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In Focus In Focus

Christmas is coming! In case you weren’t in any stores lately I thought I needed to tell warn you. To be honest it is very hard to be in tune with this season of the year. It has become all about the money.

In the next few weeks we will try to focus our attention on the advent of Christ. We will do this in a culture that is doing everything it can to un-focus our attention on Christ. I discovered a few days ago that Lowe’s isn’t selling Christmas trees any more they are selling holiday or family trees! After some protesting they are now trying to change some of their signage.

It gets more absurd every year as we watch political correctness attempt to dictate what we should be celebrating in the month of December. I feel sorry at times for corporate leaders who make decisions based on political correctness rather than an understanding of why we have the season in the first place. Walgreen’s has apologized this year already and promises that next year they will include the word Christmas in their advertising.

It is really easy to be critical of people and organizations on the outside of faith who are struggling to know what to do with the Christ of Christmas. I don’t see their struggle as being that odd or strange. It is a part of being outside the kingdom of God.

What I want to challenge you with today is this question: How focused are you on Christ?

Jesus came to this earth with a purpose. He came to bring life and salvation to all who follow Him and His teaching.

I would like us to exercise our minds and souls today and this coming week in preparation for properly remembering His coming to earth. To do this we will need to focus our attention on Him.

There is a great interaction with God recorded in Isaiah 6. In this story Isaiah finds himself in a life changing encounter. His whole focus shifts when he sees God clearly and with clarity for the first time. There are seven steps that Isaiah took during this story and I am challenging you today to take these steps over the next seven days. Take one a day and focus your life around Christ. Let Him in to the secret places in your life. Let Him have the right to examine, search and cleanse your life of the junk that you are holding on to.

Here is Isaiah’s story:

It was in the year King Uzziah died[a] that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. They were calling out to each other,

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Heaven’s Armies!
The whole earth is filled with his glory!”

Their voices shook the Temple to its foundations, and the entire building was filled with smoke.

Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. He touched my lips with it and said, “See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.” Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?”

I said, “Here I am. Send me.”


1. Contemplation

Every vital Christian experience, every authentic encounter with God must begin with a clear vision of Christ. Isaiah was in the temple worshipping but it wasn’t until he focused on the Lord that he truly had a life-altering encounter. Here is what Isaiah saw:

It was in the year King Uzziah died[a] that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. They were calling out to each other,

He saw the Lord:

        He saw Him as King

If you ever want to have a vision of Christ you can find Him in the book of Colossians 1:15-20:

“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.

He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ,and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.”
(NLT)

Do you ever just sit and think about God? Do you ever intentionally focus on who He is and what He wants with your life?

(Reference scriptures: John 12:41 and 17:5)

        He saw Him being Worshipped

Isaiah saw Him high and lifted up. That is the place we find God when we want to worship Him. I am talking about true worship.

Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner did a comedy skit years ago called " The 2013 Year Old Man". In the skit, Reiner interviewed Brooks, who was the old man in the skit.

At one point, Reiner asked the old man, "Did you always believe in the Lord?"

Brooks replied: "No. We had a guy in our village named Phil and for a time we worshiped him."

Reiner: “You worshiped a guy named Phil? Why?”

Brooks: “Because he was big, and mean, and he could break you in two with his bare hands!”

Reiner: “Did you have prayers?”

Brooks: “Yes, would you like to hear one? O Phil, please don’t be mean, and hurt us, or break us in two with your bare hands.”

Reiner: “So when did you start worshiping the Lord?”

Brooks: “Well, one day a big thunderstorm came up, and a lightning bolt hit Phil. We gathered around and saw that he was dead. Then we said to one another, ‘There’s somthin’ bigger than Phil!’”

(Reference scriptures: Revelation 5:11-14)

        He saw His Holiness

Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. They were calling out to each other,

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Heaven’s Armies!
The whole earth is filled with his glory!”

