Shownotes
Fixing our gaze is not just a challenge in a scrolling, fractured culture. It's a spiritual battleground with life-altering stakes. As believers, we are called to anchor our hearts on Christ in a world of seemingly endless rubble, lost dreams, distraction, and shifting priorities.
Pastor Barbie shares how our focus shapes our devotion, identity, and capacity for peace. She urges us to move from surviving the ashes to beholding the significance of the cross, the person of Jesus, and the hope that outlives the fleeting trials of today. The secret is not in trying harder but in learning to see again.
Scriptures Referenced
Hebrews 12:1-3; Isaiah 26:3, Nehemiah 4:10, Matthew 6:21; John 1:29; 2 Corinthians 4:18
Key Insights
- The Battle for Focus: A distracted heart is easily derailed, but fixing your gaze on Jesus realigns your life and restores your peace.
- From Ashes to Beauty: Even in seasons of loss or failure, God specializes in bringing beauty out of what looks ruined—if we dare to trust Him.
- The Power of Beholding: We become like what we continually behold. True awe, worship, and perseverance come when we stop, see, and savor what God is truly doing.
Key Sections
00:00:00 | The Everyday Battle for Attention
Oh, how quickly our thoughts spiral, and why focus matters.
00:04:09 | What Captures Your Mind Captures Your Heart
How fixation births devotion and shapes the course of our lives.
00:05:09 | The Gift of Perseverance
A deep dive into the call to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith.
00:08:02 | The Oldest Temptation
Adam and Eve’s story reveals the perennial fight for focus and why the enemy wants to hijack our gaze.
00:10:23 | Linked Arms
The importance of unity, intergenerational strength, and keeping our eyes on the trustworthy guide.
00:14:48 | Peace, Trust, and the Rubble of Life
Explores how true peace is anchored in trust, not circumstances, especially in seasons of ashes and rebuilding.
00:19:05 | The Work of Rebuilding
Parallels between ancient Israel’s broken walls and our modern life struggles show our need for community and right focus.
00:25:03 | Recovering Awe and the Sacred Pause
Examine the biblical command to behold, warning against the loss of awe and the dangers of spiritual numbing.
00:32:56 | Replacing Lies with Truth
Practical steps to renew the mind, receive peace, and move from spectator to worshipper as a unified body.
https://springhouse.captivate.fm/episode/fix-consider-behold
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Gathering Times
- Sundays, 9:00 AM
- Sundays, 11:00 AM
- Wednesdays, 6:00 PM
Contact Info
Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167
CCLI License 2070006
Transcripts
All
Speaker:of
Speaker:a sudden, I have this image of men leaning over going, honey, I'm gonna have
Speaker:to buy a truck.
Speaker:He said he needed it. It's for the church.
Speaker:Oh, my goodness. That's okay. Maybe you
Speaker:could borrow a truck. We're not asking you to dress it up
Speaker:or anything. Well, I don't know what he's asking, but I heard that there were
Speaker:prizes, so it's gonna be good. That's really good. God is so faithful.
Speaker:When he was sharing about tithing earlier, I used to help
Speaker:with counting and doing some of the
Speaker:funds here in the house, probably 20 years ago.
Speaker:And there was one gentleman who consistently— I can say it 'cause he doesn't go
Speaker:here anymore, but he would consistently on the memo
Speaker:line write, tip. And I'm
Speaker:like, if that's what we're tipping, then God did not serve the
Speaker:way— anyway. Anyway,
Speaker:it is not a tip. It is not a tip. I'm so
Speaker:excited about stepping into a new series
Speaker:with the teachers here on staff, with the pastors here on staff. We're gonna
Speaker:begin talking about— it's Just Behold,
Speaker:the Cross. We're gonna get
Speaker:refocused on what's most important and what
Speaker:God does and who he is. And he's been doing this with
Speaker:me, and so this is the way it goes. If he's doing this with me,
Speaker:then I get to inflict I mean, share it with you.
Speaker:So we're gonna do that. We are going to focus on what the Lord
Speaker:has. And in that, I trust that he will take
Speaker:you down the same path that he's been taking me, and it's a good
Speaker:path. He started it with this. The Lord has
Speaker:always kind of spoken to me through written word
Speaker:and allowed me to write some and work out my issues and problems as
Speaker:I write. I think a lot of people in this room— I'm not supposed to
Speaker:stand in front of that. That's okay. Did I say that out loud?
