You know sometimes life just has an amazing ability of happening doesn’t it? I know it does for me. It seems time is just flying by, and I don’t want it to. It seems like in every season of life we can be wishing for the next one. When you’re young it’s, when I get out of school, then life will be great. Then it’s when I’m married, that’s when life we slow down. Which leads to I can’t wait to have kids, which leads to I can’t wait until the kids are in school, which leads to, boy I can’t wait until they are finally out of the home! Life is challenging. It moves quickly, and not only does it seem to be happening faster than I want, if I’m not careful I can almost wish my days away! Can you relate to that? Have you ever wondered when life would slow down? Have you ever thought, well in the next stage of my life…that is when things will be more chill and peaceful…can I ask you something? Has the next stage of life ever been easier? The world continues to move doesn’t it? There is so much going on isn’t there? Then we go to church on a Sunday morning after a week of running at a million miles per hour…and we are told to focus on God. Well here’s the deal…I we could all agree with one thought…more God focus would be a really good thing. I don’t know about you but for me I want clarity in my life. I want peace and joy in my life. I want to be able to soak in every moment of my time on the Earth…I want to feel God. I want to see God in all the little things of my life. I want to enjoy every moment I have with my wife, I want to soak in every moment with my children. I don’t want to wish them away! As I talk to many parents who are a few years ahead of me in my journey with my own family I hear the same thing, over and over again. You blink and it’s over…they all tell me the same thing. They wish they had more time…and I want more time too. I don’t want to blink and it’s over. I know this is a beautiful time in my life and I am so blessed to be in all of it and I want to focus on every moment and never miss anything. But often I’m not walking through life with that level of peace, and worship, and joy. Often I’m just pushing through. You know as I get older I seem to have less energy, and I seem to have more going on…and as my margin in life get thinner, I seem to have an amazing ability to get grumpier. As much clarity as I want to have in my life, and as hard as I try to build boundaries, and health into my life…I seem to get more distracted, more cluttered, and boy, oh boy does life happen fast. It’s like I pick my head up and wow, it’s April already, wasn’t it just Christmas? I mean just like yesterday my first child was born and now she is getting ready to go to High School…how does that happen? Well often for me, I jump into my day to day activities and run the kids here or there, and the next thing I know we are putting the kids to bed again. I pop my head up and realize that another season of life has arrived.
Over Easter my wife and I celebrated our 15 wedding anniversary which was earlier in the month. We sent the kids to Mashawn’s parent’s house for the weekend, and it was so nice to just hang out with my wife for a little while without distraction. It’s funny as you function your way through life getting the kids everywhere they need to be, you don’t realize how much is going on, how many details you are holding down, and activities are happening…and it’s hard to even break out of that thought process when you do have a moment as a couple to relax with nothing to do next. I had this moment sitting in TJ Rockwell’s for lunch looking across the table at Mashawn thinking, this is so nice, but wondering if the waitress would get our food out fast so we could move on to…oh wait, we have nothing to do! It was almost confusing! In that moment I realized just how busy life can get. How often my wife is taking one kid one way, while I am taking another kid another direction. It was so nice to just have lunch (for two instead of six) and to just talk and relax…with no actual activity that we had to be at next. It’s funny how life just happens, and at times I don’t even realize that life IS happening all around me!
So I want clarity. I want focus. I want to never forget these moments…but often I feel like I push through all the activities of my day, and can end up in this fog of just getting by. Now I have moments of clarity but I don’t just want moments, and at times I get frustrated at how easily distracted I seem to get. You know focus is a hard thing to keep in our culture isn’t it? We live in very challenging times. We are so busy. We are so cluttered. We multi-task through life, and if we aren’t careful, we can pop our heads up from time to time and realize that we are missing out on all that this life could be. You know what is even scarier than missing out on something special that our children do, or soaking in the beauty of our relationship with our spouse, or enjoying a great moment here on this Earth? What’s scarier is how hard it is to stay focused on God. Today there are so many things screaming for our attention. They pull our attention off of what really matters, which is God and onto everything and anything else! Let’s face it, outside of the big moments in life when we really need God…it’s easy to lose sight of Him.
