Are You Confused – Part 3
Scriptures: Romans 12:2; Joshua 24:15; 1 Kings 18:21; Mark 5:25-34
This message will conclude this series titled, “Are You Confused.” In Parts 1 and 2, I focused on how Christians are confused about our identity and our authority as Christians. If we do not understand who we are as Christians we are confused. If we know who we are as Christians and yet are not walking in our authority, we are still confused. Even though we have been given all that we need to be victorious in the eyes of the Lord it is up to us to walk in the authority that we have been given. Remember, to be confused means to be “unable to think intelligently; not differentiated; disoriented.” Before we accepted Christ, yes we were very confused. However, if we do what Paul told the church at Rome, we will move from confusion to certainty. Paul told the Romans “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2) In order for us to move beyond confusion, we must renew our minds! For the purposes of this message I want you to equate the renewing of your mind as changing the movie/channel that you are watching on TV. This will become clearer a little later in the message. The opposite of confusion is certainty. The definition of certainty is “a conclusion that is beyond doubt; complete confidence in the truth of something or an expected outcome.” Do you see the difference? When you are certain about something there is no confusion. My brother Barry in his July newsletter wrote about the movies that play within our minds. As I read what he wrote the Spirit quickened this message in my spirit (thank you Barry!) Let me share two examples with you where individuals were confused and how it relates to our confusion today.
When Joshua knew he was close to death, he called a meeting with all of the elders of the tribes of Israel. When they had gathered to him he began to tell them what the Lord God had shared with him. He replayed for their minds the things the Lord God had done for them from the time of Abraham until the present time. He reminded them of what they had experienced in Egypt and how God had delivered them mightily. When he had finished, each person listening to Joshua could see in their minds how they had been delivered. Now this is the verse I want to call out to you this morning. In verse fifteen of Joshua chapter twenty-four, Joshua told the people, “If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:15) Joshua told the people to make a choice, either to serve gods their fathers served, the gods of the Amorites or the Lord God of Israel. The people were confused and thought they could serve multiple gods based on their circumstances. But Joshua was not confused and he drew a line in the sand. He told them to stop being confused and make a choice. Then he said, “….but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Even though he was dying, he made a confession of certainty of what his household would do even after his death. He was ensuring that there was no confusion for his family for the duration of their lives! Now jump over to First Kings chapter eighteen.
You all know this story. Elijah was returning for a faceoff with the priests of Baal. During this time the King of Israel, Ahab, had married Jezebel who influenced him to stop worshipping the God of Israel and start worshipping Baal and Asherah. When this happened, Jezebel began to persecute the prophets of God and the Children of Israel were caught in the middle. They were willing to serve whichever god they were told to serve as long as it kept them from trouble. The people were confused and needed proof that could not be disputed! Elijah called the priests of Baal to meet him at Mount Carmel to determine once and for all the one and only true God. Listen to what Elijah asked the people when they had gathered together, “Elijah came near to all the people and said, ‘How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.’ But the people did not answer him a word.” (1 Kings 18:21) Notice the question that Elijah asked the people. He asked them how long would they hesitate between two opinions which is a direct example of confusion. You see, because their leader had walked away from the God of Israel the people were now confused as to what was right; which God was truly God. So they had two opinions depending on who was asking. If Ahab or Jezebel asked, Baal was the god. If Elijah asked, then depending on who was around, the God of Israel was God. Elijah brought them together to clear up their confusion. You know how the story ends, when God rained down fire on the offering and consumed it all (the offering, wood, stone and the dust) the people knew with certainty Who was the one, true God. The people had to see the proof which Elijah delivered to them. In both of these examples the people were faced with choices that they did not want to make. They wanted to be able to “have it all” without choosing one or the other. The problem was that “having it all” meant that they had to denied one or the other. In other words, they could not have it all all the time! So they had to make tradeoff decisions based on their circumstances. They suffered confusion because they refused to choose.
