“The Power of a Focused Life”          Philippians 3:4b-14

A Sermon by Pastor Boettner

The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

October 6, 2002

Leonia United Methodist Church, NJ

In the Name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier

Staying focused is one of the secrets of a successful life.

Comedian Jay Leno says that he went into a McDonald's one day and said, "I'd like some fries." He vows and declares that the girl at the counter asked, "Would you like some fries with that?" Focus!

Actor James Cagney recalls that in his day, acting was not as glamorous a profession as it is now. Actors were paid only slightly more than the average American. There were no labor laws to protect actors from long hours or hazardous working conditions.

Cagney remembers that in one of his early movies, The Public Enemy, his character had to run away from an enemy who was shooting at him with a machine gun. There were few special effects back then, so the actor used a real machine gun with real bullets. Because Cagney often played characters that were on the wrong side of the law, he was often in movies where he was shot at with real guns and real bullets. One wrong move, and he would have been dead.

I doubt that Cagney had much difficulty staying focused when he did these scenes.

One of the secrets of a successful life is: stay focused. St. Paul was one of the most effective persons who ever lived. Today, two thousand years after his death, his writings are being studied by millions of people all over this globe. Has there ever been--except for Jesus--a man whose thoughts have influenced more people over the generations than this tentmaker from Tarsus? One of St. Paul's secrets was the power of focus.

Religiously, St. Paul already had all the essential credentials to impress his peers. He didn't need persecutions, shipwrecks, imprisonments to validate his standing in the religious community. He was a circumcised Jew, a member of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews. More than that he was a Pharisee! He not only knew the Law, he practiced it fastidiously. In fact, he was so committed to his faith that he persecuted the early Christian Church. And yet, one day he came to see that none of these things mattered in the least to him compared to his new-found faith in Jesus. And thus he focused his life on this one endeavor: to know Jesus the Christ. He writes: "For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ." A few verses later he writes: "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death . . ." Then he sums up his intent with these words: "But this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus." (NRSV)

That's focus. Paul concentrated his life on this one thing--knowing Jesus the Christ--and St. Paul affected the lives of millions of people.

Focus gives our lives power. Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar uses a marvelous image that we've referred to before: He asks us to consider whether we are "wandering generalities" or "meaningful specifics."

In other words, are our lives focused on a few important things or do we spread our lives far too thinly?

A good analogy is that of light. Light is a marvelous thing, and it comes in many forms. But light's focus and intensity determines its power. For instance, light bulbs generally have a low level of focus and intensity. The light rays scatter out of the bulb, creating what we call incoherent light. But take those same scattered light rays and focus them in one direction at one target, and we have a laser, which is infinitely more powerful.

St. Paul's life had the power of a laser. Successful people have a clear understanding of what their life is about. They know where they are headed and they have made a significant commitment to finishing the journey.

When comedian Jim Carrey was a struggling young actor, he wrote himself a check for ten million dollars and postdated it seven years in the future. That check kept him focused. Even more impressive is the fact that, when it came due, he was able to cover it. By staying focused on his goal, he achieved great fame and success.

A picture appeared in a news magazine several years ago. In the picture a woman was grinning from ear to ear. At age 72, she had something amazing to grin about.

A few years earlier she had decided to become a mountain climber. She had never climbed a mountain before. "Mountain climbing is not a realistic goal," her friends warned, but she decided to do it anyway. She was now in the news because she had climbed Mt. Everest!

There she was in all her glory, backpack and all, holding her victory flag up toward the clear blue sky. She had done it! She had climbed one of the world's highest mountains.

Not every 72-year-old needs to set his or her sights on climbing a mountain. For that matter, not every 22-year-old needs to climb mountains, but it is amazing what we can do when we set our minds to it.

Famous golf instructor Harvey Penrick was famous for saying, "Take dead aim!" He wrote, "Instead of worrying about making a fool of yourself in front of a crowd of 4 or 40,000, forget about how your swing may look and concentrate instead on where you want the ball to go. Pretty is as pretty does . . . Take dead aim at the spot on the fairway or the green, refuse to allow any negative thought to enter your head, and swing away. A high handicapper," he concludes, "will be surprised at how often the mind will make the muscles hit the ball to the target, even with a far less than perfect swing . . ."