When you really come to understand who God is you will see His holiness. You will understand His hatred of the destructive power of sin. God’s holiness was so great that the angelic beings around His thrown had to cover themselves with their wings.

        He saw His Power

He is spoken of as the Lord of Heaven’s armies. There is a strength to be found in God that supersedes any human or earthly power.

I call you now to practice the art of contemplation. Contemplation is the art of being aware of who God is and using that for private devotion and worship. Follow the pattern of Isaiah and think on these things:

He is my King
He is the ultimate focus of my worship
He is Holy and calls me to holiness
He is powerful and nothing I experience is beyond His strength

2. Conviction

“Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed...”

When you get a clear vision of God and a right understanding of who He truly is there will be a sense of conviction that will enter the heart of every Christ follower.

Oswald Chambers wrote: “Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one— "Against You, You only, have I sinned..." ( Psalm 51:4 ).

Job had the fortune to see God and wrote these words: “I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” Job 42:5,6 NLT

Peter was so overcome with shame that he ask Jesus to go away from him: “When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.” Luke 5:8 NLT

John the writer of Revelations fell at His feet as though he were dead: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.” Revelation 1:17,18 NLT

Sin separates us from God. If you know that something is wrong and you just keep right on doing it without making an effort to let God help you overcome it, you are presuming on the grace of God. How comfortable have you become with some sin that has taken you further away from God than you could have ever imagined?

In his book I Surrender, Patrick Morley writes that the church’s integrity problem is in the misconception “that we can add Christ to our lives, but not subtract sin. It is a change in belief without a change in behavior.” He goes on to say, “It is revival without reformation, without repentance.” Quoted in John The Baptizer, Bible Study Guide by C. Swindoll, p. 16

Chuck Swindoll writes, “If our image of God on of an impotent, weak ‘deity-in-training,’ we will sin without restraint. Conversely, if we take God seriously, if we have a deep sense of His holiness and His power, and His majesty, we will take sin seriously; we will be quick to bow in humility, confessing our inadequacy, our inability to measure up, our need to have the rags of sinfulness replaced by robes of righteousness. If we have no relationship, or a superficial relationship, with Almighty God, then we will care not a whit about how our sin hurts God and harms our relationship with Him.”

Quit running from the truth and allow God to convict you. Bear up under the awful feeling of conviction so that you might take the next step.

3. Confession

“...for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips.”

Tell the truth! The only way to make our way to God is to confess where and who we really are. The Proverb writer reminds us how important confession is:

“People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy.” Proverbs 28:13 NLT

There is something amazingly wonderful about coming clean. No longer will you have to carry around the weight of whatever it is that is dragging you away from Christ. (A Prayer to guide your confession can be found at the end of this sermon)Make your confession deeply personal and allow God to take you to the next step.

4. Cleansing

“Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. He touched my lips with it and said, “See, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed, and your sins are forgiven.”

God demands clean servants. He will not or cannot us unclean instruments.

Get out! Get out and leave your captivity, where everything you touch is unclean. Get out of there and purify yourselves, you who carry home the sacred objects of the LORD.” Isaiah 52:11

“But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” 1 John 1:7-9 NLT

“Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God.” 1 Corinthians 7:1 NLT

Let God cleanse you and make you clean before Him. Let Him take away from you the filthy habits that are keeping you from being the man or woman God intends for you to be. There is nothing like a really hot shower when you are dirty from a day of hard labor. It is that same feeling of being clean that comes over us when we allow God to cleanse us spiritually.

5. Challenge

“Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?”

What does God want you to do? There are tremendous needs for men and women who will engage in God’s work. There are needs for some to respond to full time ministry and there are others who need to hear the challenge to take their everyday lives and turn them into ministry focused lives.

“So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Romans 12:1-2

6. Consecration

“ I said, “Here I am. Send me.”