Speaker:And so, he took me back to one of the things that I had written
Speaker:back a while ago, and I'm gonna share it with you, and then we'll launch
Speaker:into this thing. And I did just remember that I hid the
Speaker:clicker. Ta-da!
Speaker:All right, here we go. At the age of 15, I had my
Speaker:first real date. I remember it distinctly. I
Speaker:was living with my grandmother at the time and thought my ship had finally come
Speaker:in. I was going on an honest-to-goodness guy pick you up in a
Speaker:car car kind of date.
Speaker:It wasn't that I had actually liked the boy when he asked me out. It
Speaker:was that everything happened after the asking.
Speaker:I had begun to focus. What would I wear?
Speaker:How would I do my hair? How clean could I get my granny's house before
Speaker:he walked in to pick me up? What would he wear? Where would we
Speaker:go? What would we do? Was he the one? You know he was. It
Speaker:was the first date ever. I'm sure he was the one. Would he
Speaker:like me? What if I bit into the pizza and it was too hot and
Speaker:I pulled burning cheese out of my mouth right in front of him? And what
Speaker:does one wear to the emergency room when burned by pizza cheese?
Speaker:By the time Saturday morning arrived, I was a wreck. I
Speaker:think I was dressed, hair done, and in full makeup by
Speaker:7:00 AM. All I had left to do
Speaker:for the next 12 hours was lay in front of my grandmother's old stereo
Speaker:turntable and listen to Boston's More Than a Feeling. Does
Speaker:anybody in here feel that? Boston's more than a
Speaker:feeling. Needless to say, by the time he arrived in his black
Speaker:T-top Trans Am, I already knew how many children we would have,
Speaker:2, Brandy and Chase, C-H-A-Y-S-E.
Speaker:It would always have a special spelling. What kind of house we would live in,
Speaker:a 2-story red brick with a veranda. What color my Camaro would
Speaker:be, candy apple red. And that our Persian cat would be named
Speaker:Fifi. Poor guy, he
Speaker:thought we were going out for a Coke.
Speaker:So what happened? What happened during those 12
Speaker:hours that took me from getting a Coke with a boy to spending the rest
Speaker:of my days on earth with him? Focus.
Speaker:For as a man thinketh in his heart, so he becomes,
Speaker:so is he. We truly do fall in
Speaker:love with the things that capture our thoughts and hold our focus.
Speaker:When we invest our attention, our hearts soon
Speaker:follow. So I suppose the question of the week must
Speaker:become, what are you thinking about all the time?
Speaker:What are you dwelling on? What occupies your mind?
Speaker:Where is your treasure? For it is there
Speaker:that you will find your heart. I do not think I ever
Speaker:went out with that guy again, but thanks to a healthy
Speaker:imagination and a whole lot of intense focus for
Speaker:12 hours in a 15-year-old's 18-year-old girl's life, I was
Speaker:married with children.
Speaker:Focus! Man, it changes everything. Where we set
Speaker:our eyes, what we choose to ponder, what we choose to weigh, where
Speaker:we tend to spend our time and attention, it will
Speaker:affect how your day goes. It will affect how your week
Speaker:goes. It will affect how your life goes. goes,
Speaker:what we focus on. And so that's what we're gonna begin to touch
Speaker:on this morning. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a
Speaker:great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything,
Speaker:everything that hinders and that sin that so
Speaker:easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race
Speaker:marked out for— who? Us. The race marked
Speaker:out for you, the race marked out for you, The race
Speaker:marked out for you, and they're different, but they're together.
Speaker:The race marked out for us. Let us do what? Fix our
Speaker:eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter— also
Speaker:use the word maturer— Yeah. Of our faith, who for
Speaker:the joy set before him endured the cross,
Speaker:despising the shame, and sat down at the right
Speaker:hand of the of the throne of God. Consider him who
Speaker:endured such hardship from sinful men, so that
Speaker:you do not grow weary and lose heart. Father God,
Speaker:I thank you, Lord, that today you are speaking to
Speaker:those who are in danger of losing heart, in
Speaker:speaking to those who have become distracted,
Speaker:myself included, Lord. So, Lord, I ask that you
Speaker:just saturate this place with your presence.
