There are no end to the things we can think of and focus our attention upon, but
the greatest focus of all is to focus our thoughts on Jesus. That is the focus of the
Bible from beginning to end. That is to be the focus of all that we do in church, and
in all the meetings and activities of the church. There is no higher subject for the
mind to consider than Jesus. The text says, "fix your thoughts on Jesus.." He is to
be the primary food for our thinking. He is not to be a now and then snack, but the
full meal of each day. The mind needs a focus for there to be a primary goal of all
our thinking, and that focus is to be Jesus.
Notice, the call to consider Jesus is not addressed to the outsider, or to the part
time believer who is just playing at being a Christian. It is addressed to the holy
brethren. The implication is clear that you can never get so holy and mature as a
Christian that you do not need to make Jesus the central focus of your thinking. It
is not as if you learn about Jesus and then go on to other things. You never cease
to make Him the focus of your learning, for in Him are hid all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge. Every subject we study is to be related to Jesus. The little
child who sings Jesus loves me this I know, and the aged saint who has read the
Bible for over fifty years need to have the same focus, and that is a mind fixed on
Jesus. You cannot be too young or too old to make Him the greatest focus of your
life.
Holy brothers with a calling
To share in heaven's glory
Let your mind run without stalling
Focused on the great story.
It’s the greatest story ever
That the world can ever hear.
For from His love none can sever
His presence is always near.
Let your mind be fixed on Jesus
There's no greater food for thought.
It is His desire to please us,
For by His blood we are bought.
May this mind be in you and me
So that we are never bored.
And may we daily come to see
Life's best is focus on the Lord.
The best sermons, the best books, the best Sunday School lessons, the best Bible
studies, the best articles and the best of everything you can hear or read are those
things that help you fix your thoughts on Jesus. He is to be the magnet that
continually draws our mind to focus on Him. In contrast, whatever takes your
attention away from Jesus and all He was and taught has the potential of being a
danger to your soul. Of course, we all go many hours of each day without thinking
of Jesus, but when we do begin to use our minds for study that will lead us to know
and do the will of God, our focus is to be on Him. That is the whole focus of this
book of Hebrews. In every way possible the author goes through all the values of
the Old Testament and then focuses on Jesus as their fulfillment and completion.
He is to be our focus because He has made all that came before Him obsolete or
secondary. He is superior to all that have gone before, and that is why He is to be
the focus of our theology and practice.
When people get their minds off Jesus they tend to fix on other things that lead
to all kinds of conflict. There are so many different views of contemporary issues
among believers, and this leads to much conflict that produces bitter fighting
among the family of God. It makes me think of the preacher who wrote a book
titled Come To Jesus. Later he became angry at another preacher who disagreed
with him on some issue and he wrote another book tearing the man apart. He
asked a friend what he should name the book. The friend read the bitter language
of the book and said, "What not call it Go To The Devil by the author of Come to
Jesus." The man got the point that he was over reacting and did not publish his
attack. He had gotten his mind off Jesus, and let it get fixed on some issue that led
him to be unlike Jesus. When you begin to have attitudes and actions in your life
that are inconsistent with Jesus, you know your mind is not focused on Him, but on
something that you have made more important to you than Him. This is the
modern idolatry. Anything or anyone, or any idea that makes you unlike Christ is
an idol at that point, and we need to crush it by getting refocused on Jesus.
There are many believers who are more law centered than Lord centered, and
this can be a pain for all the fellow believers they try to bring into bondage to their
legalism, but it will be a worse pain for them when they are judged to have been
idolaters for putting the law above Jesus. This was the danger the Hebrews faced,
for they were tempted to go back to the law of Moses and put him on a higher level
than God’s highest, final and greatest revelation in His Son. This would be a form
of idolatry because it would be putting what has become secondary in the place of
the primary. This chapter goes on to warn of the judgment that God’s people
suffered because of their unbelief and rebellion, and that is just what it would be to
take your focus off Jesus and put it on Moses, the High Priest, or the temple. Fix
your mind on Jesus or you will be in a fix for sure is the essence of this chapter.
