How Satan Uses Distraction to Pull You Away from God | Screwtape Letters Week 1

Whatever you do, don't let him think. This line comes from a book written over 80 years ago by a brilliant Christian, C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest minds of the last century. He wrote the Narnia Chronicles, The Problem with Pain, Mere Christianity, wrote a ton of great books. Screwtape, the book is a series of letters written from the senior demon Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood. Wormwood is a rookie demon who has been given the assignment to pull one person away from God. Over the next five weeks, we're reading the Screwtape letters together as a window into how the enemy operates on the earth, how he impacts a life, and answering all those questions with scripture. Somewhere in the strategy, there could be a letter written about you. It might not be about an affair. It might not be about a scandal that ends up on the evening news. It might be more about your phone, your calendar, the events, the way you wake up in the morning and reach for this, the very first thing before you ever reach out for God, the way your mind has not been quiet in front of your heavenly father for longer than maybe you can remember. See, the enemy is not all that worried about making you fall.

See, a fall is loud. A fall gets your attention, and your attention is the one thing that he's trying to keep away from God. He would rather you stay busy, distracted. He would rather have you scroll right past the voice of God and never even notice that God was there. Understand that this book that C.S. Lewis wrote, he's using a literary device to teach spiritual lessons, almost certain there's not a demon sitting at a desk actually writing letters to another demon about your life. Lewis made that part up, but the strategy in the letters, it's real. It's ancient, and it's working on more of us than we realize. If you're born again, to catch this phrase, it's gonna be on the screens. The enemy can't have your soul, but he's after your attention. And if we can be raw and real today, for many of us under my voice, he has more of your attention than you know. In a normal day, how much, God thought, is there in your life? How much time do you notice God is with you? How much time do you spend, as the Bible says, in an attitude of prayer that doesn't cease? Or are you simply so busy in the work, workaday, all the stuff that you never notice? Today, we're gonna dive into those distractions.

Who's fired up to be in the house of God this weekend? Come on, somebody. Wow. Welcome to all of our campuses. We're so thrilled you're with us. God behind bars, men and women, we love you. Those of you online, stoked that you're with us. Maybe you're listening later. We are super excited to have you with us. If you're a guest, you picked a great weekend, and I wanna challenge you to come to all five weekends on the Spiritual Warfare series, because God has a word for all of us. Now, we're gonna discuss this warfare that we're talking about today in three levels. Level one is external. Your attention that is fractured most of the days. Can we acknowledge our attention stays fractured? See, the enemy doesn't need some drastic temptation. He just needs to keep your eyes moving and your thumb scrolling. The clutter does all the work for him. Lewis saw this plainly even almost a century ago, long before a smartphone was ever invented. In letter one, Screwtape writing to Wyrmwood, brags about one of his patients, someone he was tempting, who was in the library, and while he was in the library, he began. and seriously having some God thoughts. The demon doesn't argue with him that there is no God.

The demon doesn't send some great temptation. He just reminds him it's time for lunch. About that time the man goes up, walks out into the street, busy, got the newsboy, got the buses, got all the noises of ordinary life, did the rest. And the dangerous train of thought was derailed by distractions. See, the enemy didn't need a better argument. All he needed, the man was hungry and thinking about something else. And your phone, our phone, come on somebody, it runs that play a thousand times a day, doesn't it? Come on. My precious. The precious. Some of y'all can't let it out of your sight. Come on, you gotta feel for it, reach for it. In a research by Dr. Gloria Mark at UC Irvine, tracked how long people's attention span is to a single screen. In 2004, it averaged two and a half minutes. Today, it's 47 seconds that our attention stays on a screen. But when something has your attention and you're interrupted study shows it takes 23 minutes to completely get your focus back on what you're doing. Think of how many interruptions you have during the day. And multiply that by 23 minutes of how little time that you're actually able to focus. When was the last time you were fully in one moment with God or with somebody you loved

without reaching for your phone? We don't even know we do it anymore, do we? It's automatic, it's our DNA. So layer one is external, layer two is internal. This war is fought. It's underneath, it's the noise that sits inside us as the low hum of anxiety. See, distraction is not just a habit, it's an antiseptic, anesthetic. They say that word. Somebody help me out. Antiseptic, no, that's not the right word. What they put you to sleep with? That. I just see if you were listening. You get 65 and you can't think of words anymore. See, it's just, it keeps us busy. See, part of being busy is not having to feel what we would feel if we got quiet. Philippians chapter four, six, and seven says, don't be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, but present your request to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Now, we all want the peace of God, right? Anybody wants some shalom, some peace of God? See, the peace of God is promised to the mind that brings the anxiety to God instead of drowning it out with distractions.

