Seeing Straight

SERMON: 2007-10-16--sm0736--seeing-straight SOURCE DURATION: 00:29:41.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: Candidate 0 is the last segment of theological exposition/sermon material before the transition to music (starting with candidate 1). Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:25:43.300-00:29:39.100 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- >>Well, if it is true that earthly riches are temporal and heavenly riches are eternal, then why is it that so many people, including, I dare say, many who bear the name of Jesus, spend much more time and energy trying to lay up treasures on earth than laying up treasures in heaven? And if you think perhaps that judgment is too harsh, then I ask you to listen to the average conversation. Listen to the average conversation at work. Listen even to the average conversation in most places after church. What is the content of that conversation? Is the focus of that conversation, how can I get to know God better? How can I be a better steward of what it is that He's entrusted to me? How can I do His will better? Or is that conversation more likely to be about the party that I went to last night, the job that I did last week, the challenges and the opportunities that lie before me in the coming week? You know just as well as I do how easily and how readily we're occupied with laying up treasures on earth rather than laying up treasure in heaven. And our conversation has a way of reflecting that out of the abundance of the heart, said Jesus. The mouth speaks. I love this story and it's clearly fictional, but I love this story of some human space travelers. They they went out into the far reaches of space and they they landed on a planet belonging to some distant galaxy and and there they met up with an alien civilization. They were pretty nervous at first about meeting with them, but this alien civilization was highly advanced and they were very friendly and they got along just fabulously. And when it came time for the space travelers to get back in their rocket and fly back home, the aliens said to one another, you know these are pretty nice people and we really ought to give them a farewell present. What shall we give them? So they put their heads together and next morning when the space travelers woke up in their rocket, wouldn't you know it, their whole rocket had been turned into solid gold, solid gold. And the aliens thought they did the space travelers a favor, but the space travelers, they look at that and tears ran down their face because they were smart enough to realize that a spacecraft made of gold can't fly and they're never going to be able to get back home now. And so they say to the aliens, why in the world did you transform our spacecraft into gold? Now we're stuck here with you. And the aliens said, well you know we listen to your conversation to try to gauge what it was that was most important to you and we heard you talking about your jobs and about how much money you were making and how big your house was back home and the new car that you had bought and and how you were saving stocks and bonds and storing up gold and and we thought the best way that we could bless you was to give you your heart's desire out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So why is it then? Why is it that we so readily default even as God's children who should know better? Why even as God's children is so much of our time and effort and energy spent in the here and now laying up treasures that rust and that corrode and that can be stolen as opposed to concentrating on my walk with God and growing in the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well there are many reasons but one of the reasons says Jesus is that we don't see straight that is to say our vision has been compromised and because our vision has been compromised the decisions that we make reflect the lack of clarity in our vision notice how Jesus goes on now in this passage and this is still all in the context of treasures on earth and treasures in heaven he says the eye is the lamp of the body if your eyes are good your whole body will be full of light but if your eyes are bad your whole body will be full of darkness if then the light within you is darkness how great is that darkness the eye he says is the lamp of the body now you know as well as I do that in a literal in a natural sense our eyes are the organ in the body that captures light it doesn't actually make light but it captures the light of the Sun or from some other source it reflects off the object all around us penetrates through the cornea and the lens into our eye focuses on the retina the retina sends a whole series of signals through the optic nerve into the brain and our brain interprets the data and makes the picture it's an amazing thing and a wonderful aspect of God's creation the eye is the lamp of the body now one of the keys to seeing properly is having eyes that focus clearly wonder if you've ever given any thought you've got two eyes how come you don't see two images well because if your eye is working properly your eyes turn inward you focus on a given object your brain sees one object and interprets for you and the reason you have two eyes instead of one eye is that your brain also calculates the angle of what you're looking at and that gives you a depth perspective and if you've ever had to have a patch on one eye or if you're blind in one eye or you cover your one eye and you try to gauge the distance you will know how difficult it is until you learn how to do that because you need two eyes to clearly see a depth of field same thing is true with your ears by the way you've got two ears because sound arrives at each ear at a slightly different time frame and your brain figures that out and says the sound is coming from here or here or wherever so when your eye is functioning your eye is single it's unfortunate that the NIV has lost that nuance in its translation because when Jesus says if your eyes are good your whole body will be full of light the word there is single if your eye is single that is to say if it's clearly focused on a single object your whole body will be full of light because you see when you can see properly then you can make the right kind of decisions as to how you're going to live your life so you see a hole in the ground in front of you and you take action to avoid falling into it you you come across a snake and you know that snake is going to bite you so you learn to avoid it you see a car that comes rushing at you