Distractions | When Less is More | Pastor Jurie Kriel | Shoreline Church | Message

Good day and welcome to Shoreline. What a privilege it is for us to continue today in this series. But before we do that, we're going to do something we do every week, and that's we're going to say the Shoreline Creed together. So I want to invite you to stand up. If you're watching online, feel free to speak this out loud. These words are good, focusing words that's worth remembering. So are you guys ready? Let's do it. I am loved by God. I cannot earn it. I cannot lose it. I am forgiven and made brand new. In Christ, I live with passion and purpose. I am empowered by the Spirit to be the church in the world and to live this love revolution. Amen? Amen. You're welcome to take a seat. Pastor Rob's been leading us on a series called When Less is More, and he's been taking us on this journey about less food meaning more focus, less comfort means more clout, less minutes for more moments, and less of self for more serving. If you missed last week's message about how we sometimes get in our own way of living in the plans of God, I want to encourage you to get it online. I know it was cold last week. It's cold this week. But you're the brave ones that made it through the cold. So well done. For those of you online, enjoy the blankets. We're here. This is much better.

Okay. But the reality is that we've been journeying through this, and I'm actually going to wrap it up today by speaking through less distraction, more direction. And then next week, Pastor Rob's actually going to start a new series, which is going to be absolutely amazing. So let's do this. Okay. What does it look like to live with less distraction? The walls of the city of Jerusalem was broken down. The year is about 583 B.C. And the city walls were broken down, and the city was burnt, and the people were taken away. This city of God, this city of peace, Jerusalem, is literally two words together, Jaira, Jehovah Jaira, the Lord provides, and Shalom, or peace, right? So Jerusalem, Jaira, Shalom, which basically means the Lord provides peace. But right now, at this point in time, 580 B.C., there is no peace in Jerusalem. In fact, Jerusalem is broken down, and the city is burnt. The people are scattered. The city of peace isn't providing any peace. It isn't living up to its promise, and if anything, it's broken down. City walls were really important at this time. It was the thing that gave a city identity. It was the boundary that kept good people in, and it kept the bad people out. It was the protection of the city. It was the agency of the city. To be able to say, this is the city, if you were inside of the walls, you were part of the city. If a city didn't have walls, it wasn't a city. It was a settlement. It needed walls.

It was the thing that gave it identity. It was the thing that made it sure. But right now, Jerusalem is broken down. The walls have been broken down. There's no protection. There's no identity. There's no clarity, and it isn't living up to its name. It's not providing peace. It's about 140 years after the city was sacked by the Babylonians that Nehemiah is in the Persian Empire, and he hears about the city, and we pick up the story in Nehemiah 1, verse 3. It says, They said to me, to Nehemiah, those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burnt with fire. When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. Broken walls, broken lives. Maybe your walls are a little broken down today. Maybe it feels like your boundaries have been violated. somewhat, or your plans and purpose isn't quite working out the way you hoped, that idea, that ideal that you were living for isn't the current state of your reality. Maybe your walls are broken down and your identity is somewhat unsure as you're trying to navigate failure, or just this feeling of not feeling in control of your space, of your life, of yourself. You're a little exposed, a little vulnerable, a little unsure in the rubble of what life was supposed to be. And sometimes we find ourselves there near Maya as he prays about the city of Jerusalem. He eventually goes to the king of Persia and asks for leave to go back and rebuild the walls, because he wants to restore it. So Nehemiah goes and he gets the resources and he goes back to Jerusalem and he starts rebuilding these walls. He starts repairing the the walls of the city. And as he's in this

