Elevation with Steven Furtick - Fix Your Focus

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

When it comes to our relationships, our focus is usually in all of the wrong places. So, how do we fix our focus? What should we actually be focusing on to ensure that we honor God and the people we love?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life.

Enjoy the message. And I feel so energized about this new teaching series called The Other Half. We're going to talk about your relationships. How many are excited to talk about your relationships? Take a moment if you wouldn't pity me. Would you pity me? Yeah, because how would you like to speak about relationships to a room this diverse? Would you enjoy that?

You want to trade places? Because I know. I know I've been doing this a while now. I know I look 23, but I've been doing this for a minute. And I know everybody has a different kind of reaction. We're going to talk about relationships four weeks. And some people say, well, I'll see you in five. I'm not sitting through that, you know, because really, really they do.

Some people have been through painful, terribly painful relationship situations, and you almost think you can predict what the preacher might have to say about relationships before he even says it. So single people are already judging me before I even start my sermon. Here we go. Great. I'm going to tell me to wait. the one, that I'm, you know, if I'm, if he hasn't come in my life yet, maybe I'm not ready.

Though my roommate was totally less ready than me, she, I don't know anything about that. You don't know, not to have sex, and not have sex, I'm going to get a disease and go to hell and I die. But what I'm going to do, I'm going to go straight to the Bible. And then, if you don't like what I have to say, you can take it up with my boss. Turn in your Bible to Matthew 6, verse 31. We want to get into this series today called The Other Half.

If I were to ask you the question, are you in a relationship and your hand didn't go up, you'll misunderstand the very nature of what we intend to communicate this series is for everyone. Would you touch your neighbor and say this is totally for you? When we do it, we'll talk a little bit about if you're married. That's important. But there is half of the church that isn't married statistics. Say half of marriages end in divorce. Let's be honest, if we don't have our relationship with God right, our relationship with our self right, we're never going to have our relationship with others right. So I hope you'll just listen with an open mind today.

And let me pick up in Matthew chapter 6, verse 31. I'm probably partial to this scripture. My dad loved the sermon on the mount, and he would read it every morning. So he challenged me to memorize it. I memorized some of it, but he memorized the whole thing. I didn't memorize the whole thing. But I like this part in Matthew chapter 6, verse 31. And I never really saw it as a relationship scripture.

But now that I read it in this season of my life, I see that it's not. nothing, if not a relationship, scripture. It is all about intimacy and provision. You'll see what I mean. Jesus speaking says, so do not worry saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear for the pagans? People who don't even know God run after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them.

Somebody say God knows what I need. I need. And tell your neighbor, too, in case they've been staying up, stressing about things that are outside of their control, tell them, God knows what you need. God knows what you need. And that's a good thing to say, anytime in your life you feel like that you don't have enough or you don't have what you want or you don't have what others have, just remind yourself over and over again that God knows what I need.

Now, sometimes the reason that we can't receive his provision in some areas of our life is because we don't have our priorities aligned. And sometimes what we interpret as a lack of provision on God's part is a lack of prioritization on ours. Can I go further? So he says, seek first 33, his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. God says when you align your heart with my heart and your plans with my purposes, I will give you the things. things that the rest of the world has to grasp for. I will give you the peace that millionaires can't buy.

I will give you. Come on, somebody. Every good and perfect gift comes from above, and because I'm in relationship with God, I have access to everything that I need, to be who he's called me to be, to do what he's called me to do. And so knowing these things, I seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these other factors will be taken care of by my father. Amen. Sometimes when I'm preaching, I just get into it myself and I forget you're there. Therefore, therefore, do not worry about tomorrow. For tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has trouble of its own. Now, the people that wrote the scriptures didn't put a chapter marker here, so I'm going to keep right going on in chapter seven. Because it says here that this is a new chapter, but to me it's the same thought. And this verse that comes next. This is the verse that everybody who smokes weed likes to quote, Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, I just woke him up uptown. In the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye

and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother or your wife or your husband or whoever, your boss, your kid. How can you say, let me take the speck out of your eye when all the time there's a plank in your own eye, you hypocrite. First, to plank out your own eye. Then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do not give dogs what is sacred. I'm speaking to somebody right now who is selling yourself short and lowering and compromising your standard. Jesus said, do not throw your pearls to pigs. Maybe you need to send a text to that guy before you leave church today and say, give me my pearls back.

