Main Idea: A life fully focused concentrates on experiencing a daily relationship with the Risen Christ.

John writes in his Gospel of his own personal experience of being a witness to the first Easter, "Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, "They have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb, and I don't know where they have put him!" Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see. The other disciple outran Peter and got there first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus' head was folded up and lying to the side. Then the other disciple also went in, and he saw and believed" (John 20:1-8).

"He saw and believed." Those words record John’s connection of the sight of the empty tomb with a belief that Jesus was who he said he was. What John saw that first Easter morning would change forever the focus of his life. He would begin his Gospel by saying he had seen the glory of Jesus Christ (John 1:14). He would begin his letter of I John by declaring that he had seen with his own eyes Jesus Christ (I John 1:1) in the flesh. He would begin his Revelation by telling of a moment when the sight of the Risen Christ overwhelmed him and he collapsed as if he were dead (Rev. 1:17). What he saw in that empty tomb would cause him to never take his eyes off of Jesus Christ for the rest of his life! He would live the rest of his days with his life fully focused on the Risen Christ. "Living daily in light of the resurrection—this is what Easter means." (Dietrich Bonhoffer)

Paul, as well, was someone who, after meeting the Risen Christ personally on a road toward Damascus, Syria, would never change his focus. Whatever he did and regardless of what would happen to him, he kept his heart’s focus on the Risen Christ. So it was really out of the overflow of his life that he would tell the Christians in the Colossian church, " Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God's right hand in the place of honor and power." (Col. 3:1) Paul knew what it meant for his life to be fully focused on the Risen Christ.

Over the last three weeks we have talked about what it means to be a person who lives their life daily in light of the resurrection. We have said that a person who lives their life in light of the resurrection is a life fully free, fully alive and fully surrendered. Today we want to talk about a life that is fully focused. What I want us to understand from our scripture passage for today is that a life fully focused concentrates on experiencing a daily relationship with the Risen Christ.

Now I realize when you hear that that it may sound very simplistic and uninteresting. That surely I would have gone to more trouble on Easter Sunday than something so juvenile as talking about a daily relationship with Jesus Christ. You would say to me, "I pray--regularly. I read my Bible or some devotional thought—regularly. I come to Sunday School and church—regularly. I give money to the church—regularly." I would say to you that not one of those things are insufficient in and of themselves, but what Paul is describing here is a life that so concentrates on the Risen Christ that the inner compass of your soul is fully focused on your relationship with him daily. So that when I wake up, I know why I’m alive! When I walk through the day I know why I’m here! When I lay down at night I know my life has counted! Paul takes our focus to another level!

Andy Stanley says, "Your potential to make an impact with your life is directly related to your willingness to narrow your focus." 7 Practices of Effective Ministry, p. 101) Are you able to say that today your life is fully focused on the Risen Christ? If not, what is keeping you from having that focus? Do you know why you are alive? Do you know why you are here? Do you know your life will count? The only way is to fully focus your life is by concentrating on experiencing a daily relationship with the Risen Christ.

What is involved in a life that is fully focused? The first thing that our text shows us is that a life that is fully focused has experienced deep, lasting change (Col. 3:1, 3). What has changed for someone to be fully focused on the Risen Christ? One thing is that they have experienced a deep separation from what once controlled them (Col. 2:20, 3:3). Paul says in Col. 2:20 and in Col. 3:3, "You have died with Christ" and "For you died when Christ died." If I am alive, I know I haven’t died so what does he mean when he says that you and I have died with Christ? Paul means that when Jesus died on the cross there was a spiritual representation that it was as if I died also. He died to pay the penalty for my sin and to free me from the power of sin’s control. I no longer answer for sin’s penalty or live in control of sin’s power. When I invited Christ to be my Savior and Lord, there occurred a deep spiritual separation from what once controlled me.

Not only have they experienced a deep separation, they have also experienced a lasting transformation to a completely new life. (Col. 3:1) Paul makes an assumption that a person who is a Christian is someone who has been raised to new life with Christ. He means that when Jesus rose again that there was a spiritual representation so that as if I had been resurrected with him. He is implying that a person who is a Christian has begun to live in a whole new realm of life. Their past has been separated from them; they can now live an entirely new life.

Jamie Foxx recently won an Academy Award for his film portrayal of the life of Ray Charles in the movie entitled "Ray." For all the things that Ray Charles overcame in his life—blindness, racism, poverty—one of the demons that almost destroyed him was his addiction to heroin. Ray Charles could not see physically but also could not see what his addiction was doing to his family, his reputation and his career. At the pinnacle of his career Ray Charles entered a drug rehabilitation program where he faced his addiction, separated himself from his addiction and came out a changed man. He had to die to his addiction to be free to live a new life. Until the focus of his life was changed, nothing was going to change!

