What Are You Focused On? (Jake Enns)

Our sermon title this morning is What are You Focused On?

Sometimes life just gets hard, doesn't it?

So many things piling up all around us.

It's just hard to keep focus in my sermon preparation when I sit

there and read and study and meditate and think.

I think of all kinds of scenarios in the church that go

on, for instance, a stay at home mom throughout the week, little

ones clinging to her knees and she's got something in the stove

and she's got the washer and the dryer going and the phone stuck

to her ear and making appointments with the doctor.

You know, you get what I'm talking about.

And never ending continuing cycle of things to do and it

just doesn't seem to stop, right.

Or maybe you're the coffee shop waiting in line person behind

the counter, desperately trying to make sure that the the line

keeps going and keep filling the cups and serving the customers.

And then somebody from the back just shoves forward and you gave

me the wrong latte latte, whatever that is.

And and they want some change. And I just happened to me

yesterday is watching this person behind the counter, felt

sorry for this individual. Doing your very best and of

course, mistakes happen and then trying to focus so hard on

getting everything right and somebody just that we're not

mean about it, but also not very polite.

I felt sorry for this person. This story after story.

We can mention whether it's health in the hospital,

complications and work. And you get the idea from all

sides. You feel like so much is

crowding in the stressful situations and problems.

And yeah, it it, it, it tends to distract a person.

Or maybe a bit more on a spiritual level.

Perhaps when you feel life is losing its focus, you just don't

know anymore. Am I still on the right track?

Is life? Life doesn't seem to make sense

anymore. Things don't add up anymore.

Or maybe worse, opportunity comes along.

So attractive, so inviting, so powerful, and so easy.

You start losing your moral compass.

You're not sure about your faith anymore.

You're not sure what direction to go anymore.

And then there's this voice inside you that tells you that

it's OK, you deserve some pleasure, you earned it.

Who will know it's OK? How does one keep focus when

there's so many reasons to just compromise, to check out, take

an exit and escape? One thing we know about Jesus,

when we read the gospels, when we study his word, Jesus always

maintained focus. I don't think there's a single

place in the Bible where we can say, oh, you lost it here, He

got distracted there. No, Jesus never lost focus.

He never got distracted one single time.

We do from time to time at least.

I do have to do course correction.

Jesus never had to do course correction.

But then when I do lose focus, how do I get back?

I have to repent or reshuffle. There's a million things that

can cause this, but Jesus kept focus at all times.

It's safe to say that Jesus always knew what he was about.

At all times, in all places, in every circumstance, He knew what

he was about. This morning we're continuing

our sermon series through the Gospel of Mark.

We started some weeks ago and last Sunday we ended where Jesus

had healed a man on the Sabbath, Chapter 3, verse one to six.

And Jesus had entered the synagogue and there he saw a man

with a withered hand. And the people already kind of

knew what he was up to what what he was doing.

And so what's he going to do this time the Sabbath?

He's going to heal this guy. Jesus is watching that, knows

they're watching him, and he knows what they're thinking.

And then he asked the question, is it right on Sabbath to heal

or is it not right? They don't respond and he's

angry at their callousness, their arrogance, and their

pride. And he reaches out, heals the

man with a withered hand, and they immediately leave.

And they go out and scheme with the Herodians how when we kill

him, verse 6, it says, I'm just repeating a verse from last

week. The Pharisees went out

immediately and plotted with Herodians against him, how they

might destroy him. Did that cause Jesus to lose

focus? No, it didn't phase him in the

least. You see, the difference between

Jesus and the Pharisees was vast.

It was a big difference. You see the Pharisees, they were

rule makers, rule focused, rule keepers, ruling forces, rule

worshippers. They're focused too on the the

wrong thing. In their world, it was all about

rules, and people served rules and worshiped rules.

You existed for the purpose of rules.

Jesus was different. Jesus was a relationship

builder. Relationship focused.

Any rules that existed were a value only in so far as they

were useful for serving people in their worship of God.

Sabbath included. With Jesus it was about

relationships and whatever did not serve that was expendable.

