“Eyes Upon Jesus” | Sunday AM | Pastor David K. Caruthers

Original Broadcast of Sunday Morning 11 AM Worship, 06/07/2026 

Speaker: Pastor David K. Caruthers

Message Title: "Eyes Upon Jesus" 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hebrews chapter 12 and verse number 2 says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. And I want us to pray that God would be with us and God would anoint us to speak and to receive what he wants to say to us today. And while we're doing that, just maybe some ladies can gather around Sister Marlene Wise and pray for her. She has a procedure this week, medical procedure. So just let's join together and pray. Lord, we thank you for your blessings and grace and goodness to us. We thank you for this moment that you have given us to gather, to gather here today to honor you and praise you. We pray, God, that you would speak to our hearts, speak to our minds, touch our lives. Lord, let your work be done and let our hearts be open to receive from you, to receive your word, and to embrace what you want to do. Maybe it's a good thing I have this mark. You may be seated. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Chuck Polinek in a book entitled Lullaby wrote, Old George Orwell got it backwards. Big brother isn't watching. He's singing and dancing. He's pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big brother's holding your attention every moment you're awake. He's making sure you're always distracted, making sure you're fully absorbed with the world, with the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what's in your mind. Now I've never read the novel and I don't recommend his books. I'll just be blunt right up front. But there's an important, insightful point, and uh the principle of what he said. We only have so much mental capacity, and if our minds are filled with distractions, there's little room for anything else. It's like uh maybe you're familiar with a uh computer malware, often called denial of service in some fashion. It overwhelms, it exhausts, it expends the resources of your computer by flooding it with system traffic of some kind or another. The idea is that it keeps your computer so maxed out doing this that it can't do what you want it to do. And all of us have sat in front of a computer, probably all of us have sat in front of a PC that had that problem and got frustrated by it. It's just overwhelmed. It's overwhelmed by all the requests and all the activity going on. And some of us can experience that same kind of overload in our lives. But your mind's not a computer, so you have some control in that. You have some voice in that. And uh, so today I want to point you back to Jesus, the one that will give you clarity and purpose and direction. And I've entitled this message, Eyes Upon Jesus, and it's no surprise to all the men that were in Watchman Prayer a while ago, because uh, a minute men prayer, excuse me, a while ago, because uh brother Joel preached my sermon in a nutshell. I I want to I want to I want to start in Hebrews chapter 12, where we uh began in the scripture today, um, that I read a few moments ago, and I want to start at the beginning of that. I'm just gonna read it for a moment. Wherefore, seeing we are also compassed about by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. If you're familiar with this scripture setting at all, you know that the previous chapter, Hebrews chapter 11, is uh uh about faith, and it's lists and names a lot of, well, people we would know mostly from the Old Testament that that acted and lived in faith. We often call that chapter the heroes of faith, because it lists so many of those people that did great things by the hand of God. And so the writer of Hebrews now is stepping from that conversation and uh and giving us some insight that's important for us to grasp. And it's using this terminology uh as a runner, this sort of picture in your mind of a runner. And so he says, lay aside. That means put away the things that slow you down. Put away the things that distract you, that pulls you away from God, those things that would take us off track, that would lead us in a direction of put those away and those things that are awaits to us and those things that are heavy in our lives. And then it says to run with patience. So to run rapidly, to run quickly, to run fast. In fact, um one of the Bible uh dictionaries, Thayers, said that this word would occur in Greek writings to denote that there was extreme peril, which required the exertion of all of one's efforts. In other words, the situation is so dire that you're running as fast as you can to get away from it. That's the idea behind this word. And so, to get the picture in our mind, think of this runner who is shedding off all the things that's inhibiting them, that's holding them back, that's weighing them down, letting go of all of those things and leaning forward with every ounce of strength and in their mind's eye, visualizing, seeing the finish line, getting there, waiting to cross that line. So you can you can sort