Pentecost 38 Focus, Focus, Focus

[HKHaugan]

Pentecost 38 Focus, Focus, Focus

Working my way through college one of my jobs in the Summer was being a lifeguard. Most of the time you sit but your eyes are always scanning the water. You have to be alert, ready to act. If someone gets in trouble you don’t wait, sit and analyze the situation, make a decision and then act. You jump in and do all that on the way to the problem. That is what your training is all about. In the process you may encounter everything from gratitude to hostility. But your training is your focus regardless of anything else happening along the way. Even today when I am near a body of water where there are swimmers I find myself scanning the area. No one ever drowned on my watch.

Three principles stood out in the training I had.
First, while you are on duty you are always on the alert.
Second, when a problem occurs you head toward the problem relying on your training while you are on the way.
Third, and most importantly, your focus never leaves your training for the sake of the person in trouble.

Lifeguard training was based on those principles. The specifics of the training were embedded in you by a constant repetition of techniques that you would employ in a lifesaving situation. It involves undoing the lack of knowledge and reactions you would have with no training. The idea being that your trained responses would become automatic and if adjustment was needed you would do that while you were on the way. While no two problems are ever the same it is the basic training that works.

If we look at Jesus’ life He was always focused on His Father, His Father’s will, Scripture and the mission His Father willed. He was always aware of who He was, who He was with and where He was. His perfect Spirit guided Him while He was on the way.

When we become disciples of Jesus we are essentially doing two things, being saved and being transformed. First, we are being saved from what we once were. We are in the process of being redeemed from ignorance of God and sin to the knowledge of and witness for Jesus. This is the salvation process. Salvation is what you know in your mind and heart. Secondly, we are being transformed in the specifics of our responses and reactions. We are learning attitude-by-attitude, word-by-word, emotion-by-emotion, thought-by-thought and sense-by-sense to be like Jesus. The work of the Holy Spirit is convicting us to replace our sinful thoughts and behavior with the Spirit’s leading through the Word. Transformation is becoming like Jesus so that we begin to react spiritually and respond spiritually.

There is no better basic process than the mind and heart changing challenges in the Sermon on the Mount. As you mine its depths you discover salvation is what takes place within and transformation is what takes place without. Salvation is the truth taking over within and transformation is the behavior, the action, resulting from facing and acting according to the truth. What you find is that like a person called to guard life, when Jesus is your focus, while you are on the way, you will always be spiritually alert, trusting the work of the Spirit and accomplishing His will within and without.

“2Thess.13-15” “But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. 14He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. 15So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.”