Habits of a Healthy Heart: Part 3

Habits of a Healthy Heart

Part 3: Habit of Simplicity

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, I will tell you, less than 12 hours ago my wife was supposed to be preaching today. And if you guys know when you have kids, nights can be crazy. It can be a roller coaster of emotion and surprises and twists and turns. And in the course of the night, what do we got? We got four. Four in the family got sick. And so I'm here, I'm doing good, praise God. My oldest daughter Adeline is here, she's doing great as well. So you got two of the six Sniders today for you. And with that, that means that I'm preaching. And so I'm preaching my wife's notes. This is the first time I've ever done this. So it may be short, maybe really long, maybe off topic. We'll see what happens, see where the Lord takes us this morning. But it's gonna be a great time. I'm glad you're here.

We have started this Habits of a Healthy Heart series and we're in week three, week one, where we talked about the habit of self-examination and really taking a pause and looking at where we are in life to be really honest with ourselves. And then last week, Pastor Andre talked about the habit of solitude, taking time during our week to pause the crazy and to connect with God, to take moments to stop what we're doing, the hustle, the bustle, the loaded calendar, the driving over here to over here to this appointment to this thing over here to work, to groceries, to all the things in life that we have to do to take time to be 100% intentional. 'Cause it's not gonna happen on its own, right? To be 100% intentional to stop and to say, "God, you're my focus. You're my source, you're my hope, you're my everything." And we learned that if we wanna change our life, we have to change our habits. But if we wanna change our habits, we have to let God change our hearts. And week one, we talked about the lies that we tell ourselves, right? All the lies, "I'm gonna be okay. This is gonna be fine. It's only for a season. It's not that big of deal. It's gonna be okay. I can handle it." We tell ourselves all of these lies 'cause number one lie, we're lying to ourselves, right? We're all lying to ourselves. And so I caught myself this week. And my wife goes, "I don't think that's right." And you're like, "You're right. And I don't like that you're right. Stop it." But I had to check myself and it changed my heart. And today we're gonna focus in on the habit of simplicity. And I know what you're thinking, "Oh, man. Here we go. Pastor Chris is gonna tell me to just go throw all my stuff away, downsize my house, get a bicycle, commute up and down 80 on that bike." I'm just kidding. No, honestly, I want you to stay focused if you could, please. Just the next 30 minutes or so. Just stay focused in that because the more that my wife studied the Bible on simplicity, no, I'm kidding, the more that we look at simplicity, we see such great truths in scripture for ourselves.

I think the biggest lie that we tell ourselves is more is better, right? We tell ourselves that if I could just have the newest, you fill in the blank, all my problems would go away. If I just had the newest phone that I guess now can like auto reply to your emails and your text messages, I would have so much free time with AI, I wouldn't have to do anything. I'd have all this vacation, all my work emails would be taken care of. I could do whatever I want, but I have to have more. More is supposed to make us happier, right? That's what the ads tell us, right? That's what the world tells us that if we have more, everything's going to be fine. My life will be that much better. But the reality is more turns into more stress, more bills, more anxiety, more worry. More is not better. This lie actually started in the garden. It started with Adam and Eve. It was amazing how the serpent was able to convince Eve that more was better. God creates Adam and Eve and they're in the garden, they're living life, they're naked and amazing. They don't have to worry about anything. Weather is perfect. They have everything that they could ever need and hope and desire and wish. God says eat anything in the garden. Do whatever you want. Walk up to that peach tree, go to town. There's an apple one about a mile down the road. There's some grapes over here. Life is great. There's a garden with vegetables if you want to go over to it. Do whatever you want. But there's this one tree. It's called the knowledge of good and evil tree. Don't touch it. Just don't go even near it honestly. And Adam and Eve start living their life and everything is great. And all in comes the serpent. The serpent says, hey, you have free range of everything in here. You can eat whatever you want, but God says you can't touch that. Wouldn't more be better? Wouldn't one more tree in your diet of all the fresh fruits and veggies that your heart's content. Wouldn't one more fruit just make everything perfect? And she falls for this lie and takes on more. And we realize that she ends up sinning. And this starts the world in a different trajectory. They're kicked out of the garden. They have to garden their own food. They have to work the ground. They have to survive the elements, the wild animal, everything around them. And more did not equal better.

Question for you this morning. What if the stuff you have is keeping you from the life you want? What if the things that you have, whether physical things, maybe in the garage, in a hallway closet, a guest closet buried in a box in the attic, basement. Maybe it's emotional stuff. Maybe it's relational stuff. Maybe it's your calendar. What if those things, this stuff, this more is better that we've been convinced that we need to have is keeping us from the life that we want. Now, hear me out. You're not having to give everything away. You're not having to purge it all and go to like two sets of clothing, have one car, one cell phone to share with the whole family. I'm not talking extremes here. But what I am talking about is less is freeing. Don't get me wrong. Stuff is a blessing. So many things that we get in life are a true blessing to our lives and they help us. They're valuable tools and resources that make our life easier to do things. But there comes a point when you have to acknowledge that we have enough, right? We just came out of the holiday season. I love Christmas. One of my favorite times of year. So good. I remember this year just sitting on the couch and kids are opening presents and papers fly and things are just going crazy. Everybody's laughing. It's such a great, great moment. We love it. We love blessing our children. We love blessing our family and giving gifts. But I did some research and the consumer spending on gifts in this holiday season has gotten astronomical. It's gotten completely out of hand, even in a recession with inflation. It's still out of hand. Every single year since 2009, the spending during the holidays from people buying stuff has increased every single year. And in 2024, the sales were expected, and I think they broke this, to break the record in 2023 of $955.6 billion in sales. That's billion with a B. That is just short of $1 trillion. I don't even know how to comprehend that amount of money. And listen, I love the holidays. I'm all for gifts. I'm all for blessing people. I'm all for having supplies and things you need, like socks and underwear and PJs, like some necessities that as a parent I've learned, you wrap up and give to your kids as a gift. And you're like, if this was a July month, I would have just been given this to put in my room. Right? But we wrap it up because it's Christmas.

But we have to ask ourselves, when is enough enough? Christmas is just one area I'm talking about. I'm talking about our everyday spending, our everyday lives. Where do we need to practice simplicity? I love this often looked over story in Acts 27. Paul is on a ship with his crew and they're sailing, I can't remember from what place to what place, but they get caught in this horrific storm. And they're trying to figure out what to do. They're being tossed back and forth. The waves are just beating them down. And the crew is literally going, I'm going to go see Jesus tonight. Like this is the moment when God's calling me home. They are staring face in the eyes. And they've gone about two weeks without eating anything. And yet in the midst of this, they break bread and Paul gives thanks. Read the scripture here, follow on. Paul, he took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all. When he broke it, he began to eat. They were all encouraged and ate some food themselves. When they had eaten as much as they wanted, they lightened the ship by throwing the grain into the sea. Another translation says, when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea. See, earlier in this passage, they had already lightened the ship once already. They were hitting some rocky waves. They realized they were overloaded. They realized we just got to make this call. Seems pretty extreme for us, right, to think we're just going to pitch this stuff and it'll be what it'll be. But they had to think about the long term here. And so they had already lightened the ship and now they were able to lighten it a little bit more by getting rid of some of the wheat or food that they had. Why? This is better. They can navigate the ship faster. They can maneuver it easier. They can keep going at a quicker pace to get through the storm to get to safety, to get to their destination. But when did they do it? They did it when they had enough.

What is enough? How much is enough? When you have what you need. So to begin to practice this habit of simplifying, you have to believe that you have enough. Say it with me. I have enough. Do you believe that? I have enough. See, we don't think we have enough, do we, truly, deep down inside, right? We don't truly think that we have enough because there's two aspects to it that we have to believe. The first of which is we have to believe that more won't make us happy, more won't make us fulfilled, more won't make us successful, more won't make us less anxious. It's about an identity. We have identity in the stuff that we have, right? I'll admit it. I'll be the first person to admit it. We have an identity with the stuff that we have. I love smoking meat and barbecuing. It's one of my favorite things. It causes me to slow down because you can't rush barbecue. You ever tried rush barbecue? It's horrible. It's the worst thing in the world. There's a reason they call it low and slow, baby. Low and slow because you have to slow down. But I have too much barbecue stuff. I have like three grills. I've got I don't know how many trinkets and gadgets, spray bottles for spritzing to make sure that brisket stays moist. I got peach paper to wrap it up. I got loads of foil. I got wireless thermometers. I have a device that I can connect up to my barbecue that'll keep my barbecue at the exact temperature. It's so funny. This Christmas, my mom was like, "Hey, what do you want for Christmas?" I'm like, "I have enough." I caught myself saying that and I was like, "Wait a minute, I want more." But I have an identity with barbecuing where I want to be the best barbecuer ever. When I sliced that meat, I wanted to be chef's kiss perfection. But it got to come with gadgets and gizmos and all the newest technology and the latest this and the latest that. It's an identity that I have.

The other part of this problem is that sometimes whether we want to admit it or not, we don't trust God to provide for us. This one hurts because we think, "Oh, no, God, you got me. I know you got me. My battle belongs to you. We're going to be glad." We sang all these songs this morning about God being our source of everything. But we want to be the hero of the story, right? We want to be the hero. We want to be the one that goes, "Look what I did for myself. Look what I did. Look what I provided, family. Look what I put on the dinner table, a delicious steak. Look what I did. We want to be the hero." But the reality is we have to let God be the hero because God is truly the ultimate hero, right? We haven't saved ourselves. We haven't forgiven ourselves. We haven't created grace. We haven't created love. We receive that. We receive it from God. When we step into a habit of simplicity, God becomes the hero of the story. We don't. We are not the hero. If we stay in this mindset of my identity is what I have and I'm the hero of the story, it'll ruin our lives. It'll take us to a toxic place that is so dark. It is lonely. It is hopeless. There is no peace. And we're sitting there trying to fend for ourselves. Some of us don't need more stuff in our Amazon carts to check out. We need to let God check our hearts out. We need to let God step into our lives and begin to work through what we have and to say and begin to pray this prayer. A regular is, "God, give me less of what doesn't matter and give me more of what does matter." That should be our prayer every single day. "God, give me less of what doesn't matter and God give me more of what does matter.”

Jesus himself says in Matthew 6:19-21, he says, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Jesus here is telling us we don't need to store up stuff on earth. We're not taking any of it with us anyway. You hear those stories of those people who get buried with their stuff, right? Get buried in their car, the trunk's loaded, the backseat's jam-packed and they think, "I'm taking it with me." The family goes, "No, you're not. We're taking it home." Throw the body in the hole, cover it up and they drive the car home. Stop accumulating for accumulation's sake. Stop hoarding. I need to tell myself this. I have a garage full of things I just don't need anymore. God's been working on my heart, I'll tell you.

Even before this series and before anything, we did a generosity series, practicing generosity as a community group and we went through and it talked about one of the aspects of living generously is living with less so you can give more. One of the challenges was to go give away some stuff. I went home and I started looking through my closet and I'm like, "I don't wear that shirt anymore. I don't wear that. Oh, those pants, those don't work anymore. They're out of style. I got this." All of a sudden, I'm walking out of our bedroom with three garbage bags and Lauren, my wife's like, "What are you doing?" I said, "She's got too much stuff." She's like, "Wow, you had that much stuff in there?" I said, "I know, right?" And guess what? I'm still dressed. I still got clothes. I'm not having to run around nudie day. Like I'm still covered. Everything is good. But I didn't need the stuff and it was just sitting in my closet collecting dust. I was kind of embarrassed, honestly. I was just like, "Oh my gosh, let's get this out of here before anybody sees this." I'm trying to load it in the trunk in the front yard. Neighbors driving by. "Man, that guy's got a problem." "Yes, he does." No amount of accumulation of the stuff or your purchases will ever be enough to satisfy us. It just won’t.

We keep believing this lie that it'll make us happy, we'll be fulfilled, less anxious. We'll be more like this. You fill in the blank. But it's all a lie. And honestly, I believe it's a lie straight from Satan to keep us preoccupied from Jesus. We don't trust God to provide for us. I have a whole bin in my garage of odds and ends hardware supplies. I got whipped cream containers from my grandfather of screws and bolts. And even like yesterday, working on our dryer, I needed a bolt. One of my kids came along, grabbed the bolt, thought it was their bolt. The bolt was gone. And I'm sitting there going, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, oh no." So I went to the garage, opened my trusty whipped cream container. Sure enough, I got my bolt. But what got the bolt in the garage was the fact that I don't trust. Found the screw later. But I didn't trust. And so my garage is filled with stuff just in case. Well guess what? Home Depot's open seven days a week just in case. Where am I putting my trust? We want to feel safe and secure. And we think that money, status, resources, connections will make this for us. We make ourselves the hero of the story. But when we ask God for less of what doesn't matter, we are saying, "God, you are enough for me and I trust you to be my provider." How does this work?

Well it says in Hebrews 11:1-2 it says, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so entangles us. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Throw it off. Another translation says, "Strip it off," like it's clinging onto you, like it's stuck. Pull it off. Let it be free. Go. Get rid of it. We're being suffocated by our own fear of our stuff and our schedules and the things that we consume. And the only responsible thing to do is to throw it off. I remember as a kid, my parents were big into backpacking. And I remember, I think it was like one of my birthdays, I think it was like 14 or something, me and a bunch of my buddies, we said, "Let's go backpacking for my birthday." And so talking with my dad, I started gathering up the stuff that I wanted to take on the backpacking trip. And my dad's looking at me in the most loving way, he kind of just starts laughing. And he turns to me and he goes, "Son," he goes, "Do you know everything you take into the woods? Do you take out of the woods with you?" I said, "Yeah, dad." He goes, "Okay." He's like, "So that 10 pound hammer you have, what's that for?" "Oh, it's to be set in our tents. We're sleeping outside. We don't sleep in our tents." "Oh, well I might need it." He goes, "Okay, so that's 10 pounds in, 10 pounds out." You realize that? I said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." Okay. So I remember loading up my pack and putting it on, I test it, put it on about fall over. This thing is so jam packed with some of the most ridiculous stuff that only a 14 year old boy would think that he needs to take in for a camping trip overnight into the woods. I got food for a week just in case. I got water on me. I got all this stuff. My dad's like, "No." He goes, "We'll take a pump, we'll pump water out of the lake with the filters." He goes, "We'll take dehydrated food so when it is light, you got like one pot, maybe a spoon, your sleeping bag, a change of clothes, and a shovel to take care of business when it hits." "That's about it." I'm like, "What about this? What about this?" He's like, "You don't need it. Trip it off. You're just going to hurt yourself more on the trip." And I'll tell you what, man, I was so glad. We got about halfway to camp and I was dying. And that was with like nothing in my pack. I was like, "Can I imagine having everything else in this pack?" I would still be out there. They would have just buried me along the trail and said, "Here lies the kid with all of his stuff. Don't be the kid.”

We had to ask ourselves, and my wife's done an amazing job with this in the last couple of years with us. She started having us ask this question of, "Do I want to manage this?" Because we think, "Oh, it's just in the garage. It's in the closet. It's just in the drawer of my desk. It doesn't matter. I don't have to look at it." You have to manage it still because you open the desk. Guess what's there? That thing that you have to dig around to find what you need. You go in the garage and you trip over that thing again because it's in the path where you need to walk. You're managing it. So we started asking ourselves, "Do we want to manage this?" It turns this just stuff that's there like we think it's out of our peripheral to something right in front of us. See, I think the problem is, is as we try to take stuff and put it behind us, like where we put Jesus, and then we're walking forward in life going, "Jesus, where are you? I can't see you. We got all this other stuff in front of us. And Jesus, where are you? I can't see you." And Jesus is like, "There's no room for me to be in front of you. I want to be in front of you. I want to be what you look at. I want you to follow me. I want you to be my focus and my attention, but there's too much stuff there. We can't even see it." Jesus needs to be removed from the background to put in our foreground, but we got to clear stuff out to make room for Jesus. We need to have the prayer of God, "Give me more of what does matter.”

Ecclesiastes says, "Better is one handful of tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind." What do I mean by this? This is what I mean. Because we want stuff, right? See, I can't even hold all my stuff. But we think more is better, right? So we pick this up and we're like, "Yes! I got it all." And then someone comes along and says, "Can you help me? I need a hand." You're like, "I got my stuff." Someone comes along, they're having a really bad day. They want a hug. They want a word of encouragement. You go, "That's awkward." Jesus comes along and says, "I have a project for you. I need you to do this for me." And you're like, "But God, my hands are full. I got my stuff." Jesus tells us to pick up our cross daily. How do you pick up a cross with your stuff? So Ecclesiastes said, "Better is one handful of tranquility. I can bless people. I can go to people. I can care for them. This is enough. This is all I need." See, my hand's even making what is true enough. As more falls off, it's just extra. Have enough. And honestly, the truth is that we have enough. Say it with me. I have enough. But the reality is, the truth in that is, I have enough because I have Jesus. Because I have Jesus, I have enough. Say it with me. Because I have Jesus, I have enough. God... See, I can't even get out of my fingers. God has so much that He wants for our lives. But we sit here holding on to things, and there's no room for Jesus. We think, "Jesus, I'm gonna put down just for church. I'm gonna go to church. I'm gonna worship you, praise you, give you... I'm gonna come home. Pick up my stuff." We may be setting it down for seasons, and that's good. That's healthy. But I think the next step that God wants us to do is to just get rid of it. To just not even have to think about it anymore, and to focus on what we do need.

Paul later, after this shipwreck accident, or storm in the ship, he writes to the church in Philippi. He says, "I know what it is to be in need on a ship facing death, in prison." I made a joke this morning in our team huddle. We're talking about the storm. I said, "It feels like Paul was in prison every Tuesday." Just like you read through the Bible and you flip a page like, "Oh, there's Paul back in prison." He knows what it is to be in need, to be locked up, to be starving, to be captured. He was shipwrecked. He was stranded. He was out in a... He found himself in so many places where he was in need. He says, "And I know what it is to have plenty." There are times where he showed up at churches and they just blessed him. They gave him everything that he needed, and then some. I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in one. I can do all this through him, who's Christ, who gives me strength. Paul understood that because he had Jesus, he had enough. We have Jesus. We have enough. And some of us, just regardless of where we find ourselves, we just want more. And I will say the desire for more is okay. It's the action of accumulating those is where it goes wrong. It's a natural bent in our inner being to want more. Just is. But for us, the problem is this decision then. Do we need the more finances? Do we need the more phones? Do we need the more clothes? Do we need the more house, the more square footage, the newer kitchen, the perfect backyard, the perfect neighborhood? You fill in the blank. And Jesus is here to tell us that you have more than enough because I am with you. Jesus, some of the very last words he says to his disciples before he goes back up to the heaven, he says, "And I will be with you until the end of the age or your age." Because then we're face to face with him in heaven. You know there's no more in heaven, right? God will give you the enough in heaven and you will be for the first time ever in your life completely satisfied.

I find it funny. I talk to different people and they always talk about, "I get all these questions for God when I get to heaven." I say, "Oh, that's really good." I say, "I bet God's gonna wanna answer those for you." But then I think to myself, I said, "You get to heaven, you're not gonna worry about your question. 'Cause your question's here and now is the, "I want more. I want more answers. I want more understanding. I want more of this. I want more of that." You get to heaven, you're in front of Jesus, you will have enough and your questions of more will be gone because you will be face to face with him just worshiping him to say, "God, thank you. You are enough." So this is our prayer. God give me less of what doesn't matter. God give me more of what does matter because I have you. I have enough. Let's pray.

Jesus, thank you for your enough. God, we are so grateful for the enough that you are. So God, I pray this week as we really wrestle, oh, this is a tough one, to wrestle with this habit of simplicity, God, that you would begin to reveal to us where we have too much. God begin to define in our lives of what enough truly looks like. And God, I pray that we would step in boldness. We would step in faith, not knowing what that life without that stuff may be like, but moving you from behind us, not being seen, to in front of us to where we follow you, Jesus. It doesn't matter where we're going to go. It doesn't matter what's going to happen. It doesn't matter what's around tomorrow. If you, God, are in front of us and we are following you, everything is taken care of. We don't have to know the more or the where or the what or the how. All we have to know is that we're following you, our hero, Jesus. And so God, I pray that this week we will begin to maybe start working through some of our more. And it doesn't have to be all done at once because that's just going to be chaos. But God, may it be simple, small steps of walking in faith in the simplicity of the life that you want for us, God, ultimately to have the freedom, the capacity, the availability, the freedom to do what you desire for our lives, God. Because if we're too busy holding up our stuff, we can't do what you've called us to do. And we can't truly, truly love you and worship you. God, I pray that you would become the hero of our story. We would remove our identity from our stuff and our things to you, Jesus our savior. We thank you, God. We love you. Give us the grace, the boldness, the endurance this week to step into a life of simplicity. Everybody said, Amen.

Habits of a Healthy Heart: Part 2

Habits of a Healthy Heart

Part 2: Habit of Solitude

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Last week, we started and Pastor Chris said this, "If you want to change your life, you need to change your habits. But if you want to change your habits, you have to let God change your heart." Last week, we talked about self-examination. Pastor Chris spoke from Psalms and the need to let God reveal to us what might be going on inside of us, what might need to change, what might need to be surrendered, and then let the work of the Spirit do that work within us.

Today, we're going to move on to our next healthy habit. Are we excited? Do you know? I think it says on the bulletin. I can't even do a surprise. It's solitude. We're talking about solitude today. And whenever I bring up solitude in a group, it's usually pretty, some people are excited and some people are like, "I hate being alone. So why would I want to do the spiritual practice of solitude?" But I want to say that there's a difference between being alone and exercising solitude. Wayne Cordero says that there's a difference between isolation and solitude. They may contain similar characteristics, but in reality, they are worlds apart. Solitude is a chosen separation for refining your soul, and isolation is what happens when you don't pay attention to the first. So with that kind of solitude, how many of you, let's take a little time here to get a sense of where we're at. How many of you enjoy solitude, an intentional time of being alone? Yeah, just very few hands. Oh, more hands. Yes, great. How many of you get that regular time? You might enjoy it, but do you actually? Yeah, now I see some less hands. It's hard. It's hard. The truth is getting regular times of solitude is difficult. Our lives do not really allow or encourage for that time. Like Pastor Chris said, our society often values maximizing time, keeping us busy, grinding out every hour, doing work as much as you can.