The nature of the Pharisees was different.

Proud, arrogant, legalistic, controlling and forceful.

Jesus was kind, relational, gentle and loving.

Yes, he was confronted. He We will find out that today

as well. You see, it's like this people.

The nature of a person's character always reveals itself

in the time of testing. And Jesus was tested here, but

so were they. This was a test for them as

well. And how do they respond?

I find it interesting how quickly some people have this

mindset of get rid of the competition, get rid of the the

other party, get rid of this so and so.

It's not how God approaches things.

Yes, God does put an end to sin at some point, but he's a

gracious God. He's patient, He loves people,

allows sin to go for a while, trusting, hoping and wanting and

giving people opportunity to repent and return to Him.

And he does not prevent them from sowing their seeds.

He does allow that because we have free choice.

And if you read the history of the Pharisees, while Jerusalem,

Judea in general, Jerusalem was destroyed not too many years

after Jesus left this earth and it was was kind of eliminated.

Temple was destroyed, Jerusalem was destroyed and their way of

worship ended in that location, but the church continued on.

How easily do we lose focus when things do not go our way?

The question is not will we be challenged or not?

The question is what will we do when we are?

When threats come and tests come, we have a choice.

How will we deal with it? Will we look for an escape and

easy Rd. out or what's God teaching us here?

When tests come, that's not the time to become disheartened,

afraid, worried, and paralyzed with fear.

So this morning we're going to read again a lengthy passage of

Scripture. Mark chapter 3, verse 7 to 34.

Mark 3:7–34

It's the end of the chapter and the objective of this passage.

What we want to get out of here is not so much the intricacies

of all the things Jesus did. He did a lot of good stuff and

we could have sermons on that, but more so, the overall view of

how did Jesus handle life? How did he respond to the issues

that he faced? What was his response to life in

general? What was his focus?

So let's read that passage. Mark chapter 3, beginning verse

Mark 3 · chapter mention

7. If you have your Bibles or your

phones, just take them out. Matthew Mark, chapter 3,

Mark 3 · chapter mention

beginning verse 7. But Jesus withdrew his disciples

to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed

him, and from Judea and Jerusalem, Idumea, and beyond

the Jordan, and those from Tyre and Sidon.

A great multitude, when they heard how many things he was

doing, came to him. So he told his disciples that a

small boat should be kept ready for him because of the

multitude, lest they should crush Him.

For he healed many, so that as many as had afflictions pressed

about him to touch him. And the unclean spirits,

whenever they saw him, fell down before him and cried out,

saying, You're the Son of God. But he sternly warned them that

they should not make him known, and he went up on the mountain

and called him those he himself wanted, and they came to him.

Then he appointed 12 that they might be with him, and that he

might send them out to preach and have power to heal sickness

in the cast out demons. Simon, to whom he gave the name

Peter Simon, James the son of Zebedee.

And John the brother of James to me gave the name Bo Nergus, that

is sons of Thunder, Andrew and Philip Bartholomew, Matthew

Thomas. James the son of Alphaeus,

Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanite and Judas Iscariot, who also

betrayed him. And they went into a house.

Then the molded came together again so that they could not eat

so much as eat bread. But when his own people heard

about this, they went out to lay hold of him before they said

he's out of his mind. And the scribes came down from

Jerusalem and said he is Belzibob by the ruler of the

demons. He cast out demons, so he called

him to himself and said to them in parables.

How can Satan cast out Satan? If a Kingdom is divided against

itself, that Kingdom cannot stand.

And if a house is divided against itself, that house

cannot stand. And if Satan has risen up

against himself, he's and is divided, he cannot stand, but

has an end. No one can enter a strong man's

house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong

man, and then he will plunder his house.

Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons

of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter.

But he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never has

forgiveness that the subject, but is subject to eternal

condemnation, because they said He has an unclean spirit.

Then his brothers and his mother came standing outside, they said

sent to him, calling him, and a multitude was sitting around

him. And they said to him, look, your

mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.

