Preacher: Travis Sanders

I know my kids said it was making me feel too old.

That’s another story all right but Travis you know I asked Travis to do this is long as I’ve known Travis for those you know Travis is well he takes his face very seriously he’s a man of prayer he’s a man of face and today he’s going to share with us what God has laid on his heart to so hopefully get well as pray Dear Lord I pray for my brother your son Travis I’m excited for him to share with us what you believe on his heart and what is important to him and it’s important to him as a community of believers I pray that it will be important to us the way that we think in act and live on our face and so I pray that you’ll be with Travis right now helping to be able to share clearly with us what you lean on the story who prays in Christ name human and.

Yes ready.

To go.

Before I fire Well it’s just I’m going to pray really quick God is pray that your words will come out.

And that.

Your body would hear your scripture not. Your name and I were going to start in verse a day in Colossians three.

Verses one two.

And cautions three wanted to Therefore if you have been raised with Christ keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Keep thinking about things not things on earth.

They want to talk to you about a focus where we focus our minds where we put our thoughts.

I know a little bit about this I’m a fireman. OK And you know when you go through a twelve week academy you learn about the. Pissing on times and getting the hose laid laid out right and making sure you don’t screw up at all and then you look at the instructor and says yeah you’re good and that’s what you focus on so when you get on the field you just keep doing the same thing.

I have a brother here from the fire department but you can attest to this so you get out into the field in that first fire call you go on you’re so focused on not screwing up that you completely screw up everything you do right so you’re getting in the truck and you’re putting on your hood and you’re getting turned out and we call it turned out is when you get all your gear on so you get all your gear on and you get in turned out and you end up screwing up your jacket so it’s like sideways in your mask is on backwards and you put on your hood and your senior fireman’s next to you like just trying to adjust you as you’re going because you’re screwing up everything you get to the fire and the brake sets and you jump off and you’re like this you’ve got your head down and you put on your packing you’re getting your air pack on so you can breathe inside the fire your air pack on you pull the hose off and you run it out you realize you’re in front of the wrong house you’ve got to go over to the next one.

And so finally are the front door right.

But you haven’t paid attention to anything that’s going on you’re just trying to get your time and not screw up but you’ve done all of those things already screw up everything.

So as you get more senior on the job you realize that your focus has to be on other things you get the fire calm when you get on the truck you just automatically put on your gear and not paying attention to putting on my gear I know how to do that my focus is on the radio because the radio tells me everything I need to know tells me how big the fire is where it’s at or thirty people trapped what kind of what kind of hose line there point off the truck so that gives me an idea of how much fires in the building. You’re looking at the time of day or the people home are they at work give you an idea of their victims and then when you get to the fire you’re not paying attention to getting your hair back on you. Looking at the fire you’re looking at where it’s at in the building how you’re going to make access to the front door to the side doors are going to go around at the back all these things are going through your mind you’re taking in all this information right you have to so that you know how to do your job right.

So if you’re taking any notice we’re going to we’re going to start reading we’re going to go to cautions one versus nine through eleven.

We’re starting verse nine.

This is Paul speaking to the church in caution or the last day but for this reason we also from the day we heard about you have not ceased praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

So the first point about focusing our mind on Christ putting her thoughts and our focus on Christ is that he is the source of our wisdom in our knowledge.

At a pretty good buddy in high school.

My senior year and he was a very charismatic guy we got along really well we always in the rooming together whenever we did high school trips we ran cross-country together.

And we both went off to college and we came back and I was hanging out with him at his house and we were in his backyard and he’s he’s telling me about how how smart his professors are in college how much more he’s learning and about this new idea about religion and how religion is all just relative right so you can believe in Buddha or Christ and all these things as long as you believe in it as much as you can then we can all just get along and it’s just fine and I’m looking at all of you and you shaking your heads you know you’re like well that’s not right but see we know that’s not right not because of ourselves we know it because we know the truth of Scripture.

And it’s only through knowing scripture in focusing our minds and. Pricing him pouring his wisdom and his knowledge into us that we’re able to determine what is a lie and what is truth. C. and you can’t do that unless you focus your mind on God if you don’t keep your mind on got you can get structed and the verse that came to mind see I was raised in a Christian home and I have been taken to church by very faithful mom and dad would really helped me out a lot knowing scripture but the verse that came to my mind immediately when he started telling me this was in Colossians two and two two three four and I read it for you see I didn’t even know what the verse was when this came to my mind but it came to me immediately when he started telling me about this. My goal is that their hearts having been knit together in love may be encouraged and that they may have all the riches that assurance brings in their understanding of the knowledge of the mystery of God namely Christ and whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge I say this so that no one will see view through arguments that sound reasonable. See God is the source of our wisdom and our knowledge and when we focus on him he puts his wisdom and knowledge into us he pours it into us and we’re able to figure out what is truth in a life in this world.

And just like on that on the fire if I’m focused on the fire if I look at what I’m getting myself into I take in all the information that I need in order to take the proper actions.

And that brings us to our second point in Colossians ten cautions one versus ten.

So I’m jumping back and forth a lot of give you just a second to turn.

So cautions one verse ten so that you may live worthily of the Lord and please Him All right. Bags bearing fruit in every good.

Growing in the knowledge of God.

So our second point is that we have to focus on God because He is the source of our purpose and all explain what I mean by this.