But the way of Jesus shows us something different. Jesus lived and modeled a practice of regular solitude. The Bible shows us that solitude is where God does some of his most transformative work within us. Now you might be saying, "But my life is too busy. I just, you know, there's too many people dependent on me. It is so hard to practically get this time of solitude." And I hear you. I do. I'm one saying the same thing sometimes. But I want us to think of the life of Jesus for a second and all that he had going on. He had ministry straight for three years, chose disciples. He was teaching the values of God's kingdom. He was healing people. He was casting out demons. He was raising people from the dead. He was cleansing the temple. He was showing love and compassion to everyone, the crowds that came to follow him. He endured persecution and ridicule and opposition from the Pharisees, all while fulfilling the law and all while looking forward in his mind to knowing what he knew was going to come, which was the sacrifice that he would have to make. And he was called while doing the will of God every day. Jesus consistently and intentionally created space to hear from his Father in heaven, to spend time with God. And if Jesus did it, lived it, modeled it, and we are followers of him, want to live life like him, then I think we too should practice regular solitude. We have to realize that it's not possible to be intimate with God, to have an intimate relationship with him without intentionality. That just doesn't happen by accident. God, I know you and I love you and I just hope that we can get close over time. That's very wishful thinking. It doesn't happen like that. Think of your relationships in your life, the closest ones you have, be it a marriage or your closest friend, family. At some point, you are intentional to whatever degree to spend time with them, to invest in that relationship. As one pastor said, you can't busy your way to God, even by doing good spiritual things. If I just read my Bible, and then I do this, I do this, I do this, eventually, that might put your attention closer to him, but it's not going to move you. You're not going to take steps towards God. So one of the most important ways to be intentional with him, to deepen our understanding and our relationship with him, is to spend time in solitude with him.

Now let's further define what solitude is. Ruth Haley Barton, who is an author and has a great book. If you're a person who likes resources and wants to read more after this or wants to listen to a podcast, come find me. I will give you tons of information about solitude. But she writes this, "Solitude at its most basic and profound level is simply an opportunity to be ourselves with God." Just to be ourselves with God. All of who we are, the good, the bad, the polished, the unrefined, to bring our desires, our hopes, our pains, our struggles, and to just be with him. And to listen, often in times of silence. It's time to just focus on our relationship with him. Just the two of you. I don't know if you have someone in life like that that you have where you don't always have to talk with whatever's going on out loud. You just be with that person. They know you. They know what you need. And they know when to speak and when not to. That is solitude with God. Just being with him in whatever you are feeling. Henry Nouwen, another author, says, "Without solitude, it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and to listen to him." This one's a bit convicting. I've had seasons where I'm better at having a regular rhythm of solitude and having a newborn in our lives right now does not naturally lend to that. It's hard. And I know that God understands where I'm coming from. He has compassion on me. But it's no excuse. As the most important relationship in my life, I still need to be spending time, intentional time of solitude with God. However long or short that is. We cannot live our lives to the fullest extent without spending time with God. And then John Mark Homer, author and pastor, he writes this about solitude. He says, "Solitude is not an easy path, but it is an ancient path, the Jesus path to a strong, deep, joyful, vibrant life with God." I love this. The Jesus path. Jesus showed us that it truly does lead to the best relationship with our Heavenly Father. And so for the rest of this morning, with this understanding of solitude, I want to focus on four points that we see from scripture, specifically in the life of Jesus. And that is first, that our environment when it comes to solitude matters. Secondly, in that time of solitude, we're going to encounter ourself. It's what that means in a bit. We're going to encounter the enemy. And then ultimately, we're going to encounter God. So let's take a deeper look into these moments.

Let me pray first one more time and then we'll get into it. God, thank you again for our time this morning, for this series of talking about what our hearts need to be healthy in the way that you intended them to be. And as we talk about solitude, I pray that you would help us to be honest with ourselves. God, that your spirit would speak through your words, your scripture, reveal to us what we can change in life, what practical things might need to change in order that we can have a deeper, more intimate relationship with you. We pray this in your name. Amen.

We’re going to start in Luke. We're going to jump around today. So if you want to follow along your Bible, all for it. But we'll have it on the screen because I'm going to be going pretty fast. So Luke 5:15 through 16 says this, "Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came near to him or came to hear him and to be healed of their sickness. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." I want to focus on that last part there. Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Lonely places. I love that. The NASB says he withdrew to the wilderness. The ESV says desolate places or deserted. Jesus was alone in nature, just him and God the Father. You know what's significant about where he went, about his environment, is that there was no other people. There was no other man-made noise or distraction to draw his attention away from what he was out there to do. People and noise are a distraction from when we're trying to commune with God. The spiritual practice of solitude is often paired and said as silence and solitude. We need that environment to encourage us to focus in on our relationship with him. To find a quiet and lonely place takes great intentionality on our part these days. The noise of the world is getting louder and louder. It's only growing. For Jesus, he had crowds of people in his own mind. He had the will of God. He had to carry out lots of broken and needy people. So he had to get away. He had to be alone in order to commune with the Father. But like I said, for us today to find that lonely place, that's really difficult. To find a place of true silence is even harder. Let me share with you the findings of Bernie Krauss, who is a musician and ecologist. He executed a study for many, many years. He was reflecting on it. In 2008, he wrote this paper reflecting on the changes in sound that he witnessed over 40 years. He would go out and study sound. He said this, "In 1968, it took just 15 hours to record one hour of silence." Just nature, not complete, like nothing. You could have birds, you could have whatever, the wind. But no human noise. So no airplanes, no power lines buzzing, no traffic. It took 15 hours to get one hour of silence. In 2008, it took nearly 2,000 hours to get one hour of silence. The noise of this world is only getting louder. And it's a hindrance to us in getting that solitude with Jesus. Bernie, who did this study, said when he was reflecting on these, and he's not a religious man, he said, "Humans are denied an experience of the wild natural essential to an interaction between themselves and their organically resonant surroundings." As a believer, I think he's just a little bit off. And I would say, with all that noise, humans are denied an experience to be in creation and be drawn closer to their creator like we were intended to.

Another part of our environment that is arguably an even bigger factor in regards to distractions and hindrance is the digital noise that we face. In this digital age, we are dealing with smartphones, alerts, Wi-Fi, e-mails, social media, streaming services, endless queues of information and entertainment. In this digital age, it is now possible, and this scares me when I say this, it is now possible to go your entire life without ever being truly alone with God. Our devices keep us tethered to the world of noise and regularly drown out the voice of God in our hearts. As Mother Teresa said, "We need to find God, and He cannot be found in the noise or restlessness. God is the friend of silence." We were made to commune with God, like Adam and Eve in the garden, taking regular walks with God in the garden. But do we have that time? Do we have a place? Do we have a moment in our day where there is no noise, be it audible or digital? So as you think, as you reflect on your life, you take inventory of your day, do you have a regular time with God? Do you have a place free of distraction where you and God can truly commune? Remember, Jesus often, often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. We want that to be true of us, too. So the first thing is our environment. When practicing solitude, it will either, our environment helps us or hinders us. And so find a place that will help you.

The next point is our encounter with self. When we come to a place of quiet, if we ever do get that time of solitude, we are often coming to it feeling worn out, exhausted, beat down by life. And we expect solitude to kind of be this day spa for our souls. God, if I just get some alone time, my soul is going to feel so good and pampered. I'm going to come back refreshed and renewed. Sometimes it goes that way. I will say sometimes it goes that way. But often it can feel less like a day spa and more like intense emotional surgery. Because we can get away from people, but we can't get away from ourselves. Henry now and again, right? Solitude is not a private therapeutic place. Rather, it is the place of conversion. The place where the old self dies and a new self is born. The place where emergence of the new man and the new woman occurs. And when he writes this, he goes on to talk about how the reality in alone time, we have no buffers for what's going to like distract us from what's going on inside of us. We don't have friends to talk with. We don't have updates to check or social media to scroll through. No music to entertain. No books or shows to immerse ourselves in. We're just there, weak and vulnerable, sinful and broken before God. And that's difficult for us to just sit in our own brokenness, our own sin. That's an uncomfortable tension that we don't like. And so we're often desperate if we start to have alone time and solitude time, we're often desperate to be like, "Oh, should I just go check my phone? I don't like what's going on in here. Let me go distract myself with something else." But when we get free of distractions, we're better able to see the mess of what's going on inside of us, like the self-examination that Pastor Chris was preaching about last week. Every emotion, every emotion, every feeling of exhaustion, worries, sadness, anger, shame. It all rises to the surface when we spend time in solitude. Our soul is thinking, "Finally, I have some time to deal with what's going on inside of us." The problem can be that we don't know how to deal with it. We feel these emotions, we feel these things coming to the surface, like, "What is going on? I don't like this. I don't even know what to do.”

But Jesus did know what to do. And he shows us on the evening before his crucifixion in the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26, it says this, "Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. And he said, 'Sit here while I go over there and pray.' He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him and he began to be sorrowful and troubled." Jesus knows what's coming the next day. He knows what's going on. He knows that he needs some time in solitude. And as he does, he begins to feel his pain. And he shows us how to deal with that by bringing it before God. As we continue, it says, "Then he said to them, 'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.' And going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me, yet not as I will, but as you will.'" It's through this simple but difficult practice of noticing and naming our emotions before God in prayer and offering them up to God in raw honesty. That we are deeply formed to the people that God has always desired for us to become. Don't run from those negative feelings. Rather, lay in them before God. Surrender them. Again, most of us don't like that tension, especially that inner tension. But it's through that tension that God works and transforms us, refines us, purifies us, restores us into being more like Christ. So the first two points. Your habit of solitude needs a healthy environment. And when you are in that place, it will lead to a difficult but necessary encounter with yourself.

Next, we will encounter the enemy. For centuries now, since the early days of the church, it has been recognized that there are three enemies to the soul. The world, the flesh and the devil. All three test and tempt our faith when we are in the quiet. And usually this comes in the form of thoughts that assault our minds with lies, deception and temptation. It did for Jesus in Matthew 4. Jesus goes out into the wilderness. It says this in Matthew 4, 1 through 11. Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." Jesus answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' And the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 'If you are the Son of God,' he said, 'throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.' Jesus answered him, 'It is also written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.' Again the devil took him to the very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 'All this I will give to you,' he said, 'if you will bow down and worship me.' Jesus said to him, 'Away from me, Satan, for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.' Then the devil left him and the angels came and attended him." In that moment of solitude, Jesus faced the ultimate test with Satan right there in the world, in his own flesh of not being, not eating anything for 40 days. When we go into solitude, when we choose solitude, we will feel the resistance of all three enemies. The world conspires against our need for quiet and solitude by polluting our lives with noise. Our own flesh comes up with all sorts of emotionally loaded reasons not to spend time in the quiet. And then the devil, just as we read, is always looking for an opportunity to draw us away from Jesus' call on us to spend time with him. Ruth Haley Barton writes, "All the forces of evil band together to prevent our knowing God in this way, because it brings to an end the dominion of those powers in our lives." Solitude is so important. It's in that time that we will best deal with the enemy. We must be ready, just as Jesus was, equipped with the truth of scripture, ready to call upon his name, because we will face lies and deceit and temptation. So spending time in solitude means being prepared for the resistance that we will face. But if we are willing to fight, it will be hard at first. But if we do this in the long term, it will yield great freedom in Christ and the deepest intimacy with our God. The fourth point is that we will in solitude encounter God. This is the truth that really drives and motivates us to spend time in solitude. Solitude is this place of encounter. We go to encounter ourselves and all the emotions that we are dealing with. We go to encounter the enemy and get free of our hearts entanglement with the world, the flesh and the devil. But ultimately, we go into the quiet to encounter God.

We go there because there is nothing like God's presence. We go to listen to his voice, to hear him speak over us, over our identity and our calling. And while some of it is us speaking to God, much of it should be spent in silence listening for God. And that practice of speaking and listening, it's not just communication, it is communication with God, but that is truly communing with him. John Mark Comer says, "Ultimately, the most important thing that happens in solitude is that we love and are loved by God." If you hear nothing else, take that home with you. Spend time in solitude because that's when we love God the most and that's when we are loved by God the most. Let's look at another example from Jesus in Mark 1. It says, "That evening, after sunset, the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was." So Jesus had just spent this time pouring out, doing the ministry of God's kingdom. And what does he need? He needs time alone with God. Not alone time, just a veg, just be like, "Man, there's so much people time, so social. I just need to scroll some social media really quick and catch up on my favorite sports team." No, he's getting away from the, not just the noise, but he's being intentional to spend time with God, his heavenly father. Then it says in verse 35, "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place where he prayed." He knew. After doing all that, all that ministry, intense ministry, he knew he needed the time to commune with God, to spend those quiet moments in rich relationship with his father. And it's from that time that his soul feels renewed and refocused and ready for what the next day held. Verse 36 says, "Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed, 'Everyone is looking for you!' Jesus replied, 'Let's go somewhere else to the nearby village so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.'" So he traveled through Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out doing this. After that time of solitude, Jesus was ready to continue the calling that God had on his life. And that's what we need, to be reminded of what God has created us for, to be reminded of our purpose as men, women, husbands and wives, friends, co-workers, sons and daughters, followers of Jesus in our communities. When we have an encounter with God, we better understand our identity and purpose.

Spending time with the Creator, our Father in heaven, gives us what we need to live out our lives as ambassadors for Christ. So Jesus shows us how a quiet environment will lead to an encounter with what's within us, an encounter with the enemy, and most importantly, an encounter with God. And so in this new year, let me ask you this. We're talking about healthy habits. Do you want to make it a habit of spending necessary time with your Lord and Savior? Will you make it a habit of spending regular time in solitude? And just our question for the whole series, will you live like Jesus in 2025? I want to end by getting very practical. If you're a note taker, if you're someone who likes to plan permission to get out your notes, bring out your phone and calendar, we're going to get very practical and I hope you're going to walk away today with a plan for solitude. All right. First one, you need to prepare your environment. Where is the best place where you can find solitude and silence? And when in the day? Is it morning? Is it evening? Is it right before work? Is it when the baby goes down for a nap? I would suggest doing it as close to the morning as possible. Start your day with God. And then how often are you going to do it? Daily? Weekly? I would not go any less frequent than weekly. I would aim for daily, even if it's just for 10 minutes. Find a time, put it in your calendar, put an alarm, set the... This is my 10 minutes with God. Find a quiet place. I would suggest if you can do it in nature, get with the Creator in creation. If you can't, maybe it's just in your car before you head into work. You just sit in your car for a little bit. Don't turn on the music. Put your phone on the seat over there. Throw it in the back if you need to. Just sit alone with God. Next, be prepared to deal with what's going on inside you. Don't always view it like, hey, I'm going to have some day spa time for my soul. He's going to sit. He's so good. Again, that can happen. That's awesome. If it does, but be prepared for a lot of the brokenness within you to rise to the surface. Like Jesus in the garden, when he began to feel sorrow, use that prayer that he prays. Identify what's going on within you and give it to God. Give God your feelings. All of them unfiltered. God does not care if you are swearing at him or to him or in front of him. Much of the Hebrew and the Old Testament with David, it's probably not PG. Tell Jesus how you feel. Give God your desires. Tell him what you want. What you really want. Good or bad. Just like, God, this is what I'm feeling I want right now. Just tell him that. And then give God your trust and that time by surrendering your heart to him. Stop grasping for control and instead yield to God. You can pray Jesus own words, not my will, but yours, God. So know that this time of solitude is going to bring up some difficult memories, some challenging feelings that face that pain with God.

Next, be prepared to deal with the enemy as you find your quiet place and you're wrestling with what's going on within you. Also be aware that you're going to deal with the distractions that are going to come with the enemy who doesn't want you to spend time in solitude. And so here's a practical if you're taking notes. Holy reading or lectio divina. What's anciently called. It really means holy reading. Pick a short verse. Short passage, I would suggest the Psalms if you want somewhere to start and in your quiet time, do the four Rs. Are you ready? Read the passage, but very slowly. Don't just like, God, I do my reading time. Somebody just blitz through this really quick. No, read very slowly a short passage, then reflect on it. Read the read it again, word by word, slowly turning over every word that you're going through, wondering, God, what are you trying to tell me in this verse? Then respond. Pray that to God. God, I'm just it seems like you're saying this. I'm getting these ideas. This is what my mind is going. Give that before him and then rest. Rest in whatever you just encountered with God. Whatever you just read. Just sitting there. Our minds want to go to the next thing. God, I read it. Great. Amen. Thank you. Let's go. Take a time to pause and rest in the truth that you just heard.

If you do this, the enemy is going to have a harder time getting to you. The enemy is going to have a harder time lying and deceiving you because you're going to be focusing on God's truth. And finally, be prepared to encounter God. Go into your solitude time ready to listen. Slow yourself down. Ask God to silence the voice of the enemy, to clear out your own mind and then ask God to speak to you. Sometimes we say, like, hey, I've never heard God speak to me. And I sometimes like, have you asked? Have you asked God, God, can you speak to me? I want to hear your voice. I want to hear your truth. Maybe it's audible. Maybe it's through scripture. Maybe it's through a friend. But ask God, God, can you speak to me? And then do the following. Open your mind and your heart to God and just be still. Close your eyes and listen. And hopefully what comes to mind is maybe a line or a passage of scripture. Maybe it's from something you just read, if you just read the Bible. Maybe it's a word or phrase, a thought or a feeling. Maybe it's a picture. If you're a visual person, maybe you're getting a picture in your head. Or maybe it's a memory. Maybe it's a dream of something in the future. Maybe it's something you've recently experienced or thought about, read or heard. But have it be a part of your solitude time where you are trying to listen to God. Now, this is difficult to kind of get a hold of because we spend some time in solitude. I'm like, I'm just being quiet. Am I doing it right? I don't know. Don't strain. Don't you achievers out there are going to have a hard time with this. Don't try to achieve something in this and like, I got it. I did it. I mastered it. Just let yourself be in front of God and just wait quietly. And oftentimes the first thing that comes to mind is from God. Maybe it's a verse. Maybe it's a truth. It's a memory. It's a feeling. Something may come. Maybe it's not. You'll spend that time in quiet and nothing came to mind. That is OK. Our job is to listen, not to make God talk. Sometimes I need to hear that. I want I'm like, God, you better speak. Our job is just to listen, to take time and to listen. Now, if God does say something to you, I want to say this. Just use discernment. Take that thing and hear it against scripture. Go see this. This is true. I heard this from God. That was kind of putting this on my heart, on my mind. Go find that in scripture. Make sure it aligns with his truth and use your community. Check with your pastors. Hey, pastor, I just I heard this this week and want to see what your thoughts were. You're the other people in this community. But reflect and rest. And if something comes to mind, ask the spirit to clarify in your mind what that means to you. God, I heard this. Now, what do you want to do with that?

Our prayer is that we are all spending time, more intentional time with God in silence and solitude this year, because in that time, God will work. He will work. We will be transformed. Our hearts and souls will be renewed. We'll be better equipped to serve others, to love others, to endure life's challenges. I would love. I don't know if I'm going to remember. Maybe I'll put it on my phone. A year from now, 2026. Oh, my gosh, that's scary. We're in 2025? A year from now. If you those who make the point to practice solitude, I would love to hear how a year of regular solitude affects you. I almost guarantee you are going to be closer to God. You are going to love God in new ways. You're going to know Him in new ways. So let's make solitude one of our healthy habits this year.

Let's pray. God, thank you again for your truth and for your word. And for how you show us what is necessary in life. And for our relationship with you, what is necessary is solitude. God, I pray that for those of us in this room who are going to make solitude a regular part of our lives, that you would encourage us, you would equip us, empower us to do that. And God, as we face the noise of this world, I pray that you would help us find a place where we can truly commune with you that is silent and that we can hear your voice. And God, as we deal with what's going on inside of us, the mess within us, God, I pray that you would give us grace and compassion even to have on our own selves. But God, that you would work through all that's within us. And then as we deal with the enemy, the world, the flesh. And the devil, God, I pray that you would give us strength, give us truth. Help us to stand firm on your word, to be able to face those things. And then, God, ultimately, we are coming into solitude to hear from you. So I pray that we would be able to hear your voice. Make it distinct. Make it be that there's no doubt that we heard from you. And God, we're excited. We're anticipating, we're expecting you to do amazing work in us and through us for your kingdom. We pray this in your name. Amen.

Habits of a Healthy Heart: Part 1

Habits of a Healthy Heart

Part 1: Habit of Self-Examination

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I wanna ask you a question this morning is, when you lie, who do you think you lie to the most? When you lie, who do you think you lie to the most? We're gonna start this new year off, we're gonna get a little ridiculous, honest, if you're new here, welcome. We get after it, it's 2025. But when you lie, actually let's do this. I don't normally do a raise of hands, but I kinda wanna do this one. Raise your hands if you lie or if you have ever lied. Look around, if anybody's got their hand not up, they're lying, okay? We lie, it happens, we lie. And when you lie, who do you lie to the most? Oh, we got some people jumping in this morning. Have you ever lied to your boss? Ever lied to your boss? You look outside, the sun is shining, you go, oh yeah. I'm definitely coming down with something. Hey, hey boss, yeah, I'm just not gonna make it in today. I'm sorry, just under the weather. And you're gonna be out in the great weather is really what's going on, right? Have you ever lied to your kids? Boy, I do, I'll be honest. They ask to do something and you sit there and you go, oh, let me think about it, we'll see. There ain't no chance, we ain't doing that. There's no way, there's no way, we are not going to do it. I'm just stalling. Have you ever lied to your parents, kids? You ever lied to your parents? It wasn't me, mom, it wasn't me, dad, I promise. It wasn't me. Have you ever lied to your friends? You get that phone call, hey, you know what? I'd love to help you move, I really would. But you know, I just got a lot going on that day. Lots of things to do, lots of things to do, sorry. You ever lied on social media? Life's great, everything's going great. Post something that isn't really true. My life's so blessed, hashtag blessed, hashtag living the best life. But life isn't good, life sucks. You're in the dumps, maybe you're even depressed. Anyone ever done that? It's interesting to look at the lies that we tell, right?