So what about you? Where is the focus of your life? Have you experienced deep, lasting change because of your relationship to Jesus Christ? If the focus of your life hasn’t changed, then nothing has changed! It doesn’t matter what you say or do if the focus of your life is still where it was, then nothing has changed! A life fully focused has experienced deep lasting change. Until the focus of your life changes, nothing is going to change!

When I focus on something it means I choose to not focus on other things in order to focus on what most commands my attention. In the same way, a life fully focused concentrates on what most concerns Christ (3:1, 2). Paul tells these Christians that their focus is determined by their own choices and decisions. He tells them to "set your sights on the realities of heaven" and to "let heaven fill your thoughts." Those are the only two commands in the passage. They mean to change your focus currently and keep it that way. It implies in both cases a continuous, ongoing effort that won’t happen by itself. I will not have my sights or desires directed on the realities of heaven or my thoughts filled with heaven unless I do so intentionally!

You hear this and you think he is describing someone who goes around living in a Christian bubble who is never in touch with reality. Yet that is not what Paul means because if there was anyone who was both fully focused on Christ as well as in touch with the real and practical world, it would be Paul. What he means by the "realities of heaven" means an understanding that the only thing that is standing between my life now and my life in eternity is my physical death. As far as God is concerned, I have already begun to live where I am going to spend eternity. Therefore, our thoughts, aim, direction and intentions are to be in line with where I am going!

So how does this happen? It happens by my making a choice to concentrate on what most concerns Christ rather than what most concerns me! Paul says that my focus is to be "where Christ sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and power." He is not meaning a literal throne or seat but the people and places where the rule of Christ is recognized. In other words, what most concerns Christ are people who need his care! For Jesus, finding people who need his care was the passion of his life. He began his ministry telling people that his rule over their lives was available. (Matt. 4:17). He spoke about that rule being just the same on earth as it is in heaven. (Matt. 6:10). He saw people who needed his care and had compassion on them. (Matt. 9:35-38). He described God as being so passionate about persons finding his care that he would not be satisfied if even one was missing (Matt. 18:12-14). His passion for finding persons needing to come under his care was his last command to those who followed him. (Matt. 28:19-20).

Yet is that really our concern as believers? The people Paul was writing to had two major areas of distraction that would keep them from focusing on things that most concerned Christ. Those two things were impersonal rituals and inappropriate pleasure. He told them in Colossians 2:20-23 that they were being influenced by outsiders to be hung up on impersonal religious rules and rituals. There were others, though, who had gone the other way and were allowing themselves to be dominated by inappropriate pleasures for a Christian (Col. 3:5ff). Either way, they had lost their focus on what most concerned Christ and were focused on what most concerned themselves.

What stops you and me from concentrating on what most concerns Christ is our allowing our participation in impersonal rituals of religion to become our focus instead of the people who need his care. We applaud those who are missionaries who do what is unique or creative to reach people but become critical and resistant to doing the same thing in our own church. The other side of this is that we can become so focused on what gives us pleasure that we lose our concentration on what most concerns Christ. We may or may not be involved in the immorality that Paul describes here in Colossians 3:5 but we are not willing to be inconvenienced or uncomfortable if it means taking our focus off ourselves.

During Spring Break for ASU, our university students took two mission trips. One went to Boston and the other to Nashville. Todd Rouse, our University Minister, led the 13 students that went to Boston. They worked for a week with T. J. Odom and Nathan Critz, both in their 20’s, who are missionaries with the North American Mission Board working to establish a college church in the Boston University community. They have been there a little over two years. Our students were there to do surveys and interviews with students who might be interested in the church. The Sunday before our students were there they had their highest Sunday attendance of 19! Why would those young men give the best part of their lives to a task that seems so futile? Because they have focused their life on the Risen Christ and concentrate on what most concerns Christ. Why did our students give up their Spring Break to go to Boston and Nashville as well as our youth to Arlington, Texas, when they could have kicked back? Because they wanted to be involved in what most concerns Christ—reaching people who need his care!

How can I concentrate on what most concerns Christ? Paul tells us it is by our own choice to redirect our desires and to redirect our thoughts. The way that is done is by listening and following what Christ says to me daily! When are we going to take seriously what God wants to say to us through His word? When are we going to stop treating a time of reading the Bible like we do the sports page? When are we going to stop thinking of Sunday School, worship, small groups or Bible studies as just one more item on my social agenda? When are we going to understand that the Risen Lord Jesus Christ is passionately waiting to talk to me every day of my life? I can tell you personally that it is hard for me to keep my focus on what most concerns Christ. I can get so consumed by the machinery of the church that I lose focus on the mission of the church. Recently in my own personal Bible reading I read these words of Jesus: "It is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish" (Matt. 18:14). I was once again reminded that what concerns Christ most is people, people who need his care! The longer we as a church allow our focus to be concentrated on impersonal rituals and satisfying our own pleasures, we will fail to be focused on what most concerns Christ!

