Staying Focused: Embracing Authentic Faith Amid Distractions

"And we are losing intellectual capacity as a whole. I think there's far even greater damage that can be done to our lives and to our soul by the constant distractions of the world around us. And so we see that not just our intellectual capacity is being reduced, but our ability to have meaningful relationships with others, being involved in meaningful ministry opportunities of making Jesus Christ known." [00:39:33] (32 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


"So we're in 1 John, and we've been reading through the text, and we've kind of seen over the last, few weeks, how this pastor named John, who wrote this book in the context of Ephesus, a city that was probably had between two and 250,000 people that were living there. It was a community that was, had all kinds of pagan gods. There was seven wonders of the world, like the ancient world, the temple of Artemis or the temple of Diana was situated there. It was a center for commerce. It was a center for diversity. It was a center for distractions." [00:41:17] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


"And John also wrote a little book called Revelation. Maybe you've read it. Maybe you've tried to tackle it at times. And he wrote that letter, the apocalyptic letter, the book of Revelation, at about the same time he would have written 1st John. You know, maybe just even a few years that would have separated the two writings. But John, he would write of this church in Ephesus. This is what he would say of this church." [00:42:55] (29 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


"As we begin to look at what it means to avoid distractions or not get destroyed by distractions. And if you're going to not get destroyed by distractions, you need to know where your true north is. You need to know where it is that is worth focusing your attention on. You know, what is worth your undivided attention and for that, John gives us these words." [00:44:42] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


"Now, I just paused there to say, now John's going to go back around the horn. He's going to go back around, and he's going to talk to the little children. He's going to talk to the fathers. He's going to talk to the young men. Now, these aren't, I don't think, these shouldn't be seen as literal people, but rather representing the different stages of spiritual growth. The growth of the people within the church of Ephesus." [00:47:06] (27 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


"Like if you ever messaged somebody and you really wanted to make your point and show the emotion and you like all caps it, like you know that that's different than if you know all lowercase, like you just know there's a different level of emotional engagement. And I'm not saying that John is necessarily angry, but I mean, he's definitely he's in the throes here and it's like he's put on his all caps." [00:50:05] (24 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


"And so you think, okay, if we're not to love the world or the things of the world, and if the, you know, if I get too close to the world, well then, what's going to happen? Well, here, I want to give another caution. The caution can be that we remove ourself from the world around us." [00:57:04] (21 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


"To be in the world, but not of it. In other words, that we can be a positive influence to the people around us, and not be influenced in negative ways towards the things of God. John would say this in his prayer, or Jesus says this in his prayer, written in John. It says, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one." [00:58:31] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


"And salt is best served or best enjoyed when it is immersed in something else. Like, maybe some of you enjoy just like down in a bunch of salt, like, yeah, but boy, you put it in the right quantity on the right food, and it enhances it. You know, the imagery of salt as we would see it from kind of a first century perspective, is that salt was used to preserve." [00:59:58] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


"And John is saying, when you give your affections to the things of this world, this world passes away. And ultimately, I think he's saying, he's talking about the world, everything will pass away, everything will change. And what I want next year for Christmas, I don't even know yet, because I probably haven't even seen it yet, but this year I'm gonna see it, I'm gonna want it, because it passes away." [01:15:21] (26 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)