Changing Faces Ministries Podcast
Distractions
[ Music ] >> Welcome to the Changing Faces Ministries Podcast. If you can see yourself the way God sees you, you will have a changing face. Here is your host, Pastor Jeff Landrum. [ Music ] >> Good morning, good morning, good morning. I want to welcome each and every one of you to our Changing Faces Ministries Podcast. I'm your Pastor Jeff Landrum. And where we do believe, if you can see yourself the way God sees you, you will have a change of face. Once again, it's truly another great and exciting day that the Lord has given us. And we will rejoice and be glad in it. So thank you so much for joining us today on today's podcast. We want to say we would not be who we are and what we are if it was not for our faithful listeners. We want to thank each and every one of you for coming alongside of us. And we do ask that every chance you get, you like, share and support this ministry on all of your various social media platforms. And just continue to get the word out and just share the good news that God has given us. And to get the message of how great our God is out to the world. So thank you so much. Also, we want to definitely thank One Voice Radio for giving us this platform that has given us to come to you every single week. To preferably give a encouraging word, a message of encouragement, a message of growth that we all walk away from every Friday morning. Better than war before we came. So we definitely want to thank One Voice Radio for allowing us this opportunity. Thank you so much. As we get ready for this morning, I want to start off by sharing something with you that some, if not all of us can relate to. And when I talk about relating to this, you're going to understand at some point in all of our lives or some of our lives. And if not all, we have purchased a vehicle, a used vehicle. And, you know, prayerfully, we can only hope that we get a great vehicle. But sometimes you do purchase vehicles that may not be in the best conditions may have one or two things wrong. So, a couple of weeks ago, I went with my daughter because she wanted to get a car, another car. So if she found one in Pensacola, so we drove down the Pensacola, looked at the car and, you know, test drove it. You know, it drove, it drove fine. You know, I knew it had a, you know, maybe one or two little things that we can deal with it. But we got it for a good price. So I drove the car back, made it back home, fine, everything went fine. But after a couple of days of her driving it, I noticed something. I noticed that the front tire, one of the front tires started to wear on the outer edge. And, you know, just my limited knowledge of vehicles, I know I knew that would have something to do with it being out of line. And anytime a car is out of line, you're going to get an awkward wear on certain parts of the tire that would give you a warning that because this tire is not wearing the same way the other tires are wearing. It must mean something on the car is out of line. And if you continue to drive the car with the, with it being out of line, you're going to eventually wear a set of tires out. The tires will no longer be useful. You have to go and purchase new tires, but even putting new tires on a car that is out of line, you still will not get the results that you want. So the only thing that you could do is get the car, take it to somebody who specializes in getting cars back in line. And when you get the car back in line, the tires will start to wear and run the way they're supposed to run and you can go straight. See, when a car is out of line, you tussle with keeping, you tussle with the stern because you're trying to go against the pattern that the tires are setting in. And the easiest thing to do is to go take the car to somebody who specializes in lining it back up so that you're not trying to fight with keeping it in the road because it's out of line. What I'm talking about today is some of us is fighting this thing known as life because we're trying to drive our life and we're being distracted because we're out of line. We've gotten out of line and our life is not lined up the way it needs to be. And because it's not lined up the way it needs to be, we're fussing and we're struggling, we're fighting, trying to get things done. The answer is to go back to the one that specializes in getting us back in line, specializes in getting us back to where we need to be lining ourselves up, lining our lives up, so we're not trying to fight with it. Some of us, we go out and we get new things, new stuff, thinking that that's going to get us back in line, but getting new things and new stuff and putting it in something that's out of line is only going to wear it out and you're going to end up fighting and struggling through that too. What I'm suggesting to all of us, what I'm suggesting, if you find out some things in your life is wearing and it's not rolling right like it should, maybe I'm just throwing a suggestion out there, maybe something is out of line and you may need to go to somebody who specializes in it and getting it back in line. Because far too often, it's so much going on in this life and in this world to get us off track, to get us out of line, to get us in a position to do things that we shouldn't and we get so distracted with so much other stuff because we're doing so many other things. What I want us to do and what we're going to look at today is a perspective from someone who can get us, help us, identify what's going on so we can get ourselves back in