process of repairing the walls, this happens in Nehemiah chapter 6 and verse 1. It says, Though up to that time I had not yet set the doors and the gates, Sanbalat and Gishep sent this message to me. Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono. But here's the thing, okay, if somebody calls you for a meeting in the place of Ono, it's a no-no, okay? Because, oh no no no no, you shouldn't go there, okay? When the meeting's in Ono, it's no good, okay? So I'm moving right along. It was a lame joke, right? But it's right, yeah, I mean it's called Ono. Karin's telling me to move along, I'll obey, okay? So the village is in the plain of Ono, but they were scheming to harm me. So I sent messengers to them with this reply, I am carry on, carrying on a great project and cannot come down. Why should the work stop? While I leave it to go down to you, four times they sent me the same message, each time I gave them the same answer. I am doing a great work, I cannot come down from it. God has called you to a great work. Don't be distracted from you. God has called you to build an incredible marriage. Don't be distracted to come down from that wall. God has called you to be a great parent, to make a difference in your workplace, to reach a city for God. Don't come down from the wall and be distracted by your enemies. You've got to stay on the wall. You are busy with a great work. And I want to remind you today that the Lord has called you to a great work. Do it. Don't come down. Don't be distracted from it. Don't let the distractions of this world take you away from the call of God over your life, the great work that He wants you to do, that great thing that you've set out to do. The problem is we live in a world full of distractions. Sure, there's no messengers on horseback coming up to you with a message to come down from a physical wall and they don't invite you to the valley of, oh no, it's not that obvious. Okay, but the reality is we get messages all the day. We get distractions all day. We get pings all day. We get notifications all day. We get people looking for our attention all day. I want to remind you today that God has called you to do a great work. Don't get down from the wall. Okay, let me show you

what I mean. Denise is gonna have a little bit of a competition against me here. And does anybody know something about cup stacking? Anybody ever done this? It's a middle school thing, right? Okay, youth group thing. Some of you are like, man, I'm the champ. Okay, I'm new to this. But Denise has assured me that she'll go slow on me. You're not competitive, are you? Very competitive. Okay, she's very competitive. Okay, so basically, oh my soul, I'm in trouble. Okay, so what's the rules here? Okay, we pack how many? Four at the bottom. And then then what do we do? Four, three. Okay. And then I've got it and then I've got Break it down. Like that. And it's a race. And it's a race. And it's a race. Okay, this is going to be fun. All right. Okay. Hands on the table. Ready? I'm going. Three, two, one, go. Woo! I messed up already. Okay. Now break it down. Break it down. Time! The comeback. The comeback. 17 seconds. It was a comeback.

She won. Okay, she won. She won. Round one, she won. Okay, I'm going to do one more round because I think I can do much better than that. All right. Okay? I'm going to beat you this round, okay? Regular round? Just a regular round. One more round. You have one more chance to lose to me, okay? Okay? All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. You have one more chance to lose to me, okay? All right. All right. You're supposed to let me win. I'm nervous. Okay.

Are you ready? Hands on the table. Okay. Here we go. Three, two, one, go. Go, go, go. Break it down. Break it down. Break it down. All right. Okay. Break it down. Break it down. Break it down. All right. Time, time, time. 20 seconds. Denise wins again. I can do this better. It's the value of O2. Oh, no. It's the value of, oh, no, no, no, no. Okay. Okay. So this time you've beaten me twice, okay? I'm not gonna try again. But have you ever played golf? That's for men. Okay. I've played golf and then I realized I play too much golf.

Because I have, it's not that I played a lot. It's just that it took a long time whenever I played. Because I was looking for the balls all the time. So anyway, so there's this wonderful thing in golf called a handicap. And it kind of helps level out the playing fields. So we're gonna do that a little bit. So that I can win, beat you. I've got to beat you at least once, Denise. So Sean's gonna help us. And what he's gonna do is we're just gonna give you a little handicap. Nothing major. Just a little handicap. All you need to do is he's gonna throw ping pong balls at you. And the only thing you need to do is while we're stacking, you've got to catch the balls. Okay. And then still beat me. But you can't drop the balls. You've got to catch the balls. You ready? Can I drop them after I catch them? You can drop them after you've caught them. But you've got to catch the balls and still beat me. Nothing, it's not difficult at all. It's just a fair handicap. No, it's fair. Are you ready? Ready, ready. Okay. Ready. Three, two, one, go.

Go, go. All together, all together. Time, time. We have a winner. Yeah. Great job. Thank you. So here's the point. Is in life, even if you're really good at this, it's very hard to do when people are throwing ping pong balls at you. Right? And this is what life is like. Right? So here's the point. Is in life, even if you're really good at this, it's very hard to do when people are throwing ping pong balls at you. Right? And this is what life is like. Right? Is you're trying to do a great thing that the Lord has called you to do, but what's happening is every couple of moments, someone is throwing ping pong balls at you. Right? And she's trying to take a picture for social media, so I thought I'll make it interesting. But here's the thing. When people are throwing ping pong balls at you, this is not a good sign. Right? When people are throwing ping pong balls at you, this is not a good sign. And you have to catch them. You can't catch them. You can't catch them.

