0:00 Good afternoon, SECF. It's so good to see everyone today. And I wanted to share today about something that God has been teaching me in my life. And that is to fight distractions and to live a life that's alert for him. If I could pick one word to describe 0:19 today's generation, I would say it's the word distracted. Uh we live in a world where there's so much entertainment, there's so much news and it comes to us through our our phones and through our our laptops and we live in an age that 0:34 there's so many things that's trying to grab our attention. And I believe that what God wants us to do is to live a life that's focused for him. Now, I want to be clear, there's nothing wrong with having good entertainment, good clean 0:47 fun. We need that for relaxation. But there there can be a point when sometimes this entertainment can be so much that it becomes a really big part of our lives and it becomes a a distraction. And you might think, well, 0:58 when I what's the big deal? What's wrong with a little distraction in our lives? And I'll tell you why. It's important for me. Let's use an example. Let's say I think a lot of us here like sports. And what's the point of every sports 1:10 team? Well, the point of every sports team is to to win a championship. Now, what if I told you that, hey, the players on the sports team, they're a bit distracted. They don't really want to practice. They don't really want to 1:19 try that hard. How would you feel as a fan of that sports team? It would bother me a lot. You guys are supposed to be winning a championship. And so, in the same way, if this is what we expect from a secular thing, then how much more so 1:32 God towards his children. And so, the reason I want to take distraction seriously is because I want to live a life that is of maximum effectiveness to the Lord. And if I'm not careful about distraction, it's going to hinder my 1:43 ability to be effective for the Lord. So that's what I want to share about today. Some warnings about distractions and also some encouragement about living a life that's alert for him. So the first thing I'll say is that distraction can 1:56 cause us to miss out on God's purpose for our lives. I'll say that again. Distraction can cause us to miss out on God's purpose for our lives. And there's a really wonderful sermon on this topic by brother Ian Robson. He was one of the 2:11 elders in CFC Bangalore. and he had this um sermon that's called overcoming the distraction addiction. And I really like the way he described this particular problem. He said that distraction is an addiction. And that's really not the 2:26 type of word I would typically think of when I think of word addiction. Addiction is something I would say, hey, if someone's drinking a lot of alcohol, that's an addiction. Or if they're taking drugs, that's an addiction. But 2:35 to think of distraction as an addiction, that was a very penetrating way of describing what distraction is. And I'll read a quote from his sermon that stood out to me. He said this, "Distraction is worse than drugs, worse than alcohol, 2:51 worse than pornography. And the Bible is literally full of incidents where God could not accomplish his purpose because his people or his servants allowed the devil to distract them." And so I want to share one example of that. If you 3:05 could turn with me to the book of Amos in chapter 2. Amos in chapter 2 and let's do verses 11 to 12. So Amos is in the Old Testament, just a couple books after Daniel. Look at Amos chapter 2 3:24 and 11 and 12. And so the context of this verse is Amos has pronounced judgment on a bunch of different groups of people and he finally he gets to Israel and he starts pronouncing a judgment on them. And this is what Amos says. Amos chapter 3:40 2 11-12 he says this then I raised up some of your sons to be prophets and some of your young men to be Nazerites is not so oh sons of Israel declares the Lord but you made the Nazarites drink wine and you commanded the prophet 3:55 saying you shall not prophesy and so the word I want to focus here is the word Nazarite Nazarite doesn't mean someone who was born in Nazareth like like Jesus Nazarite was a term that was used in the Old Testament to describe someone who 4:07 wanted to dedicate ate their lives to the Lord. So Nazarite is a word that means separated. And so for these Nazarites, what they would do is they would say, "Hey, I'm going to dedicate myself to the Lord and I'm not going to 4:19 drink any wine. I'm not going to cut my hair. I'm not going to touch the body of a deceased person." And these are ways in which I can make myself dedicated to the Lord. And some famous examples of Nazarites are like Samson, for example, 4:32 was a famous Nazerite or other people like Samuel or John the Baptist. They didn't drink wine. So these are people who have who have dedicated their lives to the Lord. And you can see what happened here that God wanted some of 4:43 these young people to be Nazerites. But what happened? There was a distraction that came in. There was a bit of a temptation that came in. And these Nazarites, they made their vows to the Lord. But then somebody came and said, 4:54 "Hey, here's a little wine. Why don't you drink a little wine? It's just a little wine. What's the big deal?" And so they drank that wine and they well, they last thought on their their effectiveness for the Lord. And so