Speaker:May the Holy Spirit just breathe through this
Speaker:house. May we have teachable hearts. And Father,
Speaker:may we leave this place with laser focus on
Speaker:you. You are faithful and you are good and you finish
Speaker:what you start. Let my stuff fall and yours stand.
Speaker:In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.
Speaker:Eyes that are not fixed on him are dangerously susceptible to the
Speaker:distractions of everything else.
Speaker:Of everything else. Would you agree with me that
Speaker:we live in a very distracted society? Right. Would you agree with
Speaker:me that our attention span lasts about the
Speaker:time limit of a scroll? Do you think that
Speaker:we are maybe off focus a bit? And do you think that
Speaker:there's the possibility that it might
Speaker:be a tool of the enemy? To keep us off track,
Speaker:to keep us unsteady and unstable without
Speaker:our feet really under us spiritually because we're looking at
Speaker:everything else. And I feel like the Holy Spirit is just going,
Speaker:get your eyes fixed back. Now, see, this is nothing new.
Speaker:This— I mean, it's nothing new. The first
Speaker:temptation began with a battle for focus. Yeah. God gave
Speaker:Adam and Eve the whole garden, but all she could see was the tree.
Speaker:All she could see, you know, that temptation was there.
Speaker:And instead of seeing everything that God had laid out before them,
Speaker:everything, all of the good, all of the wonderful, what she saw was the tree.
Speaker:And because that was what she saw, that was where the enemy was able to
Speaker:speak to her, was in that tree, in that place of temptation.
Speaker:And that is still our issue. We can see the tree,
Speaker:or the garden. For where our treasure is, there our heart will be
Speaker:also. Focus matters. Focus
Speaker:matters. When I was a kid, I guess I was probably about, I
Speaker:don't know, 7 or 8, my
Speaker:parents were gone and we had a flash flood. And I lived in Walls
Speaker:Hollow. Yeah, you spell it with an E-R. And lived in Walls
Speaker:Hollow, and it was a dirt road. And when the flash flood
Speaker:came, it went over the little dirt bridge that went
Speaker:across The creek that had become a river. And our parents
Speaker:were gone, and so she picked up this thing called a rotary
Speaker:phone and called us at our house. And it rang. It was on the
Speaker:wall. Y'all would not believe it. It was hanging there on the wall, and
Speaker:there was a cord attached to it, and it had circle things on it. Anyway,
Speaker:I digress. But she said, okay, guys. She had
Speaker:stopped at a little store up on the hill and had called us. That was
Speaker:back when everybody remembered each other's number. And, uh, She
Speaker:said— she told my older sisters— I had 3 sisters, 2 older and 1 younger—
Speaker:and she said, guys, we gotta get you out of the hole. I want you
Speaker:to come and meet me on the other side of the river. I'm gonna get
Speaker:on the other side of the water and I'm gonna wait on you.
Speaker:And she is. Oh, that's gonna
Speaker:make me cry. Anyway, and so she says, come to the edge of the
Speaker:water. And she said, the older, watch out for the younger.
Speaker:And so, we walked down to the place in the road. And I know, as
Speaker:a parent now, looking, there's no way that she or my dad
Speaker:would have asked us to cross a raging river, okay? But when you're 7
Speaker:years old, a river looks raging, even if it's just like, you know, barely
Speaker:coming over. And so, we got to the edge of the water, and I could
Speaker:see my mom over here on this side, and my dad. And she
Speaker:was going, girls, right here, look at me. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker:Look at me. Because all we could see was this.
Speaker:All we could see was that. And I'm sure our eyes were as big as
Speaker:saucers. And she says, Terri, Cindy, link arms
Speaker:with you— with the Littles. Link arms with Angie and Barbie. And they linked arms.
