"Fix Your Eyes on Jesus"
Sermon Transcript for July 28, 2002
Scripture Reading: Hebrews 12:1-2
By Rev. Mike Beck
I think this has been the best 50-Day Spiritual Adventure we’ve ever been on. I’ve had so many people come to me during the week and say, "The messages have helped me. I’m trying to put these principles into action. I want to thrive spiritually." If we want to be more than just survivors as we journey through life, we’ve got to do what James told us in his little book. It says you’ve got to do more than be "hearers" of the Word, you’ve got to be "doers". So let me remind you of the principles you need to put in to place if you want to thrive spiritually: You need to make soul-conscious choices (note the adjective); choices that take your soul—what’s really you—into account. When temptation comes, don’t play around with it and then wonder why you get burned. Flee—Flee from it. Rally support from others. As a church we are going to be doing that in a variety of ways in the months ahead. A lot of people have commented about the fourth one, they’ve said, "Boy, we need to rebuild the sacred walls of "Sabbath" in our life." Learn to "reference the culture" as you witness for Christ. In even the good things of life, watch out and avoid the "self-diminishing" compromises—the things we do that diminish our true selves. Step out in faith; be willing to take risks for the sake of Christ. We’re going to be developing that next week in a message "Step out of the boat".And then today we close with the eighth principle; we’ve got to "fix our eyes on Jesus". Now, I don’t want anybody to think that in my growing up years on the farm that I enjoyed farm work. I’d rather play golf. My brother was the one that liked farm work. But on that 258-acre farm we lived, I had to do my share of farm work. And I think when I was about ten years old it came time for the spring plowing on that thirty acre field to the north of the house, Dad said, --this will take me on that Ford tractor with its two bottom plow—he said, "Today you get to cut the first furrow of the field." Now, the end of the field is a half-mile away. And I wondered whether when I finished it was going to look like this. Dad said, "You cut the first furrow today and here’s what you do." He said, "Do you see that tree up there at the end of the field?" He said, "You put that tractor in second gear, you lower those plow bottoms and you keep your eyes straight on that tree till you get to the end of the field." That furrow was remarkably straight but only because I fixed my eye on what was at the end. If I’d have been looking to the left and looking to the right I’d have got to the end of the field and it would have been a mess behind me.
The journey through life, friends, is not always easy. We all know that if we’ve lived awhile. Loss, disappointment, illness, our own personal failings and the failings of others around us can so easily lead us to despair and defeat. But the good news of the gospel is, those same things that I just mentioned, when placed in the hands of God, actually can help us to thrive spiritually. The video we’re going to watch now reveals this truth so beautifully. Allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you through this beautiful story.
VIDEO
Two quotes there I want to lift up. Stephanie said, "My relationship with Jesus has helped me realize what’s really important." And Stephanie’s Mom said, "Without these experiences, we might have opted for just being ‘Sunday Christians’." In fact, friends, if you want to know in a nutshell what Reverend Dan and my goals are for you, yeah, we want you to come on Sunday and offer God the praise and worship God deserves, but we want it to make a difference in your life seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.
Hear again God’s Word for us this morning, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses…" In once sense, we support one another as a cloud of witnesses, but I remember reading Joyce Landlord’s book in which she talked about balcony people—those loved ones who have gone on to their eternal reward looking down on us in the playing field of life in the balcony cheering us on to Christ. "Let us throw off everything that hinders the sin that so easily entangles." See the relationship to the previous messages—soul-conscious choices, flee temptation, and traveling light? So we throw off the weight that’s holding us down, the sin entangled, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. It’s different; the race for all of us. But I tell you if you want to reference the culture to find an example for that one, what it means to run with perseverance, you’ve got no further to look than Paris, France this afternoon as Lance Armstrong six years ago wasn’t even expected to live from cancer but he persevered. And today he’ll win his fourth consecutive Tour de France. Unheard of in sports history. He persevered. How many times did he think about quitting? But he persevered. "So let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
Friends, what we’re trying to say in this message today is that right now is not all there is! There will come a time "where the Dow Jones Industrial Average finish at the end of the day" will be the farthest thing from our mind! The first message of this adventure we were reminded we are "aliens and strangers" in this world. We are to be "in" it, but not "of" it. Our values and perspectives are to be different. Jesus "endured the cross, scorning its shame". Why? Because he knew God had a purpose in it, he knew that Good Friday was not the end of the line. Christians who are "more than survivors" view life from an eternal perspective.
So I ask you, "What are your eyes fixed on today?" As individuals, it is so easy to get distracted on our problems, on our material needs. Our problems don’t come from God but God’s Word tells us they are achieving for us, if we allow them, an eternal glory! The Bible clearly says God’s concerned about the bills in your drawer. But Jesus also said, "What does it gain you if you gain the whole world and you lose your soul?"
In the church, our focus can so easily get off of Christ and on to more secondary issues such as the Pastor, the type of music we use in worship, our buildings or arguments over doctrine and implementation of Scripture. And surely the heart of God is grieved when the focus of our attention is taken off of His Son who died so that we might be restored to His family and truly be "one in the bond of love". In fact, we’ll see a tie-in of this theme to next week’s message as we think about Peter walking on the water to Jesus. When Peter’s eyes were fixed on Jesus, he was OK. When his focus was taken off of Christ and his gaze became on the rough waves around him, he started to sink.
I close with this true story of the missionary who returned home at the end of her life after having spent years serving the Lord in a foreign country. She kept thinking as the train on which she was riding approached her town "Will there be anyone at the railroad station to meet me who remembers who I am?" As the train approached the town, she could see a large crowd gathered on the platform. There was a band playing a rousing march. "Welcome Home" signs could be seen on the platform. The missionary’s heart began to pound. Was all this for her? Quickly she gathered her few things and, as she was making her way down the aisle, she heard a huge shout go up from the gathered throng. As she looked out the coach window, she saw a distinguished middle-aged man stepping from the train, waving his arms and smiling broadly. The local boy who had made good, now a distinguished politician, had stopped in his hometown to make a short speech. Disappointed, the elderly woman sat down inside the train car. "How foolish," she thought, "to believe that any group of people of that size would come to welcome me home." At that moment, she heard an inner voice, the one she had come to know so well through her decades of service—through dangers and toils, through loneliness and hard-won, rarely-celebrated successes, speak these words to her: "my child, you’re not home yet!"
And neither are we. Let’s pray, "Oh, Lord, we thrive more spiritually if we remember this world is not our home—we’re just passing through. What really matters is that we lay our treasures in heaven. So as we journey through life in the midst of struggles help us to fix our lives on Jesus. We want to hear him say one thing—well done, good and faithful servant. Welcome home." Amen.
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