Grace Thoughts

Tim Kelley: See, Moses had his binoculars like this: "This is my life. It's pretty normal." And God said, "Moses, I want you to go like this and start seeing things in a different clarity and seeing things much bigger than yourself." Because, Moses, how I see you and how you see you are very different. And what Moses, what I need you to do is start seeing yourself as I see you. By the way, Moses, that's the real you, not your concept of who you are.

Verse 13, he asks a second question. Then Moses said to God, "Okay, if I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is His name?' what am I going to tell them?" Because that's when the great I AM, Yahweh, shows up right after that.

So, he asks the second question. "Okay, who am I? You want me to do this? Well, who are You? How do I know You're going to be backing me on this? I didn't see the army in the mountaintops. I don't have that eyesight yet. I can't see them yet because my binoculars are still looking at myself. I haven't elevated my vision yet."

It wasn't in his visual field. Binoculars have no value close up, my friends; they only see things far away. In 1880, that term "tunnel vision" came and birthed from a term that came into the English language in 1880 called the visual field. We have a visual field, the entire expanse of space at any given instant without moving the eyes, also a field of vision. I can see most of you here. Some of you over there I can't see totally right until I turn my head.

Quit talking. I wasn't really pointing at anyone; everyone looked over there who was talking, but I was just picking on them. See, we see things... Let me read this verse. Hebrews 11:13. "And the people died—these people died." Slow myself down a little bit. The whole chapter of Hebrews 11 talks about the heroes of the faith. Their lives, how they managed their lives, and how they viewed life.

The heroes, these patriarchs that you read about in Hebrews chapter 11, had a whole entirely different view of life than the rest of the community. And these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and they welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth.

So, this isn't our life. This isn't where we live. we understand that we're foreigners here. We're nomads. We're aliens. As we read earlier in 1 Peter 2:9, we're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that we should show forth the praises of Him, a new race, who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

So, that's how they saw themselves. So, all of a sudden, these patriarchs of old, they got the binoculars out and said, "Listen, this isn't our life. My binoculars aren't down here; I'm up here. I'm seeing things differently now. I have a... this isn't my kingdom, but I'm serving a kingdom to come. This isn't my earth, but my home is coming. I know it's coming. Maybe in my lifetime, maybe after death, but my home is yet to come."

See, when we increase our visual field, we see self for what it is. And that's very healthy to see self for what it is. When we increase our visual field, we see the world system and the world for what it is. Sometimes we don't. Sometimes we think we have a place here. This is really our home. Just watch the news for a little while and you'll realize this really isn't our home.

When we increase our visual field, we see our place in the world like Moses did, and we see the kingdom of God for what it is like the servant of Elisha did. When we increase our visual field, we see who God is in a grander way, in a bigger way.

Years ago, I remember speaking a message when we had the mission called Deceptive Pursuits. It's an interesting thing that I saw a phenomena, especially dealing with substance abuse issues and stuff like that. A lot of people came to the program, a lot of people came to church, and their whole goal was to give up a particular substance that abused them or they abused—it really goes both ways.

And that was their whole goal. "If I am pursuing Christ, I'm in this program, I'm going to church, I'm reading my Bible because I want to give up this thing that controls my life and hinders my life." And that's not bad in itself; I just think it's narrow. I don't do that to give something up; I do that to know God. I just need to know God.

I increase my field of vision. I make Christ big in my life. I make His word alive in my life. I make these things real to me. I increase my vision of life and how God thinks of me as we brought out in the very beginning of the message. And what does that do? It shrinks my addiction and lets me look at my addiction and say, "You have nothing to offer me."

I'm not minimizing the toll and the physical pull and some of those different things that go on in people, but as Christ gets bigger, the things of this earth get smaller. So, I can go through these programs, I can beat the substance or whatever it is that attacks me and whatever it is that's hindered my life, but the question is what do I have after that?

Do I have a walk with God to fall back on? See, my approach is a little bit simpler: get to know a great big Jesus Christ. Increase the visual field. Go to the programs—that's what we want to do in-house. I love them. Do them. They're helpful. They give you support. But have a great big Jesus Christ in your life.

Carve out time every day for Him. Lift up your eyes. Lift up your visual field. See yourself and see God for who He really is. You want to battle something in your life? Start there. Have a great big Jesus Christ. You'll find out how easy the battle gets.