His source of our purpose I was always raised that our primary role as creation is to glorify our creator that’s what he made us for we are supposed to glorify him and just to give you a visual what that means I have a really beautiful wife and she let me use your as an illustration but she’s not just the pie eating champion of Grace Bible Church she’s also she’s also a very complex carpenter she really enjoys building large solid farmhouse tables.

And so this she makes them all like every single one is different but she likes to use her artistic ability and she changes all the time but this last one she made was really cool in it she got on the planks together and she got them all glued unscrewed all together and then after that she took a torch and she burned it all and the way it works when you burn wood is that the dense parts of the wood don’t burn as quickly as the the less dense parts so what you end up is just as undulating pattern of dark and light colors it looks really beautiful and if you were to look at that table. Would you glorify the table or the maker you would you look for the maker right she did a great job she planned it all she decided to be a certain height so he could sit underneath it right she made the legs and the table top and everything well the same thing goes for God Right see God and we all know this he existed before anything right you’re the Father Son and Holy Spirit existing in perfect harmony and he didn’t need anything else and then one day before the Reagan days he said let’s make some stuff and he created the worlds and. And it says the sun and the moon and stars and he created time and mathematics and physics and science he created all this thing all these things and then he made us. He made us so that when we looked out his creation we say wow God is amazing he is amazing and then when people look at us our lives should exemplify God so they could say wow God is amazing that’s what we were made for.

I really like how David puts it in song twenty three he talks about resting in God a hole through Psalm twenty three he’s talking about just resting in God and near the end of the song the talks about his cup runneth over and I’m just this picture of God just pouring his wisdom in his knowledge into us and it flows out into our lives and into our actions so that we exemplify God in everything that we do and that’s that’s what we should be doing. So just like on that fire I was talking about earlier I take in all the information I need and then I can put my actions in they make a difference and they do what they’re supposed to do on like that new guy who I’m just trying to wrangle and bring back to the right spot I’m I’m going through the front door I know how to do it I know where the victims are you know how big the fire is of us and the addicts and the side door or whatever you know and that’s that’s how our lives should be we should be focused on God so his wisdom and knowledge come in comes into our lives and in our actions can make a difference and glorify him.

Continuing on with our passage we get down to collage ans. Chapter one Verse eleven.

Being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. For the display of all patience and steadfastness joyfully.

Point number three is that we have to focus on God because he’s a source of our power.

And this is this is. The best part of this Christian walk that we have you see as a firefighter I do all the work it is really hard work and I would not wish you guys fighting a fire at all because half of us are going to have a heart attack and the other half are going to quit it’s really tough it’s probably the hardest work you’d ever do in life but as a Christian that’s completely different God does all the work he is the the power behind our vehicle.

In scripture we see that that God is compared to the vine and we are the branches see all the all the power comes through the vine and into the branches we don’t produce it in verse ten if we go just back to one one verse this is bearing fruit in every good deed so you always thought that bearing fruit was the same as producing fruit in bearing I don’t know my mind didn’t really translated very well but bearing isn’t producing God produces a fruit we just bear it we hold it right God makes all of the good deeds that we do but we have to focus on him for that to work.

In Philippians one six he says who he who began a good work in you. Will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. God does all the work in our lives we have to focus on him so he can impart His wisdom and his knowledge into our lives so that he can propel our actions forward and then they make a difference in glorifying him in this world around us.

A really cool thing about God is that he is cool is such a terrible word.

Incredible let’s use incredible really incredible thing about God is that he’s infinite right and because of that there’s an infinite number of ways you can focus on God as long as it’s comes along. With the truth of the Bible you can focus on God in so many different ways. But it just before you know I’m done I close I just like to share with you how I would I like to look at God how I like to focus on him.

And rather than using my own words I’m going to use Scripture because he’s so much better than I am so. You don’t have to read along I’ll just read it to you just just listen to these words it’s in Isaiah six verses one through five.

In the year of Kenya’s eyes death.

I saw the sovereign master seated on high elevated on a high elevated throne the hymn of this robe filled the temple.

Saira first it over him each one had six wings with two wings they cover their faces with two wings they cover their feet and they use the remaining two to fly they called out to one another holy holy holy is the Lord who commands armies his majestic splendor fills the entire earth the sound of their voices shook the door frames and the temple was filled with smoke I said too bad for me I am destroyed from my lips or are contaminated was sent and I live among the people whose lips are contaminated with send my eyes have seen the king the Lord commands armies.

See we we worship a powerful God and he is seated in heaven.

And he commands respect and when we put our mind on him all the little troubles that we have in our life like.

My kids not having soccer practice at the same time so I have to be at the park for an extra hour you know just all these all these little troubles that we and I can’t even think of so many right now but you hold them up and you hold them against this powerful god that we have and the one without the other immediately. And when we’re able to focus our minds on a God like that.

Just makes better husbands better fathers and better friends because we’re able to use and we’re able to be more like Christ and influence those relationships the way they ought to be so.

That’s all I had to say today.

That was it.

And I’m going to close in prayer and then it will be dismissed.

Lord God it is thank you for this opportunity to speak to my brothers and sisters here I pray that as we go through this week that we would focus our minds on you that we would allow you to.

Be the power in our lives like your wisdom and your knowledge flow into us.

And spread that we would all be safe for us that day and in prayer and in.