REFOCUS: Anchoring to the Unshakable Word

The Fourth of Seven

When you look at yourself honestly and see the gap between where you should be and the place you now find yourself, you have a decision to make. You can look away and pretend everything is fine or you can decide to do something about it. 

King Josiah looked into the mirror of God’s Word, he grieved the gap. But after grief there should be purposeful action. The third step in the renewal cycle is to Refocus. We must let God’s Word set our direction. No matter where you find yourself, God will help you to navigate yourself back to where you should be if you will make God’s Word the priority in your life. 

Josiah’s response after tearing his robes is decisive. He doesn’t form a committee. He doesn’t launch a new marketing campaign. He gathers everyone—from the least to the greatest—at the temple. And what does he do? 2 Kings 23:2 says, "He read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant". He then stands by the pillar and leads the entire nation in a public renewal of their covenant with God, pledging "to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book".

The Word of God, which had been the source of their conviction, now becomes the source of their direction. It is recentered as the absolute, non-negotiable authority for the life of the nation. Everything else would now have to align with the Book.

Think about the return of Steve Jobs to Apple in 1997. The company he came back to was just 90 days from bankruptcy. Why? It was suffering from a catastrophic loss of focus. Apple was producing a bewildering array of products—dozens of different computer models, printers, peripherals—and none of them were great. They were trying to be everything to everyone and were failing spectacularly.

In one of the most legendary meetings in corporate history, Jobs, as the new interim CEO, walked up to a whiteboard and drew a simple two-by-two grid. Across the top, he wrote "Consumer" and "Pro." Down the side, he wrote "Desktop" and "Portable." He then turned to his executive team and said, "This is our new product line". He slashed over 70% of the company’s products, refocusing all of Apple’s immense talent and energy on making just four, world-class computers. He cut away dozens of good ideas to refocus on a few great ones. This radical act of subtraction and refocusing saved the company and paved the way for the iMac, the iPod, and the iPhone.

Jobs's first major act was not to add something new, but to cut away the clutter. Similarly, Josiah’s first public act was not to launch a new festival, but to re-center the existing Word of God. The lesson is profound: renewal often requires the discipline of subtraction before the work of addition can begin. We must clear away the complexity that chokes out our primary purpose. This is the biblical principle of pruning: God cuts away branches that are unfruitful so that the fruitful ones can bear even more fruit.

What is the "whiteboard" of your life? If keeping the same grid, what are the four essential quadrants God has called you to? Your relationship with Him, your family, your vocation, your church community? Many of us are living cluttered, busy, unfocused lives, doing many good things but failing at the great things. To refocus means having the courage to say "no" to the good so that you can give your best "yes" to God’s best.

And as a church, we can suffer from the same mission drift. We add programs, events, and ministries until our calendar is full but our people are not being transformed. We must constantly refocus on our "four quadrants": the apostles’ teaching (the Word), the fellowship (Christian Community), the breaking of bread (Lord’s Supper/Worship), and the prayers. We must restore the public reading of Scripture, doctrinal clarity, worship, and earnest corporate prayer to the very center of our life together. 

In an effort to not just “preach” to you about the importance of refocusing the church, I have created another worksheet for you to evaluate what may need refocusing and then, what to do about it. I’ve sought to keep it as simple as possible without compromising effectiveness in self-assessment. I call it the Acts 2:42 Church Focus Assessment. You can download it, no strings attached, by clicking the button below. 

Acts 2:42 Assessment

If you have not taken advantage of the other free downloads in this series, you can find them at the end of each of the blogs. They are:

• Remind: Who I am In Christ Handout

• Review: The “One Another” Self Evaluation and Growth Plan

REVIEW: The Courage for a Mirror Moment

The Third of Seven

Never skip step one: Remind. It isn't enough to simply know who we are. We have to tell ourselves that story every day, and pass it on to the generation behind us. Identity can't just be a concept in our heads; it must live in our souls.

Only when we are grounded are we ready for the second—and hardest—step: Review. We have to look our reality in the face.

When the high priest’s secretary reads the newly discovered Book of the Law to King Josiah, his reaction is not defensive. It’s not dismissive. It’s not, "Well, that was then, this is now." His reaction is visceral. 2 Kings 22:11 says, "When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes".

In that culture, tearing one's robes was a public act of the deepest grief, horror, and repentance. The Word of God became a mirror held up to the soul of the nation, and for the first time, Josiah saw the massive, terrifying gap between God’s holy standard and Judah’s lived reality. He saw their polluted worship, their neglect of the poor, their rampant injustice, their spiritual apathy, and it broke his heart. He didn't make excuses. He didn't blame his ancestors, though he could have. He mourned the deficit.

