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00:00 How many of you have a difficult time slowing your mind?
00:05 Raise your hands up.
00:06 You had a difficult time slowing your mind.
00:09 Those of you online, you can type it in the comment section
00:11 if you want, I have a hard time slowing my mind.
00:16 Some of you did not hear that question
00:19 because your mind is somewhere else, even right now.
00:24 And I can relate to that, to be real honest with you.
00:28 My mind seems to race almost all of the time.
00:32 I can be in a conversation, I hate to say this out loud,
00:34 but I can be in a conversation with someone
00:37 with my eyes locked on their eyes,
00:39 apparently listening to every word they're saying
00:42 and not hearing a single word that they said.
00:45 I do that with Amy, but somehow I have a supernatural
00:50 ability when she says, "Were you listening?"
00:52 Even if I wasn't, I can recall the last thing she said
00:57 and I repeat it back to her, it's a built-in system
01:00 that God gave men for self-defense, but it never works.
01:05 She sees right through it.
01:06 I repeat it back and she says, "Don't do that,
01:08 "I know you weren't listening."
01:10 In the daytime, my mind is kind of all over the place.
01:14 At night, I'll get in bed and my mind will often race
01:16 with all that I had to do.
01:18 The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes,
01:21 Solomon actually calls this anxious striving.
01:26 That might describe some of you, anxious striving.
01:31 In fact, I'm gonna show you where this is from
01:32 in Ecclesiastes chapter two.
01:34 This is what scripture said.
01:35 "What do people get for all their toil
01:40 "and anxious striving, with which they labor under the sun?
01:45 "All their days, their work is grief and pain.
01:51 "Even at night," watch this, "Even at night,
01:54 "their minds do not rest."
01:58 We're in a message series I'm calling
02:01 Habits of a Healthy Heart.
02:03 We talked about in the first week,
02:05 if you wanna change your life, change your habits.
02:09 But if you wanna change your habits,
02:11 you need to let God change your heart.
02:14 So in the first week, we talked about the habit
02:17 of self-examination.
02:19 Last week, we talked about the habit of simplifying.
02:23 Next week, we're gonna talk about the habit
02:25 of godly sorrow.
02:28 Today, I wanna talk to you about the spiritual habit
02:31 of slowing your mind,
02:34 getting to the place of solitude before God.
02:37 The title of today's message is,
02:38 When Your Mind Won't Stop.
02:41 Father, we ask that by the power of your Spirit,
02:43 you will slow our minds,
02:46 that we could be still before you
02:50 and be transformed by you.
02:54 We pray this in the name of our Savior, Jesus.
02:56 And everybody said, amen, amen.
03:00 Let's talk about Jesus.
03:01 He's a good one to talk about at church, right?
03:04 Let's talk about Jesus.
03:06 We think about Jesus, do you think
03:08 that he would have had much on his mind?
03:11 A lot, right?
03:13 I mean, first of all, the whole assignment,
03:15 if you can't sin, that would take some effort.
03:19 I figure I could probably last about 10, maybe 12 minutes
03:23 before I'm like, you know, envious of something.
03:26 I mean, just don't sin.
03:28 That's a lot on your mind.
03:30 And then when you think about what he had to do,
03:32 in only three years, he had to recruit his 12 disciples,
03:37 a bunch of kind of ragtag, know-nothing people,
03:39 teach them the values of the kingdom of God.
03:43 This is what the kingdom of God is like.
03:47 Prepare them to carry the message all over the world
03:51 while healing the sick, raising the dead,
03:54 cleansing the temple, sowing the love of the Father
03:55 in everyone that he sees, enduring the persecution
03:58 of the Pharisees, fulfilling every letter of the law,
04:02 giving his life, the Lamb of God, as a sacrifice
04:07 for the sins of the world.
04:09 And oh yeah, three days later, coming back to defeat death,
04:14 hell, and the grave when the stone was rolled away
04:18 and Christ was risen from the dead.
04:22 Do you think Jesus had anything on his mind?
04:27 There is no bigger assignment in the history of the world
04:33 to do the will of God as the Son of God.
04:36 How did Jesus do it?
04:41 Well, a big part of the spiritual ingredient
04:44 of his spiritual success was that Jesus consistently
04:49 and intentionally created the space to hear from heaven
04:55 and to spend time with his heavenly Father.
05:01 He consistently and intentionally disconnected
05:09 from the crowd, drowned out all of the noise of society,
05:14 silenced and pulled away from all the distractions
05:22 of this world.
05:25 Why?
05:26 Because there is no such thing as intimacy
05:31 without intentionality.
