Speaker 1: So we're not third lesson of the lookup series and we're, we're, we're talking about God's calling in our life to look up it consistently throughout the scripture.
Speaker 1: God calls us, look up, look up, look up our first big idea in week.
Speaker 1: Number one was to look up for what down can't offer, what down can't offer.
Speaker 1: Uh, the, uh, Albert Einstein said this, he said the, the, the, the same mentality, the same mind, the same mindset that created a problem.
Speaker 1: Isn't the best one to fix it.
Speaker 1: And humanity we've created our problems.
Speaker 1: We've co we create our problems over and over and over, and we struggle.
Speaker 1: It's easy for us to create them, but it's, it's a really difficult thing for us to begin fixing them.
Speaker 1: And so we do things where we're actually better at distracting from them.
Speaker 1: And so humanity can often shift the focus, but we have a hard time.
Speaker 1: In fact, we're often incapable of redeeming the situation and God, God can redeem it's by looking up that things are redeemed.
Speaker 1: And so the enemy of our soul, however, and we've talked about that a little bit last week, that our, our own carnal nature, the demonic forces in the world around us, as well as the world systems at large, not everyone in the world, but the world systems at large, do their best to pull us down.
Speaker 1: So God's calling us to look up, they're doing everything they can to pull our minds, our eyes down.
Speaker 1: And usually it's most easily done in the mundane moments, the moments where nothing specific, particularly spectacular are going on.
Speaker 1: And so a good day will be destroyed by the mundane.
Speaker 1: And so we said last week, our big idea was that looking up elevates your attention from the mundane.
Speaker 1: It brings revelation into your life.
Speaker 1: And I praise the Lord for revelation.
Speaker 1: It, it produces worship from our lives and, and that is the, the offering from our life to our heavenly father.
Speaker 1: And then it also results in peace in our lives.
Speaker 1: And these are, these are great things, are all things that we want.
Speaker 1: All of us desire, revelation, all of us want to produce worship and all of us want to have peace in our world.
Speaker 1: And, and, and that's good.
Speaker 1: As long as we keep focused, as long as we keep balanced, as long as we know, Oh, where we're at in the process.
Speaker 1: And, and that's a difficult thing is kind of what we're talking about today.
Speaker 1: Because if you take a map, a map, uh, it, whether it be on a mobile device or, or an actual paper physical map that you unfold 7,000 times and can never actually refold it in the same way again.
Speaker 1: But, but if either, either one of those things, if you open up that map and, and you don't know where you're at on the map, the map does you virtually no good.
Speaker 1: If you open up Google maps and there is no blue dot, you're just as lost now as when you started it, it doesn't do any good at all.
Speaker 1: So staying balanced, staying focused, knowing where you're at in the world becomes vitally important as you're trying to move forward in life.
Speaker 1: But you and I both know how it goes.
Speaker 1: We, we start something.
Speaker 1: Well, we start something strong.
Speaker 1: The intention behind it is, is great work.
Speaker 1: We're ready to go.
Speaker 1: We're we're saying good things.
Speaker 1: We know that good stuff's going to happen.
Speaker 1: But then, then life picks up
Speaker 2: Or life slows down.
Speaker 2: And you'll notice a pattern here.
Speaker 2: Either
Speaker 1: Things are going too fast, or they're going too slow.
Speaker 1: If you talk to somebody that's an addict of almost anything that you will hear them repeatedly say, well, things got going so fast.
Speaker 1: And, and because everything was moving so fast, I needed this thing.
Speaker 1: Whatever the focus of their addiction is, I needed this thing to help me cope with how fast everything was going.
Speaker 1: And if everything goes too slow, then I needed the thing that I'm addicted to because everything was just so slow and so boring.
Speaker 1: I needed something to help Ella elevate the moment in my life, Bo, either extreme, uh, I needed this additional thing, but it also, isn't just life faster.
Speaker 1: Slow.
Speaker 1: How about your friends or your kids or your spouses?
Speaker 1: And one minute they're talking to you, not at all, they're distant and removed, and that's your frustration with them.
Speaker 1: And then the next minute they're talking to you every day and, and constantly wanting your attention.
Speaker 1: And now they're clingy and can't do without you.
Speaker 1: I see moms on Facebook often, or social media in general, often talk about having, trying to use the restroom and, and their kid be outside, banging on the door, wanting their attention.
Speaker 1: And, and they're like, Hey, I'm only in here for three minutes.