of imagine that kind of extreme focus and and uh attention to trying to accomplish this goal. And that that's the image, that's the idea that's being presented here. Now, you're not running today. You're not running a race today. You would have started a lot earlier than now. And uh so I understand that there's a physical comparison, but what are your weights and sins? What are your weights and sins? I'll start with sins today. I'm not gonna name all your sins or examine your life or make you make a list. Everybody come for confession. Please do not do that. I don't want to hear it. Uh confess to God, He's the forgiver. I'm not. But as Romans 3 23 says, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So I don't have to ask the question today where you are in that conversation, because we're all part of all. Sin is just disobedience to God, wrongdoing. It may be by commission or omission. And without going too deep into the topic at hand, I want to just say that the answer, the solution, is to repent. To repent, to turn from your sins, to turn away from those things. And I don't know what sins you may deal with or what sins you've done or what sins you have lived in your life, but I do know that the Bible tells us clearly in 2 Peter 3 9 that God is not willing that any perish, but that all come to repentance. That's God's will for you. All have sinned, and God is wanting all to come to repentance. So that tells us exactly where we are. But what are the weights? What are the encumbrances? What are the hindrances that that drag you down, that slow you down, that distract you from this race, from this run? Now I've ran a few marathons. I try to run one every year, and and I try to pick cooler days. Amen. So I'm typically running uh marathons in February, whenever the coolest month is. That's when I want to do that because uh because I'm averse to the heat of San Antonio when it comes to running. And uh so what happens is at the beginning of the race, the last race I ran uh at the beginning of the race, we were up uh elevated a little bit. We knew it was going to get a lot warmer before we got to the end, but where we were at the beginning, it was just above freezing. And so you can imagine people were standing at the heaters and and uh they were uh had jackets on, gloves on, they were wrapped up, you wouldn't know they were runners mostly. There was a few brave souls, or maybe people that didn't bring their supplies. And and as the race began and and the day began to brighten and and and people got warmed up, then they would take this gloves off and take this shirt, uh, this jacket that they had or this overshirt that they had. And after a while, after a little while, pretty much everybody looked like runners in the race. Because they started shedding all this stuff. And sometimes instead of carrying stuff that they would have carried or started out carrying, they're throwing it away. It's a big problem with marathons. I don't know if you know that or not, but the trash is everywhere because people are discarding everything they don't have to carry. Now, if you run like me, that's not that important. So I'm still gonna take a long time to get there. So uh but but what happens is you start dropping that off because it may seem like something minor. It may seem like something small, but it puts just enough drag to slow you down. It may seem like that it's not that big of a deal, but it's just enough to make it difficult. And so it it begins to be a weight to you. And it's funny how that goes. The further you go, the heavier it gets. You start to recognize the weight of it. You start to recognize that it may have seemed small at the beginning and it may have seemed necessary at the beginning, but now it's not. And so oftentimes in runs, there's, you know, there's like, well, there's somebody's discarded all of that. They've taken those multiple water bottles, suddenly they didn't need them. Those backpacks with water, suddenly they're thrown on the side of the road because the weight doesn't benefit them in the race. And so that's the image being led here. What are those encumbrances? What are those hindrances? And oftentimes those hindrances themselves, those weights themselves, they may not be sinful, but they will lead to sin. They will lead to sinful behaviors. James chapter 1, verse 14 and 15 says, but every man is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desires and enticed. And then when desire has conceived, it brings forth sin, and sin, when it's finished, brings forth death. So what are those weights? What are those hindrances? And so for the next three hours, I'm gonna talk about all the weights of our lives. Some of the visitors are saying, Oh, should have brought my sack lunch. If you brought your lunch, we're gonna ask you to be the boy that gave his lunch to Jesus, and we're all gonna divide it among ourselves. No, I just want to I just want to throw out some of them, all right? Maybe some broader categories of things to talk about that. Sometimes, sometimes a wait is the noise of