you know how to get out of the way because your eyes are correctly interpreting reality that's why Jesus says if your eyes are good your whole body is full of light it means you're now able to understand what is happening you're able to make the right kind of decisions and you're able to your body is directed by your vision that's why how you see is so important now the problem of course is that not all eyes are good you can have a bad eye some of us were nearsighted some of us are farsighted some of us have a stigmatism some of us have macular degeneration some of us have cataracts some of us can have a detached retina some of us can be blind and to the degree to which our eyes have been damaged and our eyesight has been compromised to that degree our perception of reality is severely compromised I mean if I take my glasses off you all disappear if I want to tune you out I don't even have to shut my eye my vision is perfect right up to here beyond that it all disappears and so when the eye is not good particularly as we'll see later on if you're cross-eyed and you see two things at the same time you're gonna get into trouble and so if I can't see properly I can't see the hole that's in the ground and I'm gonna walk right into it I can't see the snake that's coming after me or the the car that is trying to pursue me and so now my actions based on my poor vision are going to get all the rest of me into an increasing amount of trouble that's what Jesus means when he says if your eyes are bad if they're not working right your whole body will be full of darkness how you see determines how you live now that's not only true naturally says Jesus that is also true spiritually because God's intention for the human race in creating us originally was that we should have the spiritual equipment a spiritual eyesight if you will to be able to see things the way they really are the way God has made everything the way that he wants us to live before his face walk in relationship with him and and all that sort of thing but the fall has messed it all up and outside of and apart from the saving grace of Jesus every last one of us is near sighted or we have some other visual problem we cannot see clearly I mean have you ever asked yourself the question why is it that so many people keep making the same mistake over and over and over they walk into the same hole repeatedly and do not seem to learn from their mistakes why is it that some of the world's brightest and most brilliant and most clever people instead of bowing their knees before God because of their great knowledge and insight and wisdom turned out to be some of his greatest enemies how is it many of us who have been here Sunday nights as we've been looking at videos on intelligent design and you gaze at the universe and its amazing structure and the beauty of sub molecular life not to mention the unique creatures that God has created as we saw last Sunday night how is it that the whole world can study all of this and not fall down on their knees and declare the glory of God because the Bible says the majesty the power and the glory of God is demonstrated in everything that he has made and yet the world's wise people who live in this stuff all the time and who know more about it than you and I did it doesn't drive them to their knees it doesn't bring them to faith many times it just hardens the foolishness of their rebellious hearts why because their eyes are bad and they cannot see and that's what Jesus means if he says if the light within you is darkness how great is the darkness that is to say if what you think you see if what you think you know if the light that you have is all wrong then how great is the darkness in you because it is the fool who says in his heart there is no God what you see determines how you live so what's the answer well the answer of course is first of all in coming to Christ because Jesus says concerning himself in John 8 verse 12 I am the light of the world whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life later on in John 12 46 he says I have come into the world as a light so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness a lot of people don't understand this you cannot argue yourself or reason yourself into an understanding of God and the things of God they are spiritually discernible and if my eyes are broken then it doesn't matter how much light you shine at me I'm not gonna see any better all I will do maybe is feel the heat if I am to see my eyesight needs to be fixed Jesus fixes our spiritual eyes and scripture is full of instances where people come to the end of their own wisdom their own understanding they embrace their confusion they acknowledge they cannot do it that shows them a revelation of the person of Jesus they bend the knee before Jesus Christ put their faith in him and all of a sudden he gives them the Holy Spirit and their eyesight spiritually it gets open I so remember in my own life when Christ became real how all of nature took on a shine that it had never taken on before let alone the spiritual insight that came as I began to understand more clearly about who God is and what he has done for me in the person of Jesus Christ if you're wandering in the dark and you wonder how come the things of earth are simply much more important to you than the things of God you wander into a place like this and you say what in the world are these people busy with trying to figure out who God is what the Bible says who Jesus is I'm much happier doing what I did yesterday and and planning what I want to do tomorrow because this is the life that matters what you need to do is get down on your knees and say Jesus somehow I've got it backwards I can't make myself see but I'm giving you the right to shine your light in my heart so that I can begin to see what are the true riches and what are the riches that are temporal the answer lies first and foremost in coming to Christ but it doesn't stop there you know why because if it did then every Christian would see clearly and if every Christian saw clearly then getting people to come out of church or getting people to spend time in prayer or getting people to spend time developing their relationship with God and learning how to steward their earthly matters on behalf of God none of those things would be an issue but you know just as well as I do but half the time we're just as much as the world we're in love with a here and now and God is an add-on to our daily life and to our daily existence isn't that true sadly Saul why because it's not good enough just