Speaker:And she said, y'all are gonna help them across. You're gonna help them across. Keep
Speaker:your eyes on me. And I just remember
Speaker:stepping that first step into that water and thinking, oh,
Speaker:It's gonna wash me away. Now, I know that that was not true, 'cause I
Speaker:know my mom. And— but I just remember when
Speaker:I would feel the water, and I would wanna look away, I would remember I
Speaker:would look straight at her, and I could see her nodding her head. And
Speaker:I knew as she was nodding her head, yeah, we're okay. We're
Speaker:okay. Just keep walking. Just keep walking. And
Speaker:linked up with my sisters, linked up arm in arm, walking across it,
Speaker:drawing from the strength of the ones that were beside me, we
Speaker:walked in unity across something that we were to walk across.
Speaker:And we kept our focus where it was supposed to be.
Speaker:And as the Lord was ministering that to me and reminding me of that this
Speaker:week, I just thought, that is exactly where we all have
Speaker:to be. We have to understand that we are not independent of one
Speaker:another. And in order to cross some of the things that we've been called
Speaker:to cross in our lives, whether it's in our home lives, or whether it's in
Speaker:our work lives, or whether it's in our church, we are called to
Speaker:walk To link arms, for the older to strengthen the younger,
Speaker:for the more mature to carry some of the weight of the others
Speaker:in order to cross over. But in order to do that, we
Speaker:have to keep our eyes fixed on him, knowing
Speaker:that he is the author and the finisher of our faith,
Speaker:and that he is doing something in this. Our
Speaker:hearts have a tendency to follow the direction of our gaze. What we
Speaker:continually behold, we eventually become devoted to.
Speaker:If you set your eyes on something unhealthy too long, guess what happens?
Speaker:That's right. If you set your eyes and decide to
Speaker:ponder, and weigh, and dwell in things that are not good
Speaker:for you, the things that are not good for us, like, you know, like
Speaker:worry, or fear, or anxiety,
Speaker:or blame, or guilt, or shame, or
Speaker:whatever the case might be, if that is where we choose to
Speaker:allow our minds to dwell, our physical bodies are going to follow
Speaker:that. Yes. Our hearts follow it, and we follow our hearts.
Speaker:This passage of scripture says to fix our eyes on
Speaker:Him. To fix our eyes on Him.
Speaker:It says, look away from every other thing.
Speaker:to set your gaze upon one thing.
Speaker:What does it say to take your gaze off of? Every other
Speaker:thing. Every other thing. And sometimes it's every
Speaker:other person, or every other task, or every
Speaker:other fill in the blank, to go, God, I need to focus
Speaker:here. I need to focus here. And there are some signposts.
Speaker:There are things that you will know. Here can be
Speaker:your guard. If you wanna know if you've got your
Speaker:eyes in the right place, if you want to know if you
Speaker:are truly stay focused on Him, or if you have
Speaker:become distracted in your faith, in your task,
Speaker:and in your heart, there's a signpost that is
Speaker:like a— every time, it'll warn you. You will keep
Speaker:in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast
Speaker:because he trusts in you. I like the King James
Speaker:Version. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace
Speaker:whose mind is steadfast. Stayed. Stayed on
Speaker:thee. Why? Because he trusteth in you.
Speaker:If you want to know if you are distracted, if you want to know
Speaker:if your heart is preoccupied, there's a level of
Speaker:peace that comes with trust. And so
Speaker:if you are struggling in the area of peace, your prayer
Speaker:should be, Lord, increase my trust. Lord,
Speaker:increase this place of trust, Lord, that I would rest in the fact
Speaker:that you finish what you start, that every good and perfect gift comes
Speaker:from you, that I would rest in that, that
Speaker:peace that he brings. Thou wilt keep in perfect
Speaker:peace whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in thee.
Speaker:We are called to trust that he is still God of the
Speaker:ashes, God in the ashes. See,
Speaker:sometimes when something fails, or falls, or burns down,
Speaker:or breaks, or there's destruction, or whatever it is,
Speaker:and you are left standing amidst the pieces,
Speaker:sometimes it's really easy to get focused on the pieces.
Speaker:Yeah. The ashes. And some of us love to
Speaker:run and jump in those ashes from time to time and go,
Speaker:look how I'm suffering for Jesus. But anyway, but
Speaker:those ashes, Those belong to him, too. Those belong
Speaker:to God, too. And we have to be able to trust that even
Speaker:though this hurts, even though this is not what I
Speaker:expected, this was a suddenly, like the flood, I'm
Speaker:in a situation right now where I feel like I am
Speaker:surrounded by ashes. And God, I have to trust you.