Now let’s consider what we are faced with today. As Barry did in his newsletter, I want to use how we watch different movies/TV channels as our anchoring point. I am using the word “movie” because our minds see the world as we experience it through our senses. When we close our eyes, for example, we do not see people as static (stationary) and our surroundings as colorless. We actually see people as they are - animated, and our surroundings as they are – colorful. When we see these images it is like we are watching a movie within our heads. For this reason Paul said that we must renew our minds because it is within our minds that the images (movies) are shown. Let me share a quick example. Is it a coincidence then that Jesus says, “….that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28b) When a man looks at a woman and lusts after her he is playing a movie in his mind of being with her. In that movie he sees what she could look like unclothed and what that could lead to. The images flow freely through his mind. Because that movie is allowed to be played in his mind, Jesus said the sin has already been committed. In our thinking sin happens when it is acted upon. Where Jesus comes from, it happens when it is conceived and allowed to play within the confines of our minds.
Several years ago they came out with TVs that allow you to watch two channels at once. They were called, picture in picture TVs. If you were watching one game on TV, but you wanted to keep up with another one, you could watch both at the same time. Having this feature allowed you to see both as you could flip back and forth between the two channels depending on what was happening. With this advancement in TVs, there was one limitation – you could only hear the sound from the channel that was in the forefront. The channel in the background was silent. I want you to keep this “picture” in your mind. Some Christians are living their lives with two channels showing – a picture within a picture. On the one hand we know that we are Christians and should be walking a certain way, but on the other hand, that other life is just so interesting and exciting. We are attempting to watch both movie channels but that only leads to confusion because we can’t watch and understand two different movies playing out before our eyes. We will miss something in the one we are not watching. Let me make this very clear for you. As I just told you, when you watch a TV that has the picture in picture feature, you only get to hear the sound from the picture that is on the main screen. The picture that is inset is muted. In other words, while you can “see” both channels, you can only hear one. I am going to let that simmer for a minute. You can only listen to one channel at a time regardless of how many you have on the screen!!! As it relates to our Christian walk, we can only listen to one voice at a time. While we might see two movies, we listen to one. Hopefully it’s the one with the Spirit of God speaking to us. Let me show you how this can play out. Turn with me to a very familiar story that was recorded in Mark, chapter five.
“A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse. After hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. For she thought, ‘If I just touch His garments, I will get well.’ Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched My garments?’ And His disciples said to Him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?’ And He looked around to see the woman who had done this. But the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.” (Mark 5:25-34)
Although you have heard the story of this woman many times, I want to focus on the movie she was playing in her mind. As her physical body deteriorates, so does everything else in her life. The Bible says that she had spent all that she had and still had not received any help. Can you see the movie playing in her head? She has spent everything and she has nothing to show for it. She is still sick! Have you ever been here – given all you had and it seems like nothing changed? To make matters worse according to the Law, the issue of blood made her unclean. She was forbidden from any human contact whatsoever and, she couldn’t touch furniture that may be used by another person (Leviticus 15:19, 20). Are you seeing this picture? Now here’s the worst part: every single incident involving the issue of blood made her unclean for seven days. She had been in this condition for 12 years. The law declared her unclean the entire time! We read this in Leviticus 15:25, “And if a woman have an issue of her blood many days out of the time of her separation, or if it run beyond the time of her separation; all the days of the issue of her uncleanness shall be as the days of her separation: she shall be unclean.” This woman had had little to no human contact for more than 4,300 days! Can you imagine what this was like? This woman had run out of options and I am sure that this movie also played through her mind. But while this movie played in her mind, she hears about this man named Jesus (Mark 5:27). Now she has a picture in a picture. Her mind was playing how bad her situation was and now this silent second picture starts. You see, word had spread throughout the region that Jesus delivered the crazy man who lived in the tombs. She thinks about the God-awful sounds the man made as he cut himself with stones. Why he did this no one knew nor had an answer for. As she thought about this man and Jesus healing him, the new picture began to develop sound. She began to ask “what if?” Then she saw herself being held. She saw herself being around people again, being able to touch and hold and be held. As she began to see these images, she began developing her “faith movie”! She began to switch the movie she was watching. The movie with Jesus healing her came to the forefront and the movie she had been watching went to the background. She could no longer “hear” the movie she had been watching because she was now hearing the “WORD” of the new movie that she was slowly switching to. Can you visualize this?