Focus. What is it we really hope to achieve in our work life, our family life, our spiritual life? How would we like for our body to look? How would we like our resume to look? What are those hobbies we hope to master? Successful people have a picture in their mind of what they would like to achieve with their lives and they focus their energies on that picture. Focus is power.

Of course, there are many examples of people who have focused their lives too narrowly.

There are choices to be made in life. In the same way that not everyone is wise to climb mountains, not everyone is cut out to be St. Paul. For example, we have no record of St. Paul enjoying the love of a family. His passion for the Gospel was all encompassing. There was too much travel in spreading the Good News to the Gentiles--and too much time spent in jail. Not everyone can make that kind of commitment. Not everyone is called to change the world in the same way as St. Paul did. Whereas focus is critical to a successful life, it is possible to focus our lives too narrowly.

A powerful CEO stood up at his retirement dinner and made the following speech: "I know you want my job," he said to those who had come to honor him, "and I'll tell you how to get it."

All the young executives leaned forward, eager to catch his every word. The CEO went on to say that his daughter had gotten married last week. At her wedding, he suddenly realized that he didn't know even the most basic information about this young woman he was giving away. He had never been actively involved in her life. He had missed out on building a relationship with her. The CEO ended his speech by saying, "That's the price I paid for this job. If you want to pay that price, you can have it."

Many people focus their lives too narrowly. They focus only on financial success or their own pleasure. They have neither time nor inclination to allow room for the needs of others. They are successful by the world's measure, but not by God's. And they are not happy people.

Beware of too narrow a focus. Our focus needs to be large enough to accommodate a lifetime of growth.

In his book Seasons of a Marriage, H. Norman Wright discusses the so-called midlife crisis experienced by many. He says the crises fall into just two categories: the goal-gap crisis, and the crisis that results when one has reached all his/her goals. The goal-gap crisis is the realization that one has not reached the goals set in younger years. This is often the result of not focusing life properly until it is too late. Some, shaken by the goal-gap crisis, run out and buy a motorcycle, embark on a new career, or have an affair. Fortunately, most learn how to let go of their regrets and reconcile themselves to the goals that they have attained.

Another type of crisis is experienced by the person who reaches middle age and realizes that he/she has attained all his/her goals. What is there left to reach for? And has success come at the expense of more important things, like relationships with others? This is the person who has focused too narrowly.

I mentioned actor James Cagney. Cagney grew up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood where desperate men would do just about anything to make a few bucks. Some of the tougher men in Cagney's neighborhood turned to boxing as a way out. Cagney once painted a picture of an old boxer, a man whose body is scarred and whose mind is destroyed by repeated beatings. He titled the painting "The Victor: Chronic Progressive Fibrotic Encephalopathy," which is the term for brain damage caused by repeated blows to the head. As Cagney says, it is a picture of "the winner who loses everything."

Is that not graphic? The winner who loses everything! Many of us are squandering the precious time God has given us on this earth by not focusing on a few important things and doing them extremely well. Others of us are losing eternity because we have focused our lives on the wrong things or we have focused our lives so narrowly that we have excluded those we love and God.

Finding the proper focus is critical in life just as in photography. What good is a photograph that is taken out of focus? What good is a life that is not focused on God, on those we love, on our calling as followers of Jesus the Christ?

St. Paul was focused on a goal that was narrow enough that he never was distracted, but large enough so that he never became bored. In his commitment to God he found that perfect balance that made his life laser-like in its intensity.

And here is the good news: It’s never too late to focus our lives.

A piano teacher taught many students over a lifetime career. When she got them ready for recitals, she would encourage them to perfect their endings. She insisted they practice the endings over and over again. When her students grumbled that it was boring going over and over these last few measures, she would answer: "You can make a mistake in the beginning or in the middle or in some other place along the way. But all will be forgotten when you manage to make the ending glorious."

We know very little about St. Paul's last days on earth. But we do know his ending was glorious. The power of a focused life: "But this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus."