Where Is Our Focus?

In Murfreesboro this morning, so much of the conversation seemed to be around... we seem to be in a stage where whatever one crisis is going on before it's even over, another crisis has spawned and then another crisis has spawned, and it just... things seem to be spinning out of control. And one person made a point that... I thought it was a good point. I've said it to my wife many times. In fact, I've said it to a number of people.

This is different than most crises that have happened in my lifetime, and that is, it's happening all over the world at the same time. Now, you could find that happening in 1930s that led up to World War II. So, I mean, it brought about almost the destruction of civilization from World War II. So, that's the last time that you could really see the massive things happening all over the world. And, of course, they don't even... they're not coordinated. They're just happening in this crazy, unrelated insanity. We live in the asylum, and the inmates have taken over the asylum.

Now, there's a lot of... that last statement actually has a lot of truth to it. You and I live in an asylum, and the inmates have taken over the asylum. And the inmates aren't just people. The inmates aren't just people. So, the question is, as we go through this, the new set of crises that we're having... and there's been a couple times my wife and I, she's brought stories to me, and I've seen them, and we've almost... I mean, it gets to the place where you don't know whether to be angry, you don't know whether to cry.

One was a woman who... and I forget what city it was in, but one of the riots broke out. And she was a black lady, and she had her own business. And she was standing in front of her shop that had been totally destroyed in ransacked. And she said, what did I do? Why did people destroy my business? What did I do? Another case was it was in one of the riots and a man had been knocked down. I don't know, it looked like maybe a middle-aged white man had been knocked down.

And someone had filming it because he had passed out. Some people had hit him and he fell down. And the crowd moved on. And a 14-year-old white boy out of nowhere runs up and kicks him in the head. He doesn't know. The man's in critical condition. They don't know if he's going to survive. And no one knows why. I mean, these are acts with no purpose, no meaning. But I've told this story, I know to some of you, because it made such an impact on me as a kid.

My grandmother said that when she had moved from Pennsylvania back in the 1930s to San Antonio, Texas, there was a sort of a neo-Nazi rally going on, an outside rally. And it was not a big group, but you know, there was actually a Nazi party in the United States in the 1930s. And there was this group of Nazis, and they were having some kind of rally, and hundreds of other people had come to protest against them. And it got more and more intense. And she said it broke out into a riot. I mean, people were hitting each other, they were throwing rocks at each other. And she said, I remember she said, I don't know what happened to me.

She says, I just got so excited. She says, I was watching it because she was just there as a young person to see what was going on, you know, onlookers. There's going to be this demonstration, so lots of people came along. She said, pretty soon, I reached down, I picked up a walker through a window. And she says, to this day, I don't know why I did it. She said, there was just this feeling.

And I just lost control. She said, and then someone said, the Rangers are coming. Now, Texas Rangers, they all have to be over six feet tall. They're all big men. And she said, people start screaming and running. And she says, I looked down the street and she said, there were six Rangers walking abreast, just walking towards the crowd. She said, Nazis, anti-Nazis, onlookers, it didn't matter.

Everybody ran away. Six men walking towards the crowd. Everybody ran away. But it was interesting how she described it. And I was a kid at the time, and she told that story to me two or three times. She said, it just came over me. She says, I don't know why I threw a rock through a window.

There is a spirit that is affecting all of us, it's affecting all of us. We're all fighting it in one degree or another. It's anger. It's angst.

We just, you know, why are people doing what they're doing? What's wrong with our judicial system? I mean, just what in the world is wrong? And of course, it doesn't help if you try to keep up with politics because, once again, the inmates are in charge of everything, and all they do is fight with each other. And it leaves us in a state of anxiety that if we're not careful, we'll begin to motivate how we think and treat other people. There's an old saying, and over the years, I've never been able to find out who actually said it. You know, it's famous enough to be on, you know, books of old quotes or on the internet, but no one knows who originally said it. It's, what consumes your thoughts controls your life. Let me ask you something, because my wife and I have talked about this. We've talked about how irrational sometimes we'll do something, or say something, or just, I don't know, in the last few months, my life hasn't been near as restrictive as your life has for some of you. Some of you have been able to work and do, I mean, I've been working more from home, but I'm still, you know, especially the last couple of weeks I've been out, you know, I've been on some anointings. Of course, I had to go up and do television. I went down to the post office. I keep mentioning that because that was the highlight of my day, to go down and talk to the girl at the post office counter, because that was a fun thing to do.

