“O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? 5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. 6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: 7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; 8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. 9 O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”
As I think about Psalm 8 and consider the vastness of the glory God has set above the heavens, when I consider the works of His fingers, the moon and the stars that He has ordained, and looking at the splendor of His Creation, it is hard to figure out where to even begin.
Kim and I, when we were in Iraq together, the nights were so dark and the stars so bright, we spent many nights sitting outside gazing at the stars. To figure out where to begin looking was almost impossible. In fact, astronomers say there are over 100 billion stars in the sky. So, there is so much to see it’s hard to know where to start.
Truth is, many times, our lives are just like that. Some of the choices we have to make, and the opportunities that are presented to us, seem just as impossibly varied, and at the same time, just as equally interesting as all the stars in the sky.
So how do we focus in God’s purpose for our lives when there is so much to choose from? If we were astronomers, the tool we would use is the telescope. These telescopes help to focus in on one star, or one planet, or even one galaxy. So, what a telescope does is keep you from looking at everything at once, and helps you to focus on a single object, and when you focus in on that single object, that single object becomes clearer, and it becomes closer to see.
As I began work on this message, one of the things I realized I needed in my own life, was see a little clearer, to get a better picture. I, like all of us, need a vision, a clear purpose for my life. My personal intent this year is to find an area of my life that I need work on, that I need to focus on, and make the purpose and focus of 2025 to be to focus on that area I need work in and ask God to help me transform that area of my life. So my goal this year is to be single-mindedly focus on the area of my life that I feel needs to be transformed, the area of my life that I feel is keeping me from reaching the full potential God has for my life.
Just recently, I watched a Message that Dr. Billy Graham delivered to the graduating class of Liberty University some 10 years ago. Something he said in that message really starting burn within my soul. Billy Graham said this, “I remember nearly 50 years ago, I was visiting Dr. Jerry Falwell, and we were up on Liberty Mountain. There was no Liberty University here at the time. In fact, Dr. Falwell had just begun Thomas Road Baptist Church. And he started that church in a 30×50 tin building with busted out windows. He took me up on top of the mountain and looked down on the present location of Liberty University Campus, and Dr. Falwell began pointing out where every building would be build to start and grow Liberty University.”
Dr. Graham said that when he looked down in that valley, all he saw was the woods and some open fields. But when Dr. Falwell looked down in that valley, He saw the home of Thomas Road Baptist Church and the home of soon coming Liberty University.
I heard that message from Billy Graham and God began to stir my heart and God reminded me of Proverbs 29:18, “That where there is no vision, the people will perish.” I thought about our church in this little tin building in the woods here in Pauline and I began to see a “bigger picture, and bigger potential and a bigger purpose.” And I knelt down and I ask God to search me and try me. I asked God to renew in me a right spirit. I asked God to transform my mind. I asked God not to allow me to hinder our church with a punny vision, but to allow me to think big, to see big, to seek big, and to pray big prayers.
I heard it said that “the secret to concentration is elimination.” That means getting rid of anything that causes you to lose focus on the Big Thing – Your God Given Purpose.
Something I realize as I’m getting older (notice I didn’t say “old,” I said older). But something I realize is that I don’t have time to live my life the way everybody thinks I ought to live my life. So rather than wasting what time I do have trying to focus on everything everyone thinks I ought to be, I’m simply going to focus on God renewing the right spirit within me so that I can live up to the purpose He has for my life.
As the New Year rolls around, it brings with it fresh excitement, fresh possibilities, new resolutions. My challenge to us, Rally Point Biker Church, and to each person here, let’s make 2025 be the year that we stop letting resolutions pass us by, let’s stop trying to focus on everything, but start focusing on the one thing in your life that will change everything – Your God Given Purpose.
So this morning, rather than preach a big sermon, I’m going to ask each of you to do several things.
First, I going to ask you to ask God to transform your mind and heart to a single focus.
Second, I’m going to ask you to pray that God will give you a vision.
Third, I want you to look at your life and ask this question, “If every member of this church was just like me, what kind of church would my church be?”
And finally, if you are not happy with the answer to that question, I want to ask you to pray that God will renew in you the right spirit.
Folks, let’s not allow 2025 to be yet another year that we allow unfulfilled resolutions to pass us by, but let this be a year of transformation and concentration.
Fighting for My Pea Patch 