But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. - Matthew 6:33.

For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. - Hebrews 12:3.

INTRO: Julia Bauer who lives in Bochum, Germany was driving to work one morning when she lost control of her car. She smashed into a parked car and then into a lamppost causing damage of around $27,000. Julia lost control of her vehicle while she was preparing her breakfast. She was pouring milk into her cereal and the bowl slipped. Julia tried to catch the bowl while it was falling, which resulted in the crash of her car when her attention was diverted from driving. Julia might tell you that she was multi-tasking. A police officer would tell you that Julia was inattentive to her driving. Her focus had shifted from driving to preparing breakfast and the falling bowl. The result was bad but it could have been so much worse. At least there was no loss of life.

It is now the year 2005 and with a New Year comes the opportunity to make what we used to call resolutions. Maybe we ought to call it refocusing. The dictionary defines the word “focus” as “A center of activity or interest.” With a new year we should at least take time to consider what our major focus of life is at this point. What is your focus, your primary focus right now? How does this focus line up with the focus the Bible tells us we ought to have? Jesus tells us plainly what should be our primary focus in Matthew 6:33. It may be that your life is so busy that you are thinking how can I do that? Jesus adds, “and all these things shall be added to you.” This means that if we have the Kingdom of God, Jesus, as our primary focus everything else in our life will work out, as God would have it to. It is a matter of faith. Do we believe the Word of God to be true or not?

Hebrews 12:3 gives us some additional benefits of having the right focus “lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.” I think we know what that means. It means that when we do not have the right focus we tend to become stressed, depressed, worried, and things start to come apart in our lives instead of coming together. Here are some suggestions for refocusing: Read through the Bible in a year; spend 15 minutes or more in prayer every day; attend church regularly, faithfully; give financially and of your time to the Kingdom of God; And, remember the 10 commandments are not just the 10 suggestions.

To make a commitment to refocusing your life a good place to start is 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Because if the Kingdom of God is not our primary focus we have sinned and we are not in a right relationship with our Lord. Resolutions and commitments are such fragile things and rarely are they kept over a long period of time. However, without a commitment of the heart, there will never be a change, and there will never be a refocus of your heart. If you will keep this commitment of refocus, you will see as you live life over a period of years that truly “all these things” have been “added to you.” You will be blessed and God’s hand will be upon your life. Before the moment of opportunity slips away, REFOCUS!!!!

I. Now I want to zero in those things that will help you to bring about a refocusing of your life. First, Refocus through the Word of God. John 1:1-4, 14, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and theWord was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The Bible also says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

George Mueller is remembered for many things including his care of orphans. He began caring for orphans when he moved in 1832 to pastor a church at Bristol, England. It was there at Bristol that two young children became the responsibility of the church. Mueller had very little money - only two shillings at the time he began to care for the children. During the next sixty years, God moved in a mighty way to provide for that ministry. Over seven million dollars were sent by God to help meet their needs. Mueller also began 117 schools, which provided educations for more than 120,000 children many of whom were orphans. The church he pastored had 2,000 members at the time of his death. Charles H. Spurgeon said of George Mueller, “Of flowers of speech he has none, and we hardly think he cares for them; but of the bread of Heaven he has abundance.”

From where did George Mueller’s empowerment come? It certainly was in part from his voracious reading of the Word of God. Mueller was a student of the ministry of George Whitefield who was a great evangelist during the 1700s. Mueller adopted a habit of Whitefield’s, which was the reading of the Bible while on his knees in an attitude of prayer and meditation. Mueller through his lifetime documented in his journal reading through the Bible some 200 times. I think we can see the source of George Mueller’s empowerment.

Reading God’s Word will help you to refocus upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Word become flesh. Jesus quotes Scripture in Matthew 4:4, to resist the temptation of the devil, when He says, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." We cannot live the Christian life without a daily nurturing, filling, that comes only from the Word of God.

I recently spoke with a pastor friend who sadly shared about one of his sons for whom nothing seems to work out. Everything his son tries always ends in some degree of failure. His son knows what the problem is in that he knows he is not on the right track with his life and that he is not in God’s will. Joshua tells us how we can get on the right track with our lives and it is through the Word of God. Joshua says in Joshua 1:8, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

You cannot expect to read the Bible for a few moments one night and expect your life to instantly change. You can expect that through a commitment to reading through the Bible in a year (about 3 chapters a day) that you will begin to see positive changes for the better in your life. As you follow through with that commitment to God in all areas of your life, you will see over the course of months and years dramatic changes for the better occurring, which will lead to the successful living of a good life for the glory of God. Now’s a good time to dust off that Bible, open it up to Genesis chapter one and begin to read (Variety of Bible reading programs/methods). I can promise you that you will never regret the time you spend in the Word. Let us refocus our lives on Jesus through the Word of God.

II. Second, Refocus your life through Prayer. Jeremiah in Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” The apostle Paul says in Ephesians 3:20-21, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 4:16, “Let us therefore come boldly
to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” 

In August 1998 Michael Giovanetti (39 years old) was heading for home. Michael is married with a son and twin girls. He had been unemployed since April and was searching for work as an avionics technician. He lost control of his car on some gravel trying to get onto a turnpike. He shot across the highway, over a guard rail and his car flew into the air and finally landed 100 feet down a steep hill strewn with boulders. The accident tore the front off Giovanetti's car, which came to rest on its crushed roof. The passenger side of the car was buried in dirt and rocks.