But, you know, I would wear my mask in when I went to the grocery store, because the first time I went in and didn't wear one, I saw the fear in people's eyes. So I started wearing it. I thought, wow, you know, I thought this was optional, but I'm not going to scare anybody. So I wore it. And, you know, of course, there were times I needed to wear it. When I got my hair cut, I understand that man wants to be protected, and I should wear it. So I did it. So I'm not against mass, but I'm just saying the fear is in people's eyes.

There's something fundamentally changing in the world, and it's a spirit.

And my questions for you today is what has been consuming your thoughts?

What is the focus of your energy? What have you been feeling emotionally?

I just thought of that poor woman standing in front of her business. I said, what did I do? You know, why would someone destroy my business?

I don't get a business of ours, but, you know, just a little...she was the owner.

Why is it that this is going on? What's your center? What's your focus? You know, focus is an interesting word. We use it all the time. We generally know what it means. The focus is to be able to actually see a center of activity or attention. It literally means a point of concentration. In other words, there's a point. There's all kinds of other stuff, but there's a point of concentration. That's where your focus is.

You know, I love binoculars. I have one of these...they call them autofocus. They're really not autofocus. It means that if you hold them up and your eyes are somewhat normal for about 60 yards, it just focuses itself. No, farther than that, or if you have bad eyes, it's not going to focus. And, of course, a good pair of binoculars, you focus it, right? You look through them, and it's blurry. But you're trying to look at a bird that's maybe a cardinal sitting in a tree. And you focus a little bit. What you got is a red blob, you know, with green around it. You keep focusing, focusing, focusing. Pretty soon, there it is, 50 yards away. You can see a cardinal. Boy, it can be so clear, and you can see all the leaves very clear. And it's focused in. And you're looking at the cardinal, and everything else in the foreground and background is what? Out of focus. You have a point of concentration. And you have that point of concentration.

Well, we're in a world that doesn't have any solutions.

This crisis will run its course, I don't know exactly what it is.

And the next crisis will come.

I don't mean this to be negative. There's a reality that as the world goes in the direction it's going, everything that happens is going to create another chaos someplace, another crisis someplace. And that crisis will spill over. Because the whole world's got connected along the way.

And so, one crisis here is going to spill over here and spill over here. Look what happened when Russia grabbed the control of the oil industry, I mean the price of oil, grabbed the oil supplies. Suddenly we were happy because gas was down. And then everybody began to realize the oil companies eventually can't afford in the United States to give us that gas at that price. Or they'll go out of business. And it was a game going on that we almost lost. Power shifts. Everything that's happening today is going to create a next crisis. And this crisis that we're in now, whether it's the social unrest or the COVID-19, which nobody really knows how to explain, right? There's a hundred ways it's explained. Even when these sort of settle out some, and we maybe start to settle back into what we think is normalcy. Oh, can't we just get back to normal? Remember after 9-11? Oh, we could just get back to normal. Well, after a couple of wars, various uprisings, destruction of a couple of countries, and hundreds of thousands of deaths, we never actually went back to normal. We just accepted the new normal. That's all we did. We accepted the new normal. This is going to create a new normal until the next crisis comes along. The whole world has been destabilized. The more destabilized it is, the more a crisis that would even be a blimp on the radar, at some point in history, will spill over to someplace else. I guess the primary example of that is when a group of anarchists were in the Baltic states trying to overthrow the governments, and one of them shot a state official who was there from another country, so they declared a war on each other. Now, that doesn't seem like that big a deal, except one of them had a pact with Germany, and the other one had a pact with Russia.

Willie and Nikki, that's what they called each other because you see the Czar and the Kaiser were cousins, as was the Queen of England. They were all cousins. And Willie and Nikki sent telegrams of each other saying, don't do this! But I have to! I have an agreement, but I have an agreement with them! You mobilize, I mobilize! And they both mobilized. And then France and England said, oh, sorry, we have a pact with Russia. They mobilize, we're going to come against Germany. So Germany attacked France. Now, you think, why in the world did Germany attack France in the first world war? Well, I just explained the convoluted way it got there, because they looked at the French army and said, you're the best arm, biggest army, we've got to knock you out first. They had no intention to originally attack France. And of course, within four years, after millions and millions of men were killed and millions of civilians, we had that epic Spanish flu epidemic that killed off tens of millions. And all happens because some guy, some mentally ill anarchist, runs up and shoots the archduke of Ferdinand in the head.

