How do you attend upon the Lord without distraction?

Text: 1 Corinthians 7:35  And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.

1.   You must forget in order to remember.

a.   Philippians 3:13

13  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,

14  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

a.   Never allow past events to rob you of your present and your future.

b.   You have to remember that in the midst of your trials, there is nothing too hard for God. It doesn't matter what you are going through, you have to trust God.

b.   Deuteronomy 1:22

22  And ye came near unto me every one of you, and said, We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come.

23  And the saying pleased me well: and I took twelve men of you, one of a tribe:

24  And they turned and went up into the mountain, and came unto the valley of Eshcol, and searched it out.

25  And they took of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down unto us, and brought us word again, and said, It is a good land which the LORD our God doth give us.

26  Notwithstanding ye would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God:

27  And ye murmured in your tents, and said, Because the LORD hated us, he hath brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.

28  Whither shall we go up? our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakims there.

             i.    They brought an evil report, and the report that they brought to the people made them very discouraged.

            ii.    There is no discouragement like what Christian folk can bring into your life. If you can survive that discouragement, you can survive anything.

          iii.    It's when you try to get yourself back in the presence of God, many times it's Christian folk that try to knock you back down. And you have to continue to do what you are supposed to do in spite of what people say.

          iv.    When you are overtaken by fear and discouragement, you will forget that God can call those things that are not as though they were.

c.        You got to learn to take your eyes off people, and when you learn to do that, you can see God more clearly. People can cloud your vision.

d.        Real Ministry is born in the presence of God and not of people.

e.        If Israel could have forgotten what the giants looked like and remembered that they served a God who opened the red sea, they could have moved forward.

f.        After you've seen the hand of God, you should never get to a place in your life where you forget what He can do.

2.   You must remember in order to forget.

a.        2 Timothy 4:16-18

16  At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.

17  Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

18  And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

           a.    Paul was in his final hours of life, and he noticed that there were times in his life that ONLY God stood with Him.

b.        Even when you are surrounded by people who care for you, you must realize that God will stand by you when no one else does.

c.        God will stand with you at your worst and even at your best, because you don't have to perform for God. God loves you even when you're unlovely. All of us have fallen short.

d.        It is so important for you to get your eyes off of people.

e.        Proverbs 18:24 A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

             i.        In other words, to have friends, I'm gonna have to be friendly, but a real friend will still be my friend when I'm not friendly.

            ii.        That friend is Christ Himself. He loves you regardless of what you are going through.

f.        John 15:13  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

             i.        Christ laid down His life even though we didn't deserve it.

            ii.        When you lay yourself on the altar, you begin to understand that God is all you need.

g.        2 Corinthians 8:1-6

1  Moreover, brethren, we do you to wit of the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia;

2  How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality.

3  For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves;

4  Praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints.

5  And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.

6  Insomuch that we desired Titus, that as he had begun, so he would also finish in you the same grace also.

             i.    The grace of God here doesn't refer to salvational grace, but to an unusual divine blessing.

            ii.    Christians are not naturally generous. It is not something that is just bestowed upon you when you get saved. God must empower us to be givers.

          iii.    The people of God ought to be able to depend on one another, so that if any of us is ever in need, we can go to our brethren and get help.

          iv.    It is God's way to make sure that things are taken care of.

3.   Some things you must remember, some things you must forget, but you have to remember that you will never remember what you forget.

 i.        Hebrews 2:1  Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.

ii.        When you forget God, you turn back to your old way of thinking, and ultimately will turn back to your old way of living.

iii.        No matter what you go through you can never take God out of the equation.

iv.        The difference will be made in your life when you truly walk with God, not when you come to church and try to ACT like you walk with God.

v.        Deuteronomy 24:23  Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee.

             i.        Take heed, lest you begin to set up idols in your life. Sometimes an idol isn't even something that is made, it could be something like your job.

vi.        Deuteronomy 6:12  Then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

vii.        8:11

11  Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:

12  Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein;

13  And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;

14  Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;

15  Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;

h.        9:4

4  Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee.

5  Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

             i.    What all these verses are saying is this - Don't ever forget about God, the one who was there when nobody else was.

            ii.    These are also warnings to the people of God not to forget the one who provided for them, protected them, and delivered them.

          iii.    When things fall apart, remember God and don't let anything distract you from Him.

 i.        In Luke 22:61 the Bible tells us that after Peter denied Jesus three times, Jesus turned and looked at Peter. He was about to die for the sins of the world, and He called for a time out. He looked upon Peter, and Peter looked back at Him. This was a look that Peter would remember for the rest of his life.

             i.        Later on He would look at Peter again and say, "Lovest thou me?" And love there was agape love. And Peter responded "You know I love you." But love here meant I'm fond of you.

            ii.        There is something that happens when God is able to break you. This broken man would become the leader and voice of the early church and would eventually give his life for Christ.

j.        It doesn’t matter what you've done, the Lord still loves you. No one is what they need to be.

             i.        If we were all that we should be, we would have no need to confess our sins, but we still do, because we all commit sin.

            ii.        The Word we need to take to a lost world is that we are all a work in progress.

k.        God is working on all of us, and He is building us, until the day that He comes in Christ's likeness.

Thank you Norristown Baptist Church for 17 years. And if Jesus tarries, God help us to worship and serve another 17 years. And maybe one day we can turn our community upside down for the cause of Christ, and even reach beyond the limits of Norristown.