What We Set Before Our Eyes Spiritual Discipline Victor Heath

The transcription discusses the importance of spiritual discipline and maintaining focus on Jesus. It references various Bible verses to emphasize the significance of keeping our eyes and hearts pure, avoiding temptation, and aligning ourselves with God's will. The key message is to proactively discipline ourselves to resist sin and distractions, making deliberate choices to stay aligned with God's path. The focus is on maintaining integrity, purity, and obedience through constant prayer and vigilance. Ultimately, the goal is to walk in step with God and avoid the temptations that lead to sin. Today we'll be focusing on the idea of what we have set before our eyes and spiritual discipline. It is based around Matthew chapter 6, beginning in verse 22. It says, this is Jesus speaking, he says, the eye is the lamp of the body. So then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness. This clear word that he uses here, it means healthy. At work, I use safety glasses every day and as I use them, smudges and grime begin to build up on them. It becomes difficult to see as I should. It is the same spiritually. Spiritual discipline is our eyes being focused on Jesus. We have intentional, if we keep our eyes clear, if we keep our eyes healthy, we can be focused. We have intentional direction. However, a dark or an undisciplined gaze darkens the whole body. How then do we go about disciplining ourselves to ensure our eyes remain focused? Come with me to Proverbs chapter 4. Proverbs 4, we'll begin reading in verse 18. It says, but the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn. That light, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day. The way of the wicked is like darkness. They do not know over what they stumble. My son, give attention to my words. Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight. Keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them and health to all their body. Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put devious speech far from you. Let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right, nor to the left. Turn your foot from evil. Discipline is not passive avoidance. It is an active direction. We train our eyes to look straight ahead. Looking at verse 23, he says, watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flows springs of life. The diligence word is the same word as confinement. So we are to safely secure our hearts by keeping tabs on it. You do this by being intentional and looking inwardly constantly, not just at one moment. Looking at verse 25, let your eyes look directly ahead and let your gaze be fixed straight in front of you. Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right, nor to the left. Turn your foot from evil. He's saying watch where you're going and if you ponder the path of your feet, your ways will be established. Come with me to Hebrews, the 12th chapter. Hebrews, chapter 12. The context of this passage is the author has just finished up the so-called Hall of Fame of Faith. By faith, so-and-so did such and such a thing. With that context in mind, beginning in verse 1 of chapter 12, it says, therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us. And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Where are we striving to go? Hopefully, we're striving to all go and be with Jesus. So let us be disciplined to lay aside everything that hinders us from running to him. All these things in our lives that really just do not matter, set them aside, leave them behind, for they do nothing but hinder us and make it harder for us to run this race. They distract us from keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus. He again, Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, says, if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. It is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. His, you know, a lot of people are right eye and right hand dominated. It's going to cost us something to follow him. And his point is saying we should be willing to do whatever it takes so that we may enter into heaven, so that we may not die from sin. A part of being disciplined is making the choice before temptation arises. Come with me to Psalm 101. Psalm 101. This is a Psalm of David. We'll begin making our way through all of the Psalms. It begins, he begins, I will sing of loving kindness and justice. To you, O Lord, I will sing praises. I will give heed to the blameless way. When will you come to me? I will walk within my house and the integrity of my heart. Here, David is saying that he walks in the integrity of his heart and that he heeds the blameless way. Can we say the same about our daily life? Are we waiting for the Lord to come to us? Do we keep our integrity? You know, integrity is doing the right thing even when, even when no one is looking. So God is always watching us. Do we always choose the right thing to do? When we are by ourselves. Coming back. He says, I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the works, the work of those who fall away. It shall not fasten its grip on me. A perverse heart shall depart from me. I will know no evil. David here is saying he will not set any worthless thing before his eyes. This pairs nicely with our passage in Hebrews saying we are laying aside any encumbrance. It seems in doing so, a perverse heart departs from David. This reminds me of Leviticus and 1 Peter where it is quoted, be holy for I am holy. In keeping ourselves holy, it becomes easier to keep a clean heart. And to not know evil. Speaking of this evil, David continues. He says, whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy. No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure. My eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land that they may dwell with me. He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me. He who practices deceit shall not dwell within my house. He who speaks falsehood shall not maintain his position before me. Every morning I will destroy all the wicked of the land. So as to cut off from the city of the Lord all those who do iniquity. David is showing his dedication to removing evil from his sight and from all around him. He will not tolerate such evils in his presence, nor in his dwelling place. Do we do the same in our lives? Do we, when people around the world, do we tolerate the evils that they commit? The gossip, the crude speech, the sexual immorality, the drunkenness? Or do we purify our lives to walk with integrity? Does not bad company corrupt good morals? David makes the decision to not have these things before his eyes. And you can too. He premeditates his discipline so that when a worthless thing does present itself, he has already made, he has already decided how he will deal with it. And David is not alone in this mindset. We see another example of this from Job. In Job 31, verse 1, he says, I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then can I gaze at a virgin? You see, he frames discipline as a prior covenant and not an emotional struggle in the moment. And in these emotional struggles, when temptation is screaming loud at you, the decision is already made, a decision that does not leave room for sin to form. These moments that feel like split-second decisions, excuse me, these moments that feel like split-second decisions rarely begin in a split second. They arrive after hours of loosened attention, sireness, idleness, or quiet compromise. Satan does not usually rush. He waits for us to stop watching. This means integrity is not built in the moment of temptation but in the ordinary hours that come before it. It is in what we allow our minds to dwell on, excuse me, and how often we remind ourselves that God is present. And whether we are practicing obedience when it costs little so that we are not shocked when it costs more. Our flesh does not dictate our direction, and prayer cannot be our last resort offered once desire has already taken hold. Prayer must be the atmosphere in which we live in, the steady awareness that God is near and not merely watching but inviting. When we pray only in crisis, we treat God like a safety net. When we pray throughout the day, we begin to experience him as a companion. When desires begin to fester, maybe the work is to shorten their stay, to notice them sooner, to refuse to entertain them, and to redirect our attention before they root themselves. Perhaps over time the small interruptions, the early exits, ordinary disciplines, and repeated choices can reshape our hearts. Perhaps obedience, practiced long enough, begins to feel less like resistance and more like alignment and less like losing something and more like finally walking in step with God. An undisciplined sight will permit us to look longer than we need to, and it is what forms desire. And we know from 1 John 2, verse 16, that the lust of the eyes is from the world. And we know that this is how sin entered into the world. If you look at Genesis 3, verse 6, it says, When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Sin does not begin with a glance. With a prolonged look, it warps our desire to serve God. Did not Satan do this to you? Spiritual discipline interrupts this process early. Looking at Romans, the 13th chapter, Romans chapter 13, looking at verse 14, it says, But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. Provision is forethought, and this provision can enter through what we allow ourselves to see repeatedly. And discipline reduces opportunity before that desire grows. This brings us all back to our first passage, Matthew 6. The eye is the lamp of the body. So then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness. Having a disciplined sight will grant us a clear focus, which will give us inner light. Yet if our sight is undisciplined, it clouds our focus and fills our bodies with darkness. Discipline is not merely resisting temptation at its greatest moment. It is preemptively deciding where the eyes will not linger long before resistance is needed. If you lean on God and lean on your brethren, let us keep tabs on our heart, guarding it from the evil one. If you are here and you realize that the light that is in you is darkness, why not choose a life walking with God right now? If you have never obeyed the gospel of Christ, having found it true, you must repent of your ways. And you must make the confession that Jesus is the Son of God. And this confession is a covenant. You are proclaiming Jesus as King and no one can serve two masters. So you must make that covenant to God to do his will from now on. And you must be baptized in water to be forgiven of your sins. To be redeemed is to be bought back. We have sold ourselves to sin. Yet Jesus came, his life and his blood the price to buy us back. We sing a song, redeemed, how I love to proclaim it, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. If you are here and you struggle with keeping evil from your sight, you lack discipline. Rise up, oh man of God, have done with lesser things. Commit yourself wholly to God. Turn to God while there is still life and breath within you. If there be any need, I ask that you please come forward now. Because now is the time. While we stand.