But he answered them saying, who's my mother or my brother?

And he looked around in the circle, those who sat around

about him, and said, here are my mother and my brothers, for

whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister and

mother. Thus far, the reading of God's

Word. Again, as I said before, the

objective here is not to look at these individual passages and

pull out the intricacies of it all, but in an overall view, how

did Jesus deal with life? Well, the Pharisees were focused

on criticizing and running down, maligning and tearing down,

plotting his destruction. Jesus did not let that occupy

his mind. He did not let that distract

him. Just think for a moment, we can

choose who we want to reflect. Jesus was focused on serving and

helping and spreading the gospel.

Regardless. The Pharisees were trying to

eliminate, to get rid of Jesus. Jesus had come to fulfill and

complete a mission and His focus was not on what others were

thinking, what they were saying, what they were doing.

He had more important things to deal with.

He was not allowing anything to keep him from focusing on the

mission God had for him. Jesus focused on teaching and

healing. He didn't stay in one area.

He moved around a bit. He became known far and wide

very quickly by modern standards.

Jesus did not even travel far. We must remember that wherever

He walked, He went. He walked.

But news spread fast. The news of his miracles, that

he performed the spread like wildfire.

And it says #7 Jesus withdrew his with his disciples to the

sea, and a great molded from Galilee followed him, and from

Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and beyond the Jordan goes from Tyre

and Sidon and a great multitude. And he heard how many things he

was doing came to This is a massive crowd, the distance from

the points. If you would look at a map on a

online, you would take a take a map from ancient Palestine where

Sidon is up north by the sea and then go down South to this place

called Idumea and then beyond Jordan going to the east.

That's a vast territory. And I checked on Google if it's

accurate. I can't say for sure if it is,

but give or take about 280 kilometers.

So from the top to the bottom of that section plus the width of

it, that's a huge area. All these people came to Jesus.

That's quite a popularity. And Jerusalem as well.

They came. It got so busy.

It says in verse 9 that the disciples, he told his disciples

a small boat should be kept ready for him because the mold

is less. They should crush him.

He was famous. Crowds are eager to come around.

Crowds are eager to get near, to have an have access to them.

They're obsessed with one thing, get close to Jesus.

And I don't blame them like I would too.

I mean especially if you were sick or something.

They wanted to see a miracle or experience a miracle and so

Jesus took some measures to not let things get out of hand.

He wants a boat so he can stay kind of focused and not get

overrun by the crowd and keep on doing what he's doing.

It says in verse 10, he healed many so as many had as

afflictions pressed about him to touch him.

That's all they needed. Unclean spirits whenever they

saw him, fell down before him, cried out saying you're the son

of God. He sternly warns them shouldn't

make him known. They still did.

Jesus kept his mission, his focus on the mission, doing his

work from a human standpoint. I think I would have been

tempted to let this kind of distract me, get to me, maybe,

maybe get people on my side. Maybe I can create a system,

maybe a maybe a movement of some kind.

Hey, there's an opportunity here.

There's a chance. I mean, what better way, right?

His focus was not that. His focus was to bring people

into connection with God. Jesus never followed up any

opportunity to gain control or power over people.

That was not his objective. That was not his mission.

He had not come to be just another earthly leader who was

after numbers and power and fame control.

Jesus focused on what God had sent him for to bring the gospel

to people to heal them. The numbers in the crowds that

was a by product of what his we was doing, what he was

faithfully doing. You see friends, that never

lasts. However, crowds never do.

The only thing that lasts is a relationship and of course, in a

few years from when this started was we read toward the ends of

the gospel. In the end of the gospel, every

gospel tells a story. Jesus was crucified.

It was only a three-year thing. In the end, it doesn't matter

the numbers and the stats. What matters is the

relationships. Jesus had come as God in the

flesh to demonstrate his love for the people to bring people

into relationship only three years and in this three-year

time spent right early on, it's he had another focus and that

was to prepare apostles to help him with the work.

It's noteworthy. It's not that just Jesus does

this alone. He's not a one man show.