Allow God to sharpen the focus of your life until you find what it is that you need to surrender to. He is always calling us to consecration. In fact, I think surrender is our task and consecration is what He will do with what we surrender.

What is God calling you to do? Every Christ follower will have some ministry that they do for and with Christ. Every Bible Christian will be operating within their giftedness and the call God has given them.

Isaiah’s surrender is two-fold:

He surrender’s himself: “Here I am...”

He surrender’s to God’s purpose: “...send me.”

7. Commission

“And He said, “Yes, go, and say...”

Isaiah found out that God had a plan and a purpose for him to accomplish. When we have drifted away from God and our energy is spent on temporal things we won’t hear the voice of God calling us to anything.

We are to be instruments in His hands. We will never be happy until we have found a way to live in His presence.

The writer of Romans put it this way:

“Do not let sin control the way you live;[a] do not give in to sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.” Romans 6:12,13 NLT

So there you have it; a picture of one man’s encounter with God that brought focus to his life.

We will never experience God like we need to if we do everything on our own.

Alex Haley, the author of "Roots," had an unusual picture hanging on his office wall. It was a picture of a turtle on top of a fence post. When asked, "Why is that there?" Alex Haley answered, "Every time I write something significant, every time I read my words & think that they are wonderful, & begin to feel proud of myself, I look at the turtle on top of the fence post & remember that he didn’t get there on his own. He had help."

That is the basis of thankfulness - to remember that we got here with the help of God, & that He is the provider of every blessing we have.

Have you ever wondered why a pigeon walks so funny? According to an interesting article in the Detroit Free Press, a pigeon walks the way it does so it can see where it’s going. Because it can’t adjust its focus as it moves, the pigeon actually has to bring its head to a complete stop between steps in order to refocus. This is the way it walks: head forward, stop; head back, stop. Don’t laugh -- that’s how it goes! In our spiritual walk with the Lord we have the same problem as the pigeon. We have a hard time seeing while we’re moving. We also need to stop between steps -- to refocus on where we are in relation to the World and the will of God. That’s not to say we have to stop and pray and meditate about every little decision in life. But certainly our walk with the Lord needs to have built into it a pattern of "stops," which enable us to see more clearly before moving on.

There’s a biblical term that has been misused in the last hundred years or so but the term is revival. The Psalmist wrote: “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” Psalm 85:6

In essence if you choose to engage in the process of focusing this week you will be set yourself up for a reviving of your faith.

R.G. Lee preached years ago with a rhythmic style and in one of his sermons he left us with these words:

Revival -- If?
If all the sleeping folk will wake up,
If all the lukewarm folk will fire up,
If all the dishonest folk will confess up,
If all the disgruntled folk will cheer up,
If all the depressed folk will cheer up,
If all the estranged folk will make up,
If all the gossipers will shut up,
If all true soldiers will stand up,
If all the dry bones will shake up,
If all the church members will pray up...
Then we can have a revival!

As you prepare yourselves for this busy time of year and the stress of family, travel, preparation etc. take this week and allow yourself the blessing of a God-encounter. Let Him focus you life before the coming New Year.

Prayer to guide your confession time:

Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.
Most holy and merciful Father:
We confess to you and to one another,
and to the whole communion of saints
in heaven and on earth,
that we have sinned by our own fault
in thought, word, and deed;
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.

        Have mercy on us, Lord.

We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit.

        Have mercy on us, Lord.

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives,

        We confess to you, Lord.

Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people,

        We confess to you, Lord.

Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves,

        We confess to you, Lord.

Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work,

        We confess to you, Lord.

Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us,

        We confess to you, Lord.

Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done: for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty,

        Accept our repentance, Lord.

For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us,

        Accept our repentance, Lord.

For our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us,

        Accept our repentance, Lord.

Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us;

        Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great.

Accomplish in us the work of your salvation,

        That we may show forth your glory in the world.

By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord,

        Bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.

Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us all our sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life. Amen.

2007/11/25