Speaker:Yeah. Keep my peace and know that you, by your word,
Speaker:say that you will bring something beautiful. He
Speaker:creates beauty from ashes. Does anybody have any
Speaker:ashes that you need him to create beauty
Speaker:out of? He does that. He's
Speaker:amazing at that. And you don't even know
Speaker:what that's going to look like. See, the word— next thing it says,
Speaker:consider him. Consider him who
Speaker:suffered at the hands of others. Consider him.
Speaker:Think about him. It says that to consider is to
Speaker:analyze. To weigh, to ponder, and to evaluate.
Speaker:Another definition says, to take the whole thing
Speaker:and dissect it. Break it into pieces,
Speaker:lay it out before you, and look at it. Consider
Speaker:Him, the facets, the pieces, all of who
Speaker:He is, all of who He— what He suffered, all of the price
Speaker:that He paid in order that we can step Into
Speaker:more beautiful ashes.
Speaker:See, it says right here, why? Why did it say, consider him?
Speaker:Do you remember the passage of scripture that we just read? It says, consider
Speaker:him that you do not
Speaker:lose heart. So that you do not
Speaker:lose heart. Has anybody felt like they could lose
Speaker:heart recently? You're like, God, I don't understand why this
Speaker:is happening, and I don't wanna do it anymore.
Speaker:Lord, I don't know why this happened.
Speaker:Lord, I don't understand why you didn't stop this. I don't
Speaker:understand why all of this is going on.
Speaker:Consider him. Consider who he is,
Speaker:the heart that he has, the purpose behind everything that
Speaker:he does. He does not do one thing that has no purpose.
Speaker:Yes. Everything that has come into your life, through your life,
Speaker:has been allowed.
Speaker:So can we trust Him to bring beauty from it?
Speaker:Can we trust Him to bring beauty from those
Speaker:ashes? And I was thinking about this, and I was thinking
Speaker:about many that I've talked to recently who just seem to— that's
Speaker:just such a perfect who seemed to have lost heart,
Speaker:to have lost focus on what's really important.
Speaker:And he took me— I've been— I was sharing with the pastoral staff this
Speaker:morning, he's had me in the book of Nehemiah, and I try to avoid that,
Speaker:but anyway. But the book of Nehemiah is talking about
Speaker:the walls that came down. It's talking about that actually they got burned and the
Speaker:city had been sacked. And when it came time for the
Speaker:children to go back in, for the exiles to go back in, it was time
Speaker:to rebuild the wall, and they still had enemies. and they still had people that
Speaker:were coming at them, and they couldn't get it together, and they couldn't get it
Speaker:organized. And so Nehemiah begins to step in and move.
Speaker:And look at this. I can't tell you how many times I've read this, but
Speaker:I thought, it's just like those arrows when the Lord just begins to pierce
Speaker:your heart. It says this in Nehemiah, The strength of
Speaker:those who carry the burden is failing, and
Speaker:there is too much rubble. By
Speaker:ourselves, we cannot rebuild the wall.
Speaker:The strength of those who carry the burden is failing, and there is too much
Speaker:rubble. By ourselves, we cannot
Speaker:rebuild the wall.
Speaker:And what Nehemiah does is he steps in and he
Speaker:strengthens the leaders to lead, and he begins
Speaker:to protect those who are laboring in the field. And he
Speaker:begins to build a healthy community, for lack of a
Speaker:better word. But he begins to pour into the people to protect the
Speaker:work and begins to encourage them, gets the supplies, everything
Speaker:they need in order to rebuild the wall. But I love that he
Speaker:says, we cannot— by ourselves, we can't do this.
Speaker:And guys, so often when we are trying to do things by
Speaker:ourselves, we cannot do this. I could not
Speaker:have walked across the water to my mother by
Speaker:myself. And the important— seems like 2
Speaker:important things when she said, older, more mature,
Speaker:carry the weight of the others, strengthen the others, keep your eyes on
Speaker:him. Guys, we can apply that every single day of our
Speaker:life. In fact, we are called to. That's why the book of Titus
Speaker:exists, to tell us that the older strengthen the younger, that we speak
Speaker:wisdom, that we begin to move forward Arms linked,
Speaker:not separately. By myself, I can't build anything except a
Speaker:papier-mâché castle, and it will not stand, trust me.
