Faith Builders V: Jesus Focus - Supplements for Spiritual Energy

All right, let's pray and then we're gonna open God's word.

Father, I want to thank you for tonight.

I want to thank you for this time with Victor and his team.

Eileen's here.

We bless her.

We bless the whole family in the name of Jesus.

Father, we are excited about being a part of the team that is doing a great work, a ministry work in Burma.

And Father, as we bless you tonight, I pray that you would anoint this message.

You would use it for your glory.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

All right, guys.

Um, if you have your Bibles, you're gonna do a little bit of a little bit of Bible roulette real quick.

Go to Mark chapter 4.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

We've been in the Gospel of Mark now for six months.

And uh we've gotten to chapter 4.

Um actually we've gotten to chapter 6, and uh we're gonna keep marching through, but we've been on a segue on faith for the last few weeks.

But I want you to look at Mark 4.20.

Mark 4.20.

I know I've I've brought this up many times for you that are regularly here, for you that are new.

We're on this thing called faith builders, supplements for spiritual energy.

Faith builders, and this is the fifth one and the last one tonight.

But Mark 4.20 is sort of our launching pad.

Mark 4.20 says this these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word accept it, and bear fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.

And we were talking about the fact that in the sower of the seeds, that particular parable, it's about faith.

And it's about four types of hearts.

And the fourth heart is where the seed of God's word lands, and he calls it a good heart in some translations, that then reproduces in one's life 30, 60, and a hundredfold.

And you may recall that the very first command in Scripture in Genesis is be fruitful and multiply.

And here's my summation of what we've been talking about is that you're called to multiply with your life.

You've been given talents, you've been given skills, you've been given spiritual gifts if you're saved.

That God does not give you as his gracious gift to you just so you feel good about yourself, but that that might actually be water, living water that flows through you into other people's lives.

And it multiplies and it brings the kingdom and it brings, it brings advance of the light into darkness 30, 60, and 100fold.

I think it's, I think it's financial, I think it's social, I think it's spiritual, I even think it's physical.

A recent study that just came out in Newsweek last week was talking about the fact that those people of faith and those people who have a positive faith, that's the word they used, don't get sick as much as those who don't.

And so, yes, we all get sick.

How many here have been sick in the last year?

I mean, we all get sick, so I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying, though, that as God begins to renew our heart and renew our mind, there is an ability to deal with stress and obstacles that's different than others.

So don't hear me say, I'm not talking health and wealth here, you're never gonna be sick if you really have faith.

I'm not saying that.

I'm saying, though, that even studies show those who have a vibrant, dynamic, personal faith do better in almost every area of their life.

And so Jesus is now saying, look, I'm looking for people.

Out of the four people he's talking to, there's this fourth heart that if it's a good heart and my word can land there, I expect that your life will multiply out to others 30, 60, and 100fold.

That's good news, right?

Okay, so that's what we're talking about.

Now look at chapter 5, verse 34.

And this is a woman who had a hemorrhage.

We covered this a month ago when she had that hemorrhage.

She's bent over.

She's been to all the doctors, she's been bent over for all these years, and then she gets healed, but it's what Jesus says to her next.

It's really interesting.

He says, Daughter, your faith has made you well.

Go in peace and be healed of your affliction.

So her faith to fight to Jesus, to get to Jesus, probably through a burdening, huge, uh, chaotic crowd as he came out of the boat there in uh probably Capernaum, um, is amazing.

And he notices that about her.

He doesn't heal anybody else at that point.

He is Jerry's daughter later, but he he he lays hands on her and she gets healed.

He says, because of your faith.

And so my premise is this: that when you start walking by faith and you start trusting God with a bold faith, you're gonna see miracles happen that other Christians miss because their faith isn't at that level of boldness of going after God.

Now turn to 1 John.

So keep going to the right.

Go to the right through your Bible, you're almost to Revelation, you're coming to 1 John.

1 John chapter 5.

1 John 5 · chapter mention

1 John, not John the gospel, but the 1 John, first letter of John chapter 5, verse 4.

John 5:4

Whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

That's pretty good news.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.

Now, you say, what do you mean by that?

Here's what I think he means.

He means those who are born of God, who have a faith in Christ and they're growing in their faith, overcome the world's way of thinking.

They overcome the world's way of analyzing life.

They overcome the world view of the world that is going to kill your faith.

It's going to devastate your faith.

We can overcome that by our faith.

That's good news, folks.

That's good news.

And we, as Jesus followers, as Jesus' disciples, are the only folks on the face of the earth that can claim that.

So here's what we've covered so far.

So I want to go through the supplements.

And sometimes I have my bottles up here because I take supplements.

I'm an old guy.

I'm an old guy who I some of the guys in the room here, we were just recently at a conference, and one of the things the speaker talked about, if you make agreements with the enemy, somebody making agreements with the enemy.