trouble. In Matthew chapter 14, Jesus came walking on the water in the Sea of Galilee in the middle of a terrible storm, and Peter impetuously called out, Lord, if it's you, bid me come. Now that's probably not the first thing that would come to your mind. Uh I know you think sitting here it may because you know the story, but that's probably not the first thing that came to mind to you. But he's in this storm, they see Jesus coming, and and he said, If it's you, invite me to come. You better be careful what you ask from Jesus. Because he invited him to come. He invited him to come. And so uh uh Peter gets out of the boat and starts going towards Jesus walking on the water, and then Matthew records it this way when he saw the winds boisterous, he was afraid and began to sink. When he realized the circumstances, when he looked at the storm, when he paid attention to the stuff going on around him, he began to sink. And then Jesus, in his mercy and kindness, reached out, took him by the hand, and lifted him up and walked with him. I don't know how far away from the boat they were at that moment, but walked with him to the boat. Now I'm trying to paraphrase the story for the sake of time, but read it in Matthew 14. When I imagine that, you know, I I can't really get the picture in my mind very well. I can't really follow the picture too well in my thinking. Uh I've been in boats that had problems, but I never walked on any water. But what I imagine is this storm is brewing, and Peter takes this leap and he's getting out there, and everybody else is wondering what in the world he's doing. And he's out there on the water, and suddenly it dawns on him, this winds, the waves, the storm going on around him. And when his eyes shift from Jesus to the storm, he begins to sink. And so when Jesus shows mercy to him and takes him by the hand and walks with him, in my mind, Jesus keeps holding his hand. I don't know if that's true, but it would sure help keep your attention focused if he's got a hold of your hand. If he's walking with you enough that he's right there, that he's touching you, that his presence is near in a tangible way. It's a lot easier to know it's dependent on him, it's trusting in him. It's not about the storm, it's about Jesus. And that's sort of the point of this story. Sometimes uh we have these troubles in our lives. They're not always something that's immediate, but sometimes we have trouble of the past, sometimes we have trouble of the present, and sometimes we're worried about trouble of the future, and that gets our eyes off of Jesus and start focusing on the trouble, and every time we start focusing on the trouble, every time we sink. You know that's the case. I know that's the case. Every time I start focusing on the trouble, I start sinking. Have you experienced that? Have you experienced that? It's just the nature of uh us as human beings that we start focusing on the problem. We start focusing on the impending disaster, you know. We start uh what happens? The disaster, the waves, everything starts growing in our minds. The consequences start growing in our minds. We start thinking about how bad it could be. I mean, I can conceive the worst of circumstances, right? I can I I can I can make something into something a lot worse than it will be. Because I start focusing on that. But even when you're distracted by the storms, even when you're distracted by trouble, even when your circumstances are truly difficult, there was a real storm going on. It wasn't something in his mind. There was a real storm happening. God can still rescue you, God can still help you, God is still there to strengthen you, to catch you, to hold you. All you have to do is lift your eyes towards God again. You have to lift your eyes towards Jesus again, and he will sustain you through the trouble and through the the storm may not cease, but he'll be with you and he'll walk beside you. Have you found that to be true? Okay, good. I don't like that mic, but I'll use it if I have to. Sometimes the weight is the noise of the storm. Sometimes the weight that's holding you back is the noise of the storm. It's the fear, it's the anxiety. And I want to tell you today, I'm not saying the storm is not real. What I'm saying is our focus gets off of Jesus and on the storm. Sometimes the weight is just distractions. If our lives have ever been filled with distractions, they are stuffed full of them today. They're everywhere. They're everywhere. In whatever form. There's all kinds of electronic forms. There's phones, screens, gaming, all kinds of stuff. I went to church on Sunday morning, pastor preached against phones. Preached against playing games on the computer or the device, whatever it is you're playing. Maybe some parents would like for me to do that right now. So they can blame me. You know what the pastor said. These are ways, not sins. Now, the content can be bad. The content can be evil. The content can be sinful. I'm not saying it never is, but the device is not. The device is not. It's only evil when you make it evil, and