Pastor Daniel Slaughter
Advent 1
11-29-20202
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Focus on Christ
1) Focus on what he gave you
2) Focus on what he will give you.
By show of hands, how many of you have corrective lenses, contacts or glasses? To be quite honest, I am blind as bat without my glasses. I can’t see far without them. If I take my glasses off everything becomes a big blur. I may see some shapes but truthfully everyone out there is just blurry. If I were to try to walk around without them, I will probably fall because of these steps. I will probably hit the edge of the pew. I will probably run into something or someone. If I can’t see, it can be a little scary of what might happen. Or if something is blurry, it might be frightening because I can’t tell what it is. Without my glasses, nothing is in focus. Everything is blurry.
To have things in focus… it’s important, isn’t it? It can keep you from making a fool of yourself, it can keep you from from getting hurt, if things are in focus they are less scary. Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new Church year. Advent is a time where we hear the message… Jesus is coming soon! When he comes back are you ready for it? The world will end soon, are you ready for it? Do your sins cause you to lose focus, and become afraid of Christ’s return? Are you ready for Christ to return, or are you distracted by all the other things in this world? Today we are going to turn attention away from the turkey, away from the business of the Christmas season, away from the problems of the world and focus on Christ, because when we do everything becomes clear. So let’s put on our glasses and Focus on Christ. 1)What he gave you, 2) what he will give you.
Paul is writing to the Corinthians Christians, and he had some very hard and difficult things tell them. The Corinthian’s had lost focus. They were careless about distinguishing between right and wrong, they were so self-centered. They were so sure of themselves. They needed to hear what Paul wrote in our lesson for today. Nowhere else in all of Scripture is Jesus Christ named nine times in nine successive verse. Don’t you think Paul is trying to shift their focus from themselves to Christ?
It’s not like the apostle Paul didn’t praise other congregations for exercising their faith. He did that for the Romans, the Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians. Instead of praising the Corinthians, he gives thanks to God for all that God has done for them. He brings the focus back to Christ, what he gave them, and what he will do for them!
I think all of us constantly need that same refocus. It’s all about Christ. Because when it’s all about Christ, things just become clearer!
Have you ever noticed how self-centered our sinful nature really is? Where does it try to turn our focus? Toward ourselves. What I want, what I need, what I deserve. It takes pride and boasts in the things we do or what we achieved. Have you noticed that? Our sinful nature wants our focus to be on ourselves.
Why? Because our sinful nature wants to damn us. It want’s us to lose the focus of the most essential thing in life…Christ. It turns our attention inward and focuses on ourselves. It boasts in the things we do and not what has been done for us. It focuses on our gifts and abilities and forgets the one who gave them to us. Pride…self-righteousness…living with the delusion that we can clean up our lives to the point where God would look at us and on the bases of our own behavior be completely and perfectly pleased.
What happens? Everything becomes blurry. The seriousness of our sin is blurred to something that is not so serious anymore. The beauty of God’s grace becomes difficult to see. We don’t recognize the one who gave us our gifts and talents and abilities. The certainty of our salvation becomes something that is not so so certain.
When we lose focus of Jesus two things can start to happen. 1) When we lose focus of the cross and Christ, pride sets in and in that moment (even if we might not think that we are perfect) do we think that we are deserving of God’s love or forgiveness…at least more than other people? Ask yourself this question, do you feel more deserving of God’s forgiveness than the drunk, the adulterers, the thief, the murderers? If you do isn’t there a small part of you that thinks you deserve Jesus grace given to you. (Quick side note: Have you noticed that these are the people who God chooses for hugely important roles in the church. Like Paul who persecuted and murdered Christian became one of the greatest missionaries ever seen. More on that later)
2) When we lose focus of the cross and Christ, we can fall into complete despair. Where we get so focused on the mistakes we made, the things we said or left unsaid, the consequences we feel, the guilt that piles up that we think we are simply beyond saving.
Nine times in nine consecutive verses, Jesus Christ is mentioned. Whether in a moment of pride we lesson Jesus’ sacrifice by thinking we are deserving it, or in a moment of despair we think we are beyond saving, we need to focus back on Christ. Paul says, “I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus.” God’s grace that is given to you! God’s grace that is his undeserved love for sinners, for you…for me. The more we focus on that grace it puts everything in perspective. It puts our pride in check when we recognize that Christ did it all for us. It lifts us out of the despair of sin when we see it isn’t depended on ourselves but solely on what Christ did it all for us.
When you see his grace, you have a wisdom that the rest of the world doesn’t understand. When you speak of this grace you have a message that is more important than the most eloquent speeches. What made you wise? What makes you effective speakers? Paul puts it this way, “…because the testimony about Christ was established in you.” That message is the one about the Christ as God’s Son and the Savior of all mankind. That message is established you in the faith! You have a certainty that no unbeliever can ever know. The certainty of God’s grace. When it is in focus, it affects everything you say and do!
Advent is a time where the focus is on Jesus coming back and when he does what is going to happen? He is going to come back and judge the living and the dead. Are you ready for that? Are you ready to sit in God’s judgment seat? I would say that you are! Why? Because the focus is on Jesus and his grace.
But the point remains, how do you know that you will still be standing in that grace when you are on your death bed? Or how do you know that you will still be standing in that grace when Jesus returns? Let’s face it, this year may leave us wondering that very same thing, where we wonder if we have the strength to keep going. If you just look at this past year, it may leave you realizing how certain thing are simply beyond your control. We may not have had the kind of thanksgiving that we would have liked to had. We may have a loved one who is sick and suffering but we are not allowed to visit them the hospital or nursing home. Or we may be the one who is sick and suffering and feeling alone. We may be going through Job like situations where we face one difficulty after another and it’s like one more thing would push us over the edge.
When we face suffering and hardship, and what the uncertainty about tomorrow brings, we realize just how weak we really are. And when we realize how weak we really are, How do we know that no matter what we face that we won’t lose our faith before Jesus returns or calls us home? It’s because the focus is on Christ! It’s because of a promise that Jesus makes to you, “He (Jesus) will also keep you strong until the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
We shift our focus from ourselves to Jesus, from our weakness to His strength! As our focus shifts, we can be ready for Christ to return or for him to call us home. We don’t have to be afraid. Why? Because he makes a promise to strengthen us, and the guarantee that we stand blameless on that day. How do we know that he will do that? Paul says, “God is faithful, who called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
We focus on Christ and what he did by his grace. When we do, we see how he has kept his promises to us and how he will continue to keep them in the future. Jesus gives to us strength because of what he has done for us. We stand blameless because he is faithful and has paid the price for our sins. Because of the grace given to you by Jesus, because of the strength of Christ that he gives to you, you will receive the crown of life.
Glasses. They help keep everything in focus. Sometimes we need to be reminded to bring the focus back to Christ, just like the Corinthians needed. When our focus is on Christ, we see his grace, we see his promise, and he will strengthen us until he calls us home. Keep your focus on Christ! Amen.