I've made an agreement with the enemy that I'm getting old.

So I'm not old, I'm young.

I'm young.

It's just that my hair is changing, and there's a few more lines.

But I am as young at heart as ever.

So I take supplements, bottom line.

And so I've called this supplements.

Here's the first one we talked about some five weeks ago.

Number one was rhema word supplement.

Rhema word supplement.

And in that talk, I discussed the difference between the Greek word rhema, which means revelation from God that God gives you from his word, and logos.

Second supplement we talked about, spirit prayer supplement, the power of spirit-led, spirit-empowered prayer.

Third supplement, faith fellowship supplement.

We talked about that three weeks ago.

The idea that you need, you need fellowship with people who build your faith.

You realize there's two kinds of people.

There's faith builders and there's faith busters.

And let me tell you, the church is full of faith busters.

But you need relationship with some men, men.

Women, you need some relationship women with women that build up your faith.

That when you begin to talk about your faith and some of the stuff you're trusting God with, when you come away from that conversation, you feel built up.

So faith, fellowship, supplement.

Fourthly, a couple weeks ago, active obedience supplement.

This is where you've got to act on your faith.

We've got to step out in our faith.

We have the book of Acts in the New Testament because they acted.

And so God calls us to step out with the things that He tells us to do and not just think about it.

So here's tonight.

Tonight, fifthly, most important of everything we've been talking about.

And it's really not a supplement.

It's actually like water.

You know, you could take, I could take, I take six, I think I take six supplements, six pills a day, twice a day, six supplements that I take for the vitamins and nutrients that I need.

But if I don't drink water, then it loses its impact.

You have to have water.

You need to drink water.

You need to drink almost a gallon of water a day.

You're supposed to.

I don't do it, but that's what you're supposed to do.

And so this fifth supplement is kind of like water.

So it's not really a supplement.

And here's what we're gonna call it: we're gonna call it Jesus Focus.

Jesus focus.

It's like living water.

Because Jesus is the author and perfector of our faith.

So it's it's learning year by year.

And if you saw my blog this morning where I said the title was it's all about Jesus.

The church.

It's all about Jesus.

The church, the people are to be all about Jesus.

I mean, if if we could take the church in America and we could begin to hone down what really matters, it's not children's ministry.

It's not chairs and pews and buildings and budgets and policies or even worship.

It's all about Jesus.

And I'm telling you, folks, that if we can understand that Jesus is that living water, if we can study Jesus, if we can fall in love with Jesus, if we can learn to be wholeheartedly devoted to Jesus, everything changes.

Everything is transformed in our lives.

So turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

So now go to the left.

Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

And the writer of Hebrews is basically saying, after he just gave us Hebrews chapter 11, the faith chapter, this is what sums it all up.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

So Hebrews 11, which we talked about a couple weeks ago, going through all these guys who acted.

It's referring to Samson.

It refers to Noah.

It's speaking of men who heard from God and then they stepped out and they acted on.

He sums it up in chapter 12, verse 1 with this.

Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, speaking of what he just wrote about in all of chapter 11, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Has anybody figured out that you need a little bit of endurance in this life?

Life's really complex.

Life's really complex.

Marriage is really complex.

Being single is really complex.

Intimacy with people is very complex.

We need something that gives us endurance for the long haul.

So this is what he says.

Looking unto Jesus, underline that.

Highlight that.

Looking unto 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.

We can focus on our job and become good at a job.

We can, if someone's an athlete, they can focus on a sport and become skilled at a sport.

We can focus on issues related to our marriage and it can improve our marriage.

All of that's great and all of that's important.

But he says if you want to increase your faith as the author and perfecter of our faith, focus on me.

Focus on Jesus.

Focus on him.

He's the author, he's the one who gave us our faith, he's the one who perfects our faith.

Focus in on him.

So, believe it or not, we are going to come out with a website soon.

Don't laugh.

I don't know why you're laughing.

Okay, we are.

And one of the one of the articles that's within the website, as it's being built right now, is called Jesus Disciples.

And I want to read it to you because I think it sums up what we're talking about tonight.

Jesus Disciples.

The road is the road to Jesus.

We are all about Jesus.

We worship Jesus.

We seek Jesus.

We love Jesus.

We live for Jesus.

Jesus is the source of our love, power, forgiveness, and purpose.

Without Jesus, there is no reason to exist.

Jesus gives us life.

Jesus produces fruit from our lives.

Jesus leads us.

Jesus guides us.

The road exists to build disciples of Jesus.

Saint Arrhenius said this: the glory of God is man fully alive.

The Jesus disciple is one whose heart is fully alive with the love and power of Christ.

When Jesus touches us, we see where we once were blind.

We walk where we once were lame.

We hear where we once were deaf.

