Encounter Church
Sunday Morning 11.16.25
  • Song
      • Bible Trivia
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  • Jesus You Alone
  • I Thank God
  • worthy of my song
  • We're Blessed

      • 1 Corinthians 11:23–26NKJV

  • Scripture

    Matthew 6:22–24 NKJV
    22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
    Main Idea:
    Our focus must continually be on Christ and the kingdom. Our loyal to God must supercede everything else. We must choose what our focus will be. We cannot
    Major questions in the Text:
    What is an eye filled with darkness look like?
    What is an eye filled with darkness look like?
    Tension in the text:
    This weak there is little tension in the text. Rather the text reveals great tension in us. How you view the world and scripture has a major impact on your life. We must be careful guard our hearts to fulfill the mandate of the kingdom in our lives. We must give our undivided devotion to God.

    Introduction:

    Life is filled with decisions. From what time we get up to the time we go to bed we are constantly making decisions. What will I eat. What will I wear? Which route will I take to my destination? How will I fill my day with decisions. Many of us are so overhelmed with decision that we gravitate toward ways to avoid them. We call that entertainment of a-muse-ment. But even the decision to avoid decisions is still a…. Well it’s a decision.
    Every bit of information we receive prompts a decision.
    The decision could be to act positively
    Negatively
    Or.. Not at all
    Let’s break down that word decision.
    From Google:
    The word "decisions" comes from the Latin roots de ("down" or "away from") and caedere ("to cut"), so a decision literally means "to cut off" from other possibilities. The word is made up of the root "decide-" and the suffix "-s" to make it plural.
           
    Matthew 6:22–23 NKJV
    22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

    I. I’ve got something in my eye

    A. The Entry way

    The Eye as a Lamp: In a physical the eye is that allows light and information to enter the body. This light and information is then processed to help us navigate safely through our environment. It is what we see that allows to:
    get from one point to another
    Avoid Danger
    Handle our day to day functional activities.
    And it is in a similar way that our spiritual eyes help guide us through the world. Jesus is making a delcaration that ask a spiritual question? “ From the vantage point of the spirit:
    How so we see and interpret the spiritual condition of ourselves and the world around us?
    How do we focus on what really matters?
    How do eliminate what is attacking our focus?
    which light enters the body, allowing us to navigate our environment. Spiritually, the "eye" represents a person's inner self, their perspective, focus, and moral outlook, which guides their entire life.
    Power Principle: How you see spiritually matters. Spiritual focus effects our entire life.
    Jesus let’s us know if the eye is “single”, the whole body is full of life.
    Lexical Summaryhaplous: Single, clear, sincere, sound
    Original Word: ἁπλοῦς Part of Speech: Adjective Transliteration: haplous Pronunciation: hah-PLOOS Phonetic Spelling: (hap-looce') KJV: single  NASB: clear Word Origin: [probably from G1 (α - Alpha) (as a particle of union) and the base of G4120 (πλέκω - twisting)]
    Helps Word Studies
    HELPS Word-studies
    Cognate: 573 haploús (haploós) – properly, unfolded, single – literally, "without folds" (J. Thayer), referring to a single (undivided) focus, i.e. without a (secret) "double agenda" which prevents an over-complicated life (becoming needlessly distracted).  See 572 (haplotēs). 
    [573 (haploús) is the antonym of the Greek term diplous meaning, "double."  MMnotes in the papyri that 573 (haploús) likewise means, "simple" (uncompounded, single).]
    This refers to an UNDIVIDED focus in our spiritual life. In other words, to follow Jesus, You cannot Straddle the fence in our focus.
    Our study should be intense
    Our worship should be intense
    We should seek to look more more like Jesus (Spiritual Formation) and less like everything else.
    Many of our struggles with spiritual growth come right down to one thing…. Our loyalties are divided.
    Yes, we’ve got our eyes on too many things to focus on one. But Jesus tells us that when our eyes are focused on the truth of God, It leads to moral stability, clarity and the fruit they produce.
    Many people are conflicted because we’ve have tried to sneak worldly values into a kingdom life and we are conflicted. Many of the things they regard as truth and positions they hold are in direct conflict. This means to walk in a Kingdom Agenda our positions should contain less “I think” and more “scripture says”
    To truly seek kingdom results we must pursue a undivided focus.

