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Sunday, July 5, 2020

Keep Your Eyes on Jesus

The message given on Sunday morning, July 5, 2020 in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Philippians 3:1-14.


            What is the most important thing in your life?
            Now, the temptation is going to be to say “God” or “Jesus” or something similar simply because we’re in church and we know that’s the thing we’re supposed to say.  And for some of us I’m sure that is the answer--my purpose in asking this question is not to criticize anyone’s faith.  And I’m not asking you to give the answer out loud or anything.  But I’d like you to really think about it.  What is the most important thing in your life?  And here’s the second question:  does the way you live your life show that what you said is the most important thing in your life actually is?
            There’s an old saying that you can tell what a person truly values by going through their check register.  These days it might be their credit card or debit card statement.  But the point is that the things we spend money on are one reflection of the things we value.
            There are certain things we all have to spend a certain amount of money on, of course.  Food is one--we have to eat.  Shelter is another--we have to have a place to live.  We also have to keep the lights on and the water running.  And around here, at least, we need to have some form of transportation.  
            But the fact is that most of us--myself included--spend more on those things than the bare minimum that we would have to spend to get by.  And don’t get me wrong--I’m not saying it’s sinful to spend more than the bare minimum.  But again, what we spend money on is one measure of what we value.
            It’s not the only measure, of course.  Time is another measure.  You could say that what we spend our time on is a reflection of what we value.  But of course, that’s not perfect, either.  If we want to have money to spend on food, and shelter, and utilities, and transportation, we need to work.  Our work may or may not be important to us, but even if it’s not we still have to spend a substantial amount of time on it.  That’s just the way life is.  But on the other hand, if we say something is the most important thing in our lives, we should at least spend some time on it, even if it’s not as much as we’d like.  It would be pretty hard to claim something was the most important thing in your life if you never spend any time on it at all.
            The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, says that the most important thing is knowing Jesus Christ as Lord.  In fact, he says more than that.  He says that everything that this world has to offer is garbage compared to the joy of knowing Jesus Christ as Lord.  
            That’s a man who knows what the most important thing in his life is.  In fact, Paul would say faith in Jesus is not just the most important thing in his life, it’s the only thing in his life.  Yes, of course, Paul had to eat and drink and do all the other stuff that human beings had to do.  But I think Paul would’ve said that everything he did, he did so he could continue to spread the good news about Jesus Christ.  “I’m eating and drinking so I can maintain my strength so I can spread the gospel.  I found shelter for the night so I could sleep and refresh myself so that the next day I could get up and share the gospel.  I found some transportation so I could go other places and spread the word about Jesus.”  
Everything in Paul’s life other than faith in Jesus was secondary.  In fact, everything in his life is meant to serve the goal of spreading the gospel in some way.  If there was something in his life that did not serve the goal of spreading the gospel, he got rid of it.  Even if it was not a bad thing, even if it was a neutral or even something that most people would’ve said was a good thing, if it did not serve the goal of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, Paul got it out of his life.  It was garbage to him.  It was completely worthless, because the only thing in his life was knowing Jesus Christ as Lord and spreading that knowledge to others.
Can you imagine being that devoted to the Lord?  Being so devoted to the Lord that everything you did had to be connected to spreading the gospel in some way, or you were going to throw it out of your life?
Can you imagine what our world would be like if Christians all did that?  Can you imagine what the world would be like, if everyone who considers himself or herself a Christian was so devoted to the Lord that everything we said or did was connected to spreading the good news about Jesus Christ in some way?  It’d be pretty awesome, don’t you think?
Maybe that’s kind of what heaven is like.  I mean, there’ll be no need to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in heaven, but maybe in heaven everything we say or do is connected in some way to serving the Lord.  Nothing else, no matter what it might be, has any place in heaven, nothing but serving the Lord.  Can you imagine that?
Now, here’s the thing.  Can you imagine what your own life would be like if you did that?  Can I imagine what my life would be like if I did that?  What would your life be like if everything you did or said had to be connected to spreading the gospel in some way, or you were going to throw it out of your life?  What would my life be like if everything I did or said had to be connected to spreading the gospel in some way, or I would throw it out of my life?  Can you and I imagine that?
Now, two things.  One, I’m not saying that we won’t go to heaven if we don’t do this.  Heaven would have a pretty small population if that was the case.  We don’t receive salvation and eternal life by the things we do or by how single-minded we are.  We receive salvation and eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  
Two, Paul said that he had not completely done this himself.  He said he was still working toward that goal.  So we don’t have to be too hard on ourselves if we struggle with it, too.  But the question is:  What was holding him back?  What holds us back?
Well, Paul never said, really.  But at least part of what holds us back is, quite simply, the world we live in.  It seems to me that, in order to make spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ the only thing in our lives, to the extent that everything we do or say is connected to doing that in some way, we need to keep our eyes focused on Christ.  And that means we need to take our eyes off of the things of the world.
That’s a really hard thing to do.  I certainly have not done it.  And again, in saying this, I’m not saying that the things of the world are all bad things.  Some of them are, but some of them are not.  Some of them are neutral.  Some of them are things that many of us would consider good.  But they’re not connected to spreading the gospel.  And yet, we too often keep our eyes focused on those things, instead of keeping our eyes focused on Christ.
Again, it’s hard not to.  The world is all around us.  And right now, especially, the things of the world are forcing themselves on us, whether we want them to or not.  The coronavirus.  Protests.  Riots.  Every day it seems like something new comes along that we’re supposed to be outraged about or scared of.  And of course, the problems of our personal lives and the lives of our families have not gone away, either.  Health concerns, both physical health and mental health.  Financial problems.  Relationship problems.  All of these things and many other things of the world force themselves on us, whether we want them to or not.  What can we do?  Are we supposed to just ignore all these things?  Would it even be possible to ignore them, no matter how much we might want to?
Well, a lot of those same issues, and others besides, were present in Paul’s day, too.  And no, we’re not supposed to ignore them.  Again, we really cannot.  But we should not get bogged down in them, either.  We should not put our focus on these earthly issues, no matter how important they may seem to be at the moment.  What we need to do is what Paul tried to do.  We need to connect them, somehow, to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.  No matter what’s going on in the world, we need to keep our eyes on Jesus.
So the question is, how can we do that?  It’s not easy.  It’s a challenge.  I cannot stand here this morning and tell you “Here’s how to do it.”  There’s not one easy, standard, all-purpose formula for this.  It takes a lot of thought.  It takes a lot of prayer.
But you know what else it takes?  It takes a lot of desire.  We need to really want to keep our eyes on Jesus, no matter what.  That’s what Paul is talking about when he says, “I press on toward the goal.”  He says that twice, “I press on toward the goal.”  If you and I don’t have the desire to do this, if we are not willing to press on toward the goal, it’s not going to happen.  No matter how hard we pray, it won’t happen if we don’t have that desire.  God will help us, but God will not force us.  God will push us, but God will not just override our will.  We need to have the desire to do and say only things that are connected to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ in some way if we’re ever going to accomplish it.  We need to have that desire to keep our eyes on Jesus at all times, no matter what else is going on.
But God will help us with that desire, too, if we ask Him to.  If we sincerely ask for God’s Holy Spirit to come into our hearts and give us the desire to get everything out of our lives except things that are connected to spreading the good news about Jesus, God will do that.
One more thing.  At the start of our reading for today, Paul says, “My brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord!”  If you and I do this, we can rejoice.  And God will rejoice in us, too.  Because when we keep our eyes on Jesus, when everything we say or do is somehow connected to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, then we are the people God wants us to be.  And that is always reason to rejoice!


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