“Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus” Conclusion

Transcript of message from TV Broadcast 903 -- taken from Closed Captioning Text

-- Brother Phil Enlow: 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?

Some of us fix our eyes on the past. And we’re so weighed down by a lifetime of failure in certain areas. And of course that leads to what? Guilt. You know we sang the song this morning, “It Was Enough.” But sometimes I wonder if we really believe it was enough or if we believe that there’s some fine print that kind of rules us out.

You ever read the scripture with fine print? You sort of interpolate some fine print in there that says, everybody but me. Oh, it’s wonderful what Jesus did but oh, what I did is so great, I’m so guilty...and just be saddled with guilt instead of just simply saying Lord, you know what I am. Forgive me. Help me and then believe what He said that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sins except mine... I mean, all sins!

( congregational amens ).

Oh, how easy it is in our minds to subtly slip in that little fine print. Boy, that’s one of the devil’s biggest tricks. You talk about things that hold us back and hinder us. That’s one of the biggest ones I know. Oh, I’ve set my heart to serve God and I fell in the same mud hole. Oh, surely He’s through with me now. Oh, woe is me.

He told Peter or the disciples how often should we forgive our brothers? Seven times? Seventy times seven, he said. You suppose the Father is any different with us? Does He not know our need? Is that not why we need a Savior? That’s not to promote carelessness. But my God, if the blood of Jesus can not forgive and cleanse us from all sin we are none of us... I mean none of us have any hope today, boy, starting with yours truly. I am in a world of hurt if the blood of Jesus cannot cleanse me from my failures and my sins. I may not go out and rob banks but I’ll tell you there’s so many things that go on in the secret recesses of our hearts and our minds.

( congregational amens ).

There’s not one of us here that would want what we think all the time to be projected out here. Our mind is too much the devil’s playground and we don’t discipline it enough to say, wait a minute. I don’t have to think that. I refuse to think that.

(congregational amens ).

Devil, I recognize where that thought comes from. I cast it down.

( congregational amens ).

You’re diverting my attention to this thing. I’m not looking at Jesus anymore, not fixing my eyes on Him. He’s my help. He’s my source. He’s given me the promises of His Word. I have every right to stand upon them. Devil, I don’t have to listen to you.

( congregational amens ).

You’re a liar. Get out of here! Do you know you have the right to do that as a child of God?

( congregational amens ).

That’s where a lot of our hindrance comes from. We just simply refuse to walk in the things that we know. These are not complicated things. This is not, as Jerry says, rocket science. But oh God, do we always stumble over these things--do we ever stumble over them. God, help us to believe the promises that God has given. That’s why.

But you know it’s the very sense that we are needy in this area--that’s the reason the writer gives us this. That should let you know you’re not alone. Every one of us, every believer who’s ever lived in the world has faced the same trials, the same problems, has had to come the same way. God has marked them out a course and said, run, but as you run I’m not calling you to do this in your own strength. I’m calling you to keep your eye on me, because I’m the perfecter of your faith.

That’s what you got to have to get through. You can’t do it with smarts. You can’t do it with human will power. You’re gonna have to have faith. What is it that moves mountains? Big steam shovels? No! Dynamite? No! It’s faith. It’s faith in a power that’s beyond us that moves on our behalf...God. Don’t you believe that God can move the mountains in our lives?

( congregational amens ).

How many of us have just sort of thrown up our hands and said, well, I tried. It was good for a while but now I’m so busy. I’ve got this. It’s just the way it is. God is seeing the needs in our lives and He’s saying, I want more for you and I have more for you. Don’t you dare--don’t you dare settle on this side of the Jordan when I’ve given you the other side.

( congregational praise ).

Praise God! When the spies came back with their report, ten of ‘em, all they could see, they couldn’t see God. Think about the incredible unbelief and yet are we so much different? They had seen God deliver them with a mighty hand from the Egyptians. They had seen waters of a great body of water separate so they were able to walk on dry ground. They had seen the presence of God come down and shake a mountain in front of their eyes.