Moses was the greatest Jew who ever lived up until the time of Jesus. He was
special in God’s plan, and God had a special relationship with him. Numbers 12:6-
8 reveals God’s testimony to Moses: “Hear now my words: if there is a prophet
among you, I, the Lord, shall make myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak
with him in a dream. 7 not so, with my servant Moses, he is faithful in all my
household; 8 with him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark
sayings, and he beholds the form of the Lord.” He is the only one to see God as he
did. In Ex. 7:1 God says of Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and
your brother Aaron will be your prophet.” God never made any man like a God
except Moses. God used him as no other man. He gave the law to His people
through Moses, and led them out of Egypt by him. He was special and this book
acknowledges him to have been a faithful servant in the house of God. But Jesus is
as superior to Moses as a Son is superior to the best of the servants. Therefore, to
fix your eyes on Moses and take them off of Jesus is to live in disobedience to the
clear revelation of God, and this is to risk judgment. You can see why it was hard
for the Jews to take Moses off the pedestal and put Jesus there instead. It was a
breaking of the oldest tradition of the Jews. It was no easy matter making Jesus the
primary and greatest focus of life.
As you study history you discover that the reason good people fail and fall from
God’s best is always because they get their minds fixed on what is less than God’s
best. Adam and Eve took their focus from obedience to God and focused on the
forbidden fruit, and this was the end of paradise. Every fall from that point on was
for the same reason. David took his eyes off obedience to God and put them on the
beauty of Bathsheba and he fell. Solomon took his eyes off the wisdom of God and
focused on pleasing his foreign wives and this led to idolatry and a fall. Peter was
the only man to walk on water with Jesus, but he took his eyes off Jesus and
focused on the raging waves and down he went. People are always sunk when they
cease to focus on Jesus. That is the whole point of Hebrews. You will miss God’s
best when you do not keep Jesus as your primary focus in life. Biblical theology is
really quite simple: fix your mind on Jesus or you are in a fix.
What Hebrews is saying to the people it is written to, goes on saying to us today
who may have no temptation to go back to Moses and the Old Testament law and
its rituals of atonement, but who still have the danger of putting someone or
something in place of Jesus as our primary focus. We tend to become people
worshipers because there are people who are truly great in many ways and
deserved to be honored. But when we honor them to the point that we exalt them
and their ideas above the Lord Jesus we are in danger of idolatry, just as if we
bowed before a golden calf. The point is that Jesus is the greatest in every way, and
anything we do to lessen His greatness in our mind is a rejection of God's
revelation.
Charles Jefferson wrote, "When we leave the New Testament and walk among
the nations of the earth where shall we find a man with whom we should be willing
to compare Jesus of Nazareth? Can you think of an Italian or a German or a
Frenchman or an Englishman or an American whose name is worthy to be linked
with his? The heart draws back shuddering at the suggestion of such a thought
.Great men have come and gone, doing their mighty deeds and leaving behind
names which shall not die, but what race or nation would dare even in its most
egotistic and vainglorious moments to suggest that the most illustrious of all its
sons has a right to sit on a throne so high as the throne of Jesus? His soul is like a
star and dwells apart. He is unique, and unapproachable. He is the incomparable."
When we have this conviction we will not be so enamored by any other greatness to
the point where we neglect our focus on Jesus.
The Hebrew people took a great chance in leaving Egypt and following Moses
into the wilderness. It was a brave risk they took, but it was not enough to get them
into the promised land, for a good start is not the same as a good finish. Many start
great, but end far from great. They were delivered from Egypt, but it was not an
end in itself. The goal was to get into the land of promise, but they failed to enter it.
Jude sums it up in Jude 1:5, "Though you already know all this, I want to remind
you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who
did not believe." Why remind Christians about such folly of the Jews? It is because
the same folly is going on all the time, and people who should be having God's best
are missing out because they have missed the importance of perpetually focusing
on Jesus.
