- One of the things that
we might have in common, is that I'm very
easily distracted. In fact, I went to the
doctor a few years ago about something,
just my physical, and in talking to
my doctor, he said, "Have you ever been
tested for ADD?" And I'm like, "I don't know." That was kind of a joke. Yeah, I said, "No, I haven't." He said, "Well, I suspect that
you might be, you have..." I said, "Well, I remember "how I used to mow the grass
as a kid and my dad would say, "'Look, it's just a bunch
of straight lines.'" And I could do about
four straight lines and then I just had to go
do something else, okay? So, I'm like some of you,
I'm very easily distracted. But the problem is this,
and you can relate to this, the things that I get distracted
by are never as important as the thing I get
distracted from, right? Isn't this true for you too? The things, 'cause
it's multiple things that I get distracted by,
they're never important. I mean, they're not bad, and they might be
marginally important, but they're never as important as the thing I get
distracted from. And losing focus in
some areas of our lives is not that big a
deal, all right? And in some seasons of our
lives is not that big a deal, but there are certain things that if you take your
eye off that ball, you wake up five
years down the road, 10 years down the
road and you realize, oh no, how did I get here? How did I make such
a mess of my life? Or not even a mess of my life, how did I end up on this track that I never
remembered choosing? And I had another
plan for my life and this was not
my dream, you know? This was not what I was
imagining for my future. So, perhaps there's something that needs more of your
undivided attention in this season of your life. There may be that one thing, and maybe this
isn't true for you, but for maybe a lot of us. There may be that one thing that potentially
impacts everything. For example, this may be the
season or this may be the year where you've gotta
work on that habit. There's that habit that
you've gotta break. There's that project
that you have to finish. There's that relationship
that is time to restore. Or maybe there's a relationship
that you need to retire. Or maybe there's a debt
that you need to pay off. Or perhaps, and some of you
are gonna really be upset for me bringing this up, maybe there's a degree that
you finally need to complete. I don't know what it is for you, but there's
something that maybe, that needs a little bit more
of your undivided attention and you've gotten distracted
because life is distracting and all of us understand that. And here's the thing, I
don't want what's urgent, because every single day
there's urgent stuff, right? I don't want what's
urgent to distract you from what's most
important for you and maybe most important
for your family. Or, as we're gonna see, what's most important for you
in this particular season. So, if there's something that you need to get
to the finish line, this is going to help. So, 22 years ago, or a
little over 22 years ago, Sandra and I ran into an
Old Testament narrative and there was one statement
in this Old Testament story, this Old Testament narrative
that got our attention and kind of became
a mantra or a theme or kind of a battle cry for us. It got us through the
early parenting years, it got us through the
busyness of ministry, the busyness of starting
an organization, the busyness of church life
and just the busyness of life. It kept us out of several
ditches financially, when opportunities came
along and we're like no, we need to stay focused
on what we're doing, we have a financial
plan, let's stick to it. In fact, barely a week goes by, even in this season of our life, that one of us doesn't
reference this statement from the Old Testament. It's found in the
Book of Nehemiah. And Nehemiah was a Jewish
exile, an ancient Jewish exile, who lives in Persia,
serving King Artaxerxes I, and the story takes
place around 444 BC. A little context to understand the
significance of this story. When this story takes place, the nation of Israel,
or the area of Judia, had been a vassal state or had lost its
sovereignty as a nation for almost 300 years. So, for about 300 years,
Israel is in disarray, they're constantly
being, you know... Nations and armies are
marching back and forth, raiding, you know, stealing,
taking whatever they want and they're trying
to hold it together, but they have no sovereignty and this has been the
case for about 300 years. It began with the Assyrians, the Assyrians conquered
that region of the world. Then the Babylonians came along
and conquered the Assyrians and the Babylonians stormed
the city of Jerusalem when the Jewish king got
kinda all uppity, thinking, hey, we're not gonna let anybody
tell us what to do anymore. The Babylonians came along, they invaded the
city of Jerusalem, they destroyed Solomon's Temple, they carted off the best and
the brightest to Babylon, including the fab four. Shadrach, Meshach,
Abednego and Daniel, okay? That's when that whole
thing takes place. And then eventually,
Persia conquers Babylon. And when Persia
conquered Babylon, Cyrus the Great, the
Persian king or emperor, Cyrus the Great said to