Don't even explain it or put a verse by it, but you'll know what it means. If you do, they may trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. I'll finish with verse 7, because we've got to stop somewhere. And it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find knock, and the door will be opened. to you. I want to call this message, fix your focus. Because I believe that the only thing you are ever always in control of is your focus. So many factors in your life are beyond your control. But one thing you can always control if you learn how to do it and if you're committed

to it is your focus. I think that many relationships fail not because of a loss of love, but because of a loss of focus. That would be one of the reasons that a church fails as well while we're at it, is that you lose your focus when you stop caring about what God cares about. God will no longer back you in your endeavor. And so sometimes what we call failure is really just broken focus. It's the reason why the passion that exists in some parts of relationships when it's getting started tends to leak and you wonder where it went.

It wasn't necessarily that you lost the love, you lost the focus. It's very difficult to keep that first love focus in any relationship. I think Jesus is calling us back to focus. If you'll notice the bread on the sandwich from the little passage that we just read, of them start with seeking. Seek first His kingdom. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. On both ends of this passage where Jesus is speaking on several different subjects is this idea of focus. Especially in our culture, I think the focus when it comes to our relationship tends to be a little broken. When I say that it's broken, I mean that it's misplaced and misleading. Sometimes we're so focused on

falling in love, that we are very uneducated about the process of staying in love. Talk to me anytime you want to. And there's a romantic notion that is reinforced with every romantic comedy, that the falling part is where the excitement is. I was looking at an article getting ready for this series where the author said, there's a reason that fairy tales end in marriage because nobody wants to see what happens next. Nobody wants to talk about the other half. So today as I open this series and it really will get better every week,

I hope that you'll bear with me today as I lay a sort of foundation. I want to talk about four decisions of focus that you are making every area in your life. I know that some of you should be teaching the marriage seminar, all of you patron saints of marriage, been doing it 30 and 40 years, of that. I'm not quite on your level yet. I just celebrated my 14th year. And I, and while somebody's clapping for that, somebody else is like, shh, ain't nothing. I'm married longer than you've been alive, boy. I'm going to let some whippersnapper and some skinny motocross jeans talk to me about the tight jeans up here

trying to tell me how you married. But regardless of the stage of the relationship, it requires a certain kind of focus. That's what I want to talk about today. So I want to lay out four areas that I want you to take notes. Everybody writes something down. If your neighbor written, writing anything down is because they don't love God and don't care about His Word. Now watch this. The first area you've got to decide, you've got to decide your focus, because you can always decide your focus. You can't always decide your focus. You can't always decide if somebody's going to stay with you or leave you. You can't always decide. If somebody's going to ask you out, you can't always decide if they're going to text you back. But you

can always decide your focus, number one, on finding or becoming? Finding or becoming. Jesus said, seek first the kingdom and the other stuff will move into position. But if you seek first the other stuff, then you will have no center of gravity for the stuff to revolve around. So it's important that your focus is not,

I've been teaching this for years, man. I used to go around to youth camps, and I would teach dating seminar, and I would say, you know, it's not an original quote for me, but I'll say it all the time because I think it's true. Happiness isn't finding the right person. Happiness is being the right person. I'll take it further, since your applause is so tepid.

If you find the right person and you are not the right person, what do you think you're going to do to that poor right person? I'm not suggesting, please. I'm not suggesting that if you're not married or something like that, it's because you're not ready yet, because all we have to do to disprove that stupid theory is to look at some of the people who are married. So Mary doesn't equal ready, okay?

I can offer you many examples of that, starting with myself. But what I am saying is that it is important to God. It is important to God that you have the right people in your life. But the only way you're going to have the right people in your life is if you will be the right person in your heart. That's the only way you're even going to attract them to begin with, and that's the only thing you can control. I can always control whether this person comes into my life. but I can control the kind of person that I am. You know how you have little memories from your childhood that are so random that you wonder

how they're still up there from all these years? And you kind of wish you could delete them because honestly you need that space for more important things, like your children's names and stuff that you forget sometimes. But I have a memory. I don't know why. I remember in sixth grade they gave us the Berkeley County Writing Test. I remember the prompt of the Berkeley County Writing Test when I was in the sixth grade, almost word for word.