And when you think about who do you lie to the most, as you said, you lie to yourself the most. You, you lie to yourself. And we tell ourselves all of these lies, right? We tell ourselves all the time, I'll do it tomorrow, when you know you won't. You tell yourself, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm fine, when you really aren't fine at all, right? You're not even a smidgen fine, you're just not fine at all. You tell yourselves, I don't care what they will think when you 100% care what they will think. We tell ourselves, it's really not that big of a deal, right? Not that big of a deal when it's really a big deal. Studies show that when you lie, you lie to yourself the absolute most. And it says in Jeremiah 17:9, it says, "The human heart is the most deceitful of all things. And desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?" The unredeemed heart has the capacity not only to lie to others, but to lie to ourselves. It's one of the major reasons why New Year's resolutions fail. We were talking about these this morning at our team huddle before church, talking about the failure of New Year's resolutions. And the problem with these New Year's resolutions is we have all the great intentions, right? We have all this great intention to focus on changing something in our lives. We want to get more organized, right? We're tired of being behind on things and procrastinating. We want to get up earlier in the morning, right? We wanna get up, seize the day, and kick things off just right, get that workout in maybe before the morning, before the kids get up. You wanna stop looking at things that you shouldn't look at. Maybe you wanna start eating better, you wanna save more money, or maybe you wanna start being more kind to your spouse, or your family, your friends, your neighbors. But whatever it is, the problem is with that New Year's resolution, as good as it may be, the reason that it will fail is it's focused on external behaviors. But where are behaviors actually born? Behaviors are born in our hearts. And if you wanna change your life, you change your habits, but if you wanna change your habits, you have to let God change your heart.

And this year, we're starting on the outside, where most people think to start. But I think for God, he wants us to start on the inside. And we're gonna ask God to change our hearts into who he wants us to be. We're beginning a new series this morning called Habits of a Healthy Heart. And we're gonna go through five different habits over the next five weeks, focusing in on different ways that we can have more of a heart that is a healthy heart. And today, we're gonna focus on the habit of self-examination, to give a truly honest, sincere look at our own lives, and then to give God permission to work in our lives. The next part is gonna be the habit of simplicity. Almost all of us, if we're honest, are looking for more and more and more and more and really, it's less is what we need more of in our lives. The habit of solitude, slowing our lives to be quiet before God. This is a hard one. To slow our lives down and to genuinely seek after God and his word, to have his voice speak into our hearts and to direct our steps. We're gonna talk about the habit of sorrow. You may think, God, pastor, I don't wanna be sorrowful. I think when we think of sorrow, we think of earthly sorrow. But when we study scripture, we see that there is actually something as godly sorrow, that we let God bring to us and transform us and actually this godly sorrow leads us into a place of salvation. And then we're gonna talk about the habit of slowing. Where in a world is so, so, so fast paced, we have a hustle culture, a get after it, go get it, take what's yours kind of a world that actually God preaches against that. The Bible says that the opposite that is really where true freedom and joy and fulfillment is actually truly found to where we would slow ourselves down to give God a true Sabbath of rest, which is truly how we honor God with our lives.

But today as we launch into the new year, I wanna talk about the habit of self-examination. It says this in Psalm 139, David writes this, he prayed this prayer, he says, "Search me." Someone say, "Search me." There we go, we're waking up, come on. "Search me," he said, "Search me God and know my heart." 'Cause we know the heart is actually deceitful, deceitful above all things. He said, "Test me and know my anxious thoughts." Anybody have anxious thoughts in their life? God see that there is no offensive way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting. Well, I'd love to do right now if we can, if we could just take a pause. And I want us very prayerfully, quietly, but still, still verbally out loud, we're gonna read this scripture together. Maybe say it as a prayer to God right now. As you start 2025, you begin this new year, let's pray this prayer together. It says, "Search me God and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." Search me God, know my heart, test me, see if there is offensive way in me.

This was a prayer that David prayed. And you may ask why did David pray this prayer? Well, if you looked at David's life and you saw as a whole, you would have discovered over time that David began as he journeyed through life to understand, and I hope that you'll understand today, that he had this propensity to lie to himself. And he was the master at it. I think so much like just we are ourselves, a master of self-deception. And he started to discover later in life, especially what happened after 2 Samuel 11. It says, "In the spring of the year, when kings normally go out to war, David sent Joab and the Israel army to fight the Amorites. However, David stayed behind in Jerusalem." Normally in this season and the flow of life in the Israelites at this time, that when a kingdom was at battle, the king, whenever the season was, we don't really truly know, would go out and join the army in battle. Now he necessarily wouldn't go and battle himself, but he would at least go out, walk among the soldiers, give them the hurrah speech, send them out, encourage his under commanders. But he would be present out in the battlefield area. But David this time decides not to. We don't truly really know why he decided to stay home, but we can kind of read into this a little bit. David might have thought to himself, man, you know what? I've been at war a lot in my life. I fought. I woke up a little sore this morning. Not really feeling it. You know, I am kind of like a war hero. I mean, I did take down Goliath and everybody kind of knows that. I've earned my time out on the battlefield. I've done the chants and I've marched forward and I know all the battle cries. I've written some myself. I know all this stuff that is, but I probably deserve a break. I've been going hard. You know, maybe a little time off might be good for me as a leader, as a king, you know, really some me time so I can be my best so that when I do go out in the battlefield, I can truly be present. Really, I mean, really that's what my men need. I need a break. And so maybe at some point he thought, oh man, it's gonna be a good sunset tonight. Maybe I'll take dinner, I'll go up on the roof, watch the sunset, relax, have a drink.

So he goes up and he finds himself up there relaxing and he looks over and he sees a woman taking a bath on the roof next door. And the Hebrew word here actually is raah. And so Dave is up there having a nice dinner, maybe a drink, enjoying himself. He looks over, he sees a very beautiful woman taking a bath and he goes raah. The word raah means to look at and to continue to stare. David looked over and he continued to stare and he saw this woman and he raah'd at her and he probably thought to himself, I'm not really doing anything bad. This isn't really hurting anybody. I'm just relaxing. And he began to deceive himself again. And then he thought, you know what? Yeah, we could really take this relaxation to the next level, might be some companionship. So he sent one of his people to go bring her over and invite her to the palace and she comes over and they go out on the balcony and they're hanging out and he's probably like, I want to maybe get to know her and tell her about the kingdom and what's her life like, what's my life like as a king? Like she wanna know that stuff, right? So they start talking and maybe he brushes up against her and says, hey, you look a little tense. You could use a back rub, right? One thing leads to another and they find themselves in bed with each other. And David sins. Shortly after that, he finds out that she's pregnant.

David goes, okay, what am I gonna do here? And so he comes up with this brilliant plan. Bathsheba's husband is actually a warrior, a soldier, Uriah. So he thinks, oh, I'll bring Uriah home. He'll get to spend some time with his wife and one thing will lead to another. He's home from a battlefield and maybe he'll begin to think that the child is his. So he brings Uriah home from battle. But the problem was that Uriah was a very standup guy. And he said, if my men who are on the battlefield cannot be home with their family and their wives, neither will I and he actually does not stay at the house. He stays with the soldiers. And so David realizing, okay, this isn't going where I needed it to go. He goes, well, you know what, let's just send Uriah back and maybe he'll end up on the front lines. Oh no, oops. And Uriah goes back to war, front lines, and he loses his life.

And so David, step by step by step, rations. Step by step, rationalized his sin. And the whole time he's thinking, it's not that big of a deal. It's just one soldier, just one look, one back rub, one night. But what he actually did was he abused his power. He violated an innocent woman in Bathsheba. He committed the sin of adultery. He wrecked an entire family. He essentially murdered Uriah. And then when the baby was born, there were consequences. The baby ended up getting sick and died. Step by step by step, sin by sin by sin by sin. To the point that he couldn't even recognize his own sin because the heart is deceitful above all things and we are the master of self-deception. Psychologists call this a cognitive bias. Scripture actually calls it flattering yourself or deceiving yourself, having the deluded heart. Psalm 36:2 says, “In their own eyes, they flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their own sin.” This is why it is utterly important to adopt a habit of self-examination.

Looking at the research and all of this, our self-deception tends to manifest itself in five different major ways. You might see yourself in some of these categories. The first would be addiction to distraction. Because we're doing something wrong, we find ourselves unintentionally distracting ourselves by anything that keeps us from facing the truth about ourselves. This might be an addiction to pornography. Maybe it's social media. Maybe it's addiction to news. Maybe it's talking bad about other people. Maybe it's alcohol. Or maybe it's some form of any drug. Any addiction possible that can distract us from facing the truth about ourselves. The second would be manic cheeriness, is what I'm gonna call it. You are absolutely depressed. You're sad. You're not happy. There's no joy in your life. And yet you're always smiling. You're always cheerful. You're always the one making jokes. You're going around telling everybody, life's great. Everything's wonderful. Some might call this the Lego syndrome. Everything is awesome. Yeah? You have to have kids if you get that reference. But it's this lie that we tell ourselves that everything is fine, but the reality is we're depressed, we're discouraged, and maybe even to the point that we're thinking about taking our own life. And yet you don't show it. You don't let anybody in. You're trying to deceive yourself. Third would be judgmentalism. Everybody else is the problem. There's something deep down inside of us that we know is wrong, but we love to point out the faults in everybody else. To the point that we look for things in other people to judge them. We look for the little tiniest scripture says, the speck in their eye, and yet we got a giant log just hanging out of our own. But we're deceiving ourselves because we don't wanna be vulnerable about our own lives and be truthful about ourselves, so we judge others for the very thing that we dislike in ourselves. What about defensiveness? We're offended if anybody makes any indication or even a suggestion that we might have something wrong in our lives. We're never vulnerable. We might be probably most likely, yes, you're doing something unwise. You're probably doing something sinful. But any suggestion in that, you are 1000% against them. You deflect, they have the problem. It's not our fault. It's everybody else's. We're the victim. We're completely against any suggestion to change. The final one would be cynicism. We surrender to being cynical. Everything in life is just bad. Everything's horrible. Everyone else is the problem. Everything is wrong. But we're deceiving ourselves 'cause we don't wanna look at the truth about us.

This was a horrible, horrible thing that David did. He deceived himself and his life fell apart. What happened when he said, "I'm not doing anything wrong. Everything's okay. I can get away with this. I mean, I'm the king. I make the rules. It's not that big of a deal. Everybody dies at some point." Sin by sin by sin, he found himself in a very, very, very dangerous place. And then the Lord sent David a prophet by the name of Nathan. And Nathan comes and he sits down with David, has a little conversation. He says, "Hey, King David, let me tell you a story. Let me tell you a story." And it goes like this, the story of two guys. First guy is rich beyond rich. I mean, he makes the rich look poor. He is loaded beyond all loaded. He has thousands of sheep and cattle and cows and acres upon acres of land. I mean, he has everything that his heart desires and dreams and then some. And then there's a really, really, really, really poor guy. And all that this poor guy has is one little sheep. And the poor guy finds himself with his sheep at the rich guy's house. I know maybe their neighbors are hanging out. Maybe the rich guy had pity on the poor guy, begging on the streets that, "Hey, come to my house, I'll take care of dinner." And so the rich guy invites the poor guy over for dinner and they sit down and the rich guy realizes he has to prepare a dinner meal. And so he goes out to slaughter a lamb for supper. And he has the pick. Any of his thousands upon thousands of thousands of animals he can pick to slaughter. But he sees the poor guy's lamb and he picks that one and he slaughters it, he prepares it, he cooks it. And he feeds the poor guy his own lamb. David immediately says, "That is the most horrible thing I have ever heard." That rich guy needs to go to jail and he probably should be killed because he even thought about doing that. And Nathan turns to him and says in Hebrew, ata-ish He says, "David, you are the man." Man. You are the man. You, David, are the one who did this. You are the one judging this man and his actions. And yet you are guilty of the exact same thing. You're the one that's been defensive. You're the one that's pushed back. You're the one that's made excuses. You're the one that rationalized your actions. You are the one that has done the very same thing. The habit of self-examination. It's a tough one. It's not easy to do. Search me, God. Search my heart. Show me if there is any offensive way in me. Any sinful thing. Anything in my life that I don't see, God. Show me how you want me to change. I'd ask you right now to stop for a moment and let God search you.

What problem are you denying? What sin are you rationalizing? What issue are you hiding? Welcome to church early 2025. We're gonna get after it this year. If I haven't stepped on your toes by now, I probably will. And I'm stepping on my own toes just to let you know. All right? But where does God wanna work in your life this year? Maybe it's a secret addiction. Maybe you're addicted to porn. Maybe it's alcohol. Maybe drugs. Maybe it's the way that you lose your temper over and over and over again. You say, but pastor, if they wouldn't act like that, I wouldn't have to respond like that. Maybe you're flirting with an affair. Maybe you're in a full blown affair. Maybe you're addicted to overeating. You make jokes about it and you think, ha ha, that's just who I am. Oh man, buffet Bob. That's just who I am. Maybe you're addicted to overspending. And you pretend, ah, it's not that big of a problem. I'll end up selling most of them and I'll make some profit. Like it's not that big of a deal. Maybe you're numbing yourself consistently. Maybe it's with a drug. Maybe it's just turning the TV on and just staring for hours on end. Maybe it's scrolling mindlessly on social media all day long. You say, I don't need help. I'm okay. It's not that big of a problem. But you really do. See, asking for help is never a sign of weakness. Asking for help is actually a moment of wisdom. Maybe you're here at church. Maybe you don't know why. It's the first of the year. You're here, but your mind's not there. You're not there. You're here, but your mind's not here. Your heart's far from God. Search me, God. Know my heart. See if there is any offensive way in me.

As we close up this morning, I wanna share three different warning signs. These are maybe three different ways you can watch out for maybe some things that you have in your life. The first of which is, watch for what others have tried to tell you. If someone has tried to tell you you have something going on that's maybe a big problem, maybe a small problem, I always thought of a good rule would be if I have two or more people who I know love me and care for me and truly want the best for me. If two people come to me and say, hey, Chris, you got a problem here, I need to take pause and have some self-examination. Maybe it's someone telling you that you work too much. Maybe someone telling you you're not present. You're spending too much time with video games. Or maybe someone who loves you tells you you have a drink every single night. And you say you can stop at any time, but you don't seem to be able to go without. Maybe there's somebody who tells you that you're dressing immodestly. And you say, well, you know, it's just the style, it's just how everybody's dressing, it's just the look right now. But people are telling you who love you that it's an issue. Or maybe you can never say no because you have a problem with people pleasing. But when you ask God to search your heart, look for what others who care for you and truly love you in life have tried to say to you. Second one is watch out for what you rationalize. Watch out for whatever you try to explain away when someone questions you about something. Ah, it's not that big of a deal. I can handle this, I got this, I got this. I'm not hurting anybody, it's not that big of a deal. Watch for when you're rationalizing. 'Cause reality, it's gonna sneak up on you, that's the truth. Watch out for when you say, you know, I wouldn't have to do this if they didn't have to do that. Watch out for when you're most defensive. Whenever you push back and you say, I don't have a problem, maybe you get a little angry. You say, leave me alone, get out of my business. I've heard it said from someone much wiser than myself that the more convinced that you don't have a problem, the more likely it is that you actually do.

I had to learn this one, the school of hard knocks last year. It was, I don't know, I don't know, but probably about 16 months ago, we welcomed our fourth child, Aliyah, into our family. And I've always been known as someone who's a really hard worker. And I've always had a strong work ethic. It began to become more of an identity than I realized in my life. And it was about that time when I became dad number four and I didn't slow down. I kept driving at a thousand percent, pushing forward, working harder, busy with the family, busy with the newborn and the kids and just constantly go, go, go, go, go, and not realizing and thinking, oh, how much harder could it be to go from three kids to four kids? It's not that big of a deal. It was a really big of a deal. It was actually harder for me to go from three to four than it was to go from two to three, which people say that two to three is worse than anything else. And so for me, it was, I wasn't going to slow down. I was still driving at a thousand percent, even though everything in my life seemed to be harder and harder and harder to just get done. Even this most simplest task in life just took exponentially more time. And it was around February that I started to get a little bit of a cold. And I thought, no big deal, I'll be fine. I'll push through, I'll take some extra vitamins. It's fine, I can drink some tea, whatever. It's no big deal. I kept pushing myself and pushing myself and pushing myself and I'd find myself on Mondays sleeping in until almost noon. I'd push myself so hard for the week to prepare for church, through the family and everything, and then through the weekend that I couldn't even get out of bed on Monday mornings. And that cold kept getting worse and worse and worse. I would be okay after I would sleep in so late on Mondays. I would recover by Tuesday, Wednesday I was good, Thursday I'd start to feel it again. I'd push myself Friday, Saturday, Sunday and I'd be back to where I was. And the cold got worse and worse and worse and it went right into my lungs. And I would call what most over-achievers would say they have and it's called walking pneumonia. It's what normal people have that actually will put them into the hospital. But I thought to myself, I'm gonna be okay. I'm fine, I got this. I'd find myself on my phone looking up, try to find the next home remedy. I wasn't gonna go to the doctor, I wasn't gonna waste my time. I had it figured out. So vitamin after vitamin after regular drugs after, I don't know how many trips to Walmart to try to clear themself out of Sudafed and Mucenex and all this stuff, I was gonna be okay. It's gonna be no problem.

And it got so bad my wife said, "You're going to the doctor's." I said, "Okay." Well, mama says something, you do something, right? So I go to the doctor begrudgingly, sit down, they start taking my vitals. My blood pressure is in stroke zone. The doctor is so freaked out about my blood pressure in that moment, she doesn't even give me any drugs or anything. She literally tells me, "You have to leave right now "and go to the ER. "You're going to stroke." And I'm sitting there drinking my coffee going, "I'm fine, no problem." Do I go to the ER? No. I go home, tell myself it's gonna be okay, no problem, be all right. Two weeks later, it's still not all right. I find myself back at the doctor's office, literally drinking my coffee, waiting, and almost falling asleep in the lobby, waiting to be seen. I dragged myself back in there. And what I told myself was, "Ah, just a momentary lapse "in high blood pressure was just as high, if not worse." And the fear that the doctor showed in his eyes looking at me scared the living daylights out of me. And I found myself in a moment of crossroads to say, "I need to change my life. "Something has to change. "I have to stop lying to myself "that everything was gonna be okay. "Hi, I'm Chris, I have a problem." And so I talked to my wife. I actually got some antibiotics that time. Went home and started resting. Let things slide. Still felt guilty about them 'cause things weren't getting done. But I had to take care of myself before anything else. Because if I wouldn't have taken care of myself, there's no chance that I could have been able to continue to be there for my church, for my family, for my kids. And so, start taking the proper medicine. I get on blood pressure medication. Start getting better, my blood pressure comes back down. I start exercising more. I make different changes in my routine. I start eating better. I start exercising. I picked up boxing, super therapeutic, to punch something. It's amazing. Not thinking about you guys when I do it. Don't worry, don't worry. But all of these changes, I got back to having correct nutrition and vitamins and sleep. And I wanna tell you this today, not to say have pity on me or, "Hey, way to go, Chris, you figured out." I still haven't figured it all out. I'm still working on it. I'm still trying to lose weight. I'm still trying to get healthier so I know I can be around longer for my family and for my wife. I'm still trying to figure out all this stuff. What I want to share with you guys is this.

There comes a time when you have to make a decision. And I hope and pray that none of you ever have to get to that point in your life. I'm so thankful I didn't have a stroke. I'm so thankful I didn't collapse. I'm so thankful I didn't end up in the hospital. I am so thankful to God. But that is directly where I was heading with my life. But we come to ourselves and we have to watch out for what other people are telling you. Because I had people in my life that loved me, that told me, "You have to slow down. "You're going too fast. "You're doing too much." And I said, and rationalize it away, "It's not that big of a deal. "I got this handled. "It's gonna be okay." Even to the point where I was getting cynical of people and you just don't understand, this is what God has called me to. You just don't love God as much as I do. You just aren't as committed to the calling that Jesus has on your life. That is not my problem. That is your problem. But it was a problem. And one of the best things that I did even in that was I began to meet with a counselor or my spiritual director, my therapist, whatever you want to call them. And he graciously sat down with me and started talking through life. And he turned to me at one point and said, "Chris, you got a problem and I think you know it." And I said, "Yes, I do." And I even had opportunity to go out on a date with my wife, which was amazing last week. And we sat down and we started talking about 2024 and she turned to me and she goes, "You know what? "When you started meeting with that counselor, "you completely changed." It broke my heart that I was so focused in that moment, rationalizing my choice step by step by step that I couldn't even see it myself.

Search me, God. Know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me. Lead me in the way everlasting. So the reality is you cannot change what you won't confront. And one of my greatest things that I love about this scripture is the last part. You got to go through some hard stuff first, right? But that last part that says, lead me in the way everlasting is like a breath of fresh air. Yes, we believe that all those who call on Jesus for salvation will have eternal life in heaven. But I think what the Psalmist David here writes in this prayer is that he wants a little bit of heaven on this side right now. We just came through a season of Christmas and Jesus coming and Emmanuel, God with us. And I love one of the names that they call Jesus. Did you guys pick up on that? The Prince of Peace. God wants to be a prince of peace. God wants to give you peace in your life. But it takes letting God to search you, to know your heart, to know your anxious thoughts. What is God showing you right now that you don't want to face? Maybe you're afraid of what it is. Hey, here's the best news. God already knows and he's not afraid of it. God already knows what you are facing because he's active in your life. He's right there with you. So you shouldn't be afraid to let God know. You should be afraid of what that will cost you in the long run. So what are you gonna do? I'd encourage you run to him. I walked out of that doctor's office, got in my car and I almost started to begin to cry and I said, I am so sorry, God. I am so sorry that I have let myself get to this point in my life. Forgive me. I had asked for forgiveness. I was being so selfish. I was holding on to everything thinking I had it all figured out, but I did not. I was so far from it.