Now, Jesus had just finished the encounter... Well, let me back up again. I'm going to be in John 4 in a moment. We've only got about five minutes left, seven minutes left here. Jesus is walking through, going from one place to the next place. He decides to walk through a Samaritan city. The Jews hated the Samaritans. Samaritans were half-Jews. They despised each other. There was a lot of prejudice and bigotry back in that day.

So, if the city I want to go to is over here, but the Samaritan city is in the way, I'm going to walk around that city as a Jew because I don't want my feet to get Samaritan dirt. That's how deep the prejudice went. So, Jesus is going to this city and what He does, He walks right through the Samaritans. He goes, and His disciples are probably going with Him like, "You know..."

And He goes right through the Samaritans, stops at a well. A Samaritan woman comes, and He goes, "Get me some water." Probably said it nicer than that. And she went and got him water. And then while they conversed a little bit first, and then He reveals to this woman things that she had done in secret that she knew no one else knew but God.

She said, "How did this guy know? No one knew that but God." Read John chapter 4. It all brings it out; exposes it pretty bad. And so, she goes back, gets the rest of the village to come before Jesus. And all of the disciples are like, "What are we doing here? Why are we doing this? These are the Samaritans, Jesus. This isn't good for the PR. This is not politically correct. What are we doing here?"

And look what He says. And Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him that sent Me and to accomplish His work. Look," he says to His disciples, "lift up your eyes. Increase your visual field and see that the fields are white for harvest."

He's saying to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and the rest of them, "Put your binoculars up there. Quit looking at yourself. Quit looking at your Judaistic prejudices. Quit looking at the traditions that's bound you and hypnotized you through the years. I'm changing the rules. I'm changing everything."

"I want you to lift up your eyes. I want to show you something about the God that you serve. He loves the Samaritans as much as He loves the Jews. He loves the Romans as much as He loves the Jews. And my gospel is going to bring in a whole new era, a whole new day. And so, lift up your eyes and see what God is doing."

"Don't be so constricted by looking at your past, by looking at what you think is true, by looking at how you used to do things, by looking at how you failed in the past. Lift up your eyes and watch what I'm doing now in the world."

See, this is what He says to them: "I have a plan for the entire earth, all of its inhabitants, even the hated Samaritans." That's a plan for you too. I don't know what it is. I meet God for mine—plan for my life. And it's going to change and morph, and there'll be bumps and bruises and deep pitfalls and great pain along the way and great victories along the way, but there's a plan.

The plan isn't just to survive another day. The plan isn't just to make it to the finish line. Your life is bigger than that. As we said earlier, you're seen as a part of the family of God as a son from the same womb that derives life from the same life source—adelphos. You have the seed of divine life inside of you. I look up and outward, not down and inward.

Whatever that is, and it's going to be different for everyone. So, what do I see with my binoculars? Do I see hopelessness, indifference, despondency? A wounded person? A life marked by weakness? Do I see Syrians all around me? "Oh, no." Do I see weakness or strength? Do I see defeat or more than a conqueror? Do I see lost or focused? Do I see myself hanging by a thread or feet set on stone? What do I see?

Let me just share this with you one more time. I am what God says that I am. Not what the world has made me, not what it has told me. I'm not the product of my tunnel vision interpretation. I am who and what God says that I am. I'm not on earth, my friends, just to get by; I'm here to make a difference, an impact. My vision is getting better. I'm coming out of the tunnel.

Listen, I'm going to close with this. I really promise you I will—maybe. "For Him that sanctifies and they that are sanctified are one, you and You, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren from the same womb." That is true. And that is true for you. And that is true for you right now.

"Whoever is born of God does not commit sin, for His seed remains in him and he cannot sin because he's born of God." That is true. You are born of God. God's seed is in you. That was true yesterday, that is true today, that will be true tomorrow. Lift up your eyes.

"For we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection." We have been planted together with Christ—Siamese twins. Lift up your eyes.

"That He might sanctify her and cleanse her by the washing of the water of the word, that He might present His church to Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." Nothing you've done; it's just what that has done.

So, we lift up our eyes to the praise of His glorious grace through which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him, we have redemption, being bought back, through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace.

So, we lift up our eyes, my friends, and we see things maybe we've never seen before. And we focus on things we've never focused on before. We elevate our vision. We take our binoculars off ourselves and put them out here, where God makes things a lot clearer and a lot more exciting too.