Living With a Singular Focus

Being God’s hands, restfully available, but instantly obedient.

From the sermon “Available” by Ian Thomas: The Illustration of your hands…

“Do you expect your hands to have a committee meeting when you get up, to tell you what their plans are for the day… and to tell you what they consider would be a very good idea for the occupation of the next 24 hours. 
 
I expect my hands to be restfully available, but instantly obedient
 
I don’t expect them to demonstrate their enthusiasm or show me that they are busy the whole time. Life would be an unbearable burden if my hands behaved like that. All the time I am speaking, my fingers want to impress me and impress you that they are really on the job.  how exhausting… how many Christians have you met who live like that? Whose activity is totally unrelated to the purpose of the head.  They think the whole criteria for spiritual activity is to be busy. I don’t want your activity to be like that. I simply want you to be restfully available. 
 
If I don’t happen to have anything for you right now, then get where you belong… in my pocket, and just rest, but when I need you and want you… there you are instantly available.
 
If you will act on this basis, you will find all the stress and all the strain will go out of your Christian life. It won’t mean that you will be inactive… rather you will be Christ active
 
He directs you by his holy spirit… he is the Lord of the Harvest and he puts you where he wants you to meet the need at that moment which is priority number one for you.

A couple concepts that undergird the orientation program are living as an elder, and simplicity, and by simplicity we mean being singularly focused where everything we do, say and are, is filtered through that single purpose and focus. We will be talking more about these concepts in the coming days.

We can become so distracted by many things. Like Ian Thomas’ illustration of our hands; pursuing their own agenda, trying to demonstrate their enthusiasm, busy being busy, trying to do things to impress… Can you relate to any of those things?

As our students think about embarking on this task of church planting, we asked, “What are some things you think may cause you to not be restfully available?”

team conflict
parenting
marriage
work / ministry becomes your god

What may be warning signs that reveal that you are becoming “God’s hands” like Ian Thomas described?

Living as an elder is one of the themes we will talk about often during our time together. When they get out there, they ARE GOING TO BE the first elder, the founding pastor of that church, and their disciples, the future church will take on their characteristics. We challenged them to ask themselves, “What kind of disciples do you want?”

Take a minute to look up the verses below, and observe Jesus’ example. Jesus lived as the ultimate example of this! How was Jesus restfully available, and instantly obedient.

John 4:34; 6:38 
John 5:19, 30
John 7:17-18
John 14:9-11 

The final verse is related to us.  How does Jesus expect us to live?
John 15:5 

What is God challenging you with? What kind of hands are you for God today?