He's not a one man worker. Jesus could have made himself

into an idol. It's all about me as a man.

But that was not his focus. He came to do the work, yes, to

teach, yes, to train, yes, but not just by himself.

It says in verse 13 he went up on a mountain and called to him.

Those himself he wanted and they came to him.

Now Mark's a very abbreviated gospel.

It says in verse 14. Then he appointed 12 that they

might be with him, that he might send them out to preach.

We have the list of names that Mark mentions here and and we've

read that, but I want to go out to the to the gospel of Luke and

read Luke's account of how this happened.

And there's Luke's a bit more detailed in Luke chapter 6,

Luke 6:12

verse 12. He says it came to pass in those

days that he went out to the mountain to pray and continued

all night in prayer to God. And when it was his day he

called him disciples to himself, and from them he chose 12 whom

he also named apostles. Simon, whom he also named Peter,

Andrew his brother James and John, Philip, Bartholomew,

Matthew and Thomas. James the son of Alpheus and

Simon called the Zealot Judas the son of James and Judas

Iscariot, who also became a traitor.

Luke mentions that Jesus did this after he prayed all night,

that it tells us how he did it. What's noteworthy here is not

just that he picked some men, but who he picked.

There's a guy in this group named Matthew.

We talked about him last Sunday. His name is Levi in the Hebrew,

I believe, and the Greek would be Matthew, as far as I

understand it. But these, these names are

important. And Simon, these two guys are

important. And if you think about it, you

couldn't have had not have had more opposite personalities than

these two guys. Matthew the tax collector.

Simon the Zealot. They were not friends.

The math, the math, the tax collectors.

They worked for the Romans. Jewish men worked for the

Romans, collecting Texas taxes, collecting money, giving to the

Roman government, and pocketing some of themselves.

Jews did not like these people at all.

Simon the Zealot. He was one of the extremists who

didn't like these people. The Zealots hated Romans, and

humanly speaking, this was a recipe for trouble.

Imagine Jesus would have an HR person.

You know, I'm thinking I'm going to hire myself or get myself

some of the apostles who will follow me.

How about these two? He would say, oh, no, no, no,

no, no, they're enemies. That's a bad formula.

It's a recipe for trouble. See, Jesus chose his disciples

based on what he was focusing on, based on what he wanted them

to become, not what they had been.

His focus was very different. I'm not saying we should never

take a person's past as history into consideration.

Of course we should, because the past always impacts the future.

But in this case here, these men had followed the call.

They were willing to leave everything behind, come to

follow Jesus. Jesus was not focusing where

they've been, He's focusing where he wants them to be.

What Jesus disciples had in common was not their past.

What they had in common was who they're following.

That makes all the difference. These 12 men for the most part

had a very different history, some very checkered history, you

could call it later. However, during the Passover

meal it would come out that they were still not quite aligned.

There was still bickering amongst themselves who should

have what position in the coming Kingdom, which they were sure

Jesus was going to shortly introduce, which he didn't.

He did introduce a Kingdom, but not that one.

Jesus did not focus or dwell on their past.

He focused on where am I taking these guys?

So it's different as they were men like Matthew and Simon the

Simon the Zealot, both were God's chosen vessels of service.

You see, when Christ becomes the focus, what matters to Christ

rises to the top. All other things become less

significant. The question I have is, how

should we do it? How should we lead?

How should we serve? Maybe you're in a place this

morning where you're focusing on your past.

Yep, I done it. I'm all messed up.

Is that what Jesus focusing on? You can be at peace because

Jesus already paid for. That that's paid for doesn't

mean that it won't impact the future.

But that's not your benchmark. That's not your reference point.

Where's Jesus focusing on in your life?

You see, so often we and Jesus don't have the same focus.

Maybe you're focusing in your past.

He's focusing on your future. If he's not focusing on your

past, why are you? When he just called these men,

he didn't want to just have a club, a get together.

He wanted a group of men, a group of disciples, apostles who

were going to carry his message to the corners of the world.

