Shifting Our Focus

you, that’ll change your life. It’s easy to do, and if everybody do it, it changed the church and the world. Hello, everyone, and welcome again to another more faith, more life podcast. We’ve been working on a series called the Mandate of Honor, the mark of honor. And so we’re going to. This is part two. Part one was last time, if you missed it, the mark of honor or the mandate of honor.

0:00:26     And here today, we’re going to talk about shifting the focus back to God. Shifting the focus back to God. All right, now let’s think about that a little bit, because churches have back to church Sunday, for instance, and they try to get people to come on that day good to get them back in church, particularly after the summer. You know, you’ve been gone summertime, vacationing, and you missed church and you slept in and went picnicking. Well, now it’s time to get back to God, give back to church Sunday.

0:00:56     And that’s very popular across our country. But the problem is it doesn’t make any improvement because the focus is not on God, even when we go to church. Now, you need to get this because it can be deceptive if they do some pretty good worship and they worship from their heart. Well, a lot of people are singing the same songs, you know, at all churches that really worship and sing and praise and great musicians in a lot of churches, great camera work, all that kind of stuff. And so we’re singing the same words, but then what happens after that is what makes a difference, because there’s a lot of great songs that say honoring God and loving God and serving God.

0:01:39     There’s also a whole lot of songs about poor old me. I’m glad he still loves me, even though I’m so shameful and bad and stupid, but I’m thankful that he still has forgiven me and loves me. There’s a lot of songs like that, too. Not my favorites, but okay. But anyway, getting the focus back to God. And so if we think, well, if we can get them to come to church, that now they’ll, they’re focusing their life, at least more on God. But the problem is when you get to most churches, and there’s always exceptions, there’s not very many.

0:02:12     If there was a lot of them, it wouldn’t be an exception, right? There are exceptions. But the general problem across America is when people get back to church, even if they have good songs, we’re all singing great songs, the same ones that, that it changes there to where the focus then is no longer on God, but it’s on us. And that’s how people are building churches today, how they build big churches, how they get people to come and come back.

0:02:38     They’ll even have a service, maybe only an hour service, but they’ll make sure during the week they have a small group or a home group fellowship or something where you can really get in and talk about yourself and make friends and make, and communicate. And of course, none of that’s wrong, but you have to remember, church and the kingdom of God is not about your happiness, and it’s not about even your success.

0:03:06     I want you to be happy and you can be successful God’s way, but that’s not what it’s about. Those are offshoots and blessings and favor that comes from goddess. But so much as when we get then past singing, maybe, like I said, the same songs all across America, the best ones we got anyway, right? We sing all those songs and say all the right words, but where’s our heart? And all of a sudden, then we move to the self-help and personal improvement sermons.

0:03:37     Personal improvement and the kingdom of God is not about personal improvement. Everybody can personally improve, but you don’t have to go to church to personally improve. So people could personally improve by just going to the Internet, right? Going to some meeting, going down to another place, you know, therapy, the place where you get to talk to your problems, which are all good, too. But that’s not why we should come to church. Should not be self-improvement or personal improvement.

0:04:07     All right, we may get that out of that, but people can get that other places, too, right? Of course. Of course they do. So the church needs to separate itself and say, but what can we give? What can we offer that they can’t get at a group over here or the community group or whatever, or a sports team or whatever. And so we need to focus and get it off of ourselves and get a core teaching that we are here to honor God and to focus on who he is.

0:04:40     What is he saying? What is he, what is he, how is he moving? And how can I be a part of that? And I have to escape, then I have to escape this strong, strong urge to want to go to a church that talks about me and my feelings. It’s not my fault. You can do better. God’s going to help you do better. But we’re talking about being transformed and changed, and that’s what the kingdom of God does. Now here’s the other problem is we don’t know how to do this. I don’t know if it started when I was a kid. Maybe it did, maybe it was going on when I was a kid in grade school, but it certainly progressed from there and has really gotten strong.

0:05:20     Where I think the big problem is we don’t know how to be God’s sidekick or Jesus sidekick. We don’t know how to be in the story and not make the story about us. So, you know, if you read the book of Mark, the Gospel, the first line, one one in gospel of Mark says the gospel about Jesus Christ, it’s about him. And God is allowing me to join the story and be a part of the story. But we’re not very good at being a part of this story. We don’t see ourselves as what we really are and we put ourselves in the position of where we fit in. And I sometimes compare it to watching a movie and you have the good guy and the bad guy, and maybe it’s an old western and the good guy goes out in the street and the bad guys out in the street and they’re going to have the gunfight, right? They’re going to look each other and then draw and shoot and all that.

0:06:17     And so you got the good guy and he’s going to be faster, right? Usually. Always. Then you got the ugly bad guy, good looking good guy, ugly bad guy, scars on his face or whatever. Well, you know, you don’t watch a movie and go, well, that’s me. I’m that rotten bad guy. That’s who I am. I’m in the story, but I’m the bad guy in the story. No, we always put ourselves as the hero. We’re always in our minds. We’re living out a movie or a story.