this 5:06 is a challenge I want to apply for my own life because I believe that God has called all of us frankly to be Nazarites because in the New Testament all of us are supposed to be separated for the Lord. And my concern is that what if one 5:19 day I go to heaven and I realize that God you had a plan for my life. you had a wonderful plan for my life that because of all the entertainment that I was interested in, all the mindless scrolling on the phones and the 5:31 websites, Lord, there was something you wanted me to do through my life, but I couldn't do it because I was distracted. And that's something that has been a challenge to me and why I want to take this seriously. So, that's the way I 5:42 want to apply it for myself. But I also want to say this as well as a challenge to the young people in this church. And by young people, I mean anyone who's single, anyone who's in college, uh, teen times, Sunday school. So, this is 5:54 something I want to share with you. What I really like about this verse is you can see God's heart. What is God's heart? Then I raise up some of your sons to be prophets and some of your young men to be Nazarites. So, God is always 6:07 interested in the next generation, the next generation of of believers and disciples who will follow him and serve him. And especially for a lot of you young people right now, you have a lot of time on your hands and this is the 6:19 most time you ever have in your entire life. I can say that because I used to be single and I had a lot of time and now I have kids and right now my day is just basically working and chasing kids around. Like that's all I do. I don't 6:29 have any free time. But when you're single, you have so much time. And this is the time when you can really dedicate your lives to the Lord. And I really want to challenge especially young people if you're single, please spend 6:40 time studying God's word. Get to know the Bible really well. get involved in church, really give your lives to the Lord when you're young, and you will not regret it. And so, I just want to share this as a a challenge as well. God has a 6:51 desire to raise up the next generation. And I believe that God wants many of the young people here to be Nazarites, all the young people here to be Nazarites. But we must take our lives seriously. And again, there's nothing wrong with 7:02 having good fun, having good clean entertainment, but the question is, is God really that main focus on your life? And I want to challenge all the young people to to seek after that. And so, that's the first thing. If we're not 7:13 careful with distraction, it can help cause us to miss God's purpose for our lives. So, that's the first thing. The second thing I want to share about distraction is that distraction can cut my connection to the Lord. And and 7:26 here's what I mean. To tech team, if you don't mind, could you pull up that uh picture of uh a vanity fair for a second? So, this is a picture from a book we've we're very um read a couple times in our church. It's called 7:37 Pilgrim's Progress. And basically it's a book about a Christian's journey to the celestial city or in other words to heaven. And as he goes along his journey he comes across different challenges. And one of those challenges he comes 7:49 across is Vanity Fair. And if you look at Vanity Fair it's a very actually beautiful place a lot of entertainment a lot of very interesting things to happen. And the challenge here is that when pilgrims go to Vanity Fair they get 8:02 stuck and they never make it to the celestial city. And I'll read from the actual book what John Bunan wrote about Vanity Fair. Okay, this is what he said. He said, "At this fair, there is constant roundthe-clock entertainment 8:17 like juggling, cheats, games, plays, clowns, and every amusement of every kind. So that is what Vanity Fair is around the clock entertainment." And this picture actually was very helpful for me to understand. This is what Jesus 8:32 went through when he was being tempted. You know, when Jesus was in the wilderness, he was tempted three times. And one of the temptations was that the devil showed him all the glory of the the world in an instant. And I used to 8:42 wonder like what does that actually what does that actually mean? And when John Bunan writes about that, he's basically described it like this. He said they took the prince of uh prince of princes which is Jesus and they took him to 8:53 every street of Vanity Fair. So every street had different types of entertainment. Every street had different types of goods and attraction. They took him to every single street on Vanity Fair. And Jesus said no and he walked through vanity fair. So that on 9:06 just in saying in passing that helped me to understand that's what Jesus went through in the temptation when they showed devil showed him all the glory of the world in an instant. Now so this is just a a story book but you know there's 9:18 actually a city in the old testament which is actually very similar to to vanity fair and I want us to take a quick look at that a real life example of something that was very similar to vanity fair in the old testament. So 9:29 please turn with me to first kings, okay, and chapter 12. Okay, first kings and chapter 12 and we'll jump to verse uh 29. So first kings chapter 12 and verse 29. So the context of this chapter is is this. We all know about