05:33 You will never see intimacy in any relationship
05:38 without intentionality.
05:39 You won't see it in your marriage.
05:41 If you just let the whole world
05:43 just kind of happen to your schedule,
05:44 you will never have a really close marriage
05:47 without intentionally working on building a relationship
05:52 with trust and time together, intimacy.
05:54 The same is true in parenting or friendships.
05:57 If you don't spend time with your children
05:59 and get on their level and listen,
06:01 without intentionality, you will never, ever have intimacy.
06:04 And in the world, we get so busy and our minds go so fast.
06:08 I need to remind somebody
06:09 that you can never busy your way to God.
06:13 You'll never busy your way to him.
06:17 And as a pastor now for over three decades,
06:20 I can promise you I've never met anyone
06:24 who is really close to God.
06:26 Anyone who displays the fruits of the Spirit,
06:30 love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
06:33 gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
06:37 Anyone who's led by the Spirit consistently
06:40 and not by the flesh.
06:41 I've never met anyone close to God and intimate with God
06:46 who didn't spend time with God.
06:50 Over and over and over again in the Gospels,
06:54 we see Jesus withdraw from the crowd,
06:58 pull away from the demands,
07:00 distance himself from all of the expectations of people,
07:05 and go to a secluded place to slow down
07:10 in solitude and silence, to pause, to talk to his Father,
07:15 to listen to his Father and to hear his Father's voice.
07:22 We see it over and over again.
07:23 Mark chapter one, we see this.
07:26 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark,
07:31 Jesus got up and he left the house.
07:35 The disciples were in the house
07:37 and he didn't stay in the house.
07:39 He left where he was to go off to a quiet place.
07:42 He went to a solitary place where he prayed, scripture says.
07:47 Simon and his companions went to look for him.
07:49 Have you noticed any time you go try to get alone with God,
07:52 somebody's gonna try to interrupt you,
07:53 that's just the way it goes.
07:54 Simon went to look for him, and when they found him,
07:57 they exclaimed, "Everyone is looking for you."
08:01 Those of you who are parents, you can probably relate.
08:04 Amy used to say, "The only place I could go to be alone
08:06 "was the bathroom, and 30 seconds later,
08:07 "there would be fingers under the bathroom door."
08:11 And what do you do in your life today?
08:13 You're a student, you're a teenager, you're a parent,
08:16 you're a spouse, you're a leader, what do you do?
08:19 You give out and you give out and you give out
08:22 and you give out, you pour out and you pour out
08:24 and you pour out.
08:25 How does your day look?
08:26 You get out of bed and you start to get ready
08:30 in the morning and you get your kids ready to school
08:32 and your kids fight and you try to get them
08:34 to stop fighting and then you fight traffic
08:37 and you try to pay attention in your class
08:39 or in your meeting and then you deal
08:40 with an annoying coworker and then you try
08:42 to do your best at your job and then you go try
08:45 to pick up your kids after school,
08:46 even though it's not really time to leave the work
08:48 and then you take them to soccer or dance
08:49 and you got bills to pay, yard to mow,
08:52 you gotta look perfect and you better post about it
08:54 because you gotta show everybody your life is wonderful
08:56 and then you wonder why you're a cup.
09:00 It's empty.
09:01 Now for those of you who were here last week,
09:05 you're wondering if I'm gonna throw this water
09:07 (audience laughing)
09:09 all over you and I need to tell you
09:11 that if you're on the first three rows,
09:13 this is the SeaWorld Splash Zone, that's what we call it.
09:16 And I can just, just calm your fears,
09:20 I'm not going to throw this.
09:22 But what I am gonna tell you is many of you,
09:24 your cup is empty.
09:25 And what's interesting is Scripture said
09:28 that Jesus came to give us the abundant life
09:32 and life to the full.
09:34 And your schedule's full, but your spiritual cup is empty.
09:38 And many of you are saying right now,
09:40 if you haven't said it out loud, you feel it on the inside,
09:43 I don't have any more to give.
09:46 You're exhausted, you're spiritually depleted.
09:53 Why do you not have any more to give?
09:56 Because you can't give what you don't have.
09:59 And that's why Jesus, the Son of God,
10:04 with the most important assignment
10:06 in the history of the world,
10:08 He modeled consistently and intentionally pausing,
10:13 creating the space and Jesus withdrew.
10:19 I'll show you just five verses, you can look up sometime,
10:21 you can take a photo of all the verses if you want to.
10:24 Jesus withdrew before starting His ministry,
10:27 before He went to do the will of God,
10:29 He took 40 days and 40 nights to go seek God's heart.