Speaker 1: I think you can handle life for three minutes without me.
Speaker 1: But on one hand, if, if your kid was never banging on the door and never wanted to talk to, or only wanted to have give you time of day, once a week, you'd be saying they're distant and removed.
Speaker 1: And so, and so the that's not a complaint or a judgment against moms.
Speaker 1: That's a reality that we all
Speaker 2: Live with that, that
Speaker 1: When things are going crazy, then, then that's too much.
Speaker 1: And when things are not going crazy at all, in fact, very calm, then that's to calm.
Speaker 1: Even in our relationship with Christ, it can be where we say, well, I'm really growing and developing.
Speaker 1: And man everything's changing.
Speaker 1: My whole life is never going to be the same again.
Speaker 1: I mean, just everything is awesome.
Speaker 1: And then on the other hand, we can get to the place where we say, I don't feel like I'm growing at all.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm becoming stagnant and stale.
Speaker 1: And I, I feel like nothing's really happening both sides of, so what we discover is that we end up having a very narrow set of parameters in which if things around us, if our world is operating within these systems, these parameters, then we're happy and fulfilled.
Speaker 1: But if it's on either side of those things,
Speaker 2: We're struggling.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 1: Sometimes I hear people say, you know what?
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm just running in circles.
Speaker 1: I don't really know who I am anymore.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've lost myself.
Speaker 1: Here's the reality.
Speaker 1: You haven't lost yourself.
Speaker 1: You standing right there.
Speaker 1: It's physically impossible to lose yourself.
Speaker 1: But what you're actually saying is I've lost the bearings in my life.
Speaker 1: I don't know where I'm standing anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't know where I'm at on the map anymore.
Speaker 1: I feel like things are too fast or too slow.
Speaker 1: And suddenly I've, I've kind of lost scope of where I am and where I fit in
Speaker 2: The hole.
Speaker 2: And we can
Speaker 1: Learn something for some guys who understood the value of keeping their bearings.
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 2: The story is in Matthew chapter two,
Speaker 1: The scripture says now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold wise, men from the East came to Jerusalem saying, where is he?
Speaker 1: Who has been born King of the Jews for, we saw his star when it Rose and have come to worship him.
Speaker 1: These are Wiseman.
Speaker 1: They are astrologers.
Speaker 1: They are pagan in their belief system.
Speaker 1: The stars were, were aware.
Speaker 1: God gods, depending on their belief system, uh, would display their will to the world.
Speaker 1: And so they watched the stars very, very carefully.
Speaker 1: They understood what star was, where and when it was supposed to be here versus there.
Speaker 1: And they, they knew when there was an anomaly, somewhere in the heavens.
Speaker 1: And when that happened, they, they worked hard to try to figure out what was supposed to go on or what was happening.
Speaker 1: What were the gods or what was God trying to say?
Speaker 2: So when
Speaker 1: They saw this particular star rise, its appearance caused them to take notes.
Speaker 1: In fact, it became so noteworthy that they packed up everything that they had, and they began a long journey.
Speaker 1: Most scholars believe that, that this star appeared when Jesus was born and that they did not arrive to where the child was until he was approximately two years old.
Speaker 1: So this is two years.
Speaker 1: Uh, one, one note that pastor Benton told me, he said, I don't know how many people are going to be happy to know that the Y has been in their nativity scene.
Speaker 1: It's probably an accurate, I'm sorry, y'all keep them there.
Speaker 1: You're not hurting Jesus's feelings with, with them.
Speaker 1: They're you're, you're good.
Speaker 1: But that's two years of focus.
Speaker 1: That's two years of investment.
Speaker 1: That's two years of hope and an expectation.
Speaker 1: That's two years of travel.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to start.
Speaker 1: Well, it's another thing to, to sustain that thing.
Speaker 1: When I hear people that have been married, you know, for two weeks, I think.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 1: And when they say marriage is the best thing ever, I think, great.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you feel that way.
Speaker 1: That's wonderful.
Speaker 1: It's when I, but, but I'm not nearly as impressed as when I talk to somebody who's been married for 50 years or 60 years, and they say marriage is awesome, or this friendship is beautiful.
Speaker 1: I taught, met somebody the other day, who was having coffee with a friend of theirs that they've had for almost 45 years.
Speaker 1: And, and I just, I love the fact that there are, that you can have old friends.