to come to Christ but having come to Christ we also need to choose our focus remember it is the single eye that sees clearly why do we often not see clearly because Christians we are an ingenious lot we know how to have our cake and eat it too and our eyesight is often divided between the things of God and the things of the world and so there's a part of us of course we all want to go to heaven when we die even though we're never in a hurry to get there we want to have our sins forgiven we want to have God own us and and when we get into trouble we we certainly want him to step in and bail us out and we sort of like being part of his forever family but you know at the same time we live in the here and now we have worries and we have concerns and we have problems and so what often happens is we compartmentalize life and so Sunday maybe I'll go to church if I feel like it and before my meal maybe I'll pray maybe I won't but really the bulk of my time in the course of the bulk of the week is spent trying to figure out how to make money and how to make my payments and and and how to keep myself comfortable and and and how to you know just enjoy life in the here and now and Jesus comes to you and to me this morning in this text and he says Christian I got news for you no man can serve two masters you'll either hate the one and you will love the other or you will be devoted to the one and you despise the other you cannot have your relationship with God and doing his will as your first priority and at the same time have the needs of this life and this world and laying up treasures in the here and now as an equal priority because what happens is that you either serve one or the other and you either end up really serving God and placing him first trusting then that he will take care of all the rest as we'll see later on in the servant of the mount because that's what Jesus addresses next he knows what our worries are and what our concerns are or you start living for the here and now and you discover that you lose God in the process and so let's suppose for example that one of my chief goals in life is to be famous or to be rich or to be successful none of those are necessarily bad if that flows out of my commitment to Jesus and if this is what Jesus wants for me but you see most of the time what happens our concern is not this is what Jesus wants for me and this is what it means to love God no I want what I want for whatever reasons that I wanted and if God gets in the way you know guess who gets removed you've heard the story of the farmer his prized cow had two baby calves and he said to his wife you know I'm so grateful to go on for these two calves that this one I'm going to raise for the Lord and give him the proceeds and this other one I'm going to raise for ourselves and both God and we will be blessed well it so happens that as time went on one of the calves died it was his calf that died so he says to his wife well it's too bad the Lord's calf died but this one's mine and so whenever we pursue whenever we pursue laying up treasure on earth it will always be at the cost of my relationship with God all my time all my effort will will go into my daily work and into my daily activity and at the end of the day God gets squeezed out and every time I squeeze out God my eyesight begins to dim I can no longer see what I'm doing and the rest of me gets more and more given over to the here and now and the things of God leave me more and more cold and embittered and will seem like strangers to the things of God and so the antidote is not only come to Jesus but to say Jesus cure me of divided vision help me not to see double help me to be single help me to set my priority so that in everything I choose you and choose you first because once God is first and the priorities of God are number one then my whole body will be full of light I'll make the right decisions about my family I'll make the right decisions about my business I'll make the right decisions about my relationships my whole body will be full of light and I will be living as a citizen of God's kingdom now none of us can do this on our own we need the help of Jesus we need to help with the Holy Spirit and we need the help of community but as we speak into each other's lives encourage each other and bless each other then God creates a culture we're having a relationship with God cultivating that relationship with God demonstrating that relationship in every aspect of life makes us a people who don't live in two separate worlds we now live in one world because the Lord is as concerned about my daily living as he is about my Sunday worship because he wants my whole being to be surrendered and to be dedicated to him and so this morning as we join together in a few moments in the celebration of communion here's what we need to do we need to ask ourselves the question have I come to Jesus and has Jesus opened my eyes to the reality of God's kingdom and then number two we need to ask ourselves the question is my vision focused or is my vision divided what's got my heart what or who am I living for at the end of the day what gives me the greatest joy and the greatest pleasure and to the degree that is earthly treasure rather than heavenly treasure to that degree we not only need to repent but we need to say Lord Jesus help me to love you with all of my heart with all of my soul and with all of my strength [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:25:43.300; remove through 00:29:41.000] for your [CUT] glory light of the world you step down into darkness open my eyes let me see you deep and made this heart adore you hope of a life spent with you so here I am to worship here I am to bow down here I am to say that you're my God you're all together lovely all together worthy all together wonderful to me a king of all days oh so highly exalted glorious in heaven above humbly you came to the earth you created oh for love's sake became more so here I am to worship here I am to bow down here I am to say that you're my God you're all together lovely all together worthy all together wonderful to me and I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon the cross and I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross and I'll never know how much it costs to see my sin to see my sin so here I am to worship here I am to bow down here I am to say that you're my God you're all together lovely all together worthy all together wonderful to me [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:29:41.000; resume after this marked segment]