The Old Testament people of God were blessed with an abundance of miracles,
and they had the greatest of leaders, and yet, they still rebelled against God's will
and plan for them. They missed their purpose in life by their constant departing
from obedience. Moses was a marvelous leader, but he risked his life in trying to
lead this people. On one occasion when the people had grown tired and weary
"Moses cried out to the LORD, "What am I to do with these people? They are
almost ready to stone me." (Exodus 17:2-4) Centuries later nothing had changed,
and these people's descendants killed their Messiah. The point of all this folly being
recorded in God's Word is that every generation might see the weakness of human
nature and the tendency toward disobedience. Paul makes this clear in I Cor.
10:9-11, "We should not test the Lord, as some of them did--and were killed by
snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did--and were killed by the
destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written
down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come."
It is because of this tendency that exists for all time in all people that we must
recognize that the greatest focus for all people in all times is to be Jesus. The
quickest way to depart from God and His will is to take our minds off Jesus. The
history of Christian sin and folly can be traced to this one factor, and that is that
believers have filled their minds with something other than Jesus. He has ceased to
be their primary focus in life, and the end result is disobedience to His will, which
brings judgment. Jesus was not just another Moses, a great leader of the house of
God. He was the builder of the house. He has greater honor because of His
superior role in relation to the house of God. He is the Apostle and High priest
whom we confess. He is the one who made us the house of God. The greatest honor
goes to the one who made the beautiful mansion, and not just to the one who
happens to live in it. The glory belongs to the Maker, and that is Jesus.
There are so many distractions in the world and in the church that it is a
constant need to be challenged to focus on Jesus. We can get caught up in
controversy over dozens of issues such as healing, tongues, music, worship styles,
cults and the occult, abortion, war, methods of mission and evangelism, mystical
experiences, and on and on. But none of these are to be the foundation on which we
build, for as soon as we make anything our foundation but Jesus we begin to sink
our part of the house of God, for we are building on sand rather than the solid
Rock. Paul makes this clear in 1Cor 3:10-11, "According to the grace of God
which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and
another builds thereon. But let every man take heed how he builds thereupon. For
other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."
An ancient Irish hymn put the essence of what Hebrews is saying in verse about
making Jesus the greatest focus. Mary Byrne translated it into English.
Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.
The author goes on in verse 2 to stress the faithfulness of Jesus. Moses was also
faithful in God’s house, but the text here does not mention that Moses was unfaithful
once, and that failure led to his not being allowed by God to enter the promised land.
Jesus was not once unfaithful to the will of God. The faithfulness of Jesus is a theme
that runs all through the Bible, and is another reason why we need to keep our focus
on Him, for He is to be our example perpetually in all situations in life. As 13:8
stresses, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” He is ever
faithful. Jesus is even named faithful in the book of Revelation. Revelation 3:14
"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the
faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation.” Revelation 19:11“I saw heaven
standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called
Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war.”
Because He is faithful we can have courage and hope that keeps us on track as part
of the house of God. We can count on Jesus to be with us, to understand us, to forgive
us, and to empower us to overcome all temptations and be victorious in the battles of
life. Because He is ever faithful, we too can be faithful in living in obedience to God,
and not fall away into disobedience. The people of God in the Old Testament doubted
the faithfulness of God and they grumbled and complained and just became
impossible to lead as an obedient house of God. Their unfaithful spirit led to them
missing out on God’s rest, and that is the risk that all take who doubt the faithfulness
of Jesus. Those who take their eyes off Jesus and begin to look elsewhere for security
will find themselves sinking into quicksand when the storms of life come. It is only
when we stay focused on Jesus that we will find He alone can still the storm and
faithfully guide us to shore.