Now, you think that is a convoluted way to get someplace. Today's world is much more complex, much more faster. So what am I trying to say? First of all, I'm not saying, let me explain what's happening. I can't, because I don't know what's going to happen next. It's the nice thing about being a historian. I love going back and figure out what happened after it happened. During the major events of history, most people have no idea what's happening. They don't know what's happening. They're just going along.

So why am I saying this? Because the mental health of our country has been damaged, and psychologists are saying there's more and more and more people wanting now to go in, and you know, because they need therapy. The suicide rate has gone up, and it has affected the people in the church. I know, not everybody, but I know from the conversations I've been having. Of course it has. The more isolated you are, the more your life seems out of control. Because why? We have no control over so much, because we don't.

In the end, sometimes who's doing what and who's maneuvering this? Actually, it doesn't matter. We have no control. So what do we do? Well, just like that parabenocula. So I'm going to talk about pinpointing focal points. Focal points where everything else might be fuzzy, but there's something right in the center that's absolutely clear. This sort of ties into the sermonette. Now, you all know what I'm going to say next. So I'll just ask you. You'll all say it a little different, but it'll mean the same thing. Our first focal point is stay focused on what? God, Kingdom, Christ. Yeah. Yeah. See, you know it. So I could just go sit down.

We all know it, but doing it is something else. Doing it is something else. How do we do it? You know, there's something interesting in Hebrews 12. I want to go to Hebrews 12 because we miss the little bit of impact of these two verses because we don't see it in the context of Hebrews 11. I get really inspired by Hebrews 11. And you read how these great men and women of faith, and they stood up and they did what was right, and God did miracles through them.

But this is the lead-in to chapter 12. But I want to pick it up in verse 32. Okay, verse 32. Of Hebrews 11, as the lead-in to what we're going to read here in chapter 12. What more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, and of David and Samuel the prophets, who through faiths of dude kingdoms worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, and of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, and women received their dead, raised through life again, and I'm like, yep, that's what I want to be.

That's what I want to be. I'm inspired now. You know, give me my army to lead.

Oh, but let's go on. Others were tortured, not accepting a deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. So others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sold, and two were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth. Wait a minute. Yeah, yeah, I'm ready. I'm ready to go seduce some kingdom, God. Let me at it. To be tormented and live in a cave? Yes.

That's also part of the faith chapter. The people whose faith was not immediately rewarded, and they suffered horribly for it. Now, why do I... wow, it's bringing out all the negatives. No, I'm saying that. You and I can't somehow rest on an assumption that the good old days that we've had will just continue exactly the way they were. They're going to go back. I mean, the stock market's already going back, right? They're predicting it was just a V-slump.

I may actually get some of my retirement back. But it doesn't matter. I didn't have much in there anyway, so it kept me out of living under a bridge for maybe three months. That was it. And it's now, maybe it'll come back or not. Who knows?

But as the world destabilizes, the historical pattern is that crises will get worse and worse and worse, and people will act worse and worse and worse. And there'll be little areas of, what are sort of level off, a new normalcy of form. Just like after 9-11, we got to a new normalcy of American troops in Afghanistan all the time, and some of the other problems in the Middle East. And then all of a sudden, the new normalcy was Russia is fighting in Syria. They haven't been in Syria since what? Oh, 1970s? 1980s? The new normalcy wasn't normal, but we all got so used to it we didn't even realize what was happening. We didn't realize what was happening. Because why? Because the new Chevys were coming out. And because, you know, even I can afford every once in a while to go to Outback Steakhouse.

See? So our new normalcy, we just settled into it. It wasn't normal. It wasn't the way it was before that event. So he says, just remember, some people, Daniel was saved from the lions. Of course, in 70 AD, which was written after this, some of the people were fed to the lions by the Romans and died.

Same faith. That's what we pick up now in chapter 12. Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight. And the sin was so easily ensnares us and let us run with the endurance race that is set before us. Let's run with endurance. I want to run with endurance in working righteousness and obtaining promises. I want to run with that. I don't want to run with wearing sheepskins. But that may be the run you and I have to race. A race you and I have to run. I didn't have any coffee this afternoon.

