Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:05] Sheila. We're Elam ministers. We've been involved in ministry for quite a long time now. We were involved in repurposing a church. Forgive me if you've heard all this over there in Newquay some while back, we were privileged to see the church grow and go through many phases. And I guess that's part of the excitement we have being with you guys, because you, you, as you grow, you're going to go through various phases, various stages, and some are easy to navigate and easy to process. And sometimes we're on top of the hill, but sometimes we're down in the bottom of the valley. And both are valid, both are right, both are important because God is in this thing and we're living in a real world. We're not living in a pretend church world that is created by some. Some churches that could be out there. We genuinely believe that God is involved and he's moving.
[00:00:57] I, seven years ago, eight years ago, now, moved out to work with Compassion uk. I eventually ended up into a role as head of strategy with them, and which harkens back to my old engineering days. I'm a systematic person, so the message I'm going to bring is systematic. Is everybody happy?
[00:01:17] Come on, talk to me, church. I need to hear you.
[00:01:21] Everybody's good.
[00:01:23] Good. Okay.
[00:01:26] Yeah. And also, actually, alongside that, I also have pioneered something called healthy church. And healthy church is committed to seeing churches develop and grow and flourish in the way that Christ intended them. So on that footing, I launch in, as it were, to my message, and I need to find. It comes up in here. I'm sure it does.
[00:01:54] My scripture is from Revelation 4:11. It comes up in a moment or two. That's great.
[00:02:04] Okay, Way back, a little bit of a history lesson. Way back in the 60s, 1600s, England as a country, as a nation, had moved into a civil war. And the Civil war was really based around, I guess, religion. We were moving away at that point from the Catholic Church, the control of Rome over the church. And so out of that comes a new church, the Protestant Church. And so King Charles was, you know, the king at the time. Not our King Charles, of course, but king Charles the First. And nearly 400 years ago, there was a group of Christian leaders came together because the church that was emerging at that time, which we really are now part of and which really is a huge, huge worldwide movement, the Protestant, or what was then the Presbyterian Church, was beginning to emerge. And so they convened, they were called to convene church leaders by Parliament during this time. And they had to answer a fundamental question. What is the purpose of faith? What is the purpose of Christianity? And if you will, what is the purpose of church?
[00:03:24] It's a vital thing to understand.
[00:03:28] This is what they came out with. This is called. You will know it if you know anything about this stuff. The Westminster Catechism.
[00:03:37] And the Westminster Catechism was the basis upon which the Church, and we're really part of that now, was really, truly founded upon. Now, there's been various other influences with Luther and the various other aspects of the Reformation that came in, but here is the terminal purpose of man. That was the question they were asking. What is the purpose of man? What, why were you created? What is your purpose? Why are you here? Why am I here? This is what they came up with.
[00:04:08] What is the chief end of man?
[00:04:11] Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
[00:04:19] Isn't that powerful?
[00:04:22] The reason I've been created is to bring glory to God.
[00:04:27] This was written, as I say, while England was falling apart in so many ways through that turbulent time of the Civil War, and so on and so on and so on. But that's what they came up with. Church matures, church grows. We go through various phases in church.
[00:04:48] But my message today is based around this fundamental point. We have to keep the main thing. The main thing.
[00:04:59] We get diverted by so many things.
[00:05:02] There are so many things that crowd in on my life as an individual, as a church leader, as a dad, as a grandfather. All kinds of stuff comes in and sidetracks me and hijacks my brain and my mind. I just get wrapped up with all kinds of stuff and I forget the main thing. So today we're going to push back into finding out or maintaining the main thing in warfare.
[00:05:32] This might interest you, it might not, but in warfare, in the Royal Air Force doctrine of warfare, the fundamental principle it's founded upon is this selection and maintenance of the aim.
[00:05:46] Before a country goes to war, it has to figure out what is the aim of this.
[00:05:52] And once it's figured out what the aim is, it has to continually and consistently maintain that single aim. Because if it gets distracted, it'll lose the battle, it'll lose the war.