I love what David writes in Psalm 51. This is his other prayer. I think it's so good. “Create in me a pure heart, oh God. Renew a steadfast spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.” David sinned big time, big time. And yet he is known as a man after God's own heart. If there's hope for David to earn that title after what he did, there ain't nothing what you have gone through or what you have done. God wants to give you a new heart. He wants to free you. He wants to give you life. He wants to give you joy. He wants to give you peace. He wants to give you everlasting life. Don't resist it. He loves you. So week one, habit self-examination. To give God permission to show us what we need to hear so that we can do what we need to do. This is our prayer. I'd love to close this out this morning. Let's all pray together. Psalm 139, we get that back up on the screen. Let's pray this together. Search me God, know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

Jesus, we thank you for today. God, we thank you for who you are. God, the fact that you deeply love us more than we could even ask or imagine. And God, you have a desire for the very best for us. But God, we know that sin gets in that way. And we know that our own choices, as good as they may be in our mind, in our plan, may be just the best thing that we could ever think of, God. It pales in comparison to what you desire and what you want for our lives. And so God, I pray as we start 2025, Jesus, that you would search our hearts. You would take a deep look inside of us and you would begin to stir within us and reveal to us what needs to change and what you want to do in the year 2025 in our life. And God, I pray that it would begin right now in this moment. That your Holy Spirit would begin to nudge us to share with us some of the things that we need to change as we give a thought to self-examination. God, may we honor you with our lives. May we give you full access to our whole heart. God, not holding back this section over here, God, you can have full reign everywhere else, but this over here, this is mine. No, I pray that we would just hand it all over to God right now, offering it up, giving it wholeheartedly over to you. God, I pray that you would transform our lives, you would change our life, you would change our habits, you would change our hearts, and you would transform us, God, into who you desire for us to be. Jesus, we're thankful for who you are. We thank you for your power, God, to transform us 'cause we know we can't do this on our own. There's no way we could figure all this out. God, thank you that you can and you will and you are. Jesus, we love you, we praise you. Everybody said? Amen.

Pre-Decide: Part 7

Pre-Decide: Part 7 - I AM A FINISHER

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

So we've been in this series talking about pre-decide and we're going to wrap that up this week but but first I want to kind of maybe talk to those in the room who have ever felt like giving up. You've felt like you want to give up. You got you got into a place in life maybe maybe you at one point... Oh wonderful thank you sir. Maybe at one point you had a dream or you had a goal you had a vision maybe you started with great anticipation you're all excited about you kicked it off. It was going great, but then you hit a wall. You hit resistance and then all of a sudden you found yourself in a place with little to no progress. Frustration started to set in. You felt like discouraged. You wanted to give up. Anybody ever been in a situation like that? Maybe this week. Maybe yesterday. Maybe this morning. I don't know. But maybe you found yourself in a situation where you had a relationship where you really wanted to restore it. You wanted amend it and you tried everything you could you poured energy and time and effort into it and then you found yourself with an even more broken relationship on the other side maybe you're fighting to save your marriage you're doing everything you can you're pouring everything into it but you're just running out of fight you're maybe you're believing for a miracle you have something that you have been praying about every single day for God to do in your life maybe your kids live maybe in a friendship maybe a healing a financial situation like God I need you to do something here I need a miracle you need God to help you overcome maybe an addiction and you tried and you've prayed and you believe but you have seen little to no results and you're losing hope I want to talk with those today who have ever felt in that place or maybe you're in that place today and I want to if you're gonna write something down this morning I want you to write this down when you want to give up we're gonna talk about that today. If you would pray with me. Jesus we thank you for this morning God thank you for those who are here to be able to gather with us God we pray for those who aren't able to be here but are still watching us and joining us through the awesome thing called the internet Jesus we thank you for your blessings in our lives every day and Jesus I pray that the word that you have for us today that you would make it absolutely 100% clear that we would know exactly what you want us to do you know exactly how we're supposed to take that first step today we thank you Jesus, Amen

Well we are concluding a series today and called pre decide and we've been in for five, six weeks or so. And we've been talking about this idea of our decisions. And we first started off, the first week we talked about the quality of our decisions, of your decisions, my decisions, determines the quality of our life. Problem is, we're not good decision makers, right? We try really hard and there's times where we just nail it. We knock it out of the park, we kill the decision. we're like, yeah, look at what I did right here, yes. But then other times you're like, I'm just so, just, I can't. And we just make the wrong decision. Well, our series we're focusing on the statement we've been talking about and this idea of when we're faced with a certain situation, we have pre decided to take a specific action. So when you find yourself in this place, but beforehand without emotion, with the leading of God's will on our lives and His word and prayer and focus and encouragement from our community, we have pre-decided to make this specific action when faced with this certain situation. We've had this statement, we had this circle, we handed out stickers. And if you want one of these cool circle stickers, we got some in the back on the table, we'd love for you to take one home. But we have these six things that we're focusing on. And we've been talking about how I am ready. Say it with me, I am ready. Oh, you're ready, I love it. Talking about I am consistent, I am devoted, I am generous, I am faithful, and by the will of God and His faithfulness in our lives, we will be a finisher. And that's what we're talking about today. I know one thing about the desire to finish. I'm a project guy, I love projects, I love to do things, I love to get my hands dirty, but the desire to finish, it is so easy to start, right? So easy to start, but it is so not easy to finish, right? My wife, God bless her heart, has been living in a kitchen now for over a year. She's got really awesome countertops, painted cabinets, new appliances, but no backsplash. It's just cement board. Just basically plywood on the walls. Everything else looks awesome. New sink, garbage disposal, it's beautiful. No backsplash. I am famous for starting things, but never getting to the point of finishing them.

See, this idea for us is a lot more important than I think people understand, right? Because I want to ask you a certain question, and I think you'll be able to understand, is what do you think separates average people from amazing people? What's the difference from those who are really fulfilled in life and those who are often empty, maybe those who struggle or those who succeed? I will tell you, it is not their intelligence, it's not their appearance, it's not their It's not their education. It's not who or what they know It the difference is their perseverance their perseverance Their willingness to stick to it their grit to finish their drive to preserve Persevere the refusal to quit there was this big study that was done recently that that interviewed successful people And we're talking talking a fortune 500 business leaders. We're talking successful military leaders We're talking teachers, we're talking even like spelling bee champions, like the whole spectrum of people. They did this research and all this was down to one quality that separated unsuccessful people and successful people. And it's one quality and it is this. It is grit. Grit. The definition of grit, if you don't know what word I'm talking about, is the strength of character that refuses to quit. If you follow the NFL, there's a team out of Detroit right now that is all about grit. They got into the playoffs, but not very far in the playoffs, okay? I'm just kidding. It's going against my whole sermon. But the lady who did this whole research, her name is Angela Duckworth, and she has this quote with this giant study that she did. She said, "Enthusiasm is common." You can find it everywhere. Everybody's excited about something, right? So excited for this. I can't wait for this, can't wait for this. This is happening, I'm really pumped. But endurance is rare. Endurance is extremely, extremely rare. Grit is this difference that it is not what you know or who you know, but it's your willingness to stay in the fight. Easy to start, it's hard to finish. And this is why we wrap up our whole series with this one statement we just said, it said, I am a finisher. We are pre-deciding to be finishers. And by nature, we wanna take the easy way out, right? We wanna take the simple road, the easy path. The one of least resistance, that's like boom here to there. Like I am constantly when I drive on ways with my app. Why? Because I wanna know if there's traffic, or something in the road, I want the easy way, I wanna get home as quick as I possibly can. We live in that world today.

But our big decision today that we are making when we pre-decide to be a finisher is this. It says, "When I commit, I don't quit. "I am a finisher." Say this with me, he says, "When I commit, I don't quit, I am a finisher." a finisher. And why is that? Well because us as disciples of Jesus, how do we persevere? How do we strengthen? Because the devil wants to pull us back, right? The devil wants us to quit. The devil wants us to throw off our game. So how do we strengthen ourselves so when we get to the point where we want to quit that we don't? There's this moment, I want to look at the words of Apostle Paul. And he's in prison, and he's writing this letter to basically his spiritual son Timothy. And he's in jail under the Emperor Nero, and he's basically waiting to be beheaded. And he's in a dungeon, well really more of like a sewer. So he's like underground in a sewer, and he's just waiting to be killed. And this was a really common place for these people to wait to be executed. And a lot of them honestly wouldn't even survive just being in the sewer. They would just die even before their execution. But Paul is writing this letter to his spiritual son, Timothy, with all of his emotion and everything that he has. Essentially, these are his last words. And he writes it to Timothy. We see this in 2 Timothy 4:5. He says to him, Paul, “Do not be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the good news and fully carry out the ministry that God has given to you.” You think I'd be here to encourage you this morning? I am, but we gotta get through some stuff first. But here's the reality. If we're gonna finish like we say we are, we're gonna likely suffer. We're likely gonna go through some hard times. And honestly, being a Christian doesn't mean that you don't have hard times. It actually means honestly the opposite, that being a Christian, a follower of Jesus, a disciple of God Almighty means that we're probably most likely absolutely going to suffer. And in other words, Paul here is trying to tell Timothy that don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, but carry out the ministry that God has given you, even if you're going to suffer. He continues on, "As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have remained faithful." Paul here is saying, I've been in the battle. I've not given up. I fought the good fight. I have remained faithful and I have pressed forward even in the face of suffering. Here is what is really powerful about this. And I think Paul here has finished his race. There's nothing that's gonna save him. There's nothing that's gonna rescue him. History shows us that after this point, he is beheaded, he is killed, he no longer lives here on earth, but in heaven.

And what is powerful is that it's obvious that Paul has finished his race, but you and I have not finished ours. You and I have not finished our race yet. And if you find yourself in a place of discouragement or feel like giving up, maybe God might be saying to you even today, if you're not dead, you're not done. If you're not dead, you're not done. There is more for you to do. God has more for you. I see some of you checking yourself. Am I alive in this moment right here? Yes, you are. God's got more for you to do. He still has more plans, more assignments. He's got more stuff for you to do. He's got more ministry for you to do. He's got more business for you to do. He's got more content for you to take. He's got more hope for you to share, more friendship for you to make, for more addictions to break. Turn to the person next to you and say, "God's got more for you." Come on, come on. God's got more for you. If you're not dead, you're not done. There's more for you to do. And Paul here is encouraging Timothy, I might be done, but you aren't done yet. fully finish, fully finish the work that God has started in you. But you don't get it, Pastor Chris. I'm tired. I'm tired, and not just tired, but I'm turd. I am tired, I'm tired. I know, I talked to some of you guys. Hey, how was your week? I'm tired. How you guys doing? I'm busy and I'm tired and I'm tired and I'm busy. I'm tired, I'm busy. I'm tired, I'm busy. I'm tired. A lot of us feel like there is so much to get done, right? So much still to get done. Author and speaker, David Allen has this quote I think might help encourage us today. “It's as much of the stress that people feel doesn't come from having too much to do, it comes from not finishing what they've started.” Maybe some of you have this just constant stress in your life that what you have to do isn't getting done. and that you don't know how you're gonna move forward.

If you guys would with me, just kind of have, just mentally right now, just kind of shift into this posture of prayer. I wanna read some scripture of you and ask you a question, but kind of just have this moment of posture or prayer is that I want you to set yourself up for maybe what God wants to share with you this morning in this moment today that you would be listening to him and maybe something that God is prompting you of something that you haven't finished. And I'm not talking about like, oh yeah, pastor, I haven't finished season four of that on Netflix. But like, I'm talking about something really spiritual, okay, something spiritual. Jesus says this to the church in Sardis in Revelation. He says, "I know your deeds. You have a reputation of being alive, but you're dead." Maybe you feel like that this morning. Someone would say, "Oh, you're such a good Christian, but deep down inside, you're like, I'm just not feeling it." Jesus says, "Wake up, strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of God." Here's the question I want to ask you. What is your unfinished business? Maybe it's a unfinished assignment. What is it more specifically though as a follower of Jesus? Maybe you once were prompted to do something, you know you were supposed to do it, you thought you were going to do it, you really wanted to go and do it, You hoped to do it, you thought about doing it, and you knew you were supposed to maybe say something, you were prompted to give something, maybe you were looking to reach out to someone. What is it that you were prompted to do? Maybe you were supposed to reach out and mend a relationship. Maybe you were supposed to step out in faith and take a step that you didn't know all that was gonna happen after that, but God said, I need you just to take this step. Maybe you were something as simple as you were supposed to go finish your degree, but you just, you haven't yet. Maybe you were supposed to start some kind of hobby or you're supposed to start join a community group. We're kicking off on Wednesday. Maybe you're supposed to start serving in the church in a way with the gifts and talents that God has given you. Maybe you were supposed to follow through with something, but you just never got there? Maybe a physical goal, a spiritual goal, maybe even to just apologize to someone, but you just never got there.

What's the unfinished business that you have in your life that God has asked you to do? What just, let that kind of sink in for a moment. What would God be saying to you? Paul has some really incredible advice And this in 2nd Corinthians, he says, “Here’s my advice It would be good for you To finish what you started a year ago church.” and Corinth got off to this great start They were doing all these amazing things and it kind of just Like all of us it just fizzles out, right? “Last year you were the first who wanted to give and you were the first to begin doing it Now you should finish what you started.” What's your Maybe you're thinking about it right now. Maybe you're like, "I don't even know what you would want me to do right now." But I think we have to answer the question of, "What if we don't do it?" What if we don't follow through? I mean, honestly, there's some things in life that we should quit. So I'm not talking about those things and we can't do everything, but each of us has something that we are called to do. Some of us have divine assignments on our lives, but we have yet to finish them. So what does it matter if we quit? Today, you are going to face an opportunity to determine who you are. You're gonna show that, let's put it this way. You are going to cast a vote for your future self in this moment, that you are going to either decide to do what you're supposed to do and cast a vote to be a finisher, or you're gonna decide not to do that, and you will then in turn cast a vote for being a non finisher.

So the question for us is, who are we? This is why it's important. You're gonna come, you're gonna face a moment in life, whether maybe some of you have faced this before, you're probably gonna face something in the near future where you're gonna have to make a tough decision. And you're gonna have to decide the kind of person you are. you are going to cast a vote into which camp of the person that you want to be. And you're gonna face something and some moment where it's gonna seem like impossible odds. It's gonna seem like everything is stacked against you. It's gonna seem like you're gonna have people and friends in your life that are gonna turn to you and say, there's no chance that this is ever gonna come through. But God is standing there saying, I want you to take this step of faith. And you're gonna have to decide, will I face this adversity? Will I overcome the greatest pillars of faith in the halls of history have faced this and chosen correctly? Was it easy? Absolutely not. Was it all fun and celebration did a confetti cannon go off when they made the right decision? No, most likely not, maybe. But they at some point had to make the tough decision. It didn't mean they didn't struggle through it, but you didn't see them quit. Just because I'm up here with the carpet, the table, and the podium doesn't mean that I have it figured out. Can I be honest with you? I wanted to quit yesterday. I did. I 1,000% wanted to quit, but then I knew that I was going to have to be here at 10 a.m. to give a sermon to myself and you guys. This sermon is so much, just as much for me as it is for you guys here today. Saturdays for some reason in our house have just been chaos. And I think it's because the devil knows that Sunday's coming, right? The devil knows Sunday's coming and he's like, I gotta knock that pastor off of his path. 'Cause if I can, then I can start messing with Spring Valley. So if you guys are thinking of Pastor Andre and myself on Saturdays, people will be praying for us. We covet your prayers, you guys are amazing. I know there's so many of you that pray for us every single day and we feel it, we feel it. But I wanted to quit yesterday. But I knew I couldn't. And I struggled through it. So you may see me struggle, but I'll tell you 100% here today, right now and forevermore, I will never quit. I will never quit.

And the apostle Paul is this incredible like superhero of the faith. He's just this stellar pillar of the early church. And he even himself struggled, but he never quit. He fought through day after day after day. And he shares what I would consider his life motto in Acts chapter 20 at the end of his life. He says, "However, I consider my life worth nothing to me. "My only aim is to finish the race "and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, "the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace." "My only goal in life," Paul says, "is to finish the race." But there's this little phrase in there of this power-packed verse that I think some of us just kinda gloss over real quick. And it answers the question of, how could Paul finish the race? He says this right at the beginning, because he wasn't running for himself. He says, I consider my life worth nothing to me. Paul says, it's not about me. It's not about my dreams. It's not about my desires. It's not about his popularity. Paul says, "I consider my life worth nothing." And I had this thought yesterday in the midst of wanting to quit. Me wanting to quit what God has called me to do was maybe because I cared something about more than running God's race. And I think for some of us, we might find ourselves in that place. That there might be something that we care about more, whether we want to admit it or not, than God's race that he's called each and every one of us to run. And we have to really wrestle with this. And this concept of, I consider my blank worth nothing to me. What would that be? Maybe your comfort. Maybe your net worth, your opinions of others, social media follows, your personal hopes and dreams that you can only finish the race that God has called us to run when we commit to him and we don't quit. So how do we run our race? How will you and I finish? We can't run it for ourselves. We can only run it for God. And when you run it for God, the only way that you can is to take it one step at a time. So I want to encourage you this morning, take the next step. Take the next step. And here's what's even greater. You don't have to finish your race today. This is a life long journey day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out, year in, year out, decade in, decade out. centurion in, I don't think we'll get there but just take the next step. This is how Paul lived his life moment by moment. If you've read his story it is crazy.

When we look at the greatest example of Jesus, he lived this life. He took it one step at a time. And Jesus is on the cross right before he looks up to his heaven and basically cries out, "Into your hands, God, I commit my spirit," and he breathes his wrath. Just before that, he says, "Telestai, it is finished." finished He's saying I did everything you sent me here to do dad I'm coming home. I finished my race Jesus wasn't running for himself He was running for his father Day by day week by week month by month year by year painful moment after painful moment, he just took the next step. When they hated him, he just took the next step and loved them back. When they struck him on the cheek, he just took the next step and turned the other cheek. When he was carrying the cross up the hill, he fell down. He stood back up and took the next step. When he was hanging there on the cross and they cursed him and they mocked him and they shamed him He took another step and says father forgive them. They just don't know what they're doing From that very moment Jesus decided that he is going to always be ready He's always gonna be consistent He's always gonna be devoted. He's always gonna be generous He's always gonna be faithful, and he's always gonna be a finisher. So what are you and I gonna do? The trajectory of our life is always towards what is easy, what's convenient. And the devil's gonna want you to quit, I'll just be honest here. He's gonna want you to give up on what God has called you to start and to do. So you and I are going to have to pre-decide that no, we're not gonna do that, but that when we commit, we will not quit. When you run for God, you run one step at a time.

There's the story of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. And there's this runner sprinter by the name of Derek Redmond. And he was basically the shoe in for the 400 meter. He was gonna win it hands down. There was no other competition. There was nobody that was gonna even come close to him. It was all his, it was basically you might as well and put the gold medal on him before the gun went off. And the gun goes off and they start the race and about halfway through, he collapses to the track and he ruptures his hamstring. All the training, all the early mornings, all the late nights, all the perfect meals, all the perfect schedule, all the travel, all the meeting with coaches and doctors and trainers, everything that he had put into this moment in an instant is completely shattered. Everything is gone. The Olympic hope and dream doesn't exist anymore. And as he lays there on the track in pain and agony, his dad is there to watch him. And his dad gets up out of his seat, gets down on the track, walks up to his son, picks him up, and the two of them hobble to finish the race. Here's what I want you to get. You and I running this race don't run alone. We don't run alone. The Father is there with us every single step of the way. So when we slip up, when we fall down, when we mess up, when we don't make the right choice, God is there with us, carrying us along. It says in Philippians, "Be confident of this, "that he, being God, who began a good work in you, "will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

You never run alone. So, you may see me struggle. You may see me want to quit, but I won't quit. Because when I commit, I don't quit. I'm a finisher. And you, because you're a disciple of Jesus, and he is the ultimate finisher, he is the author and perfecter of our faith, that when he says he started it, he will finish it. 'Cause Jesus says, "When I commit, I don't quit. "I am the finisher." Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for today. God, we are so incredibly grateful for your grace, your mercy, your hope. And so Jesus, today I pray that you would speak truth into our lives. God, that you would reveal where maybe we have unfinished business. That God, you would reveal this to us right here, right now, today, in this moment, or maybe this week, God, that you would reveal of where we need to finish. And God, I pray that you would give us the strength for us to be faithful. That every day that we would find ourselves running for you, not for ourselves, not for our own glory or our own recognition, but running for you, God. Taking that next step, even when we don't understand, even when it might not make sense, even when we don't fully understand how the race is going to finish, God, but that we would just take the next step in you and that we may at the end of our life here on earth when we see you in heaven that we ourselves may be faithful as Paul and as Jesus and as so many others before us have been so faithful to finish that race God made we to finish the race that we may be faithful to you that we may be be a finisher. Jesus, thank you for being the ultimate example of a finisher.

Pre-Decide: Part 6

Pre-Decide: Part 6 - I AM FAITHFUL

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I wanna ask you a question real quick. as we jump in, if you had one word, it would be a goal or something to achieve in life, what would that one word, what would you choose to be that one word for you? Just one word, one word that you would do everything you can that you would want and desire for it to represent your character, maybe your nature, everything that would summarize for what you stand for in life. What would that one word be? There was a recent survey, a study done of people both in and outside of the church. And they were asked this very same question and the top three common answers that came out from this survey, the first of which, and these are all really good things. The first of which are the word that people says they wanna be successful. And I like this, I like this. I think God wants us to be successful. God makes successful people. God creates successful people and gives them opportunities. And I hope and pray that you find success in life. The second word would be influential. And this is a good word. This is another good word. And for us as Christians, this is a good word because as Jesus calls us, we're to be salt and light in the world, to push back darkness, to change things, that we are called as ambassadors to make a difference in this life for the kingdom of God. The third word was happy. I think each and every one of us deep down inside, we can really resonate with this word, right? Another term might be used here would be a blessed or a fulfilled life. But even as good as these three words are, there is what I believe one word that in God's eyes should stand above all of the rest. So that when we get to heaven, and if we live a life that pleases God, he won't say to us when we meet him face to face, "Well done, my good and successful servant." He won't say that. He won't say, "Well done, my good and influential servant." He's not gonna say, "Well done, my good and happy servant." What he will say to us, Jesus will say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." And that there was one word that would stand above every other word I believe that we should strive to be faithful, that we should be the faithful of Christ. Turn the person next to you and say, you're looking faithful today. Looking faith, yeah, there we go. That's right, I like it, I like it. If you were to write something down this morning, I want you to write down this morning of one word that will change your life. And that's what we're gonna be talking about this morning.

