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March 6, 2021 WholeLife Seventh-day Adventist Church, 2800 N Orange Ave Orlando, FL Things to Remember: Fix Your Eyes on Jesus, Hebrews 12:2; 3:1 / 2 Corinthians 4:18by Andy McDonald

What gets your attention gets you. Do you believe this? The axiom that what gets your attention gets you. We like to imagine we can give our attention to two things at once. In my years of counseling while there are plenty of outliers, generally women tend to believe the myth of being able to focus their attention at two places or more at once. Men lag behind in their belief of the myth because by in large men, as a group, tend to live in one box at a time. All of life is compartmentalized, mostly subconsciously, into lots of boxes, each with only one thing in them. In contrast women, as a group, tend to have a big bowl. All the issues in a man’s boxes, plus a few extra in most cases, are all dumped into the woman’s bowl, where every item is connected like strands of spaghetti to every other item in the bowl. This connectedness is what creates a woman’s intuition. That web of connectivity allows rapid connections to be made that many men might never even consider. Mom baked cookies earlier in the afternoon. She’s in a back bedroom and she hears the screen door slam and she knows her son has just returned from school. In a split second her mind connects her earlier baking of cookies that are cooling on the kitchen counter, the house still smells of them, the loud screen door closing, assuming it is her son, she figures he’s hungry, and just as he’s reaching for a cookie she hollers, don’t touch the cookies they are for later. The kid wonders if mom has cameras or special super powers how did she know he was reaching for a cookie? Just the wonderful complexity of multi connections. Because two things can be done in quick succession we may come to believe we can actually focus our attention in two places at once. Most men watch TV as a very mono-focused activity, while women will talk on the phone, surf the internet, scroll through facebook, try and talk to the men while they are watching their show. But as good as we may get at switching focus we can only focus our attention on one thing at a time.. Right now look far away, out the window or across the room and pick some object on which you will focus. Now keep focusing on that distant object and hold up your finger somewhere in front of your face. It is sort of blurry, but you can choose to change your focused attention from the distant object to the finger right in front of your face. But now giving attention, or looking to your finger the distant object blurs. You can’t bring them both into focus at once no matter how much attention you attempt to give each one or how fast you switch back and forth it is still just one focus of your attention at a time. A song we sang in a high school singing group had these word: “In the hustle and the bustle of the day, there are a million things to steal my thoughts away from Jesus, my Jesus.” There are lots of legitimate places and issues and people and work that rightfully demand our attention. Life is a series of competing calls for our attention, because in so many ways our attention is all we really have to give. In school we give our divided attention to each subject juggling where to focus. In our relational world we juggle our attention to foster and maintain relationships In Hebrews 11 we read about the people in what we might call the great hall of faith. By faith Able offered God a better sacrifice, By faith Enoch was taken from this life so he didn’t experience death. By faith, Noah, by faith Abraham it is a long list of who’s who of biblical history. That chapter of recounting the faith of the faithful is followed by our text for today in Hebrews 12:1 &2. In these two verses some commentators see as an almost perfect summary of the Christian life. Listen as I read the first of these two verses: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” 2