[00:06:06] It is more important than you could possibly imagine to make sure that you have a pole star that you have focused upon that is leading you to the desired place that God has for you.
[00:06:20] He has a destiny for each and every person in this room.
[00:06:27] It's so important.
[00:06:29] Years ago, we developed as a church and we'd grown significantly from A small church into a large church. You've probably heard some of this, so forgive me. I'm at a certain age where I might repeat myself now and again, but we developed from being. When we first went there, there were, like, less than 20, and. And when we left, in our central congregation, there were around about 300. And we also had a church plant that we put out that was. Actually grew. It did grow to be a bigger church than we were.
[00:06:57] We were at the point. At that point in multiple services, the point that I'm talking about here. And things have got complicated. But things get complicated when you grow.
[00:07:08] Do I hear an amen?
[00:07:11] All right.
[00:07:12] It just does. It does.
[00:07:15] Who is it who said, Rick Warren, if you never face. What is it?
[00:07:21] Come on, help me, Jesus.
[00:07:23] If you're not hitting the devil head on, you're both running in the same direction.
[00:07:29] Isn't that cool?
[00:07:33] So we'd grown as a church, and we went through bumps and stuff along the way, and we went through some very serious big bumps along the way, bigger than a lot of people would ever imagine. But things have got complicated. And I was reminded of a conversation that I had with a member where we needed to buy new seats. Now, how pathetic is this?
[00:07:54] This is a big pivotal point in my life, buying new seats. And it's interesting because the seats we had were pretty well exactly the same as these. They were plastic seats. And I had this thing in my head I. About.
[00:08:09] We'd grown. We needed to get some new seats because we couldn't fit everybody in. And so. And so I wanted to get some super seats. Do you know what I mean? I didn't want the plastic ones. I wanted the good seats.
[00:08:22] Right? You with me so far? This is the joy of having an apostolic call upon you.
[00:08:29] The nitty gritty, if you will, of why. Why I devoted my life to Jesus and the church sweating it out over a bunch of seats.
[00:08:41] So do we get budget seats or do we get better seats? And with this member of the church that I was chatting to in that conversation, I mentioned at the same point a significant downturn in the church's finances. We didn't have the same money we had a year before because the finances, for some reason had dropped. I can't remember what the exact reason was.
[00:09:03] And so I needed to ask for donations for the new seats, be they plastic or be they posh. Are you with me so far? This is going somewhere. And so I asked the guy, how can I communicate this with the church?
[00:09:17] Because I don't want the Church to misunderstand me.
[00:09:21] You know, I don't want the church just to think that, you know, Mike's off on his little journey with his posh seats and he's losing the plot with all this. So he said this to me. When I asked him, how do I communicate this to the church, he said this, tell me why we need new seats.
[00:09:40] And that simple phrase triggered a whole chain of events in me. My response to him surprised me so much that I journaled it.
[00:09:51] And as I was answering about these ridiculous. This ridiculous situation with the seats, I felt the spirit of God come upon me.
[00:10:01] And I said this.
[00:10:03] I said this.
[00:10:05] The reason we need new seats and we need good seats is because one day somebody out there is going to come to our church and they're going to sit in this seat.
[00:10:16] And if I get to the point where I'm talking about giving your life to Jesus and the fact that God has a plan for your life, and they're sitting there and their back's bad and they're stiff and they get up and they. I just got to get out and stretch my legs. I want to have the best seats possible for that person. So the reason that we need the good isn't through vanity, isn't through all that stuff. It's because the main thing is these seats are the best seats possible for those people to hear the gospel.
[00:10:45] Now, it's not about the church.
[00:10:49] Do you see that?
[00:10:51] I can put up with a plastic seat. I'm happy to sit in a plastic seat. I'm not bothered about a plastic seat. But if it's going to become a barrier for somebody who's come in, who comes in and thinks, oh, these seats are terrible. I've got to get up and go for a walk, and they're going to miss the important thing that God wants to come on.
[00:11:09] The main thing is Jesus.