Well yes, we have a lot of reasons to be distracted, but you know what is really interesting…as hard as it is for us to stay focused on God…it’s not a new problem. Even Jesus’ own disciples struggled to stay focused on Him and they were walking with Him every day! They didn’t have smartphones. They weren’t holding down jobs. As far as I know their children weren’t in premier sports, so they didn’t have to run them all over the place to the next soccer, lacrosse, or field hockey training. They didn’t even have cable TV! Not sure how they survived without it, but somehow they got by, but here’s what is so amazing about all of this. They didn’t have all the white noise, they didn’t have our pace of life. If you think about it, they didn’t have lights and electricity, so when it got dark they went to bed! They walked wherever they went, and they didn’t need headphones and live streaming updates to even do that! And guess what in such a simpler time, without all of your distractions, they struggled with staying focused on Jesus as they literally walked with Jesus. They physically saw all that he did. They heard his teaching. They watched him heal the sick, make blind men see, make the paralyzed walk. They were the ones there when he cast out demons, and raised the dead, and walked on water. These men collected all the left overs as he fed 5,000 people with a few table scraps and they seem to struggle with focus at times…and that is what we are talking about today. Well as we have been walking through this series we keep seeing moments where Jesus clearly tells them that he is headed towards the cross and they don’t seem to get it. Today our story is in one of the most epic moments of all of scripture…it’s THE moment. Jesus now moments away from the cross heads off with the disciples to pray. They have eaten their last meal together, and Jesus has just explained this to them…
Mark 14:27 “You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written: “‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ 28 But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” 29 Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not.”30 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “today-yes, tonight-before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.”31 But Peter insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the others said the same. NIV
Jesus has just explained that it is his time…it is THE time. He must now go to the cross for all of our sins. The weight of this moment is building on him, and they still don’t see it. Then he says, by the way guys…you are all about to fall to pieces and Peter explains…that there is no way that would happen…but it will and it does. And now we head to the Garden of Gethsemane, to one of the most powerful moments you will see, and we will see how the disciples respond to this intense moment…
Mark 14:32 They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.” 35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” 37 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? 38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” 39 Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. 40 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him. 41 Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!” 43 Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. NIV
So this is the most intense moment of Jesus life on this Earth. He is literally carrying our eternal destiny on his shoulders now. He has just explained that their entire world is about to be flipped on its head. They head into the garden and they have to see it on him. They have to feel how much sorrow and pain is building onto Jesus, their leader, their friend. He asks the disciples to stay and pray. He then takes Peter, James and John further with Him and asks them to keep watch. He goes further into the garden and pours his hurting soul out to God. It was so intense for Jesus that it says this in Luke…
Luke 22:44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. NIV
And how do his closest friends respond in this moment? They have watched Jesus fall to the ground, in anguish…he has warned them of all that is about to happen. He has asked them to keep watch and pray…and when he comes back to them they are sleeping. He wakes them and asks them to stay focused and pray, and leaves them again…and comes back and finds them sleeping not once, not twice, but three times! How does this happen? I love how this is stated in the Message version…
Matthew 26:40 When he came back to his disciples, he found them sound asleep. He said to Peter, “Can’t you stick it out with me a single hour? 41 Stay alert; be in prayer so you don’t wander into temptation without even knowing you’re in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there’s another part that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.” (MSG)
Poor Peter…he wants to do right but struggles to stay on task. Boy oh boy can I relate to that! I think Jesus summed up so much of who we are as people here in verse 41. We want to do the right thing. We do love Jesus. But for so many of us we struggle to stay alert. Part of us is eager and ready to engage the mission of Christ…but we just can’t seem to dial in all of who we are to all of who God is. While I would like to think that if I was in Peter’s shoes I would have been focused and able to stay awake and stay watch for Jesus all night in the garden…I see a lot of us humans in what happens to Peter here…and we can gain so much from this interaction. Look at what we see Jesus say first in verse 41…
“Stay alert; be in prayer so you don’t wander into temptation without even knowing you’re in danger.”