That may be the race you and I have to run. Right? Okay. Should that scare us a little bit? Do we have to deal with reality? Yes. What's our focal point? Focal point is God. We all said it. Kingdom of God is God. It's okay, but how do we do that? Well, in this context, here's how we do it, verse 2. Looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. He says, you want to understand how we deal with this? You look at Jesus Christ. And we can say, yes, look at all the times He resurrected people. Look at all the miracles. That's true. But He says, look at the death, his torture, his shame.

Stripped, possibly totally naked, hung up so people can look at Him while He's bleeding out. The shame of this. Look at everything He went through. It says, now remember, He did that for you. Our focal point, then, is we go to God because God, Christ takes us there, and we look at Christ's example of how to focus in on God. We see His example of how to focus in on God. He says, so look at Him. It's a focal point. You've got your spiritual binoculars on, and you're putting everything in focus, and what we're supposed to focus on is Him saying, come, I'll take you to God.

You know, if you've ever been at a downtown area, like in downtown Nashville, where they have horse-drawn wagons. You ever see those for people, tourists? You notice most of the time, the horses have blinders on. They have blinders on so that they can only see. Their vision is really limited.

I've often wondered about that. I mean, it makes sense. You don't want them looking at traffic and things. I mean, you want them focused in. But the horse's eyes... Now, some of you may know a lot about horses more than I do because I just started reading this this week as I was starting to think about this. Their eyes are quite different than say our eyes. First thing, you think about a horse with a very large face, and the eyes are on the side. I mean, looking right out in front is actually not that easy for them, you know, to find a focal point right out in front of them. But, boy, they could see everything around them. In fact, I've read where they've actually tested horses. This was a reputable source. It was some, you know, horse farm that raised horses. But their eyes could roll back so far that their vision could almost be like they're looking behind them.

Now, I don't mean exactly right behind them, but they could see, you know, our peripheral vision is pretty here, right? Theirs goes way back here, way back here. And the way their eyes are designed, the only way they could figure out is their eyes are designed to interact with their brain, to make sure they weren't being attacked by a predator. And you think about it, it's a pretty big predator that's going to try to bring down a horse. So you think about how horses are skittish.

In fact, afterwards, Mr. Kunkel came up to me and said, you know, he says, I used to ride my dirt bike out of the park, and he said there were horse trails. And he said, you always had to stop when you saw horses coming along. Because if you buzzed by, you know, past their trail, they could just throw the riders run all crazy all over the place. Something's happening, they don't understand, and their first brain reflex is you either fight or run away.

So anybody here know much about horses? Oh, okay. Well, I say, because I'd like to find out more. I have to read some more about it. But they put the blinders on them because any movement, you know, I read where one of the problems they have even with a trained horse, a trained horse can, where the rider can be riding along and a plastic bag blow across their vision, and it'll literally either run or jump up and throw the rider off. Not because they're trying to get rid of the rider, it's because it's all a plastic bag, and it took them a while to figure out what it was. We can imagine with cars and stuff going by. So they put the blinders on them. They give them a focal point. And it's not only does that calm them down, but they tend to respond to the person who's, you know, driving the wagon. They actually respond to them more, because, okay, I'm calm. You're taking care of me. Let's go. Because they are a remarkable animal in how they respond to human beings.

And of course, you guide a horse with reins. I've already been horseback riding a couple times, you know, when I was a kid, when I was younger. I don't remember too much about it, you know, except it was sort of cool that you pulled one way and you pulled the other way. Then sometimes you would pull one way and you'd go the way you wanted to. You know, it realized you have no idea what you're doing. It was smart enough to figure that out. But, you know, you use the reins and it was attached to the bit. And he's actually good riders. I've seen cowboys at the rodeos take and just touch the rein on the side of the neck, and the horse does exactly what they want. Or they're guiding it with their knees. They're using their knees and their weight. And that horse is just doing amazing things. So the reins are important. Now, I want you to go to Jeremiah 17, because the horse has to, and in many cases with these wagons, they have to have blinders on to keep them focused. And then they have to trust the person with the reins. Jeremiah 17.

verse 10. Jeremiah 17, 10, I the Lord search the heart. I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. Now, that's actually a very good translation of that. You'll find most translations in English will translate it this way.