And it wasn't going to be easy. We find to the Gospels that he

often mentions the cross. The journey is not going to be

easy. Jesus did not focus on making

life easy for his apostles. He focused on preparing his

apostles. That's a different focus.

Our culture, we usually want to make things easy, more

convenient, more doable. It's far better nothing.

We should never do anything like that.

We have to prepare ourselves for ministry no matter what comes.

Even though Jesus was doing a lot of ministry and teaching and

healing, He still had to have her deal with the problems that

they were throwing at him. There was opposition didn't turn

a blind eye to it. Even while he did not focus on

what they were doing, He did address it.

And so he exposed and so he focused on exposing the issues.

He's focused on exposing spiritual darkness and

corruption. He did that.

That's a hard one because it's so unpleasant.

It's difficult, causes pain. He exposed the works of darkness

in the hearts of the religious leaders, and not because he

needed to or I need to defend myself or anything like that.

That was not the point. These men needed to see that

they were in the wrong. They were blind, they were

proud, they were arrogant, and the crowd needed to see it.

They were not real. They were religious, but they

were lost. They didn't think that there's

anything wrong with their lives. Jesus was the issue in their

mind. Notice what the people, the

leaders said about him, how they viewed him.

Verse 20, it says the multitude came together again so that they

could not so much as eat bread. But when his own people, his own

people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of him.

We've got to grab him, take him. He's out of his mind.

He's nuts. He's gone, whatever.

And the scribes come down from Jerusalem, they add to this, Oh,

he's got bells above by the ruler of demons.

He casts out demons, just completely Nicks him out.

Just just cancel him, just cut him off his own people.

Maybe there were his friends, his neighbors, doesn't say who

they were, but later on we do. His mom, his mother and his

brothers thinking sisters came along.

They thought similar things. We need to help him.

The Pharisees, they were brutal, they call him possessed.

His driving at demons by Satan himself.

What a thing to say. But you see, that's all they

could do. They had no other hold on Jesus.

They couldn't deny the miracles they were, they were real, they

were happening, couldn't deny that.

So the only thing they can do is tear him down, categorize him.

So Jesus confronts their sin. He says he called them to

himself and said to them in parables.

How can Satan cast out Satan? If a Kingdom is divided against

itself, that Kingdom cannot stand.

If a house is divided against self, that cannot stand.

And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided,

he cannot stand but has an end. No one can enter a strong man's

house and plunders goods unless he first binds A strongman, then

he will plunder his house. Sometimes Jesus didn't bother

with the religious leaders. He heard them, sometimes engaged

them, but this time he called him to himself.

He called him. He used parables to explain his

position, and it very clearly comes out where he's focused.

The truth is not that. The truth is that no house can

stand who's divided against itself.

Any organization, any group that attacks itself dies.

I'm reminded of a disease that we talk about a lot in our time.

It's called cancer. And of course there's all kinds

of research being done trying to cure, but really what cancer is,

it's, it's something that lives off the person it's trying.

It lives off the person it's killing.

Cancer is a disease where some cells in the body go rogue and

start attacking the body and, and the end cancer may kill the

body, but then the cancer itself dies because it killed its host.

She's telling the religious leaders Satan can't cast out

Satan. That's not how it works.

Then he uses the parable of the strongman.

He says a strong man can keep watching his house only if

there's nobody who comes along who's stronger.

And then so Jesus telling this parable that Satan's been

holding God's created people hostage and possession, but

here's Jesus the strongman, He's overpowering them.

But then he says something so drastic, it's caused many people

a lot of fear and a lot of worry.

And he says in verse 28, I say to you, all sins will be

forgiven. The sons of men, whoever

blasphemes they may blasphemes they may utter, but who

blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiven us,

but is subject to eternal condemnation because they said

he has an unclean spirit. He has confronted them for that.

These people had no idea of what they were messing with, what

they were playing with, what they were, who they were

attacking. Jesus had come in love and

compassion to help all people, but these Pharisees were not

willing to accept that, that they needed help, but they had

sinned, that they needed to repent of anything for Jesus,

even to insinuate and mention sin in their lives.