Speaker 1: My pastor Brett Jones often says you can't make new old friends.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: And it's an easy thing to start something strong.
Speaker 1: It's like kids, kids can have a new best friend every day of the week.
Speaker 1: Teenagers fall in love with a new person every day of the week.
Speaker 1: You ask them, Hey, how's Johnny doing?
Speaker 1: Who's Johnny.
Speaker 1: How's Bob Dunn.
Speaker 1: Who's Bob.
Speaker 1: The, the guy that you were in love with last week.
Speaker 3: Oh, Oh, Oh news.
Speaker 3: I don't even know his name anymore.
Speaker 1: That's old news because, because to start a thing, that's easy to maintain a thing that's much more difficult than no doubt.
Speaker 1: These wise men had an opportunity.
Speaker 1: In two years of travel, they had an opportunity to be, to, to lose their bearing and their direction and their purpose and their devotion as they make their progress toward this newborn King.
Speaker 1: So, so how did they maintain their bearings?
Speaker 1: How can you and I maintain our bearings today, they maintain their bearings by constantly looking up and you, and I must do the same.
Speaker 1: Here's our big idea today.
Speaker 1: Look up to keep your
Speaker 3: Bearing.
Speaker 1: If you want to know where you're at on the plane of life, keep your eyes focused up.
Speaker 1: Jim Harris is a great part of this church and, and has been here and just follows us online quite a bit right now.
Speaker 1: And, and, uh, he, after hearing the first lesson of this, uh, series, he sent me an email, a very kind email.
Speaker 1: And in it was the story.
Speaker 1: And I asked his permission to share this with you today.
Speaker 1: And he gave it, he, he served years ago at the RAF Lakenheath, uh, base in England.
Speaker 1: Uh, he was part of air force projects and, and he writes us.
Speaker 1: He said, I ran on the bass track team.
Speaker 1: And we, they do this early in the morning, they'd go out and that exercise and run on the track.
Speaker 1: And he said in foggy conditions,
Speaker 3: Which England fogging
Speaker 1: Often foggy in the morning, he said, we'd start groups of runners in timed intervals.
Speaker 1: The object of the game was to catch the runners that were in ahead of you.
Speaker 1: And I found that the way the light bounced off the fog of the track meant that I, if I look down while running, I would lose my balance and I'd fall down,
Speaker 2: Had to look up to keep my sense of presence.
Speaker 2: So when he was
Speaker 1: Look down, he would actually lose his balance and fall.
Speaker 1: But if he kept his eyes up, if he looked up then his, he kept his bearings, right?
Speaker 1: And he was able to keep a sense of presence.
Speaker 1: Nowhere.
Speaker 1: He was know what he was doing, and he could be effective.
Speaker 1: That's how the equilibrium in your body works.
Speaker 1: If you're, if, if it takes in the information from the world around you and lets, you know, am I standing this way, this way, this way, this way, this way, this way, this way, where, where am I in relationship to what's going on around me?
Speaker 1: And, and it adjusts according to the information that it has received.
Speaker 1: And, and he said, if I looked down suddenly I couldn't figure out where I was and I would literally fall over how many of us have fallen over simply because we were not looking up and I have three thoughts for us today.
Speaker 1: And thought, number one is this, look up to stabilize your direction, look up to stabilize your direction, develop consistency and where you're going in life.
Speaker 1: And you will arrive there, develop consistency.
Speaker 1: It's so easy to say, I'm going here and I'm going here and I'm going here and I'm going here.
Speaker 1: And there's no sense of consistency.
Speaker 1: And ultimately you realize that you've gone nowhere at all.
Speaker 1: If you keep a sense of consistency and where you're going, you'll ultimately arrive.
Speaker 1: But there is a, there's an enemy.
Speaker 1: There's an enemy of arrival.
Speaker 1: And here it is, distance is the enemy of direction.
Speaker 2: The longer it takes to get somewhere
Speaker 1: More time between beginning and ending, the greater, the chance that it will get off
Speaker 2: Course that it will find another direction.
Speaker 2: These Majaila, they were from the East, they had
Speaker 1: The travel along long way.
Speaker 1: They had looked up, they had received revelation enough revelation that caused them to travel for two solid years in a direction away from their Homeland.
Speaker 1: In order to see this new born King and countless times they could have, they could have turned around.
Speaker 1: They could have lost their way.
Speaker 1: How many storms do you think that they walked through and, and rode through during that time?