[00:11:15] Seats are nothing. The main thing is Jesus. And what it did, it flicked me back into this thing of I've got to keep the main thing. The main thing.
[00:11:27] I've got to keep the main thing. The main thing, you know, man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
[00:11:42] That fits so perfectly with scripture. Let me unpack this a little bit. This revelation unfolded before John. We heard from Revelation earlier and we read that the 24 elders fall on their faces and they worship, saying, thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for thou has created all things, and for thy pleasure they were created. That's you. You and I are Created for the pleasure of God. He loves you. Somebody said. I think it was during the prayer over our friend who went through the waters earlier. Somebody said, you know, that you're not a mistake. And I guess that's just one of those comments that we make sometimes, all of us. But there are no mistakes. We, we are all created by God for His purpose, for his pleasure. Whether I've been beget after a one night stand or I've been begetted through a loving relationship, makes no difference because God is God and he is Lord, and I'm created to worship him and to love him and he's created me with destiny in my heart. I am so filled with hope for what God has for me, and more than that, what God has for this church. That First Corinthians 10:31 says this. Whatever I do, I do for the glory of God.
[00:13:08] Whatever goes on in my life or in this church or in my church, the church that we're involved in, it's for the glory of God. Years ago, I remember praying myself crazy. We had a big issue in the church and I wanted to start a new ministry and I wasn't sure whether it was the right thing or not. Do you ever have that where, like, I wish God would text me, do you ever have that? Like, why are you so cryptic, Jesus? You know, just, just tell me, you know, why has it got to be this complicated? Or you know, why?
[00:13:40] And I'm out walking across the Ghana, which is a tidal estuary where we live. And as I'm walking across, I'm trying to figure out, do you want me to do it? Don't you want me to do it? Come on, Jesus, you know, you didn't turn the organist's hair pink during the service. So I didn't get a sign that way. And do I do this? Don't I do it? And this is what he said to me. Here's your question. And this is for somebody in this place. Now you're wondering whether you should do something for God or not.
[00:14:08] This is the answer to your question, Is it gonna glorify him?
[00:14:18] Isn't that incredible?
[00:14:20] I hadn't even heard of the Westminster cat. I didn't even know what a catechism was. I thought it was something a cat had when it had a fit, you know, is it gonna glorify me? I was joking, by the way, just in case.
[00:14:34] Is it gonna glorify me? And so this analysis of is it gonna glorify me? Is the most important thing. What is the chief end of man. Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And the problem is that when we don't keep the main thing, the main thing, we drift spiritually.
[00:14:54] And I really feel in the prophetic, to put a clarion call out to us in this room today, that we reestablish Jesus Christ and his purposes as central to everything we do. And stop with the nonsensical distractions that have been captivating our brains and captivating our heads and have been keeping us awake at night. Let's fix our eyes on Jesus. Come on. Do I hear at least a murmuring of an amen in the room?
[00:15:21] That drift can manifest itself in various ways.
[00:15:26] When we drift from the main thing, first thing I notice is this stuff gets complicated.
[00:15:33] Stuff that's simple suddenly isn't simple.
[00:15:38] I thought, I can remember in our church, I can remember that the call of God, you know, that he called us to go to Newquay. And suddenly this happened and that happened. And I was having phone calls and I was having meetings. And in those days, videos, if anybody remembers videos, I was getting videos sent me about this teaching is in error, and this teaching is okay. And, you know, people on the right were saying, you're the beast incarnate. And other people were saying, no, no, he's an angel from heaven. And I didn't know where I was going with any of it. And I was nearly having a nervous breakdown.
[00:16:12] Stuff had got complicated.
[00:16:15] Something had taken the place of Jesus on the throne in my head and in my heart.
[00:16:21] And it was the voices of a multitude of people that were speaking all this stuff over me. And in the midst of all of that, I had to get back to God.
[00:16:30] Many interpretation of Ecclesiastes 7:29. But the one I love is from the Good News version. It says this.
[00:16:38] This is all that I've learned. God made us plain and simple, but we've made ourselves very complicated.
[00:16:48] Isn't that great?