the Jews living in Babylon, "Hey, if you wanna go
home, you can go home. "You're welcome to leave." So, consequently, several
thousand Jewish people left that area of the world and went back to
Judia or Jerusalem. And many, many others stayed
in what would become Persia, because they had grown up there. This was their home. So, now, the nation is divided. Now, the group of the people, the exiles that went back
to the city of Jerusalem, went back to the area of Judia, found it in complete disarray. The walls were still torn
down, the gates were burned, the temple had not been rebuilt. Things were tough. So, they did their best
to kinda pull it together. They rebuilt the temple, but it was kinda
the econo temple. In fact, the Old
Testament tells us that when people who
remembered Solomon's Temple saw the new temple, they wept, not with tears of joy,
but tears of sorrow. It was such a pitiful
little temple, compared to the temple
that had been there. So, economically,
things were bad. Militarily, things were bad. It was kinda still open season
on the Jews living in Judia, during that time. So this goes on for
almost a hundred years. About 90 years later is
when our story picks up. So, Nehemiah, his family
never left Babylon, or never left Persia, and
consequently, over time, they became somewhat wealthy
and somewhat well known. And Nehemiah became the cup bearer to king
Artaxerxes of Persia. And while he's the cup
bearer to king Artaxerxes, his brother who lives in Judia, because part of the
family had gone back, came to visit him
and he asked him, Nehemiah asked his brother
and this entourage from Judia, "Hey, how are things going?" 'Cause he'd heard things
weren't going well. And this what they said,
this is from the text, Nehemiah sort of
gives us his diary. "They said to me,
'The remnant,'" the group that went back, who's been there now
for over 100 years, "'The remnant there in the
province who survived captivity "'are in great distress
and reproach.'" And then this explains
the reproach part, "'And the wall of
Jerusalem is broken down "'and its gates are
burned with fire.'" So, here's this capital city
with no walls to speak of. It's so many breaches in the
walls, people can come and go, and there's no gate. And when there's no wall
and there's no gate, this is both dangerous,
and for a city, especially a capital city, it's
degrading, it's humiliating. I was trying to think
of a good example and I came up with
a bad example. I don't know if growing up, if your parents ever took
the door off your bedroom. Anybody have this? Don't raise your hand, okay. Or, maybe you took the door off
of one of your kids bedroom. It's a terrible thing to do, it is so degrading
not to have... You don't think about it, but if you're a kid and
you can't close your door, you can't close out the adults, you can't close
out your brothers, you just never feel safe. You can't close your door. Well, in sort of a micro way, it represents this whole
city, this whole population. They couldn't keep
people out of their city, and they couldn't
protect themselves from the people in
the different areas. "When I heard these
words," Nehemiah goes, "When I heard these words, "I sat down and I wept
and I mourned for days; "and I was fasting and praying
before the God of heaven." So, Nehemiah is
many, many miles away and his heart is broken. You know, sometimes I'll
ask you the question, what breaks your heart? Well, this so broke
Nehemiah's heart, he couldn't get it off his mind. And he began to pray for wisdom and then he did something
very, very gutsy, that could've potentially
been dangerous. One afternoon he goes in
to serve King Artaxerxes, the most powerful person
in the world at this time. And King Artaxerxes realizes
something's going on with Nehemiah and he says,
you know, "What's wrong?" and the thing is, in those days, you're supposed to be happy
around the king, always. Always be happy around the king. Things are perfect, things
are great, you know? Don't bring the
king any bad news. But king Artaxerxes
notices Nehemiah, and so, he says,
"What's going on?" And Nehemiah says, "My people are in such
bad shape back in Judia "and the walls have
been torn down." He tells King Artaxerxes
the whole thing, and then he says, "Could
I have some time off? "Like, a long time off? "Like, could I
leave your service "and go back and
help my people?" This was so gutsy. And Artaxerxes says to
Nehemiah, "Yes, you can. "And in fact, I'm going to make
you the governor of Judia." Because at this point, Judia
was a vassal state of Persia. They were paying a lot
of money for protection, they basically had to do whatever the Persian
Empire told it to do. So, the king says, "I'm
gonna make you the governor "and I'm gonna give you
the resources you need "to go back and kind
of resurrect the city "and help the city." This is a huge answer to prayer. So, Nehemiah's puts together a caravan of
equipment and wealth. He's got all these letters as he goes through these
different areas that say, "Give me safe passage,
I'm on my way to Judia." He finally shows up at
the city of Jerusalem and it is worse than
he even imagined. I mean, it's terrible. The people are depressed,