line, and I'm going to show you something today in this passage of Scripture that we read it. How easy it is for us to, even though the car drove fine, even though it crunked up, even though it was moving, but we found ourselves fighting to keep it on the road because it was out of line. And today I want to highlight a couple of things to us to show us how easy it is for us to get out of line and we don't even know it, how it's easier for us to forget about what should be first in our lives to forget about the things that we need to be doing and why we need to be doing it and what's the most important thing. Even sometimes we're doing things that is right, even though we're doing things that is good, we have gotten off track because we are out of line with the way we should be doing things. Which leads us to our text for today and which I want us to look at and pay close attention to is if you got your Bible, we're going to look at Luke, Chapter 10, that's Luke, Chapter 10, and we're going to look at, we're going to read verses 38 through 42. We're going to talk about a couple of things, I'm going to give you the subject of our text because the subject of the text that if you don't, and if I had not been paying attention to how the tower was wearing, my daughter would have kept on driving it. But thanks be to God that I saw it and was able to bring it to her attention and take it to somebody who specialized it to get it back in line, now the car drives better than it did before we bought it. So turn with me Luke, Chapter 10, and let's begin with verse 38, because we need to look at something today, and it reads, while they were traveling, he entered a village that he'd be in Jesus, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who also sat at the Lord's feet and was listening to what he said, but Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and she came up and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister have left me to serve alone. So tell her to give me a hand. The Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her. For a subject this morning, we want to look at just a simple word known as distractions. I want you to say it with me, distractions. Dear Heavenly Father God Almighty, we thank you so much once again for this awesome opportunity that you have given us. I ask that you prepare hearts of minds for what it is that we're about to receive from you, that we may receive it and be able to walk away better than we were before we came. Lord, right now I ask that you remove me, that they hear none of me, but hear all of you and let your word go full with power, and we will ever be so grateful to give you all the praise, all the honor, all the glory, and your son Jesus name we do pray. And we all said, Amen. This simple term, distractions. And the reason I want to highlight this term of distractions, because it's so easy to do, it's so easy for us to get distracted, because even though my daughter was happy and excited to get a car, because I noticed something wasn't running right. And if we have not gotten taken care of, the very thing that she was happy and excited to get could have been come something very detrimental, because not only could she have been paying to get an alignment, but she could also have been paying to get a new set of tires. And if what, if, if being distracted by the car running, you, you will miss the fact that something was wrong. But sometimes we can be in this life and get so fascinated with what we're doing, and get so fascinated with how life is going, get so fascinated with the jobs, get so fascinated with the money, get so fascinated with the people that we forget about, we get distracted with all of the other stuff, and we forget about the thing that is most important, and the thing that we're going to learn about that is most important is spending time with him. Because we have to understand, apart from him, we can't do anything, and if we miss, and we get distracted with all of the other things in life, and take away from spending time with him, some major things can, can happen in our lives, and then we can wonder why things happen the way we happen. You remember Peter walking on water, Peter had water walking power when Jesus told him to come, he was out there walking on water, but he got distracted with the storms of life, and when he got distracted with the storms of life, the very power that he had to be able to walk on water, he started to sink. I want you to understand, David, the power David had going out and defeating all of these armies when he was lined up with what God told him to do, he's going out, defeating the armies, but when he got distracted, when he wanted to take some time off, he saw Bathsheba, and when he saw Bathsheba over there on the other roof, one thing led to another led to another, and it got him off course, and he was distracted, but that one distraction caused him a lifelong lineage, things happened in his life. What I wanted to encourage you to do is, we don't need to get distracted from what got us to where we are, the one that paid the ultimate price, what I want to do is highlight to you in this text that we're reading today, how one, one instance got distracted, she got distracted by watching her sister as opposed to admonishing what her sister was doing, her sister was doing the thing that was most important, but she got distracted because she started watching the sister as opposed to what sister was doing. In this text, you got Mary and Martha, yes, this is the Mary and Martha that