King Solomon. King 9:49 Solomon was a very famous king, very wise. But unfortunately towards the end of his life, he fell away from God and he worshiped idols. And because he had sinned against the Lord like that, there was a prophet that came to him and 10:02 said,"Solomon, for your next generation, you're going to lose some of the tribes of Israel." And so what happened was that 10 of the tribes of Israel became what was called the northern kingdom. Okay? And two of the tribes became what 10:14 was called the southern kingdom. So tech, if you could pull up the the map in the next slide real quick. Okay? So if you look at the map, there's basically a big uh bold Israel. Okay? That's referring to the northern kingdom, which has 10 tribes. And then 10:26 on the bottom there's a big bold Judah. That's referring to the southern kingdom which had two. So the nation of Israel was basically split into two. One in the top in the northern kingdom and one in the south. And now what happened was 10:38 that the king in the northern kingdom was a man named Jerobom. And Jerobom was a very shrewd uh man. Okay, in a in a not so good way. And look what he says in verse 29. Okay, actually let's start from verse 28. Okay, this is what Jerobom says. It 10:55 says, "So the king consulted and made two golden calves. And he said to them, it's too much for you to go to Jerusalem. Behold your gods, O Israel, that brought you from the land of Egypt." And he set one in Bethl, and the 11:08 other he put in Dan. So if you look at the two cities there next to Bethl and Dan, there's a there's a picture of a cow of an icon. And that's literally what he did. He set up these golden calves there. And so what's the 11:19 significance of this? Well, the significance is this. So remember the king then was split into two. And so there were his concern was that the people in the northern kingdom would want to go down to Jerusalem to worship 11:30 because the Lord commanded that as an Israelite you must go to Jerusalem three times every year for some of these big festivals and and feasts. And so Jeroboam's concern was, hey, if the Israelites in the northern kingdom go 11:41 down to Jerusalem, their hearts going to be drawn back to Judah and they're going to want to be reunited and I'll lose my position as king. So because of his fear of losing his kingship, he was very smart. And so what he did, he built two 11:55 places. One place in Dan with a bunch of uh, you know, false idols, calves and the other place in Bethl. So if you were really far north, you can say, "Hey, instead of going to Jerusalem, you can just go to Dan. It's not too bad." And 12:08 then if you were like in the middle of Israel, what you could do is, "Hey, instead of going to Jerusalem, why don't you just stop in Bethl?" All right? And if you look at the map, Bethl was 10 miles north of Jerusalem. And you had to 12:19 go through Bethl in order to go to Jerusalem. And so this was literally a vanity fair in the Old Testaments where some of these maybe sincere believers were want to go down to Jerusalem to worship, but they got to Bethl and maybe 12:31 there was food, maybe there's music and they had some idols there and they just got stuck and they never made it to Jerusalem. And so this is a really sad story, but I believe there's an application in there, you know, for us 12:42 as well today. And the way I apply this to myself, I I think of it like um like prayer. I've experienced times when I felt like the Lord's asked me to pray. He's like, "Hey, one high, why don't you go pray about this thing?" And I say, 12:54 "Ah, that's a good idea. I should go pray." But then before I pray, I say, "Lord, let me go check out the latest basketball highlights and uh watch some of that." And after a couple basketball highlights, I I get tired and I go to 13:04 bed and I realize I don't pray. It's literally happened to me before. And there's a quote by Frederick Faber on this on the same lines. This is what he says. He said about prayer. He said, 'The world that looks so dull all day 13:19 glows bright on me at prayer and the plans that ask no thought but then wake me up and meet me there. And so what he's saying is that the world is so boring during the day but for some reason whenever I want to pray there's a 13:31 distraction that comes and I don't end up praying. And that's something I've I faced as well. And so again, this is a nice story for us to know. But I think the way I apply it practically in my life is if I'm not careful about the 13:42 distractions, God might want me to do something, maybe pray to him, and these distractions will take me away from him. And I don't want to lose my connection there with the Lord. And so that's another reason why I want to take 13:52 distraction um seriously. So what should we do that time? How then should we spend our time? And so I want to share an example from Paul's life in 1 Corinthians and chapter 6. 1 Corinthians and chapter 6 and verse 12. And this is a good quote about how Paul 14:12 looked at the different ways in which he could spend his time. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 12. And this is what he says. He says, "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable." All things are lawful for me, but I will not be 14:29 mastered by anything. So you could say that there's three categories of activities that Paul looked at. The first is something that is unlawful. Okay? So in other words, let's say stealing, okay, or um cheating people of 14:43 taxes. Like these are things that are very very bad and are unlawful. And I'm hoping that most or everyone here should not be doing anything that's unlawful. So that's the first category. But then the second category that Paul's talking 14:54 about is there are things that are lawful and then there's also things that are profitable. And so what's the difference? Well, a lawful thing could be like what I shared earlier, like I like to watch basketball and I like to 15:05 play basketball. It's a very good exercise and it's completely lawful to do. But if I play basketball every single day and I think about basketball all day long, then what is really a lawful thing has now become an unprofitable thing because I'm spending 15:21 so much of my time and my energy on it. And that is what Paul is warning us against. That yes, there are things that are lawful. Great. But make sure it doesn't take such a hold of your life that it becomes unprofitable. And I'll 15:33 read the Living Bible translation of this verse that that helped me. It says this. He says, "Even if I am allowed to do them, I'll refuse to if I think they might get such a grip on me that I can't easily stop when I want to." So Paul 15:48 says, 'If this is something that's good, but if it's going to have a grip on my life and I can't stop myself, then I'm not even going to do it. And so that's the type of life that Paul is living. And again, people might hear this and 15:59 think it sounds kind of extreme. Yes, it is. But this is the type of radical disciplehip that we want in order to follow the Lord with all our hearts. And so the question is then what exactly is a profitable way to uh to spend our 16:11 time? And for some people they might think well a good profitable way is to read the Bible and to pray and to do church ministry. And yes you could say those are really good things to do. But I also want to share some things for 16:24 your consideration uh for what might be a good way of spending our time profitably. And this is mainly something for the the married folks and with kids. And the simple answer is I believe it's very profitable for us to spend time 16:37 with our families and to build them up. I'm not sure if that's what people normally think of when they think of profitable, but for me, I really believe that investing in our children, investing in our spouses is a very 16:48 profitable way for us to spend our time. And I'll share the first thing which is spending time with our our kids. You know, one of the purposes of the church before Jesus is coming is said that the purpose of the church is to turn the 17:01 hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the father. And what that means in a simple way is that really to unite both parents and the children. That's one of the things that the church is supposed to do 17:12 to bring that unity between uh parents and children. And one thing I've seen in this church is we've had a lot of baptisms in the past few years. And one thing I really like is seeing the the young people go up and share their 17:24 testimony. And almost I think all of them has shared something about how their parents had been such a big, you know, help to them. And I remember one individual in particular said, "Oh, my dad's my best friend." And I remember 17:35 hearing that I was like, "That's the gold standard. That's what I want to shoot for." Because if all my kids can say, "Hey, daddy was my best friend." Then I'll say, "Hey, as a father, I've I've done my my job. That's what I want 17:44 to shoot for." And the only way I can get there is spending time with them, spending time with them, investing in them. And so I would say that's the first thing, spending time with the children and to build them up. The other 17:55 thing I'll say about spending time is also with our spouses. Um, one thing that the Lord has challenged me recently is one high, you can think about spending time with the children, which is good. You can think about people to 18:05 encourage in a church, which is good, but don't forget your wife. Don't forget your wife in the midst of all the activity that's going on. Make sure you invest in her because she is supposed to be the closest relationship to you. And 18:18 why do I say that? And because the Bible says that husbands are supposed to love your wives as Christ loved the church. But the Bible never says that husbands are to love the children like that or to love brothers and sisters like that. 18:29 That type of unique closeness is only reserved for husband and wife. So what God wants is that the husband and wife relationship must be the closest as much as we love our children, but that husband and wife relationship must be 18:41 the closest. And so this was again a reminder for me. Yes, it's good to spend time with the kids, with church, but please make sure to spend time with your spouses to encourage them and to and to build them up. And so those are some 18:53 ways in which I found um to be a profitable way of of spending our time. And so we've talked a lot about distractions and the question is well what's the opposite of distractions? And I think the opposite of distraction is 19:07 to stay on the alert. And I just want to share a parable about that that Jesus talked about. So if you could turn with me to uh Mark chapter 13. Okay. Mark chapter 13 and vers uh 33 to 37. 