Pretend that you are on an adventure, or they called it a journey with your friends. And on this adventure or journey, you come across a valuable, unusual object. Describe the object. A couple weeks later, the teacher walked in with all of our writing test and made an announcement. She said, I've never had this happen before in however many years of teaching, but every single one of you failed the Berkeley County writing test. We laughed. She said, it's not a joke.

She said, you wrote beautiful essays, you went into great detail, elaborating on the journey with your friends, but that was not the writing prompt. The writing prompt was not to describe the journey. The writing prompt was to describe the object. All of you wrote essays about walking through the woods with your friends. Some of you traveled across the seas with your friends. Some of you flew through space with your friends. It was highly entertaining.

none of you described the object, the object of relationship, the object of love is not that somebody else would complete you. I'm sorry, Renee Zellweger, but you got it wrong. Your line was touching. It just wasn't true. Jerry didn't complete you. Touch your neighbors. You can't complete me.

Say, we teach this stuff. Fight me when I want to preach about marriage. Because the way we preach it and teach it, we teach it like until you get married, your life hasn't started. I only got one question to ask you. If you worship Jesus, he worship a guy who stayed single until they killed him. The stay single will be like, Jesus, I'm a hypocrite to say that. But I'm saying, I'm saying if Paul would have waited to fulfill his purpose until he had

somebody to complete him, we wouldn't have 23 percent. It's another New Testament. And we teach it wrong. We teach it wrong. I've taught it wrong. We teach it wrong. In the book of Genesis, God's describing marriage. He's talking about Adam and Eve, and he says that the man shall leave his father and mother

and go with his wife. It says that the two will become one. Let me tell you what it doesn't say. It doesn't say the halves will become whole. But yet we teach it and we treat it and we expect it like the halves are going to become whole. But I found out if you go into a marriage half, that the half. Two halves are going to make hell.

Not whole. It's great preaching, Pastor Steven. That's very true, Pastor. So what is your focus? My best friend world is here. I mean, Holly's my best friend. But my best friend is a guy other than my son's. One of my friends Eric is here.

He's been my buddy since high school, really since middle school. We got in trouble together. Eric still saved most days. And he came over to my house the other day. We were going to work out, and he was all grumpy and sluggish and everything. I said, what's wrong with you, man? He said, well, he said, I've been up since 4 a.m. I said, these kids, these punk kids in my neighborhood, ringing my doorbell in the middle

of the night. They've done it 10 times. He said, I'm going to catch them, though. I had a camera on my doorbell. I put a camera in my doorbell, and I'm going to catch him. them, but these kids are smart, man. Smart punks. They came up. They covered the camera on the doorbell. From the side, I'm going to catch them. But I stopped and asked them a question. I think it's a good question. I said, and what will you do when you catch them? Good question is somebody's looking

for a woman or looking for a man? What will you do if you catch them? But we are so focused on the catching that we don't even pay attention to the commitment that is required. Back to my notes. So what is your focus? Is it what you can control, which is what God is doing in your life, or is it finding, you know? You've got to find a woman, then you've got to find a ring, then you've got to find some money. You've got to find a date to get married and a place to get married.

Everybody can come to that all on the same date, working out continents, different continents, people coming together from all these different places in the world, and you've got to find the dresses for the bridesmaids. God's made something that they'll all wear and won't complain about, if it doesn't look good against their skin tone, and you've got to find a house and find a job, and finding, finding, finding, finding, finding, finding, finding, finding, finding, finding, finding. Do you see the pattern here? But God said, while all of that has its place, if you will focus on becoming, remember he said the two will become one. That's the focus. What are you becoming?

It's a good question to ask. Another thing that Jesus mentions is our tendency to live in another time. So let me ask my second focus question. Are you focused on then or now? Then or now? He said, don't worry about tomorrow, not because you don't have the tendency to or not because it isn't reasonable to. because it doesn't work. You know the Corey Tin Boom quote.

