Last week I preached a sermon called, “What are you focused on?” and it was about how the Israelites were focused on the challenge of their promised land rather than on the promise of the promised land. And I asked, are you focused on the giants or the giant fruit?
Today, I would like to spring off of the idea of being focused on something by asking you, are you using the right lens to focus with? If you have your Bibles, please turn with me to 1 Corinthians 15. This is the chapter my Dad and I often go to for our Easter sermons. Today, we’re going to look at the very last verse, verse 58. And I usually read out of the New International Version. Today, I’m going to read out of the International Standard Version because I like the way this verse is worded better.
As you’re turning there, some of you may know that I have been freelancing for my local paper for a few years and that before I got into the ministry, that’s what I did full time. I learned recently that the paper is officially dissolving, and I sent in my last story on Friday. It was an announcement about a local golf tournament that is benefitting the Dansville Community Center.
So, I thought I’d start today with a golf illustration:
Golf immortal Arnold Palmer recalls a lesson about overconfidence. He said: It was the final hole of the 1961 Masters tournament, and I had a one-stroke lead and had just hit a very satisfying tee shot. I felt I was in pretty good shape. As I approached my ball, I saw an old friend standing at the edge of the gallery. He motioned me over, stuck out his hand, and said, “Congratulations.” I took his hand and shook it, but as soon as I did, I knew I had lost my focus.
On my next two shots, I hit the ball into a sand trap, then put it over the edge of the green. I missed a putt and lost the Masters. You don’t forget a mistake like that; you just learn from it and become determined that you will never do that again. I haven’t in the 30 years since.
So no matter which sport you play, focus is important. I was terrible in high school gym class. I knew not to even bother taking up a sport. I couldn’t catch a football if my life depended on it. But now that I’m older, I wear glasses, and believe it or not, trying to catch a football with glasses might be harder than without. Why? Do you see this scratch on my forehead? That’s from my bifocals. You see, when you wear bifocals, it messes with your depth perception, and I opened my car door one morning, and let’s just say that my sleepiness that morning wore off pretty quickly.
But when it comes to a spiritual lens, we have God’s Word and God’s spirit within us to keep us focused. As we discussed last week, the Israelites were not focused on God or his word or his promises, they were focused on the giants. Today, I would like to talk about staying focused through the lens of God, His Holy Spirit, His Word, and His promises when it’s scary.
Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “you just did that.” Last week, you talked about staying focused on God when things are scary. But I applied that to change. I applied that to adapting to doing what God has called us to do when things seem scary. Stay focused on God’s call and not get distracted by the challenges.
Today, I’d like to talk to you today about something similar, but different. I’d like to ask you about those bifocals. Are you wearing the right prescription? Do you even have your glasses on? Do you have the right prescription for those lenses?
I mentioned that I just sent in my last article for the newspaper. For this past week’s edition, I sent in some photos from our carnival and parade. I had to make sure I had the right lens on my camera or else the photos would not have turned out so well. Not that they would have been blurry, but I wouldn’t want a telephoto lens on the parade that was right in front of me.
When it comes to last week’s sermon on what we are focused on, let’s look today at making sure we’re not just looking at the right thing, but looking at it with the right lens.
Scripture: Let’s go to our scripture verse this morning.
1 Cor. 15:58
“58 Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, unmovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that the work that you do for the Lord isn’t wasted.”
Pretty simple, cut and dry. But as with many simple scriptures, it’s easier said than done. Being steadfast, immovable, and excelling in the work of the Lord takes focus. And it takes more than what we have to offer in our own strength and power. It takes not just our willingness to do these things or an intentional practice or even a renewing of our mind as Paul says in Romans, but we have to do these things through the lens of The Holy Spirit.
Just after Paul teaches the Galatian church about the fruit of the Spirit, he ends his thought with this. I’m switching translations again, this is from the New Living Translation. It says: “Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.” This is the way the Amplified Bible puts it: “If we [claim to] live by the [Holy] Spirit, we must also walk by the Spirit [with personal integrity, godly character, and moral courage—our conduct empowered by the Holy Spirit].”
Being immovable and unshakeable requires having the right spiritual lens at all times.
I was having a conversation on Facebook this week. And it was one of those things where I posted something just as information to let it sink in and let people think about it. It was the latest study from Barna, a group that studies religious trends, and it gave its latest study on how many people have a traditional Biblical worldview.
This is what I shared on Facebook:
The latest Barna study found that while 67% of American parents with pre-teens identify as Christian, only 2% possess a biblical worldview.
“One of the most important things we learned about parents with pre-teens, is that they don’t believe the Bible is reliable or true, or relevant to their lives,” said Dr. Barna. “They don’t have the same view of God as given to us in the Bible….”