economically things are bad, the plants, you know, the
forest have overgrown the areas where they were supposed
to plant their crops. I mean, everything's bad. There's no military. And basically, all the
surrounding regions were taking advantage of Judia. So, he does... One night he goes out with
some folks and he does a, sort of does a reconnaissances
of the entire area, all the way around
the way the city walls and he takes notes. And then he pulls all
the people together, all the leaders together. He's the governor now, so they sorta have
to do what he says. And he says, "Look," and then he cast this
incredible vision. In fact, if you're a leader, I think the greatest
model for vision casting is found in the book of Nehemiah because he covers
all the essentials. He says, "Here's the problem. "Here's the solution." "Here's why we need to do
something," and here's the key, "And here's why we need
to do something now." That's a great
compelling vision. Here's the problem,
here's the solution, here's why we need
to do something and here's why we need
to do something now. And then, he's so brilliant, he assigns every family a
place on the wall to work and he assigns them
the area of the wall that's closest to where
they live, very smart. So he gives everybody
a work assignment, then he sends them to work to repair the wall
around the city, and eventually to create
gates for the city, to bring back the self
esteem to the people, and, again, the
protection for the people. Well, this is good news if you
lived in or around Jerusalem, but this was not good news for all the leaders living
in the surrounding regions, that had been taking advantage
of the city of Jerusalem and the people of Judia. They felt threatened because a walled city
was a military threat. A walled city was
a military threat. So, they began to
intimidate the workers, then they began to
attack the workers. They began to attack the
families of the workers who live outside the walls
in the surrounding areas. So Nehemiah has
to stop the work, bring everybody inside the
city, which was a problem, then he had to arm the workers. Some people would guard
while other people worked. So this became a nightmare, but the work continued day
after day after day after day. Now, the ring leader for the opposition to
rebuilding the wall, was a man named Sanballat. And Sanballat got so desperate as he saw that Nehemiah
was not gonna stop. Because other people had
tried to rebuild the walls, and just a little
bit of intimidation and they would just
drop it and go away. But this Nehemiah guy, he was committed to
getting this job done. So he decides the only way
forward is to kill Nehemiah. So here's what happened. Chapter six of Nehemiah,
the story continues. "Now when it was
reported to Sanballat, "Tobiah and Geshem the Arab
and the rest of our enemies, "that I had rebuilt the wall, "and that no breach or break
in the wall remained in it, "although at that time, "I had not set up the
doors to the gates." So they're getting close
to the end of this thing. "Then Sanballat and Geshem
sent a message to me," and here's the message, saying, "Hey, let's get together,
let's have lunch, "let's have coffee,
let's chat, you know? "We've been at odds and things
haven't been going well, "but let's meet together at
Chephirim in the plain of Ono." But he got word that, "They
were planning to harm me." 'Cause they were gonna
pull him off the wall, get him isolated
from the people. We're gonna have a chat and then they were
gonna murder Nehemiah and Nehemiah knew this. "So I sent messengers
to them, saying," and what follows
is this statement, that as I was studying
through the book of Nehemiah and Sandra and I were
talking about it together and we ran across this
statement, this next sentence. The message that
Nehemiah sends back to his enemies has been... It's on our walls, we've
printed it, we've had, you know, people have given
it to us, you know? Printed or painted, because they know it's
such a big deal to us. We've quoted this
a thousand times. And here's when we quote it,
whenever we have been tempted. And every family, every couple, every individual is
tempted at some point. Whenever we have been tempted to opt for immediate
over ultimate. Or want now over value most. Or opt for optional
over what is essential. When I was tempted, you know, many, many times
like we all are, to work late and to miss dinner, to work late and to miss
times with our kids, those strategic times. To veer away from... You know, I've taught you, when it comes to money
it's give, save, live. Give, save, live. You give first, you save
second, you live on the rest. You give first, you save
second and live on the rest. And many, many times, we have
been tempted to abandon that. Because needs come
along, wants come along, it's a difficult
season financially. And anytime we have been tempted to abandon give, save, live, this is the statement that
brings us back to center. It's like True North. Well, on one occasion, we had
just moved into a rental house and we had three little kids, they were all
walking by this time, and I had a very
time consuming hobby. And by the way, I'm