You may not know that she said it, but she said that worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It only empties today of its strength. And I believe that. While we've talked so much about the importance of not living in your past and the danger of living in yesterday, I certainly think that a lot of relationships are sabotaged by things that happened before they ever began that weren't dealt with. And so we project onto other people trust issues that were developed because of another

person's actions and start saying things to somebody that we just met like, who's texting you? And it's not that you ever caught him doing anything, it's just that it's been done to you before. And so now you're worried, you're bringing the past into the present. That's dangerous. You've got to deal with that stuff. However, because my text led me here, I was a little bit more fascinated with this idea.

of how many of us live not in the past, but in the future. Jesus said, don't worry about tomorrow, and it is equally important that we don't wish away today, waiting for tomorrow to come. Tomorrow is a sexy place to vacation in your mind, because it's totally imaginary. Tomorrow is a wonderful place to visit in your mind. It brings hope into the present. I think it's cool to have a vision for the future. I think it's cool to think ahead, plan ahead, IRAs and all of that.

I'm a big fan. But I do think at the same time you can't live there. But it's so nice to, you know, it's so freeing from the constraints of my current struggle, which is so real, to just shuttle myself to tomorrow, tomorrow. I love you. Tomorrow. See how good it sounds? It feels. I love you tomorrow. You never hear anybody saying, today. See, it doesn't even sound as good, doesn't it doesn't even have the same cadence. Today, today, I hate you, today. I wish you would go away. But tomorrow, Tomorrow, tomorrow.

It's going to be better tomorrow. Because my kids aren't going to be in diapers tomorrow. My kids are going to be out of high school tomorrow. I'm going to be an empty nester tomorrow. I built my identity around my kids tomorrow. I only know my spouse anymore tomorrow. It's about focus. It's about focus.

And the only way to tomorrow is for today, so you've got to live there. You've got to live there. You can't do it like, well, if I had a man. And I know that's easy for me to say. I know that's whatever. It's easy for me to say. But it's kind of easy for you single people to tell us what marriage is like, too, all right? So we can all have a decent conversation.

And by the way, I would just put it out there to any of us who are married or single. Let's talk within the realm of what we know, not in the realm of what we think somebody. Have you ever noticed? how easy it is for you to give advice when you're looking at what's in somebody else's I? Jesus shifts gears in this teaching, and he's going from comfort to challenge. And God is good at both. So he says, hey, I got you.

I know what you need. You don't need somebody to complete you. You are already the total package. You don't need clothes or food. Any of these things. I know what you need and you're good in my sight and your life doesn't begin when the next stage starts. It starts right now. Don't worry about it. Now, don't judge.

Just out of nowhere. What's your focus? Is your focus on what is not or what you've got? Everything I've preached to you has been leading up to this point, so it's about to get good. Touch your neighbor and tell them, wake up. This is the part. I want to show you real quick. The two most important tools in any relationship. This is, incidentally, the only time you will ever see me carrying one of these for illustrative

purposes. One time Elijah saw me, he was about seven, and he saw me pull out my little toolbox about that big. He said, Daddy, you have one of those? It's a blow to my masculinity. But I would say right now, when you think about your intimate relationships, an intimate relationship can be with the parent, can be with whatever. You do your own application, okay?

I can't do everything for you. I mean, I can put the food on the plate. I can't chew it. So when you think about that, the first tool, if you reach in here that you have in any relationship, Somebody say focus. This is the first tool that you have in any relationship. It is the ability to magnify whatever you choose to magnify. So Jesus said, when you make that little speck that's in somebody else's eye, some huge

thing. Now let's break this down because if you're going to see a speck in somebody's eye, what do you have to be to see a speck? in somebody else's eye. That's not something you see from a distance, right? You could have eye boogers all up in your eye. I can't see it from the stage. But if I'm noticing a speck in your eye, that means we're close.

And a lot of people fear intimacy, because I don't want you to see into me. So I keep people in a distance. If I can stay up on the stage and only let you meet my representative but not see my reality, then maybe you'll stay in love with me. But I'm scared to let you get up close because I have this spec. And people do the craziest thing, because when you're first in a relationship with somebody, you magnify all the amazing things about him. Wow!

Look how funny she is. Look how laid back he is. You don't know that laid back is really code for lazy, but you will if you marry on it. Come on. It's amazing what you will magnify in the beginning of a relationship that'll make you love somebody that you will take for granted when you get into the relationship and get close. And you choose in any relationship or in any season of your life. You choose what you magnify.