Pray with me. Jesus, thank you so much for this morning. God, we pray for those who aren't able to be with us, those who are joining us online. Jesus, I pray that you would touch their hearts right now, wherever they are. God, whatever they're walking through in life right now, Jesus, you are right there beside them. They are not alone in what they are going through. And Jesus, I pray for us who are here, present, in person, Jesus, that your word would speak over our lives today, that we would, you have something specific for us, Jesus. And so I pray that you would reveal that to us and that we would not leave here the same as when we walked in those doors this morning, Jesus. Transform our hearts, transform our lives, make us into who you want us to be today, Jesus. We thank you for your love. Amen.

Today, we're gonna be talking about this idea of being faithful. And if you've been with us, we've been in this series, Predeciding, And we've been talking about our decisions and how the quality of our decisions determines our quality of life. But the reality is we're not all really good decision makers. Sometimes we get it right and that's awesome. And we're like, thank you, Jesus, I made it. And sometimes we royally mess up and we say, thank you, Jesus, you're here with us. Thank you for your grace, right? And we've had kind of this saying that we've been talking about that when faced with a particular situation, that we are by the health of God with the direction of Scripture, pre-deciding what we are going to do in that situation. We're not gonna let emotions drive us, we're not gonna get caught off guard, we're not gonna play catch up, we're not gonna be trying to figure things out on the fly, but we are pre-deciding that we are gonna take a particular action when faced in a certain situation. There's six specific things we've been talking about. And a couple of weeks ago, we handed out these stickers for you guys to take, to place different. We got a bunch of them in the back still. If you want a second one, please, second, third, please take those. You are welcome to those. Put them everywhere. Put it on a water bottle, put it in your mirror, put it in your car. I don't know, put it on your computer or wherever you see this to remember. We've been talking about these six topics. and the first of which was ready. Say, "I am ready." There we go. We talked about this, that the enemy is out there scheming, trying to get us off our game, but we have to pre-decide to be ready. We had to pre-decide to be consistent. Say, "I am." Let's go. Now you're waking up. All right, now you're getting the flow. Say it with me. "I am devoted. I am generous. I am faithful." And next week, Pastor Lauren's gonna wrap us up with I am a finisher.

Now, today, we're specifically talking about being faithful and that the reason that we are pre-deciding to be faithful is that you never accidentally, by happenstance, just fall into being a person who is consistently faithful. I'm talking about a day in, a day out, a week in, a week out, a month in, a month out, a year in, a year out, a decade in, a decade out type of faithfulness. That we will constantly be faithful, but that doesn't come without intentionality. See, the reason I think that we find this really difficult, let's call it what it is. Can we be honest this morning? Is that the trajectory of our life, we like to follow the easy path, right? We'd like to follow that path of least resistance, whatever's convenient and being faithful, like especially faithful to God is rarely easy. It's often hard, it comes with a cost, but I wanna tell you today that it is always, always, always worth it. I love these words from the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk. In Habakkuk 4:2, he says, "Look at the proud. They trust in themselves." Anybody know someone proud in your life? Don't point at them, don't make eye contact, don't elbow them, keep focus for them. We're gonna leave friends today, okay? But everybody knows somebody who's proud, right? They trust in their own wisdom. They have all the knowledge, right? They got it all figured out. They have the righteousness. They have the goodness. They got the bank account. They have the abilities. They have themselves. But what does scripture tell us? They trust in themselves and their lives are crooked. But the righteous, righteous will live in their own wisdom. by their faithfulness to God. Say that together, the faithfulness to God. Unfortunately, I'm usually in the earlier crowd and I find myself proud at times. I often think that I can do it on my own. I think that I have it figured out. I think that I'm sufficient enough, that I'm good enough, that I can do it all by myself. But if the scripture is true, we believe it to be true that being proud is not good, but that we have to be intentional to press into the righteousness of God and to live in His faithfulness.

Now this raises a question for us. What does it mean to be faithful? What does it truly mean to be faithful? How do we practically live that out? If you would have asked me probably before this week or the week before working on the sermon, I probably would have said that I would not cheat on my spouse, wouldn't cheat on my taxes, that I would be honest, I try to be a good person. And I think all of that is true. Yes, that is faithfulness. But when we look at who Jesus is, he's really intentional on how he shows faithfulness. And if you were to do a study on the life of Jesus, the moments of where he shows faithfulness, there's really three big categories that come out of looking at his life. The first of which we would see how Jesus treats people. You would see how Jesus talks about stewarding resources, and you would look to see how that you respond to God. And we look at Jesus's faithfulness, it boils down to three categories, relationships, taking care of what has been given, and how we respond to God. See, when you look at these ways that Jesus says, This is how you are faithful. We as Christ followers, following in the footsteps of Jesus in his example, we have to pre-decide three things. That we are going to pre-decide in faithfulness that every interaction is an opportunity to add value. We're gonna pre-decide that we're gonna be faithful in relationships. We're gonna talk about every resource is an opportunity to multiply. That because Jesus designed faithfulness is how we steward what He trusts to us. And that every prompting is an opportunity to obey God. Because every time Jesus talks about faithfulness, He talked about how you treat people, how you steward resources and how you respond to God. Let's dive into this first one. Every interaction is an opportunity to add value. If we are going to be faithful, we're going to have to pre-decide that every interaction with every person that we have is an opportunity to add value. So what does this mean? How do we see this played out? I think for you, whoever you come in contact with, every person you meet, Everyone that you see is an opportunity to bless, to encourage, to be generous with, to add value to their life. And we are going to pre-decide that every person is an opportunity for us to show love of God in a way that brings value and blessing to their life. And see, the reason is it isn't because we're focused on ourselves, because we are, right? We all are focused on ourselves, you and I both. And I can prove it, right? If there's a picture of eight people, you're in a group photo, you see that group photo, who are you looking at first? Yourself, right? You're looking at that photo, you're looking at yourself and you're going, okay, how do I look? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it not good? Because the reality is that you are looking at yourself. If you're blinking in it, you're thinking, oh my gosh, how embarrassing. That is completely un-postable. And anybody who does post that does not love you. Like that really, right? Like you're thinking there's no way that this can be shared. We have to immediately delete. I don't want anybody to see this. You look at you first, we all do it. And so how does that translate into adding value to people? When you interact with them, when you talk with them, what are you usually thinking? Do they like me? Is what I'm saying interesting? Did what I say just make sense? Oh no, what did I just say? I can't believe I just said that. How do I end this conversation and walk away immediately? I am so embarrassed, right? That's what's going through our mind. Each and every one of us, we're thinking, how can this be happening? And you walk away and you think about the conversation and go, okay, I shouldn't have said that. Shouldn't have said that differently. Oh man, I wish I could go back and take that back. And oh, just all this stuff.

But what if instead of saying, will they like me? Am I saying the right things? What if, because the reality is that Jesus lives in you and you have pre-decided ahead of time that every moment you have interacted with others is not focused on yourself, but that you are in this moment going to add value to others' life, that I am going to bless others with everything that I do, and I am going to focus on them. This is faithfulness. Ephesians 4:29 says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your nouns, but only for what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." I love this. This is so good. To be faithful to God means that you are going to add value to others. that when you walk into a room, you are a climate change. Because when you walk into the room, if we believe what scripture says, that the Holy Spirit is on us, that we are ambassadors of Christ, we are different than the world, right? That when we walk into a room, we bring Jesus with us. And because we bring Jesus with us, the room is different. Right? So that wherever you go, whether you're in the grocery store, you're at school, you're at work, you're picking your kids up, you're at a soccer game, you're out running errands, wherever you're at the gym, I don't know where, wherever you are at, you are bringing Jesus with you. This isn't a, you come into church, you sit down, hey Jesus, what's up? How's it going? I'll see you in six days. Peace out. But that we take Jesus with us, that you are an encourager, you are a blessing. You tell the truth, even though it may hurt, but with love, cover in love, okay? But you are that, when you walk away, because of you living intentional, they are different. That they are not the same, why? Because they just had a spiritual encounter with the living God. They may have no clue what's happening. But you and I do, right? That they are not the same because in being faithful, You bring and you add value to people's lives.

When you look at Jesus and how he treated people, the words in which Jesus said were incredible. When the disciples got worried, what did Jesus say? Oh, you guys are the worst. I can't believe it. How are you worrying? You know, this world, oh, have you seen society today? It's going to hell in a hand basket. You see who's in politics, left side, right side of the aisle. I don't care. It's just all going into the, down the drain. It's just all into the pooper. It just, oh, that's it. Might as well give up. No. What does Jesus say? Jesus says, don't worry. God's got you. He loves you. Don't worry about what you're gonna eat or what you're gonna drink or what you're gonna wear or what tomorrow brings. God loves the birdies and they're taken care of. How much more does He love you? Seek first His kingdom, His righteousness. And when you do that, everything else is gonna be taken care of, right? What did Jesus say to the woman who was caught in adultery? This pretty intense moment in scripture, these righteous people are ready to just stone her 'cause she has sinned very publicly. And Jesus walks in and He puts something in, He draws something or writes something saying, "We don't fully know what it is." But then he says, "Who's without any sin? Go for it." Crowd disperses. Jesus turns to the woman and says, "Where are your accusers?" She goes, "They're gone." So Jesus says to her, "Go, send no more. Live in God's grace and His mercy. Live the life that you know you should be living." He forgives. When Peter decided to deny Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times, what did Jesus say? "Peter, you're canceled. Get out of here. Can't trust you anymore. No, what do you say? Says, "Peter, do you still love me, dude?" He goes, "Yeah." Jesus says, "Okay, go take care of my people. Love them, serve them." Jesus himself specifically tells us, he said, "I came to show the love of my father and I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. And that when Jesus left, He sent the Holy Spirit, He sent somebody even greater. And even a covering, a leader, a perfect comforter to be with us as we take these steps every single day in life, what a blessing. What a blessing. Every interaction with anybody is an opportunity to show the love of God, to build them up, to show them grace, to pour blessing upon them. You have no idea how God might use a single word of encouragement to change someone's life. This is faithfulness to God.

I want to tell you a story that's really important to my life, kind of the reason I'm even in this place here today. Out of college, Laura and I, my wife and I, got married in college and graduated, and I had an opportunity to take a job, one of the few jobs in about the '08 downturn that churches were even hiring. Most of my friends who graduated from school with a pastoral degree just went off into the world to try to start paying for student debt. They didn't get an opportunity. I was fortunate enough to get hired on staff at a church, And we moved there and got settled in. And a couple of weeks into me being a part of the team on staff there, I was leading worship and I was assistant pastor. We started having some conflict. Started having some issues where I wasn't necessarily performing at the level that the pastor wanted. There was a lot of confusion and missed communication with each other. And after eight weeks of being in my first pastoral job, after spending four years studying and writing papers and reading books and doing everything I had, God had called me this place in this moment, the pastor meets me and says, "Hey, it's just not gonna work out, we're gonna move on." And here I am with my wife, thousands of miles away from family, I have a year long lease on a house, and I have to go home and tell my wife I'm no longer employed by this church. And through a crazy, crazy series of events from a pastor who knew a pastor who knew a pastor who knew a pastor, I get a random phone call one day. This is like just a couple days after this had happened. And for whatever reason I answer it. And I had said, "Hello?" And I hear a voice on the other end. He goes, "Hey, this is Pastor John. You don't know who I am, "But I heard about your story. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" I'm like, "I'm freshly unemployed. Nothing else to do. I'd like a free cup of coffee because I can't afford one right now." So I go and I sit down with this guy and he begins to tell me the story of his dad, who had been in a church for a really, really, really long time, and the church one day decided they didn't want him as their pastor anymore. And they kicked him out of the church. He goes, "I know your story isn't the same." He goes, "But I saw what happened to my dad, and I saw another local pastor come alongside my dad and said, 'Hey, just come sit in church.'" And I remember the coffee shop, I remember the conversation, I remember the pastor sitting there or across the table from me. And he told me, he goes, "You are called to be a pastor. God has placed that on you. And you are too important to be put on the bench right now. You need to stay faithful to God's calling." I was ready to walk away. I was so angry with God. I was like, "How could you take me to this place?" I had all the conversations with God. And he says, "I'm starting a church. I'm not asking you to do anything." He goes, "You and Lauren just come and sit." So we went and we sat. Couple weeks later, he needed some help with stacking chairs. I was like, "I can stack chairs. I got a four-year ministry degree. You betcha I can stack chairs." (audience laughing) I had A+ in that class. So it started with stacking chairs. And it started going to a small group. It started helping with a small group. And then it started helping with some of the teams. Started doing this thing and that thing. And pretty soon I found myself basically on staff working with this pastor pro bono, just being back, falling in love again with the church. you will never know what a opportunity to add value to someone's life may turn into. And one of the great ways to be faithful to God is to be a blessing to others. And that pastor that day and that season of life, even to this day, is an incredible blessing to me and my wife. You may even have a divine appointment on your calendar right now that you don't even know about, but God does. And the question for us will be, will we pre decide that every opportunity and every interaction is an opportunity, a moment to share love to other people and to be a blessing.

The second thing we see from Jesus is that every resource is an opportunity to multiply. Jesus in Matthew 25 tells this parable of a man, a rich man, who went on a journey and he trusted his wealth to his servants. He handed out bags of gold to the first guy, he got five bags of gold. To the second guy, he got two bags of gold. And then to the third guy, he was given one bag of gold. And the first two the five and the three bag bros went out and they risked their gold. They risked their investment and they multiplied it. They multiplied it. They were able to add more to it. And it says in Matthew 25, 21, he says, "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with the few things. I will put you in charge of many things.'" They're saying, "You multiplied what I gave you, and in the kingdom of God, that is faithfulness." The Greek word here for faithfulness is actually pistos, and the definition here I want us to see is a person who shows themselves faithful in the transaction of business, the execution of commands or the discharge of official duties. One of the ways that you can be faithful to God is caring for what God gives to you. God gives you an ugly yard, you make that grass green, right? You make that yard better, that is faithfulness. God blesses you with a clunker of a car, you betcha you have the cleanest clunker on the road today. If God gives you a body, you take care of that body and you steward it.

If you are in business, and I have this conversation all the time, I feel like sometimes in business, maybe you own your business or you're high up in a business or you just work for a business, sometimes those people, because they're in the world of making money, making profit, sometimes they get viewed or they think of themselves as second-class Christians. That well, you know, I'm not a pastor, I'm not really like working for a nonprofit, like I'm not in the in the world to just like give things away that I am less than. Let me tell you this, you being faithful in your business, your job, your work, whatever you put your hands to, you being faithful in that is an incredible, incredible witness to God. Because the world's what? Trying to cut corners. World's trying to get ahead. World's clamoring, climbing over people, pushing them down just to elevate themselves. But for you to say, "I'm gonna have 100% ethical behavior in my job, that is a witness to Jesus. That you're gonna treat your co-workers with kindness. That you're gonna maybe treat those that you're a supervisor over, you're gonna care for them and how you lead them. That is an example that the life that you live, the way that you conduct your business is a massive, massive opportunity to show Christ to those around you. And that just because you're not one of the pastors, it doesn't mean you're less than. We're all called to be witnesses, we're all called to be ambassadors. Your workplace may just look a little different. And that's okay because God has called you there for a purpose and for a reason and a lot of that is to be faithful. And then there was the guy with the one bag. He had the five, the three, the one. He was afraid. I've been that guy. I feel him. I've been anxious. I've been worried. I've tried to be careful not to make a mistake, but what does the master say to to him. He says, "So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. So here is what belongs to you." I was scared. I was nervous. I didn't want to lose any of it. I didn't want somebody to steal it. I wanted to make sure it was still good. You trusted a lot with me, boss. So here you go. His master replied, "You wicked, lazy servant." Here's what I want you to see and to feel in this. The one who multiplied, the master said, "You are faithful." But the one who buried it, he wasn't just lazy. He wasn't just, hey, boss it was a busy week, had all this other paperwork I had to do, like stuff happened with the family. Like, he says he's wicked. If we're going to choose to be faithful, every interaction is an opportunity to add value. Every resource is an opportunity to multiply. And every prompting is an opportunity to obey God.

I love this part in Acts where Paul is really happy with where he's at in Ephesus. He's like locked in with the church, he's doing great. He's like, this is all set, we're golden. But he has this emotional farewell. He says, "Now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there." This word compelled means that it's kind of like wrapped up or like bound by a rope and kind of pulled in this direction that you can't resist that the spirit says, "I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there." It's one of those opportunities where you can't explain it, you don't understand it, you don't know the details, but you know is God, you are being drawn in that place. And when you follow Jesus, He will prompt you, He will compel you, and faithfulness is responding when you don't know what will happen. Sometimes we know, sometimes we don't. That job with that church or that pastor, I had to, God actually eight months later asked me to just completely resign from the job without having the next job lined up. And I didn't understand, Lauren, I didn't get it, but we felt like we had to just kind of let go before God would add the next thing. And after we did through a series of crazy events, I get an opportunity for another job and another church, and God takes care of that next step. So good. Other times where God's asked me to step out and to do something, even this last week, I stepped out and did something. I felt like God was saying, and then it just kind of went. Nothing happened. I was like, okay, really thought I was, okay. But the reality is that obedience is our responsibility, but the outcome is God's. Our job is to be responsible. And when he leaves, we say yes and take a step forward, even if it doesn't make sense.

Habakkuk 4:2, we started with this. "But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God." I haven't always gotten it right. 'Cause I'm up here doesn't mean I've always gotten it right. (chuckles) But I've tried everything I can to be faithful in the small things. 'Cause when you're faithful in the small things, there's this incredible spiritual compounding interest, return on investment that God builds up. And I've seen it in faithful people in the church for generations. I said, "How did you get there?" He was just like, "Every moment of faithfulness." It's just like grains of sand. It's just being thrown onto the beach. And all of a sudden you look down and it's just a shoreline of just sand upon sand upon sand. And I think we will vastly overestimate what we can get done in a season. Well, thank God I'm gonna fix this. I'm gonna fix my marriage. I'm gonna fix my finances. God, 2024, like this is the year it's gonna be done. But I think we will also underestimate the faithfulness of God in a lifetime. That we will underestimate what God can do when we are faithful in little things time after time after time again. Every interaction is an opportunity to add value with relationships and people. Every resource is an opportunity to multiply. How do we steward with what God has blessed us with? and every prompting is an opportunity to obey God. Just do it. Obedience is our responsibility, the outcome is God's. We just have to be faithful. That's your life, to be faithful to God.

Pray with me. we thank you for this morning. God, we are so grateful for your faithfulness. Where you, since the beginning of time and the broken relationship in the Garden, God, you started the world on a path towards redemption and that even in the midst of that, when all hope seems lost, you, God, were still working a plan to make the world right once again. And when you sent Jesus, You fixed the biggest problem that we had in our life and you took care of us and you reached down and you said, "I love you." It's going to be okay. Jesus, we're so grateful that you are so faithful to us. God, may we in return be faithful in the little things so that we may then have opportunities to be faithful in the big things when the time comes, when you prompt us to step out. God, as we look forward to this next week for the divine appointments you have on our calendar already, God, may we be obedient even if we don't know the outcome. We thank you, Jesus. We praise you. We love you. We worship you today. Everybody said, "Amen."

Pre-Decide: Part 5

Pre-Decide: Part 5 - I AM GENEROUS

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are continuing in our series that we kicked off about five or six weeks ago called Pre-Decide. And the premise and the big idea of this series is that we would, before we're placed in any situation, pre-decide a particular action that we're gonna take. And we've been going through a couple different of these. We've talked about being ready, consistent, devoted, generous, faithful, and a finisher. And today I'm excited to kinda jump into something that not everybody is necessarily excited to talk about in the church, but it's something that we need to talk about and it's something that Jesus really commanded us. I read an article back in 2007, I know the good old days, right? '07, anybody remember '07? Yeah, okay, just me, okay. This was before Instagram, this was before like Netflix originals, this was before like Venmo and Cash App. I mean, how did we survive? Like honestly, like I don't even know how we lived. But in 2007, there was a study that was done that you on average every day were exposed to about 5,000 ads, 5,000 advertisements, whether that was in '07, do they have cell phones? Yeah, okay, cell phone, maybe the interwebs, your dial-up, your AOL chat messenger. Maybe it was a billboard, old school, right? The ones that aren't digital, but like the ones, maybe the ones that like rotated and like they were like three billboards in one, no? Okay, I'm a nerd. But you were exposed to over 5,000 ads every single day. Fast forward to now, 2024. I know everybody's like, huh. You are on average exposed to double that. Over 10,000 ads every single day. You look at, you scroll past, you try to block on your web browser. Everything that you do has an ad, right? Whether you're in an app, you're on social media, you're trying to read a blog to get that perfect recipe. Maybe you're watching an influencer on Google, you read a news article, YouTube videos. Anybody else just really YouTube? You're like, just get me to the video. Like I don't need like some, and they start stacking up. You get like skip one, skip two, skip. I'm like, how long is it? These ads are gonna be longer than the 30 second video that I was trying to watch on YouTube. But this is really bad news. This is really bad news because that study in 2007 actually told us that the more ads that we see, the more miserable that we are. I'm just here to bring hope and excitement to you in your life today, right? But the reality is that the more ads we see, the more miserable we are, why? because this ad wants to convince you and tell you that you don't have the perfect life, that you're missing out. You don't have what you need. And let me tell you today, ladies and gentlemen, what you need. I feel like I'm in my own infomercial right now in front of you guys. But the more ads that we see ad-plaked us to this place where we're just miserable. And the only way that these ads tell us and the world tells us to get happy is to get, get, get, accumulate, acquire, hoard in, hold onto it, have spares, have extras, why? Because then at that point, then you'll be happy that you have to have the new iPhone. You gotta have your favorite brand of shoes. You gotta have that purse. Ladies, you gotta have the Lulu leggings, right? I don't know, I just been told that that's where it's at, but we're told that it is more blessed to get. It is more blessed to acquire, it's more blessed to accumulate, and the world is yelling at us every single day, 10,000 times, that it is more blessed to get.

