We’re going to continue our series here on Clear Focus, what to focus on. And, this is part two and as this is our last teaching in 2018, since it is December 30th, I hope it gives us a vision of how to look to God in the coming year. Because we all have different challenges this year, everybody has projects and goals and challenges, and somethings easy and fun and somethings more challenging and difficult; that’s just part of living. And, no matter what 2019 looks like for you, one of the things that will help you prosper in 2019 and do well is focusing on God and His word and His deliverance, instead of focusing on the circumstances and the problems. You have to focus on the circumstances and the problems to the point where you deal with them the best you can, but you don’t want to fixate on them and have them be the only thing you think about. You need to continue to look to God and trust him. So here we go, we’ll start in second Kings chapter six…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20181230. All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
II Kings 6:8-23 Chariots of fire
Psalms 23 (esp vss 3-4) I will fear no evil
Isaiah 55:8-11 God’s thoughts are not our thoughts
II Corinthians 4:(1-)18 Look not at those things which are seen
Romans 11:33 Depth of wisdom & knowledge
I Corinthians 1:25 Weakness of God stronger than men
Colossians 3:1-3 Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth (vs. 1)
Hebrews 11:1-3 Things which are seen were not made of things which do appear Hebrews 11:7 Warned of things not seen (e.g. rain) Hebrews 11:8-14 He looked for a city Hebrews 11:39-40 Something better for us Hebrews 12:1-4 Looking unto Jesus
Well, we are going to start a new series of teachings that will last a number of sessions on having a clear focus in life. There are so many things in life going on that it is sometimes hard to know what to focus on. Well, we will read about many things in God’s word, that if we focus on them, our lives will be a little better. So, we will try very hard to direct our focus toward the things God would have us focus on. Because there are many things in life you focus on and they don’t do you any good. Other things you focus on and you have a much happier life, and that is what we’ll talk about. So, in part one of this series that I’m going to call a clear focus, we’ll go to Psalm 119…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20181216. All rights reserved.
Verse Listing and Notes
Introduction
Psalms 119:11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart
What part of God’s Word? – Depends on what you need
Full of fear?
Psalms 34:8 I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me
Past Shortcomings:
Philippians 3:13-16 Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those which are before (vs 13)
Present Concerns:
Proverbs 3:5-6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths
Future:
I Peter 1:3-5 Begotten us again unto a lively hope be the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead – vs. 3
God Does Not Care
Romans 8:35-39 Nothing can separate us from the love of God
Summary – Stay With It
Isaiah 26:3-4 Perfect peace whose mind is stayed (steadfast, steady)
Psalms 119:165 Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them
God’s Care: Resilience Part 11 – Determination cont. (#957) Good morning. We’re going to continue our series on God’s care, specifically focusing on the resilience we have to bounce back from tough situations. And the determination we have to have to be able to be resilient and enjoy God’s care. We’re going to start here in first Samuel chapter eight…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20181202. All rights reserved. Verse Listing and Notes
I Samuel 8 Israel wanted a king
[Saul chosen by God and anointed by Samuel]
I Samuel 10:17-25 Saul presented to Israel
[Saul leads Israelites to victory against Ammonites]
I Samuel 12 Serve the Lord with all your heart (vs. 20)
Ephesians 1:1-4 Holy and without blame before him in love Teaching God’s Care: Resilience Part 11, Determination cont. (#957)
God’s Care: Resilience, Part 10 – Determination, cont. (#956) Good morning. We’ve been doing a series for many months on how much God cares for us. As you know. And we sort of took a subset of that, on because He cares for us He helps us be resilient, so we can bounce back from challenges. Because we all have challenges, sometimes they are little, tiny challenges; sometimes they’re huge, life-changing events. But, we have to be resilient and be able and bounce back from them. I’m reminded of something…I think Peter, you said this to me in a text this week: “The future is as bright as the promises of God.” And that’s true. You always look at what you got, and the problem is people will often look and see: well I’m short of this and I’m short of that, and this is going wrong and therefore, my next year’s going to be a mess. Well, not as long as we have the promises of God. Because I might be very short of something I’d like to have or need more of, but as long as I have God’s promises, I won’t be forsaken. And neither will you. So resilience is a big deal, and then we took a subset of resilience last week, and talked about determination. And we’re going to continue on that theme today. You may remember that one of the records we read about last week was about Hannah, Samuel’s mother. She was so determined to have a son that she just kept praying, and praying, and ultimately ended getting pregnant and having a son named Samuel, who she took to Eli the priest to serve the Lord. And we’ll read a little bit about that. And I better switch from my song book to my Bible, otherwise I won’t find First Samuel chapter two…