So you've got to catch them. but what's happening is every couple of moments, someone is throwing ping pong balls at you. Right? And she's trying to take a picture for social media, so I thought I'll make it interesting. But here's the thing, right? You're sitting there, doing the great thing God has called you, and then your phone goes ping, and then the message goes ping, and then you're all good and ready to do the thing God has done. And somebody comes along and said, well, maybe you should be doing that. And why don't you do that? And come by this. And have you seen this? And do you know what my cat just did? Okay? And we spend moment after moment after moment being distracted in building the wall, in doing the thing that God has called us to do, because we're so busy being distracted by other things. We are the most distracted generation in the history of humanity. We're not just being distracted, we are habitually distracted. We're in the habit of being distracted. And we're distracted all the time. There's a lady called Gloria Mark, and she's at UC Irving. And for the last 20 years, she's been studying people's attention. Okay? And as she's studying attention, this is what she found in 2004, when she started her study, the average time a person could focus on a single task easily was about two and a half minutes. Today, it's 47 seconds. It's gone from two and a half minutes to 47 seconds. The average American spends seven hours a day looking at a screen.

The average teenager in America spends eight hours a day looking at a screen. They get two hundred... 137 notifications per day. It's one notification of every four waking minutes. But here's the clinger, is on average, it takes us 23 minutes to regain focus, to regain flow on any given task. So you don't have to be a mathematician to know that if we're being distracted every four minutes and it takes 23 minutes to regain focus, then we're distracted all the time. We're living our lives distracted. We're never really focusing on anything because before we get to focus, we're distracted once again. We're living habitually distracted. We're in the habit of being distracted. We're used to not focusing. We're used to not zoning in on a single task. There's this moment where Jesus goes to a lady's house, it's in Luke chapter 10, verse 38, and it says, and Jesus and His disciples were on their way and they came to the village where a woman named Martha opened her home to Him. She and her sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to Him when He said, listening to what He said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.

The Greek word for distracted here is the word perespoa. And perespoa refers to this idea of being distracted or being dragged around or being mentally torn apart or to be pulled away. And I was reading about this Greek word and I remember a comic strip I used to read when I was young about this caveman that would hit the woman over the head with a club and then pull her by the hair. I'm not recommending this, by the way. I'm just saying that I saw this, okay? But I was reading about this word distraction and I felt just like that woman. I felt like I'm living my life and as I'm doing my thing, it feels like somebody knocks me over the head and drags me around by the hair. It feels like I wake up in the morning and today's gonna be a good day. I'm gonna do what I'm supposed to do. And before I know it, I've been knocked over the head and I've been distracted. I've been pulled by the hair into this direction, into that direction. I just lost 30 minutes on my phone. I have no idea what I did. How did that happen? Don't look at me all holy. You know what I'm talking about. That endless mind scrolling of being distracted.

You're focused, I'm gonna do a great thing for God. And then you see a ping come up with a little news article and before you know it, you're angry about what they're angry about. And then you get another ping and you want what they want. This new product's gonna make me happy. We live our entire lives being torn apart from distraction to distraction to distraction. It becomes our entire way of being. But the story doesn't end there because Jesus later on in the story makes a statement and He says, Martha, Martha, the Lord answered. You're worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her. I love how Jesus says, Martha, Martha. And I was reading this and I felt like they were saying, Yuri, Yuri. He didn't just say her name once, she needed to hear it twice. She needed to hear more than once. She needed, he was getting her attention. And maybe you need to hear God saying today, hey, come on, Yuri, Yuri, pay attention. Stop being dragged around by everything around you. Stop being taken from this side to that side.

Get out of the habit of being distracted. We're not just habitually distracted. I think we're systematically distracted as well. It's not just something we do out of our own human habits. I think there's a system designed in this world to distract us because the reality is that the world is distracting, but it's not just accidentally so. I think it's intentionally so. I think the system is designed that way. I recently wrote a book. It was published late last year. It's called Hitting the Ball You Cannot See. And I had the privilege of working with some incredible people on this book about the future of the faith and how the world is changing quicker than what we can keep up. Anybody else feels like the world is changing quicker than what you can keep up? So I was feeling the same way, and I realized that the Jesus-following Christianity needed answers to the way the world was changing. In fact, I didn't even understand how the world was changing. So we, after months and months and years and years of work, we figured out that there's six major shifts happening in the world right now. And the book is about how do we respond to these different ways that the world is changing.