I hear single people talking about their lonely. I hear married people talking about they're lonely. I heard a married couple the other day talk about having no first. friends and it brought them to tears. Well, there was a time where they would have said to each other, all I need is you. But then you get with them and you realize, well, they're not a savior. And if I'm going to be happy in the season of my life, I got to choose what I magnify. What I make bigger.

Write this down. What you magnify, you get more of. What you magnify, you get more of. Focus. I'm deciding any given moment in a relationship what I'm focusing on. I was so mad at my dad. I was so mad at that man because he was impossible in the last two years of his life. He was impossible. He wouldn't let us take care of him, so he moved away. He went to go live by himself. He was dying, but he wouldn't let my mom take care of him. He wouldn't let us take care of him. Anytime we try to put a plan together, he would just blow it up.

I was so mad at him. I got to the point where my dad, anytime I would try to talk to him on the phone, we couldn't have a conversation. This went on for months. When we would get on the phone, he would go into a rage within two minutes. It would start here, and it would quickly escalate. And I was so mad at him, I would send people that I would pay for to go and take care of him, and he would fire them. He fired four people that I sent to take care of him because he wouldn't stay here and let us take care of him. I couldn't see at the time that he wasn't responding out of his own will.

He was responding out of his pain because when you're in something like that, you don't see the person's intentions. Or you don't see the place that is coming from. You only feel how it's affecting you. I was so mad at him. And I just decided, well, fine, if he has to die and we can't speak. I can't have somebody treat me like this. I was so mad about it. And in the middle of being so mad about it, my father-in-law said something to me that made me so upset, because the last thing you want to hear,

here when you're upset, it's something like this. He said, well, try to remember the good times. Try to remember the good times. He did a lot of things right. Well, shut up. That's right. This is one time you're not allowed to say amen while I'm preaching. And it was Father's Day of 2012, 2013.

Forgive me for being emphasized on the date. But my memory of it is that I was driving. home from vacation with the family on Father's Day, feeling bad that I couldn't do anything with my dad. And my father-in-law's voice in my head, he did a lot of things right. I came to an idea and I asked Holly if we could pull over and switch and she could drive because we were going through the town where I grew up, where my dad was living by himself. And I had the idea, write down one memory for every year that he was your dad and take it to

the house and give it to him. One good memory from every year he was your dad. And man, I'm telling you when I first started making that list, my pin was moving so slow. I mean, it was all I could do to get a letter on the page. I was so mad at him, because all I could see is how he's treated me right now. But when I started writing, I started remembering. And so I remembered the first thing I kind of remembered was when I played on the Pirates and he was my coach and we sucked so bad that he wouldn't let any of us swing at the plate.

He made us all bunt every time we were at bat for the whole season. So I wrote that down, bunting. It was my first word. It got me started. Then I remembered about age 14 that he couldn't find a way to connect with me because I was into music, he was into fishing, and he took me to a punk rock concert in Ladson, South Carolina. The worst music that you've ever heard in your life was played in that VW hall that day.

He took me and sat with me, and I wrote down punk rock concert, Ladson. Then I started remembering how after he gave his life to Christ, he wanted me to go to church with him. of his customers and his barbershop had invited him to their church revival. Now this was not like a coat orange revival that's uplifting. This was like a hellfire and brimstone revival. And the preacher was preaching so hard that we went out to this little country church. And me and my dad wondered, what have we gotten ourselves into?

And they seated us on the front row. We're there on the front row in this independent fundamentalist Baptist church. And all the women are in dress and everything. We're in T-shirts and we're sitting there in the church not knowing what we're getting ourselves into and the preacher got so fired up at one point. This little boy stood up and shouted, but he didn't say amen, praise the Lord, preach, preacher. Here's what the little boy said. He said, let the wild.

I never heard that shout before. So I wrote down, let the wild hog eat. When I knocked on the door and got the house and handed him the list, I said, here. I didn't even hug him. I said, here. I made you list, 32 things. He said, how did you remember this stuff? You choose what you magnify.

And our story had a happy ending. We reconciled not right at that moment. At that moment I handed him the list and walked out. You didn't want to see him. But it started something, and I know reconciliation is not always possible on that level, and I'm not even saying that it's always preferable. What I am saying is that whatever you've lost, if you choose to magnify it, you're going to live in what you lost.