Speaker 1: How many times did they have an overcast night where they couldn't see the stars clearly and, and that one star wasn't there so bright and so prominent.
Speaker 1: How, how many times do you think that somebody in the group and I don't know how big the group was specifically, but how many maybe, maybe, you know, with it, six months in that the first person said, Hey guys, is this really worth?
Speaker 1: It
Speaker 2: Was that a year before
Speaker 1: Somebody said, riding this camel's getting really old right now.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many times they heard.
Speaker 1: Are we there yet?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, good night, you're riding a camel for two years.
Speaker 1: That seems like a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1: And maybe it was walking.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was Campbell's maybe it was donkey.
Speaker 1: The reality is they have two years of hard travel, but ultimately they arrive at their destination because they consistently look up.
Speaker 1: And how many plans in your life and in mine have been lost because we were looking down.
Speaker 1: So we lost our direction or we just simply
Speaker 2: Quit because that
Speaker 1: Thing wasn't, didn't seem quite as important as it used to.
Speaker 1: Maybe you started your relationship with Christ and you started strong and, and you were on fire and you were a man.
Speaker 1: It was going to happen and wow, what God was doing in your life.
Speaker 1: But somewhere along the way, you just kind of got lost.
Speaker 1: Just kinda like, Hmm
Speaker 2: Don't you love it.
Speaker 2: When an explanation is maybe you were going to start a business,
Speaker 1: But time has passed and you haven't quite arrived yet.
Speaker 1: And so,
Speaker 2: You know, maybe you're building a relationship with somebody, but things happen.
Speaker 2: You know,
Speaker 1: Here's a, just, uh, this is free of charge right here.
Speaker 1: Things always happen.
Speaker 1: Things are constantly happening.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't matter what you're going to do in life.
Speaker 1: Things are going to happen and you're going to have to overcome some stuff.
Speaker 1: There are amazing amounts of stories that begin with we were gunna, and then there's a whole middle section that explains what they were going to do and how they going to do it.
Speaker 1: But the things that Rose and the problem that existed and the issue that happened and, and then it ends with, so we didn't
Speaker 2: Do it.
Speaker 2: In fact, that's one of the,
Speaker 1: The self-aggrandizing statement.
Speaker 1: It's just one.
Speaker 1: It was the catalyst for the book, Noel that I released a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: And it was, it was because I saw so many, so much information out there on, on, you know, how to figure out what you were supposed to do.
Speaker 1: And then so many things on, you know, how to live in the blessing of it.
Speaker 1: But there's a whole lot of space between starting a thing and ending up in the blessing of a thing.
Speaker 1: And that's a process that you go through in life.
Speaker 1: And, and how do you go through that process in a healthy way, in a way that's productive and helping you move forward.
Speaker 1: And that's ultimately why I ended up writing that particular book.
Speaker 1: The bottom line is that we have to stay the course, but staying the course is hard because when we look down and we go, we automatically start seeing the limitations that are there and the obstacles that are there and the, the hindrances that are there and the issues that are arising and, and all of that becomes our focus.
Speaker 1: And here's the reality.
Speaker 1: We have to navigate every single one of those.
Speaker 1: We can't act like they don't exist.
Speaker 1: We have to navigate every single one of them deal with every single one of them.
Speaker 1: But here's something you might want to write down.
Speaker 1: Your destination must remain brighter than your difficulty.
Speaker 1: It must remain brighter than your difficulty.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't, your difficulty will overwhelm your destination and you will stop.
Speaker 1: You will give up, you'll give up on the relationship.
Speaker 1: You'll give up on the marriage.
Speaker 1: You'll give up on the business.
Speaker 1: You'll give up on the walk with Christ.
Speaker 1: You'll give up on whatever it may be that you are pressing toward in this particular moment.
Speaker 1: Yes, every difficulty must be navigated, but they cannot become our focus in life.
Speaker 1: And when your difficulty becomes your focus, then your energy is wasted.
Speaker 1: It's wasted.
Speaker 1: It's like a person in the woods.
Speaker 1: It is, it was known that if you were in the woods by yourself and you are trying to navigate your way out of the woods without a compass, or what have you, the natural tendency is to walk in a circle, to walk in a circle where you end up back in the same place as you started from at the beginning.
Speaker 1: And the reason is simple.
Speaker 1: If I'm in the middle of this forest right here, I can't see past this tree or past this tree.
Speaker 1: I can't see beyond the present the now.