The Jewish Publication Society translates it very similar to this. Most translations, this is what they say. That's not what the old King James said. That's not how they translated it. But you have to think of a world in where everybody...transportation is you walk, you ride a horse, you know, or you might ride your cow in, or, you know, in the town, or whatever. But you ride a horse, you rode a horse. Horses did everything. And here's how this is translated in the old King James. You have to put them in their world to understand why they did this.

I the Lord search the heart. I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. I'm not sure that he tests people's minds. I'm not sure in the early 1600s if that would have been an understandable concept for the average person. But try the reins they understood. God is the driver, and God is telling the horse what to do. He's testing the horse to see if it'll do what it's been trained to do, what it's supposed to do. And that's why they did it that way. So today we say, well, God, test the mind. I love that, even though that's not the exact translation, I like that translation. He tries the reins. You know, whoa, whoa, whoa, where are you going? Slow down, you know. Go left. He's taking you where you're supposed to go.

We need to understand that we have to have these spiritual focal points, like Christ leading us to God. That example shows us how to live. Not anything in the world. Not anything in the world. That shows us where to go. That's a focal point. And God has a blind...he puts these blinders on us, and then he guides us where he wants us to go. There's a comfort in that. I didn't realize horses also have so many different personalities. I knew that some. But some actually feel really like being guided. Others don't. Some like being guided. They like, okay, put the blinder on me, guide me, and you know, I do what I'm supposed to do. That's the kind of spirit God wants from us.

So that's our first focal point. Stay focused on God through Christ who's showing us how to do that. The second one. The second one is in Mark chapter 2.

Because there's something else that's happening in our society that I don't know where it's going to go.

Mark chapter 2.

I believe, and at least when you look at the prophecies, the whole world before Christ returned has become more and more hard-hearted. It's going to be a hard-hearted world. It's going to be a world of hatred.

It's going to be a world of power. It's not going to be, you know, it's not going to be everybody working together and singing kumbaya. That's not what's going to happen. And there will be persecution on the church, it says.

But here I want you to look at a very interesting example of something that happened in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Mark chapter 2. And again, Jesus entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that he was in the house, and immediately many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And he preached the word to them.

So I want you to think about it. He goes into this house. It's a stone house. There's big windows with shutters. There's doors. The shutters are open. There's no glass. The shutters are open. The doors are open. People pack every room. They're sitting on the window seals. They're outside the doors, out into the area around the house, probably out into the street. People walk along saying, what's going on now? Jesus is talking. And they're gathering up, and all these just this crowd is getting bigger and bigger as he's in the center of this house talking. Then they came to him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. And when they could not come near him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed in which the paralytic was lying.

Jesus Christ is our intercessor with God. He's the only intercessor we need in terms of salvation.

But we need a focal point that isn't ourselves. If our focal point is God, with Christ leading us there, our next focal point is the household of God. And this is an incredible example. They just didn't intercede. You know, we can't get you to Jesus. We're going to go pray about it. I want you to think about, excuse me, excuse me, four men with a bed. Okay. Well, I don't need to go to a bed. Taking it through a crowd, getting to the house. Some guy had to climb up, help another guy up, and they laid... this guy, they had to strap him to the bed and hollymop... maybe they had a few ropes. Holl him up to the top of the house. Jesus is talking, and you know, pretty soon nobody's listening to him because everybody's sort of looking up. There's dust coming off the ceiling, and all of a sudden a hole appears in the roof. These guys have hacked a hole in the roof. They yell down, they look down, and now the bed comes down into the house. That is intercession. Would we do that for each other?

Would you do that for each other?

Or as crisis after crisis happens, do we simply look at each other and sort of judge each other? Well, you know, you don't have enough faith. Yeah, you don't understand this the way I understand. You don't do this. You don't do that. And pretty soon what we're doing, we're not taking someone to Christ. See, the problem is that we're not interceding for God, but sometimes we need carried God, folks. We need to carry each other sometimes. That's what the household of faith is.

That's what it is. We carry each other.

