“Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus” Part One

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 902 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Phil Enlow: I’d like to turn to a familiar scripture this morning. I doubt that I’m gonna say anything that you haven’t heard, but most of the time what we need to hear is things that we tend to know in our heads, but we don’t always walk in accordance with them.

And I feel--maybe this is just for me, I don’t know. I just feel a real need of encouragement in my own heart. I feel like there’s a need for an infusion of faith, an infusion of courage in all of us, because, well, just the very nature of what we’ve been called to, calls for that.

We could have a sort of a “pep rally” Christianity and I feel like that’s what some have. I don’t want to speak critically, but I believe that there are people whose faith is very heavily--what they call faith--is heavily dependent on getting psyched up. And a lot of services--I’ve been in them and maybe seen them on television--are just a lot of psychology, getting everybody--rah, rah, rah--you’re right on the verge of your deliverance, so if you’ll just hang on, this is God’s year for you!

You know you can get all that kind of stuff and people get all psyched up and really they’re dependent on that. And they get all geared up and--oh my God, we’re just--this is wonderful, this is glorious, and it’s all in the realm of human emotion. There’s no real substance to it.

And I believe God desires something much deeper and much firmer. And so the last thing I want to do is have a pep rally. I believe there’s certainly a need for sometimes just to express positive things and encourage things in that sense, but it’s got to go beyond that. We just can’t get all geared up and say, man, I’m gonna go give it all I got and then two days later we’re pooped out and--oh well, back to normal. That’s no good.

Anyway turn to Hebrews chapter 12--Hebrews chapter 12. And if I get anything good out of this, I’m gonna have to walk in what I’m gonna preach. But that’s the way it is, isn’t it? Praise God! The Lord’s got us everyone in exactly the same boat in one way or another. Praise the Lord!

Okay, beginning in verse 1, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” (NIV).

And there’s a whole lot more here. I mean, there is so much more, so much you could bring out of this passage that my mind says, help, Lord, I don’t know what to focus on here. There’s so much. But obviously our Christian life here in this world is pictured by the writer as a race. Now typically, we think of a race as speed. How fast can I run from point A to point B, and can I do it faster than the other fellow? And that’s our concept of a race.

But I believe it should be evident if we’ll read the scriptures, and particularly when we think about the apostle Paul’s own testimony, he said, I’ve finished my course, I’ve run my race--I’ve finished my course and all of that. And he talks in 1st Corinthians 9, I believe, about running the race and doing it--training honestly and all of that, keeping your body under subjection in order to do it.

And, it should be obvious that this is not a speed race. This is more of a course that God has, as the language here says, “...marked out for us.” The King James says “set” for us. But my attention was drawn to that because this is not something that we have figured out for ourselves, nor is it something that is just aimless. We just sort of muddle through life and we just sort of are bounced through it like a pool ball, or like we’re in a pinball machine, and zing, we go this way and then we hit something and zing, we go that way, and everything is out of our control and we’re just reactive--we’re in a reactive mode.

But I believe God has absolutely plotted and planned your life, and your life and your life. He has marked it out for us. He has planned to accomplish something in us. Salvation is not simply wiping the slate clean and saying, all right you get to go to heaven because you believe in Jesus. There are things--there are purposes that God has set forth to accomplish in your life and in mine and that involves all of the things from the point at which He brings us to faith until He says, all right you’ve spent enough time down here, it’s time to come home.

Now sometimes that’s a short time. Sometimes it’s decades, but this life is not without its purpose. God has planned it and, I’ll tell you, it does us good to stop and realize that God is in control and has a plan and things are not simply happening, that God Himself is not in a reactive mode. God does not sit back and say, let’s see what happens today, and then we’ll go into emergency session, and we’ll figure out how we’re gonna get them through this circumstance that we didn’t think about, we didn’t anticipate. No! God has not only known the future, but He has planned in accordance with that knowledge, exactly what He wants to accomplish in us.

( congregational amens ).

And no two of us are alike. That’s one reason you can’t ever compare yourself to somebody else and say, well, look at how they have it, something must be desperately wrong with me, because I’m not like them. Well God didn’t make you like them.