If your soul, you got quiet right now, what do you think you might hear that you might not want to? It's inside. Layer three is why this war. See, a scattered attention is ground, the empty is the enemy is glad to hold because it's the ground that God is not standing on. God is not standing on the divided mind, the anxious, the frustrated. God is standing in the mind of peace. First Peter 5, eight, be alert, be sober-minded. The enemy, your enemy, the devil, is prowling around looking for someone to what? Devour, and when we're distracted, when we're just busy, busy, run, run, we never realize God is with me, he's right beside me. The enemy walks in and we never even notice it. See, sober and alert is the opposite of scattered and numb. What if the reason that you feel so scattered is not a scheduling problem? What if it's the target on your back to keep you distracted from what matters most? The number one question we got the last several weeks, if you're new, people have been sending you questions about spiritual warfare, and a lot of you submitted the same question in a lot of different forms, and we just sort of put them all together. The number one question is how can I tell the difference?

between a spiritual attack and an ordinary life? It's great. The honest answer is that the enemy loves to work through the ordinary. He loves to work through the ordinary, which is why the ordinary is when the battle is won or lost. We think it's some spiritual thing that we got going over here every now and then. No, it's won or lost every day how we live. And the enemy is whispering about your identity and it sounds so reasonable. The lie that the devil tells us, something like this, and it's so pervasive in our culture. The scattered, exhausted, half-present version of you is just who you are right now. It's just your phase of life. This is adulting. This is normal. Everybody lives like this, so just get used to it. So we don't look for peace. We don't look for joy. We don't look to walk 24-7 with God. We just go ahead and surrender and let the enemy keep us running on the rat race. Because hey, even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat. See, you are not a product of the algorithm farming your information to sell it to corporate America. If you're born again, you're a son or daughter of God.

You were born again to know God and experience God and walk in the peace that passes on to understanding and walk in victory and walk in joy and walk in gifts and walk in just the glory of God, a mind at peace because the presence of God is with you. That is the birthright of every believer. It's come on, it's not just, come on, that's right. Give Him some praise. It's not just out there for a select few. It's not just for the monks who live in a cave or it is for anybody that knows Jesus. You can have that life. 2 Corinthians 10, five says we demolish arguments in every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And we take captive every thought and we make it obedient to Christ. Those are fighting words. And it assumes that we all know that the battle is being fought right here in our minds, in our hearts, that we are gonna take captive. I don't have to be anxious. My Bible says being anxious for nothing. I don't have to worry. I don't have to frustrate. Jesus said, don't worry about tomorrow. Let tomorrow's problems be tomorrow. Walk with me today. The scripture has the answers. The devil wants us distracted.

That's why Romans 12 too. Don't be conformed to the pattern of this world. What's the pattern of this world? Distracted. It's just distracted. And don't be conformed to this world, but be renewed. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. See, real change comes by a renewed mind. And that's exactly the opposite of a distracted, numb, anxious mind. Question two lands right here. The second most asked question about this series that people knew that we were gonna do is can the devil put a thought in your head? And the answer is yes. He can suggest, he can accuse, he can distract. But what helped me so much in this was realizing that a thought is not a sin. You can't help that a bird lands in your hair, but you can sure stop him from building a nest. And so a thought pops up, that's not a sin. And the devil can't make you keep that thought or act on that thought or do anything with that thought. Name the thought. Hey, Jesus, I just had this thought. It was a bad thought. Remove that thought. Fill my mind with things that are pure and excellent and lovely and praiseworthy. Let me ask you, when was the last time