As she watched the new movie in her mind she saw the images of the man Jesus delivered. He was no longer roaming the hillside naked and raving like a lunatic. He was now lucid, in his right mind and wearing clothes. If Jesus had done this for this man, she began to see the possibility that He could do the same for her. Can you see her watching this new faith movie? Our “faith movies” start with idea that the impossible is possible. I can see her smile as she thinks about the possibility of being whole again. She begins to see herself going back to the synagogue and having lunch with friends. She sees herself being able to go shopping in the marketplace and being able to reconnect with people. She is watching a new movie that includes her being healed versus the old movie where she had spent everything she had to no avail. How many of you know that sometimes we have to see a new movie in order to put aside the one we are very comfortable watching knowing the plot and what will happen next. With these new images of possibility flowing through her mind, she begins to seek out Jesus. Every day she walks to the town square hoping to see Jesus. She sees herself walking up to Him, falling at His feet, telling her story and begging Him to heal her. She has seen it in her mind over and over again for days. In her new movie, she is already healed. Then the day finally arrives.
She runs to the door when she hears all the noise and excitement. “Jesus,” she says softly. She rushes out into a crowd so large it will be impossible to get to Jesus without touching someone – making the person unclean. But she couldn’t concern herself with this now. Jesus is her only hope after 12 years of futility. She was acting on the new images of being healed and that became her motivation to go beyond what was acceptable for her in entering the crowd. As she works her way through the crowd, the people step aside and turn away. They cannot allow her to touch them. She’s unclean. The woman realizes that she will not have a chance to talk with Jesus. So she adds another scene to her movie, and here is where I want you to really see how the changed images (her watching a new movie) changed her life. Realizing that she would not be able to talk with Jesus, she now saw a possibility. She said within herself, “All I need to do is just touch His clothes and I’ll be whole.” With that picture flowing through her mind and her deep desire to be healed, from behind Jesus she stretches out her arm and touch the hem of His garment as He walks by. Immediately she is healed of the plague and Jesus knows “immediately that power had left Him.” Are you seeing this movie? Jesus walks passed the woman; she touches the fringes of His clothes and draws the healing power she needs from Him! You may want to read that again. She added a scene to the movie that had been playing in her head for days. In her movie, she had gone from begging Jesus to heal her to simply touching His clothes and being healed. Let’s read what Jesus says to her one more time. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.” (verse 34).
Picture in a picture and being able to watch two different movies at once. One being in the forefront with sound and the other muted in the background. One is claiming your constant attention while the other gets glances every now and then when there is a break in the one in the forefront. One you want to watch while the other is important but not as important as the first one. One makes you think while the other makes you wonder. It is only when something special happens in the one in the background do you flip to it and bring it to the forefront. This is how many Christians live. We are confused because we spend a majority of our time watching the movie the world has put before us. We see it day in and day out. It is loud and drowning out everything else. The movie of our Christian walk is in the playing in the background. We can see it and watch for something interesting but it stays in the background until something happens and we bring it to the forefront. Sometimes that’s for an hour while we are at Church or Bible study. Sometimes it’s for a day when our world has been shaken and we are leaning on the Lord. Sometimes it can be for a week or more depending on how we are seeking Him. In truth, we are oftentimes watching the WRONG movie. The movie we are watching does not build our faith, it increases out acceptance that there is little we can do to change our circumstances. Until we change the movie, we will remain confused about who we are and what we are capable of.
What movies are playing in your head on a regular basis?
• Are they movies of you healing the man born blind?
• Are they movies of you feeding the 5,000?
• Are they movies of you telling the woman caught in adultery “Go and sin no more?”
• Are they movies of you casting out Legion from the man in the tombs?
• Are they movies of your shadow touching people and healing them?
Jesus says in John 14:12, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works I do shall he do also; and greater than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” Ladies and gentlemen, yes, these are the types of movies that must play in our minds if we are to do what Jesus says we are supposed to be doing! Are you ready to change the channel and watch a new movie? Are you ready to stand firm as Joshua and say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!!!”
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