[00:16:50] You might want to put that over the kitchen door.
[00:16:56] We make ourselves very complicated.
[00:17:01] The new international version translates that as they've gone in search of many schemes. In other words, there's all kinds of things, things you know. No longer is it a single purpose. Now it's this and this and this and this.
[00:17:14] Isn't it easy to complicate, over complicate things? Am I in the room with people that feel that too, that you can over complicate things? And maybe as I'm sharing, maybe something's popping into your mind that, that God is speaking to you about where it's all become too much and too big and too stressful.
[00:17:36] I remember realizing that God had given us a vision in those days to grow a church of a thousand. In my mind's eye, I had car parks, I had stewards out in the car parks, a huge worship band, a large staff and all that stuff. But Jesus actually simply wanted me to give a cup of water to somebody who was thirsty.
[00:17:59] And somehow I'd complicated that into this vast thing, this over complicated thing, if you will, that distracted me. And as the church grew, it became more and more of an issue.
[00:18:16] And it's not just a pastor thing. We can get over complicated by church politics.
[00:18:21] We made a rule in our church. We don't have church politics.
[00:18:25] I can remember in our, in our track training, our track one, we used to ask people to affirm five things and one of the primary things is we just focus on Jesus and we don't get involved in other people's stuff.
[00:18:43] Yeah, end time debates.
[00:18:48] That's a distraction.
[00:18:52] You know, endless conversations about. About end times and what it's going to look like and how it's going to happen. We're over complicating stuff, friend. It's important. I get it. It's interesting. I get it. It's in the Word. We have to study it. It's vital and all that stuff. Personal church preferences was another one we faced.
[00:19:13] I can remember doing a Bible, you know, does God say we use guitars and drums?
[00:19:20] You know the Bible. The worship is.
[00:19:23] The only theology of worship is intimacy with God prescunio to draw near and kiss.
[00:19:30] That's what we translate as worship. But we overcomplicate it. Or we can do. Not here because you're great. But we did styles of worship, you know, should I raise my hands? Should I raise my hands? And buildings and programs. Paul said this to the Corinthian Church. He said, I'm afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
[00:19:58] Distracted. You're getting distracted.
[00:20:01] You're getting distracted.
[00:20:04] I don't know whether to share this or not. Do you want me to share this?
[00:20:10] That's one person.
[00:20:16] Come on in. Oh, you lot.
[00:20:21] I was going through a real dry patch, right? I mean, I told you, I'm an engineer. I didn't worship very easy. I was jealous, sick of Sheila worshiping God properly. And I stood next to her like a. Like a block of iron or something, you know, And Sheila Was there, head tipped back, tears running down her face. And I'm just like, what time does it finish? You know, it's like, I'm just being honest. And I went away to a conference. It was a. It was.
[00:20:49] It was actually. It was at Matazi, which you guys would remember Matazi, I guess. And it was Mat at Matazi. And it was an aog Elim and Ministers in Training conference. And I went into the service. This is the shortened version. And they were singing an old chorus. Come, Holy Spirit, let your fire fall. And we're all stood up. And they sing, Come, Holy Spirit, let your fire fall. And as he got to the. Come, Holy Spirit, your fire fall. The fire fell.
[00:21:16] And nobody was more surprised than me, you know, like, I've been singing it loads, and it's like, what?
[00:21:22] And. And make it this what you will. But the people. All I could hear was a thunder in my head. And. And. And I'm. I'm analytical and logical. I don't do that stuff very easily. And I could hear this thunder and open my eyes, and all I can see is a load of people falling over.
[00:21:40] And. And that didn't fit with me because I don't. Didn't do falling over at all. And I fell over, which really messed with my head. So I'm lying on the floor. This is honest truth. And I thought I'm gonna. I thought I'd give this five to ten minutes on the floor, because I'm not. I'm not off with the fairies. I'm really still me. Logical. Like, what am I doing lying on the floor? This is awkward.
