Wisdom for Living: “The Focus Process” | Mac Hammond
 
Recap
Pastor Mac taught his 7th installment of his Wisdom for Living series entitled, “The Focus Process.” James 1:5 says that if you lack wisdom about anything that you should ask God and He will give it to you liberally. Maybe you’ve prayed about a situation, and nothing has changed. You’re now at your wits end and don’t know what to do. What you do is go to the source of wisdom… the Word of God.
 
Dive Deeper
 
2nd Corinthians 4:17 talks about “our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
 
There are two ways to view this. Paul could be talking about our light affliction being light and momentary because on the scale of eternity, it is a “light and momentary affliction.” But it can also be viewed as a way to experience adversity. Instead of adversity being earth shattering, you can make adversity feel light and momentary.  
 
The life of Christianity doesn’t mean you will never experience adversity, where you float around on a little puffy cloud with not a care in the world. The truth is that adversity is a part of the human experience. Your success in life isn’t measured on how little adversity you experience. It’s measured by how you handle it.
 
Through Jesus, God the Father has made you to be an overcomer. Through faith, you can overcome anything that stands in your way of the promises of God being realized in your life.
 
The key to being an overcomer is in verse 18: “…while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
 
The “how to” of making your adversity seem light and momentary is by not looking at the things that are in the seen realm, but instead looking at the things in the unseen realm.
 
Things in the seen realm are temporal. But the things in the unseen realm are eternal. The things in the seen realm represent the natural arena of human endeavor. The things in the unseen realm represent the spiritual arena that can’t be perceived with our natural sensory perception.
 
When it says “look,” what does that mean? Look means to “spy out, to study, and to consider.” So one realm we are to spy out, give attention to it, study, and consider. But the other realm, we are told not to spy it out, give attention to it, study, and consider.
 
If you want something in the seen realm to change, then you can’t be studying it, considering it, thinking about it, paying attention to it. You must shift your focus from the seen realm to the unseen realm.
 
The unseen realm is revealed to us through the Word of God.
 
We are to focus our attention. To focus means to bring something into clarity. For example, if you were looking at a beautiful vista through a pair of binoculars but it was blurry, you would correct it by turning the knob until the vista was brought into clarity. Likewise, you can get a clear understanding of what you need to know by looking at the unseen realm which is revealed by the Word of God.
 
And as you keep your focus off the natural circumstance and put it, instead, on the Word of God, you empower the Word of God to change the natural circumstance.
 
Read About It
 
James 5:1, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”
 
Proverbs 4:7, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”
 
2nd Corinthians 4:17–18, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
 
First Peter 1:13, “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
 
Discussion Questions
 
What have you experienced in your life that you wanted God to intervene on your behalf?
Give an example of what it means to “not look” at something in the seen realm. What would that look like?
Have you had an experience where your circumstance was changed because you chose to not look at the seen realm, but rather continued to focus your attention on the Word of God?
 

These sermon notes are from the opening minutes of this weekend’s message. If you would like to hear the entire message, click on the link above.

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