This kind of honest reflection is terrifying, but it is the only path to health. Consider the story of another massive turnaround. When Alan Mulally took over as CEO of Ford Motor Company in 2006, the company was on the verge of collapse, projecting a $17 billion loss. He quickly discovered a corporate culture that was deeply dysfunctional. The company was structured into competing fiefdoms, and most dangerously, everyone pretended everything was fine. It was a culture of fake harmony.

Mulally instituted a mandatory weekly "Business Plan Review" meeting. Every senior leader had to present the status of their projects using a simple color code: green meant on-track, yellow meant caution, and red meant there was a problem. For weeks, every single chart presented was green. Green, green, green—even as the company was bleeding billions of dollars. No one was willing to admit failure, fearing they would be fired. Ever seen something like this before? Certainly. It's human nature.

Finally, an executive named Mark Fields, who later became CEO himself, bravely put a red mark on his chart for a major issue with the new Ford Edge launch. The room went silent. Everyone expected Mulally to explode. Instead, Mulally started to clap. He said, "Mark, thank you for that visibility. Now, what can we do as a team to help you?"

That single moment shattered the culture of fear and denial. Suddenly, "red" was not a mark of personal failure; it was a catalyst for collective problem-solving. By creating a culture where it was safe to be honest about the problems, Mulally was finally able to review the reality of the company's situation and lead one of the most remarkable turnarounds in corporate history.1

Do you see the connection? Mulally’s applause created a culture of grace. Only in that safety could the truth emerge. It is no different for us. Josiah’s profound repentance was met immediately with a word of grace from God. Through the prophetess Huldah, God said, “Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the LORD… I also have heard you” (2 Chron. 34:27). 

God’s grace makes it safe for us to be honest about our failures. We can afford to look in the mirror of God’s Word and see the "red" areas because we know that in Christ, our sin doesn't lead to final condemnation, but to forgiveness, restoration, and help. Without the Gospel, honest review is terrifying; with the Gospel, it is liberating.

Let me ask you personally: When was the last time you let the Word of God make you uncomfortable? When did you last allow it to reveal a 'red' area in your life—your pride, impatience, lust, love of money, or apathy toward your neighbor? True repentance begins when we stop making excuses and, like Josiah, allow our hearts to break over the gap between our lives and God’s call.

As a church, we must have the courage to conduct a 'Bible-in-hand audit.' Let’s hold up the mirror of the New Testament’s 'One Another' commands:

• Are we truly loving one another as Christ has loved us?

• Are we bearing one another’s burdens?

• Are we forgiving one another as we have been forgiven?

• Are we stirring one another up to love and good works?

• Are we speaking the truth in love to one another?

This isn’t even a complete list, but the question must be asked: Where are our 'red' areas as a church family? You know they’re there. It isn’t easy work; if it were, everyone would be living out the 'One Anothers' perfectly. We can’t fix what we are unwilling to face. If we want to please the Lord as Josiah did, we must have the courage to Review.

You can't bypass any step and expect to achieve renewal. To assist with this 'Mirror Moment,' I've created a self-assessment tool, which includes the 'Sinful One Anothers' to help pinpoint vulnerabilities. You can view and download by clicking the button.

One Another Evaluation

I pray we take a hard look at ourselves, see the gap, and mourn the deficit. But let us also take heart in the grace of God, seeking to close the gap between who we are (identity) and how we live (reality)."

1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/organizations-fail-when-employees-afraid-bring-problems-robert-glazer/

REMIND – Reclaiming Our True North

THE SECOND OF SEVEN

It’s not easy to look honestly at ourselves. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things we’ll ever do. True self-examination can be painful because it forces us to face uncomfortable truths — to see what we’ve become. And often, what we see is someone we don’t like, someone we never meant to be. So instead, we hide behind the image we project, believing our own carefully crafted propaganda.

Yet, remember this. We are not the sum of our actions. It's not decided who we are, based on our behavior, or lack of it. Neither are we what other people have said or think we are. 

We are who God says we are. You are who God says you are. Period. 

God’s viewpoint, His statements, His calling, and His working for you is what counts. That is where you get your identity. When God called you to become His child through the sacrificial death and resurrected life of His son Jesus, and you repented and believed, you entered a new sphere of eternal existence and participation in the divine nature, that nothing can change or take away. As Paul’s letter to the Romans states:

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? ³³ Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? Romans 8:31–35 (ESV)

Just in case you are not sure of the answers to all of these questions, they are: “no one” and “no thing.” 