Are we willing to do this for each other? Do we pray for each other? You know, here's—I want to read something about what do you have to do to get your name in the Bible? Okay. Colossians, you got to do some pretty important things, right? Maybe bring down a kingdom, or turn water in the wind, or—what do you have to do? Heal a blind man like John and Peter did. Then you get your name in the Bible, right? Paul is writing to the Church of Colossae, and he says in verse 12 of chapter 4, Epaphras, who is one of you—he's one of the members of the Church of Colossae—a bondservant of Christ, greet you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has a great zeal for you and those who are in land to see you in Ariopolis. Here's a man who's known for what? Praying for people. And he's known he has a zeal for the people of God, not only in his home Church of Colossae, but a lady to see in Ariopolis. Now, they weren't real far from each other, but you know, they weren't just next door to each other either. This man's famous in three churches. You knew if you couldn't get there, Epaphras was going to organize three other guys and carry you. That's what you knew. That's the kind of guy he was. That's what we have to be for each other. We have to be a focal point here. We can't let the world and all of its troubles and its hatred and its injustices. We can't let that affect us. We can't. Our focal point has to be we are the household of God.

Now, the local congregation, but all the people of God around the world are the household of God. And I know that's why. I'm going to say it. Mr. Frankie didn't want to say Facebook, but I know that's why he was bothering him. And the household of God, we don't treat each other in certain ways. We don't.

This man prayed. You know, the more time you spend in heartfelt prayer for others, it changes who you are. For one thing, your problems don't seem as bad.

Now, there's been a couple of times over the last couple of months I felt sort of sick about something that didn't feel well, and I was praying to God, you know, oh, whoa, I don't feel good, you know, and I need some help here. And you know what popped into my mind? Lori Breedlove. I was ashamed.

Do we understand? Are we just all over the place? Well, I read this on the internet, which I would guess 75%... No. 75% of what's on the internet is either not true or only partly true or has a spin to it. The other 25% are probably, like, baseball scores.

I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. I'm not saying everything's bad. I'm not saying anything's wrong. I'm just saying we have to be careful. The amount of information is enormous. And fitting that information together so you know exactly what's happening is difficult. Now, we're all trying to do that. I'm not saying that's wrong, but I'm saying it should never affect the way we treat each other. Unless your focal point is not God and your focal point is the house of God, if your focal point is over here, then that will be your focal point. You understand? I'm talking about these as their focal points.

I mean, James even said we should tell each other our sins. Now, let's say we all confess our sins to each other. The point he was making is we should be close enough at times to be able to share with each other some of the things we're going through or what we've done in the past so that we're actually helping each other. You know, John said something at first that he wrote in 1 John chapter 1. 1 John chapter 1.

You know who? He's not in town, so I don't know. He would be upset if I said this. But you know who is a man that understands intercessory prayer probably, I think, better than anybody I've ever met. It's Fred Keller. You ask that man to pray for you. He prays for you, and he continues to pray for you. He intercedes. I mean, he doesn't intercede like Christ, but I'm praying. I'm praying for my brother. I'm praying for my sister, and he means it when he doesn't. It's a remarkable thing about him. 1 John 1.5. John says, This is the message which we have heard from him and declare to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. In other words, if we live wicked lifestyles, if you commit a sin and you repent, you're still in the light. Because it's the light that shows you you sinned. But he says, if we're just sinning, we're living a lifestyle that we know it's against God, but we're sort of pretending we're right with God. He says, you're actually living in darkness.

Now, verse 7, But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

If we are in the light, we desire and want and will have fellowship with other people in the light. That's what he says. You see, the idea of the independent Christian. It's just you and me, Lord. I'm okay. I keep Sabbath by myself at home. I don't need anybody else. It's me and God, because I'm working out my own salvation with fear and trembling.

I've had people say that to me over the years, and I've never said this, but it's often entered in my mind. I think I hear what you're saying, but I don't see a lot of fear and trembling.

The Church is part of the Gospel message. We had a split sermon on that here in the last couple weeks. It's part of the Gospel message. If we're focused in on God, we have to be focused in on each other, because that's what this says. If you have fellowship with Him, you will have fellowship with each other. Now, we have to be careful, because we have all kinds of fellowship with all the people we like and all our friends, and say, oh yeah, I've got 20 friends at church. But what about true religion? James said true religion is to visit the widow and the orphan. That's true religion. Do we do that? I keep trying, and I have to say, there were people in the last three months I tried to call. There were some people I called a lot, because I knew they were struggling. But I think of the 60 or so people I called regular, and then I think of the people I didn't call. And I'm sorry I didn't call you. I really am. The more I thought about it, I thought, okay, I think they're not in trouble. They're okay, but I still should call them just because I miss them. In fact, there were times I would be sitting at my desk working, and I'd suddenly think, what else is so-and-so doing? And I'd pick up the phone and I'd just call them, because I just wondered what else they're doing. But see, they're not on my list because, well, I know they're okay, they're strong. If they need something, they'll call me. But after a while, I started to miss everybody. I was like, no, I want to see how so-and-so is doing. And I do apologize. I never called everybody, because I thought you were okay. But you know what? Being okay isn't the point, is it? Being okay isn't the point.