when you do evil things with it. So I want to make that clear. But Americans are consumed with the distraction of their devices. And it's not just people walking down the street that aren't paying attention or people driving in the car that aren't paying attention. It's not just there, it's in all sorts of our lives. Because our lives are consumed with it. We can't. The first thing we do when we wake up in the morning is grab for the device and check and make sure if somebody commented on our comments or liked our post or laughed at our videos or whatever it was. We're compelled to stay engaged and to and stay connected, and there's nothing that will grab our attention more than that little notification sound. It's buzzing in some of your pockets today. You were nice enough to turn the sound off, but you're still compelled to reach for it and to it for it to be a distraction to you and to consume your time. It interrupts sleep, it steals our time, and it's addictive. It's addictive. It constrains and holds our lives. Got way too many people spending way too much time, even on not bad things, and they're never lifting their eyes to Jesus. They're never lifting their eyes to Jesus. I'd like to go back to Brother Ross's teaching this morning, but I don't have time to do that. Constant distractions in our lives, and they're not just electronic devices. Our lives are filled with it. And it's teaching us, it's training us, it's molding our thinking process, whether we think it is or not. That's the reason why people pay hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars to advertise because they know it will affect your behaviors, it will affect your thoughts. That's why companies will pay thousands, tens of thousands of dollars just to set their product in the scene. Because they know it will affect the way we view things. And so don't say it doesn't have any effect, it does. My grandchildren, you know, get to watch some videos. We screen them well, but most of that just I can hardly stand it because it's it's overhyped emotions and it's too loud. I get them, turn it down, turn it down, turn down. But it's not just too loud because the volumes turned up, it's too loud because the people are overacting on it. And what are they doing? Trying to grab their attention, exactly what they're doing. They're trying to grab their attention. They're yelling, they're jumping up and down, they're doing things that aren't real. People don't really act that way. But it's teaching them to act that way about the same things. We used to worry about our kids getting mad and throwing temper tantrums. But we're okay when they're overreacting to everything around them that's meaningless and doesn't mean anything, and they're completely out of control in their emotions, and we're teaching them to react to life that way. Well, I wasn't going to get off on all this, but I did. So parents, dock those devices in your room at night. Your kids do not need them. They do not need them over. Nobody is texting them anything they need to know at 2 o'clock in the morning. No one is. No one's sending them any kind of message or posting things on social media that they need at 2 o'clock in the morning. If they need an alarm, there's still alarm clocks. They don't need that to justify it. Please don't let them do that. It's destroying their thoughts, their minds, their sleep. We have a real problem in America with people not getting enough sleep because they're constantly checking their phones. And if you're adults, then you have to exercise discipline. You may need to put your phone in the other room. Just a smattering of applause. The point I'm making, though, is that we spend too much time distracted. Instead of, and what does that do? It fills our lives with distractions on things that aren't important when we need to be lifting our eyes to Jesus. Tom Kite, the famous pro golfer, said, You can always find a distraction if you're looking for one. I would say, even if you're not looking for one, you can find one. But you can cut them out. You can handle those distractions. You can deal with those distractions. Otherwise, your favorite basketball star would never make a free throw. Because they put those glass backboards so those people can see on the other side. And what are those people on the other side of that backboard doing? That's the opposing team. And what are they doing? That's the opposing fans. They're trying to make every distraction they possibly can to cause that player to miss the free throw. And if they paid attention to that, they wouldn't miss the free throws all the time. Occasionally, some of them do miss the free throws all the time. So you can control it. You can have some voice over it. And as Christians, what do we do? We lift our eyes to Jesus. We lift our eyes to Jesus. We get our attention on Him because we know that even though this thing is not sinful, it's a weight that will cause me to get distracted. It'll cause me to get distracted in my relationship with God. It'll cause me to get distracted. And even if it