Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Believers have a calling to faithfully center our attention on Christ.
He is our reference point for all of life. While the calling is the same, the faithful stewardship of that calling will look a little different within the unique context in which God has placed us, each investing in the relationships around us. Today, Pastor Rich looks into Hebrews 3, 1-6 to help us better define what it looks like to be faithful as we point others to the Savior. This is the second part of a message titled, Defining Faithfulness. It was preached on May 13, 2012 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem.
It's very, very simple. This is my calling. I will center my attention on Christ. Consider the apostle and high priest of our confession. The word consider, the NIV translates it, fix your thoughts on.
I like that. It's like the radar is locked on something and wherever that object goes, it follows it. Fix your thoughts on. The word considers defined as fix your attention on to carefully and fully understand.
You know what this is? This is not a quick glance at Christ. This is what the writer of Hebrews is challenging his readers. Don't just take a quick glance at Christ. Devote your mind to God's truth. Consider, fix your thoughts on so that you can accurately and carefully and fully understand Jesus Christ. An ongoing student of the one who is himself the definition of faithfulness. The Lord himself said, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Meaning that when we come to God and we look to Jesus Christ, we're not coming to him on our terms.
We're not coming. We're not just adding him to the mix of all of our daily lives. We fix our attention on him. We center our attention on him.
Instead of just adding him to the mix of your busy day. You know, that's very much becoming a part of our culture. We are becoming quickly a culture of multitaskers.
I would take a survey this morning. How many of you consider yourselves to be successful multitaskers? But don't raise your hand because I want you to listen to this article. OK, so you think you can multitask texting while driving. People are so successful at that, they make laws against it.
Right? How about watching television while reading the Bible? There makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? How about checking your email while listening to your wife, men? Or moms, how about checking your email while you're listening to your kids? You know, this is multitasking and are we good at it? Well, think about this. According to a team of researchers at Stanford University, a news service article headlined the study this way. And this is a quote. This is the headline, quote, Attention multitaskers. If you can pay attention to this, your brain may be in trouble.
End quote. The researchers originally set out to discover what gave multitaskers their special focus. Instead, they were surprised to discover that many in many ways multitasking impairs performance. So while many people think they're effective at juggling multiple tasks, they're actually pretty lousy at it. For instance, heavy multitaskers are suckers for distraction and irrelevancy. According to one of the researchers, quote, everything distracts them. Multitaskers were also more unorganized in their ability to keep and retrieve information. They were even worse at the main thing that defines multitasking, switching from one task to the next. Heavy multitaskers underperformed in almost every area of the study. The article based on the study concluded with this advice, quote, By doing less, you might accomplish more.
How un-American. Folks, what the writer of Hebrews here is promoting is challenging us to is the preeminence of Christ. Don't just add Jesus into the mix of your everyday.
Give Christ the preeminence. He needs to be the center of your attention. He needs to be the reference point of everything that you do during the course of the day.
Tim did a masterful job at the men's breakfast yesterday morning. He was given an illustration from Francis Chan. And Francis got this hat, his big, large rim hat, and hang it on this hat all around him were all the distractions of life. You name it, whatever, whatever we have a tendency to focus on our life, you know, there's there was a really nice fancy sports car. There was a television.
There was a naked Barbie. OK, you get it. All right. Those kinds of things.
We are bombarded with that kind of stuff throughout the course of the day. Right. Let me tell you what the writer of Hebrews is saying here. Jesus is not another one of those hanging on the hat. OK, fix your attention, center your attention on Christ. Don't be a multitasker when it comes to your reference point, because this one, Christ, he is your master. He's your owner. You belong to him. Whose house we are, it says in verse six. That kind of says it all, doesn't it? We'll get into the understanding what that word house means.
Harry Emerson Fosdick said this, No steam or gas drives anything until it is confined. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated and disciplined. This is what the writer of Hebrews is challenging us to. Don't let Jesus just be another one in the mix of the busyness of your everyday life so that you have to be a multitasker of doing all my other stuff. Plus focusing on Jesus Christ.