As taught by Bruce Mahone 20181118. All Rights Reserved. Verse Listing and Notes
I Samuel 2:12-36 Samuel’s training by Eli
Ex. 29:31-34 Seethe (boil) the offering, then priests eat
Lev. 3:12-17 Burn the fat
I Samuel 3 Samuel’s training by God
I Samuel 7 Samuel led Israel to victory by God Teaching God’s Care: Resilience, Part 10 – Determination, cont. (#956)
God’s Care: Resilience, Part 9 – Determination (#955) Good morning! We’re going to continue today, and oh by the way, any of you on the phone if it is possible for you to mute your phone by hitting start six (*6) or a mute button, go ahead, but if not, try not to spill your coffee and use a cuss word — OK. So here we are this morning, we’re going to continue our series on resilience. And part nine of it today is in Determination; because to be resilient, you have to be determined to move on the next level of your life, or your project, or whatever it is. We all know that if you sort of sit back and let things happen in life, they sometimes will go the way you want and sometimes they won’t. But if you set a course for your life and get determined to go there, now you can begin to make some progress in the direction you want to go. Now if you don’t care what direction you go in, it doesn’t matter, you can just go wherever life takes you. And you have ever right to do that. But if you have a certain direction you’d like to see your life go, its going to take some determination for that to occur. And you have to focus, and you have to take actions and pray, and ask God to help you to go in that direction you want to go. And there are other times in life where you have no idea what direction is good for you, so rather than get worried about it, you just move along through life and enjoy it, and trust God and see what doors He opens. But even then, its still wonderful to pray with great determination that God will bless you. Like for instance, you might have a financial need and you may not know what the best answer for meeting that financial need is. So you just pray that God will supply your needs, and then see what doors He opens. So you’re still determined to trust God and have that financial need taken care of, you just may not know how to do it. But, in other times in life, you may know for a lot of reasons; whether God told you or its just something you’ve been working on for ages and have a little progress, so you want to take care of your financial needs in a certain manner. Well, then you have to be determined to try to make that happen. And if that’s the case, work very hard to make that happen, but if along the way, God opens another door, where God tells you, you should be moving a different direction to have that need taken care of, then you obviously want to adapt. But either way, you need to be determined. Determined to either accomplish a specific thing or determined to just trust God that He’ll come through for you, regardless. And we’re going to start with the record in first Samuel chapter one of Hannah…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20181111. All rights reserved. Verse Listing and Notes
I Samuel 1-2:11 Hannah prayed and received a son
Luke 18:1-8 Men ought everywhere to pray and not faint
II Cor. 4:1(-7,16) Having this ministry, we faint not
Gal. 6:9 We shall reap, if we faint not
Eph. 3:13 Faint not at tribulation
Heb. 12:1-4 (5ff) Lest ye faint
Luke 17:6 Mustard Seed Teaching God’s Care: Resilience, Part 9 – Determination (#955)
God’s Care: Resilience, Part 8 – Nothing (#954) Good morning! We’re going to continue our series on God’s Care, specifically focusing on the resilience we have because God cares for us. And last time we focused on “anything,” becuase God can do anything we need. And now we are going to look at the opposite of it, we’re going to look at the word: “nothing.” And just like He can do anything for us, the opposite of that is nothing can hinder us, nothing can stop us, there is nothing too hard for God. So it will be fun looking through some of these records. Let’s start here in II Chronicles Chapter 14…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20181021. All rights reserved. Verse Listing and Notes
II Chronicles 14:1-15 It is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with few
Psalms 119:165 Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them (can make them stumble)
Ecclesiastes 2:24 There is nothing better than … his soul enjoy good in all his labour
Mark 8:1-9 Jesus Christ had compassion on the multitude because they had nothing to eat (8:2)
John 16:23-24 In that day ye shall ask me nothing…Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.
Romans 8:38-39 Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ!
