things. So there's a lot of books out there and some wisdom found in that but these are based on biblical principles that are found that when our focus is where it should be, we can live by design. So let me give you four thieves of our focus, These are four components that we want to focus on the right thing, on the right priority on jesus and what God has called us to. But There are things that take away from us now. These are 44 thieves from focus. And now this one comes out of that book. One thing by Gary Keller, he says number one, the first thing that can take your focus is the inability to say no. Early on in my ministry career, I was told this and that stuck with me to this day. It is that you can do anything but you can't do everything so choose wisely, you can do anything you want. It is impossible to do everything. So you have to choose wisely. If you can't say no to the small things, you might not say yes to the big things. I don't want to hurt feelings, I don't want to MS this okay? But by saying yes to everything, you've actually said no to something maybe even greater down the road. There's ways to gracefully say no to things that are lesser. Now, you don't tell that person that sorry, I can't meet with you. Your lesser. That's not very it's not the point. Okay? But you have to make choices. So you say yes to everything, you're not gonna have focus, you're gonna be that person that's like being pulled in every direction nobody wants that the second thief of focus is the fear of chaos. This is that sense of I think we've all felt it. If you felt overwhelmed to the point where you do absolutely nothing, I have so much to do and next thing you know netflix is on you laugh because I'm glad you laughed there because that means you you've been there with me, okay? You've been in it right? Like it. I found that the greatest things in the world don't accidentally happen, right? You're tired, you're exhausted, You're stressed out. You never wake up accomplishing something the next day right now there are people like man, I made horrible choices. I did this, I looked at this, I ate this. No one goes man, I was so stressed out last night, I was so overwhelmed that the next morning I woke up and I had learned french, Like No one chooses to be like productive, right? But if you want to live a life by design, you have to make choices that reflect that and those choices are based on your focus on where you look and how you see the world. So it's not a fear of chaos, it's the idea of clarity in the chaos. Peter was surrounded by the winds and the waves, but when his eyes were on jesus that didn't matter 3rd, the third thief of focus is poor health habits, that your greatest asset in life is yourself here in terms of your decision making. Now the holy spirit in your life is the one who's gonna change everything and do everything but the Holy spirit that empowers you to make those choices and those decisions that reflect healthy habits that then leads you to where you want to go. So you're making those choices in the last one that can steal your focus is an unsupportive environment, an unsupportive environment. Now, a couple of things on that is that if you, if it's a friend thing, then you need to consider your friends. If they're not supportive of, you need to consider that the friendships and relationships that you have, one of the biggest reasons that crossfit has been so successful is that it places people in a community that they desire the same things in the same way your church family, your support system is there to encourage you to move forward. And so if you've surrounded people that are going the opposite direction that you want to go, you might want to consider a change now, if you are in relationships or family or work that you can't change right now, then consider the category, even though it might be smaller, consider what you do have control over. So maybe you have a boss or work relationships or people that you can't get along with or something that's unhealthy, but you can choose who you talk to before and after and then most important you can even talk you can control and talk to yourself ahead of the game because I found that if I have healthier self talk and I and I and I ground myself in scripture and my focus is on God that my conversations go better. My relationships are healthier and that I handle the chaos with greater clarity. So the four thieves, our inability to say no fear of chaos, poor health habits, unsupportive environment, but then you end up with this idea of really where does my attention go and we live in an attention economy. Do you understand that companies advertisers pay millions and billions of dollars to get your attention? This isn't a new phenomenon. In fact in the 1830s there was a newspaper company in New York that sold newspapers for only a penny because they realized if I can get my newspaper into the hands of people, I can make my money off of advertisers and take any genre of of media, radio tv film, all these things, The money is made off of attention and if the world spends billions of dollars to grab your attention, wouldn't it make sense that we would take a moment and say and reflect and say, oh where is where does my attention go? And and before we go into the applications were about to is that I just want to pause and say be aware of limited thinking, limited thinking always starts with this statement, Yeah, but yeah, I want to make a healthy choice, I want to do this. I want to go to church. I want to read my bible. I want to pray. I want to make a choice. And yeah, but so maybe it's, I don't have enough time. I'm not disciplined. I don't control this. My circumstances are crazy. I'm not good with one application or another. If you focus on the Yeah, but you'll miss something greater. It's not about complexity, it's about alignment. And when you align yourself with God, it makes all the difference when you focus on jesus, when you focus on God's calling in your life, when you focus on what God has for you, it frees you to live by design and what does that look like? Let's just be practical. Let me give you four applications Of this truth # one to have greater focus, identify your why? Identify your why, what motivates you, what is your essence. We routinely talk about this as a church, we walked through purpose driven life. We talk about how you don't live for your identity. You live from your identity. It all starts with your why and why you're here. When you're