When we stay focused on Jesus and His faithfulness we can be over-comers rather
than quitters, as were the saints of old coming out of Egypt. They just could not
believe that God would be faithful to His promise and lead them into the land of
freedom and rest. They rebelled all along the way, and never made it because of their
rebellion. We need not repeat their folly if we trust in the faithfulness of Jesus to lead
us all the way. He had promised to be with us and lead us to the Father’s house where
He had gone to prepare a place for us. He is faithful to empower us to overcome all
temptation. I Cor. 10:13 says,
“No temptation has seized you except what is common
to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be
tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are
tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you
can stand up under it.”
Because of the faithfulness of God and His Son, we can be assured of victory if we
keep our focus on Him and not on self, or any other foundation. Our confidence and
courage come from our focus on Him and His faithfulness. When we look away to find
our courage and confidence in any other source we risk defeat, and that is why Jesus
is to be our greatest focus. He has been where we are. He knows the trials of
temptation from experience. He knows the pain of rejection and disappointment. He
knows all the sorrows of life, and yet He was faithful to accomplish the will of God
through perfect obedience. He knows it is not easy, but extremely difficult to always be
faithful, and to always be courageous and hopeful. He knows just how much we need
help to even come close to being all God wants us to be. That is why we need to keep
our focus on Him, for there is no one else who can help us as He can.
Verse 6 also refers to the hope of which we boast. It is not only courage but hope
that comes from a focus on Jesus. He is our hope, for there is no other that even offers
us the hope of eternal life. Hope is a key factor in survival in a fallen world. Lose hope
and you lose all reason to continue the battle. As long as there is hope there is reason to
keep pressing on however hard the march. In some of the great marches of war
prisoners many just gave up and laid down and died because they had no hope of
surviving the march anyway. They thought it meaningless to keep going without hope.
They just as well die now as later, and so they did. Viktor Frankl saw the same thing in
the Nazi concentration camp. He saw men who were as healthy as other just lay down
and die because they lost hope. Others went on enduring all the terrible ordeal of
hunger and suffering of all kinds because they never gave up hope. A focus on Jesus is
what gives us an undying hope that keeps us going no matter what. Hopers are never
quitters, and that is why we must never cease to focus on Jesus as our eternal hope.
Jesus is to be our greatest focus just because He is able to do for us what no one else
can ever do. Someone has compiled a list of what Jesus does for us, and this list should
make it clear why He and He alone is to be our perpetual focus all through life. As you
read this list you need only ask yourself, “Is there anyone in my life, or in all of history,
who deserves to have my focused attention more than Jesus?”
He loves us (John 15:13; Rom. 8:35).
He brings us to God (1 Tim. 2:5).
He brings God to us (Col. 1:15).
He bought us for God (Eph. 1:7).
He defends us before God (1 John 2:1).
He declares us "not guilty" (Rom. 3:24; 5:1).
He reconciles us to God (2 Cor. 5:19).
He sets us apart for God (1 Cor. 1:30).
He gives us peace with God (Rom. 5:1).
He makes us acceptable to God (Eph. 1:6).
He forgives us (Eph. 1:7).
He frees us from bondage (Rom. 8;2).
He qualifies us for adoption (Eph. 1:5).
He makes us heirs of God (Eph. 1:11).
He gives us His Spirit (John 14:16-17).
He gives us a new focus (Col. 3:1-2). He lives within us (Col. 1:27).
He brings us into God's family (John 1:12).
He intercedes for us (Rom. 8:34).
He rescues us from Satan's power (Col. 1:13).
He places us into God's kingdom (Col. 1:13).
He gives us eternal life (Rom. 6:23).
He shows us how to live (1 John 2:6).
It is overwhelming to consider all that Jesus has done for us who trust Him as our
Savior. We know we cannot be thinking of Jesus every minute of the day, but He is to
be the focus of our attention wherever we have to make decisions and choices in life.
What would Jesus do? is a valid question to be asking all the time. It is not easy to
answer all the time, but it is where our minds should be focused when we struggle with
issues of all kinds. Christians will differ in how they answer that question, but it is still
the most vital question to be struggling with, for Paul makes it clear in Rom. 14 that
when Christians are convinced in their own minds that they are choosing as Jesus
would choose they are in His will even if they are on opposite sides from other
believers. In other words, if you focus on Jesus and can come to a conclusion that you
are acting in harmony with the mind of Jesus, then you are pleasing in His sight even if
you differ in conviction from fellow believers.