But Jesus has something different to say about that. I love what he says in Acts 20 verse 35. Jesus says, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." This word, the original word here actually means more blessed, doubly blessed, or some might translate it or look at it in the realm of you're happier, you're more generous, you're more joyful when you give, you're more fulfilled when you give, You're more blessed when you give than when you receive. And I think for the most part, we know this, right? We know this kind of deep down inside and we wanna give more. We wanna be able to help people. We wanna be able to take care of our friends and our family and to love them in a way of meeting a practical need. But the reality is that a lot of us are in a place where we just feel that we can't do it right now. Inflation is through the roof. It is bonkers out there, it seems like, what it costs to just... I was talking to my wife about just going and getting a cheeseburger the other night, and we were just like, "$15? Excuse me? When did that happen?" We're like, "No, we'll have a sandwich at home. Thank you very much." But it's like this crazy space that we live in where we want to give, we want to be generous with everything we have but we feel that we just we can't I want to share today and not an infomercial style but to share some principles where you and I can become irrationally generous if you were writing anything down this morning you want to write something out if you want to write today's title for the talk would be when you stop holding back. Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for this morning. God, we are grateful to be here in your presence. God, we continue to invite you into this space. God, lead me with your words from your scripture, not what Pastor Chris has to say or what Pastor Chris thinks, but God, what you think and how you view generosity even in our world today in this moment in 2024. We thank you, Jesus. Amen. If you've been with us, we've been talking about this pre-decided thing, and specifically we've had this saying that we have, we can put this on the screen, that says when we're faced with this situation, we have pre-decided to take a specific action. We are pre-deciding even before we're in the moment, even before when we're looking at this face to face, we have pre-decided a specific action that we are going to take. We're not gonna let our emotions drive us, we're seeking God, we're going to Him, we've thought about it, we've prayed about it, we're trying to pre-decide in a very specific situation area. And we talked about six of these. And we had these stickers we gave away a couple of weeks ago if you didn't get one or you want a second one to put somewhere, they're on the table on the way out, next to hand sanitizer. And we would love for you to have one of these to have with you where your water bottle, you can put in your car, put it on your mirror, kind of wherever you want to be reminded of these statements of who we are. And I wanna say these together with us. We can bring this on the screen. Talking about being, I am ready. Say it with me, I am. - Ready. - Oh yeah, let's go. It's talking about being, I am consistent. I am. - Consistent. - Let's go. Talking about I am devoted. Pastor Andre shared with us last week, I am devoted.

Today we're gonna talk about being I am generous. I am faithful and I am a finisher. This is what we are talking about. This is who Jesus has called us to live as Christians, not only for the world around us, but for one another, and for what we would call our Spring Valley family, our church family, for each other, for our family family, for our neighbors, for our community, for our world. This is who Jesus called us to. And if we say we are a follower of Jesus, this is who he says that we are. So we are pre deciding, choosing ahead of time by God's grace that today talking about we will be more blessed by being generous and we are pre deciding to do so. Why? Why does any of this matter? Why does any of this matter? That no one ever accidentally becomes irrationally generous. Nobody just by chance stumbles into tithing or giving offerings or paying rent for someone who's need or buying groceries for someone who can't afford it or funding ministries or missions trips or having so much fun with tithing that they start with 10% and then go to 12, and then to 15 and 20, 25%, and then accidentally give away almost everything to God, more and more and more, and allowing him to be blessed, and to leave our kids an inheritance to our children, to our children, our children. No one ever stumbles into irrational generosity. It doesn't happen. And we tend to think that we will be generous when the time comes. that we will be generous, but I just can't right now. And we get in this circle of thought that when I have more, I'll give more, right? When, you know, God, when I just get that next pay raise, when I get that next bump at work, God, I'm all in on generosity. I am all yours, God. When I finally get that mortgage payment taken care of and I get the utility bills paid, I go, then God, you know what? I am generous. I am all of yours. You can have everything that I have when I get here. But I want you to understand that this isn't how generous people think. This isn't their thought process. Generosity isn't about what we have or don't have. It's about our heart. Generosity is about our heart. How do we know this? Well, we've seen some poor people who are crazy stingy, right? We've seen rich people who have it set for life, who you can't get a 20 spot out of them. And then on the other side, we've seen poor people who have literally nothing that just give it away. That just absolutely go, it's all yours, God. It's not much, it's all yours. And then we also see really, really rich people, philanthropists, who are incredible and change the world with what they have been blessed with. Generosity isn't something we just stumble into.

There's a story in Luke chapter 12, Jesus tells that illustrates this really, really well. And there's this rich guy who is getting richer, and then he has this incredible harvest. Okay, so farming terms, probably us city people don't get that. But this dude just basically just hit the jackpot, okay? We'll say that. He is loaded. And he probably, at one point, said, "Oh, what am I gonna do with all of this? Man, I have so much more than what I can store. the harvest, it's a grain, they gotta store it or it goes bad, they gotta keep it safe. Gotta keep it dry, gotta keep animals out of it, anything from eating, they gotta protect it. And so this rich guy, he's like, man, what am I gonna do? And I would venture to say, because I think each of us would be similar, that this rich dude at one point or another said, when I have more, I will give more. But what happens? We read this in Luke chapter 12, he said, "Then he said, I know, "I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. "Then I'll have enough room to store all my wheat "and other goods. "And I'll sit back and say to myself, my friend, "you have enough stored away for years to come. "Now take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry." Similar story, right? Written over 2000 years ago, but still rings so true to today. That this story of, when I get more, I'm gonna, God, when I have that harvest, when it comes in, baby, oh man, I'm bringing it to the church, we're gonna celebrate. I'm sending it to my buddy who's a missionary overseas. I'm gonna fund this, I'm gonna take care of this. I'm gonna take care of my neighbor's mortgage. I'm gonna take care of this rent over there. I'm getting groceries for the lady down the street who's a single mom. Like I am all in God when this harvest comes in. But what happened? His heart was revealed. And the reality is, I'm sorry, this one's gonna hurt. More money just makes more of what you already are. That one hurt. Money doesn't change who we are, it just reveals maybe our true self deep down inside. And that is why if you want to be generous, which I think we all do, when we have more, we have to learn to be generous when we have less. We have to learn now and we have to pre-decide to be generous even if we have less than what we think to be generous.

Giving is not just something that we do, it's an identity of who we are. In my, for some of you who would look at me, say my short time here on earth, other yous would look at me and say that old dude up front who's been around since dirt, In my life, I will say that I've seen two really big qualities of generous people. Whether in the church, I know a lot of generous people who have nothing to do with God in the church and they're incredibly generous. They make some Christians look really bad. Wherever they are on the spectrum, they are a generous person. Two things I constantly see from them. and the first of which is generous people plan to be generous. Generous people plan to be generous. You might think, I'll say this, and I felt like this for a long, long time, that being generous was spontaneous. You saw somebody on the side of the road and you're like, "Hey, here's a five," or, "Hey, here's my lunch," or you went and got food for them and brought them food. Maybe it's buying the meal or the coffee or whatever for the person behind us in drive-through, right? Or maybe it was, you would see these poor, poor puppies in cages, and you would start to hear Sarah McLachlan singing. That they have to free the puppies. We have to, they're so sad. And so then maybe you get to, You go down and you give some money to the local animal shelter, or you go do an adoption day, or you bring home a new family member, four-legged friend. But we think that that's generosity, but I wanna tell you today, that's not, that's giving. And that's fantastic, it's wonderful. And I wanna tell you, don't stop doing that. That is great, great stuff. We should be giving people. But what is the difference between giving and generosity is that generous people don't have to be guilted into giving. Generous people don't need to be inspired to give. Generous people are not reactive. Does that make sense? Generous people, they don't give whenever there's just a need. They don't give when they have something extra. They don't give when they're prompted to, but generous people actually have a plan. And scripture tells us this very clearly in Isaiah 32, chapter eight, it says, "But generous people plan "to do what is generous." Generous people plan. Generous people pre-decide. Generous people plan to do what is generous, and they stand firm in their generosity. They stand firm, I think stand firm as in maybe a stance where you're not gonna get knocked over, but they plan to be generous and they stand firm in that. Giving is not what I do. Generosity is who I am. And we have to plan to be generous. Pre-decide to be generous. See, what's funny about this is that all people have a plan for finances. All people have a plan for finances. Some, you might say, "Hey, pastor, no." No, I really don't. I really don't have a plan. You have a plan. Is there ever something that you really, really wanted? Like really wanted? You get strategic real fast, right? You start doing research, who's got the best price? Is it free shipping or not? Are they charging tax or not? Can I get a coupon? Can I get a discount? Do I buy it used, but still has maybe a couple of year warranty, so it may last a little bit, or do I buy it locally, so that I'm not paying for shipping, I'm not paying for taxes, a cash transaction. Where do I have the cash? Do I have the cash? I can get the cash. Wait a minute, okay, now I gotta meet this person. You're messaging in Facebook marketplace, offer up. Oh, then all of a sudden Amazon, boom, it's on sale. Oh my gosh, add $5 clip coupon. It's the word of the Lord. He has spoken to me. We have had it, here it is. Just me? Okay. Generous people don't plan to consume. Generous people plan to give. And when we become generous by nature, you are strategically and prayerfully designing your life around generosity. It's not something you do as a reaction. It is a strategy, it's a mindset. When we think differently, you sit down and you think, man, how can I bless somebody? How can I take what God has given me and make an even greater difference? How can I maximize what I have? How can I be a blessing to people around me?

Here's the key, it's not just spontaneous. Maybe it is, but not, certainly not all the time. That's not how it works. It's not emotional, strategic. It's not random, it's intentional. And along with our series, we are pre deciding before in the moment that we will be generous. So you might say, I'm just not a planner. It may not be a good plan that you have, may not be written down, but there's a plan. I'll show you kind of what I'm talking about today. I have the circle illustration I wanna show us. That for the most of us, the reality is where we are is we spend more than we make. God supplies us, God increases us, whether that's an income or an allowance or something special we get in our lives every single month or maybe quarterly, I don't know, it comes in and we probably most likely spend more than we make. But then that puts us in a really bad place because then we start lacking margin. And we don't have any wiggle room with where we're at financially. And then what does that cause us to do? It starts bringing worry into our life. And then to combat the worry, we go and have retail therapy and we spend more than we make and then we're lacking margin, and then we worry more, and then we spend more than we make, and then we lack margin. You guys kind of get the picture of this. This is not a money problem. It's a spiritual problem. Everybody like super excited they came to church today. Like, yeah! It's a spiritual problem. I'm preaching to myself up here by the way, this is hard. We are trusting in things rather than putting our faith in God. And what happens is that generous people, they break the cycle. Not accidentally, not by happenstance, not by just falling into it, but intentionally, strategically, pre-deciding with a plan. We break the cycle by choosing God first. Jesus said this, what did he say? He said, "Seek first the kingdom of God "and his righteousness, "and then all things, everything else, "will be added to you." We don't seek the shoes, we don't seek the countertops, we don't seek the new car, we don't seek the new watch, but we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. We put Him first, then everything else will be added. We seek God first.

There's actually a principle in scripture that talks about this very, very powerful, important, life-changing thing, and it's called a tithe. Maybe you guys have heard of it, maybe you haven't, but we find this in Malachi. And it says in Malachi 3.10, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, "that there may be food in my house." What is a tithe? It's not a word that's typically used in society. It actually comes from the Hebrew meaning masser, which means 10%. And we see this in scripture as to bring 10% of what God has blessed you and me with back to him as an act of worship that there may be food in God's house. Confession, first time I heard about some of this, I was becoming a kid and I'd started mowing lawns and I started earning some money from family members and doing some yard work. And I first heard about this idea and I was like, Wait, what? A tithe? 10%? That is way too much. That's ridiculous. I can't afford to do that. God, you don't understand, I got things I need to buy. I got basketball shoes I need. I got the Backstreet Boys CD I need. I got the Pokemon cards. They just dropped. Like, God, you just don't understand. In order to do that, God, okay, I would have to completely rearrange my entire life, all of my priorities, everything that I have chosen to do, and put you, God, first. It's almost like he knew. It's almost like he knew that this would be a place where I would have to change my priorities, I would have to put him first, I'd have to fully trust him, I'd have to worship him with everything that I had, I'd have to step into a place that is completely uncomfortable, a place that I didn't like, a place that meant I probably had less, a place that rearranged all of my priorities, every single thing that I had focused on my mind, on my wishlist, I was working towards, it was almost like he could see the future. God can, by the way, just letting you know that.

God put us in this place You know what he said? Test me. This is the only place in the entire Bible where God says, I dare you. I double dog dare you. Put me to the test, bro. Test me in this. Says the Lord Almighty. and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be enough room to store it. If you put him first, God says, "See if I'll take care of you." See what happens. Now you might say, hey, hey, hey, Chris, let's, eh, careful here. It kind of sounds like a little tell the evangelist prosperity gospel here. If you give money to the church, then you will be rich. What I'm talking about today is not prosperity gospel. What I'm talking about today is the generosity gospel. And Jesus, God himself first did that, right? John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave." God was the first one that was generous. God was the first one that poured out. God was the first one who blessed us, even when we did not deserve it whatsoever. God was the one who first gave, and this is the difference. And when you and I start to recognize giving, we begin to see that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive. And it breaks the cycle, right? It puts you into this new cycle. And it says this, when God supplies, we give, we trust him. We go, God, don't make no sense. My calculator on my phone, it doesn't add up, God, you don't get it. But then what happens? God blesses. And we go, wait, wait, wait a minute. I did this math. I'm not like the most brilliant person, I'm a math guy, I like numbers, and my math was not math in God. But then you took care of it, somehow. You took care of it. And then that builds our faith. And then it builds our faith and we go, okay God, you did this last time. Maybe we can do it again. And we give. And God blesses. And it builds our faith. And we give and God blesses and it builds our faith and it builds the faith of those around us. And then they see us giving and they go, Wait, how are you doing that? And you're like, I don't know, it's God, but I'm still giving. And God continues to bless and it builds faith and we keep giving. This faith that builds replaces the worry in our life. It pushes back those feelings of going, God, I'm living paycheck to paycheck. I don't get this. I got this stuff coming in. I don't understand what's going on. God, I need you. I'm stressed, I'm anxious, I'm worried. I don't know what the interest rate from the feds, what they're gonna say next month. I don't know what's gonna happen this summer with the housing market. God, I don't understand if they're laying people off at work, God, you don't understand. I just, you, ah, ah, ah, ah. And this faith that starts to build just pushes all of this stuff out. and we start living in this generous place. And it doesn't have to be a lot. If there's anything that you wanna take away with this morning, it's being generous doesn't mean it has to be a lot. Being generous doesn't mean we have to have our name on a hospital or on a plaque in a hallway somewhere or for people to see it and to be recognized. My grandparents were an incredible example of this. They would constantly just bring money to the church and drop it off, and they told the pastor, "You know who needs it this month." And every time they would show up, the pastor would look at him and go, "You have no idea. "We just had somebody call. "They need this much money, "and you just handed it to me in an envelope." That's God. That is generosity.

It's a mindset that changes who we are when we put God first, but we have to pre-decide. It's not just giving when it's convenient. It's not just giving when you might have some leftover, But we do it and we give God our first and our best, and we trust him to do what he's gonna do with the rest of it. We pre-decide to put him first. And I would say that it starts with a tie, that it starts with a decision to say, God, this is yours, but it doesn't stop there. There's a lot of people I know in the church, not in this church, my other old churches that nobody just, you just don't talk about it. That's a joke, it's okay. They were good churches. But I've met people in the church, they're like, "Hey, pastor, 10%, I'm in, buddy. Just wanna let you know, check the box. God's happy with me." And I would challenge them. I was like, "Dude, you're not being generous. Like, I appreciate it. You're helping keep lights on and ministry going and coffee and food on Sundays. Like, hey, awesome, thank you. Still got some hard work, man. This isn't an end all be all, boop, there we go, I'm done. That's where we start, that's like step one in our plan of being generous, but we don't stop there and we're not accidental about it. I heard this story one time of a guy who literally has in his monthly budget 50 bucks. And he gets paid, sets the 50 aside, and he says, "God, you know this month where this is going. "I don't know yet, but you know." And he goes throughout his day. "Hey God, you got anybody in mind yet?" "Hey God, what?" Every single month, God has a place for that $50. But he pre-decides. This isn't like, "Hey God, January 31st down here on earth. "Got 27 bucks in the checking account, where do you want this to go, God?" Pre-decide, put it in the budget. There's no accident, it's not planned spontaneity. You have pre-decided that this dude is gonna bless somebody with 50 bucks every single month. I've heard stories of people who have decided to increase 1% every year. So what does that look like? Well, it looks like they start one year at 10% and then it's 11, it's 12, it's 13, it's 14, 15. But they pre decided that this is what they're going to do with what God has blessed them with. And they've done some incredible, incredible generous things in their life. I know somebody who was a small business owner. And he talked to me and he was like, "Hey, can I give from my business to the church?" And I was like, "Totally, bro, absolutely." He goes, "I didn't know that. "I didn't know if like the whole tithe thing "was just like my income." Or I was like, "Dude, if you're feeling led "by the Holy Spirit to give through your business, "then do that." Well, say this, the caveat, business blew up overnight. I've also heard stories of people with business plans to get to a point where they are giving away 50% of their profit every single year to world missions. To fighting hunger around the globe, to ending diseases that we don't even have to think about in America, to changing the trajectory of cultures around the globe, people that have way less than anything we do.

That doesn't happen by accident. Now we probably don't do that tomorrow, but it takes strategy, it takes planning, it takes thinking, it takes pre-deciding what you're going to do to be generous. The other thing that I see when we close from generous people is that generous people always round up. Generous people always round up. What do I mean by this? I heard a story one time of some believers. And they had gone to a restaurant to have a meal. And the server knew who they were. The server hated God, the server hated the church, the server hated everything to do about Christian, server just utterly despised everything. And she goes, here's my chance. Gives them the most horrible service that they have ever received in their life. She goes, I'm gonna stick it to them. It comes time for the bill. And they feel led by the Holy Spirit for some reason. I mean, they were talking, "There's no way we're going to tip this gal. We're not paying her anything. We're just doing a fat goose egg under tip." I'm getting food comped. But the Holy Spirit's tugging their hearts saying, "You got to pay. You got to tip. You need to round up." round up. And they're like, oh, okay, God, that's what I gotta do. And they tithe, or not tithe, tip, round up, minimal to go, hey, God, yeah, I got you, I got you. Here we go. And she was floored. Fast forward a couple years later, she hits a point of just rock bottom in her life. And she goes, "You know who I need to go see? "Those Christian people who blessed me "when I had done absolutely nothing to be blessed by them, "and they rounded up." They rounded up. She knew what she had done. She knew how she had treated them. She knew that she was undeserving of anything, and fully expecting no tip or anything, whatever, just to be like, see, told you, feel that fire. God flipped that upside down, she went to church, she found the saving message of Jesus Christ and she's living for God. Generous people always round up.

Proverbs 21:26 says, "All day long, the lazy, he, the selfish craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back." Generous people round up. We see this all over scripture. I love this, real quick. See this all over scripture. First thing I will say, the Good Samaritan. You guys heard that story maybe? If you've been in church, you're Good Samaritan. This dude coming along the road, see this guy who just got beat up, he got jumped, he got everything stolen from him. He got just the living daylights beat out of him. It's basically moments from dying. Good Samaritan, bandages him up, says, "Hey, we're taking you to town. "We're gonna get you well." Takes him to basically a hospital in the inn and basically says, you gotta take care of this guy, you gotta take care of, and he says this in Luke 10:35. He says, "The next day, he being the good Samaritan "handed the innkeeper two silver coins, "telling him, take care of this man. "If his bill runs higher than this, "I'll pay you the next time I'm here." Good Samaritan bro could have just been like, hey, bandaged you up on the road, good luck, peace. He bandaged him up, picked him up, took him to town, Hey, he could have just dropped him at the doorstep of the inn and said, "Hey, innkeeper, "somebody out here, see ya," and rolled. But he takes in there, he pays the bill and then gives his word, "Hey, if anything else comes up, "it's on this dude." No, he says, "If anything else comes up, I'm good for it. "Next time I'm in town, tell me the bill, "I will take care of it." Generous people round up. Anybody remember Zacchaeus? Zacchaeus was a wee little man A wee little man was he Okay, some of you are like, who is that? It's okay. It's like early 2000s, late 90s church. It's okay. But Zacchaeus, this short little dude, he climbs up in a tree so he can see this guy, Jesus, walking on the road, and he's like, I wanna see who this dude is. And Jesus comes along and says, hey, Zacchaeus, I'm coming to your house for dinner. What you making? And the dude basically falls out of the tree in shock. And it's like, are you okay? Okay, cool, let's go to your house. He's like, ah, he fell on the tree, bro. No, but seriously, he goes to his house and he's having dinner with him. And this guy was the worst of the worst. He was a crook, he was a swindler, he was a manipulator, he stole money from people, he was taking taxes, but then he was taking his taxes, and then his friends' taxes, And then his friend's tax is on top, really he was taking it all, but he was taking all this extra tax stuff, and Jesus shows up in his life and radically changes him. And he says what? In verse, Luke 19, verse eight, he says, "If I've cheated anybody out of everything," newsflash, he cheated everybody out of everything, "I will pay back four times the amount." That's pretty generous. That is pretty generous.