    B. Eyes filled with Darkness

    The eye is an instrument to take in not just information. This morning Jesus goes beyond the pupil and cornea and takes us on a much deeper level. The eye Jesus talks about this morning is our spiritual perception.
    It is our worldview shaped with all the information of our life experiences. It is the access point at which we consume content both information that will affect both our spiritual and our natural Journey
    When you’re a hammer everything is a nail
    When you’ve been cheated on, every person is a cheater
    When your soul has been a witness more to the negative, even the good things in your mind are spun as bad.
    When you’re in trauma, everything is an attack
    When you’ve been in a culture of deceit, everyone is dishonest
    There are many people who cannot love those around them because they even take help as a criticism. They have been traumatized and never told they were loved or did a good job. They are hyper critical, and negative because their soul is filled with darkness. The remedy? fill the soul with light.
    Power Principle: An eye of darkness lives in a perversion of reality where the beholder is trapped in a false perception. They are operated in an unbalanced and dishonest representation of the world. This makes is vital that believers fill their lives and homes with light and truth.
    B. Eyes filled with light
    When our lives are filled with light, we see the world in a much different way.
    We see life through triumph rather that trauma
    We see promise Rather than Pain
    We opportunity more than we see opposition

    Hermeneutical bridge:

    [Sub Point in Bridge]

    { SB 1}
    {SB 2}

    II. Choose Your Master

    Matthew 6:24 NKJV
    24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
    Insight. Jesus pauses to tells us this because the unhealthy pursuit of wealth and riches can easily distract our pursuit for spiritual growth.
    mamónas: Mammon, wealth, riches
    Original Word: μαμωνᾶς Part of Speech: Noun, Masculine Transliteration: mamónas Pronunciation: mah-mo-NAHS Phonetic Spelling: (mam-mo-nas') KJV: mammon  NASB: wealth Word Origin: [of Chaldee origin (confidence, i.e. wealth, personified)]
    Beware of Greeds grip
    Topical LexiconOverview
    Strong’s Greek 3126, transliterated mamōnas, denotes material wealth in such a way that it is treated as a personal power competing with devotion to God. The term appears in the teaching of Jesus alone and is always set in antithesis to the true sovereignty of the Lord.

    Power Principle: We must make sure our pursuit of wealth doesn’t overshadow our devotion to the the Kingdom.

    III. Guard your heart

    Guard your heart above all else,     for it determines the course of your life. Proverbs 4:23
    Proverbs 4:23 NKJV
    23 Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.
    Guard your heart above all else,     for it determines the course of your life. Proverbs 4:23 NLT
    Philippians 4:8 NKJV
    8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.

    Ways to remove darkness from your life

    Ways to bring remove the darkness in your life
    Remove negative movies
    Remove consistently negative or dark and dishonest people
    Remove negative television programming
    Remove musical consumption that is filled with negative situations, pre-marital sex, betrayal, break-ups
    Use accountability apps thats prevent habits such as pornographic addicitons.
    Remove compromising situations that would cause you to yield to temptation spiritually or mentally
    Test what your social media alogorithms are feeding you vs. the scripture and select “I do not want to see this content” for those items. It will adjust your algorithm

    Ways to Bring in the Light

    Make a consistent devotional time on you calendar or phone calendar that will remind you to study.
    Evolve your friend group to healthy people who love their families and exude biblical behavior
    Intentionally seek out podcasts and programming that edify and lift up. Find biblically based content to consume. What you consume is a choice.
    Seek Biblical spiritual counsel to deal with past traumas.
    Change your information consumption to newscasters, podcasters that are not opinion based and negative toward an opposing group. As a matter of fact, limit your news consumption all together and replace it with something more positive.
    Practice speaking in optimistic and positive phrases.
    Forgive those who have hurt you and make a conscience effort to replace negative to see positive sides when and responses when you feel negative emotions

    IV. Conclusion

    In short, we have a decision to make on what type of life we want and what type of life we will live. I recommend the life of the kingdom. The life filled with light that will fill your soul. The life that contains healing and wholeness. A life that does not contain perfection but does make progress. Today, the choice is yours.

      • Matthew 6:22–24NKJV

      • Matthew 6:22–23NKJV

      • Matthew 6:24NKJV

      • Proverbs 4:23NKJV

      • Philippians 4:8NKJV

Encounter Church
http://www.encounter360.org
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