Only when we choose to follow Jesus wholeheartedly does our heart come alive.

Jesus said, I came that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly.

That's the offer to the Jesus disciple.

Follow Christ and He promises an abundant, fruitful, joyful life.

This is a life full of freedom, wholeness, and a heart fully alive.

Church, that's why we're here.

It's all about Jesus.

And when we exalt Jesus in our heart, he increases your faith.

When we begin to worship Jesus fully, focused in on him, zeroed in on the beauty of Christ, he changes your heart.

He heals your body.

And when he does so, we are transformed from the inside out.

And things begin to happen in our lives that were impossible before.

Because all of us here have made agreements with the enemy.

Because of our childhood, because of the pain, some of you have been raped, some of you have been beaten, some of you have been majorly ripped off, and you carry that shame way down in your heart, and Christ wants you to face the shame.

And then take the shame and put it at the cross of Christ.

Put it at the base of the cross.

Give it to Him.

Give that shame to Him.

And He starts to transform us.

He begins to move.

He begins to act.

He begins to heal.

He begins to do miraculous works.

But here's what we do: we run from our shame because we're ashamed of it.

Because it's this dark side of our heart.

It's that dark side of our life we don't want anybody to know about.

Because if they knew about it, they'd break off that relationship they have with us.

If they only knew that that happened, or they only knew that I did that.

And Christ comes and he comes with a new life.

Because isn't it interesting in John 10, 10?

That the beginning of John 10 is the thief.

Same verse.

The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

But I came that you might have life and might have it abundantly.

You know why it's that way?

Because it's a battle.

It's a battle to believe.

It's a battle to trust.

It's a battle to get set free.

It's a fight.

And so we come to these agreements, and you start realizing these agreements in our lives, and we have to start saying, that's an agreement with the enemy.

That's not true of me.

I'm not a loser.

I'm not ugly.

I'm not stupid.

I'm not a loner.

Because here's what every man asks Do I have what it takes?

Every man in this room asks that question, do I have what it takes?

And you have about 20 reasons to say I don't have what it takes.

So then what we do, even in the church, is we start to posture.

And we start to pose and we start to act like we've got it all together because you're supposed to be that way in the church, right?

And what that does is that builds even further and deeper agreements with the enemy.

Instead of saying, I'm screwed up.

I need help.

And we come along some guys and we start to become vulnerable about stuff.

And we start being vulnerable with Christ, and we quit playing the religious games.

And in so doing, healing can occur.

I'm telling you guys, listen up.

If you'll start being vulnerable about some of those areas, then you are shining light into those strongholds of the enemy.

And I'm telling you, just like rats in the basement, they don't like light.

And they start to scurry, and that's when freedom starts to happen in our lives.

And that's what we're after.

Is that kind of freedom that comes from seeking after Jesus?

Now look at the next verse.

It's really interesting.

The next verse is verse 3, Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

And it says, consider him.

Consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

When that discouragement comes, he's saying, Consider Christ.

Consider what he went through.

Consider the shame that he went through completely exposed and beaten at the cross, that you might not become discouraged.

Because he's the author and perfecter of your faith.

Oftentimes in modern-day Christianity, we've come to believe that receiving Christ as our Savior and Lord is all about heaven.

We realize that eternal life has nothing to do with heaven technically.

Eternal life in the Greek means life that is ongoing, life that will never end.

So when we put our faith in Christ, what happens?

It all just starts.

It all starts now.

Because for most of us, the vision of heaven is we're going to be there for some 10,000 years singing.

That sounds like hell to me.

I mean, anybody that's within 30 feet of my voice over here knows that's hell for them.

Can you imagine that you're going to be singing with Steve for 10,000 years?

That's horrible.

That's the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone near me.

No, everlasting life means it is never ending.

It started when you gave your heart to Christ.

It started now.

The only difference is that we're going to pass into a different room.

I mean, Victor, you mentioned that.

You know, it's really, that's what C.S.

Lewis said.

He said that the eternal life or heaven is just passing into another room.

You're just going to step into another existence.

And the scriptures say that the heavens and the earth will be restored.

So those places where I like to hunt are going to be restored.

Every elk is a seven by seven.

Okay?

No, we're not going to be on clouds with harps singing.

Now, I know some of you musicians, Melanie, she's like, What was your problem, Steve?

I mean, that sounds great to me.

That's what I love to do.

You're the only one in the room that thinks that way, okay?

You know.

Now, when Melanie sings, that's heaven on earth.

It is.

It really is.

That's beautiful.

But that is just torture to every guy in this room, I can guarantee you.

We don't want to sing for 10,000 years.

We have begun everlasting life right now, folks.

We're being restored.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

There's a restoration that's occurring in your heart by faith right now.

So even though our bodies are wasting away, our spirits are being restored.

That's why I called it faith supplements.