I Corinthians 4:1-5 Required in stewards to be found faithful (vs. 4 – nothing of which I am guilty)
Philippians 1:27-30 In nothing terrified by your adversaries
Philippians 2:1-5 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory Philippians 3:13-16 Forgetting (caring nothing about) those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those which are before (vs 13)
Philippians 4:4-9 Be careful for nothing
I Thessalonians 4:9-12 That ye may have lack of nothing
I Timothy 6:1-12 Knowing nothing (vs. 4)
We brought nothing into this world (vs. 7)
James 1:2-8 Perfect and entire, wanting nothing (vs. 4)
Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering (vs. 6) Teaching God’s Care: Resilience, Part 8 – Nothing (#954)
God’s Care: Resilience, Part 7 – Anything (#953) Today we’re going to continue our series on God’s care for us with a focus on the resilience we can have. That we can bounce back from any hardship, any difficulty, any setback in life, and move on and be victorious. We’ve looked at this topic of resilience from many approaches and today we’re going to focus on the word: “anything.” Because, we’ve talked about not limiting God and we all have a tendency, I think at times, to think that whatever is we might need is too hard for God or He wouldn’t want to do it for us, or something like that. Whereas in reality, God is totally unlimited in His ability to take care of us. Really, the only thing that limits God is people. We may not chose to pray and believe His promises or we may want something from somebody else that they’re not willing to help us with. So, God may not be able to help us in the way we want if it depends on somebody else. But God can find another way to take care of us. So we don’t limit God to one way of taking care of us, but we have to know He can take care of anything we might need, and if not one way, He’ll do it another way. So let’s start in Genesis 18:14.
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20181007. All rights reserved. Verse Listing and Notes
Genesis 18:14 Is anything too hard for the Lord?
Isaiah 55:8-12 God’s ways are higher than our ways
Matthew 6:24-34 We are anxious for nothing, knowing that God is aware of our every need
Matthew 18:18-20 If two of you shall agree…anything they ask, it shall be done
Romans 13:8-10 Owe no man anything, but to love one another
Ephesians 3:20 Above all we can ask or think
Philippians 3:13-16 If in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you
Philippians 4:4-9 Be anxious for nothing (moderation – gentleness, patience)
Alternate translation: “Don’t worry over anything whatever; tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer, and the peace of God, which transcends human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus” – JB Phillips
Philippians 4:6-7 6: Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
7: If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. – NLT
Hebrews 4:15-16 Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace
I John 5:13-15 This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us (vs. 14) Teaching God’s Care: Resilience, Part 7 – Anything (#953)
God’s Care: Resilience, Part 6 – Quietness (#952) Good morning, we’re continuing our series on God’s care and specifically on the aspect of His care where He gives us resilience. He helps us bounce back from challenges. Last week, one of the verses we looked at was in Isaiah 30 where it says “quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” So we’re going to continue on that theme today, and I’m reminded of an acquaintance of mine that I talked to a few weeks ago who said he had to go somewhere and just get quiet because there was too much going on in his head. And I thought well, this is something we all need and we have a great way to get quiet. We know that there are people who like to go in a quiet and dark room and think, and there are various Eastern forms of meditation that people practice. And they can all be helpful because they help you focus your mind and settle down, but as always with God’s Word we have something even greater by looking to the true God and by having confidence in Him and knowing He will take care of us, that’s where the real quietness of heart comes from. But there’s nothing wrong with those other methods if they work, its just no matter what you do with the human mind, it is never as much as you could do as if you added the Spirit of God. So, I’m all for the human mind, I’m all for people that have learned how to settle their mind down with various types of meditation or other mental exercises and those can be very helpful. But boy you add the Spirit of God and God’s care for us and it just multiplies, gets much, much better. So let’s start in Proverbs chapter one and in verse 33…
As taught by Bruce Mahone 20180930. All rights reserved. Verse Listing and Notes
Proverbs 1:33 Whoso hearkeneth unto wisdom shall be quiet from fear of evil
Proverbs 17:1 Better is a dry morsel with quietness
Ecclesiastes 4:6 Better is an handful with quietness
Isaiah 7:1-4 Be quiet and fear not
Isaiah 30:15 In quietness and confidence shall be your strength
Isaiah . 32:17,18 The effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever
Jeremiah 30:10 Jacob shall be in rest and be quiet
Lamentations 3:26 It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD
I Thessalonians 4:11 And that ye study (endeavor, be ambitious, make it your ambition, let it be a point of honor with you) to be quiet.