By the way, if you want to get a hold of one of them, they're available on different places. You can just go to next.pub, NXT.pub, not as in a pub, but as in publishing. But there's an audio on Spotify and different places you can get a hold of it. They'll also have it in the lobby, by the way, if you want to get a hold of the book. But as part of researching for the book, I discovered this guy that in 1971 made a statement. Okay, 1971, before the invention of the internet, before the invention of smartphones, okay, before cellphones even, 1971, Herbert Simon was a smart guy. He eventually would go on to win the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1978. But in 1971, he realised something. He realised that as the world was changing, information was becoming more and more abundant. There was more and more information around. It would be easier and easier for people to access information. And this is what he realised. He realised that a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. And he coined something called the attention economy. And he said somewhere in the future, the greatest commodity, the last scarce commodity that people will fight over is the attention of people. And we live in an age where that is the scarcity,

that is the commodity that everybody's fighting for. If you're running a business today, it's less important whether or not you're providing the best product. The question is, are you getting the attention of people on your product? If you think about it, then all the people working at all the social media and all the media companies, what are they fighting for? They're fighting for your attention. Because why? If they can get hold of your attention, they'll get hold of your time. And if they get hold of your time, they'll get hold of your money. They'll get hold of your heart. And we live in an attention economy where socialists and psychologists and economists are all studying to do one thing, and that is grab a hold of your attention. They want to get a hold of your attention. And so we live in a world where we're not just distracted habitually. We're distracted systemically in the system that we live in. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 2, Paul actually speaks about this. He says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Do not conform to the pattern of this world. It's interesting, this pattern of this world concept is the Greek word aion. And what it refers to is not a pattern per se,

but it's almost like the mass of thoughts, the sum of ideas, the stream of ideas that we live in, the cultural current that we're around, the mental atmosphere that we live in. We live in a cultural current that is after your attention, that is fighting for the moments in your day, that is fighting for your eyes, that is fighting for your attention. Every ping you get on your cell phone, every little red dot is designed to give you that dopamine shot that gets you to go back to it. Why? Because if they can get your attention, they can get your heart. Do not be conformed. Do not be sucked in. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not against technology. I don't think technology is the enemy. The reality is that technology is like money. It's a great servant, but it's a terrible master. The question is, what are you being mastered by? Are you giving in to the system? Are you mindlessly going along with the current of distraction and it's getting you off the wall? Senior Maya said, I'm doing a great work and I'm not stepping off this wall to be distracted. What is that thing that God has called you to? What is that thing that God wants to do in your life that you should not get off the wall to go and do? What is that relationship that you should be building, that marriage you should be investing in,

that difference you should be making in your workplace that you shouldn't be distracted from? Don't let the current of this world overwhelm you. The disciples find themselves on a boat in a storm. And in the midst of the storm, Jesus comes walking to them. And in Matthew chapter 14 verse 28, Peter replies to Jesus and he says, Lord, if it is you, tell me to come to you on the water. Come, Jesus replied. Then Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind. He was afraid and began to sink and cry out, Lord, save me. Immediately, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. You have little faith, he said. Why did you doubt? The moral of the story is simply this. You can do extraordinary things if you have extraordinary focus on Jesus. But you cannot do extraordinary things if you don't have extraordinary focus on Jesus. If you start being distracted by what's happening around you, if you're looking at the currents of this world, if you're looking at the waves and the wind that's coming your way, I wanna tell you, when we lose our focus, we lose our ability to do extraordinary things. God has called you to great work. Stay on the wall. Don't get down from that wall