doesn't lead me to sin, it takes me a path that God's not wanting me to go because I can't hear the voice of God. I'm too distracted with everything else going on. I can't read the Bible. I can't see what the Word of God says because I'm distracted with everything else. It's a wait. It's a wait. But it's not just that. Sometimes it's just busyness and getting our priorities right. You know, with all the labor-saving devices we have, it seems like we'd have very little to do anymore. Now AI is doing everything for us. So what do we do? I don't know about you, but I'm not sitting around looking for something to do. It just keeps coming at me for stuff to do, things to do. In Luke chapter 10, the Bible says it came to pass when Jesus came to a certain village that a woman named Martha received him in her house. And she had a sister, Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving. And came to him and said, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Bid her, I think he's saying, command her. She's saying, Command her to help me. And Jesus said, Martha, Martha, you're careful, you're anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her. Even doing something important, and it was important, and it was a nice service to offer to Jesus. But Jesus said there's even something more important than that. It's shutting out all of that to be here with me. The busyness of life can consume our lives, our our careers can consume our attention and be a weight to us. Not just a wait, not just a wait because, well, we have to do it, but a wait because it's consuming so much of our mind and our thoughts and our time. And that's never, I don't think that's ever been as much as it is today. Because most of you don't really get to go home from your job because your job follows you home. Most of you get a day off and you're so used to checking your emails anyway, and you're so used to seeing what it is that you're still checking it, you're still paying attention to it. And if you have a business, God bless you. I mean, you're on all the time. It's busyness of life. You say, well, Pastor, that's necessary. I'm not saying it's not necessary. What I'm saying is don't let it be a weight to your walk with God. Lift your eyes to Jesus. Take the time to lift your heart to Him. Take the time to stretch out to the Lord. Sometimes it's entertainment, sometimes it's well, and and need to look at the clock. God bless you, parents. My goodness. Some of you, some of you, uh, your parents, some of you parents are spending, it seems like every waking moment uh getting your kids to here and there and getting them involved in this and that. And it's great that we live in a first world country where we have all these opportunities, but quite frankly, sometimes our kids are too busy themselves. They're doing too much. They don't have to be a star athlete at six. They really don't have to be. It's really not necessary, it's really not needful. I know you're hoping they're gonna make a lot of money and buy you a new house sometime in the future. But but we are spending so much time keeping them busy doing so much, and we're training them that way in their lives. We're training them in that in their lives. This is what you do. Fill your life with all of this busy stuff. So, parents, please put God first. Lift your eyes to Jesus, put him first. Make room in your children's life for Jesus to be there. Make opportunities for Jesus to be in their lives. If you don't, they'll fill their lives with everything else. And at some point, you can't be their taxi to everywhere they want to go. You're gonna have to help them prioritize. There's always trade-offs in life. If I do this, I may not be able to do that. Well, welcome to reality. Welcome to the real world. Yes, but I wanted to do this. Well, you sometimes you can't do both. You don't have enough capacity to do it. Teaching them that what's important, what's priority comes first. If the other stuff doesn't get done, well, it doesn't get done. I've said so many times in the last, I don't know, number of years, I gave up getting everything done a long time ago. I don't I can't get everything done that needs to be done. It's not gonna happen. I can't get it done. And I hear from some of you that are retired that even after you retire, it still doesn't get all done. We got to get that out of our minds. We got to do what's important, what's best, what's most significant. That's what we've got to do. That's what we need to do, that's what we have to do. Some of the other stuff, well, it's just not gonna happen. It's just not gonna happen. So now some of you don't have to clean the house when you get home after all. I'm challenging you today to lift your eyes off of all the distractions, the weights, and the sins. Lift your eyes off of that and put your eyes upon Jesus, put your direction upon Jesus. I'm challenging to uh to step up a little bit and and and take some control and not let your life be overran with sin and with weights and stuff that's keeping you from what God wants to do in our lives. I'm challenging you. And yes, Brother Joel, mentioned it this morning. You have to be of a certain age, perhaps. No, no, most likely, to even know or think of the lyrics of this song, but I cannot teach or preach anything like it without thinking of those lyrics. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. And it is true. When we intentionally get our eyes on Jesus, it's amazing how the storm fades. It's amazing how some things that were important aren't important anymore. As we get our eyes on Jesus, as we get our hearts fixed on him, as we get our focus fixed on him. And I think God is calling for our attention today. Remember the story of Moses in Exodus chapter 3. Moses is keeping the sheep. God has a destiny and a purpose for his life. He's messed everything up and he spent these years now keeping sheep. He thinks he's just keeping sheep. God still had a master plan for him because God needed him to know what the wilderness life was like. All he knew was the Egyptian throne room life, and he needed 40 years of living out here because he's about to lead at least a million people through here. And he needs to know where things are. He needs to know what this life looks like. And he doesn't know that, though. He's just been living, keeping sheep. And he sees a bush. A bush that is on fire, but not being burned up. First, just seeing a bush on fire is enough to get your attention. Especially when you're responsible for these sheep. You better be paying attention to what's going on. The bush is on fire, and that's enough to get his attention. And then he recognizes the bush, it's not being consumed, but it's on fire. And he said in Exodus 3 and 3, Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight. Why the bush is not burnt. He made a decision to go and check out the bush to see what was happening. I like that it's written so bluntly in the scripture. He said, I will now turn aside. Because it's important for us to make up our minds that we will turn aside when God's trying to get our attention. We will stop. We will get our focus where it needs to be when God's trying to get our attention. The deal is that he went and cautiously to see what this unusual sight is. I want you to know God had not spoken to him. There was no voice yet. Nothing happened until he turned aside to see. Until he paused, until he stopped. And when he turned aside to see, God spoke to him and gave him direction and gave him his marching orders of what he was doing and confirmed the destiny that God had for his life. But he had to stop for a minute and pause and allow God to speak to him. He had to get let go of the distraction and the weight and all the responsibilities of caring for sheep, and he had to stop for a minute so that God could speak to him. And I want to ask you today get your eyes on the Lord so he can speak to you. Get your heart fixed on the Lord. Not just a religious thing, but get your heart fixed on the Lord. I'm not talking about the trappings of church life. Isaiah 29 and Matthew 15 both describe the people who drew near to God with their mouth. They did it out of ritual things, but their heart wasn't in it. They just did it as a function. And sometimes the functions of religion can keep us from hearing from God. So today, I think God is calling us. I think God is drawing us. I think God is speaking to us. God is saying, I'm trying to get your attention. I want to call you back. I want to bring you. Whether you've been in church, you know, forever, for a long time, I know it hasn't been forever, but it may seem like you're you're that old. You've been serving God a long time, or whether you're brand new and you're just wondering what to do with your life, I think God is calling to lift our eyes to Him, lift our hearts to Him. Lift our eyes to Jesus today. You may be distracted, you may be weighed down, you may be overloaded, you may be spiritually exhausted. What's the answer? Turn your eyes to Jesus. Lift your heart to Jesus. Lift your face to Jesus. You may be far from God. You may be caught in sin. You may need mercy and forgiveness. You may need a fresh start. Lift your eyes to Jesus. That's the answer. That's the solution for your challenges, your face. Wherever you are, whatever you're experiencing, get your eyes on Jesus today. Get your focus on Him. He's the author and finisher of our faith. He's the one who breaks the power of sin. He's the one who calms the storm. He's the ones that lift you up when you're sinking. He's the one that calls your name from a burning bush. He's the one calling you today. Lift your eyes to Jesus. He is calling you. He's not pushing you away. He's not looking for a more convenient season or a more convenient moment. He's calling you closer. Maybe you've been distracted. Maybe you've been overwhelmed. Maybe you've been carrying weights. Maybe sin has entangled you. Your heart is drifted. If you're going through the motions, if you're not truly surrendered to the Lord, He's calling you to lift your eyes to Him today. Would you stand together with Him?