Paul then tells us why all this is true as he wraps up this section of the letter. 

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:37–39 (ESV)

We never lose God's favor because of the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. That will never change. But we can forget it.

The world is dominated by the belief that our identity is bound up in how we look, what we own or what we can buy, what we can do or what we have done. We're bombarded with these beliefs continually. This is why we must remind ourselves whose we are before we can identify who we are. Therefore, Remind is the first of the five steps to renewal. 

This brings us back to Josiah, the young king of a nation that had forgotten their assignment to be a light for God to the world. He had a humanly impossible task before him. The first thing we’re told about Josiah is astounding. 2 Kings 22:2 says, “And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left”.

Pause and consider the gravity of that statement. His immediate heritage was a spiritual catastrophe. His grandfather Manasseh had filled Jerusalem with pagan altars and even sacrificed his own children to false gods. His father Amon continued this wicked legacy and was assassinated by his own officials. Josiah came to the throne as an eight-year-old boy with no godly father, no godly grandfather to model his life after. 

So where did he get his "true north"? The text tells us. He reached back. He skipped a generation, and then another, and he anchored his identity in his spiritual ancestor, David. He reminded himself of his covenant identity. He knew he belonged to the line of David, but more importantly, he belonged to the God of David. His obedience didn’t flow from a list of rules he was trying to keep; it flowed from a deep, settled sense of belonging. The Chronicler tells us that in his eighth year as king, at just sixteen years old, Josiah “began to seek the God of his father David”. His reform didn't start with activity; it started with identity. He first had to know whose he was before he could know what to do.

We see this principle in the modern world as well. In the mid-2000s, the coffee giant Starbucks was in deep trouble. After years of explosive growth, its founder, Howard Schultz, who had stepped away as CEO, wrote a now-famous memo to his leadership team. He warned that in their relentless pursuit of expansion, the company was losing its soul. The focus had shifted from the craft of coffee to the efficiency of transactions. The warm, inviting smell of roasting coffee had been replaced by the smell of breakfast sandwiches. This, he said, was leading to the "watering down of the Starbucks Experience".

When Schultz returned as CEO in 2008 to turn the company around, his first major act wasn't financial. It was an act of identity. He did something that Wall Street thought was insane: he closed all 7,100 of his U.S. stores for an entire afternoon to retrain over 135,000 baristas on the art of pulling the perfect espresso shot. It cost the company millions in lost revenue, but it was a powerful, symbolic act. He was reminding them of who they were. He was saying, "We are not a fast-food chain. We are not just about transactions. We are about the coffee. We are about the experience. This is our core identity". The historic turnaround of Starbucks began with a return to its true north. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/27/business/27sbux.html

What does this mean for us?

Personally, who are you? I mean, who are you really? Before you are a husband or a wife, a parent or a child, an employee, a neighbor, or a citizen of this nation, who are you? If you’re in Christ, your primary identity is this: You are a beloved child of the living God, bought by the blood of Jesus, sealed by His Spirit. Do you live from that identity? Or have you allowed your job, your political affiliation, your successes, or your failures to define you? 

We must constantly preach the Gospel to ourselves and remind ourselves of our core identity. We are not what we do; we are who God says we are. We obey God not to become His children, but because we are His children. That simple shift changes our motivation from fearful performance to grateful love. It changes us at the core of our being, our soul. 

And corporately, as a church, what is our identity? We are not a social club. We are not a political action committee. We are not an entertainment venue. We are the body and bride of Christ, a family of disciples on mission, called to make more disciples of Jesus. Every ministry we run, every program we launch, every dollar we spend must flow from that core identity. Renewal begins when we Remind ourselves who we truly are.

This is a good thing, but I didn't say it was easy. What will it take for you to truly align your self-identity with how God identifies you? Ponder that for a minute. 

If we believe, and I mean really believe the Bible is the Word of God, we can believe what it says about us, God’s covenant children. Once we get a vision of this and accept it as reality, we can live it. The more you know; the more you can believe and then, the more you can change. 

Several years back, Dr. Neil Anderson, a theologian specializing in practical theology at Talbot School of Theology, authored “Victory over the Darkness.” Among his contributions in this book is a section on “Identity.” This has aided many in REMINDING themselves of who they are and in reclaiming their true direction. You can download a PDF of this below.

Who I Am In Christ