[00:22:06] And I thought I'd give it 10 minutes. Now I stand up again, and 10 minutes is a good Pentecostal time, by the way. If you're still in that stage, give it 10 minutes. And then people think you're spiritual when you get up. And how did it go? The Lord moved. Anyway, I'm lying on the floor, 10 minutes went. And I thought, I'm going to get up. So I go to get up, and I hear for the first time in my life, the audible voice of God saying, stay where you are. I'm going to get upset. I'm going to get upset saying this.
[00:22:36] And I go to get up, and this voice says, stay where you are. So I stay where I am because I've never heard the voice of God like that before, because I just don't operate in that way. And as I'm lying there, I see an altar, Elijah's altar. And on the altar of Elijah, were the words selfish ambition. And I can remember thinking, this is nonsense. But because I don't have that problem. That's not me. Clearly that is something weird going on with me, but that's not me. And as I saw self ambition, I saw the fire of God fall on the altar and I saw it consume selfish ambition. And I was broken friends, because in a moment, in a heartbeat, I realized that the main thing wasn't the right main thing.
[00:23:21] And I wanted big church. I wanted all that stuff. I wanted all the stuff that I was talking to you about, but I couldn't get there. But because I wanted it for the wrong reason.
[00:23:32] And when I stood up, I could hardly walk. And it was an hour and a half later and I was. There was.
[00:23:41] You know, people talk about ugly criers. I was a really ugly crier. Apparently it was messy and mucousy and horrible.
[00:23:49] But I got up a changed person. And I realized that I had to put Jesus where Jesus belongs, on the throne. I hope you're getting the prophetic side of this message.
[00:24:04] We have to keep him the main thing.
[00:24:09] We cannot get distracted with nonsense.
[00:24:14] Jesus is everything.
[00:24:17] Everything changed forever. When you don't keep the main thing, the main thing, it all becomes complicated. When we drift from the main thing, stuff gets confusing.
[00:24:31] I love quotes. There's a quote, a few quotes here from a guy called Bera. Bera was a legend of baseball in America, and he was known for saying confusing things. I'll just give you a couple, just to whet your appetite. He said this.
[00:24:47] This is deja vu all over again.
[00:24:53] He was the guy who said this. Well, you can observe a lot just by watching.
[00:25:00] And my personal favorite, baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.
[00:25:10] We can get confused over many things. The Bible says this. God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.
[00:25:20] Genesis 1:2 says, in the beginning, the Earth was formless and empty. The word formless can be confusion and disorder.
[00:25:29] And God speaks out order. And the world becomes tuned and planets are put in place.
[00:25:36] The tilt of the Earth is perfect. Its rotational speed is. Is constant and perfect. So perfect that we don't burn up or crisp or freeze.
[00:25:45] I was taught by my dad how to bring a boat into the harbor. I was brought up by the sea and I can remember that clearly. You have to check there are no rocks and stuff around. You've got to come in. When you bring a boat in, you bring it in generally against the tide so that the nose is tight. But this was the most important thing My dad Taught me to bring a boat into the harbor by fixing my eyes on one feet. Fixed point.
[00:26:13] Find a fixed point. Go for the fixed point.
[00:26:17] Keep your eyes off the waves, keep your eyes off the wind. Don't worry about the other boats. Don't hit them, but don't fix your eyes on them. Why? Because you need a fixed point that doesn't move. And I want to remind us today that it all gets confusing if we're fixing our eyes on our wife or our husband or work or all that stuff that can crowd in. The only thing that doesn't move is Jesus Christ.
[00:26:43] We fix our eyes on Christ.
[00:26:47] And if we're going to get into that destiny, that harbor, as it were, of our destiny, then we have to fix our eyes on that. We will drift off course if we don't. Churches drift when they stop looking at Jesus and they start looking at everything else.
[00:27:05] And as you grow as a church, and as we grew as a church and a community, we have to fix our eyes on Christ. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer, the author, the 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. Jesus says Luke 9:62. He says, when you plow, don't look back.