Speaker 1: And so because of that, my natural tendency is to, is to go and in log a very large circle, big.
Speaker 1: And in the, in the woods, it's a little bit easier because I can, maybe I can climb a tree or maybe I can find a tall place of the ground where maybe there's a Hill or a mountain or an outcropping, something that I can climb up on and get a little bit of a vantage point.
Speaker 1: But the reality is in life, there isn't a Hill.
Speaker 1: I can't, I can't go climb the Hill of Thursday or the Hill of Wednesday.
Speaker 1: I, I, there, there isn't one there.
Speaker 1: In fact, there are no Hills at all in Northwest Ohio.
Speaker 1: So I don't have that ability.
Speaker 1: So what I have to do is I have to not take my bearings from what is on this earth.
Speaker 1: I have to take my bearings from what comes down from heaven.
Speaker 1: And I began looking up, that's the power of the scripture.
Speaker 1: It keeps us looking.
Speaker 1: No, it's the, it's the inerrant word of God.
Speaker 1: But even if it wasn't the inerrant word of God, it would still benefit your life.
Speaker 1: As it offers the guiding star that does not change.
Speaker 1: It continues to be directional point for you.
Speaker 1: These magic, they knew where they were going and looking up, stabilize their direction.
Speaker 1: And that brings us the thought number two, look up to ground.
Speaker 1: Your decision
Speaker 2: To ground your decision.
Speaker 2: It may seem a little odd to say, look up to ground or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Why would I look up?
Speaker 1: If I'm trying to stabilize something down here, I'm trying to, trying to build a foundation for something down here.
Speaker 1: Why am I looking up?
Speaker 1: Well, let's look at the life of the magic here.
Speaker 2: So they've traveled
Speaker 1: For this whole time.
Speaker 1: And now they've now they've arrived in a place
Speaker 2: That they don't know they're following the star, but like
Speaker 1: Anybody they would, they would think, well, if there's a, a King to be born, then wouldn't the King be born somewhere near royalty.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't he be born somewhere near the capital of the country?
Speaker 1: W you know, let's, let's look there first for this King.
Speaker 1: And so they arrive in there.
Speaker 1: You can tell their level of importance because they're ushered in to see Herod the King.
Speaker 1: And they start talking about what's going on and Harriet here's what's happening.
Speaker 1: And he says, he says, well, then Herod told them, Matthew, two eight, go to Bethlehem and search carefully for the child.
Speaker 1: And when you find him, come back and tell me so that I can go and worship him too, skipping down to verse 12.
Speaker 1: It says, now that they've gone to see Jesus, and now they've worshiped at Jesus's feet.
Speaker 1: And now here's their decision in verse 12, Herod's trying to change their chorus.
Speaker 1: Verse 12 tells us what their course
Speaker 2: Actually was, how their
Speaker 1: Course was maintained.
Speaker 1: It says when it was time to leave the nation, go back home.
Speaker 1: They returned to their own country by another route for God had warned them in a dream not to return.
Speaker 2: So here they are.
Speaker 2: They're looking up to ground their decision Herod has.
Speaker 1: I said, I want you to go find him.
Speaker 1: And then let me know about him.
Speaker 1: Come back to me and tell me where he's at, so that I can go worship him.
Speaker 2: But God,
Speaker 1: In a dream, something from above says, don't do that.
Speaker 2: Don't do that.
Speaker 2: Here's something you might,
Speaker 1: I want to write down.
Speaker 1: Your intention is determined by your vision.
Speaker 1: What you see, what you understand is becomes the foundational realities of your plans and your projections in life.
Speaker 1: That's why it's so important.
Speaker 1: What we as parents reveal to our kids.
Speaker 1: When, when your child looks at your marriage, they begin to formulate a plan and a projection of what their marital relationship will be like based on what they see in your life, how they see you handle anger and disappointment becomes the foundational principles on which they begin to develop their own ways of handling anger and disappointment.
Speaker 1: If you punch a wall, when you're angry, don't be shocked.
Speaker 1: Whenever your teenager punches In this room understands what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: If you flip out whenever you're disappointed about something, don't be shocked whenever your children flip out later on in life, whenever they're disappointed about something they're seeing and they're establishing their plans and their projections based upon what they saw, but we can see very different things.
Speaker 1: Even when we're looking at the same thing, the same object is being viewed, but we're seeing different things.
Speaker 1: For instance, the magic.