is the sisters of Lazarus, the one that we know that when Jesus showed up, that Jesus, you know, when Lazarus died, and they sent for Jesus and Jesus showed up, like this was a very same Mary and Martha who ran and met Jesus. Well, in this particular text that we're looking at, it talks about when Jesus had just finished sharing a parable about the good Samaritan, and he entered into a village, and in this village, Martha accepted him into her home. While Jesus comes into her home, you know, they busy getting ready, busy preparing, Martha is doing all the work serving, Mary is sitting at Jesus' feet. Mary is listening to what he said, and as she's listening to what he said, she is doing the most important thing, and then you go on and look at Martha get frustrated, Martha gets upset because she is doing all the preparation, she's doing all the preparing, so Martha is looking at Mary, Mary, why ain't you helping me? So Martha goes to Jesus and complains to Jesus and says, don't you see this? I'm doing all of the serving and preparing, and she's sitting over here not doing anything, and Jesus quickly checked Mary, quickly checked Martha and shared with Martha all of these things. Now he didn't say what Martha was doing was wrong by serving, he didn't chastise her, and he didn't rebuke her for that, but he wanted to point out to her the most important thing was what Mary was doing. Mary was sitting at his feet, listening to what he said, and what I want to do, I want to highlight to you why that is so important as we go through this text today, because the first thing I want to do is I want to define to you what distractions are. Webster defines distraction as a theme that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else, a theme that prevents someone from giving full attention to someone else. Have you ever been talking to someone and they so preoccupied with the cell phone, they preoccupied with this thing, they preoccupied with that thing. That is real frustrating when you're trying to have a conversation and do something and you're preoccupied, they're the person that you're trying to talk to or preoccupied with whatever it is that they're doing. It's really frustrating, how is it that we can say that we love God and we're spending time and we're worshiping God, but when we're in the midst of his presence and supposed to be spending time with him, we're on our cell phone with text and we're talking, we're doing all these other things, but we say we love it. What we need to understand, when we get distracted with the things of life, we're going to miss out some opportunities, because what I want to show to you, I'm going to highlight this to you, and I'm going to get to it and you're going to get excited about it. When we get distracted with these things that go on in life, it causes us to get frustrated, it causes us to have hypertension, it causes us to have these headaches and all of these other things, because we're frustrated, when if we do what this scripture says, if we want the peace in our lives, if we're looking for the peace, if we're looking for calmness, if we're looking for my Bible says, if we want peace, we need to keep our mind state on him. Well, when we keep our mind state on him, it says, he will keep us in perfect peace. I remember one time when I was just driving on the road, and this was early on when cell phones had, you know, people get started getting fascinated with cell phones and all of these smart phones and stuff started coming out. And my phone rang, and in a split second, I mean, I looked down, got distracted while I should have been driving, and in that split second, and as soon as I looked down and I looked back up, I ran into the back of someone else in that split second because I got distracted for one split second. It calls me an accident, no one got hurt, thanks be to God, but it let me know how important it is to keep the main thing, the main thing. And if you're looking for peace in your life, my Bible says, if you want that perfect peace, we need to keep our mind state on him. It's something about when you get your mind state on him, all of the, and I'm not here to tell you when you get your mind state on Jesus that troubles in life won't come. We saw that in Peter's, and when Peter, when the troubles came and they was on the boat, Jesus was coming to him and he said, Peter said, if it be you beg me to come, Jesus said, come, Peter got out of the boat and started walking on water. Just because he was walking on water didn't mean that the storms of life was not going to come. The storms of life still coming, but he was at peace and had water walking power when his mind was focused on Jesus. What I'm here to tell you is, when we keep our minds focused on him, the lives, the troubles of life are still going to come, but even with the troubles of life coming, because our mind is on him, we are focused on someone who can control the troubles of life. And if the trouble of life are going to come, I want to be focused on someone who has control of the troubles of life. Well, Pastor, how do you know he got the controls of the troubles of life? It says when he got in the boat, he spoke to the winds in the water, he spoke to the waters in the way and they ceased. Well, if he got that kind of controlling power, I want my mind to be stayed on him. When we look at this and we understand that distraction is a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention. Mary, giving full attention to him, Christ, giving full attention to Jesus in the house