I hope by now that you can see something here. Jesus is sharing how intense things are all around the disciples. But they don’t see just how intense this moment is, or really any of the other moments around Jesus unless they were in real danger…because they aren’t seeing the spiritual war. They don’t get just how much is happening all around them in this moment. Think about this moment, Jesus is in the garden sweating blood, in sorrow and anguish knowing that he is heading towards the ultimate death, and the ultimate victory for all of mankind. While he is doing this the disciples are sleeping peacefully in the garden…and while they are sleeping the enemy is at work. Judas is off accepting a bribe to turn Jesus over to be crucified. It’s like Jesus keeps trying to expose the greater war to them that is happening all around them and it’s such a struggle for them to see it. He says stay alert and in prayer so that you don’t wander into sin…and here’s the kicker, without even knowing you are in danger. This is so important. Jesus is saying there is more going on than you know, and it’s time you wake up and begin to understand the war. You do have an enemy, and if you aren’t careful you can end up in a bad spot without even knowing it! Later Peter does grasp the magnitude and intensity of the spiritual war that wages all around us, and he describes our enemy this way…
1 Peter 5:8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. NIV
Jesus keeps trying to show them, that there is more going on than they seem to grasp. He wants them to see with spiritual eyes, the intensity of the war all around them. This is a challenge for us to see. We can fall into danger without even knowing it. There is more at stake than we realize. Think about how Peter would later describe the enemy. As a lion, prowling around looking for someone to devour and here is what is really interesting. This battle is waging every minute of every day. There are no timeouts. It’s not like if you were out in the African plains and a lion attacked you that you could call a timeout because you weren’t prepared…in fact, the lion would probably be happy that you weren’t prepared because he wouldn’t have to work so hard for his lunch! Well it’s no different here. Jesus is helping them see that there is an intense battle waging all around them, and if they don’t focus they can wander right into the attacks of the enemy…they can fall into the enemy’s scheme and not even know they have done it.
This is the challenge for us all, to begin to understand that we live in a world at war, especially when we are so busy, so distracted and nothing seems all that intense! At least not like roaring lion attacking me intense right? Paul does an amazing job of helping expose the urgency and intensity of the battle in Ephesians…
Ephesians 6:11 So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way. 12 This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.13 Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. MSG
So you may be saying to yourself really? Sam this is a little dramatic for this early in the morning on a Sunday. I mean, this is Dillsburg, Pa. and all in all, things are going pretty well. Well, you know I think maybe Peter and the disciples were thinking the same thing that night in that beautiful garden. Really Jesus, kind of intense aren’t you? And moments later, they understand just how intense this battle really is. So let’s look at the second part of what Jesus says to Peter that night…
“There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there’s another part that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.” (v41)
I think for most of us this is what really can hit home. Even more than just needing to really wake us up to the war around us, this is where (if we are honest) most Christians would find themselves in this place…almost like there are two parts of us. We love Jesus. We want to do God’s will. We want to engage into something more, but for whatever reason, we just seem to have another part of us that just pulls us in the complete opposite direction. I don’t believe this is our intentional rebellion against God, I think it’s more like I described earlier…life just has an amazing ability of taking over. We engage into the day to day activities. We run our kids around, we work, we pay the bills and we run so thin that we miss the most important thing about each day, and about our lives…and that is God. We have moments of clarity, but we also have moments when we aren’t so clear, just like these disciples…and they had a few advantages on us. They lived and walked and learned from Jesus and they didn’t have half the distractions that we have. You know, you can look all through your Bible and see that this is THE problem…we get distracted. We fall to sin…and we just seem to be half in and half out. We don’t engage God fully. Don’t get me wrong we love Him. We want to do what is right, but it’s like part of us is more than ok, just laying by the fire and resting and like an old dog but God wants all of us. So many of us live this way, and we wonder where God is and here’s what is really interesting, God would say…I’m right here. But you aren’t with me…you are sort of half in and half out…listen to how God speaks though the prophet Jeremiah here…
Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. NIV
All through scripture we see it different moments like this one. God says I’m here, just worship me with all of your heart! But you know that is so hard to do in the culture we live in today. There are so many things that keep us from seeking God fully. There is so much that pulls our focus off of Him. I think we much like Peter standing there with Jesus, we are so focused on Him in the moment we are talking to Him…or like here on a Sunday morning and we think we are all in. I will seek God with all of my heart, but then we jump back into our day, and we just lose that focus. It’s not on purpose. Life just keeps happening. I told you earlier, it’s amazing to me when I have those clear moments where I can think straight and realize “good grief, another two weeks has gone by!” There are so many hurdles in just one day. Things that keep us from fully dialing in to God’s greater plan. I mean think of what one day can bring the busyness, the clutter, the challenges we have in relationships with other people, the literal sin that we engage into where we just can’t get our focus off of ourselves. The religious spirit, the idols, the responsibilities it all piles up on us, and we wonder why we can’t focus. So yes, we want to find God but it is a real challenge to seek God with all of our hearts in a world full of distractions and stuff to do.