not knocking hobbies, I'm not even knocking
time consuming hobbies, I'm just telling ya my story. My time consuming hobby
was I had a music studio. It was not a side hustle. There was no money involved. It was purely fun
and enjoyable for me. So we'd just moved
into this rental house, I'm in the basement
of the rental house
opening up my boxes, about to set up my
little music studio and I'm hearing all the
little pitter patter of footsteps running
around upstairs and I'm feeling that tension. That tension of here's
something I enjoy, here's something
that's replenishing, here's something that's
kind of a part of me, and upstairs is my priority. And for me, it was this idea
that I'm gonna share with you, it was this statement
that forced me, or
it didn't force me, it caused me to just stop. I packed everything back up and I sold or gave away all
of my music studio stuff. And you know what? I've never missed it,
I've never looked back. Sometimes people who knew I
did a lot of music in the past, say, "Do you ever miss it?" I'm like, "No, that
was for a season "and when that season
ended, I kind of knew it." And it just wasn't time,
it just wasn't the season, for me to give that
much of myself, in terms of time and
emotion to a hobby. Because I had three little
kids running around upstairs and a wonderful wife
who's doing her best to be a great mother. So I packed it all
up and gave it away. I also gave away my golf clubs. Just kidding, I didn't. (congregation laughs) I've never owned golf clubs. Okay, anyway, so! A little meddling there. Okay, so, the story goes on. "So I sent," Nehemiah says, "I sent messengers
to them saying..." One more caveat before I
give you this statement, this is important. When Nehemiah assigned
people to work on the wall, he gave himself an assignment. He's a great leader. In fact, the Book of Nehemiah is a great lesson in
all kinds of leadership. He decided I'm not
gonna ask these people to do something I'm not
willing to do myself, and even though
I'm the governor, he got out there and
he worked on the wall. So, when the messenger from
Sanballat showed up to say, "Hey, we wanna have a meeting," he's actually, literally,
physically, up on the walls, right where the wall
connects to the gate, working on the gates. And so, the messenger
looks up and says, "Hey, Sanballat, Tobiah
and Geshem the Arab, "they wanna have a
meeting with you." And so, he shouts down, he says, "Send a message, "write this down and take this
message back to Sanballat. "Are you ready?" And he says, "I'm ready." Here's the message. "I am doing a great work
and I cannot come down." I'd like for all of us to
say this out loud, together, even if you're watching
alone at home, ready? All together. - [Everyone] "I am
doing a great work "and I cannot come down." - Now, real quick, I want you
to think for just a minute, about what is most important
to you right now in your life. What is most important? It may be a who or
it may be a what. What is most important
to you right now? And with that in mind, I want us to say
this again, ready? - [Everyone] "I am
doing a great work "and I cannot come down." - Now, I want you to think
about your biggest distraction from the thing that's
most important to you. And I want us to say it
one more time, you ready? - [Everyone] "I am
doing a great work "and I cannot come down." - And then Nehemiah says
the most interesting thing and there's so much application
as it relates to all of us, here's what he says. He asked them a question, and this is a question I think you should
contextualize for your life as I've contextualized
it to mine. The question is this, "Why should the work stop while
I leave it and come down," literally, physically, the
optics of this are amazing, he is looking down. "Why should I stop
what I'm doing up here "and come down to you?" I'm up here doing
what's most important, that makes the most difference to the people who are
most important to me. "Why would I lower
myself to do something," or, "lower myself for
something of less importance?" And that's a great question. Why would you do that? Why would I do that? We know what's most important. We know what's urgent, but
we know what's important. We know what needs to change, we know what needs
to get better. We know what, in our hearts, God wants us to do in
our personal lives, our family lives, our dating
lives, our academic lives, whatever it might
be, we kind of know. And it's so easy
to get distracted. And I promise you, I'm as easily
distracted as anybody, but why would I come down from
what's most important to me? And maybe in your case, you feel like it's something
God wants you to do. Why would you step down,
like in Nehemiah's case, from what you know
God wants you to do, to do something less than that? So, they write down
Nehemiah's answer, they go back and
they tell Sanballat, "Well, he said I'm not
coming to the meeting." Well, they are committed to
getting him off that wall, so they send messengers
back with the same request, trying to wear him down. In fact, here's
what the text says. "They sent messages to me
four times in this manner. "Hey, what about next weened? "Or what about the