[00:27:32] In fact, when you plough a field, I was told somebody here, if you're a farmer, correct me afterwards, not right now, but I was told that if you plough a field, you fix your eyes on a fixed point ahead and you aim for that point. And if you do that, you'll have straight furrows.
[00:27:48] Stuff gets confusing when you take your eyes off the main thing. And that's the problem with comparison. If I'm looking at others, be that looks, be that money, be that stuff, be that church, and I don't have what they have, then I get envious. And the Bible says, where envy and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. What has he told us to do? Let's get on with it.
[00:28:17] Others may have different ideas. That's all right.
[00:28:22] We just have to fix our eyes on it. I don't compare my marriage partner. I don't look at someone else's ministry. I don't look at someone else's church. I don't look at someone else's business or whatever it is. I just get on with what he's told me to do and then it stays simple.
[00:28:41] I have to keep the main thing. The main thing. Otherwise it'll get complicated. And if it Gets complicated. I'll become confused. And finally we. We end up with a detour with destiny. Years ago, I met with John Glass. John Glass is the old general superintendent of Elim. And the church had grown. Our church had grown. We had a big staff. And I was asking his advice about something. I think we had over 20 staff at this point. And we had so many buildings and all this stuff, and it was all. That's a whole nother story. But when I met with him, he gave me this scripture. Listen to this. Listen.
[00:29:16] I press on to take a hold of that, for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
[00:29:22] Brothers, I don't consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do.
[00:29:31] And he paused and he said, you're not there. You haven't got one thing. You've got a hundred things.
[00:29:40] What's the one thing?
[00:29:43] What's the one thing God gave you?
[00:29:47] What is it?
[00:29:50] Because we can take on so many other things. What is the one thing?
[00:29:56] One thing I do.
[00:30:02] Not 10, not 20, not 15.
[00:30:05] This is the same guy who later said, I count my life, worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task. The Lord Jesus has given me the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
[00:30:20] My one thing.
[00:30:23] If you're a worship leader, a singer, you've got a beautiful voice, by the way.
[00:30:28] But if you're a worship leader or a singer, what's the one thing?
[00:30:32] You're a small group worker. What's the one thing? If you're a leader, an elder, or whatever it is that you're doing, what is the one thing?
[00:30:40] Maybe your pastoral what's the one thing? Relocate. The one thing. It's easy to start, correct, not so easy to finish. Well. And one of the things I hate on a journey is a detour, going somewhere that I didn't want to go. When I was working with compassion, I was driving ridiculous hours, thousands of miles every every year, late one night. I remember coming back from an endless meeting. Anybody else ever go to an endless meeting? It's like, oh, please let me go home. And then I go home and it's like 11 o' clock at night. I'm driving along the 303, if you know the 303. I learned to loathe the 303. It was like phone blackout. So I can't phone anybody. And I'm stuck there and I'm tired and it's late. And guess what? There's a diversion.
[00:31:24] And it took me like an hour and A half out of my way, this ridiculous diversion I can remember. I saw parts of Wiltshire I never knew existed.
[00:31:35] I was so fed up, it was late. I was tired.
[00:31:38] And in life we can have detours. I don't have time for detours. And particularly as I've got older, I realize all the more as time begins to become less.
[00:31:48] I don't want to be distracted.
[00:31:51] I don't know who said this. When you're up to your neck in alligators, it's easy to forget. The initial objective was to drain the swamp.
[00:32:02] But the SAP nav internally has to be set to the terminal destination. Christ, his will, his purpose, God's glory. What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
[00:32:18] That's the chief aim for me. That's the chief aim for the church. Let me draw to a close.
[00:32:27] Paul proves this in his letter to the Galatians. This is my final bit.
[00:32:32] First, Paul identifies the distraction the church was fixed on. Debate about circumcision in this case.
[00:32:40] And he says this. Galatians 5. He says this.
[00:32:45] For in Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. It's not. Not important. Why are you worrying about something that's not important?
[00:32:54] Then he restates the main thing. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love. That is what is important. And then he exposes the drift. You're running a great race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth. In other words, you're on a detour. Can the worship group come back up, please?