10:33 He would withdraw before making important decisions,
10:37 before I'm gonna decide what to do next,
10:39 I'm gonna go and listen to the voice of the Father
10:41 so His word would direct my steps.
10:43 Jesus would withdraw after a long, hard day of work,
10:47 before something and then after something,
10:49 I'm gonna go and refill up again.
10:51 He would withdraw after ministering to lots of people
10:55 and Jesus would withdraw after losing a close friend
10:58 to go and grieve before the Father
11:00 and be renewed before the Father.
11:02 Jesus consistently and intentionally modeled for us
11:07 pausing, creating a space,
11:11 withdrawing to get in the presence of God.
11:15 Why do we need to withdraw?
11:19 Because you can't continue to pour out
11:22 if you don't fill up.
11:27 And this is where many of you are today,
11:31 pouring and pouring and pouring and pouring
11:34 without the word of the Lord filling you,
11:37 the presence of the God, His Spirit sustaining you,
11:41 the strength of His Spirit carrying you when you're weak
11:45 and at the end of your own strength.
11:48 And the reason I know so much about this
11:50 is because this is where I was in 2018 and 2019.
11:54 And I've talked to you rather openly
11:57 about what happened to me during that time.
12:00 I look back and I use the words of someone else.
12:02 Someone else said this and this was true of me.
12:05 The way I was doing the work of God
12:08 was destroying the work of God in me.
12:12 The way I was doing it, I was going too hard, too much,
12:16 pouring out, pouring out, pouring out, pouring out.
12:18 So I started to work with a counselor
12:20 and he diagnosed me as occupationally burned out
12:23 and started to work with me and said,
12:26 "What are you afraid of?"
12:28 And I gave him all kind of like cop-out answers.
12:30 And I said, ultimately,
12:33 I'm afraid of not getting it all done.
12:35 And then it came down to the next level.
12:37 I said, I'm afraid this job's gonna kill me.
12:39 Like it's just one day, I see that it's gonna kill me.
12:42 And the challenge I had is similar to the challenge
12:45 that many of you have.
12:46 And that is like me, many of you,
12:48 you believe that your value is based on what you do.
12:52 Your value is based on what you produce.
12:57 Your value is based on what you accomplish.
13:00 Your value is based on how you perform.
13:03 Your value is based on how much you give.
13:07 And I was scared to death to slow down,
13:12 to rest, to recover.
13:15 We got down to asking all sorts of questions.
13:18 I wanted to blame somebody else.
13:19 I wanted a deeper, you know, like victim mindset.
13:22 And here's why I'm this way.
13:23 And the bottom line was I was terrified to be still,
13:27 which is a really big problem
13:31 when that is the prerequisite to knowing God.
13:34 'Cause Psalm 46 says this,
13:37 "Be still and know that I am God."
13:44 Not hope, not pray, not want, not wish,
13:48 but know the goodness of God.
13:51 Be still.
13:54 You can't busy your way to God.
13:59 Scripture doesn't say be busy and know God intimately.
14:02 Doesn't even say be responsible
14:06 or be disciplined and know God,
14:09 or be successful and know God.
14:12 But be still and know that He is God.
14:17 In the Hebrew language, be still,
14:23 this actually translates to cease striving,
14:27 or remember anxious striving we talked about earlier.
14:29 It literally means to stop your anxious striving.
14:33 I want you to think about Jesus again.
14:36 Why was He valuable?
14:39 When was He valuable to God?
14:43 When Jesus was baptized,
14:45 do you remember how many miracles
14:47 He had done before He was baptized?
14:48 The answer is zero.
14:50 Jesus hadn't done any works before His baptism.
14:55 He hadn't done any formal ministry.
14:58 And in Luke 3:22, what happens?
15:00 Before Jesus earned His spiritual keep,
15:03 a voice from heaven, His Father said,
15:06 "You are my Son, whom I love.
15:11 "With you, I'm well pleased."
15:14 Jesus hadn't done a single miracle.
15:17 He hadn't healed tonsillitis, much less raised the dead.
15:21 And His Father says, "I'm proud of you.
15:24 "I love you."
15:27 Jesus hadn't taught anyone.
15:29 He hadn't preached a sermon.
15:33 He hadn't led a life group.
15:34 And God loved Him for who He was.
15:40 Not what He did, but for who He was.
15:43 In the very same way that our Father loves you.
15:48 Not for what you produce, not for what you get done,
15:52 not for how well you perform, but for who you are.
15:56 And the Father said, "I love you.
15:58 "I'm proud of you."