0:06:44     Even if it’s read to us, we read it out as though we’re in it and it’s us and we’re the heroes. So it’s real easy to start reading the Bible and start going to prayer and start raising our hands maybe a little bit in church and singing and even giving in the offering, but still making it about me. The story in my own brain, in my own heart is my brain is always turning about me. And so that’s not the gospel.

0:07:11     And, you know, the churches have done us another disfavor. I think one of the reasons, let me back up. One of the reasons that churches and pastors and leaders have leaned over to making you feel better about yourself, which isn’t, you know, it’s not necessarily wrong. But, you know, sometimes if we don’t make the changes that need to be made, life is not going to get better. And people are just going to have to love us as we are.

0:07:36     But we want you to get better, and we want you to be transformed. We want you to really experience the living God. All right? But anyway, maybe it was swung that too much about your feelings and our hurts, and you’re not that bad. You’re victims. But we’re going to make you feel better. Maybe it swung that far because before that, the gospel was, and still is in many places, is what it is about. It’s about our sins, our defeats, God’s victory, but it’s about our sins reminding us how sinful we are, reminding us how our failings causing us. As I wrote in my absurd religion book, our gospel is about anxiety and guilt, right?

0:08:20     It’s anxiety driven. It’s guilt driven. Right? Anxiety driven. Guilt ridden. Anxiety driven. And it gets people, if you can get them anxious about their sins, anxious about eternal life, guilty, what they’ve done, now you can get them into the kingdom and turn to God. All right? That’s not why you do it. You don’t. You know, I was telling some people the other day, here’s one of the biggest insults, is listening to a sermon about heaven and hell and going to heaven if you die, and going to hell if you don’t. You know, standard altar call over and over and over, come down to the front so that you can have eternal life, have your sins forgiven, and have eternal life.

0:09:02     All right, I get it. I’m not criticizing that. But here’s the problem, because we don’t have these tremendous heart changes. People want to go to heaven because they don’t want to burn in hell, right? All right. People want to go to heaven, but they don’t care who’s there. See, the true followers go. They want to go be with somebody, the same one they’ve been with here, the same one that they’ve focused on, the same one they’ve served, the same one they’ve honored, the same one they’ve blessed and prayed to and.

0:09:39     And raised our families up as best we can, loving the word of God and loving the fellowship of church, of the assembly of the people of God, singing praises unto God. And in the early churches, when they were first all Jews and then later non-Jews in the first century, they based a lot of what they did on the Jewish tradition of just coming and singing songs to God and honoring God and doing that. But as we know in the book of Corinthians, it got turned around to where they started taking advantage and thinking how spiritual they were and getting out of order and all that kind of stuff, but before it was honoring God.

0:10:17     And so we want to get in this story that’s not about us and find out where we fit in. And, you know, we know that the Bible says this is the day that the Lord is made. But you know what? It wasn’t made for you is made for him. If you can find your place in this, you’re going to increase the blessing of God because you’re going to start giving the honor to where honor is due. And you’re going to help remove the disgrace of other people who make God a cuss word and say all kinds of bad things and mocking God and all those kinds of things.

0:10:50     So what we want to do in this part two is shifting the focus back to God. How do you shift the focus back to God? By one way, you can really do it. Most people don’t do, and that is start giving your best. Whatever you do, it is the best you can do. Now, this is very, very difficult because we live in a culture where few people give their best to anything. Even if you bring them into a corporation, say, do your best work, you’ll make millions, you still find people that they don’t show up or they get a great job, or they get benefits and they don’t show up, or when they’re there, they don’t give their best. Their minds are on other things. All their minds are is, I can’t wait to quit today and go home and do nothing.

0:11:34     All right, so in the kingdom of God now, you’re going to join. You’re going to believe in Jesus. He’s your savior, or you’re going to make him your savior. You’re going to love God with all your heart. All this. Start giving your best. Give your best. And the best place to start is church. Because church is focused, should be focused. Have some God moments when you can do your best, even if nobody else does. Even everybody else wants to talk about how hurt they are and how they’ve been wronged and want to be made to feel good about themselves rather than make you feel good. You know, church isn’t about you. It is through you, but it is about us honoring God and making God feel good about himself, letting God know we know who you are, we know how great you are.

0:12:19     So start the best. So this will change your life. It’ll change your church. There may be some people that think you start giving your best they don’t want to sit by you anymore. They don’t want to give anything. All right, so you go in. When I go in there, I’m going to do nothing but my best. No one can ask you to do better than your best, right? So music starts. What are you going to do? You’re going to give your best energy.

0:12:48     I mean, you’re just, you know, you’re like at the football game or whatever, you’re standing, you’re excited, you’re singing. People can hear you singing. They think you’re crazy, maybe, but you’re going to hear you. You’re going to say, what could I do? I can raise my hands at least halfway if that’s the best you can do. Cause you’re a little shy and embarrassed, do it halfway. Stand up strong. Sing strong.