that your prayers have hunger for God instead of a to-do list running underneath it all? Scrooge said it plainly. The best move of all is to keep a person from ever seriously intending to pray in the first place. How much time do we spend in prayer? See, this is what that means is vague, drifting, half-intentive prayer. It's not a personality quirk or a busy season. It's the enemy stated goal for your prayer life. When was the last time you read scripture without checking your watch? See, I'm reading, oh, so good, Lord. Oh, I got 23 more minutes. Did I just get distracted? Absolutely. How long till I get refocused? Come on, it is, listen, the enemy pulls it out every day and shoots it in his gun. See, we're the patient in these letters. These letters are written about. But let me tell you, the patient right here is not powerless. Great is he that is in me that he that's in the world. The enemy cannot have your soul if you're Jesus's, but he's after your attention. And he's gifted after thousands of years of distracting people. Let me give you probably the best overall revelation of this in Luke chapter 10, Mary and Martha.

It's in Luke chapter 10, starting in verse 38. Now, as they were traveling along, he, Jesus, entered a village. Woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister called Mary who was sitting at the Lord's feet listening to his word. But Martha was what? Distracted with all of her preparations. And she came up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Tell her to help me. But the Lord answered and said, Martha, Martha, take a chill pill, get a Xanax, have a Valium. You are worried and bothered about so many things, but only one thing is necessary. For Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken from her. Now, let's look at that for a minute. Let's think about what those few verses we just read. Martha invites Jesus to come to her house, which he did regularly, come to her house and have a meal. She's hospitable. She's a servant. She's doing good, necessary things for Jesus and the disciples. Her sister Mary is in the living room, sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to the living word of God. Now, that sitting at his feet, that little phrase is doing more work than we realize.

Because sitting at a teacher's feet was the official posture of a disciple in training. Paul uses the same phrase when he said, I sat at the feet of Gamaliel, the most respected rabbi of his generation. In that culture of those days, no rabbi ever took a woman as a student, never. Mary has taken a seed she was never supposed to have. Then when Martha objects, Jesus defends Mary's right to keep the seed at one of his disciples. Mary's not being lazy, she's being discipled. And Jesus says so. In verse 40, Jesus said, Martha, you are distracted by all these preparations and all this stuff. Luke, in using the word distracted, it's the only time that word is used in the entire New Testament. The word distract is perispato, which means, again, it only appears, it means to be pulled apart or to be dragged around in multiple directions at one time. Our English word distracted come from a Latin word that has the same picture. It means to be ripped or pulled apart. See, Martha is not merely unfocused. She's being torn into pieces. And notice what's tearing her, the same thing that's pulling many of us apart.

She's not distracted by sin. She's not looking at porn. She's not thinking about doing something horrible. She's distracted from being with Jesus by serving Jesus. And man, do we do that in church today? The enemy is so glad to let you use a good thing and miss the best thing. Good is the enemy of great. He doesn't need to drag you into some scandal to pull you down if he can rip you apart with a to-do list. Have you ever noticed a to-do list never gets to done? And yet we get so wrapped up in it. And let me tell you about distraction. Distraction doesn't stay neutral. Martha brings Jesus in, invites him in, and then she gets bitter. Lord, don't you even care? You hear that? Don't you care? She was in there gladly serving, now she's angry. Don't you care? See, distraction tells you that God doesn't care, that you're the only one, that life is not fair, that nobody sees you, that you're doing it all alone. This is not a scheduling problem. This is the voice of the accuser. It's what he does, gets us busy, and then we get mad at God about it. Scripture is clear about the enemy operation. Jesus said in John 8, the devil is a liar

and the father of lies. Revelation chapter 12 calls him the accuser of the brethren. Paul warns in 2 Corinthians 2.1, we are not unaware of his schemes. That's what this series, these five weeks, don't miss one, is all about. It is making you aware of how the enemy operates, because some of you are out there thinking, I never thought being distracted was a tool of the devil. Does that make sense? You just thought you were busy, you thought it was the season of life. No, it's a ploy to keep you away from the presence of God. It says in Ephesians 6.11, Paul tells the Ephesian church, take your stand against the devil's schemes. Where again, Peter warns us in 1 Peter 5, your enemy is like a roaring lion roaming about seeking someone to devour. The devil's not the horror movie kind of villain that we see, he's a liar, he's an accuser. And Jesus said, he's a thief that comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. If he can't take your soul, he'll make you busy. He'll rob your joy, he'll rob your peace, he'll rob your testimony, he'll rob you from the presence of God. He can't pull you away, he can't go to heaven and erase your name