Christians are at all different levels of maturity in their journey of life with Jesus,
and this means their will be different perspectives, but all are pleasing to Jesus when
they are focused on Him as their guide and point of reference. They may be
misunderstanding the perspective of Jesus, but as long as they are seeking to know His
mind they are walking in obedience. Paul says in Rom. 14:5, “Each one should be fully
convinced in his own mind.” When that is the case two Christians may come out with
opposite views on a controversial issue, but each is in God’s will when they are
convinced their perspective is consistent with the mind of Christ. This is the liberty
that we have in Christ. We are not to be legalistic like the Jews and be always bound by
numerous laws that regulate our every action and thought.
We are free in Christ to strive to be like Him. This will mean that some believers
will be offensive to others because they will be in circumstances where they will be
trying to love those that other believers cannot stand and are fighting. You man
despise lawyers, but there are Christian lawyers who are loving them even when they
do evil. You may despise people in all sorts of professions who do what hurts people,
but there are Christians who relate to those people in love and seek to win them to
Christ. You have every right to despise the witch doctors who deceive and manipulate
people with superstition and occult powers, but some believers are inviting them to
their homes and befriending them in hopes of touching them for Christ. You may be
thoroughly convinced that Sunday is the proper day of worship to honor the day that
Jesus rose from the dead, but there are millions who prefer to worship on Saturday to
keep the Sabbath as God first commanded. Can both be right? Yes they can, according
to Paul, for both are striving to focus on the mind of Christ and act accordingly. The
point is, you cannot be wrong when your focus is on Jesus with a desire to do what
pleases Him. You may be short of the ideal, but you still please Him because that is
your will. It is like the child who brings dandelions to mom. It is not the greatest gift
and her ideal, but it pleases her because the motive was to please her. It is an act of love
and she responds in love. So it is with Jesus when we strive to do and think in ways that
please Him. We may fall short of the ideal, but we succeed in our goal just because our
focus is on Him. Ronald E. Guilfoyle has written a poem that illustrates how we are to
point to Jesus as the focus point and not to ourselves.
If you are looking at me...
You are looking at the wrong one.
I have fallen far too short,
But look to what Jesus has done.
Isn't he supposed to be a Christian?,
You look at me and ponder,
Yes, I am. But I am still a sinner.
Sometimes, I even wonder.
All I can tell you is this:
Don't trust in me and my example.
Trust in Jesus' righteousness.
His mercy and grace are ample.
Read of Jesus and His life's works.
Jesus will never lead you astray.
Don't expect me to live sinless,
For I, on the other hand, very well may.
I don't want to mislead you,
Least of all, not by my acts.
Jesus, not I, is the Savior.
That, dear friend, is one of the facts.
You look and ask the question:
Aren't you supposed to do good?
Yes, that is my goal, dear friend.
Yet, I can't succeed as only Christ could.
I can make up excuses all day.
It doesn't make my actions right.
But thank God for Jesus, whose yoke is easy...
And whose burden is light.
When you see me fail, perhaps often...
I'm walking in the flesh.
When I trust fully in God and ask of Him,
God's Holy Spirit fills me afresh.
It is then that I can be
The man God wants me to be.
Not by myself, but by His help...
Only by His grace and mercy.
The bottom line is, Christianity is not a focus on laws; it is not a focus on ritual; it is
not a focus on behavior; it is not a focus on self-sufficiency. It is a focus on a Person.
Christianity is Christ in the heart and mind. It is Christ in you the hope of glory. It is a
focus on Jesus as the greatest Savior, the greatest High Priest and Intercessor, the
greatest Person in our lives for time and eternity. It is a keeping our eyes on Jesus all
through life as the GREATEST FOCUS of our lives.