to go to the Valley of Oh No to go and have a discussion that you shouldn't be having. Stay focused on Jesus. Keep your eyes on him. God has called you to extraordinary things. Maybe you're listening to me today and you're thinking, well, this is great, but how do I do this? I want this, but I don't know how. And I wanna quickly give you two keys on how to live a focused life, okay? So if you're taking notes, if you're taking notes online, this is a great time to write down a couple of things, okay? So there's two things that I believe will help us keep focused. The first thing is we've gotta restore the lost art of biblical meditation. We've gotta bring it back. And I know some of you are going, okay, wait, hold on, meditation, I thought, I didn't know that was a good thing. Okay, let me tell you, not all meditation is a good thing because there is some meditation that's all about emptying your mind. That's not what I'm talking about. Biblical meditation is not about emptying your mind, it's about filling your mind with the truth. It's not about focusing on nothing, but it's actually about focusing on God. It's not a meditation that leads to detachment from reality,

it's a meditation that leads to an attachment to God, okay? That's biblical meditation. And I think it's something that's been lost. It's something that the Bible is full of. If you go to Joshua 1, verse 8, it says, keep this book of the law always on your lips, meditate on it day and night. Meditate on it day and night. The Hebrew word here is haggah. And haggah is this concept of muttering or it actually literally means growling, the word haggah. So it says growl the word of God or mutter the word of God. And the reason this word for meditation was such is that the Jews used to do that. They used to study the word of God and then repeat it to themselves over and over and over again. In fact, if you still go to some Orthodox Jewish communities, you'll still see them muttering the word of God. They'll literally sit for hours and just say the Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. And they would meditate on that one phrase or that one word for hours. I'm not canvassing for some religious ritual,

but what I wanna remind you of is that we're supposed to fill our minds with the word of God. But we live in a society that is so distracted that we don't even make it to I, the Lord is my shepherd. We're the Lord, ping. Oh, what is that? The cat did what? And we're lost. It's over, we're done. Right, because we've lost the ability to meditate. We've lost the ability to dwell on. We've lost the ability for the word to indwell our thoughts, to wash us with the words, to come and make it home within us and for us to understand what it is all about. We've lost the art of biblical meditation. We've lost the ability to hug God, the ability to meditate on, to think upon, to ponder upon, to allow the word to grow in our hearts and to see the deeper meaning and the deeper understanding because we're so distracted. We've got to restore our ability to meditate on the word of God. We've got to restore our ability to dwell on what God is saying. What is the great work that He has called you to? What is your wall? What is that space that He wants to make a difference in your life?

What is this word over your marriage, over your raising of your kids, over your doing what you do every day? What is God's purpose for your life? Are you meditating on it? Are you dwelling on it? Or are you just running off to the next thing that society's pushing your way? You're just going off to one thing, to the next thing, to the next thing. We've got to learn the art of biblical meditation. So this idea of Haggai shows up in Isaiah 31 verse four. It says. It says, as a lion growls, a great lion over its prey. What's interesting about this verse is this is Haggai, right? So as a lion growls, or as a lion meditates, a great lion over its prey. And though a whole band of shepherds is called together against it, it is not frightened by their shouts or disturbed by their clamor. The idea here is of a lion over its prey. Now, I haven't seen a lion do this, but we have a little shih tzu, okay? Again, when Luna gets something she really likes, okay? It's a very manly dog we have, a shih tzu. But when Luna gets over her prey, right? When she gets over that cookie, when she gets over that bone that she really likes, her whole body goes over it,

and she starts growling over it. And if you come close, it'll be your last day. You will die because she's growling over it. She's saying, this is mine. That's what it means to meditate on the Word of God. When last have you taken hold of it like a lion over its prey and saying, I'm not coming down from this wall. I'm not stepping away from this belief. I'm not giving up on what God has given me. Because of your distractions, I'm gonna hold you. Come close to this, and you are dead because this is who I am, and this is what I believe. This is the Word of God. That's what it means to meditate upon the Word of God. We've lost the art of meditation. The second thing is that I think we've got to build some boundaries again. We've got to reclaim our agency. We've got to reclaim the agency God has given us. God has given us the ability to choose. Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 19 says, this day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curses. Now choose life. Now choose life. God has given you the ability to choose. Just like Nehemiah built a wall to say that this is my agency, this is my domain,