Michael regained consciousness upside down, his face mashed against the broken windshield. He unlatched his seat belt and fell against the steering wheel. Michael was injured with a head wound and broken ribs but knew help was only 100 feet away from him. However, he was stuck in the twisted wreckage at the bottom of the steep hill. He had to endure four days with humid high temperatures before he was able to crawl out of the wreck and drag himself up the hill.

Michael says that he prayed mightily (did you get that) when he first woke up after the wreck and gave thanks whenever a cool breeze blew through his car. Michael shared, "Everybody tells me I'm really lucky. I felt somebody else was helping me - like it was a team. Someone had a reason to let me go. I was in a bad way. Someone had to pull me out of there. I don't remember it hurting. I remember it was very hot. It was very difficult uprighting myself."

Michael spent his first day yelling and banging a piece of metal from the wreck against the body of the car. Nobody noticed. He spent the second day in a failed effort to wiggle out of the mangled wreck. On the third day, he dragged himself halfway out of the wreckage, where he rigged a rubber mat to direct rainwater into plastic water bottles. By the morning of the fourth day, Giovanetti realized no one would come for him. Weakened, he dragged himself backward, crablike, up the steep hillside, gripping rocks in his fists to protect his hands from broken glass.

When he finally made it, Giovanetti was too weak to even pull himself over the guard rail. He lay on the side of the road waving unsuccessfully at passing cars and trucks until finally some people did pull over to help. Michael said about the ordeal, "It seemed mostly like a long, bad day. I didn't know it was four days until I got to the top. I just
kept trying to get out. I wanted to see my kids."

Usually we do our best praying when we are in desperate situations. However, what if we didn’t wait until it was a desperate situation? What if we prayed every day as if our lives depended upon those prayers? What if we prayed for our protection, the protection of our families, and others every day? What if we prayed for God’s will to be done in our lives every day? What if we prayed for God to deliver from evil and temptation every day? What if we committed ourselves to pray for 30 minutes to an hour or more
every day for a year? What would happen if we were to do that? Jeremiah tells us in Jeremiah 33:3. The apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 3:20-21.

The fact is that prayer works, there is a God and He answers prayer if we will simply pray. Will you make that commitment? Commit yourself to Refocusing your life through prayer.

III. Third, Refocus, your life through the church.

Hebrews 10:24-25, “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” 

I love the testimony of a woman whose name is Shari that I have posted on my website - She sent it to me several years ago. Shari was living with someone and using drugs by the time she was 17 years old. She left this man after a couple of years and started living with another man that she married after a year. She was still using drugs and she left her husband when her daughter was five months old and eventually divorced him.

Three and a half years later she married again but this time there was something different in her life. That something different was church. Here is what Shari says in her own words, “I have been married to him now 10 years. During that time, I have constantly gone to church and looked to the Lord for guidance. It's wonderful how loving and forgiving the Lord can be when you've spit in his face for so long.”

“My husband came to know the Lord in September of 1994, was baptized, and is an active member of our church. We now have 4 daughters altogether. Our youngest is five and she knows nothing but going to church on Sunday mornings and evenings, and Wednesday nights. She even prays on Wednesday nights at prayer meetings! My oldest daughter is now 15, and thinks that people who do that kind of thing (drugs, living with someone outside of marriage) to themselves are stupid, and searching for something. I have always been honest about my past experience with my two oldest daughters, hoping that it will help them decide not to do those things. So far, it has worked.”

“It's a joy to see what the Lord can do with someone who thought they weren't worth much. I am now our Sunday School Director (4 years now), our VBS Director (this year will make 9), and the church Secretary. And I totally enjoy my life.”

You can grow as a Christian without going to church but that growth will be really slow and it will be painful. For several years after I was saved I did not attend church regularly - just on a sporadic basis. I only began to really grow as a Christian when I made a commitment to be in church for every service including Sunday School and Discipleship Training. 

Sometimes during those early years of church attendance the preaching wasn’t the best in fact it was simply bad. Much of the time during those early years of church attendance the worship service was not even bad it was worse than that. But you see, church is not about just the preaching or the worship service. Church is a God thing. Church is God’s idea and it was created and ordained by Him. Even if Billy Graham or Charles Stanley is not preaching in your church you can still grow and will grow if you are faithful in attendance.

Even if the worship style is not the style you prefer whether traditional, or contemporary or a blend you can and will grow if you are faithful in attendance. Why? Because God is in the midst of the church (Matthew 18:20) when those who make up the church assembles together. Also because those who are the church stir up each other up unto love and good works. You will never really grow as a child of God until you commit yourself to regular faithful church attendance. Not a partial commitment to part of
the church program but a full commitment.

Refocus your life - commit yourself today to faithful and regular church attendance.

IV. Conclusion: Once you have made those commitments to first of all to refocus which is repentance (1 John 1:9) and then to being in the Word of God, spending daily significant time in prayer, and being faithful in church attendance - Once you have done that - out of your life will flow obedience, giving, service in a multitude of ways including witnessing.
 

What better time then today, at the first of a New Year to commit yourself to the refocusing of your life?

Will you do it? Will you refocus? I think God wants an answer.