( congregational amens ).

His plan and His purpose is a course that is marked out for us. When God called Saul, as he was known at the time, he was called, he was knocked off his horse on the road to Damascus, and he was brought suddenly, rudely to an awareness that what he had been doing was actually fighting against the Lord Jesus Christ, the One that God had elevated to a throne. And Got got his attention, shut his mouth, shut his eyes while He was at it, and sent him to sit and think about it for three days.

But I’ve noticed something about what God told Ananias to go tell Saul. He says, I want you to go and tell him “...how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” (KJV). Paul didn’t--or Saul didn’t know anything about any of this until this point. Ananias didn’t know, but God had a particular plan for this man’s life. He had already marked it out. He said, you’re gonna go through a whole lot of stuff in your life, Paul, as he became known. It’s hard to not call him Paul because that’s how we know him.

But you see the sense of the individuality of God’s plan for Paul’s life. God did not call me to live Paul’s life. He didn’t call you to live the life of the person who’s sitting next to you. Now there may be, and there are common principles that apply to all of our lives, but I believe it makes a great difference if we can sense and keep in the foremost part of our mind that God is absolutely marking out our steps, that the way we are going is the way He has planned, that things do not happen to us by accident. The devil never, ever, ever slips up on you and God is not aware and has not allowed it to take place.

So what we need to learn is how to handle this life that God has--this race that God has marked out for us. And that’s where we get tripped up, because it’s evident from what the writer says that he’s concerned that people who run this race not be hindered in their race, not become discouraged, not become side-tracked, not get off course and all the things--you throw off everything that hinders.

There’s stuff in our lives that hinders what God is trying to do for us. Now I’ll leave it to you and I’ll leave it to God to help us individually to know what those things are. But I believe that there are things that we allow in our lives, priorities that we have that absolutely stand in opposition to what God would do. And so we are exhorted to set those things aside.

Now my mind went to Mary and Martha. There was a wonderful opportunity that was presented to them when Jesus came to their house that one day. And the scripture goes to great pains to draw a special lesson from what was ordinarily a very simple thing. Jesus came, and they ate together, and they fellowshipped, and He left.

But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there? We read how Mary was just sitting at the feet of Jesus. There was something about her that knew that His Word was the most important thing in her life at that point. Here was a golden opportunity to drink wisdom that did not originate in this man who sat before her, but originated in the God who had sent Him. Oh, those Words were just like life to her. It was like breathing in the very air of heaven and she sensed the importance of giving her whole attention...to just listening, looking Him in the eye and drinking in what He said.

But what about Martha? Oh, she was so busy. Oh, I’ve got to fix this, I’ve got to fix that, I’ve got to clean the house, I’ve got to do the other, I’ve got to make sure the food is exactly right. Oh, she bustled about with all these necessary things. I wonder how many necessary things there are in our lives that aren’t necessary.

( congregational amens ).

They’re necessary because we think they are.

( congregational amens ).

We’ve sort of learned from our parents. Oh, this is the way life is. And somebody looking on says, why do you do that? Well, that’s just the way life is. Well, how do you know it is? Well, that’s how I learned it.

There’s so many things in our lives that hinder us and hold us back. There it is that simple--that God would have us to step back and learn and say, Lord help me to understand what matters and what’s important, because when we come to Christ there is a difference in us and those in the world. It’s not that we’re better. We’re sinners in need of a Savior just like everybody else. But once we have that Savior and we have given our lives into His hands, we are in His hands and by God He has set Himself to not only start us on the road, but to get us all the way to the other side.

Has He not promised to do that? Yes! What He’s begun, He says He’s gonna finish and He says the same thing in this passage, because we’re told to fix our eyes on Jesus. And who is He--why? The Author and the Perfecter of our faith! Now how many times do we sort of say, well praise God, I thank You for giving me faith. We understand that faith is not something that we had to come with.

You know, if there’s somebody here today and that’s your barrier from getting into the Kingdom. You think, oh I just can’t believe, I can’t do this, I can’t do the other. All God desires is that we just open up and surrender and confess our inability, and our sinfulness, and our need, and look to Him for the supply of what we need, because we do not have faith, not the kind of faith this is talking about.