Speaker 1: They saw a star in the East and from the East, and they began to follow that star.
Speaker 1: A star rising caused a two year journey in their life to worship at the feet of a newborn King Herod on the other hand was five and a half miles from Bethlehem.
Speaker 1: He could see the same night sky, but he was understanding something entirely different.
Speaker 1: His view was entirely different and different vision results in different intentions.
Speaker 1: The match I traveled for two years to worship Herod was willing to go five and a half miles to destroy a rival.
Speaker 1: That's really what he wanted to do.
Speaker 1: He wants that had no intention of worshiping.
Speaker 1: He wanted to kill this young child.
Speaker 3: And when we
Speaker 1: Are looking down and life decisions begin to change rapidly, it would have been easy for the, for the wise men to say, you know what?
Speaker 1: I tell you what, he's the King Herod.
Speaker 1: He can send people after us.
Speaker 1: We could, we could be in real trouble for not doing what he says.
Speaker 1: So, you know, our intention was to worship this newborn King and then go back home to our families and our life.
Speaker 1: But, but you know, now we need to change our decision because we're, we're having these pressures applied to our life.
Speaker 1: And when we're looking down are the footing begins to shift.
Speaker 1: And so it changes how we operate and the situations begin to alter.
Speaker 1: So it changes the overall decision of our life and our, our limited, uh, our limited vision, uh, provides limited data.
Speaker 1: And so our decisions in life begin to change.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, if I stay with them, then this is what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: If I maintain the course and in the company in this way, then, then that could be the case.
Speaker 1: And if I doing this well, this has shifted.
Speaker 1: So, so I've got to change that.
Speaker 1: And now we've got to change this.
Speaker 1: And before you know it, you're, you're going in that circle.
Speaker 1: Once again, the call is to look up, and this is why it's so important in life.
Speaker 1: If you're, if you're dating in the dating world, or maybe you're in a business sense or wherever you're at in life, if you're linking up with other people in life, then it's critical to write this down, link your life with those, seeing the same vision, link your life with those, seeing the same vision.
Speaker 1: You don't want to link your life with somebody.
Speaker 1: That's seeing a different vision because ultimately they are going to go in their direction.
Speaker 1: You couldn't be in a situation where you are going there to worship and they aren't going there to destroy.
Speaker 2: See, I'm the same thing, but completely
Speaker 1: Different vision about it.
Speaker 2: So in a marriage,
Speaker 1: Do you want to make sure that you're, you're linking your life with somebody who says, I see us growing old together.
Speaker 1: We're not going to change that.
Speaker 1: We're not going to, we're not going to break that apart.
Speaker 1: Now I know that there are some real, real reasons why people get divorced.
Speaker 1: Um, that's not my point here.
Speaker 1: My point is, if you, if you got divorced and you're going to get married again, make sure they're on the same, seeing the same vision with you.
Speaker 1: If you're dating somebody, find out what their vision is and find out if it's the same as yours, and if not, step away in business-wise the same thing over and over the situations will always shift moment to moment.
Speaker 1: That's always going to happen.
Speaker 1: The overall decision of life.
Speaker 1: However, however, doesn't have to change.
Speaker 2: Herod
Speaker 1: Asked the magic to change their decision in that moment and the match.
Speaker 1: I said, no.
Speaker 1: So look up in your life, determine what you're trying to achieve.
Speaker 1: If you don't know what you're trying to achieve, go to the word of God and spend time before him in prayer and say, God, can you give me a vision for what I'm trying to achieve in life?
Speaker 1: And maybe, maybe the only thing you're really trying to achieve is that when this life is over, I want to go to heaven and want to take a few people there with me.
Speaker 1: That's a great vision for your life,
Speaker 2: But there may be
Speaker 1: Other things in this world that you're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1: Find out what that is.
Speaker 1: Look up and decide what constitutes a win in your life.
Speaker 2: What can you celebrate?
Speaker 1: Celebrating the fact that Christmas Eve services have been filling up.
Speaker 1: As far as the registrations are concerned, that's a, that's a huge celebration in our world.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for our, our faith family that wants to be together and move together and worship together.
Speaker 1: Then don't settle for less.
Speaker 1: Don't don't back away from that, press into that.
Speaker 2: When things are rocking, remember
Speaker 1: That you said till death do us part, Maybe this is tough right now, but we're going to have to work through this.