2 Thessalonians 3:10-12 With quietness they work.
I Timothy 2:1-4 Quiet and peacable life in all godliness Teaching God’s Care: Resilience, Part 6 – Quietness (#952)
God’s Care Resilience, Part 5: God Gives Us Rest (#951) Well good morning! We’re going to continue our series on God’s Care; Giving us Resilience. And there are so many ways God gives us resilience and helps us be resilient, helps us bounce back from challenges and difficulties, and one of them is He gives us rest. Because, we all know from a physical point of view your body can take so much until you need to give it rest, you need to let it recuperate. We know mentally we can only go so far, pushing our brains to do things until we need to give it rest. And God helps us with this rest. He helps us get mental and spiritual recuperation from the challenges before us. He also gives us rest; we’ll read records where He gives them rest from war, He gives them rest from famine, He gives them rest from mental stress. God helps us have rest in many categories in life and we can’t be resilient unless with God’s great care and we were able to have rest. So, let’s start in Exodus 33…
As taught by Bruce Mahone 20180916. All rights reserved. Verse Listing and Notes
Exodus 33:11-15 My presence shall go with thee and I will give thee rest
II Chronicles 14(15) God gave Asa rest: he built and fought
II Chronicles 20:30 God gave Jehoshaphat rest round about
Psalms 37:7 Rest in the Lord [be still, silent before the Lord]; Wait patiently for him
Isaiah 28:11,12 This is the rest, this is the refreshing
Isaiah 30:1-17 In returning and rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength (vs. 15)
Matthew 11:28-30 He gives rest
I Corinthians 14:21 Other tongues and other lips: SIT Teaching God’s Care: Resilience, Part 5 – God Gives Us Rest (#951)
God’s Care: Resilience, Part 4 (#950) Good morning. We’ll continue today with our series on God’s care for us, with a focus on the resilience we have when we know God cares for us and when we trust in that care. We’ve already had a couple of sessions on the ApostlePaul and of course he was the Apostle that God gave the responsibility for theage of grace to, or this administration of the church of grace, what we oftencall the Age of Grace. The information and revelation about that was revealed to Paul, and he revealed it to the first century church in books likeEphesians. So he was quite an accomplished fellow, he grew up as a Romancitizen, which gave him higher status and greater legal rights in the Roman world than somebody that was born as a slave or a freed man; he was very welleducated in the scriptures in Jerusalem; he was likely a member of theSanhedrin, the ruling body of Israel; He did great things. Yet, he disobeyedGod and got arrested and thrown in jail for a few years. Yet that didn’t stophim. Even though he made those mistakes, he came back and he continued to teach God’s Word, he continued to get revelation for a number of the ChurchEpistles while a prison in Rome. So, he showed great resilience. And as I’vesaid before, because of what he did there by disobeying God, his life didchange. He lost many things, but God gave him other things. Job is another great example, he had great wealth and family; he lost all of that, but God gave him more. A different family, different wealth, but he had more. Then we read about Ruth, in a subsequent session where she was doing very well. She had a wonderful husband, sister-in-law, brother-in-law,mother-in-law, father-in-law, but all the men in the family died. In anyculture that is difficult, but in that culture its particularly difficult because the women had a very hard time doing business and making theirown way without the men to help them. Because of their culture and theway their society was setup. But yet, she trusted God and she ended up with awonderful husband, named Boaz. She was very well cared for and loved and she had a son that ended up becoming the great-grandfather of King David. So, again she lost many things and she didn’t get those things back,but God gave her other things, which in many ways were even greater then whatshe had before. That was Ruth. Now today we’re going to read a similar record of unbelievable resilience by reading about a wonderful woman namedRahab. Now Rahab had grown up on the city of Jericho, which is just down thebottom of the hill from Jerusalem, right where the Jordan river empties into what we now call the Dead Sea. Or sometimes called the Salt Sea because thesalt concentration is much, much higher than the ocean. So she grew up therenot being taught about the true God, but being taught about the local paganreligions. Yet she had heard about the God of Israel, she had heard about this band of wandering Hebrews going through the desert and everybody they encountered, they beat – they conquered. So she figured this God of Israel must be the strongest and she had decided to trust in this God when shehardly knew anything about. Which is so different than the Israelites; they had been taught all about the God of Israel, but they wanted to worship theCanaanite gods, the Baels and the Astaroths. So they knew all about the true God and didn’t want to worship Him; she