The numbers also show only 1% of this parent group in Catholic, mainline Protestant, and black Protestant churches have a biblical worldview, compared to just 9% in evangelical, charismatic, and non-denominational churches. Dr. Barna says this trend has been on the decline for about 25-years now and it’s getting down into the very low single digits with each succeeding adult generation. As millennial parents become the majority, Barna worries those numbers could get worse as they’re seen as least likely to have and share a Christian lens.
Now, I offered no commentary on that. I just posted it to let it sink in. I expected no lash back from it, I expected maybe a few likes, maybe a few sad or shocked emojis. But I ended up in this conversation that had a thread of 44 comments from two others and myself over the issue of homosexuality and how it has been translated in the Bible over the years and how it should be interpreted in the Bible.
Now, I’m not going to go into all the details, but after about 40 comments, it became obvious that the discussion was going to go around in circles. They were going to believe what they were going to believe and I was going to believe what I was going to believe. Now, I was sort of accused of not being open-minded and not considering any other worldview or even the facts. And then one of the commenters said that he considers all sides and makes a decision based on critical thinking.
Now, I have no problem with that, but there’s a difference between critical thinking and being led by the Spirit.
I didn’t want to say this to him because it might come off as bragging or insulting or even unbelievable, but if the subject comes up again, I might have to. I am not just led by preconceived ideas. I mentioned this on Mother’s Day about remembering the scriptures and who taught them to you. And in that, it wasn’t just who taught me, but the spirit behind it and through it. We sense the Holy Spirit in what we are taught, and through who teaches us. We sense the Holy Spirit when it comes to knowing what is right and what is not.
And that’s not just from strictly the Bible, it comes in other areas of our lives, even when it comes to political ideology and what to believe there. I sense there is a rightness and connectedness and a confirmation, affirmation, and alignment with The Holy Spirit that resides within me when it comes to any kind of ideology.
The same is true for when I look through the scriptures, and how to best interpret them, even when it comes to somewhat debatable Greek passages. And I’m sure he, the commenter when he started this conversation, was just as immovable in his stance too.
But is it led by the Spirit? I would have to assume no––and this is where the trouble lies, and why I didn’t say it because I didn’t want to be insulting. But I can’t imagine The Holy Spirit contradicting himself from one person to another.
Therefore, what I want to say about this is that while some see us Christians as stubborn or unwilling to be open to new ideas, or narrow-minded or having a preconceived worldview; I call it a steadfastness in the spirit––unmovable, unshakeable, keeping in step with the Spirit and being led by the Spirit.
Dr. Craig Keener said that being led by the Spirit means, “We have promptings or movings that go beyond [the] conscience. (Since conscience can be misinformed [1 Tim 4:2], learning to distinguish them can be important; but the Spirit can reshape our conscience with grace and right desire [cf. the Spirit’s godly desire in Gal 5:16-17]).”
In our Romans series, we talked about being led by the Spirit. In Romans 8:16, Paul says, “16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit, not only that we are God’s children, but many other things if we are led by the Spirit. And being led by the Spirit, as Craig Keener also pointed out, means being led even when we don’t sense it.
Proverbs 3:5-6, one of the most famous verses in the Bible, says this: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” If we go a few chapters later, in Proverbs 16:9, we read, “In their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”
Craig Keener, again said: What does it mean to be led by the Spirit? In terms of particulars, that depends somewhat on which biblical passage one is examining. But overall, it means depending on God’s guidance in our lives, so we walk in the paths he wants us to walk. We don’t always know exactly what his leading is, but our trust is more in his ability to lead us than in our ability to hear him. We follow our best sense of his leading, and trust in him to order our steps.
As we grow in our sensitivity to the Spirit, however, there is one area where we can be sure that his presence in our life will lead us: what is truly the leading of the Spirit will guide us in ways pleasing to God, always opposed to inclinations that do not. That is, the Spirit will never contradict the moral point that God’s Spirit already revealed in Scripture; the Spirit will empower us to live according to God’s heart.
So this leads me back to my main point: What lens are we using to focus with? That lens should be the lens of The Holy Spirit.
Last week we talked about what we are focused on…which is God, and God’s promises. Now, we focus on God with help from God himself, the Holy Spirit.
I seem to have digressed some from the original verse that we read in 1 Corinthians. What does this have to do with what we read? Let me read it to you again:
“Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, unmovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord because you know that the work that you do for the Lord isn’t wasted.”
How can we be steadfast and unmovable? What does it mean to be steadfast and unmovable?
Gotquestions.org says that: “An unmovable person can hear false teaching, engage doubters, and defend truth without it shaking his own faith.”
In Ephesians 4, Paul talks about becoming mature in Christ. To become mature is to be unmovable, unshakable, and steadfast. “[We] will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.”
The cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. The people I was having the discussion with on Facebook were not deceitfully scheming. They truly believed what they were saying. But how did they get to that belief? By cunning and craftiness. Satan led them astray through––believe it or not––a false interpretation of scripture just like how he tried to do so with Jesus in the wilderness. Satan tried to tempt Jesus through twisting scripture, and it was Jesus’s proper use of scripture that defeated Satan.
Satan tempted Adam and Eve by asking them, “Did God really say?” He twisted God’s words to mean something God didn’t mean.
Satan is cunning. He’s crafty. And he’ll use academic teaching or academic-sounding teaching to twist God’s words in order to convince people. But no matter how scholarly it might seem, it’s still false. How do we know, because we have the lens of the Holy Spirit, and we have more reliable academic sources.
From gotquestions.org again, “Satan uses Scripture for his own purposes, twisting it to sound as though it says something it doesn’t say (Luke 4:9–11). If we have not been diligent in our study and meditation on truth, we are vulnerable to error. The false religions of the world can be persuasive when they quote Bible verses to support their error. Even Christians can be duped by smooth-sounding heresy if they do not have a solid grounding in the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).”
John Piper said in a sermon, “Immovable means, don’t get knocked over by sudden blows. Keep your balance. Stand strong and unshaken when the rains come down and the floods come up and the winds blow and beat against your house. Be like a boulder that can’t get washed away. Be like a tree that can’t get blown down.”
Precept Austin likens this word to an anchor that prevents a ship from moving. We are to be anchored in the Spirit.
What does the next part of the verse mean? “Always excelling in the work of the Lord.” Not to just do the work of the Lord. You have to twist arms sometimes to get people to do the work of the Lord, but on top of that, their attitude sometimes is, ‘gee, I have to?’ I have to go to church? I have to tithe? I’m supposed to teach Sunday School? It’s my turn to ‘fill in the blank.’ We have another board meeting? That’s how I feel about the historical society now. We shouldn’t feel that way with church.
What other ministries are there? Prayer, encouragement, daily devotions? Anything that has to do with the ‘work of the Lord.’ Even daily work and household duties. Colossians 3 says, “23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
We are called to excel. Not be mediocre, but excel, and take pride in our work. Diana was just telling me about that yesterday. Someone who just started in the bakery said, “how is it that things only get done when you’re here?” Because Diana likes to take pride in her work. She has a strong work ethic. And it reflects on the whole department. People take notice that there’s something different when she’s there. Things get done, and they get done better.
In our work, especially ministry, Precept Austin said, we are “to excel or to be in abundance. The implication conveyed by this word is that of being considerably more than what would be expected.” And Paul prefaces with the word, ‘always.’ Always excel.
Easier said than done, right?
I need to change my attitude towards the historical society.
In The Victory of the Mystery, Ray Steadman said, “When you go back to your work do not see it as simply a way by which you earn your living. It has been given to you as an opportunity for you to have a ministry in which you witness, you demonstrate a changed life, a heart at peace, the radiant joy of fellowship with a living Lord on your face, and love pouring out of your heart to those who, like you, have struggled and lost frequently in the rat race of life (See Mt 5:14, 15, 5:16+).
That is what God sends us out to do as Christians. He has given us a work, not that we might make notable achievements which men applaud, and in which we make a name for ourselves. What God looks for is how are we behaving towards others? How do we show a loving spirit, a gracious, forgiving attitude, a willingness to return good for evil, an ability to speak a word of release to those who are prisoners of their own habits, to set free those who are oppressed by wrong, hateful attitudes, to bind up the brokenhearted, and to open the eyes of the blind? That is the work of the Lord. That is why God gives us contact with others. That is why God has given us our work.
And then Paul gives us a little promise at the end, “because you know that the work you do for the Lord will not be wasted.”
Similar to a passage in Isaiah that we read in another sermon a couple of weeks ago.
“So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
And we, in doing the work of the Lord, being led by the Spirit, will be accomplishing what God desires and achieve the purpose for which he sent us. Even ordinary, daily work.
So as we go about a new week, let us be steadfast in the Spirit. Unshakable, unwavering, immovable. Let us make sure we are aligned with the Spirit so that we sense the confirmation and affirmation of the Spirit when the doctrine is right, and the twisting of the Spirit when the scripture is twisted.
Like the “full armor of God” let us put on the Spirit’s lenses to see accurately. If they had glasses in the first century, I’m sure Paul would have probably added something like that in Ephesians 6: “Put on the lens of the Spirit.”
By putting on the lens of the Spirit, we can not only be immovable and steadfast, but we will also exceedingly, abundantly accomplish the work of the Lord as well. Are you focused through His lens? Do you have the lens of the Spirit?
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on First Baptist Church of Watkins Glen
Featured Image by Tope Asokere from Pixabay