this is my space. We've got to build a wall in our lives again. We've got to take the boundaries back. We've allowed boundaries to be violated every moment of every day, to be interrupted by different things happening in our lives. We've given up on our agency. God has given you the ability to choose. Don't just go with the flow, choose. Yes, life and death. Yes, opportunities all around. But don't just go with it. Don't let others choose for you. God in his divine wisdom has given you the ability to choose. Choose, choose life. Grab a hold of it. Don't just endlessly, infinitely scroll. Because I want to tell you that scrolling removes your choice to stop. Don't let auto-playing videos try and remove your choice to pause. And don't let notification remove your choice to focus. Don't let your life just go according to these things because it doesn't have your best interests at heart. The system that designs these things, again, I'm not against it, but I'm just saying they're not thinking how do we create flourishing, well-balanced people

that will live the call of God upon their lives. They're just thinking how do they get your attention? What will get and keep their attention for as long as possible? We're living in a world that is after distracting us. Don't let it. You be its master. Technology is a great tool in the hand of masters, but if you make technology your master, if you make social media, general media, or anything else your master, you're giving away your God-given agency. Life and death is before you. Choose life. Take control back over your life. I don't know how you're gonna do that, but I can give you some examples that has worked. Suggestions, not rules. Okay, but here's a couple of things. Number one, audit your notifications. How many notifications a day do you get? And here's the question about every one of those pings on your cell phone. Is it worth the next 23 minutes of your life? Because it'll take you 23 minutes to get back to it. So if it's not worth the next 23 minutes, don't let it ruin your life. Don't let it ping your phone. Switch it off. You have the power to do it.

I'm not saying isolate from the world. When you wanna go to your notifications, go to it, but be very careful what you allow to come to you. Be very careful. Audit your notifications. Number two, create phone-free zones. phones in your life. Okay, this is tough for some of you, right? Because if you leave your cell phone behind, you feel like you can't breathe, okay? I get it. Some of you just felt, where is it? Where is it? Okay, I get it. Well, just for a moment, just understand for a moment that you're able to live without it. And if you miss it, so what, right? If you miss that notification, even if you miss that call every now and then, is it that bad? So we've taken a thing we do as a family whenever we go out for a meal, is everybody has to put their cell phones in the middle of the table, and whoever takes the phone first gets to pay the bill. It works like a charm. Listen, you're putting your teenage son's pocket money at risk, and suddenly they're all in on the conversation. They're not interested in that phone one bit.

But I wanna tell you, we're having great conversations. Why? Because nobody's on their phones. And whoever's gonna take up their phone, it's gonna cost them. But we create phone-free zones. What are the phone-free zones in your life? What are those moments that you wanna, I wanna tell you, guys, marriage conference is coming up. It's gonna be amazing. Can I give you some pre-marriage conference advice? Don't invite Instagram on your date night. Not speaking from experience, just saying. There's no way that it's good for your date night for you to scroll through what everybody else in the world is doing. It doesn't matter. Be present, be there. Stay on the wall, fight for your marriage. Don't be called down by this, that, and the other. We've gotta create focused moments in our lives. Third thing is the 23-minute rule, is remember that everything you do is gonna take you at least 23 minutes to get back into the zone. And make sure that when you set out time, you set out time for this, what would happen in your life if you gave God 25 uninterrupted moments? Or if you gave your wife or your husband

25 uninterrupted moments, when last did you give your kids 25 uninterrupted moments? When last did you give yourself 25 uninterrupted moments? When last did you take the time to truly focus and do your work? When last did you do your job for 25 minutes without being interrupted? What would happen if you actually thought about your life for longer than 25 minutes without someone else's agenda, someone else's idea, or someone else's latest meme that they forwarded hitting your face? What could happen if we just took back our agency and we took control of our lives once again? And then think about Digital Sabbath. What could it look like to put times aside where you're saying, you know what? I love the stuff, I engage the stuff, but these moments are focused moments where I'm not gonna allow it into my life. Nehemiah was building a wall. And four times they came to him with a message. He was putting the wall together. And as he got higher and higher, they felt more and more like it was time to come and get him. And every time they called him, every time they sent a ping pong his way, he gave them the same message. God has called me to do a great work.