knew almost nothing about the trueGod, but she did want to worship Him and as a result, when her whole citywas destroyed, she came out victorious. And she also, like Ruth, ended up inthe Christ-line. As a matter of fact, Boaz, remember Boaz, the guy who married Ruth? We’ll see it in the record, but if memory serves, he wasRahab’s son. So, he grew up realizing it is OK to marry a foreigner as long as she believes in the true God. And remember Ruth’s husband’s other cousindidn’t want anything to do do with this Moabite woman, Ruth. But Boaz was much more open minded, because his mother wasn’t born and raised as anIsraelite. She later on in life heard about the true God and chose to believe in Him. So again these are radical, radical records and what we need to learn from them is not that we should go to war with the Canaanites or try to tear cities down like Jericho, but that God will always come through for you. There are times in life when most of what you have, you will lose. It is not God’s will, but that is just the waypeople are. God gave people freedom of will. So they’re going to do sillythings, you and I are going to do silly things, and we’re going to lose stuff. Whether it is people or material goods or something else. But, just because we’ve lost something doesn’t mean we can’t come back and be resilient and Godcan’t give us even greater things. Not to say that what you had before wasn’tgood. Not that you want to belittle it, but if it is gone, it is gone. Andonce its gone, its gone. And sometimes you can get it back, but usually you can’t. You can rarely go back and relive the past. Once something is gone,is is usually gone for good. But God will come back with greater things, ifyou look to him and trust him. Or you can spend your whole life grieving forwhat you lost and never move on. And that is not a good way to live. Who wants to live their whole life with grief. Why not accept what we’ve lost. Why look at Ruth: she could of just stayed in Moab and spent the rest of her time as amourning widow, wearing a black vale, being upset that her husband had died. She could have done that, but she chose to go back to Bethlehem with hermother-in-law Naomi and trust in the true God and see how her life movedforward. Same with Paul. Once he got imprisoned in Jerusalem, he could havejust given up. He could have said, “well, I goofed up, my life is over, they tried to kill me.”But, he didn’t. He walked with God, he used his brain and rights as a Roman citizen to appeal unto Caesar. His life was spared, even on the boat tripacross the Mediterranean from Cessaria, along the coast on the other side ofJerusalem, by the sea. On the boat ride from there, the boat was shipwrecked,everybody almost died, but he listened to God, he trusted God, God told him what to do and he was able to save the entire ship. So he didn’t quitwalking with God and he didn’t quit speaking God’s Word and he didn’t quitcarrying out his ministry just because he was thrown into jail. He just hadto do it a different way. Because what he had available before, he no longer had. But God provided other things. And that is why we’re always talking about forgetting those things that are behind and reaching forth unto thosethings which are before. Much of our past we can hold onto and remember and be thankful for what God has done for us. But other things in our past our justover. Paul’s ability to go up to Phillipi and hang out with the church there,was over. His ability to go to Thessolonica and speak to the saints, that wasover. He couldn’t go to Athens and talk on Mars hill anymore, he couldn’t.But he could talk to people about God’s Word in Rome. He started a fellowship right there in Caesar’s palace, because that is where he was. So, you have togo with what God provides and with what is available and you can’t spend a lotof time worrying about what was in the past and is no longer available. Wecan’t go back and be two-years old; we can’t go back and be eight-years old and be on your first little-league team. You just can’t do that. That’s over. Whether that was a great little-league team or a crappy little-leagueteam or you never got to be in little-league, it doesn’t matter. That’s over.What we can do now is move ahead with what God has provided for us. And we all have a roof over our heads, we all have three meals a day, we all havewonderful people around us that love us. Some of them want to hear God’s Word, some don’t, but there is always somebody else you can talkto, there is always somebody you can pray for. And the main thing is: God will always be there to take care of you. He will always be there to help yoube resilient and show you new things. Now with that brief introduction, that has probably taken up half of our time…let’s go to Joshua chapter one…
As taught by Bruce Mahone, 20180826. All rights reserved. Verse Listing and Notes
Joshua 1:1-11, 16-18; 2: Moses is dead.
Rahab believed (Joshua 2:9-12, Heb. 11:31, Mat. 1:5).
Joshua 3:13-17: Cross the Jordan (feet in water).
Joshua 21:45: Not one word failed.
(Joshua 24, esp. vs. 31: all those that knew Joshua…)
[Joshua & Caleb: Numbers 13:1, 2, 17-20, 25-33; 14:1-5, 26-39] Teaching God’s Care: Resilience, Part 4 (#950)