Speaker:I expected my family to go, she's so right. Anyway.
Speaker:But together, together,
Speaker:strengthened by one another, leaders stepping in, and
Speaker:leaders leading, and community being built, and protecting one
Speaker:another. And they did. They set guards by the people who were laboring.
Speaker:in order to keep the work going forward. If we can do
Speaker:that, regardless whether it's at our work, in our
Speaker:home, wherever— the enemy comes at you wherever you are. You do realize that,
Speaker:right? And see, the beautiful thing about them, they could have gotten
Speaker:so focused on the enemy, but they didn't. They began to
Speaker:be focused on the wall that God had called them to build, and the
Speaker:work that he had called them to labor and to do, to join together and
Speaker:do. They didn't get focused on the enemy. They guarded. against them, but they
Speaker:didn't get focused. And so often, in wherever you
Speaker:are, at work or whatever, we tend to get focused on
Speaker:the enemy when we really just need to keep our eyes on the Lord.
Speaker:We really need to just keep our eyes on the Lord. And the unfortunate thing,
Speaker:and one of the enemy's tools, and one of his ploys that he has had
Speaker:forever, he doesn't need to change it because it still works, it is
Speaker:to attach a face to the word enemy. And
Speaker:that, from its very beginning, is not true. Because the scriptures tell
Speaker:me that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. We wrestle against
Speaker:principalities and powers. If your enemy has a
Speaker:recognizable face, you are fighting the wrong enemy.
Speaker:If your enemy has a recognizable face,
Speaker:you're fighting the wrong enemy.
Speaker:See, we are brothers and sisters in Christ, and we
Speaker:are linked in spirit, linked in arms.
Speaker:I want you to know that you're not— you do not have to, you may
Speaker:choose to, but you do not have to walk through
Speaker:anything alone. You don't have to
Speaker:go through the trials you're going through alone. You don't have to
Speaker:face the battles you are facing alone. That's right. Alone. Alone.
Speaker:Not if we do our job right. Not if we are truly the
Speaker:family of God. If we are truly the sons and daughters of
Speaker:God, if we are truly the body of Christ,
Speaker:we need to get this right. We need to get this
Speaker:right, that we walk with one another until we
Speaker:get across the water, until we get
Speaker:through the hard places, So we
Speaker:fix our eyes not on what is seen, not on the
Speaker:situation, not on the people, not on the stuff. We
Speaker:fix our eyes on— not on the seen, but on
Speaker:what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is
Speaker:unseen is eternal. We get so focused on the
Speaker:temporary, and it will exhaust us,
Speaker:and it'd be— it just like will suck the life right out of you.
Speaker:If all you are focused on is what is happening now. When I
Speaker:was a kid, at least once a week, we got a
Speaker:teaching, or at least a good, I'll fly away, or, Over in the glory land.
Speaker:We got focused on something that would happen beyond this
Speaker:life. We were reminded constantly that
Speaker:we were just sojourners on a journey toward him, that the
Speaker:world was not our home, and to keep our eyes fixed on him. And there
Speaker:was a different kind of hope in me as a child because I believed
Speaker:that, and I grabbed hold of that. especially after my mom said there were roller
Speaker:coasters in heaven. She wasn't right about— I don't know. She said—
Speaker:I said, what is in heaven? What's it gonna be like? And she said,
Speaker:everything you love will be in heaven. And at that point in time, I
Speaker:was really big on roller coasters. So, there's probably roller coasters there, but we don't
Speaker:know that for sure. That's a side note. Anyway, consider him
Speaker:so that you do not lose heart and become weary. And
Speaker:then, the next one, and this is where we're going with this series
Speaker:as we move forward, we're gonna fix our eyes on him.
Speaker:Move toward a lack of distraction. Focus on what's
Speaker:important. Consider him so that we do not
Speaker:grow weary. And we are going to behold.
Speaker:We are going to pay attention. We are going to really see.
Speaker:We're going to know. And we are going to take note.
Speaker:This word behold in the Word, you know, usually when you hear it, you think
Speaker:of, you know, the kids' nativity angel that's going,
Speaker:Behold! Or Charlie Brown, you know, Linus.
