1/29/12 - Epiphany 4 - Hebrews 3:1-6

FIXATE ON CHRIST

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

            “Keep your eye on the ball!” the coach or the parent says to a child learning to play the game.  “Keep your eye on the ball!  Don’t look at me; don’t look at your bat; don’t look at the players in the outfield; don’t pay attention to the people watching; don’t get distracted by the plane in the sky or the car horn honking or the dog barking.  Concentrate!  Keep your eye on the ball!”  And that parent or coach says those words for good reason: they want the child to hit the ball; and the only way that will happen is if that child blocks out everything else and fixates their attention on that little white orb coming at them. 

            It is important for us to keep our eye on the ball.  It is crucial for us that throughout our lives we do not get distracted by what is happening around us or focus our attention on something else.  We need to remain fixated on Jesus: who he is; what he has done; and why he has done it.  There really is nothing else more important than keeping our eye on that ball.  We do not want to miss it.  In fact, there’s nothing worth missing it for.

Fixated on the Past

            In the first few decades of the early Christian Church during the time of the apostles, many of the people that made up those congregations were Jewish converts.  They had been brought to faith in their Savior through the preaching and teaching of the Word of God.  But some of these people of Jewish decent had a hard time letting go of the past.  They were fixated on something, but it wasn’t Christ.  Instead they were all too preoccupied with the traditions and the rituals that had been handed down to them from generation to generation by their ancestors.  They were still focusing on the Old Testament laws and rules and regulations of worship life; they were struggling with the fact that no sacrifices needed to be made anymore and they did not need a priest to be their mediator; and they were still placing too much of their pride in the great heroes of their ancestry: men like Abraham and Jacob and Moses.

            And so as the writer of the letter to the Hebrews picks up his pen and addresses his comments to these Jewish Christians, he explains at length how everything in the Old Testament points to Christ.  The Jewish people did not need to forget what they had been taught or completely disregard the storied culture that they had become so proud of, but they did have to realize that Jesus was the center of it all - and he always had been.  Even Moses the great leader of the Israelite people foreshadowed the Savior and it was imperative that they were aware of that connection.  And so in chapter three of his letter, the writer of the book of Hebrews makes the following plea:

            Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.  He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house.  Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself.  For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.  Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house, testifying to what would be said in the future.  But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.

            Moses was a godly person, the writer to the Hebrews would admit.  He was a faithful servant in God’s house, a loyal leader, an exemplary man in the annals of Jewish history.  But Jesus was worthy of greater honor.  In fact, Moses testified to what would be said in the future about Christ.  And so Moses understood that everything was supposed to be pointing to the Savior, but somehow his descendants many years later had lost their focus on the only one they should have been focusing on from the very beginning.  They were not fixated on Jesus.  And because of that they were losing sight of everything.

Veering Off to the Side

            Back when my wife’s parents lived out in the Denver area years ago, they liked to drive through the mountains and hike and shop and just enjoy the beauties of God’s creation.  Jessica’s father would usually drive as her mother sat in the passenger seat.  And as they would go through the canyons and up and over the mountain passes, my mother-in-law would look out of the window at all of the different vistas and views and wildlife and she would say things like, “Oh, look at that!  Isn’t that beautiful!  How breathtaking!”  But then she would quickly add, “Oh, but you don’t look!”  She appreciated the beauty of the mountains and the valleys and the rivers, but she didn’t want her husband to take his eyes off the road for obvious reasons.  Because if he were to lean over and look out and up and around, chances are he might have veered off to the side in one way or the other.  And so she always followed up her comments about the wonderful panoramas of the Rocky Mountains with, “Oh, but not you.  You don’t look.  Just keep driving.”

            And we understand that from our own time behind a steering wheel, don’t we?  When we are driving and looking around at different things outside our windows, we can easily veer to the right or to the left and sometimes we quickly have to adjust to stay in our lane when our eyes get back to where they were supposed to be all along.  We can be reaching down for something on the floor or grabbing our cell phone that is ringing or even talking to someone in the passenger seat when our focus is turned away from the road and on to something else.  And that can be a very dangerous thing.  Because good driving demands your attention.  Good driving requires that your eyes stay on the road in front of you and you remain alert to what is most important.  If you don’t, things could get ugly in a hurry.