No, no. Let Jesus be the center of your attention. Consider Christ Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession. But it is a call to faithfulness because that's what we see right there at the end of verse six. All right, here we go. Continuing on with the definition of faithfulness.
This is my calling. I will center my attention on Christ. Part two, in the context of entrusted relationships. In the context of entrusted relationships. Verse two, who was faithful to him who appointed him as Moses also was faithful in all his house. Faithful in all his house.
So it makes the distinction here. Moses was faithful in all his house. Jesus was faithful and he's the one that made the house. We're his house. What does house mean in this context? House is referring to people. People.
It is entrusted relationships. What was Moses' house? It was the people of Israel. It was a pretty big house. Oh, I don't know, 2.5 million.
It's a pretty big house. And Moses was faithful in the context of those entrusted relationships. And that's what we're called to as we follow Christ. How do I be faithful in the context of entrusted relationships? Well, what's the first part of the definition?
This is my calling. I will center my attention on Christ. My attention does not become centered upon another person. It does not become centered on another object.
It becomes centered on Christ, Jesus, and him alone. That is not only the definition. That is the means of faithfulness.
That's how it happens. And we can look at myriad ways that we are called to that in the context of entrusted relationships. How do I, all the relationships, let me back up here a minute, all the relationships in your life from day to day, every one of your relationships is a trust.
Every one of them. Or is your attention centered on Christ in the context of those entrusted relationships? That your interaction with every one of those relationships is anchored in and focused on this one, Jesus Christ, the one who defines faithfulness, your brother who came to rescue you and take you back to the father for whom you were created. I will center my attention on Christ in the context of entrusted relationships.
Let me give you an example. This is one that I think we can all relate to. This is by Kevin Miller from Wheaton, Illinois, and he thinks he remembers back to when he was in junior high.
There is something in this that every one of us to some degree will be able to relate to in one degree or another. Kevin Miller says this, right after I finished sixth grade, my family moved to a new town. As I started junior high that fall, I suddenly found myself in a school I didn't know in a town I didn't know with people I didn't know. I felt very alone. Nobody knew me and nobody wanted to talk to me.
Each day I would walk home alone wondering, is there a friend here for me? Then one day a kid named Earl invited me to his house after school. I jumped at it. Earl was kind of like the other kids, but he had shiny hair, meaning he wasn't particularly concerned about personal hygiene.
Near his house was a parking lot where the electric company parked his trucks and heavy equipment. Earl knew how to sneak in there and we climbed all over the big rigs and the augers and had a lot of fun. Earl and I began to build a friendship.
After a couple of months of sizing up this seventh grade classroom, I made an important realization. The kids who seemed to be the most popular, the kids who were really good at sports, the kids who had the best clothes, the kids whom the girls whispered about and blushed over were not Earl. They were two guys, Mike and Eddie. So when Mike and Eddie finally invited me over to their house, I was exhilarated.
This was my ticket to the big time. I had one problem. Wherever Mike and Eddie were, Earl was not. And wherever Earl was, Mike and Eddie were not. And if I was going to hang out with Mike and Eddie, I could not be seen with Earl. I knew it. So I made a decision.
I went over to Mike and Eddie's house and I struck up a friendship with them and I became in with those popular kids. When Earl called me, I kept putting him off saying, I'm kind of busy. All those years since that time, there's still a shame around that betrayal. And that's exactly what it is, isn't it? It's a betrayal.
Why is it? Because the truth is I betrayed Earl. I handed him another rejection in his life when he probably had so many. But I wanted something. There's the key. I wanted something. I wanted in. I wanted that popularity. If I had to hurt him, I would do it. That is the essence of betrayal.
I am willing to hurt you to get something for myself. We're so glad you've joined us for Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. You can hear this message and others anytime by visiting our website www.delightingrace.com. You can also check out Pastor Rich's book, Seven Words That Can Change Your Life, where he unpacks from God's Word the very purpose for which you were designed. Seven Words That Can Change Your Life is available wherever books are sold. As always, tune in to Delight in Grace, weekdays at 10 a.m.