here to glorify God to love God and to love people and to make disciples and to glorify his name with everything that you do. That gives greater purpose and clarity to what you do that means as writer, john Acuff puts it is that awesome. It's not a job title. You don't have to have the perfect, perfect circumstances to live out your awesome. He said he was on the phone with an apple customer service rep and he thought to himself man, this isn't gonna go well like who wants to have a customer service job. But yet when he was on the phone with this worker, she was the happiest person. And after they walked through this process, he just paused before he got on the phone. He said actually like why are you able to be so positive? I hope you're not offended by this, but you're a customer surface phone operator. Like what what's going on? He says no I'm not. My purpose is that I love to learn new things and help people. So I get to do that every single day right now. That's a customer service rep in the future. I don't know what it looks like but you asked me a question, I learned a new technology and now I helped you solve your problem. Do you feel better? Yeah. So do I? It's not a job title, it's a choice, identify your, why identify your motivation. Second thing clarify your won't do list understand that decisions are about trade offs. If you can change one phrase this week in your life, it would change the phrase. I have two and replace it with, I choose to one simple phrase of switching. I have to do this. I have to go to work. I have to go to this meeting with the replacement of I choose to is very empowering because now you're not living a life based on other people's decisions and choices you are living a life because no I choose to do that, that doesn't magically make the task any better. But that empowers you in other areas of your life. Now if your employer, your boss comes in and says I want you to do this and you say nope, I am, that's on my won't do list. Your boss might not agree with your won't do list. And if that's the case then what I would tell you is don't give that your prime tv slot. There are prime spaces in your life. Don't give the things that are on your list that prime space do what you're best at when you're at your best so that you can live that out. And so when you're on the lower energy side then you do the task that you still have to. So it's not necessarily giving up everything that you have to do. But changing your mindset and now I choose to do this and now you organize when you do this and you do those tasks together when you do what you enjoy and you've identified your why and you're doing it for the glory of God. Now it gives you the motivation to get through and plug through the other things. So you want to identify your why you want to clarify, you won't do list, number three. act on your high leverage tasks, think to yourself throughout your week, this week, where is your biggest contribution and put this in categories. Okay, what's the greatest contribution to your health, to your work, to your family, to your spiritual life and act on those that have greater leverage in your life. When you have greater focus, you have greater clarity and you achieve so much more at the end of that, you live by design and the last thing has traveled with gratitude. It's really hard to be prideful and grateful at the same time. And if you're struggling with the have nots, when you start focusing and celebrating the haves, it changes things all throughout scripture, talks about with thanksgiving. There's an example in sports. In 2015, Duke won the national championship for college basketball. But before they went on their playoff run, the winningest coach of all time coach K had his players write the names of the people who made it possible for them to be in college on the basketball. So all the players wrote the names of the family members, coaches, teachers, people who motivated them to get there and they wrote their name on this basketball and they carried this basketball everywhere they went, they took it to team meals on the plane, they had it in a chair next to their practices in the locker room and here's what's cool when they won the championship And they celebrated. They played the song, one shining moment shortly after that if they were celebrating, they wrote a thank you note to every single name that was on that ball and they wrote this, he said thank you, you are with us every step of the way. If you want to find focus in your life, identify your why clarify what you won't do or at least don't give it the prime time slot. Act on the high leverage tasks, act on what's going to contribute the most to your life and then travel all times with gravity. I want to end with this one question as the band comes up on stage is that when you think about your focus, I just want you to think about this closing thought and that is what is one thing that you can do right now as we're talking. I'm guessing you had either maybe work in your mind, maybe relationships in your mind, maybe your spiritual condition in your mind and I want you to think about what is the one thing that I can do this week that would make a dramatic difference because I can tell you the one thing, that's the greatest thing and it starts everything and that is to receive jesus as your Lord and savior. I want to encourage you to do that right now, let's pray dear heavenly father, we come before you God, we are sinners and we cannot make it in this world. God, it seems like at times we're fighting a losing battle. That one thing after the next comes through and we seem hurried and busy and chaotic. You gotta help us to find clarity and focus and seek your kingdom. Can we believe that you were Lord and that you are a savior and that through you and you alone, that we can go to heaven, You got to pray for those that are taking that step of faith. God that they would talk to me, talk to the friend that they came with God don't leave here without establishing that belief in you. You got to pray for those that might take that step of baptism. That's going to take place next week. God I pray that you would give them courage to speak out and God I pray for those that have come here tired and weary. I mean we just have spiritual LASIK surgery this morning God and find our focus in you because God, when our focuses you, when we seek your kingdom, we are free to live by design. That's our prayer this morning and your son's name. We pray amen