And I'm not stepping down from it. What has God called you to do? What great work has God set out for your life? Which things has He given you to build? And which distractions have He left you to deal with? Have you allowed to send you astray? I love the end of the story. Nehemiah chapter six, verse 15. It says, so the wall was completed on the 25th of Elul in 52 days, when all our enemies heard about this. Remember the enemies that sent the messengers? When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God. You can do extraordinary things when you have extraordinary focus on God. You can walk over the wall. The storms of this life, however bad they can be, you can rise above the difficulties. You can build the wall in a supernatural way if you stay on it. If you'll keep your eyes on Him, you can walk on the water and He will help you. He will help you. The Lord, the work had been done with the help of our God. May we be people that are extraordinarily focused with the help of our God. Amen.

Would you stand with me as we pray together? In a moment, as we stand, some of you are gonna feel like there's an opportunity to get off this wall, to get out of this building and to get into your car, to make it to lunch or to make it to wherever you wanna go. I can't stop you from staying in this moment and I'm not trying to shame anybody that needs to leave right now. But I just wanna ask you a question for a moment. Is it worth rushing out of this room for whatever you're rushing for at the cost of just having a focused moment with Jesus? So we're gonna pray and our eyes are gonna be closed and if you need to go, you need to go. You do you. But I wanna tell you what I'm gonna do. As I'm gonna for the next couple of moments, I'm not gonna worry about what needs to happen next or where we need to go for lunch or what needs to happen this afternoon. You know what? I'm sick and tired. Of all the invitations to the Valley of Ono. I'm sick and tired of all the things that's pulling me away from an extraordinary focus on God so that I can do an extraordinary work in my life. That's the life I wanna live. That's the expression I wanna have is not running from thing to thing to thing

but spending my entire life meditating on the Word of God like a lion over its kill, going this is what God has given me to do and I will not be distracted. I will not be pulled away from this. I am not gonna run up and down and up and down and up and down this wall. I'm gonna build the wall that God has called me to build. You can have this whole world. You can have my every notification and all that is on the interweb but give me Jesus. You can have my lunch this afternoon but give me Jesus. Sometimes less indeed is more. Give me Jesus. Lord, we come before You today and Lord with all of our hearts, with all of our minds, with every distraction laid aside, Father, every priority and message and need, Father, we wanna lay it all aside and we just wanna focus on You for a moment in time. We just wanna give all our attention, all our affection and we wanna say, Lord, we wanna know You more than anything else. We wanna serve You. So Holy Spirit, I pray

that in these moments as we take all of our attention and our focus and we put it on You, Lord, I pray that the great work that You have called us to will rise to the top and Lord, we will become more and more aware of the fact that You are the one that are helping us to do just that. You can have this whole world. Just give us Jesus. I don't want anyone else. I don't need anything else. You are my one thing. You are my one thing. I don't want anyone else. I don't need anything else. I don't need anything else You are my one thing I don't want anyone else I don't need anything else You are my one thing I don't want anyone else I don't need anything else You are my one thing You are my one thing Give me Jesus You can have all this world Give me Jesus You can have all this world

Lord in this moment of surrender Lord I pray that you will establish A murmuring, a focusing A habitual meditation on your truth and your call And your presence in our lives In Jesus name With every head bowed and every eye closed I do want to take a moment If you've never made a decision To say yes to Jesus The fact that he came from heaven to earth To dine across for your sins So that there needs to be no distance Between you and God anymore But you can live in a living relationship with God Not because of what you've done But because of what Jesus has done for you If you've never taken the moment To respond to his invitation Or maybe you have and you've slipped away We want to make an opportunity for you today To say yes to the life that he is calling you into To say yes to a living relationship with God So if that's you with no one looking around Would you mind just putting your hand up in the air And saying I need to respond to that today I need to say yes to Jesus I see your hands going up Anybody else needs to say yes today I see you

I see you over there Can we pray out loud and together Whether as a reaffirmation today Or for the very first time Dear Lord Jesus Thank you for dying on this cross for my sins I accept you as my Lord and Saviour And I will live for you From this day on Forevermore In Jesus' name, Amen If you've just responded There's a sign on your right That says made brand new And Pastor Oscar is ready to give you a Bible And some resources If that's what you're looking for We'd love to go on this journey with you As you walk this God journey together I want to remind you guys Wednesday night Don't miss out on the opportunity To come and worship together The prayer team is coming to the front right now If you have any prayer needs We would love the opportunity To stand with you in prayer May this be an amazing God focused week Have a great week Amen