And then some of you called us. You know, first time I picked up the phone, someone said, hey, I just want to see how you're doing. And I thought, well, that's odd. Oh, yeah, they want to know how I'm doing. How's Kim? Well, usually they want to know how Kim's doing. How's Kim doing? Fine, you want to talk to her? Yeah, let me talk to her.

So, we look at this and we see this kind of, this focal point. Because you know what?

There's no food. I hope that never happens to us. I hope there's things that happen to keep us from having to go through that. But there's lots of times in Christianity where they had real, real problems. They had to hide. They had to leave their homes.

I hope we can count on each other. Because that's what we're supposed to do.

The last point. Oh, by the way, you know, in Hebrews 10, I just want to mention this, where it talks about the assembling of ourselves together. Now, we understand that's coming together for Sabbath services. We're commanded to do that. But read those two verses. The reason we do it is to stir each other up. The reason we do it is to help each other and to consider one another. It is not just to come and hear a message. That's part of it, but it's not all of it. It is something that's supposed to happen between us.

The last point I want to make is really explain in Acts chapter 8. Let's go to Acts chapter 8.

In the early New Testament church, Saul, who would become the apostle Paul, had just given permission to kill Stephen, a deacon in the church.

You know, I can't imagine what's a deacon or an elder, just any member of the church that we may face someday, the first time we hear someone that was killed because they had to be a member of this church. We've never had to face that. So verse 1 says, though Saul was consenting to his death, and at that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. I want you to think what that just means there. At one point there were 3,000 people baptized in one day. That's not the children. That's the people who were baptized. We hear over and over again, many were baptized and many were baptized and many were added. I don't know what the membership of the Jerusalem church was, but I would guess 6,000, 7,000? It was in the thousands. This is all big churches of mega church. And they're being so persecuted that they had to leave their homes and run away. They were scattered. Because look what was happening to them. Verse 2, And developed men who carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. They had to leave their city. They had to go out and try to find, move in with other people. They had to go try to start life over again. Or get out and just maybe camp out and hope they could go back. That's how terrible this is. They've gone from thousands of people every Sabbath to them. They've just been scattered all over the place. So what did they do? What's their focal point? Hide. Be afraid. What's our focal point? What are they supposed to do? Now they didn't say, here, kill me. They obviously left the situation so they wouldn't die. But notice what they're doing. Verse 4, Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.

Well, Satan didn't have to contend with Stephen and Philip and 12 apostles anymore. He had thousands of them.

God had just multiplied the people out telling everybody about the truth. There were thousands of them doing it.

We should be so focused on God and then who we are as the people of God that we're looking for every opportunity, what it's given to us, to tell people about God, about what it is to be part of the people of God.

That's what we should be talking about. We're the only people who have a good message.

Who else has a message of hope? Everybody else has a message of confusion. I mean, the politics, everything in this country is just confusion.

We have the message that says God is there. I can tell you who God is. It's the God of the Bible. I can tell you who Jesus Christ is.

I can tell you about His sacrifice. I can tell you about His return to set up God's kingdom on this earth. And I can tell you who you are. You were made to be a child of God, and right now He wants you to become His child. And boy, it's a challenge because you're going to have to leave the world. You have to leave the world and become part of the people of God. That's our message. That's what you and I should share with everybody every chance we get.

We're the only people who got it.

Even the average Christian has lost that message out there. They used to have bits and pieces of it. A few still do. Most of them don't even have bits and pieces anymore. I was reading an article yesterday from a Christian blogger. It has a big following that you have to realize the Bible has nothing to do with God. We have to just be like Jesus. And it explained what it meant to be Christ like. It had nothing to do with Christ. So there was a whole new definition of words you have to understand. And in that theology, there's no concept that Jesus would be sacrificed for our sins. Only an evil God would do that. Being like Jesus means love. Love your neighbor, love everybody, and be nice. And then I read another article about being like Jesus means we should write in the street and beat up people. Because that's, remember, he threw the money changers out. So what we should do is rise up and throw out all the politicians. It's not exactly what Jesus did. See what I mean? It's all being redefined. It's all being redefined. We have the message. You have the message. And instead of being so embroiled in everything, we should be the ones giving out the only truth that's out there. Every chance. Now, I don't mean we're trying to proselyte and, you know, but I tell you, the opportunities are going to come up. The opportunities are going to come up.