That was an attack. And then their mind, Jesus was

the problem. Just put him in the lowest

place. They were cutting themselves

off. And I just want to mention this

about blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

It's a bit of a side note here. I've had people come to me and

ask me or talk to me. I think, Pastor, I may have

blasphemed the Holy Spirit. I'm worried about that I may

have committed the unpardonable sin.

What should I do? And they want my thoughts.

And my word to a person that comes with those kinds of

comments is simply this. If you're being reminded of

this, you're feeling you may have done it, then you probably

have not done it. I would say you haven't done it

because a person, the way I understand Scripture, wouldn't

be asking that question. If they had done it, they

wouldn't even be coming to church.

They wouldn't even want to know the gospel.

Can it happen? I believe it can.

Jesus says so. But in the case of a person

who's wondering about it, asking about it, that's not their case.

But that's not my focus this morning.

My focus is what was Jesus doing?

Well, it was not out of the woods.

Yet here in verse 31, it says his brothers and mother came and

standing outside, they sent him, calling him, and a multitude was

sitting around him. And they said to him, look, your

mother and your brothers are here seeking you.

He answered them saying, who's my mother and my brothers?

And he looked around the circle at us, those who sat about and

said, here are my mother and my brothers.

Forever does the will of God is my brother, my sister and my

mother. What a wonderful focus,

wonderful perception. Jesus focused on relationships

at the end. When it came to the bottom line,

Jesus did not focus on how many people he healed, didn't focus

how many demons he cast out, didn't focus on how many people

came to listen to him, how big, what size the crowds were, not

even what the Pharisee was saying about him.

His focus was what am I doing about the mission that my father

has given me? His own blood Relatives didn't

understand him. Jesus wasn't drawn to any of the

stuff. He could have worked it out so

that he could have maybe compromised, come to an

agreement of sorts and get along so to speak.

Nothing affected him. He was humble, He was simple,

not to any of what the world was into, not swayed even by his

family. He just focused on what the

Father had sent him for, to bring law sinners to repentance

into relationship with Christ in whatever circumstance they were.

He was about relationships. Jesus had a mission to fulfill.

He was tested, He was challenged, He was resisted, He

was opposed, maligned. Nothing stopped him.

Jesus kept His focus on His Father's calling, on his life.

Easy or hard made no difference. Convenient or difficult, none of

it mattered. Healing the sick, casting out

the demons, teaching the people, all of it together He continued

faithfully on for the time that God had for him.

I want us to ask this question of ourselves.

Can Jesus use me and you for His mission?

Are we focused enough for it? God has hardwired us to do 1, to

do things, go places, accomplish things.

That's all good. That's great, there's nothing

wrong with that. But it needs to be harnessed for

His Kingdom and the stories of life in this world.

It's important that we keep focus.

It's not the matter of who we are, where we are, but what

direction we're headed. We can't afford to drift, to go

with the flow and roll with the times.

We must stay the course. Jesus is our anchor.

He's our captain, our navigator. We must trust him.

We must focus on him alone. I want to close with a short

story about a man named Ernest Shackleton.

Some of you have read the book or one of his book, One of the

books. Years ago, I read the book

called The Endurance. I watched the movie.

It's incredibly fascinating, both the book and the movie.

In 1914, Shackleton sailed from England down to South toward the

Antarctic. He wanted to explore the

continent over land and, and just see the place.

He and his crew sailed on the ship called the Endurance.

And when they headed, they were close to Antarctica and, and the

Wettle Sea just off the coast. There they reached, they got

trapped in pack ice and and couldn't move.

The pack ice drifted and shifted and heaved and it started to

crush the ship. And after months of drifting,

the pressure of the ice floes in the ice chunks crushed the ship

and it sank in November of 1915. So he was, he was.

They were on the ice floes now with some supplies, some food

and three lifeboats, and there was no hope of rescue.