Whatever they're doing to you right now, if you want to magnify that, You can forget the thousand nice things that they said because of the one text that they sent that said that one thing that they weren't even thinking about. And in your mind, you will begin to magnify. Man, we should use these more in dating. Because we don't look for anything, any warning signs in dating. We don't ask any questions about their bank account. Well, they love God. Yes, but do they have grocery money?

See, you need one of these in a dating relationship. You need to see as many specks as you can see. But then you have to use it for a different purpose. In marriage, you've got to use it in a close relationship where you're committed. Look, if you come to this church looking for crap to get mad about, let me save you a whole lot of time and searching effort. You will find what you look for. You will seek and you will find. Isn't that what Jesus said?

Now, that applies to the good things and the bad things. This is one thing that my wife is really good at. I'm excited. She's teaching a ladies event in a couple of weeks. I think they said elevation ladiesnight.com. They said, I get to come too. I'm going to come. Let me see what y'all are talking about while we're not there.

Any time in a relationship that, see, what you magnify, and I don't know if we understand the power that we have to magnify things. other people that we can bring out of them the good stuff. I don't know if we understand the power that we have. I told you at the beginning of my sermon that I've been traveling a lot lately and preaching, and so when I do that, I always feel like I'm cheating home. No matter how much I try, probably not doing as bad of a job as I think I am, but I tend to be really hard on myself.

So wherever I'm giving, I'm feeling guilty about where I'm not giving. Are you like that? So it's like, it's never enough, and so I'm sitting there feeling bad. And one Saturday morning, I had all my notes for the sermon that week. spread out on the table and I've been gone somewhere else preaching all week. So I'm feeling kind of behind and a little, just a little bit distracted. The kids are all around me. They're trying to get my attention.

I'm paying them no attention. And they're screaming my name and I'm not listening and all of that. And I know I'm not listening and I kind of don't care because I've got to get this sermon ready, but I kind of feel awful about it. I'm just feeling that thing like I'm stretched apart. And if you don't have a lot of little kids around, maybe this wouldn't apply to you. But I think everybody's felt this way at some point, just sort of like, well, I can't give enough to anybody anywhere.

really like a failure. It was a very mild level, but I felt it. I'm feeling it, feeling up tight and all that stuff. And I need to be a good dad, but I also need to be a good pastor, and I don't know how to be both at the same time. And they're feeling all the kids are yelling, and I'm kind of mad at them and annoyed with them, but it's not their fault. I mean, I'm the one that's been gone, and they really just find for a birthday. Anyway, Holly speaks up. And she goes, kids, your dad is a great man. I hope when you grow up, that you grow up to be a hard worker like your dad. He's been gone all week, preaching, doing what God called him to do, and providing for our family. And now look at him. He's got these notes spread out all over

this kitchen table. Let me tell you something. She made me feel in just one little speech, one little speech, she made me feel, she made me bigger. I'm telling you ladies, you can make a man bigger. You can make him stronger. You can make him bring in more groceries from the car. Just tell him how strong he is. I'm telling you, Holly, I don't know where she learned this, but when we first got married, I was carrying in the groceries from the car one day.

I don't do that anymore. That's what I had kids for. But I was carrying in the groceries one day, and I had a couple bags, you know. A couple bags. Bags around my arm. Bags everywhere. I had bags coming in the house, and I said, I'm coming in the house. And Holly said, how do you do that?

I said, well, it's easy, you know. It's easy for me. Start curling the grocery bags. I grabbed a couple. I put a grocery bag in my teeth. I put one around my neck. Why? Because she magnified something so small.

And you magnify the little thing, and it gets bigger. You magnify what you don't have, and it gets bigger in your mind until all you can see is what you don't have. You magnify what they're not. You magnify what they're not. Or do you magnify what they've got? See, I think this makes all the difference. Are you coming back next week? Because to me, this is good.

Are you going to bring somebody with you next week who needs to hear this? That was less enthusiastic. I know they will at Rock Hill campus. They bring a lot of people at Rock Hill. So what is your focus? Jesus said, you can look at the spec, you can look at the plank. It's interesting to me, because knowing very little about carpentry, I do realize that The sawdust comes from the same material that the plank is made of.

Usually when I see something in someone else that makes me angry, offended, it's because it represents something that's in me. So I told you there were two tools and there are when it comes to the relationships that matter the most, and when it comes to the things that offend us and other people, because everybody has issues and most of us have a subscription. You know what a great dating conversation would be? What kind of crazy are you? Because I can't tell from this distance, but if I get close to you.