Speaker 1: Cause I ain't leaving
Speaker 2: Years ago, fourth, fifth,
Speaker 1: You're married.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what it was.
Speaker 1: Christie and I were, uh, were asleep and well, let me rephrase.
Speaker 1: I was sleeping.
Speaker 1: Christie was thinking, and I'm a morning person.
Speaker 1: She's a night owl.
Speaker 1: And so about two o'clock in the morning she went,
Speaker 3: Hey, are you sleeping?
Speaker 1: She doesn't actually sound that way, but you know,
Speaker 2: Perfect.
Speaker 2: And, and I went, uh, I was, she said,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this thing.
Speaker 1: And I, we really
Speaker 2: Talk about it.
Speaker 2: I was like, it's too hard.
Speaker 1: Good morning.
Speaker 1: I got to get up in a few hours from work.
Speaker 1: And she's like, yeah, but I really want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: And I know that you would operate with great grace and patience and wisdom in those moments.
Speaker 1: But in that moment I did not.
Speaker 1: And I got angry and I was, and so we, so we were having this argument and finally I grabbed my pillow.
Speaker 1: I got out of the bed.
Speaker 1: I walked out, stomped out the out the door of our bedroom.
Speaker 1: I went and stood at the stairs and she said, where are you going?
Speaker 1: I said, I'm going to sleep on the couch.
Speaker 1: I've got to get up in a few hours and not.
Speaker 1: And so I'm going to sleep on the couch and that's that.
Speaker 1: And so I'm grabbing my pillow and I stomp over there and I'm standing at the top of the stairs.
Speaker 2: Then I turn around and I walked back into the room, stopped back over
Speaker 1: The bed, threw my pillow on the ground, on the bed, laid down.
Speaker 1: She said, now, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: I said, I bought
Speaker 1: This bed, bless God.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to sleep in it.
Speaker 1: And that's the closest we ever came to being separated overnight for an argument sake.
Speaker 1: And I know that there's reasons why different people sleep in different rooms and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Um, I'm not saying you should do what you should do for your family.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that for mine, we just decided things are gonna happen.
Speaker 1: We gotta work through it.
Speaker 1: And praise God, almost 24 years of marriage.
Speaker 1: We have worked through a whole lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: She's still wrong and I'm still right.
Speaker 1: But we're dealing with,
Speaker 3: We're dealing with it.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're in a situation where your kids are going in different directions.
Speaker 1: And you're saying, well, wait a minute.
Speaker 1: I have a vision.
Speaker 1: When I looked down, I don't see how this could happen.
Speaker 1: But when I look up, I have a vision of my children's serving the King.
Speaker 1: And so I'm going to keep praying because whatever down says up, says something different.
Speaker 1: We, as a faith family, there are approximately 630,000 people in the Toledo Metro area that need Jesus.
Speaker 1: And we are, as a faith family are saying, we're believing God to reach 630,000 people for the kingdom of God's sake.
Speaker 1: And we're not going to stop building.
Speaker 1: We're not going to stop growing.
Speaker 1: We're not going to stop reaching.
Speaker 1: We're not going to stop teaching until 630,000 people at least.
Speaker 1: And know something about Jesus Christ and him crucified.
Speaker 2: That's the vision.
Speaker 2: If you look down, Oh, it seems impossible.
Speaker 2: But if I look up, I just have to navigate what's going on right now, but we know where we're going.
Speaker 2: We know where we're going.
Speaker 2: The star is still there.
Speaker 2: And that brings us the thought three.
Speaker 2: Look up to establish your
Speaker 4: Devotion.
Speaker 4: Look up to establish your devotion.
Speaker 4: Your devotion is anything that you have love for loyalty to and enthusiasm about love for loyalty to and enthusiasm about that's what you're devoted to.
Speaker 4: So the wise men come into Jerusalem.
Speaker 4: They talked to Herod, Herod says, Hey, go find him.
Speaker 4: Tell me about him so that I can go worship him too.
Speaker 4: If Herod had understood who Jesus was, then he actually could have worshiped him because heritage was not threatened by Jesus.
Speaker 4: Jesus.
Speaker 4: Wasn't interested in his throne.
Speaker 4: Matthew two verse nine.
Speaker 4: After this interview, the Wiseman went their way and the star they had seen in the East, guided them to Bethlehem and went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the young child was.
Speaker 4: And when they saw the star, they would feel they were filled with joy.
Speaker 4: They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary and they bowed down and worshiped him.