0:13:11     Pay attention to the words. Give some honor. Give some strength, right? Put a little muscle in your singing when you get that. When they sing those strong songs about, you know, when the clouds be rolled back, you know, with a roaring. And you sing those songs how great thou art or whatever. Old songs, new songs. And if you’re going to say how great he is, give your best. Sing it with the very best you got.

0:13:37     It’ll change your life. And then usually what comes the offering time, all right? People just squirm and yell about offerings and tithing. They want to argue about tithes and everything like that. All you’ve got to do is your best and you will be blessed and it’ll change you. It’s good for God. Yay for God. Focus on God. Honor God with your gifts. But you know what? It will change you because you probably seldom give your best when it comes to money, right?

0:14:13     You don’t in generosity. When it comes to tithes and offerings, you’re best, right? I’m not saying give your rent money away, your car payment, don’t pay your insurance. No. But whatever you did, what you’re going to do, it is the best you can do, honestly. No lying. Don’t lie to yourself. Don’t lie to the church by acting like you’re really, you know, you’re really sacrificing. Are you really? No. You’re going to find very, very few people on, well, just stick to our country, but on the earth, that when they go to church, they’re going to give their best, right?

0:14:49     The best. When the best honesty. And then sermon time comes, what do you do? Pay attention with the best. You got zero in. Don’t play on your phone, right. Some people, they act like they’re looking at scriptures on the phone, but they’re not. But you want to do that, okay, but give your best. You pay attention. Maybe you want to, maybe your church is not an amen in church, okay? But you know, you know how to affirm, you know how to nod, you know how to look, you know how to look around to people like, this is good, I’m going to give my best to this.

0:15:21     And then, you know, pastors and leaders and preachers, they need to give their best, too. And some of them don’t give their best sermons. Some of them are written by other people. Some of them get them off the Internet. Well, I guess whatever you’ve got to do to get the word of God out. But when they get up there, they’re not giving their best to you, and they’re not giving their best to God. You know what they’re doing? They’re giving the best to themselves because they want to present the best.

0:15:45     They want to look the best they can to you. So that’s what they’re, they want to be like Pharisees in the first century that wanted to be seen, they wanted to be applauded, they wanted to be led to the best seats. And they loved money. And so they’re not giving their best to God when they’re up there. They’re giving their best to you because they want you to applaud, they want you to admire, and they’re trying to make themselves feel valuable by the way they preach and how clever they are and their sense of humor and all their little antidotes and then scriptures and how they are here to help rescue you and make you feel better and help you get through another week. And so it’s really, it’s still, it’s all about them, too.

0:16:25     And that’s why it doesn’t work. We have to get our services back to where they’re focusing on God. And, and giving our best is, is the best way that you can honor God. And the sermon’s done. If they say, let’s pray, give your best. Don’t mumble and drift off. Certainly don’t drift off during the sermon and, you know, give your best offer to pray yourself. Ask somebody, could I pray? If you’re a leader, you don’t have any problem with saying, I’ll pray. Well, pray your best and give your best. Sing your best. Love your best.

0:16:57     Love the people your best. Look at them, see how they’re doing. Check them out. Give your best. You start giving your best to God, it’s going to change your life. It’s going to change your life because very few people do it. And it gives God such honor when he finds somebody that’s given the best they got just for him. And now it’s a God focused life and a God focused church. Well, I hope you’ll tell your friends about the podcast and help them follow and follow us on all the places where we are and hit the like and tell your friends, because I’m just.

0:17:33     If you’re following it all, there’s a lot of great podcasts out there. I know all kinds of stuff, but a lot of them are still leaning into what I would call old wineskins, which they sound like modern sermons, but they’re not. They’re old. You know why? Because Satan is all about him. His thoughts are all about himself. And the more we focus on ourselves, that’s old. We need a new, revived church that revives God’s honor and gives God the best that we can. It’ll change the church, it’ll change you, it’ll change the church. And that’s how we change the world.

0:18:09     And right now they tell me people are dropping out of church. Dropping out of church. Dropping out of church. Yeah. Cause you know what? I don’t want to go sit by some half-hearted, lukewarm, burnt-out person who just attends. Cause it makes friends and it’s good for business and you know, and you got a great, oh, they have a great children’s ministry here. So I want to bring the kids. Yeah, okay. I don’t want to live like that.

0:18:33     I want to give my best. It’s changed my life, and it’ll change yours, too. Go check out our website,  morefaithmorelife.com. If you haven’t got the book, If You Only Knew, get it. Download it for free. Buy it. I think. I think there’s a cd on there. I think. I guess there’s a music cd on there you can download. I can’t remember if it’s there. I just mentioned the book, My Absurd Religion, that’ll get you. It exposes a whole lot of junk that you ought to know.

0:19:01     Stuff that make people quit church or stuff that make people just lose interest in church. It’s in that book, and it’ll help you. So I’m so glad we talked about this today. We’re talking about the mandate of honor, getting honor and restoring God’s honor. And now we’re going shift. We’re going to shift it now away from ourselves and on God and giving the best that we’ve got. Till next time. Bye.