How would they survive? They camped on that ice flow for

months and the ice flow was actually drifting northward

towards warmer waters. And when the ice broke, they

took their lifeboats and sailed in an April 6th to 1916 reached

the the place called Elephant Island, a totally desert,

desolate uninhabited place. There were seals and and

Penguins but and freshwater as well.

But they couldn't stay there. There was no help.

And they had maps, they had a few crude instruments, few

simple instruments they had in back in those days.

And and Tackleton knew there was a place with favorable winds

that could reach a place called Georgia Island.

There was a whaling station where there he knew there was

people, there was humans living there, some islands closer, but

the winds were not favorable that they could do it.

So they set out with one boat and five guys, left 22 men

behind him on this elephant island.

And for 800 or so nautical miles, he sailed eastward,

northeastward, trying to reach Georgia Island.

An incredible journey of endurance and just just a strong

will and resolve to to not let this mission cost them their

lives. They hadn't gone to the

Antarctic, couldn't get reached out, but they now just want to

save their lives. They finally reached Georgia

Island on the wrong side in the in the whaling station to the

north side and they reached the South side.

Now they had to cross over and some of the men were by that

time the five men here he was was with him were so ill and

weak. It looked like scarecrows.

They couldn't sail around and the the boat was too too rough

by too bad shape by then. And so he and two, two other

guys walked over the island, over the mountain to the other

side. They trekked across uncharted

territory onto the island, over the top 36 hours nonstop,

treading steep climbing over glaciers and rocks.

Nobody ever done that before they reached the whaling

station. The people were shocked to see

these three human beings stumble into the camp into the into the

station. Well, they he's told a story and

he got a ship and went sailed around the other side of the

island, rescued his the rest of his crew that he left on the

beach there. And then he went back to

Elephant Island and after 4 attempts was able to make to the

shore to rescue his crew. He didn't achieve his goal of

crossing the Antarctic, but he kept everybody alive.

The voyage is not remember for journey, but for for what?

For the for the mission of the journey.

But for what he did, courage, survival, leadership under

pressure, why did I tell that story?

It's not a Bible story even, but it's a relevant story.

It was a man of resolve. He was focused.

He was so focused on doing what was best for his men.

He didn't lose a single one. If people in the temporal world

can show that resolve and that focus, why can't we as churches

do that? How focused are you and I on

God's mission? It is not fraught with such

risk. Not here anyway.

And know this country is where it is.

And we pray for our brothers and sisters and the countries where

they're martyred for their faith.

But what are our excuses? How easily do we just take the

easy Rd. give up, give in, try, take the off ramp?

Where's our focus? We live in a society today where

easy is better, convenient is better.

It's not healthy. We have so many commands in

Scripture pointing us to God to draw our attention to God, and

it's so difficult for us because we want it comfortable.

If there's a bit of opposition, a bit of pressure, a bit of

inconvenience, then, well, maybe it's not meant for me.

No, that which makes us shift our focus.

That is what has control of our lives.

There's a proverb that goes this way.

You don't measure loyalty by how people stand with you in the

sun, but how they stand with you in the storm.

Can Jesus count on us? Today we can decide to follow

Jesus, walk with Jesus. Look what he's looking at.

Focus on what he's focusing on The question we must we must ask

ourselves is what are we going to focus on?

Let's not focus on the past. That's not our benchmark.

Let's not focus on the present, not even on the future.

Let's focus on Jesus. Hebrews 12 verse one says

therefore we also since we're surrounded by so great cloud of

witnesses, let us lay aside every weight in the sin which so

easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race

that's set before us. And further in verse 2, looking

unto Jesus, focusing on Jesus, the author and finisher of our

faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the

cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand

of the throne of God. That's our goal, that's our aim,

That is our focus. Let us pray, Lord Jesus, you are

our rock. You are our foundation.

Help us to look to you continually, 100% of the time,

day and night. Help us to trust you fully, to

focus on You, regardless of what may come.

Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your mercy.

As we go into this week. Lord, give us strength for the

task energy. Give us wisdom and resolve to

focus on what you focus on. Give us courage to face the

challenges and then to serve with joy and we pray.

Amen.