16:00 And so what did Jesus do next?
16:04 Let me tell you what He didn't do.
16:05 If you look at the text very carefully,
16:06 He didn't go out and pour out.
16:11 The Father said, "I love you.
16:12 "I'm well pleased."
16:13 The very next thing in the text that Jesus did
16:16 was He went and He filled up first.
16:21 He didn't rush off to do a miracle.
16:25 He didn't go give His first sermon.
16:27 He slowed down and He spent time with His Father.
16:31 Not just a 10-minute quick devotion in the morning
16:34 to make sure you're a good Christian,
16:35 'cause you're not a Christian
16:36 unless you do your Bible time.
16:37 But He spent 40 days and 40 nights.
16:41 Scripture says this right after His baptism.
16:43 Luke chapter four says this.
16:45 Full of the Holy Spirit, He left the Jordan
16:48 and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness
16:51 where He fasted 40 days and 40 nights,
16:55 spending time alone with the Father.
16:58 Why?
16:59 Because there is no such thing as intimacy
17:04 without intentionality.
17:07 He intentionally sought the presence of His Father.
17:10 So how do we do that?
17:13 'Cause I know you're as busy as I am.
17:16 Well, I wanna talk to you about the habit of slowing
17:20 or the habit of solitude.
17:24 What does this look like?
17:26 Well, in a devotional version of the Bible,
17:28 Matthew 6:6 tells us to do this.
17:31 Jesus says this, the words of Jesus.
17:33 He said, "Here's what I want you to do."
17:36 If you wanna be intimate with God,
17:39 you're gonna have to be intentional
17:40 about your time with God.
17:42 Jesus says, "Find a quiet, secluded place
17:46 "so you won't be tempted to role play before God."
17:49 I like that.
17:50 So you're not gonna be tempted to go,
17:51 "Hey God, look who I am.
17:52 "I'm doing my Bible study.
17:53 "Oh wait, let me get the perfect Instagram picture.
17:55 "Hashtag blessed.
17:56 "This is me and my Devo and my coffee.
17:58 "Oh, tell me how holy I am.
18:00 "Bless you, you're so holy."
18:02 Okay, find a secluded place and just be there.
18:05 Watch this, as simply and honestly as you can imagine.
18:10 Find a quiet, secluded place, get away from all the noise
18:17 and just be honest with God in his presence.
18:22 And here's what's gonna happen.
18:23 The focus will shift from you to God
18:28 and you will begin to sense his grace.
18:32 One of the best things that happened to me in my counseling
18:35 was the focus started shifting from me,
18:38 I can't do it, I can't handle it, this is gonna kill me,
18:41 to God, he is good, his presence is with me,
18:44 he'll never leave me, he'll never forsake me.
18:47 When you get alone with him,
18:49 the focus shifts from you to God.
18:53 How do you experience that?
18:55 It's not gonna happen by accident.
18:57 You're not just gonna suddenly just be sitting there going,
18:59 "Oh, well, I just got an hour of free time
19:00 "and oh, I think I'll just be in the presence of God."
19:02 What you have to do is intentionally press pause.
19:05 Stop everything because it's not stopping for you
19:10 unless you choose to stop for it.
19:12 Get alone, and I'm gonna tell you right now,
19:15 no texts, this isn't in the Bible,
19:17 this actually is in 1st Craig chapter 9-9,
19:20 I just made that up.
19:21 But no text, put your phone away, no social media,
19:25 no little voices saying, "Wipe me, wipe me, wipe me."
19:28 Get alone, okay?
19:31 And let me tell you, this is not isolation,
19:34 this is solitude, there is a difference.
19:36 Isolation is when you run from others
19:39 and you hide from others and you feel sorry for yourself,
19:41 you might even self-medicate, this is solitude.
19:44 Solitude is consistent, intentional,
19:47 deliberately pausing and stopping
19:51 where your sole purpose is hearing from heaven,
19:57 time with your Father,
20:00 letting His living Word nourish your soul,
20:04 letting the quiet voice of His Holy Spirit speak to you
20:08 and convict you and comfort you and challenge you
20:13 and love you and direct your steps.
20:18 And it is only a result of intentionality
20:23 because there's no such thing as intimacy
20:26 without intentionality.
20:27 And I just wanna promise you,
20:28 this will not happen without you planning for it.
20:31 And so what do you do?
20:33 Kind of like what the text says,
20:34 I would suggest that you find a place and a time.
20:38 Place could be like kneeling by your bed,
20:40 place could be on your back porch,
20:42 place could be at your kitchen table
20:43 with your favorite Hebrews coffee, Hebrews.