[00:33:15] You're on a detour.
[00:33:19] You're on a detour.
[00:33:21] And it's time today to get the main thing batting it back in place. It's time to get rid of all the secondary stuff, the inconsequential stuff, the stuff that is not the main thing. And if we can do that, businesses will have purpose, marriages will last, friendships will remain, and the church will grow and we'll fulfill our destiny. It's simple.
[00:33:43] The main thing is to make the main thing. Can we stand, please?
[00:33:50] Can you give me a chord or something, just gentle in the background, just so we can still our spirits before God and focus in on this.
[00:34:05] The main thing is to bring glory to God.
[00:34:10] If we lose sight of this, we drift. Let's close our eyes.
[00:34:16] And if we drift, life becomes complicated.
[00:34:19] How's your life? Is it complicated?
[00:34:22] What's going on in your head? Be honest. Be open. Be real. Is it complicated because if it is, you're missing the main thing.
[00:34:33] Are you confused about your future? Confused about what God wants you to do? Are you confused about a certain thing or a certain situation?
[00:34:42] That's because you're drifting.
[00:34:47] Come back to Jesus.
[00:34:51] Come back to Jesus. Come on.
[00:34:56] There's a nail pierced hand reaching out to you right now in this house.
[00:35:02] He's reaching out for you today in this place.
[00:35:05] He wants to take you off the detour and he wants to get you back to the main thing. And the antidote to being adrift is to fix our eyes back on Jesus. There's your solution right there today.
[00:35:22] Come on, take it off your marriage that's struggling. Take it off your business that's floundering. Take it off your children that may be maybe causing problems. Take it off the person that's picking on you. Take it off your finances, take it off.
[00:35:38] Fill in the blank.
[00:35:39] Put your eyes on Jesus.
[00:35:44] Recalibrate, recalibrate.
[00:35:51] Therefore, since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, keep our eyes closed for throw off everything that hinders.
[00:35:59] Come on, there's an action there.
[00:36:03] The sin that so easily entangles and run with perseverance.
[00:36:08] The race marked out for us. Fixing our eyes on Jesus.
[00:36:13] There we go.
[00:36:15] The pioneer, the perfecter of our faith.
[00:36:22] Listen to this. For the joy set before him. This is his fixed point.
[00:36:26] He endured the cross scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of God.
[00:36:36] Jesus never lost sight of the main thing. Crowds couldn't distract him.
[00:36:43] Satan couldn't distract him.
[00:36:45] Come on, Peter. Couldn't distract him.
[00:36:48] The cross was always in view. You were always in his mind and in his heart. Your face was the face that he was looking into as he telescoped through the cross to his destiny to see you safe in heaven with your Father who loves you.
[00:37:12] The question isn't whether Jesus kept the main thing. The main thing. The question is, have you, Father, in Jesus name, right now I pray that we will bring you back to the center. Come on, join with me. You don't need me to lead you in this. Just join in with your own words. We want to put you back in the center.
[00:37:36] We want you, Lord, central to everything.
[00:37:40] We want you, Jesus, to be the biggest thing in our life. We want you, Lord, to be our primary point of vision.
[00:37:49] We don't want to see the obstacles or the giants in the land. Lord, we want to see you central today. Strip away the secondary things. Come on.
[00:38:00] You're going to have to let some stuff go. By the way, you're going to have to let it go Strip away the secondary stuff Lord the stuff that's consuming my time the stuff that's taking my energy the stuff that's been wearing my mind out at night the stuff that's been waking me up in the dark watches Lord strip that stuff away. Bring me back Bring me back to the place of peace and joy restore to me the joy of my soul you today Jesus I come back to you I refocus my heart on on your glory today Lord I place you on the throne again your will, your purpose my destiny my joy my life I give my life to you afresh this day in this house I love you Lord and I worship you Jesus with everything I have and I pray you'd remind me of this moment every day of my life until the day I stand before you for Christ and Christ alone is my mission, my love, my passion my desire in Jesus name I pray this prayer and all God's people said amen.