The call of Christ gives us purpose. “There’s a race to be run there’s a victory to be one.” Jesus Christ doesn’t invite us to stroll aimlessly along. We aren’t tourist just seeing the sights. We are pilgrims who are constantly on our way, while never in this life fully arriving, but always pressing on toward that to which God has called us, to be transformed into the very image of our savior Jesus Christ. The writer to the Hebrews has just reminded us of a whole bunch of messed up people who are like in the cheering stands encouraging us by their lives and stories to run a good race. Progress is the best we can hope for in this life, not arrival. Everyone of the heroes of the faith applauded in Hebrews 11 were very flawed and simultaneously faithful. Abraham lied twice about his wife, and sought by his own efforts to make the promise come true. Jacob was a heel grabber who weaseled his way into the birthright and deceived his father. Moses murdered the Egyptian, and disobeyed God. David was a great king with a moral failure. EVERYONE was running with endurance and perseverance the race marked out for them, but like us they were, at best, running with a bad leg, or a bad ankle, horrible planter’s fasciitis, some handicap of sin. I’m not a runner but I do know enough that you want to be as light as you can make yourself. You don’t carry any extra weight. You dress down to your running shorts. And that’s the picture here for us in our lives. We have things that hinder us. They may not be bad things, evil or wrong things but they may hinder us. There is in our life the duty to discard things. They weigh us down. My dad said to me, “Andy, you don’t possess things, things possess you.” Too much stuff. As I think about the next chapter of my life I’m wanting to throw off, to declutter, deaccumulate. I have too much junk I don’t really need! And this stuff isn’t bad stuff but it doesn’t just take up space in closets and garages and storage sheds, it takes up space in my head, mental space. When we think about running the race toward Christlikeness have we sat down and really considered what of our stuff, our friendships, our work, our recreation, our entertainment, our souveniers of life, what might be hindering us in that pursuit of Christlikeness, and we are encouraged in our text today to “Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” Seriously what sin do we enjoy dabbling in that is like tentacles that entangle us and hold us back from progress to being like Jesus. We can’t just pretend it isn’t there. We are counseled to identify our weak spots, the sin that we allow to easily entangle and THROW IT OFF! There are lots of legitimate things in life that call for our attention. But what is getting way more attention than is in our best interest? We are called to “Run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” We may imagine a marathon or a shorter race. But I think this race isn’t about winning the race but it is about running with perseverance. It sort of reminds me of the giant group bike rides they have around Orlando. There will be an announcement of a meet up or starting point and literally 100’s will show up and ride around a designate route. It isn’t a competition its all about participation. Jesus invites us to join in the run. There’s a course laid out for each of us and the destination is the same for us all. We are running toward Christ, and truth is it may sound a little silly because he’s already won the race. He’s already achieved perfection. Not just stumble across the finish line, He has run a perfect race. A race Satan said couldn’t be run. He’s run the race that is the kissing of justice and mercy. That he might be just and the justifier of all of us wounded, injured, flawed runners who now run the race.

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His running was so perfect that it solved the sin problem that was God’s problem before humans ever existed. And in his victory he was awarded enough Gold Medals to give one to every runner, no matter where they place in the run. Listen to the next verse, Hebrews 12:2 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 had of the throne of God.” He endured the cross and by it he reconciled all things in heaven and on earth to the Father. They had a sin problem and Jesus solved it. We are invited here to “Fix our eyes on Jesus.” Why? Because of who Jesus is. NIV we just read calls him the author and perfecter of our faith KJV translates it the author and finisher. Another translates it the pioneer and perfecter NLT the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. The way we run the race with perseverance is by fixing our eyes on Jesus. Looking to Jesus. Focusing on Jesus because our faith comes from him as a gift, he initiates it, and even better regardless of our limp of sin, regardless of the brokenness of our vessel into which he puts faith, he not only starts us on our faith journey but he gives us his perfection he brings us across the finish line and gives us one of the billions of the gold medals he won as our very own. It is all of Jesus. Like the song I referenced earlier there are a million things to steal my thoughts away from Jesus. I don’t know about you, maybe you are a wonderful concentrator who never gets distracted. My mind goes in a zillion different directions and I can be easily distracted. I often get up really early so the house is quiet and the distractions are few and in that early morning darkness I’m less distracted. How do we fix our eyes on Jesus? I mean I can fix my eyes on you and you can fix your eyes on me because we are here. But how do we go about fixing our eyes on Jesus. I want to give you just two ways. The first one may seem passé. We may even mock the concept of memorizing something. We may ask why memorize anything because everything is accessible from my smart phone, I can look it up and read it instantly. This is true but scripture speaks of hiding God’s word in our hearts, our minds, (not our smart phones) and that having done that it will be helpful in throwing off the sin that so easily entangles us. It is what Jesus used when he faced temptation. What we hold in our minds we have instant access to. So I invite you to maybe just start with Matthew 5,6,7. Just three chapters of Jesus famous Sermon on the Mount. What if we memorized it? And maybe added some more words of his teaching and memorized them. Then as we are on this pilgrimage, this race, this run as we face all the distractions, as we consider what is hindering us, as we come up against sin, we can Fix our Eyes on Jesus by recalling his teaching, by remembering that he initiated our faith and he is perfecting our faith. It enables us to really consider WWJD what would Jesus do, and as we have fixed his teaching in our mind we have a go to place to look, to proverbially fix our eyes on Jesus. If we have determined to follow Jesus we can be guaranteed that we will be tempted to fix our eyes other places. We may look for direction and our confidence in other people – teachers, pastors, leaders, bosses, friends. And if they all have their eyes fixed on Jesus we may there find some good counsel, but at some point they will disappoint us.