When you pray in the Spirit, when you get around faith-building people, when you're in God's word, when you're walking in active obedience, what you're doing is even though we look at each other and we see the gray coming and we see our bodies changing, actually, our spirits are being renewed, and there is a beauty to our lives that's being restored from the day we received Christ forward.

And so that restoration has begun.

But it takes courage.

It takes courage to walk by faith.

It takes courage to be bold.

It takes courage to open God's word every day.

Anybody can just sit in front of the TV and watch football all day on Saturday.

Anybody can do that, and most do.

It's the most exciting thing in some of your lives.

I went and watched Air Force football day and froze out there on the 50-yard line watching this game, and I'm like, okay, I did that today.

I don't have to do that again.

I'm for football, I'm for basketball, I'm for sports.

You guys know that about me.

I think it's awesome.

But that's not all that life's about.

Okay, I want you to listen to this.

Listen closely.

I'm gonna say it, I'm gonna read it slow.

It's by G.K.

Chesterton, great philosopher and writer.

Listen to what he says.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms.

It means a strong desire to live.

Listen up, a strong desire to live, taking the form of a readiness to die.

He that will lose his life shall then save it, is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes.

It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors and mountaineers.

It might be printed in an alpine guide or a drill book.

The paradox is the whole principle of courage, even of quite earthly and brutal courage.

A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice.

He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it.

A soldier surrounded by enemies and hemmed in, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying.

He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward and he will not escape.

He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide and will not escape.

He must listen up, he must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it.

He must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

Jesus says if you want to have life, you've got to lose it.

And if you lose your life, you find it.

It's a paradox.

But it's the paradox of focusing in on Jesus, going after him.

And so I challenge you, men and women, tonight, focus on Jesus.

I want to give you three things, three thoughts on this.

How do we fix our eyes on Jesus?

It says in Hebrews 12, 1, we just read, fix your eyes on Jesus.

How do we do it?

Number one, number one, guard your heart.

Number one, guard your heart.

Why?

Scriptures say, Proverbs says, keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.

Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.

Christ said, Love the Lord your God with all of your heart.

Guard your heart.

You can't give your heart away to too many things.

Give your heart to Christ.

Guard your heart.

Watch over those temptations in your life that want to steal your heart away.

I'm talking about job.

I'm talking about security.

I'm talking about finances.

I'm talking about worry.

I'm talking about even your family.

Man, I love my family.

But Christ is first.

And so guard your heart, number one.

Number two, intimacy through a relationship with your heart.

Intimacy through a relationship with your heart.

That is a relationship with Christ where you daily walk with him.

Talk to Christ all through the day.

Build a relationship with Christ where you can share anything in your heart at any time, at all times.

Set aside time with the Lord.

Set aside times for solitude.

Set aside times for where there's no distractions, and you just dialogue with Jesus.

You have a relationship with Him of intimacy.

It's hard.

Then this is everything I'm saying is so hard.

If I make it sound easy, it's not.

All of this is really hard.

Because there's so many distractions.

There's so many entanglements in our life.

Thirdly, study Jesus.

Thirdly, study Jesus.

And what I mean by that is take a gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

I think, I actually think probably Matthew, Mark, and Luke are better with what I'm going to say next.

But just start reading through the gospel and write down in your journal what did Jesus do in this situation?

What was his lifestyle?

How did he handle criticism?

How did he handle his friends?

How did he have relationships?

What did he do with his time?

And start looking at Jesus from the perspective of a lifestyle.

What is a Jesus lifestyle?

Guys, that is so different than our lifestyle.

And so when we begin to study Jesus, the beauty and the majesty and the glory of his personhood comes alive.

Because somewhere along the way we lose that, don't we?

Church, religion, looking at all the things we don't measure up in.

The things that have been said to us, the strongholds of the enemy, the agreements that we've made with the enemy.

Let's cut through that and come back to Jesus.

Focusing in on him.

Let's stand and the worship team come up.

Questions.

And the team comes up.

Questions on anything that we've shared over the last five weeks.

By the way, you that are new, we do Q ⁇ A every once in a while.

So any questions on praying in the spirit?

Faith build, yes.

Ron.

Yeah.

They want to know how to get you stuff before you leave.

Okay.

So Victor and his guys will be in the lobby and you guys can talk to him about that.

Okay?

Questions?

Any questions?

Last chance.

Well, Melody, I want to thank you.

Take the moment here to thank you for being up here and blessing us tonight.

That would have been cool.

Well, Father, as we go into worship right now, quiet our hearts.

And Lord, speak to us as we focus in on you.

The very thing we've been talking about tonight.

God, would you come in a mighty way through the worship?

Help us to take distractions and entanglements and push those aside.

And focus in on you, our Savior, our Lord, and our friend.

Amen.