We believe all kinds of stuff, but I mean saving faith--the ability to rest our hope in God, to believe His promises, to commit the keeping of our soul into His hands. That’s not an ability we’re born with. God has to give it to us, but He does. This is part of what salvation is about. This is part of what Jesus has done for us. He’s given us that faith.

But notice what this race is about. It’s not just about muddling through life. It’s not a race where God steers us gently and carefully around all of the trouble of life and makes life as smooth as He possibly can make it. It’s not about making us happy and filling our lives with spiritual ice-cream, and cotton candy, and fun thrill rides and all the things that--I was gonna say kids like--we all like ‘em. In other words, it’s not a pleasure trip, it’s not an amusement park.

God has designed this course to accomplish something. What is it that He’s trying to accomplish in us? Why doesn’t He simply save us and take us home? You notice what Jesus is? He said, He’s not only the author of our faith, He is what? The perfecter. Now the King James says ‘finisher,’ and it is the same word, but the ‘perfecter’ kind of gives you a broader sense of the meaning.

It doesn’t just mean, yeah, here’s the destination. It means the process that gets to that destination. Do you understand the difference? Perfection is a process. My faith starts out very baby-like. I may believe God for the salvation of my soul and the blotting out of my sins, but there’s a whole lot of stuff in my life that I don’t have much faith for. Anybody here like that?

( congregational amens ).

There’s not a thing in your life that you just can believe God for and instantly you’re just victorious over it and you fly like an eagle over life. No! That’s not how we are. But you see, that’s what life is about as a Christian. God is desiring to take that baby-like faith and grow it up and bring us to a place where we can tackle the things that once were mountains to us.

You know we think many times that this problem and this need in our lives is a great mountain. Now it could well be that there’s a mountain in your life that wouldn’t be much of a problem for me. But I’ll guarantee it’s the other way around. There’s things that don’t bother you that are just a great mountain to me.

But you know, I had this thought. We see problems, we see needs as mountains. You know what the mountain is really? It’s our own unbelief! That’s the mountain. If God could deal with the unbelief, that thing that we think is so great would just shrink down to normal size. And that’s what God is desiring, to bring us through the pathways of life in order that we should learn how to look to him, to draw what we need, and to be able for our faith to grow up.

I don’t know; I just have this sense in my spirit. There’s a burden, there’s a desire that we not settle. We are so prone to growing weary, the very thing He says you’re not supposed to do. We go so far, we get geared up, we get enthused--oh, we’re gonna serve God, we’re gonna break through into higher realms in God, and then we just sort of bump up against our old little barriers there, and say, oh well, it was nice while it lasted. And we just sort of settle and say, well that’s--what do you expect? That’s just the way I am.

It’s like the Gospel has no answer for my real needs that are down inside. Do you believe that? See, we profess the right things. But my burden is that we not stop short of possessing the things that God has given to us. And I--boy, this is above all where I need a mirror. I need to be saying, Phil, listen to this! I’ve had to do a whole lot of exercising what I’m talking about just to get up here this morning, because we are so conscious of every thing except looking to Jesus, that we are just absolutely hamstrung.

Now I’ve used this illustration many times, but I think it applies very well here. And that’s the illustration of how the butterfly comes forth from the cocoon. We all know how the caterpillar in God’s plan weaves himself into this cocoon and stays there a while. But then there comes a time when it’s time to come forth and fly.

But the process by which that happens is very instructive for us. It is necessary for that little butterfly, as he comes out to struggle. He doesn’t just come out and fly. He comes out a real spindly, shriveled up, funny looking thing. But he has to sit there and for hours struggle to get himself little by little loose from that thing.

Why would God do something so cruel? Oh, you just want to take pity on that thing and cut it away, take away all that struggle. Oh, that’s so terrible. But you know what would happen if you did that? That thing would die, because God has so designed it that the very process by which he gets free from that cocoon is the process by which he is developed. And you see the fluids begin to flow, you see the wings begin to get strong and by the time he gets free, he can fly. Praise God?