weekend after that? "Hey, what about two
Thursday's from now? "Hey, Nehemiah, just find
an opening on your calendar "and when you have time, just
let us know, we're flexible." But this was not a
scheduling conflict, and this is so important
for somebody here today, or listening today. This was not a
scheduling conflict, because this was not
about scheduling. It was a priority conflict. There is always time to put the wrong thing
on your calender. We can always find time
to squeeze that thing in, that takes away
from, or subtracts, from what's most
important to us. But Nehemiah was so smart. This was not about trying to
find room on the calender, this was all about priority. And Nehemiah had pre-decided
what was most important. He didn't check his
calender, he didn't need to, because he had already decided
what was most important. And why would I come down
from what's most important? And what's most
important to the people who are most important to me, in order to do something
that has nothing to do with what I feel God
has called me to do? They sent the messengers,
the text says, to him, four times
in this manner, and I answered
them the same way. And what was his answer? All together. - [Everyone] "I am
doing a great work "and I cannot come down." - I told you that
the first time, I'm telling you that
the second time, telling you that the third time, told you that the fourth time. Now, when our children
were super young, and this kind of
shifted, and again, I'm not trying to turn this
into a parenting thing, this is just when this principle
really got gritty for us and difficult for us, and where it made so
much difference for us. We decided that in order
to really be focused on what we needed to be focused
on when our kids were young, that there were certain things that we just had to say
no to ahead of time, whole categories of things. Now, it wasn't a matter of we can't find an
opening on the calender. There were just
several categories, I'm not gonna tell
you what they were, we just decided categorically,
these are things we don't do. We don't not do them because
we can't find time for them, we don't not do them because this isn't what we're
gonna do in this season. In fact, we came up with
a list of these things and through different
seasons of life, this list has changed. But, I think, all of you, regardless of what
season you're in, may need a list like that. We called it, now,
this is kinda corny, we called it our no for
now, but not forever list. No for now, but not forever. In other words, this
is a no for now, it's not a no forever,
it's just a no for now. In this season,
we don't do that, we don't participate in that, we don't go to those things, we don't say yes
those opportunities. It's not no forever, because
these aren't bad things, these aren't wrong things, these are just time
consuming things and at this particular time
in this particular season, we wanna give our
undivided attention to the things that we feel
like are most important to us. And it could be that you need a no for
now, but not forever list. And the reason this is important is because there are
so many invitations, and so many opportunities
and they're all mostly good. This isn't good versus bad,
this is wise versus unwise. And this isn't
throughout your life, this is during a
season of your life. If you are a student, you need a no for now,
but not forever list. If you are a newlywed, you need a no for now,
but not forever list. If you're young and married, or you know, you're
raising little kids and then when you start
raising high school kids, the list changes. But there have to be some
categories of things, that in order to get done what you know you
need to get done, to prioritize what
needs to be prioritized, you just have to
categorically say no. This just isn't something
we're doing in this season. You have to pre-decide. And think about it, it was in the context
of Nehemiah's story, if he had said yes
to this invitation, they would've killed him. And even though the results aren't as extreme
with you or with me, there is a parallel that
there are certain hobbies that if you continue
to say yes to, if there's certain pastimes
you continue to say yes to, if there are certain
kinds of relationships you continue to say yes to, if there are certain invitations that you continue to say yes to, those invitations
will kill your chances of experiencing the future
you envisioned for yourself. And they may destroy
or undermine or kill the opportunity of a
lifetime that's coming along, that you're preparing for,
because you won't be prepared. So, parents, every night, when you're tucking your kids in or they're coming in from
middle school or high school, you just need to look at them and you just need
to say to yourself, "I am doing a great work
and I cannot come down." And husbands, when
you're traveling and you look at that
picture, you know, of your kids and your
family and your wife and you just need to look
at the picture and say, "I'm doing a great work
and I cannot come down." Wives, you need to look at
your husbands and you say, "He's a piece of work." (congregation laughs) And, "What would
