Lockdown Devotions // Looking At What Matters Most (Gary Gilpin)

Hello everyone. Hey, thanks for tuning in to us.

All the HBC family. It's really great that you can

join us. This is my first time doing a

YouTube clip and it's not that exciting looking at myself

reflecting back at me. So it's like, I'm speaking to

myself. And so it's quite different than

speaking. Normally at church.

Thank you though for joining us. I hope all things are going

really well, at through this lockdown period, that we're

going through just before I just want to do a devotion today.

I don't want to do a long Sermon, Just to encourage you

just to enjoy to challenge you, but before we do, just remember

the HPC. Emily.

Just encourage you to give, you know, maybe a couple of phone

calls a day, maybe two people who you don't, normally actually

speak to be great to contact them.

Just give them a call. See how they're doing.

I know we've got teams and the leadership ringing around,

emailing texting and messaging, but it'd be great.

If you could do that too. And just keep in touch with

people because this is an unusual time that we're going

through through this lockdown. That would be fantastic.

And before I start my devotion, probably one of the things that

I'm really feeling, this is really unusual for me, is the

missing off of meeting on Sunday.

Probably, for me, taken for granted that we're able to just

turn up at church on a Sunday morning.

See, everybody greet everybody. And it's just such a fantastic

time to, to worship to read God's word, to listen to us.

In to remember the Lord. And through this time, when

you're not allowed to do that, it's really interesting that.

Yeah, these are the things we now miss, and that's life, isn't

it? That I found that when

something's taken off you maybe it could be like Sunday morning

or even a loved one. You really miss it when you have

no choice. So it's a real good lesson for

me. That I've taken Sunday mornings

for granted and I can't wait till this is over.

And And we get back into it and we were able to Worship the Lord

together. So don't forget one another and

will be great when we can get back together and meet together.

Hey, my devotion today is just I read a book.

I've read a few now in this lockdown period, but the first

one I read was a book called competing spectacles competing

spectacles. It was written by a guy called

Tony rinkie. Author.

I hadn't read before, but it's his subtitle that actually

caught my eye, and it's an under competing spectacles, was the

subtitle of treasuring Christ in the media age, treasure in

Christ, in the media age. And we're in the media rage.

Obviously, we can see everything that's going on in the world

through media. And so, I bought that book.

And really, the devotion. Today is just a few thoughts.

And challenges that that book bought to me.

Proverbs 27 says, Never Satisfied are the eyes of, man,

never satisfied. Otherwise of man, and no, so

more today. And what in the time period,

we're living it. And so, I just want to kind of

just do a. We reflection on some of the

things that I read these two definitions for the word.

One is my glasses that I wear the dictionary.

Oxford dictionary tells us, that is a spectacle means to sharpen

one's vision. And of course, I normally wear

glasses, but now I'm so close to this phone that I don't have to.

And so there's one definition, but competing spectacles.

This is the second definition, and the second definition means

this, the Oxford dictionary sees this, it is a moment of time of

varying lengths than which are collective gaze is fixed on.

Suffolk image event or moment. And so that's what this book is

about competing spectacles. What is our constant gaze fixed

on? Whether it's an event, where

it's a moment, whether it's a certain image.

And so, I just want to challenge you with this on, what you are

fixing your Gaze on in this media age, and especially this

lockdown period, where we actually, Actually have time to

ponder. What is good.

What is right? And what is just and so that's

my challenge for today because this world is constantly

constantly after our attention. It is constantly trying to grab

our gaze away from the one whom we love, which is Christ two

different things. Just think of the things that we

have. To watch two guys to fix our

Gaze on. I mean, just in our household

alone. So we've got light box.

We've got Disney, some of you will have sky on your

televisions TV on demand, you'll have your cell phone that you

can flick through constantly. You have live streaming, we have

the movies and it just goes on and on and on on what we can

watch. And so think of the things I'm

not. Not saying all these things a

bit, but I think of the things that media is his kind of etched

into your mind and these aren't bad.

Some of the things aren't bad. Like the older generation were

able to see for instance, JFK the assassination of JFK, and

you could see constantly reap a constant replays of that, assess

a nation and now, and the digital age that I live in.

I can go to YouTube and constantly see all the theories

of what people If and how he was killed, one should have to

should. But in my generation, I think of

the things that media has etched into my mind.

If you like a car crash of Princess Diana, was one.

The second big one. In my lifetime was the Twin

Towers seeing time after time. As you turn the TV on two

massive airplanes crashing into two skyscrapers to skyscrapers

that I didn't even know existed at the time.

And so these are etched into our minds through media.

But now, when you turn on the TV, it's covid-19.

That's all that's happening with this.

The number of deaths. The number of people who have

caught the virus through the world and through New Zealand.

And so these are these things are all going through our minds

and etched into our minds and so media is great like that.

But the problem is, is that we constantly watch it.