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We may look to organizations, companies, churches, schools, denominations but these are not where scripture advises us to fix our eyes. There is only one place one person who deserves our highest and best and most regular focused attention, FIX YOUR EYES ON JESUS. Many of our difficulties and much of the trouble of our world has to do with fixing our eyes on ourselves. It may be on the negative as we focus on our problems, our losses, our sadness, our hard times, some version of poor me. Or it may be self-motivational as we try to give ourselves pep talks to pull ourselves up by our boot straps. Or it may be that we fix our eyes on ourselves in a prideful way that thinks more highly of ourselves than we ought. Jesus tells about a day coming when the sheep and goats are divided. The sheep are welcomed in because they have had their eyes fixed on Jesus and haven’t even been aware they have. They had their eyes fixed on Jesus when he was hungry and they gave him food. They were fixing their eyes on Jesus when they provide the thirsty with a cool drink. Who knew that they were fixing their eyes on Jesus when they offered hospitality to a stranger. Who would have imagined that that young person without decent clothes to wear to school was Jesus when they were given clothes they needed. In the care of the sick the caregiver was fixing their eye on Jesus in the person of the sick. And who would imagine Jesus in jail, but he said that visiting that prisoner was fixing our eyes on him. Jesus calls us to love one another. That people will know we are following Jesus, that he has initiated faith and is perfecting it in us because we love and love is simply readiness to serve. And focusing on serving and those served, Jesus said that serving others is serving him. And in our desire to not sin against God we can prepare for that reality by storing up his words, fixing our eyes on him, that we carry in our minds his directives so we can throw off any thing that would hinder us and the sin that so easily entangles. We aren’t saved by memorizing his words or serving people but they are tools to enable us to run with perseverance the race before us. So PLEASE REMBER TO FIX YOUR EYES ON JESUS.

What is your biggest temptation to multi-task to try and do two What is your biggest temptation to multi-task to try and do two things at once? things at once?

List the top five things that demand your attention? List the top five things that demand your attention?

How hard was it to juggle classes in school? How hard was it to juggle classes in school?

In what ways does aiming for perfection rather than progress In what ways does aiming for perfection rather than progress hamper your Christian pilgrimage? hamper your Christian pilgrimage?

How can you tell you’ve bought in to being on a pilgrimage to be How can you tell you’ve bought in to being on a pilgrimage to be transformed into Christ’s image &that the journey is important? transformed into Christ’s image &that the journey is important?

What do you think about this race being more of a “fun run” than What do you think about this race being more of a “fun run” than a race because Jesus has already won the race and has enough a race because Jesus has already won the race and has enough gold medals for each participant? gold medals for each participant?

What would be one of your greatest distractions to pull you away What would be one of your greatest distractions to pull you away from fixing your eyes on Jesus? from fixing your eyes on Jesus?

What can you do to lodge more of his teaching in your brain? What can you do to lodge more of his teaching in your brain?

How can you begin to see all people you can serve as a way of How can you begin to see all people you can serve as a way of focusing on Jesus, fixing your eyes on the “least of these”? focusing on Jesus, fixing your eyes on the “least of these”?

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