he do without me?" Just wanted to see if you
were paying attention, right? No, you do the same thing. You look at your husband,
you look at your family, you look at what's
going on right now and you say to
yourself, you know what? "I'm doing a great work
and I cannot come down." I saved the best for last. Singles, listen, listen. What is the most direct route, what is the most direct route
to your preferred future? What is the most direct route
to your preferred future? Because you have a picture of what you want the
future to look like. Don't get distracted. High school students, what is the most direct route
to your preferred future? Don't get distracted. Don't trade ultimate
for immediate. Because here's what
I know about you even though I don't know you. You are doing a great work,
or, I should say this, there is a great
work you should do. And here's how I know that, because you're writing
the story of your life. And the story of your
life is a great work and it's the only
story you get to write, so you gotta write a good. This is the only story
you get to write. This is the story. Write a story that
you want to tell, because every decision you make and every time you
prioritize correctly, you are writing a
story you want to tell. And maybe more
importantly, I don't know, you're writing the story
that's gonna be told about you. Well, Nehemiah's enemies,
when you read the story, they are relentless. He has told them, "No, we're
not gonna have a meeting," but they don't give up. So, they decide they're
gonna start rumors about him. And the rumors they start is that Nehemiah
wants to be a king. The reason Nehemiah
is fixing the city up and putting gates on the city, is he's reestablishing
Israel as a superpower and they're gonna rebel
like Israel always rebelled and they're gonna
rebel again Persia. And they start this rumor, hoping Artaxerxes is
gonna hear this rumor and bring Nehemiah home and
get him off those walls, so they can have their
way the region again. And Nehemiah ignores the rumors, because as some of us
have learned the hard way, criticism can be a
distraction, can't it? Criticism can get
you off center, as you're trying to chase
down all of your critics and answer all of your critics. Nehemiah completely
ignores them. When that didn't work,
then they told him, they sent somebody to
Nehemiah, they said, "Nehemiah, there is an
internal plot, within the city, "to assassinate you. "And they're gonna come for
you when you least expect it "and your best option is
to flee to the temple." Because there was a law,
there was a Jewish law, that if somebody was
guilty of a crime, they could flee to temple, cling to the alter and you
couldn't arrest that person. And there was certain
qualifications and certain things you could do to make sure you
weren't arrested. But this was their way
to try to trick Nehemiah into acting like he was
guilty of something, a coward of some kind. Nehemiah ignores that as well. The text continues
and says this, "So the wall was completed on
the 25th of Elul, in 52 days." They rebuilt the
walls Jerusalem. And, "When all of our
enemies heard of it, "and all the nations
surrounding us saw it, "they lost their confidence." Why? Because, "They
recognized that this work "had been accomplished
with the help of our God." Now here's one of
the coolest things about the book of Nehemiah,
there are no miracles. God never shows up. There's nothing supernatural. It's kind of like the
lives that we live, the day to day lives
that we experience, the day to day criticisms and
distractions we experience. But Nehemiah knew in his heart,
this is the thing I must do. This is the job I must complete, this is the project I must
get to the finish line. These are the people
I must love well, these are the people
I must protect. And regardless of
the distractions and regardless of
the threats to me and regardless of
all the consequences of ignoring all the threats, I have to get this
to the finish line. So there are no miracles, there's just
dedication to a job, there's hard work,
there's good leadership, there's confidence that
God wired him to do this, and then there's success, all
because he stayed focused. So here's my question for you
as you begin a new season, or as you think
about your future, as you consider
what's most important, what is your wall? What is your wall? What is the thing you
dare not come down from until the work is done? What is the thing that you have to stay
focused on until it changes, or until it's restored? Whether it's all year, or whether it's an entire
season of your life. Maybe it's that habit that
you finally need to break. Maybe it's a business that
you know you need to start. Maybe it's a relationship
that you need to rebuild. And every time you hear
me or somebody else talk about restring
a relationship and you think in your heart,
yeah, I need to do that, but it never feels urgent. It's extremely important, but it's never urgent and
it just never gets done. But maybe restoring
that relationship is the key to unlocking
somebody's heart, somebody's bitterness that
allows them to forgive you or forgive somebody
they need to forgive. Maybe it's restoring