of Martha, giving full attention, Martha focused on Mary and what she was doing or not doing, she missed a big picture of being keeping her mind stayed on him. So much is happening in life right now. It's easier to spend quality time with their father. You know, back when I was growing up, you know, it wasn't too much to distract us. As little kids, you know, I played with a ball and played in the dirt, so it wasn't that much to distract us. But in today's life, we got the internet, we got cell phones, we got people calling, we got people texting, we got computers, we got things that got to be done. We got so many things to distract us that we forget about our source. We forget about the one that is important. We forget about, you know, life has a way of distracting you and that's the enemy's whole plan is to get you distracted. And if he can ever get you distracted, he knows that your attention ain't going to be focused on the one of the source of where your power comes from. And if he can distract you with all of these things of life. Mmm. And we wonder why things happen. And see, sometimes distractions come ever so subtle. And it's not something major, like a major storm comes to distract you. Sometimes it could be just, you know, I remember when, you know, just getting into it and start studying and really start focusing on God, I remember the quiet times. I used to get away and spend those times and not get bothered with anything. Like I said, now it's so much and everything's coming at you all at once. It's easy to get distracted. It's easy to get out of those focused times that you had with him. See, all it takes is for one time you to miss, you know, sometimes you say, well, I'm too tired. I'm a Miss Church this Sunday. And before you know it, it becomes easier and easier. The more Sundays you miss, the easier and easier it becomes. And before you know it, you know that once a week kind of Christian or that once every year kind of Christian where you show up on the major holidays, what we have to do is understand the only reason that we have what we have. The only reason that we are who we are and the only reason that the things that we have come that we have got that if that we have been able to accumulate and build up in our lives is because of him. And if we ever take away that precious time spending time with him, all of that stuff that we have don't mean a hill of beans apart from him. See, we can do all things through him, but apart from him, we can't do anything. So be careful of how you get distracted in this life and never forget the main thing, keep the main thing, the main thing. Let me look at this, and we understand that having, when we have invited Christ into our lives, into our hearts, we should be, he should be the priority. If he is the priority, all of the other stuff that we do will become easy and we'll have the fun. Some of us wonder why we may have lost the joy that we used to have doing the things that we used to do. Could it be our priorities are out of order? Could it be? You remember when you first got the job, you was excited, happy there, go there, you was there early and you stayed late, you were doing all of the things. And when priorities got out of order, things got out of line, now you grudgingly go in and you don't perform the same way you used to. You don't do the things, how you used to do them, and you're wondering why the joy of the Lord is your strength. Not getting all of the stuff, having all of the things, we need to be careful. When we look at this, Martha got distracted by watching what Mary was doing, but Mary was sitting at his feet listening to what he was saying. I want you to think about that. Mary sitting at Jesus' feet listening at what he was saying, Martha watching Mary. You have to wonder why do you get so frustrated watching how somebody else is being blessed when God is no respect to person, what he done for others he would do for you. To think about how much joyful other things will be in your life if he is a priority. You remember the people in Haggai when they was told to come back and rebuild the temple? They were supposed to come back and rebuild the temple, they started out good, building the temple, being blessed, having things going right. And then after a while, things started falling apart because they priorities got out of order. And I'm here to tell you, anytime your priorities get out of order, things will start to fall apart. It says they was making, they was working and wasn't working and wasn't making enough money. It was sort of like making money and putting it in a pocket with holes and every time one thing gets right, something else goes wrong. Every time you get this thing, fix something else goes bad. We have to be careful of when we allow things to distract us, to allow them things to get our priorities out of order. And when our priorities out of order, you'll be amazed of all of the other stuff and things that we see, and then we started to get frustrated. It used to be, it used to be when my priorities get out of order. So I can tell, it's sort of like that corona tire started to wear a little bit. I started to get frustrated and I started to get disgusted with certain things. People drive and it makes me irritated when I started to do that. So when I started to feel that certain way, could it be? I have to ask myself, could it be that my priorities have gotten a little bit, that time, that quiet time, I used to sit and spend in his present. That quiet time that he allowed him to spend, that he just