Jesus himself, he tells us, he says, "Anybody demands your shirt, "give them your really cool jacket too." If somebody says, "Hey, go a mile with me, round up, go too." Jesus says, "Generous people round up." It's not what you're not doing, We're just not randomly giving. We're not just waiting until we have more. We are generous people who make a plan and round up. My wife, amazing, she's incredible. You haven't met her, she's really, really cool. She came up with this idea somewhere of creating these pre-made packs of stuff for people who are unhoused. And it has like deodorant and socks. And I think there was like a beanie in there and there was like a Starbucks gift card and all this stuff. And because we were driving around and our girls kept saying, "Hey, can we help this person?" It was just like, "Sorry, we have a water bottle." We hand them a water bottle and the girls were like, "That was cool! We gotta do this more. And so then we started having water bottles and it was just like, we didn't have enough water bottles. And then we came, my wife found this idea. She came probably with herself, she's brilliant, to make these packs that have all this stuff in it ready to go. And we would call them our bless packs. I think that's the term. But we would have them in the car ready to go. So when we pulled up next to them, one of the girls was like, "Hey, let's do a bless pack from the back of the van." And one was like, "Okay, Lauren, okay." And we would hand it to them. This incredible, incredible, and they, seven bucks maybe? A pack? 'Cause the Starbucks gift card? But it was just something so simple and so easy, but we had to pre-plan. Does it take some time? Yeah, does it take some effort? Yeah, you gotta go to the store, you gotta buy some stuff, you gotta put some, but that generosity in a practical way for someone.

There was another time I was working at Starbucks in college. Lauren and I were just early married, and we were living paycheck to paycheck. And we were trying to do the tithing thing, and every month or so we'd try to get there. Sometimes we didn't make it. But I had a coworker of mine who was a single mom. She had gone through a really ugly divorce, and she was living at home with like six kids. And a couple of them were in high school, and we were talking one time, she was my shift manager, and we were talking and she's like, I just, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I was like, what do you mean? She goes, it's a couple days before payday and we are literally out of food. She goes, I got nothing. She goes, I think the kids might be able to get something at school. She goes, but I really don't know what I'm gonna do. And we were like, okay, what can like, they're like, no, it's nasty, but here's a bunch of old muffins and some breakfast sandwiches, and here's a gallon of milk. We'll just turn a blind eye. And she had never asked for anything ever. And so I go home and I can't stop thinking about it. Can't stop thinking about it. And God's like, you gotta do something, bro. You gotta do something. I'm like, I don't wanna do it. So I talked to my wife, Laura, and I'm like, this is what's going on. And she goes, "We're going to the store." I was like, "What do you mean?" She's like, "We don't have the money." She's like, "Yeah, we do." She's like, "We're going to the store." And I was like, "Okay." And it was a couple of days before our payday, and we were looking at our fridge, and we were going, "Okay, God." And one time she turned to me, she goes, "We have to do something." And I was like, "Okay." So we went to the store, and we filled the cart, and we checked out. And we went to their house and we doorbell ditched them with a load of groceries. The math didn't math. God took care of the bill. It wasn't Lorna me. God took care of the bill. There was enough. We made it to payday. And then I had that next shift with her at work. And she was like, I gotta tell you a story. And she was in tears. She was like, I don't know who it was, or how it happened. She goes, there was just enough food. Young married couple buying for a family of six. We had no idea who could buy it. And I was like, man, that's incredible. And she was like, "I don't understand." I was like, "Probably not meant to understand, "but just say thanks God." And she goes, "Oh yeah, I've been talking to God "like I've never been talking to God these last 48 hours.”

Being generous is a heart, attitude, mindset change. It's not what you give. Being generous is who you are, and this is who God has called us to. If you want to be more generous when you have more, learn to be generous when you have less. This isn't, it wasn't like that day after Lauren and I did that, like we never struggled with generosity in our life. No. It is a constant battle and struggle. But when we seek God first, and we trust Him with everything that we have, He will take the portion that is left over, and it will go further than you could ever have best plans for the whole. It's the only thing I could tell you that. And I know generous people in this church that say the exact same thing. It's like we started just being generous. We didn't understand, it didn't make sense, and it just happened. But you have to pre-decide. We're not waiting till later. not making excuses of why we can't. We stand firm in our plan of generosity, pre-deciding, rounding up, because we serve a God who went above and beyond and was the most generous, who pre-decided to send his son to take care of everything for us as the ultimate gift. our choice is to then share from that generosity.

Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for today. God, we thank you for your generosity of the rain outside, even this moment. God, you are so caring and loving. We are so incredibly grateful. And so God, I pray for us as we go from this place today that we would start maybe having some hard conversations, God, of where do you want us to give? Where do you want us to be generous? How do you want us to handle the increase, God, that you have given to us? Jesus, may we be people as Christ's followers who are identified as generous people, not because of the amount that we give, but because of how we care and we love for those around us, God. May we pre-decide, may we pre-choose to trust that you're gonna be the one who's gonna take care of it. Give us eyes to see, give us the strength to plan strategically to be generous. God, be with us as we go from this place. We love you, we praise you, we thank you for who you are. We love you, Jesus. Amen.

Pre-Decide: Part 4

Pre-Decide: Part 4 - I AM DEVOTED

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I wanted to ask this as we jump into our sermon this morning. I want to ask this. Have you ever felt disappointed in life? Have you thought, man, by this time in life, I thought I would have more? I thought my life would look different. Maybe it's your job, your car, your living situation. Have you ever just thought, man, I thought this would be better? Or I thought maybe by this point in life, I thought I'd be doing something more significant. Maybe you've gotten to the place where you've gotten those things. You've got what you wanted. you've accomplished whatever you set out to do, and then you start wondering, "Is this all there is? Is there anything more to life? Is this all worth it?" And so that question of, "Is there anything more after getting everything that I wanted here on Earth, the spoil..." Oh, the answer is spoiler, yes, there is more. There's absolutely more. And that's what we're going to talk about this morning, about how when we live our lives, we should revolve around getting closer to God. We're gonna talk about pre-deciding, about getting closer to God. Would you pray with me one more time? God, thank you again for our morning together so far. We pray that through your word, we would be encouraged and empowered. And God, that we'd be drawn closer to you. Our desire this morning is to learn more about you so after we leave our time together, that we could go out and be your representatives in this world. So we give you all the glory and honor. We pray this in your name. Amen.

Alright, so again we're in our series Predecide, and we're talking about how when we predecide, those decisions that we make can positively affect the direction of our lives. And the direction is determined by the quality of our decisions. We talked about how when we get into challenging situations that inevitably come in life, those stressful and difficult moments, we're not the best decision makers in those moments. And so we want to, instead of waiting for those challenges, we want to pre-decide everything beforehand as much as possible. We're going to pre-decide now. We're going to pre-decide how to best follow God and honor God in whatever comes up. And so we have this situation that we've been going through which is, when faced with whatever you're - fill in the blank for you - whatever you're going through, whatever you foresee happening in your life, you're going to pre-decide, follow, you're going to make a decision to say, "When this happens, I want to be ready. I'm gonna honor God, I'm gonna live like Jesus through that situation by doing the following. So far we've talked about being ready. You guys ready to do this? We're getting this every week now, you ready? So say, "I am ready." I am ready, good. I am consistent. I am consistent. Yes, you guys are, good. And so today we're talking about devotion. With God's help, we can be devoted in all that we do. And we're not just talking about being devoted in our eating habits or our spending hats or our workout regimen. But as Christians, we need to know who we're devoted to, what it means to be devoted, and how we live a devoted life, and also when do we live this devoted life. It's the classic who, what, how, when. We covered the why last week, and so if you don't remember that, go ahead and listen to that sermon last week. But let's go ahead and start with the who. As for the who, as followers of Jesus, this one might be pretty obvious. We are devoted to Christ. We are fully devoted followers. If you are a Christian, you are a fully devoted follower to Jesus.

Let's go ahead and read Matthew 6. This is Jesus talking, and he says in verse 33, "But seek first His kingdom, God's kingdom, and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Jesus is telling us to seek God first. When we're devoted to God, we're devoted to His kingdom, to His way of life, then we will experience the truest and fullest, the deepest sense of fulfillment. When we live according to Jesus, then this question of "Is there anything more than this on earth?" we don't even have to ask that question, because we'll experience true fulfillment living the way that God intended us to live. No matter what our worldly circumstances are, as great or as challenging as they might be, seeking first the kingdom of God is for everyone. So from this, this is going to be our umbrella theme for today, is we want to seek first the one who matters most. We want to seek first the one who matters most. Paul had his own way of saying this in Philippians 1:21, he says, "For to me," this is Paul speaking, "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain." All this life, all that I do is for him. I want to seek him in everything. Jesus is looking for and truly demands all of our devotion. As much as we may love other things in our life, our spouse, our children, our family, our best friends, our job, our money, whatever situation we're in, we may love that. But first and foremost, we must be fully devoted to God. That's the who. All right, so now what does it mean to be devoted to Jesus? Well, the disciples do a great job of showing us what that looks like. I want to give you the setting here. We're going to be in Acts. Jesus has spent three years with his disciples, mostly the twelve, but there's other followers of him. And then as we know, Jesus died on the cross, and he's buried, and then three days later, he is raised from the grave, and that's when we celebrate Easter. And then when he's raised, he's 40 more days with the disciples. And then he ascends into heaven to be back with the Father, and he leaves the disciples in charge of what he had begun. He had been prepping them, He'd been training them, teaching them, discipling them. And so what do the followers of Jesus do? Well, they continue the work of Jesus, and the early church comes to life. And we read this in Acts 2:42, verse 42, it says, "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.”

So the early believers, they devoted themselves to the teaching, which is the reading of God's Word, Jesus's interpretation of the Old Testament, they were learning God's instructions for humanity. Also fellowship, just spending time with each other, intentional time with each other, the body of Christ, so whenever they had their church services to throughout the week, just fellowship with each other. It says the breaking of bread, meals, communion, specifically communion, remembering, taking time to remember what Jesus had done on the cross, and also hoping in what he was going to do in the future. And they did this out of obedience to Jesus' instruction at the Last Supper, and then also the prayers. This is communing and talking and listening with God, listening for God. This could be in a communal setting, but also just the daily individual time spent in prayer. This is what devotion to Jesus looks like. And while some of these things might look different over the years, over the centuries, church, we're still doing this today. All these things. This is what we devote ourselves to. Teaching. Well, we have our Sunday sermons, we have our Bible studies, community groups. Fellowship. We have things like Morning Blend, family meals, community groups. hanging out with each other outside of church, breaking bread when we do our communion Sundays, anytime we're sharing a meal with each other, and then prayers, we pray in our service, we pray for each other through those monthly emails that go out of how we can be praying for each other. We pray, hopefully you're praying on your own. So followers of Jesus today are still devoting themselves to these things. The word here for devoted in the Greek conveys this, that their devotion is ongoing. It continues, they were continually devoted. And so we see from the disciples, the followers of Jesus, they had one thing on their mind, and it's this ongoing pursuit of Jesus. Now, that was the disciples back then, the early church.

What would a book about today's Christians sound like? Or at least a book about those who call themselves Christians today? What would the world describe Christians as today? If we were brutally honest, it might sound something like this. Christians today are devoted to themselves, continually and passionately pursuing a self-centered life of comfort and ease. Christians in the year 2024 wanted to be liked, they wanted to be comfortable, adored. They want to finish school, have a job they love, marry someone, have a nice house, travel the world, and at the end of their life go to heaven. Now if you didn't like the sound of that, good. That's not what we should be known for. Those things in and of themselves aren't bad, but are they the first thing that we are pursuing in life? Are they what we are devoting ourselves to the most? It should make us think and reflect, Are we devoting ourselves fully to Jesus? Are we seeking first the one who matters most? Would people ask this question to yourself, would people in your life identify your love in pursuit of Jesus first and foremost as a characteristic of who you are? If so, great, good job. Keep living in the spirit and if there was any conviction through the spirit then bring that forward to God. Say, "God, how do I change this?" How do I change being known from this to being known by you? We today as followers of Jesus can take our cue from those early disciples. We need to have an ongoing pursuit of Christ and have one thing on the forefront of our minds before anything else, and that's following Jesus.

Pastor Groeschel has an example that I think is really helpful. We're going to do it today. So I have a tape measure here. I hope this works. I've tested this. So I'm going to measure out-- OK, we're going a long ways-- 156-- OK, right here. Did I do it? Stay. Stay. Uh-oh. I'm not going to touch it. OK. Nope, I got the measurement wrong. Got to touch it again. 168. My bad. OK. Stay. Good. There we go. Sorry for those watching at home. Yeah, I can't see anything. There's a tape measure down here, and I measured 168. If you want to do this at home, go ahead. Go grab a tape measure. Put it out there in front of you right now. All right, so we have in front of me 14 feet, 168 inches. And this represents one week of our lives. If you can do math really quick, there are 168 hours in a week. So we have, for every inch here, we have an hour of our lives. OK? I want to show us how much we spend in devotion to different things in our life. Now, this is general. I didn't do any research here specifically. This is general numbers. OK? So your life may look very different, how much sleep you get, how much you work. But this is generally, we have-- OK, I got to start over here. This is one. Generally, we spend 56 hours a week, a third of our week sleeping. Some of you are like, I don't get enough. And some of you are like, well, hey, I get lots. And I'm way over there. That's great. But generally, 56, a third of our week is sleeping. We go another 56 inches, another third. This is work or school, whatever you're in. Generally, we're about here. So we're about 2/3 of our week sleep and work. Here's a surprising one. The average person spends 17 hours a week on social media. So now we're over here. Oh my goodness. Conviction yet? I know that was-- I was like, that's for sure me. I'm definitely doing that for church work, obviously. Obviously for church. That's-- no. So that leaves roughly 39 hours of our week. But we haven't yet factored in other things you guys are doing. So things around the house, chores, cooking, spending time with your kids, commute, working out, fill in the blank. But let's say we fill the rest of our week up and we're really close to the 168. And what we haven't factored in yet is how about our devotion to God? So let's say you guys are here, you spend one hour at church at least. So we'll dial it up right there. And we're really, by the way, 168 is right at that tape measure. So we're at the end. Our week is very full. And how much can you get from something that you're only giving one hour a week to? I won't ask that. There's a lot of things we can't control. You have to work. You have to sleep. But there is a lot of time that you do have some freedom in. If you invest only one hour a week into something, you're not going to see any significant growth or improvement. So one hour of exercise in a week, probably not going to be at peak health. One hour of time with your spouse, you probably won't have the healthiest relationship. One hour of study for the whole week, you probably won't graduate top of your class. The point is, if we are only partially devoted to God, only spending a little time with him each week when it's easy or comfortable, when there's nothing else to do, so you're like, "Hey, I finished everything else, might as well try to read my Bible right now." If we treat it in that way, if we treat our relationship with God in that way, then it's no wonder that we'll struggle with reoccurring sin in our life. It's no wonder that we don't often share our faith with other people. It's no wonder that we care more about what people think than what God thinks of us. And it's no wonder you find yourself only partially bought into a faith of living like Jesus. Partial devotion isn't going to help you have fulfillment in your life. It's not going to help in your pre-decisions of honoring Him in every area of your life. And it's not going to help you understand who God is and what He wants of you.

So then the question becomes how? If we want a fully devoted life to Jesus, it's not going to happen accidentally, it must be an intentional decision. You're going to have to pre-decide to live this ongoing single-minded pursuit of Jesus. And Jesus tells us how to do that in his Word. So if you want to turn with me again or look on the screen to John 15, Jesus, I'll start in verse 5, it says, "I am the vine," this is Jesus speaking, "I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing." So here in this verse, we have Jesus as the vine. Think of that as the trunk. It's the main one. And off of that, you have all these branches, and those are believers. So when we are abiding in Jesus, devoted to him, connected to him as the branch, then we will bear fruit. We're abiding with the source of life. What does that fruit look like? Well, that's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, the fruits of the Spirit. These things are evidence that one is living life with Jesus. If you see that in a person, if you've ever encountered someone had an interaction and you're just like, "Man, there's just something about them," maybe because they're showing the fruit of living with Jesus. I was talking with someone this week who's losing their mother, she's passing away, and this person I was talking to does not have a good relationship with their mom and is struggling in this process because, by their words, their mom was not a very nice person. And they said, "I've never ever seen the fruit of the Spirit in them, and so I don't think they're a believer." And that saddens her. They want the mom to believe, but she just, I loved her process, she was like, "I don't think she's a believer because I've never seen any fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of abiding with Jesus is the evidence of faith. And so church, hopefully people see and experience some of the fruit of the Spirit when they experience you. When you are not living as the branch, when you're disconnected from Jesus, not devoted to him, maybe only spending one hour a week with Jesus, how do you expect to bear fruit in your life? Do you remember that question that I asked at the beginning? Do you ever feel like life seems a bit empty, meaningless at times? Well, when we devote ourselves to Jesus, when we live as the branch connected to the vine, when you dwell in him, life will start to feel full. Because again, This is what truly matters, and this is what truly lasts. This is what we were made for, to be Jesus' representatives in this world.

The author of Psalms, one of the books of wisdom in our Bible, says this about abiding and dwelling, remaining in God. It's Psalms 1 verse 1. It says, "How sit is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. But the light is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night." And this is the part that I want us to just envision this in your mind. "He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yield its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and whatever he does he prospers." We want to be that tree. If we imagine Jesus as that river, as the source of life, we want to be the tree that's right next to it, always getting the nutrients and the nourishment that we need. And when we live right by the source of life, Jesus, then we will be exactly who we're meant to be. We will yield fruit. In our passage back in John with the vine and the branches, there's a word that appears a lot, 11 times in this chapter, so therefore we know it's very important, and it's the word remain. I'll just read verse four, right above verse five. It says, "Remain in me," again, Jesus speaking, "and I also remain in you. "No branch can bear fruit by itself. "It must remain in the vine. "Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." This Greek word for remain is meno, which means to abide, to live and to dwell. And so that's not just one hour a week with God. This is constant, ongoing, full devotion, being all in to the one who matters most. And if we think of a vine and a branch, the branch needs the vine. The branch cannot survive without the vine. If the branch loses the vine, it dies. It has no life source, it won't get what it needs, and over time it will wither and die. It's the same for us. Jesus is the vine, you are the branch, so be the branch. Know who you are. Pre-decide to be devoted to Jesus. And make the decision today, "I will seek first the one who matters most." Alright, so we have the "who." We have what it means to be devoted, what a life of devotion looks like, and you have the "how," which is abiding in Jesus. And now I want to get to the practical. What's our game plan to make this a reality in our lives? How are you going to seek first God in your life? Like we said, it's not going to happen by accident. Not going to stumble upon a life of full devotion.

So, I have a plan. I have to reveal this plan to you. And I love how this is coinciding with our community group. We're talking in our community group, which meets on Wednesdays, about solitude and spending time with God. And so if you're in that community group, you're going to hear some similar things right now. I have three things for a plan of success for you. First is to pre-decide time. You gotta know when you're spending time with God. Are you gonna do it in the morning? First thing when you wake up? Or is it on your commute to work? Is it after the kids get dropped off at school or daycare? Is it at the end of your day? When you know that your mind is gonna be able to focus? You need to find a time that works regularly and has very little interruptions or distractions. And you need to decide how long. Are you spending 10 minutes, 15 minutes, a half hour, an hour? What does that time look like? Predecide. Don't go in it with like, "I guess I'll just go until I feel like it," because that will not work. You will fail. It's not going to go well. Predecide a time. When in the day and for how long? Secondly, predecide a place. You got to know where you are going to work best in a relationship with God. Is it that like perfect that couch with like your coffee table and the lamp, you got your Bible and your coffee setting is sometimes more important to some. I know for me I got to, everything's got to be right. I got to have the lamp on so I can see real up close and I got to have the coffee. Or maybe is there, is it on the back patio? Is it in the bathroom where you're just like, I can close that door, no one will bother me. This is my place of silence. Whatever, you know, whatever works. Is it in the laundry room? Is it in a park? Are you walking? Are you just moving? Are you in the car again in the commute or just like once you get to work you park and like before I go in I'm spending 15 minutes right here So find your time find your place and then pre decide a plan You got to have a plan for what you're spending if it's 15 minutes an hour know what you're gonna do Are you gonna be praying? How are you gonna be praying? Are you praying for people for other people? Are you? Praying through Scripture. Are you reading through the Bible? Are you listening to worship music? Is it a combination of things? I'm gonna spend some time here and then I'm gonna do this and then I'm gonna do this. I want to say this too. Remember to leave time to listen to God. We often have this need of getting caught up to fill the silence with noise. We don't like being quiet with God. And so we're just like as soon as we pause like, "Hmm, maybe a song will be good." Or, "Maybe I should talk some more. God, do you want to hear some more of my thoughts?" He knows your thoughts, by the way. It's good to express them, but you have to listen. It's got to be a two-way street. You talk to God and allow Him to talk back to you. Sit in silence with Him. So those are the three things. A time, a place, and a plan.

And I want to just mention a couple other things. If you are put in, I encourage you, put this into practice this week. But I want to give you a heads up. There's something called the J-curve. And if you've been in our Bible study, you've heard about this. But the J-curve is, and this is true of anything outside of spiritual practices too, if you just start a new hobby, or you try something out, you may experience some initial success. You start in this place of like, "Wow, this is going great, I'm actually, I can do this. I'm kind of good at this maybe." Maybe if it's devotion with God, you're like, "Man, that prayer time, that was awesome. I felt great after that, I felt close with God." But the J curve is studies show that over time, in the next week or two, you're going to be discouraged. And that is going to get really hard. And this new habit, this new thing you're trying to do, your feelings about it are going to go down. You're going to be like, "This is not working out anymore. I thought it was good, but I'm just struggling. It's challenging. I don't like it. I don't feel like it anymore." But studies also show that if you stick with it, in that downward turn, you will come back up and you'll go higher than you were before. So they call it the J-curve. You start off with maybe initial success, you like it, you get discouraged, but stick with it, and then you will experience more success. And so that is true of anything outside of spiritual practices, but it's very true in starting a new spiritual practice. So if you have all these things already down, you have a time, you have a place, and you have a plan, good. Be encouraged, continue that. You are living out a life of devotion. If this is new for you, then don't be discouraged when in the next week or two, it gets a little tough. That's okay. And I want to remind you of this too. The success in this quiet time, in this life of devotion, is not what you are checking off the list or gaining from this time. Some people go into this quiet time and they'll leave and be like, "I'm just discouraged. I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel God's presence. I didn't hear from him. I don't know if this is really working." But success in a life of devotion is showing up day after day. Just constant devotion to God, that is success. God loves it when you keep prioritizing Him day after day. That's what we talked about last week, is being consistent.