            This life requires that we keep a fixated gaze on what is most important.  Our day to day activities demand that we focus on Christ.  Because when we don’t, things get ugly in a hurry, don’t they?  When we lose our focus on who Jesus is and what Jesus has done and why Jesus has done it, our life starts to fall apart.  When we get so wrapped up in our jobs or so worked up about our family or so involved with our friends or so absorbed in ourselves, we start to veer off to the side, we start to shift lanes, sometimes we might even start heading in the wrong direction.  And if that isn’t happening to you right now, it certainly has happened before, hasn’t it?  There have been times when we were not completely fixated on Jesus and things didn’t happen to be going all that well and our attitude was terrible and our outlook on life was miserable.  Which isn’t surprising because when we aren’t fixated on Christ that means we are breaking the very first commandment.  When we aren’t fixated on Jesus then that means we are fixated on something else and “You shall have no other gods” has been violated.  Our trust or our love or our happiness wasn’t based on him at the time.  We took our eyes off of our Lord, we weren’t concentrating on what was most important, and so everything else was in disarray.

Absorbed in Christ

            When I was taking driver’s ed many years ago, we were driving through the city streets where I lived.  It was my first time driving around a number of other vehicles and I was a little nervous.  My driving instructor was in the passenger seat, of course, and we were going down a street with cars parked diagonally on both sides.  As we were approaching another car traveling down the other side of the street in our direction, I apparently was drifting a little too close to the parked cars on my right hand side.  My instructor told me to move the car to the left a little bit, but I didn’t move over enough.  And so he quickly reached over, grabbed the wheel with his left hand and turned it just enough to make sure that I would clear the ends of the cars that were sticking out in the street.  I was veering too far to the right, but I didn’t realize I was that close to danger until he reached out and put me back into the middle of my own lane. 

            And sometimes that’s what happens to us in this life.  We drift, we veer, we wander to one side or another and we don’t realize how dangerous it is until our God takes the steering wheel in his hand through his Word and pushes us back into the middle of the lane.  Only then do we realize that we were so close to hitting something.  Only then is our attention readjusted and we become fixated again on what is most important.  Only then, through that powerful Word of God, do we focus our attention again on Jesus our Lord.  And so with that Word of God on the wheel let’s fixate on Christ once again this morning.  Let’s pay careful attention to who he is and what he does and why he does it.

            Fixate on this: Jesus is called our High Priest by the writer to the Hebrews.  That means just like the Old Testament high priest he is our mediator before God.  But more than that, he is also the one that takes our sins before the Almighty.  But even more than that, he is the one who sacrifices the offering to release us from our sins.  But even more than that, Jesus is also the sacrifice!  He offered himself!  He spilled his blood!  He earned our forgiveness all on his own!

            Fixate on this: Jesus is also called the Apostle here.  He was “sent” by the Father - which is what the words “apostle” means.  He was called to preach, teach, perform miracles, and lead people to God.  He was in direct communication with his Father and willingly obeyed everything that he commanded him to say.  He was there for the people.  And he is here for us.  And we can go to our Apostle at any time to hear his wonderful words once again.

            Fixate on this: Jesus is called the Son of God’s house.  He is the heir apparent.  He receives everything his Father has and he is able to give it all to us.  Fixate on this: He is called the builder of the house.  Fixate on this: We are the house that he builds.  And although we might not think that we are stable enough or dependable enough to be a solid structure for our God, Jesus builds us up with the impenetrable wood from the cross and the unshakeable stones from his tomb.  He constructs us with his power and supports us with his love.  And he is an expert builder, an experienced builder, a builder whose blueprint is flawless and whose execution of those drawings is without fault.  That’s why you are who you are today.  That’s why you are a Christian.  Because Christ took that forgiveness that he won for you and worked it in your heart like the skilled craftsmen that he is so that your faith will not crumble. 

            And finally, fixate on this: You are called “holy” brothers and sisters of your Lord by the author.  You are said to share in the “heavenly calling” pronounced by the Savior himself.  And so although you may not be holy - perfect - right now, through faith in Christ you are considered holy by the Father.  And although you may not be in heaven right now, your ticket is already punched and your spot is already prepared.  Fixate on that.  Fixate on where you will one day be because of where your Savior one day was.  Keep your eye on that ball.  Focus your attention on that road.  Use whatever analogy you want to remind yourself to fixate on Christ at all times and in every way.  Because he is not only the most important thing in your life, he is the only important thing in your life.  And I pray that together as Christians, as we continue to absorb ourselves in God’s Word, that we never take our eyes off of his cross or look away from his empty tomb.  There is nothing else we need to look at on this earth than the face of Christ.  And there’s nothing else we will want to look at when we see his face fully for the first time in heaven.

            Amen.

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.”  - Heb. 12:2