Speaker 4: Then they opened their treasure chest and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh Herod's issue was vision.
Speaker 4: While he could have worshiped.
Speaker 4: What he wanted to do was destroyed.
Speaker 4: Why?
Speaker 4: Because all he could see what field his vision was, the realities of earthly kingdoms.
Speaker 4: And he could not see how it was possible that any King would not be interested in his throne.
Speaker 4: Couldn't see it.
Speaker 4: And he wasn't interested in understanding anything different might want to write this down.
Speaker 4: Your devotion is shaped by your vision, what you see influences your loyalty, your love, and your enthusiasm about that person or about that thing.
Speaker 4: I think about what the magic we're seeing.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 4: Think, think about it.
Speaker 4: I know when you were looking at a two year old boy, now I know that when you look at your two year old boy, all you see as an angel sent from heaven into your life.
Speaker 4: But let's be honest.
Speaker 4: When you were sitting in the airplane seat and down the aisle comes a mother or a father with a two year old in their arms.
Speaker 4: The only thing in your mind is Lord Jesus.
Speaker 4: If that kid sits somewhere else, Lord God, I will love you forever.
Speaker 4: I will serve you for always.
Speaker 4: There will never be a thing between you and me.
Speaker 4: I mean, Jesus, in the name of the Lord, send them to the back of the plane.
Speaker 4: Lord God, y'all, aren't very honest in this service.
Speaker 4: You know, that's what you're praying right there.
Speaker 4: You never been more devoted to the King and looking for a miracle.
Speaker 4: Then when there's an empty seat beside you on a full airplane and you see a two year old coming, I was on a plane recently and I saw, I don't know, she was roughly two years old.
Speaker 4: And we were, she was sitting in the seat right behind first class.
Speaker 4: And there was somebody in first-class seat right there.
Speaker 4: And that little girl reached out with her feet and for the whole flight kit, that first class passengers seat, the entire time, they must've been a very godly person.
Speaker 4: That's all I'm going to say, that's it.
Speaker 4: And then I see if I'd have paid for that seat.
Speaker 4: And then sitting in that first class seat, I'd have been getting up and been like, little girl.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you what's about no, I would not.
Speaker 4: The Lord is good, but I might've sent a quiet note to their mother saying make them stop.
Speaker 4: That never saw anything.
Speaker 4: They were looking at a two year old boy.
Speaker 4: And can you imagine they walk into a normal house, just a, just a normal house of the day.
Speaker 4: They walk in, they see a normal mom and they see what looks like a normal two year old.
Speaker 4: They've just come from the palace.
Speaker 4: They've just come from all the Royal accoutrements and seen all of the glory and glimmer of that.
Speaker 4: And now they're standing in a normal house with a normal mom looking at a normal two year old boy who's anything but normal.
Speaker 4: I almost, I almost said this as my mind's eye.
Speaker 4: I almost see them looking.
Speaker 4: And then stepping back outside the door, just let me, let me check that star one more time.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 4: It's here and that's him and what Herod wanted to destroy.
Speaker 4: They knelt before him and they worshiped and they offered gold and frankincense and myrrh.
Speaker 4: Their devotion was established by looking up after a long journey.
Speaker 4: They were so ecstatic.
Speaker 4: [inaudible] about him, that joy overflowed from them.
Speaker 4: They were so in love that they sacrificed to him and they were so loyal that they defied a King for him.
Speaker 4: So I call, I, I encourage you today.
Speaker 4: Look up don't base your decision, your direction and your devotion on ground level input, but stabilize your direction, ground your decisions and establish your devotion by looking up today.
Speaker 4: So father in the name of Jesus, we thank you.
Speaker 4: We thank you that you're ever guiding us forward.
Speaker 4: And I pray that in this season and onward that our, our eyes are constantly pulled to you.
Speaker 4: I pray that we would not look down and limit ourselves based upon what we can see at ground level, that our loyalty, our loyalty to your cause and your call would be limited by what we can see and understand today that our devotion, our devotion would not be pulled in one way or another based upon outward circumstance.
Speaker 4: And I pray that our direction, our direction set by you, that it would not be swayed or diverted, but that we would have remained constant and faithful in our pursuit of your call in our lives and in our church.
Speaker 4: Oh, we give you thanks and praise for that in the Austin name of Jesus.
Speaker 4: And if that's your prayer today, would you say, amen, let's stand on our feet and let's close this service and worship.