Remember, I said what consumes your thoughts controls your life.

We can focus in on God. Our thoughts are there. We focus in on the people of God. Our thoughts are there. We focus in on sharing this message when every opportunity comes. And that's a lot right there. I want to finish with a passage here in 1 Timothy.

1 Timothy. Paul was writing to Timothy, and he was afraid he was going to be delayed. He wasn't going to be able to to see him. He really wanted to see him. He was training Timothy to be a minister and sending him out to work with different churches. 1 Timothy 3 verse 14.

These things I write to you, Paul says to Timothy, though I hope to come to you shortly, but I am delayed. I write to you so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God. He says, I really want to teach you more how to act among the people of God and how you exert leadership, which is the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.

Okay, so without controversy, he says, let me tell you what, there should be no argument over in the church. He said, this is the message that brings us a focal point. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, and received up in glory. I'm very careful. I don't want to add to Paul, but I would add two things to this list. That through the Holy Spirit is your guide and power in your life today, and is returning in the future to establish God's kingdom on this earth. A pretty good list.

There should be no controversy over that. That's a focal point. Everything else is fuzzy around it, but that one is not fuzzy.

That's not fuzzy, and your life can be different today. But before you and I can tell somebody that, our lives have to be different today. Before we can tell somebody, don't let everything in this world drag you into it. We have to make sure we're not being dragged into it.

We need these focal points. I think this crisis will let up. A certain amount of normalcy will sort of start again.

But you know, there's interesting experience we had this week. Darris and Steve and I were working on our television programs, and we had been working on different ideas. We had some meetings where we ran through some ideas and we were all sort of all over the place. And then we sat down this week and said, okay, here's my basic outline. Here's what I'm going to cover. And each of us went through and detailed our programs. And all three of them were about the message of Amos.

All three of them!

God's message to ancient Israel through Amos was, here's your problems. You're in a land without justice. You're a land of greed and wealth and power, but people are suffering. You're in a land where you have a great army and you've conquered all your enemies.

You're in a land that believes all your blessings come from God. And you're a land that God is going to punish.

That's His message.

And all three of us, all different viewpoints, I mean different angles, and all different parts of Amos. But we had, it's like, wow, we just did the whole book of Amos.

That's the message.

Not turn to God, by the way. Our message isn't, United States, turn to God and get rain in due season.

That's the Old Testament message to Israel. God's message today is not just to Israel, it's to everybody. Repent to become part of the household of God. God's not offering national repentance to the United States so that somehow, if the United States repented, what? The tribulation wouldn't happen? Oh, now, yeah, let's forget everything that is prophesied in the book of Revelation.

There is no national repentance that's preached. What is preached is to people and to nations, and it's to the world that says, repent, come out of this, and be part of the household of God. If we're the household of God, and we really are the household of God, how can we not tell people that?

How can we not love that? How can we not have that, the focal point of our lives? But see, we get lost because, you know, I was upset that Ford wasn't making the new Taurus anymore. I like the Taurus. I was upset because, you know, the price of hamburger went up.

I was upset because, no matter what I do, I can't kill all the weans in my yard. I'm being a little facetious, but you understand what I'm saying.

Our focal points have been too physical.

Christians must focus on God through Christ, so we're not overwhelmed with what's happening. Christians must focus on loving and being the household of God, because if we have fellowship with Him, we will have fellowship with each other. That's what John said. And we must be willing, as Christians, to have a focal point of passing this on any way we can when we're with somebody who needs it, who's open to it, not to somebody who's not, of sharing it. Because if not, our Christianity becomes very, very selfish. Oh, good. Let's all get together. 120 of us have a nice potluck. Isn't it wonderful? But God wants us to have more than that. God wants us to do His work. And it's more than a television program. It's more than a television program. It's sharing ourselves with other people. So in this time of this crisis, which sort of maybe is maybe sort of coming closer to an end, and already spawning the spin-off of the next crisis, which will spawn the spin-off of the next crisis, before we settle into our new normal and get real comfortable in that, let me ask you a question. Where is your focus?