in the last book of life, but he can sure get you so multi-focused, so distracted, so double-minded that you're missing everything that good. So the devil would rather keep us busy, distracted and never notice that God's in the room. So what does Jesus do? Martha, Martha, take a chill pill. In the Greek, it's chill pill. He said, chill out. You're worried and upset about so many things. Come on, how many of us should wear a T-shirt? I'm worried and upset about so many things. I'm bothered about a milk, come on. Are y'all know what I'm talking about? Do not make me come to your house this afternoon. It's what we do. Martha, you're worried and upset about so many things, and a few things are necessary, and really, indeed, only one. And then comes a quiet, just a quiet wordplay that you might miss. The phrase, she picked that which is better, literally is that Mary picked the good portion. What's a portion? It's what Martha's doing in the kitchen, making everybody's portion their meal. She's dividing up the food into portions, but Mary chose a different portion. She chose the best portion.

What does the Psalmist pray in Psalm 16? Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup. It's him. So at a dinner party, the Jesus is there. While the food gets cold, Mary picked the dish that never runs dry. She put her bucket in the well that always is full. See, a distracted life is built around so many things. A faithful life is built around one. David prayed in Psalms 27, four, this one thing I ask of the Lord, this one thing do I seek. Our theme verse for the year, my soul longs for you, my flesh cries out for you. Psalms 46, 10, be still. Be still and know that I'm God. Stop, just chill, stop. What did the Bible say in Mark one about Jesus? He rose before the sun and went to a solitary place to pray. See, Luke places this story between the good Samaritan and Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray. It's right here in this position on purpose because he tells us that we should serve. He tells the story of the good Samaritan. Go and do, what did he say? Go and do likewise. Then we see the distraction. Mary's sitting at his feet, and then we see the instructions about prayer. Serving matters, but serving that never sits

turns into resentment. Y'all with me? Resentment. Martha had Jesus, the Son of God, in her home, and she missed it. Why? Swirling thoughts. So much to do. Come on, isn't that how we end up at church today? Again, if you're a believer, the enemy can't have your soul, so he's after your attention. And we never even realize, because our focus is not on the devil, we're not thinking about him, no, no. We're just not thinking about God either. So what's the solution? Well, I would start by building an appointment. Mary's seated at the feet of Jesus can be your seat. You can follow the pattern the Lord did while it was early in the morning, he got up. I do it early in the morning because I wanna experience God before I look at my phone, before I do anything else. I wanna hear from heaven before I hear from the world. Because I know the world is out there, I know the battle is in here, the battle's out there, and the battle's all around. And so I wanna get with God. God, I need you this morning.

God, I love you this morning. Father, I want your face more than I want your hand, more than I wanna give a list of the things that I need or the church needs. Lord, I just wanna climb up in your lap. I just wanna feel your arms. I wanna feel your spirit. I wanna hear your voice. My sheep hear my voice and they follow me, Jesus said. I wanna come on somebody. I wanna be so hungry for God that I'm not sitting there looking at my clock. When is this gonna be over? I just wanna be lost. In my journal, I'll say to it, let me just be engulfed by your spirit. I wanna be, I just wanna bask. Come on, I wanna bask in who you are. Are you hungry for God or is to-do list just too important? Man, come on, church. How about getting up and sitting down? Don't even look at the phone. Just sit for two minutes. I'm gonna be still and know that you're God. I'm gonna. Let's go. Lord, just call me. Just move in. Come on.