speak to me and I can just listen to him and he calms me down and things don't seem as big and bad as they used to be. So when my tires and my life started to wear a little bit, I have to look at my priorities and I have to ask myself, am I being distracted by the things of this life that is causing me to wear in certain areas? And if it is, I need to go back to the one who specializes in getting things back in mind. So if you find yourself getting irritated and frustrated and not being able to do the things and you're not having that calm spirit that you used to have, just a thought. Could it be? Could it be? You've been distracted and your distracted is called things to get out of line and now that things are out of line, you remember what I told you. Even a car that is out of line will still move and go, but it's going to start to wear certain things on that car to eventually you're going to have to replace some things, but even replacing some things on a car that is out of line is only going to wear those things out too. At some point, you're going to have to return back to the one that specializes in getting things back in line. And when you get back in line, you can put all that new stuff on and when you put that new stuff on, you're going to enjoy it even more because now you're in line with him and he can allow things not to wear out when you're in line. Well, how do you know that past he allowed things not to wear out? If you read the Bible that talks about the children in Israel that they wandered in those lands for 40 years and their shoes didn't wear out because when you were in line, even they went in line, even though they whine and complained about a lot of things because God was leading them. God was protecting them by day and by night and they was following God. God didn't allow their shoes to wear out. I just know for me that when I'm in his presence, when I'm at his feet, listening to his words, spending time with him, listening to what he's sharing with me, when things happen, when chaos go on in my life, it don't bother me. It don't affect me the way it affects me when I'm driving and I'm trying to maneuver through this life and being out of line. Martha was upset. Jesus didn't get mad at Martha for being upset, but Jesus, this is going to lead to this last point I want to talk about is this is important and I spent that time just to get to this. It doesn't matter how you see what you're doing or not doing, but how does he see it. That's what I want us to understand. How does he see it? See, because you got to remember there was three different, three different views in this, in this what we're talking about. You had Mary, Martha and Jesus. Jesus saw both what Mary and Martha was doing. Mary was fascinated by sitting at Jesus feet. Martha was looking at Mary, but what did Jesus see? Let's look at this. It says Martha saw and Martha was distracted by her many tasks and she came up and asked the Lord, don't you care? Don't you care my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand. Martha distracted by what she was doing. Martha distracted by what she saw Mary doing. Martha distracted by these things. Martha saw it one way, but let's look at how Jesus saw it. It says the Lord answered her and said, Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things. But one thing is necessary. One thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice. Mary has made the right choice and it will not be taken away from her. If Jesus see it, that means that for me, when I studied this and looked at this, that was eye opening for me. Because as much as good that I think I'm doing, spending time going to nursing home, spending time with friends that have lost loved ones, going to talking to people in hospitals, lifting up spirits of all people, all that is good stuff. But nothing should take a priority over spending time with him. Because the good stuff is going to wear you out over time. And what you must do is go back and get your strength so you can continue to do those good things. Because we're not, we do good works because we spend time with him. Spending time with him is going to result and give you strength to do those good things. You can go on and all of those good things and you know how we do. You know how we do when we neglect to spend time in his presence. We will make ourselves feel good by saying, "Well, the Lord knows my heart. If I wasn't so tired, he knew I would do this. If I didn't have to do this, he knew I would do this. The thing is, in life, we can do whatever it is that we want to do. We can find time. If it's something that we really want to do, we will find time to do it. What I'm encouraging you and what I'm suggesting to you is we need to make him a priority. My Bible says seek the kingdom first. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And then all of this other stuff is going to be added. So what we have to understand is don't seek all of the other stuff and then want him to take care of it. Seek him first and allow him to graciously provide the stuff. And if whatever he provides, he's going to take care of. I want us to think about that. Jesus saw it as Mary was doing the most important thing at the time. And what I want to suggest to you is we don't know how long and how much time we have to spend with him in his presence. I suggest that your day should start with spending time with him. So that when the cars put all in front of you and when life starts to happen to you and when life does that curveball, it don't affect you the same way it would by not spending time with him. Make him a priority. When those people didn't make him a priority, it says they was putting on clothes and couldn't get warm. They was eating and couldn't get full and they was drinking and couldn't get enough to drink to clinch that third. So when the things in your life seems like it's not enough, could it be that you're trying to function in this life while you're out of line? And it may be time to take it back to someone who specializes and get yourself back in line. The story is told of a young man challenging an old man to a tree cutting contest. And challenging him to this tree cutting contest, you got this young man, you know, he big, strong, got the muscles and this old tree cutter, he didn't got old. He's experienced as a tree cutter. But this young book wanted to use his abilities, natural abilities, to beat this gentleman older, seasoned gentleman cutting down trees. So what they decided to do on a particular day, they was going to meet up and they was going to bring that access and they was going to go at it and they was going to start cutting down these trees. And whoever cut down the tree first went. So on this day, they met up and both of them, they started cutting. The young book was just started cutting. Oh, wham, wham, wham. Old man started cutting and after a while, the young book got distracted and he noticed that the old man had took a break and was sitting down over there. And then at that time, the young book said, I got him. I know I got him now. I got him and he just kept on going, wham, wham. And all of a sudden, at the end of the day, the old man got back and boom. And at the end of the day, the results was the old man won. The young book was confused because he was wondering how in the world that you beat me chopping down the tree, when I looked over at you, you were sitting down, not doing anything. And I kept on going, but now at the end of the day, you beat me. How is that? And the wise old man looked at him and said, what you got distracted and looking at me doing, what you thought I was doing, you thought I was sitting down and you thought I was taking a break and was foolishly not doing anything. But what I was doing was I was actually sharpening my axe because I can do a whole lot more with a sharpening axe than you trying to beat up on that wood with a dull axe. What I'm here to tell you is, oftentimes in this life, your natural ability is only going to take you so far. Your natural ability, being able to do this and being able to carry on this, at some point in time, your natural ability is going to run out. And what you're going to have to do anyway is come back to him. My Bible says at the name of Jesus, every tongue should confess and every knee is going to have to bow at his name. So if you're going to have to bow anyway, I would rather voluntarily come to him and take out the time every single day and spend in his presence. Take out the time to give him praise, take out the time to thank him for the little things that he done. Take out the time to wake him in my right mind, taking out time to say thank your Lord for this another beautiful day. You didn't have to do it, but thank God you did because I understood, like my grandma used to say, if it had not been for the Lord who was on my side, where would I be? And if it had not been for the Lord on my side, where would I be? What we need to understand is, don't get distracted with the things of this life that you miss spending time with him, spending time in his presence. Spending time with him is the most important thing that we can do each and every day, because when you prioritize him, he says, if I be for you, I'm more than the whole world against you. And I promise you, if the world is only three kinds of people in the world, one that's in something, one that's out of something and the one that's only weighted something. And wherever you are, if he is your source, he says, if I'm for you, I'm more than all of that that's going to come against you. I'm here to just encourage you, wherever you are, in whatever you're doing, today will be a perfect opportunity to reprioritize and make him number one. If you have never received him, today will be a perfect opportunity to do that, to receive him as your Lord and your Savior. And once you do that, or if you have already received him and you have back slid and he's no longer a priority and you've been distracted with some other things and you're ready to get that refocused and to turn your attention back to him, today will be a perfect opportunity to do that. I don't know where you are, what you got going on, but my prairies don't let the distraction of this world take away from the time that you need to spend with him. Because there's going to come a day and a time that you're going to want to spend with him and you may not be able to do it before it's too late. Enjoying him, spend time in his presence, spend time with him and watch how all of these things, watch how all of this stuff you'll be able to maneuver through this thing known as life a whole lot better and a whole lot happier. God bless you, God bless you, God keep you, it's my prayer for you on this day. This will conclude our podcast for changing faces and ministries where we do believe if you can see yourself the way God sees you, you will have a change of face. God bless you and God keep you as my prayer. Thanks for tuning in to The Changing Faces Podcast. Be sure to download the podcast as well as like, subscribe and share. [Music]