So what do we do to stay focused on God? I mean, if the disciples with half of the distractions we have, who have seen Jesus in the flesh, who have witnessed his miracles and literally were told by him what was going to happen struggled to focus on Jesus even in such an intense moment as the one we are studying today is there really anything that we can do? I mean we have established that life is going to keep happening. Life doesn’t get any easier, and the calendar continues to fill up regardless of whatever it is that I tell you to do next right? So what do we do to stay focused? Well I think this is so important, very challenging, but also something that we actually can accomplish. It happens by immersing yourself in the truth of who God really is. It happens by engaging God in such a way that God is central to your day. Now this doesn’t mean that your demanding schedule isn’t going to require your attention and focus…what it means is that even in those moments, when life is happening, you have the truth, and the love of God woven in you to the point where we see, hear, feel, and respond out of our relationship with God. Here’s why that is so important, because in any given day you will deal with a million different things. You will deal with people. You will deal with issues and challenges at work and at home, and with your family. You will have more challenges in a day, than you realize and you need a way through all the chaos.
So no I’m not going to give you a 3 point fix on how to make life easier, because I’m not sure life gets easier. We keep thinking the next season of life is the one that is going to allow me the time and margin necessary to focus on God…well I think we need to stop kicking that can down the road and do something different. And no I’m not going to tell you to find perfect balance between all of the things you do because frankly I don’t think that is possible to do at all. What I will tell you is that there is a way to engage life with God in it, and that is what I want us settling into today. Because when God is in it, we respond differently. When God is in it, we can have a level of focus that we would any other way…I’m not saying that our focus isn’t going to drift, but I am saying that we will be able to see God in our actions and how we respond to the challenges of life.
Spend time with Him. Try to slow down! Enter into a relationship with God, Jesus showed us the importance of this by consistently withdrawing from the chaos of his life and spending time with God…a funny thing happens when you do…
Matthew 6:6 “Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. (MSG)
Understand your deep need of Jesus– I think as we muscle through each day of our lives, we can begin to put the weight of it all on our shoulders…and I know for me the faster I run, the more internal I go, and the more weight I put on myself. But the reality is that you don’t need more of you, you need more of God. Remember what Paul said earlier…
Ephesians 6:13 Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. MSG
Read the Bible. This is God’s word. The Bible is the Truth. As you walk through the chaos of your day, the more time you have spent in that truth, the more that truth will come out of you. It is so important because your enemy is coming at you constantly with lies and accusations, and in the chaos and clutter of your day, you need truth to fall back on. God’s word needs to be deep in your heart for those moments when your focus is drifting into the other areas of your life…this is big!
Deuteronomy 11:18 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates NIV
Remember Grace I think this is so important because let’s face it. You and I we are not perfect, and we won’t get this right every day, but you know what God knows that too. As you spend time with God and as you grasp your need of him, and talk to him, and engage his word…you will begin to grasp his truly unconditional love for you. You will start to slowly get the magnitude of grace. And there will be times when you will need to extend it to yourself. Because let’s face it…life will keep happening. You will have moments just like the disciples did when things go really well…and you will have moments just like the one we were studying today…where I’m sure Peter, James and John wished they were a little better at staying focused…but I want to point one thing out to you as we leave here today. Jesus didn’t quit on them. He didn’t tell them they are idiots and say I’m done with you…and this really impacted me as I tried to sit in this story this week…
41 Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”
He wakes them up the third time and says…Let US go. Jesus doesn’t ever quit on us, and I think more often than not we need to remember grace for what it is…unconditional love for what it is and we need to remember that Jesus will keep coming, and keep coming, and keep coming…and keep inviting us to go with him in the end, because he loves us that much.
So today we talked about focus and I wanted you to hear me say this, it is a difficult thing because life does demand a lot from us and I don’t think that is a coincidence that the hardest thing in the world is to get fully focused on God because life will keep happening. It will pull you. It will beat on you. It will push you at times further than you think it could, but when we put God first, inviting him into our lives…we have a chance in this chaotic life to live differently. So my challenge for you today isn’t to find balance or a level focus where the rest of your life falls by the wayside. My challenge for you is to find God, who is actually with you every day, and you will find God when you look for Him with all of your heart. Life is a challenge…focus even more challenging…what we don’t want is to get to the end of our life and realize that life just happened, and we missed it. We must seek God first.