Then open your Bible, begin to pray. See, let's go to scripture before we go to a screen. Let's go to God before we go to an algorithm. Are y'all with me? Do it for seven days, see how it changes. Do it. Set your mind on things above where Christ is seated. Not on things that are below. But here's the deal. Most of us, if we can be honest, the bulk of our attention is on things below. Is that fair? Is that fair? It's on things below. Why? Is it because you don't love God? No, you love God. It's because the enemy's got you so distracted and you never knew it was him. And so we had to make some decisions. Now listen, you can't white knuckle gut this out. You can't willpower this out. It's not how it works. You've gotta surrender this out. You've gotta get before God and say, Psalms 51, 12, make me want to. Change my desires, change my heart, change my hunger. Make me wanna be with you. Break my heart for you.

It is coming before him and acknowledging he's gotta make you, are y'all, does this make sense? That come on, Lord, make me wanna do this. You can't gut this out. That's not willpower. Those that walk in the flesh can't please God, Romans 8.8. It's all about what the spirit does. And so we gotta do it. Now some of us, there's no relationship because all you are is religious. The Pharisees were religious. They tithed. They had the whole Old Testament memorized. They went to church every day. And Jesus, the Messiah, the son of the living God, was sitting on the couch with them, pleasing the dead, opening blind eyes, opening deaf ears, making the lame walk, healing the paralytic, curing the leper, doing everything the Bible said the Messiah would do, and they were so distracted, so blinded, Jesus was in their very midst, and they missed him. I wonder if Jesus is close to you. to us, and some of us are missing him because we're religious. We're checking a box. Jesus said, hey, many will say unto me that day, Lord, Lord, we did all kind of good stuff. Depart from me, you work of iniquity,

for I never knew you. There was never an intimate relationship. Do you know Jesus? Does Jesus know you? If you're ready to begin a relationship with one that can give you peace, that passes all understanding, if you're ready to walk out of a life of anxiety, if you're ready to walk, can I tell you something? God is ready to move into your heart and life. He's ready to change your heart. Matter of fact, the Bible says, I'll take out your heart of stone and I'll give you a heart of flesh and I'll place my spirit within you, thus said the Lord, through the prophet Ezekiel. God wants to do a radical work. He wants to walk with you every day. He wants to give you peace. He wants to give you victory. He wants to give you joy. And when everybody else was rubbing their hands, said, what are we gonna do? You got your hands raised and said, God, you got all this under control. You got it, God. Hey, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna rejoice in the Lord. So if you're ready for a life like that, with every head bowed and every eye closed, it's gonna lead us in a simple confessional prayer.

Pray this prayer with me. We're gonna pray it out loud with you. Dear Jesus, I know I've sinned. I know we're separated. It's all my fault. I've tried everything. It's all garbage. I come to you, the one that died for me, rose from the grave. I now confess you as Lord, be my master, help me follow you and practice your presence. Head bowed, eyes closed. If you prayed that prayer, just slip up your hands and say, hey, PC, I just want you to pray that prayer. Just slip it up. Come on, gotcha, gotcha. All right, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Go ahead, hold it up just one more second so our ushers can catch those hands. Okay, okay. All right, look up. Can we praise God for all across our campuses, people saying yes to Jesus? Man, come on, somebody. Woo! Woo! Wow, wasn't it good to be in the house of God today? Does this give you a fresh look? Don't miss the weekend. Some of you that are with us right now,

you're on vacation. We're thrilled you're gone. When you come back, get in here. If you're on vacation next week, we got 4th of July coming, get online. Don't miss a message in this series. Pastor Zach's gonna be back. Gonna be incredible. If you haven't started, you can go to the app, Faith Promise app. You can read the book. You can go get it. I got it. I've read it. I had it. I did it Audible. And so I've read it twice a couple weeks ago, just getting ready for this series. But it's a great, great, great tool. Now, our worship's coming back. We got plenty of time. You don't need to rush out. And what I wanna ask you to do is, I said it last time I spoke, when God speaks to you, and God has spoken to some people this weekend, respond. He speaks and you don't respond. You just get more and more calloused. You may need to make an altar where you are.

There'll be our prayer team. You may come see, hey, I need some help. I wanna be what pastor said or whatever you need. It may have nothing to do with what we talked about, but can we just give people a chance? Let's stand to our feet and let's worship the God who is worthy.