a relationship, maybe it's retiring that debt, maybe it's a degree that
you need to complete. And then this is part
of the equation as well, what are the distractions? What's distracting you? Because you know the
answer to that too, right? You know what needs to be done and you know what
you need to focus on. And you can look
at your calender and you can look at
your daily routines and you know what's
distracting you. What are the obstacles
that you need to remove? I didn't own a television
until I was 30 years old and I just knew
that a television was gonna be extraordinarily
distracting to me. Sometimes people
ask me, they say, "Andy, when do you have
time to write books?" I have written 27 books. I can't believe that
I've written 27 books. They say, "When did
you write those books?" I said, "While you
were watching TV." (congregation laughs) I just decided a long time
ago, I only have so much time. And I'm not against
television, I'm on television. I've never stayed up to
watch my program, you know? (congregation laughs) You know, I come
on after Saturday, well, our church comes on
after Saturday Night Live, in about 34 markets around the
country, which is so amazing. And my mom, she passed
away about five years ago, she used to stay up and watch
it, at one in the morning. I'm like... She goes, "No, but I
wanna watch it live." I'm like, "Mom, I'm asleep,
it's not live, okay? (congregation laughs) "Everything on television,
except headline news "and you know, sports,
it's all prerecorded." She says, "Yeah, but I
like to watch it live." I said, "Okay, you
watch it live." Anyway, so I'm all
for television, but I just decided early on in
a certain season of my life, there were things I needed to do and I just needed to give
that time to something else. And for some of you, you just... Those are hard decisions,
but those are obstacles. So, what do you
need to eliminate? I mean, there're obstacles and then there's
just some things, just some categories
that, I'm telling ya, no for now, but not forever. No for now, but not forever. No during this season, and then in another season
of my life, I'll pick it up. And then here's a
difficult question, but I have to ask it? Who do you need to eliminate? And let me be clear,
not literally, okay? (congregation laughs) Yes. These are the
kinds of statements people take a picture of
and put on the internet and there goes my reputation. (congregation laughs) Who do you need to eliminate off your schedule
or out of your life? Another one's, let me ask
you in a different way, who, this is important,
who is keeping you? Who is keeping you from becoming
who or what you wanna be? They're just not a
good influence on you, and let's be honest, you're not always all
that good of an influence on them either. They may hear or
listen to this message, they may be listening now and
they're thinking about you, just like you're thinking
about them, okay? So this isn't about some people
are worse than other people, but at this season of your life, they're just not
helping you get there. In fact, in this season of
your life, they're an obstacle. And let me just say something to all of our high school
juniors and seniors and all the college
students that are listening, your parents have an insight and have an intuition about
your friends that you lack, and you don't lack it
because you're not smart. You lack because you're
in your teens or your 20s. And when somebody you respect, and when somebody who loves you, and when somebody who has no
other agenda but your future, says to you, "I think this
person is a distraction, "I think this person
is gonna undermine, "I think this person has
more negative impact on you "than you have positive
impact on them," you need to listen
to that person because you're at a critical
season of your life. You're making decisions
that will determine, essentially, where you end up. Because direction,
remember this, direction, not intention. Everybody has good intentions. Direction, not intention,
determines your destination. And your friends, you know
this, we've taught you this, your friends determine
the direction and the quality of your life. So there may be someone
just during this season, that you need to back off from, because they're
not gonna help you get to where you
ultimately want to be. You have a great work to do. I know you do. Because you have
a story to write. And I know you wanna
write a good one. And you're writing
it every single day, decision by decision
by decision. So, one more time,
all together, ready? - [Everyone] "I'm
doing a great work and I cannot come down." - And this time, I want you to say it
like you mean it, ready? - [Everyone] "I am
doing a great work "and I cannot come down." - You are doing a great work,
you dare not get distracted. And for most of you, not all
of you, but for most of you, somebody else is depending
on you to stay focused on your great work. So, there are many things
you will do this year and there are many things
you can do this year, but what is the one thing
you must do this year? What is your wall? And are you willing
to stay on it until the task is complete? You are doing a great
work, so don't come down.