I tell you what, we’re called to walk by faith and we’ve never seen things like that. But they did and in the face of that, they said, oh, look at the giants. Look at the problems. Yes, it’s a great land but all they could see was the difficulty of the problems. And as a result of their report the people went home to their tents and they wailed and they cried all night.

But they weren’t tears of repentance. They were tears of anguish and unbelief. I tell you what: sometimes I think our tears are a little bit like that. Oh God, I’m just so desperate. I’m so in need. But sometimes we’re crying about the need instead of saying, oh God, I have this desperate need but I’m believing you today. Help me.

( congregational amens ).

Living life in a rearview mirror is certainly not a way to do it. That’s what I started to say a while ago. That’s one of the things that causes us to, as the scripture says here, to grow weary and lose heart. We lose heart because we look behind, and we see the past, and we think today the past is the key to what happens today.

Is it? Is that what salvation is about? Is the past the key to the present? No it isn’t. God’s promises are the key to the present and the key the future. What did Paul say in Philippians chapter three? What did he do about the past? He forgot it, didn’t he? He said, “forgetting those things that are behind”--forgetting them. Did you fail yesterday? God wants you to bring that, lay it before His altar, repent of it, ask God for help, and then just flush it.

( congregational amens ).

That’s gone. I can’t do anything about that. God has taken care of my need in this area. I can go on as freely as if I had never done it in the first place. Do you understand what forgiveness and cleansing means in the kingdom of God? It is a blotting out of our sins. God wants us to be able to go forward without the baggage of yesterday.

( congregational amens ).

Paul reached forth. But you know we could look to the future in a negative sense. We could see it like the lady who saw the mountain of potatoes. Most of you heard the story. But you know about the lady who was facing marrying a guy who liked potatoes. She hated to peel potatoes. That’s all she could see when she saw that fellow that she was thinking about marrying, was a mountain of potatoes. He was a funny looking guy.

( laughter ).

But that’s what she saw in her mind. That was what was going on up in here. I hate peeling potatoes. He loves ‘em. Our kids are gonna love ‘em.

( laughter ).

In forty years our grandchildren are gonna come over and they’re gonna want...I’m gonna have a table full of...oh my God, it’s just going on endlessly.

( laughter ).

Until some wise person said to her, sufficient unto the day are the potatoes thereof.

( laughter ).

She realized she didn’t have to peel a mountain. She just had to peel enough for today. So we can look at our future like that, and the needs that we sense in ourselves and the needs that we see in others that just bind them and hold them in captivity, we could see them as impossible mountains in front of us. And God wants to say, I know about those mountains. I’m the one who put them in your path. I marked your course for you but I did not do it to discourage you, anymore than I put the goo around that butterfly to discourage him from flying.

But you know there was no short-cut. He had to go through the process moment by moment. All right my whole left wing is all in a mess here, but I’m not gonna deal with that right now, I’m gonna deal with this. This is where my focus is. I’ve got to get my right leg out...or whatever it is, one of his right legs.

( laughter ).

But you get the point. God brings us the way that He brings us, but He doles out our problems in manageable doses, and if our eyes are fixed on the impossibility and the great mountain of what lies before us, we will just throw up our hands in defeat. But that isn’t where He tells us to look, is it? It doesn’t say looking to your past, looking to your future...looking to Jesus.

You know I started to say about some of these folks that want the pep rally religion. What a lot of ‘em are actually doing--they’re really basically unbelievers, many of them, who are looking for a spiritual short-cut. Tell me about the magical experience that I can have. Tell me about the great man of God who can put his hands upon my head and make my problems disappear and elevate me to a level where I can serve God with freedom.

But God says that’s not the way that I’ve set before you. I’ve set a race and this race doesn’t require speed, it requires endurance. It requires perseverance which is a spirit of never ever giving up.