Do we constantly look at it because Cause of media, it is

always on tap. If it were, I was always there

for our, or for our entertainment, for our pleasure,

for our joy, for our satisfaction.

It is one thing that is always before us, and especially with

cell phones. It's just before our eyes

constantly. And I know I can flick through

YouTube, just as good and as just as much as anybody and so

just a few figures that came. Which was startling to me

through this book. I was reading like Tony and one

of the things we'll start then was in the last.

It was from 2015 back with the top 30 movies that came out the

top 30 earned over a hundred million dollars each, but now in

my age and 20, 18, 19 and 20, we have movies like The Avatar and

an in-game. Now, they produced and made at

the Box. Box office over 2.7 billion

dollars as the number of people that are going to see these

movies, which is unreal. If you look at TV in the

statistics through there, we have the TV producers in the

series in the United States alone and 2009.

They were 200 and teen series produced in the States, but in

2014. 2015. They were 455 TV series produced

in the states alone. And on top of that, 750, reality

TV shows, produced in the state and it's keeping on going as we

go into 20 2020 and 2021. And so, they're just constantly

bringing out stuff of what surprised me and because I watch

a lot of YouTube clips was YouTube itself.

I think it is that every Every twenty four thousand minutes is

loaded onto YouTube, every minute of every day for 24

hours. So if you do the math and I

didn't do the math because I'm not very good at it.

So it was done for me via this book.

The uploads on YouTube, over the last two and a half days.

If I were to watch them it would take me 80 years of non-stop

View. To watch the last two and a half

days of YouTube. That's what's getting uploaded

to YouTube. Every two and a half days, 80

years worth of watching and at speeding up.

So, everything is the everything is for us to see on social media

or the media, as a whole, which is a scary thought, but there's

also great stuff on there as well.

But there's also good news and this is what the challenge for

us as Believers in 2020. And and through this lockdown

period that we're going through, there is good news and there is

a challenge for us. And that is that even though

we're living in a spectacle, loving world with spectacle

makers, and the spectacle industries that are coming out,

constantly loading up that individuals and and Hollywood,

but there is Good. Will good news.

Was the greatest Victor colorful the greatest one is the Divine

spectacle of the Life of Christ. Now the death of Christ, the

resurrection of Christ, and therefore the coming again,

often. And this I want to say to you

and to challenge you that this is worth meditating.

On more thinking of more fixing our Gaze.

On more is the life, the death and the resurrection.

Of our savior because we've got time to do it.

There's no excuse. And this time, I've locked down

period unless you're a nurse, unless you're in certain

services that you're called out to, we have time to refocus on

Christ. We also have an option of

spending most of our day on media as well.

And that's the challenge for us. And so I was want to challenge

you that either the death of life for the Resurrection of

Christ is what we should be meditating on.

It's like this, this is come to us as like, God could say this

is my beloved Son in whom. I gave to you who was crucified

who died for you. This is enough.

This is a spectacle enough to capture your heart forever for

the time. I've given you on Earth.

I remember the quote from Martin lloyd-jones and Martyn,

lloyd-jones died in 1981. So he Around and a time where

the internet wasn't actually invented.

But he said this and this is his quote.

He said we are living in an age where very fond of spectacles,

some good, some bad. But for believers, our spectacle

is the glories of Christ that we should be looking at him more

often than the spectacles of the world.

And he asked the question. Why?

Why? Because the more that we look at

Christ, we more that we look at his life and his death and his

resurrection through his word. The more we see of the glory of

God. And so that's our challenge.

Just reading this week, Sam, through the sounds.

And I happened to know to Psalms Psalm 101 and verse 33.

And it says us. David saying this, I will not

sit before my eyes. Anything that is worthless.

I will knit not set before my eyes.

Anything that is worthless. It would worthless could be

translated to Wicked or unprofitable.

That means David is saying, I don't want to see anything that

is unprofitable for me and my relationship.

A ship with God, he repeats it in Psalm 119.

In fact, I'll just quote it properly because it's slightly

longer and Psalm 119 and verse 37.

This is David saying talking about what he wants to see says

this in verse 37, turn away my eyes from looking at worthless

things, and revive me in your way, or some version says, or

take my life in your way. Lord grab my head and turn my

eyes to the things that matter, the things that aren't

worthless. And what isn't worthless.

Well, the Gaze of Christ, The Gaze of God, and what he has

done, and what he will do in the future and so HBC.

I just want to challenge us young and old through this

lockdown period. And what are we gazing on?

What are we meditating on? And what is our Focus because we

have time? And I pray, I pray that will

take up this challenge that we Waste our time, but we spend

more time gazing at our lovely savior.

So thank you for listening and keep safe.

Be good and on behalf of all the elders in the leadership of HPC.

Any problems. Just just you want to talk.

Please. Give us a call.

Thanks again, and until next time we'll see you.