That’s a picture--it’s a very simple picture of why God allows things to happen the way they do. He does not allow these mountains to come into our pathway so that we will just throw up our hands and say, oh well, we came so far. This is great, we’re just gonna ride it out from here to heaven. God’s gonna take care of everything. No! God wants us to absolutely gear up our faith--not our carnal emotions and enthusiasm--but our faith, to begin to say, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” (KJV).

( congregational amens ).

And that’s the key. That’s what I find myself getting off on and I dare say one or two others of you here have the same problem once or twice in your life. You look at problems and those problems just grow so big and you say, my God, I see this need in me first of all and it’s been there all my life and I’m bumping up against this same thing. It’s holding me back. I’m just not as free as I ought to be.

I stand up here and I say, Jesus gives us the victory and I don’t have the victory that I ought to have. Maybe to a degree, but there’s more that I need to be able to have and I believe more life would flow through the whole body if we were in a position to possess more of what we profess.

Now I don’t want that to come with any sense of condemnation, not at all, because God understands the process better than we do. “...He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.” Put their trust in Him--you see it’s not a condemnation, but what it’s meant to be is an exhortation to say, you don’t have to stay where you’re at. You can go on in Me.

( congregational amens ).

But the question is how? A lot of times we just throw out phrases--look to Jesus. Well, what does that mean? There’s a whole lot of stuff--a whole lot of catch-phrases we tend to fall in the habit of using without defining, so that people can actually put them into practice and I believe God wants to help us to have more understanding of the ‘how’.

In the first place he says, “Let us fix our eyes....” (NIV). Now that’s what it says in this translation and there is a strong sense there of my will having to be engaged. I mean, I have got to literally to say, whoops, wait a minute, what am I looking at? I’ve got to fix--there’s got to be a determination of my will to look to Jesus.

If I’m gonna do that, I’ve got to believe some things. I’ve got to understand from the Word that that’s where I ought to be looking. I’ve got to understand that He’s the One who’s marked out my course. He knows the way that I take. He’s not taken by surprise as we’ve said. I’ve got to know that my source of help for being able to run the race comes from Him alone.

There’s nothing that I can look to on the inside--as you look to yourself--if you look at the need and then you look at your own resources--well, you’re gonna be like the disciples who looked at the 5,000 and said, we’ve got 5 loaves and 2 fishes, but what are they among so many?

We tend to measure our needs and our abilities against one another and every time we are going to come up short. And we’re gonna come up so short that there will be nothing to do if we look at things that way, but to throw up our hands and say, well, it’s been nice. This is as far as I go. I’m gonna settle here. I’ll tell you what, any of you ever tempted to do that? To just sort of give up in the face of some needs?

You know I preached a message several years ago that I believe it would do us all good, beginning with me, to walk in more, but it had to do with, nothing’s impossible. And I talked about our de facto rating system that we have. It’s not a rating system that we stop and think about and say, well, I’ve got a rating system here. It’s just something that happens. That’s what de facto means. It just--that’s the way it seems to be.

We think of certain things in our lives and we--well, yeah I could believe God for that. It’s not that big a deal. That’s a manageable problem--that’s a manageable need. I can deal with that. And here’s another one--well, there’s a little more here. I may have to pray a little more, but that’s manageable. But you know as we go on up the scale, we reach things that--well, that’s impossible.

Now I believe there’s not a person here who doesn’t, if you’re honest, tend to think that way about certain things, whether they are in you or whether they are concerning a situation and a need in somebody else’s life. Do you think that God desires that we stay where we’re at? Do you believe that what we have right now is all God has for us? No. That’s why I believe there’s a need for this right here, for God to minister a fresh faith and a fresh determination.

Where have your eyes been lately? I’m afraid my eyes have been too much on the problem, and it’s good to be aware of the problems. It’s good to be aware of the needs. It’s a terrible thing to think everything’s all right, to be like the Laodiceans and say, what’s the problem? And not know that we’re poor and blind and miserable and naked.

But it’s also a terrible problem to be so absorbed with the terrible mountains of need you see all around you and you sense in yourself and just be overwhelmed by it. You see that’s our problem. What are we fixing our eyes on?

Return to Transcripts Page

---

---