( congregational amens ).

Never ever giving up. Now if we did not have the divine resource, and the help and the strength that we are promised in God’s Word every one of us would have ample reason to give up today. Oh, if this was just a formula by which we’re supposed to somehow be Christians, let’s go home. I’m not interested in that. But this is a real thing between us and a holy God and a mighty God who has promised to rescue us, Who’s given us a Savior Who’s able to do the job. He’s not just the author. He is also the perfecter.

All the way through God is able to give us that larger and larger measure of faith that makes those mountains shrink in comparison. I don’t believe and I’m gonna step out because--I better do it. That’s what I’m preaching. I don’t believe there’s a single thing in me that is not overcome-able. I’m not talking about sinless perfection. I’m not talking about some la-la land fantasy, but I’m talking about the fact that God does want to take us from point A to point B. There is a growing. There is a maturing.

( congregational amens ).

And if we’re gonna have a message that can actually help people who are coming in here who’s lives are full of pain and hurt, I believe God wants us to enjoy a greater measure of victory in our own lives so that we’re not so bound up. Oh my God, I can’t get through tomorrow. I’m so dragged down with the insurmountable problems I see.

Oh, God wants to get our faith to a level where we’re dealing with it on a day by day basis and, yes, we’re growing and, yes, there’s needs and yes, there’s all those things that you have to balance it out. But oh God, help us. There are people in need in our midst. There’s people who are bound and in traps and Satan has wrapped chains around them and I believe God wants to set ‘em free.

( congregational praise ).

Are we willing to believe God and to get up off our hind end and just believe what He says and look to Him, fix our eyes on Him, so that we can get stronger and just maybe we can gang up in prayer on some of these things and actually see God move?

( congregational amens ).

I have a longing to see people be able to stand up here. Now we certainly don’t want to just go out and try to solicit and make it happen. But I believe that God desires to have a situation where people are able to stand up here and say, “I had this problem in my life. It looked impossible. But God has delivered me and today I am free in an area that bound me for so many years. God is able to do the same for you.” Would that not do something for us?

( congregational amens ).

I feel so many times like we go so far and we’re just constantly bumping against something. But God wants us to realize that something is not an impenetrable wall that we can do nothing about. God does not want us to try to eat the elephant in one bite. He wants us to do it one bite at a time. And He’s promised to be with us. But our eyes have to be in the right place, fixing our eyes upon Jesus.

And ‘course He gives us another reason for looking to Jesus, and that’s the example that Jesus set. Now our natural reaction is to say, what kind of example? What does that mean? He’s the Son of God. He could do anything. How can that encourage me, just the fact that He was able to do it? What relevance does that have to me? I’ll tell you what relevance it has. He didn’t live in this world as a divine being. He was the Son of God. But I’ll tell you, He lived here as a man. I don’t know--a lot of people don’t get that. But I believe it’s important.

( congregational amens ).

Because He wouldn’t know very much what you and I go through, if He hadn’t done it the way we have to do it. He didn’t beat life’s problems because He just had the resources in Himself to just kind of handle it. Oh, the scripture talks about Him going to the Father with strong crying and tears. There was some agonizing before God. There was some crying out.

Why would God allow His Son to have to do that? The same reason He allows the butterfly to have to struggle to get out of the cocoon because the process does what God has designed to do in our lives. When we exercise faith against opposition it makes that faith stronger. And I’ll tell you, the life of God begins to flow into our spiritual wings and we begin to grow more and more like what He wants.

There’s no way that the purpose of God that He has designed for us can be filled any other way. That’s why it takes endurance, it takes perseverance to run this race. That’s just the way--that’s the nature of the beast, as it were. That’s the way it is.

But I’ll tell you, God has not left us alone. Oh, do we have some promises to lean upon! Praise God, we can look to Jesus as an example. We can look to Him as a steady source of supply and it’s not just this vague, oh, I’m looking to Jesus. I tell you that means prayer. That means spending time with Him. We get to know what He’s like. We get to know what He wants. I believe He can minister a comfort. He can minister a strength. He can minister a faith that we don’t get when we just kind of breeze through life and don’t spend time with Him.