But you know, all these issues, you've got to decide, am I going to focus on theirs or mine? Because I think the key to this thing of loving the Lord, our God, with all our heart, with our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves, sometimes you've got to put down this and pick up this and just, ask God, so, Lord, what is it that you're trying to teach me? Or what is it that I can change because I tried changing Charlie and Charlie won't change? So here I am, Lord.

And in the words of the King of Pop, if you want to make the world a better place, where are you going to start? Sometimes you've got to start with your own stuff. And God says, you can't even help the people that you love when you're infected with the very issue that you're trying to solve. So it's love the Lord your God, that's one half. But it's also love your neighbor as yourself. That's the other half.

You can't have this half right and not have this half right. You can't treat people like garbage and worship God. At the same time, you can't get this right, though, until you get this right. You can't treat people well if you don't know God loves you and you can't love God until you have received his love freely. And that's what makes it a cross. That's what makes it a cross. That's what makes it complete.

Is that it's this and it's this. One thing I never noticed, though, is that Jesus said, you'd love the Lord. your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength. We go around trying to love people, and we're not even whole within ourselves. But the other thing is that he said, love your neighbor as yourself. Now I've always known that that was a command, but it's also just an observation. That the way you love your neighbor is the way you love yourself. If you haven't received God's acceptance of you, you won't be able to accept anybody else

as they are because you don't even love yourself. And so a lot of times it starts there, it starts with saying, God, I can't go into these relationships anymore. Half empty and needing people. Sometimes I'm so needy. I was asking God the other day to help me not be so hard on others. And God said, well, first you're going to have to not be so hard on you. Because what starts here flows here, flows here, flows here, flows here, flows here.

here. It flows here. I just wanted to begin this series today asking you, where is your focus? If another person is at the center of your focus and they're responsible for the fulfillment of your joy, you're going to always be miserable. If you're trying to do God's job in fixing somebody else and you have a focus on what they need to become, let me tell you something. There is no worse strategy for your own.

personal satisfaction in life than to place that responsibility in someone else's hands. So for all of us who have been saying, you know, I need someone to complete me or I need you to complete me or I need this, the message I think God has for us today is give me my job back. I'm a good God. I'm a good father. I know what you need. And here's the difference between God and everybody else in your life.

Not only does he know what you need, he has what you need. And he's the only one who has what you need. I want you to stand up on your feet at every location. I want to pray for you. We're going to get into this over the next several weeks. We're going to get into this. We're going to get into it so deep that there's going to be healing that's going to happen in your heart.

God is going to open. He said if you would knock, the door would be open. If you would seek, you would find. Where is your focus? Let's take a moment before we rush out of here and honk it people in the heart. parking lot after we worship God. Let's close our eyes and just lift our hands to heaven. Would you do that? Some of you never done that before. Just go ahead and do it right now. Just lift your hands to your father. And I want you to just begin to magnify the Lord and all of the good things that he's placed in your life.

Some of you are lonely today and I understand and God understands and it's okay to be lonely. It's okay. It's a part of the human experience. Jesus went through a loneliness so severe that he prayed that the cup would be passed from him. the ones who should have been there for him, abandoned him in his hour of need. He knew what it was like to be lonely. He knows what it's like to be lonely. And he wants to stand up on the inside of you right now and remind you that he is your completion, your satisfaction, and your fulfillment. Father, I thank you today for every person that you brought to church. I thank you for the work you're doing in our lives.

I thank you that we are full and complete in Jesus Christ, that we have all that we need in him. That all that we need is in him. that all that we need to be good husbands, to be good wives, all that we need to fulfill your purpose in a season of singleness, all that we need to be good parents, all that we need to forgive people that we need to forgive. All that we need is in you. And so our focus now is not on what we're not, but who you are. We thank you, God. Let's begin to clap our hands for the awesome God that you are, for the amazing God that you are,

for the strong God that you are, for the capable God that you are. When you praise him, when you magnify him, it releases his precious in your life. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry is because of you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to give now or visit Elevationchurch.org slash podcast for more information. And if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe, you can share it with your friends. You can click the share button. Take a screenshot. and share it on your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you.

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