Speaker:But it actually signals a moment of divine importance. It says,
Speaker:Do not rush past this moment. Do
Speaker:not rush past what is coming after this word,
Speaker:Behold. It's divinely significant to us.
Speaker:And so when you come across things like this, Behold, a virgin
Speaker:Behold! Behold! This is about Jesus. We stop, and we pause,
Speaker:and we ponder, and we think about that.
Speaker:Behold, I am doing a new thing, it says. Do you not
Speaker:perceive it? That tells me that the risk is that He can be doing
Speaker:something amazing and new in your life, and you run right past it
Speaker:because you've not stopped to behold the new thing
Speaker:that He's doing. And it says, Behold, I bring you
Speaker:good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For
Speaker:unto you is born this day in the city of David
Speaker:a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And it goes on to tell
Speaker:them how he will find— how the shepherds will find the baby.
Speaker:Behold! Stop! Look!
Speaker:Pay attention! Behold, I stand at the door and
Speaker:In this season, in this time, I really believe that what's
Speaker:in my spirit for these next few weeks is that we would look again.
Speaker:That we would look again at all of these things that the Lord is
Speaker:going, stop and take a minute. And in that, that it would allow
Speaker:us to refocus, and that it would allow us to go, okay, I see
Speaker:you. I see you. I'm setting my eyes where they should be. Amen.
Speaker:truly behold. What we fail to truly behold, we eventually
Speaker:take for granted. Right. When we stop
Speaker:beholding, we do not diminish His glory, we
Speaker:simply diminish our awareness of it. We used
Speaker:to stand in awe! We used to go, God did what? I
Speaker:had more awe and wonder at a felt board Jesus
Speaker:than I do at some of the amazing graphics and
Speaker:things we have, but the awe of a child to go,
Speaker:he's sitting on a rock, and he's letting the
Speaker:kids come to him, and he loves the lambs, and
Speaker:he's got— this felt board Jesus,, that awe
Speaker:that we have, that we carry as a child. We can't
Speaker:lose that. And we lose that when we begin to
Speaker:focus on everything else. We need to allow God
Speaker:to birth the awe and the wonder for who he is
Speaker:again. Amen. Behold the
Speaker:Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!
Speaker:Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of
Speaker:the world! Do you wanna know what's amazing
Speaker:about this? And that we will just go right past
Speaker:any time? This was John the Baptist. This was
Speaker:what John the Baptist said. John was his cousin.
Speaker:Familiarity sometimes— if we get too familiar
Speaker:sometimes, we can be so casual with the Holy.
Speaker:with the Sovereign. John the Baptist, it would
Speaker:have been a whole different ballgame if he
Speaker:looked across and he went, hey, cuz, this is my
Speaker:aunt's son coming to be baptized. But he didn't.
Speaker:He said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the
Speaker:sins of the world. And he spoke straight to the destiny,
Speaker:probably the first time anybody on the planet had spoke straight to the
Speaker:man who straight to the destiny on the inside of Him, though He knew
Speaker:it. But John the Baptist recognized it.
Speaker:Behold the Lamb of God who takes
Speaker:away the sins of the world! Your sins, your
Speaker:sins, your sins, my sins, all of
Speaker:our sins! That's the Lamb
Speaker:that we are called to behold, and He begins to work in our lives, and
Speaker:He begins to change us, and move us, and into
Speaker:maturity in him because he is the author and
Speaker:the finisher of our faith. This isn't about starting something,
Speaker:it's about allowing him to finish something in our
Speaker:lives. Familiarity without wonder can make
Speaker:the extraordinary seem ordinary. And
Speaker:sometimes we can become addicted to going to church and forget why we're here.
Speaker:We can become addicted or enamored of the people that we sit next to
Speaker:and forget that we are here because he is the Lamb of God. Amen.
Speaker:Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Speaker:We are in a culture that we look but we do not see,
Speaker:we scroll but we do not weigh, we enter but do not
Speaker:stay, we start but do not finish, we visit but we do not
Speaker:dwell.
Speaker:As we conform to a culture that chooses to stand immobile in the midst of
Speaker:the rubble rather than purposing to do the work of rebuilding the wall.