Be consistent in your devotion. And then also this, you've got to realize that your time of devotion, especially, I would encourage you to try to do at the beginning of the day, you are gearing up for what that day holds. This life, as we talked about two weeks ago with Pastor Lauren saying, "We need to be prepared. Are we ready? Because we will face resistance to our relationship with God." The enemy does not like when we spend time with God. The world does not really allow for us to spend time with God. It's going to try to distract us. It's going to try to pull us away. And even our own flesh. Our minds can be racing when we enter that time of solitude or that time of devotion. And So you have to know that that time is so important, you are gearing yourself up with the Spirit to face whatever happens that day. It is an essential time. Jesus practiced this, and so I think we should practice it too. If Jesus had to do it, we should definitely see that we have to do it too. So, our last question is when? If you have a plan of abiding, of spending time with him, but when? And we see our - I want to bring out our tape measure one more time - we see all this. Well, if we do those times in the day, that's still like only this much, right? If we were - only had a couple hours left, it's still maybe if you do 15 minutes, I mean, you're not - that's not - what about the rest of the week? What about the rest of the hours? I know maybe this is - here's where the perspective shift comes, all these 168 hours that you have in a week, God wants all of them. God doesn't just want the time where you're intentionally spending time with Him, He wants that too, but He wants all of your life. Through everything we face in a day, we should be talking with God, listening for God, and aligning our hearts with God. We want to be seeking God first, the one who matters most in every situation in life. He's not just some segment, some hour of our to fit in when it works for us. God wants all of our life. Seek God first. When something unforeseen comes up, when you are abiding in Him, you can hear from Him, He'll direct your steps, He'll give you the wisdom you need, He'll guide you through that, through His Word, through community, through prayer. You will have the wisdom to navigate life in the most God-honoring way when you are abiding in Him through everything. God doesn't want your leftovers. He wants all of you. God wants all 168 hours of your week. So, pre-decide, church, pre-decide to be devoted, to seek Jesus first and to let him impact every hour of your life. Whether that's at work, whether that's in how you spend your money, whether it's through parenting, relationships, whatever it is, abide in him while you are doing it. Remain in him. him, be devoted to him. So be ready, be consistent, and be devoted to God. Seek him first, the one who matters most, and devote all of who you are, your heart and mind, to Jesus.

Let's go ahead and pray. God, thank you again for your word, thank you for your example through the life of Jesus to show us what devotion looks like. And God, we pray that you would, through your Spirit, reveal to each and every one of us, because it may be different, how we can live a life that's more devoted to you. God, it really is a joy to know that you want all of our lives, you want every hour, and you're not satisfied with just a a little bit of every day, well that's essential and that's important. You want us to see that it's all of us that you want. You want all of our lives. So I pray, God, that you would help us to come before you, to hand over the burdens that we carry, to hand over the mess that we may feel our life is, and to surrender it to you. And to be before you with open arms, humbled, and say, God, use me. God, through your Spirit transform me. God, that's our prayer that you would continue to do work in us and through us. We are so thankful for all that you have done, for all that you're doing, and we know and trust that you will continue the good work that you have started. Be with us today and for the rest of our days. We pray this in your name, Amen.

Pre-Decide: Part 3

Pre-Decide: Part 3 - I AM CONSISTENT

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We're continuing in our series this morning and I've heard from a few of you in this past week or so. You guys are enjoying this series, which is good. I'm glad that God is speaking to you through these messages and through His Word, and I hope that it continues today. In our series, we're talking about pre-deciding, those decisions that can positively affect the direction of our life, and that direction is determined by the quality of our decisions. The problem is that often when we get to these stressful moments or difficult, challenging we may not be the best decision makers. And so we want to pre-decide now to follow God in whatever happens. We're gonna have something for you this morning as we have our ushers handing out stickers to help you remember where we're going in our series, what we've covered. And if you remember, our scenario is this, when faced with whatever happens in life, I have decided to, and you fill in the blank. And these stickers, it's a sticker by the way, you get a little sticker with everything that we're covering and you can stick that wherever's helpful, in your Bible, I don't know where you stick, on your water bottle if you're one of those people, which is awesome. But we are, there's six things.

And so we've talked about last week, Pastor Lauren talked about being ready. And so, can we try this out? You say I am ready. I am, there we go. You guys were ready, kind of. We'll get there. Today we're going to be talking about consistent, how we're consistent. We're going to talk about how we're devoted, generous, faithful, and how we are finishers. So this morning, like I said, we're going to be covering, I want to share with you one of the most important spiritual qualities that has the potential to not only impact the trajectory of your year, but your entire life. And this quality can be the key to your physical health, your finances, your relationships, your goals, but more importantly, your spiritual strength, your ministry impact, and your ever-deepening relationship with God. And this quality is not based on appearances or background or education or experience. It's your consistency. Being consistent, disciplined, and steadfast has the potential to impact your life more than you might imagine. So what's the problem? Well the problem is that naturally many of us are inconsistent. We're inconsistent with what we eat, when we exercise, sticking to the budget that we made. We're inconsistent with spending time with God, praying, reading our Bibles when we said we were going to. Maybe some of you relate more with the sentiment that the most consistent thing is how inconsistent you are. Personally, I resonate with that a lot. As I was preparing for this sermon, I was praying, God, is there a reason is where I'm preaching this sermon, is where I'm preaching this consistency. I often have, thank you, I often have good intentions, but I struggle with the follow through. For example, I have this devotional app that I use, maybe some of you have heard of it, it's called Lectio 365, and my aspirations, my intent is to do that 365, 365 days of the year, every day, to use the app for my devotion. But I haven't made it a whole year yet, I've used this app for a couple years now. And I've usually gone like a month or so, and then for whatever reason, something comes up, maybe it's a holiday, and then all of a sudden I haven't done it in a week. And I'm like, oh, there that goes. And I gotta start over again, and I'll go a couple weeks, and then I'll skip a day here and there. And I just, I'm inconsistent. And I want to be, my desire is to do it every single day, but it doesn't happen, it hasn't happened yet. It can be hard to remain consistent. And I know I'm not alone in that, and if you're feeling the same way, that you're not alone in your struggle with consistency.

In fact, there's an apostle who wrote much of the New Testament, Paul, who also struggled with being consistent. He wrote this in Romans, Romans 7, 15 says, "I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is in my sinful nature, for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing." He was very wordy when he said that, but you get the point that he's not doing what he wants and he's doing what he doesn't want to do. And if we can relate to Paul, I think we're in okay company right there. But if you're tired of having good intentions, but then failing and falling short, then hopefully this morning is going to be especially encouraging for you as we talk about the power of consistency in our spiritual life. Today we're going to pre-decide, adding to our readiness, we're going to talk about consistency. And here's the key, you're not doing this on your own. Not only do we have each other, but we also have the help of the God who created us. Because it's with God's help that we can be consistent. With God's help, I can be consistent in my daily devotion. Why does consistency matter? Well, successful people do constantly what other people do occasionally. Successful people, experts in whatever field or practice, they don't just do those things occasionally or familiarize themselves with it when it matters. They are surrounded by it. They're immersed in it. They are in it all the time. They are doing it over and over and over again. One pastor said, "It's not what we do occasionally that makes the difference, it's what we do consistently." Think of a skill or some area of knowledge that you know really, really well. You're an expert in it, in your circle. You probably just didn't, it's like one time I looked it up and I figured it all out and I became an expert in one moment. Or with this skill, whatever sport you play, I just practiced one time and I was the best. I doubt it happened that way. Maybe you have some God-given skills, but you had to be in it over and over again and commit time and devotion to it.

So today, we're gonna look at how scripture says that consistency matters and see how growing in our consistency is a way to better honor God. We'll be in the Old Testament today, looking at a particular man in history that demonstrated incredible consistency, who had pre-decided to follow God in all situations, even in captivity, even when faced with conspiracy, and facing death. And that man is Daniel. So you guys can find, turn in your Bibles if you want to Daniel 6, and as you're turning there, let me explain some of where we're at in Israel's history. Shortly after Israel was defeated, and Jerusalem was destroyed by the kingdom of Babylon, life changed very quickly for God's people in the Old Testament, the Israelites. Babylon began taking young men from Israel captive, the best and the brightest. They took back to Babylon to help them contribute to the Babylonian kingdom. They took Israel's potential leaders to have them be leaders for the kingdom of Babylon. And Daniel is one of those people. He stood out to King Nebuchadnezzar as one of the best young men from Israel. And later after King Nebuchadnezzar died, the next king, King Darius, saw the same potential in Daniel, said this is one of the best that they have to offer. He noticed Daniel's leadership and consistency and promoted Daniel to a very high position in the kingdom. Now Daniel's rise to power did not settle well with some of the other leaders, the non-Israelite leaders. And so they tried to undermine Daniel's credibility. They tried to find fault with him. And if this was happening in today, it means that they were looking for dirt. They're looking on his social media. They're looking for anything, and he runs with the law. They're just looking for anything to get Daniel canceled. So we don't like this guy. We don't like how he keeps rising in power. What can we do to take him out? And you know what they found? It says in Daniel 6, verse 4, "At this, the administrators and the satraps "tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel "in his conduct of government affairs, "but they were unable to do so. "They could find no corruption in him "because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Another version says he was faithful, always responsible, and completely trustworthy. Daniel showed consistency in practicing his faith in God. Even in a foreign country, even in captivity, he showed consistency in being responsible and trustworthy and faithful. So what happens? Well, because Daniel is consistent and there's no dirt on him, these jealous leaders attempt to create a problem for Daniel. They're hoping to trap him by using his consistency against him. They go to the king and they schmooze their way into creating this new law. They're like, "King, because you're so great, "because you're amazing, we think that only you "should be worshiped and prayed to for the next 30 days." And the king's like, "You know what? "I am great, you are right. "Let's do that, let's make that a reality." And so, for 30 days, there's a decree given that everyone must pray only to King Darius, no other god. And if anyone were to break this law, the punishment would be being thrown into the lion's den. Now we are not necessarily familiar with lions and a den of lions, but this was certain death. This was not, hey, you might survive, it might be entertaining to see if you could try to make it the day. No, this was certain death. And so we have to recognize that this plan was put in place solely for the purpose of killing Daniel. In the minds of the jealous leader, this thing was as good as done. As soon as King Darius signed the sins of law, they said, "We got him. We've got Daniel. We can get rid of this guy." And so let's read what happens next.

In verse 10 of chapter 6 of the book of Daniel, it says, Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. What do we see right here? We see Daniel's consistency. It's not a sudden decision that, hey, I'm in a really hard time right now, let me go to God and figure out what I'm supposed to do. No, he continued in his regular practice of prayer. I have a hard thing going on, God, right now, but let me just talk to you like I always do at this time. His relationship was established, and he just continued in his regular rhythm of talking with God. Well, the jealous leaders were able to trap Daniel in his integrity and took it before the king. And they said, "We found Daniel praying "to someone besides you, King Darius." And the king was bound by his own word and by the law that he had made to make Daniel face the punishment. Now, there's a whole other story here that King Darius didn't wanna do this. King Darius really liked Daniel. And so he was really saddened to have to throw Daniel into the lion's den. But he does. And so Daniel's thrown into the pit, lion's den, and everyone is thinking, "This is it." It was good knowing Daniel. He was great. good faithful servant of God and to the king, but it's over now. If you already know the story, then you know that it's a good ending. But instead of Daniel dying, a miracle happens and God sent angels in the night to keep the mouths of the lions shut. And in verse 23, it says, "The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him because he had trusted in God. He lived, he survived certain death because he trusted in God. Now church, I wanna ask this, and this is the key. When did Daniel learn to trust God? It wasn't in the lion's den. He learned to trust God in his routine, on his knees, in prayer, three times a day, day after day, week after week, month after month.

Daniel's faith wasn't built in battle, his faith was built in remaining consistent in pursuing God every single day. It's not what we occasionally do that makes the difference, it's what we consistently do. Most of us pray occasionally, Daniel prayed consistently, and so our desire is to be more like Daniel. just in prayer, but in every aspect of our life that is God honoring, we want to be more like Daniel and be more consistent. So let me give you three thoughts regarding consistency. These are from Pastor Greg Groeschel, and I think they're really helpful for us today to hear and to understand. And they are starting with the why. We want to plan to fail, and we want to fall in love with the process. So let's start with the why. Why did Daniel pray consistently? Well, it wasn't about outward appearances. It wasn't about appearing spiritual. This is the problem that the Pharisees had in the New Testament that Jesus reprimanded them for, saying, "You're just praying out loud to boast "and to seem and come across so spiritual." Daniel did this in the quiet of his home upstairs, so it wasn't about that. But he prayed consistently because he was devoted to God. He was committed to having the best relationship with God. It wasn't just desire, it was devotion. And devotion stems from the heart. Devotion to God sees that we are God's creation, made to serve him with everything that we have so that we can and others can know him. Really, any goal, be it financial or personal career, it goes beyond your personal desire. And it has to come from wanting to honor God and live according to his will. Because we have to understand that God is God, we are not. His ways are perfect, and that means that we want to be devoted to the one who is perfect. We won't really change if we don't know our why. Transformation is not based on our desire or willpower, because eventually our desire and willpower will fail us. We will run out of willpower. We will stop wanting or desiring at a certain time, relying on our own strength. We will eventually take the foot off the pedal. We'll come to a place of not exercising, even just for a day. We don't like it anymore. Whatever it is, we will fail ourselves. Like my struggle with my daily devotion of Lectio 365. When I'm trying to do it all by myself, there's mornings when I wake up, I'm like, I'm just so tired. I don't wanna do it today. And then I don't. But when we know our why, when we remain devoted, when we, like Daniel, continue to pray three times a day, no matter what, we can continue through. We can continue through disinterested moments, challenging schedules, or any other stumbling block. The why is really pointing us to rely on God to be what God created us to be. Like we said at the beginning, it's with God's help that we can be consistent. and how we rely on God who is perfectly consistent. Well, how do we know that God is consistent?

Well, this whole Bible is a story of God being consistent, but there's a specific scene I wanna point us to. It's in Exodus 34, and this is a moment where God is with Moses, and Moses and God are having this conversation, and Moses is saying, "God, I wanna know you more. "I've been leading your people, "but I still don't know who you are. "Can you tell me who you are?" And God says, "I'll tell you exactly who I am." Exodus 34, 6 through 7 says, "And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, 'The Lord, the Lord,' which in the Hebrew is his name." God is saying his own name, he's introducing himself. And he says, "The compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin." That phrase, abounding in love and faithfulness and maintaining love to thousands, that's talking about God being consistent. The Hebrew words there are a covenantal love steadfast commitment. God is eternally consistent. No matter how many times his people failed him, doubted him, denied him, or actively rebelled against him, God never failed them. God continued with his plan of redemption. The Old Testament is a story of God's people continually turning away from God over and over again deciding, you know what God, I just I don't want to do this anymore. And God never giving up on them. God sending person, prophet, leader, miracles, bad things to say, hey I'm trying to get your attention, I have a plan, I'm remaining consistent in pursuing you. God remained consistent in his pursuit of humanity and it all led to him bringing salvation through his son Jesus. Church, no matter how much we wrestle with our consistency and relationship with him, we can recognize and praise God that he is always consistent with us. So, we rely on him. We know our why because we are devoted to the one who is eternally devoted to us. And when we know our why, we'll find a way. So, we begin with our why and next, we plan to fail. This sounds really counterintuitive. Why are we planning to fail? Well, we have to plan not to be perfect. Do we have any perfectionists in the room? You don't have to raise your hand. I know there are some. I won't point you out. Perfectionists will be-- this is tough for everyone. This is especially tough for perfectionists. Failure is tough. Failure can make it feel like it's not It's not worth it to continue anymore. But let me remind you that you are not perfect, and the only perfect person to ever live was Jesus. Everyone else has had to work through imperfections and failures, but everyone else has also had the opportunity to grow from them.

Any of the heroes of the Bible that we tend to put on a pedestal and think that they were perfect, they were not. All the heroes of the Bible had their inconsistencies, their imperfections, even Daniel. And so why is it that so many of us are inconsistent? We've already talked about losing the willpower. It can also be because we can have an all or nothing mindset. If we fail one time, we think that we are a failure. We can wrap up our identity and our actions of success or failure, which is not how God sees us, by the way. We have to remember that being consistent does not mean being perfect. We need to give ourselves grace to fail. I'll say that again for everyone, and especially for the perfectionists in the room. Give yourself grace to fail. If Jesus has enough grace to give to you, then you should certainly have grace on yourself. You're gonna mess up. You have to plan for what happens next. What are you gonna do after you fail? Predecide for your failure. Again, Pastor Craig Groeschel says, "Know that a momentary failure "is actually a part of the process. "And really the problem for many of us "is the illusion of perfection "keeps us from getting started." We think, I'm never gonna be great at that, so I might as well not even try. Have you ever been invited to participate in something, an activity, and you say, oh, thank you so much, but that's okay, I'm good. Not because you're being polite, but because you're like, I'm not gonna be good at that, so I don't want to embarrass myself, I don't want to try, I don't want everyone to see me fail. That's me, for sure. I noticed this in our daughter at times, when she gets so upset when she messes up. And we're just trying to, it's okay. You're gonna mess up, you're gonna fail, you're not gonna get it, that's fine. And she gets so worked up that she just didn't do it perfectly and she wants to give up. And it's a reminder, I see myself in it, I'm like, oh my goodness, this is me all over again in so many areas of life. Because some of us are viewing our relationship with Jesus like that. There's some of you who may not be following Jesus today because you think, "Well, if I start following Jesus, what happens when I mess up? What if I fail and my language is bad, or I'm not loving, or my thoughts are completely terrible, or whatever it is that I struggle with, what's going to happen when I fail? Because I don't think I'm going to be a good Christian, so I don't think I'm going to try.

Well, I'm here to tell you that you will fail, and everyone in this room who is a Christian has also failed. But don't let that stop you from pursuing God with everything that you have. And letting God love you and show you mercy and compassion and grace in your failure. It's all part of the process. There are growing pains. There are moments that aren't great, but it's not all a complete loss. So, know that you won't be perfect. Don't confuse being consistent with being perfect. Start with the "why." Plan to fail. And then lastly, fall in love with the process. In our story of Daniel, Daniel wasn't doing something to get this promotion. He wasn't like, "Hey, if I remain consistent in my faith and all these things, my end goal is to get this position in the Kingdom of Babylon." No. He was consistently doing what he knew to be important, being devoted to God. It's the process of being devoted that matters to God, not this goal. We tend to be a very goal-oriented people. task, I got to get it done, and here I want to measure my growth, I want to measure how successful I am. And we tend to measure success by only one metric, which is accomplishing the task. It is either pass/fail. Either I did it, or I didn't do it, and either I'm a success or I'm a failure. And again, that is not how God views us. So we shouldn't necessarily view ourselves in that way either. In fact, I think that's a terrible way to measure your spiritual journey, or to measure how you are as a Christian. Rather, it's in how we honor God that we can measure. We can have a moment of failure, but if we got back up and committed ourselves to God, we should say, "That's what matters. God cared about that right there, of how after I sinned or after I failed in whatever way, God loved that I got back up and I kept pursuing Him." Again, Pastor Groeschel says, "You're not successful when you achieve the goal in the future. You're successful when you honor God today." I think that's really wise. Now it's good to accomplish things. We can set our minds to things and want to do them, but ultimate success is when we honor God. You won't hear that from the world. This is not the world's definition of success, but this is what God cares about, is when you honor him. He is so overjoyed and happy and content with you when you honor him. Learning to honor God in the process, even when you mess up, that's the important part. This process includes ups and downs. Recognize that, acknowledge that, and plan accordingly. Pre-decide for when you fail.

A professor once shared with me that when we're younger in life, we tend to have these big ups and downs in life. When we're up, we're feeling great, we're overjoyed, we're loving to everyone else, we have a lot of energy. Life is so good, and we're feeling on top of the world. And then whatever happens, it can knock us down. And when we're down, we're really down. I think of high school and college, and it was a lot of this with friendships and just everything going on. And when you're down, you're empty, maybe you're bitter, there's not a lot to give, you're selfish. But we notice, he was sharing that with older people, older Christians, those same things may be happening, but you're not getting this big sweep. You're kind of just getting a more consistent line. I wish I had a graphic here, 'cause my hand, I don't know if you can follow my hand on what I'm trying to do. But instead of these roller coasters, big up and down, it's still an upward trajectory towards God, but you're a more consistent line. You're still feeling those things, maybe, but they're not dominating your life or just taking over you. You are more in tune with God and what He has for you in that moment. And so that's our desire. Instead of having these big ups and downs, we wanna remain consistent with God in our relationship with Him. That's the process, steady, consistent devotion to Him. So I wanna end by reminding us that we can't do this without God's help. And so I wanna invite you right now to reflect. We're talking about pre-deciding to follow God in all areas of our lives, and maybe in this series, there's something specific that God has brought to the forefront of your mind. And I wanna ask, where is God calling you to be consistent? In what area of your life is God bringing to your heart and to your mind that you need to be more consistent in? So think about that. And if it helps, if you're not sure, ask God, God, where do you want me to be more consistent? Where can I honor you more? Where can I be more faithful? Is it with your family, your spouse, your kids? Is it with your prayer time, your Bible reading time, your speech, your attitude? Maybe how you treat those around you, how you spend your time in general or your money. Whatever God is putting on your heart, give it over to him, ask him for his help in that area. Rely on him to be consistent. Pre-decide, church, with me. Start with the why, plan to fail, and fall in love with the process of being made more and more like Jesus. So say it with me. With God's help, with God's help, I am consistent. I am consistent. Yes. So you are ready, you are consistent. You'll find out more in the weeks to come how you're also generous, how you'll be devoted, and how you're faithful, and how you're a finisher.