A life that is fully focused on the Risen Christ has experienced deep, lasting change, concentrates on what most concerns Christ, but also they know what is real! (Col. 3:3, 4). In Colossians 3:3-4 Paul uses the word "real" two times. In verse 1 he has mentioned the "realities" of heaven. Using those terms lets us know that there is something about our spiritual life that is "real" or "true" as opposed to what is "false" or an "illusion." Paul explains to us that these are dimensions of our spiritual life that we need to understand. He wants us to understand our real security as a believer, our real life as a believer, and our real destiny as a believer. He is saying that as a Christian these are the "realities" that give our spiritual life stability and security.

He describes our spiritual life as so secure that it is hidden deep within the very presence of God (v. 3c). He describes our spiritual life as having only one source and that is Christ’s life alone (v. 4a). He defines our spiritual life as having a clear purpose and that is a sharing in the glory and greatness of Christ when He returns (v. 4b). This is what is real about you! You are not someone who just happens to try to live a nice life. You are someone whose very spiritual presence is already present before and in the God of the entire universe! You are not someone who just tries to make it through the 24 hours of every day. You are someone whose true life is the very life of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ! You are not someone who is going to just hang on until Jesus comes and hope for the best. You are someone when the Risen Christ returns everybody will see you for who you really are! This is what is real! The question is do you know that!

Malcom Gladwell’s new book called Blink is about the power of thinking without thinking. The book opens with a story of a statue offered for purchase by the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1983. The statue was said to be a Greek statue of a young boy dating from the sixth century B.C. the statue was seemingly perfectly preserved and was a bargain at $10 million. The Getty Museum moved cautiously and used experts from all kinds of fields of science to determine the authenticity of the statue. Geologists, archeologists, and historians, x-rays, microscopes all were used to examine this rare specimen. Finally after 14 months, the Getty Museum bought the statue and it went on display in 1986. One art journalist write, "God or man, he embodies all the radiant energy of the adolescence of Western art" (Blink, p. 5).

There was only one problem – the statue didn’t look quite right. An Italian art historian pointed this out in 1983. An American expert on Greek sculpture said the same thing. A third expert, also an American, saw it and knew instinctively that something wasn’t right. A final expert on Greek sculpture also said that the statue wasn’t what it seemed to be. It was later determined that the statue wasn’t made in Greece in the 6^th century but in Rome in 1981! How long did it take the four experts to determine if it was real? Two seconds! They were able to understand more about the essence of the statue in two seconds than the Getty team did in fourteen months. How? They knew what was real when they saw it because they have spent their life focusing on their own expertise.

Let me ask you: Do you know what is "real" about your spiritual life? Have you spent your life’s energies focusing on what God’s word says is true about you? If Easter means anything it means that the Risen Lord Jesus Christ has secured your spiritual life, given you his life to live in you and that when God brings all this to an end you will be seen for whom you really are—His child! That’s what’s real! If your focus doesn’t lead you to those realities, then you need to change your focus! A life fully focused knows what is real.

In 1970, the Apollo 13 moon landing had to be aborted due to an in-flight explosion. Jim Lovell captained the crew of Apollo 13. For several days on the return trip home the situation grew more critical as their oxygen supply and power began to dwindle. On the sixth day Lovell had to make a critical course correction that required them to conduct a thirty-nine second burn of the main engines. However, to do that they had to shut down the onboard computer that steered the craft. The reality was that if they were wrong only slightly in their calculation, then the spacecraft would go spiraling off into outer space.

Astronaut Jim Lovell determined that if they could keep a fixed point in space through their tiny window, they could steer the craft manually. That focal point turned out to be their destination—Earth! So for 39 agonizing seconds Lovell focused on keeping the earth in view. By not losing sight of that reference point, the three astronauts avoided disaster. Where you place your focus determines your impact!

Today we are challenged to ask where our focus is. We celebrate an empty cross and an empty tomb but is that where our focus lies? Is our focus to be on the relics of history or on the Lord who triumphed over history? Our focus is to be on the Risen Lord Jesus Christ! He is the one who has caused me to experience deep, lasting change! He is the one who invites me to join him in concentrating on what most concerns him! He is the one who presents me with the ability to know what is real!

Is it time for you to make a course correction? Then do that by choosing to have a life that is focused on experiencing daily your relationship with the Risen Christ." Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven!"

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org