Speaker:We get so accustomed to the junk that we don't notice it
Speaker:anymore. Yes. We get so accustomed to
Speaker:this, and this, and this, that we don't even notice it
Speaker:anymore. But what's happening is, as we are stuck in the rubble
Speaker:of our broken places, stuck in the rubble of those ruined
Speaker:places, or those burned gates, or the shattered walls, we get
Speaker:stuck there. And what happens is nobody's rebuilding the wall.
Speaker:Yes. Nobody is moving forward with the things that God has actually called
Speaker:them to do. And so, we can purpose to stay in the
Speaker:middle of that, or we can purpose to link
Speaker:arms and move forward and finish
Speaker:what God has called us to do. I ran across
Speaker:this and I thought this was just so good because how do you do that?
Speaker:How do you do that? How do you do that? Well, guys, you
Speaker:gotta come under the Word. You've gotta allow your minds
Speaker:to be transformed by and renewed by the Word of God. There's
Speaker:a washing of the water of the Word. And sometimes, when you have allowed the
Speaker:garbage in there for so long, it takes a lot of water to wash it
Speaker:out. Yeah. One of the best illustrations I ever saw was
Speaker:somebody standing in a box and all of the lies were written on the box.
Speaker:You know, you're ugly, you're stupid, you'll never be able to do that, you're a
Speaker:failure, you're this, and you're defeated, your father was this, this, and this, and
Speaker:this. And this woman was trying to erase them,
Speaker:when what he said was, replace them. You can't
Speaker:just go, well, I'm not that. You have to be able to go, well, the
Speaker:Word of God says, I'm the head and not the tail. I'm
Speaker:above and not beneath. You need to be able to replace that
Speaker:old mindset with the new. And so, this,
Speaker:it says, let your minds be exercised
Speaker:Exercised, breathed,
Speaker:braced, lifted, filled
Speaker:by bringing them into contact with truth,
Speaker:especially the highest of all truths,
Speaker:the truth affecting God and your relationship
Speaker:to Him. Yeah. You got to get up against it, guys. You got
Speaker:to get up against the truth and allow the truth to
Speaker:refute the lies that the enemy has given us. Worship
Speaker:team, if you would come out. And so, this is what we're
Speaker:going to do over the next few weeks. We are going to
Speaker:begin to fix our eyes, we're gonna begin to consider,
Speaker:and we are gonna begin to behold the King of Kings. The
Speaker:King of Kings! We are gonna begin to behold the Good
Speaker:Shepherd. We are gonna begin to set our eyes on the
Speaker:Wonderful, Counselor. We are gonna begin to fix
Speaker:and lock into The light of the
Speaker:world. And the Prince of Peace.
Speaker:Over the next few weeks, we are going to begin to
Speaker:behold the Lamb of God
Speaker:who takes away the sins of the world. Guys, we
Speaker:are going for laser focus. We are going
Speaker:to start to clean up the rubble, trust the Lord
Speaker:with the ashes, and we're going to begin to press forward
Speaker:toward him to complete the assigned task
Speaker:that he has given us. You want to go there? You want to go there?
Speaker:Anybody just need some peace? Anybody just need to go,
Speaker:Lord, Lord, you are my peace?
Speaker:Says he himself is our peace. Yeah.
Speaker:The more you press into him. So,
Speaker:One thing has not changed— him.
Speaker:Another thing that hasn't
Speaker:changed is I want to worship
Speaker:with you. I want to worship anyway.
Speaker:I saw all you guys got the t-shirts now, but can you dance
Speaker:the dance? That's what I want to know. Will you worship
Speaker:anyway? Will you walk with us as we Link
Speaker:arms as we begin to press forward into what God
Speaker:has called us to. We're going to take a minute here. Young people,
Speaker:young adults, everybody, would you come lead us in worship? We're going to worship
Speaker:for just a minute. Grown-ups, adults, you're not going to let them outdo you, are
Speaker:you? Throw down the gauntlet.
Speaker:Let's worship for a minute. Father, I thank you, Lord. We have a
Speaker:million reasons. We have a Amen. We have a million reasons
Speaker:to worship you. You are faithful, you are just, you are good,
Speaker:and you are not finished. So Father, we worship you
Speaker:and we bless you today in Jesus' name. Let's go, guys.