We can spend time in His Word. I’ll tell you, if you’re a believer God can quicken this Word to your life, to your heart and your mind. He can bring back to your remembrance things that you have heard exactly when they’re needed. We have “...exceeding great and precious promises....” And the Word says, by these we’re able to do what? To “...be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” Boy that’s a mouthful. That’s in 2nd Peter, chapter 1.

But oh, think of what God has designed for us. But it all hinges on our never giving up. Now it doesn’t all hinge on that. God’s gonna get us through. But if we’re gonna be successful and serve Him and actually be useful to Him in the kingdom, God desires that we be willing, conscious participants and understand the process. God says, don’t be like the horse and the mule. You want to get their attention about something you got to whop ‘em upside the head with a two-by-four. Has God whopped you lately?

( laughter ).

God doesn’t want us to be like that where He has to just do something drastic to get our attention. He wants to be able to speak to us, friend to friend and give us the instruction and the wisdom and the encouragement that we need. I tell you I feel like a lot of us are in need of encouragement right now to really be able to rise up in our spirits and say yes! The problems, the needs that we see are not beyond us. Now they’re beyond us, but they’re not beyond Him.

( congregational amens ).

And God has put them in our pathway deliberately so that we will have to exercise faith. If God only put things in front of us that we could solve with our natural resources, that’s all that would grow strong. But God will deliberately throw you into the deep end of the pool so that all you can do is stretch forth your hand and look to God. And when you do that, you find out He’s there.

( congregational amens ).

Your faith grows stronger and you can handle something that you couldn’t handle yesterday. But that doesn’t happen very well when our eyes are on everything else except Him. And I just pray that He’ll do something for me and He’ll do something for you. My weakness--one of ‘em is looking at situations and getting anxious and getting frustrated and feeling like--oh my God, that’s more than--you know, what are we gonna do? When will something ever break?

And all I’m doing is just going round and round and round in my mind about that thing until I’m getting more and more anxious and discouraged about it, instead of saying Lord, You are Lord of this. This did not happen without Your full awareness. You didn’t put it in our path to frustrate us. You put it in our path so that we will learn how to believe Your Word and go by the Word of God.

( congregational amens ).

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but...”--what?--”...by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (KJV). I believe there’s a God who speaks. It’s not just what He wrote in the Book. I believe there’s a God who can speak to our needs today if our ears are tuned and our eyes are fixed. But the responsibility of fixing our eyes is ours, isn’t it?

( congregational amens ).

That’s why He says, fix your eyes. “...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.” (NIV). Is it worth it? Oh, I’ll tell you, this race leads to a mighty fine place.

( congregational amens ).

God isn’t just in the business of blotting out sins and taking people to Heaven. He wants to fashion us into the likeness of His Son. And this process that we’ve got to go through, this race that’s been marked out that we need to run with faith and endurance is the means by which that character is formed that we’re gonna enjoy for all of eternity.

But, oh God, we’re never left alone. The Lord Jesus is always right there. He’s promised never to leave us and He who begun this work is gonna finish it until the day of Jesus Christ. I praise Him today. I pray that God will help us not to grow weary in our hearts and our minds, but to constantly look to Him. And those things that seem like mountains to you right now let’s bring them to God and say, Lord I can’t solve the whole mountain today, but I’m believing that you’re gonna take us past that.

( congregational amens ).

We’re not gonna continually bump up against this same barrier that’s always stood in our way. God is gonna help us day by day, not by some grand experience necessarily, but by patient endurance day by day by day looking to Jesus, fixing our eyes on Jesus, God is gonna take me past that thing. And I’m gonna look back and say where’s that mountain. God has dealt with it by His grace and I praise Him today!

( congregational praise ).

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