19:25 Mark chapter 13 verses 33- 37. As we look around the world and we see what's happening in the news, we know one thing's for certain that g the return of Jesus is going to be very very soon. And one thing that Jesus has warned us time and time again is that 19:41 the important thing is for you to be on the alert. We might not understand every single thing that happens in the in the world like this about the news and and different wars, but one thing we need to be doing is to make sure that we're on 19:54 alert. And this is the parable that he he gives about that. Okay? And what he says here, I'll summarize, is that he's talking about a man who's going away on a journey and then he leaves his house and puts some slaves in charge. And if 20:07 you notice here in verse 34, one thing he does is he assigns to each one his task. And then he says, "And also commanded the doorkeeper to stay on the alert." So there's a lot of slaves in his home, you can imagine. But the one 20:20 he calls out is the doorkeeper. And at the end of this parable, it says, "Hey, be on the alert. You don't know when the master is coming back." And so I was thinking to myself, what's the what's the importance of this this doorkeeper? 20:33 How do I apply this into my life? And I think of it like this. Let's say there's a door right there. Let's say there's a door right there. And I say to every one of you, hey, I'm going to go for a walk for, you know, hour or two hours. And I 20:46 want you to stand next to the door. And as soon as I come back, I want you to open a door for me. Now, the question is, how many of you could actually do that? Because if it was me, after 5 10 minutes, I'd be bored out of my mind. I 20:58 say, I want to do something else. I I don't have time here to wait for when I to come back. That's one thing. It's it's a job that's not very easy. And then secondly, if you think about it, there could be different people that 21:10 knock on a door. And so, not only do you have to be able to hear the door knock, but you also have to know, hey, is this one high's voice or not? And if it's one high's voice, I shouldn't open it up. Otherwise, I shouldn't. And that's what 21:20 the job of a doorkeeper is. And frankly, I honestly I don't think I could do it because I'd be so bored just just standing there. Now, how would I apply that to myself? And especially in the context of this parable. And I think of 21:31 it like this. What is the doorkeeper that all of us have? And I believe that all of us have a door to our hearts. All of us have a door to our hearts. And we are the doorkeeper to determine what goes into our hearts. And sometimes it 21:46 could be good thoughts, positive thoughts. Sometimes it could be maybe bitterness, unforgiveness, sometime anger that sometimes wants to come into our hearts. And the question is for us as a doorkeeper, how diligent are we to 21:59 keep the door shut? and to open and at the right times and I I've noticed in my life that we can start off I can start off very careful about the door but over time as as as time goes on I get kind of lax about it's like ah it's what's the 22:14 big deal who's who's watching why do I have to be so careful about this and that's where I believe Jesus has has been saying to me uh and to us to say be on the alert be a good doorkeeper watch out what goes into your heart and this 22:26 is one way we can practice being on the alert as get ready for Jesus's turn. I'll just share one last verse in in closing. If you could turn with me to uh Nehemiah, the book of Nehemiah chapter 6 and verse 3. 22:43 Nehemiah chapter 6 and verse three. And the context of this verse is that Nehemiah is is building a uh he's building a wall. He's building a wall. And as he's building his wall, there's these enemies that come and say, "Hey, 22:57 Nehemiah, why don't you come on down? Why don't you come on down? Let's go talk in these planes somewhere and let's see what Nehemiah says here. Nehemiah 6 and:e 3. Nehemiah 6 and:e 3. He says this. So I sent messenger messengers to 23:12 them saying I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you? And I especially like that first part. He says I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. And so there's 23:27 these people who are trying to distract him from building the wall. But he says, "No, I can't come down. I am doing a great work." And I want to apply that to to myself and say, 'Lord, I am doing a great work today. What is that great 23:39 work? The great work is number one to keep my heart pure and to follow the Lord in my inner life. That's number one. The second thing is my great work is to build up my family so that they're strong and they can follow the Lord. And 23:51 then thirdly, my great work is to help do my part to encourage and and build the church. that's the Lord is doing here at NCCF. These are the great works that the Lord wants me to do and I cannot come down. I cannot afford to be 24:03 distracted and and that's been a challenge to me. So I share all these things today not as someone who has um overcome in this area but I feel like the Lord is showing me areas in which I have been distracted but I believe that 24:14 the Lord will give me the strength to overcome these and to be alert for for his coming. Uh thank you for for letting me share.