20:48 It's a New Testament book in the Bible.
20:52 It could be first thing in the morning
20:56 before the day gets started.
20:58 It could be at the end of the day.
21:00 It could be on a longer lunch break.
21:02 I would suggest you find a time, you find a place.
21:06 I would suggest you work for consistency.
21:09 Doesn't mean you can do it every day,
21:10 but you're gonna work your very, very best.
21:12 This is my time, this is my place.
21:15 It's a mini pause, it's a break, it's a spiritual retreat
21:20 that may only be a few minutes a day,
21:21 but it's every day.
21:22 What Amy used to do, we had six kids, as you know,
21:27 which is a lot, and she home educated them,
21:30 which is amazing.
21:31 And so what she would do is she would actually take
21:33 four one-day retreats a year.
21:36 Kids are on your own, good luck, here's a breakfast,
21:39 or send them off to someone's house.
21:40 And she would go away and find some place alone
21:43 and take an entire day four times a year
21:45 because you can't pour out if you don't fill up.
21:49 And she would intentionally create that time.
21:51 And what are you gonna do?
21:52 You can do a lot of things.
21:54 I'm gonna give you some suggestions,
21:56 but at the heart of it, you're gonna be still.
21:58 And at some point, yes, you're gonna read God's Word,
22:01 and yes, you're gonna talk to Him,
22:02 but at some point, you wanna be just silent before Him,
22:06 in solitude.
22:07 And when you're quiet, just let your soul
22:11 talk honestly to God.
22:13 No role play, just let what's in your soul talk to God.
22:19 And you'd be surprised at what your soul
22:22 wants to say to God.
22:23 Don't force it, just let your soul talk to Him,
22:29 cry out to Him, maybe even shout at Him.
22:35 And it may take time, but if you spend time
22:39 in His presence, your soul will say
22:42 what it's been desperate to say.
22:47 Your soul may say, I am afraid.
22:49 I'm afraid I'm not gonna be able to pay the bills.
22:53 I'm afraid my marriage isn't gonna last.
22:55 I'm afraid for my teenager, I can't believe,
22:59 I don't even know what to do.
23:01 Your soul may say, I'm hurting.
23:04 I feel alone.
23:07 Your soul may say, God, I'm crying out to you,
23:10 but I don't even know where you are.
23:12 Let your soul cry out to Him.
23:17 Your soul may say, I'm sorry, God, I've neglected you,
23:20 I've neglected my first love.
23:21 You may say, God, I'm ashamed of what I've done.
23:27 I'm ashamed that I haven't prioritized you.
23:30 I'm ashamed that I've got caught up in sin.
23:32 I'm ashamed that I've fallen back in love with this world.
23:35 And stop loving your kingdom.
23:38 Some of your soul might say, I'm mad at you, God.
23:43 I asked you to do it and you didn't, you're mad.
23:46 God can handle your anger.
23:49 I promise you, He'd rather you run to Him mad
23:54 than run away from Him.
23:56 Cry out to Him, cry out to Him.
23:57 Some of you might say, I need you, God.
24:04 I need you now more than I ever have.
24:05 I need more of you, God, I need more of you,
24:07 I need more of you, I need more of you.
24:09 And that's what I started to do.
24:11 I started working with my counselor.
24:13 And what I recognized is this,
24:15 the reason I was afraid to be still
24:19 is because I was afraid to face myself.
24:22 I wouldn't stop to listen to God
24:27 because I was afraid of what He might say to me.
24:29 Because the way I was doing the work of God
24:33 was destroying the work of God in me.
24:34 The focus was on me.
24:40 And it started to shift back to God.
24:43 In silence before God,
24:47 when you let your soul speak out to Him,
24:50 you will surrender your illusion of control.
24:54 And like me, you'll come face to face
24:57 with who you really are.
25:00 Your dysfunctions and your self-indulgent behavior
25:05 and your false comforts and your secret sins
25:10 and your pathetic excuses, just like mine.
25:15 I'm too important to slow down
25:18 'cause I'm doing the work of God,
25:20 even though all the focus is on me.
25:23 And so I cried out to God and said,
25:25 I can't do anymore, I can't do anymore,
25:26 it's too much, I can't do anymore,
25:27 I can't do anymore, I can't do anymore.
25:29 And He said, finally, finally,
25:33 the focus is getting off of you and coming back to me.
25:37 It's gotta be a habit, a habit of slowing,
25:40 a habit of solitude.
25:42 It's gotta be a habit.
25:44 If you do not intentionally seek it,
25:47 this world will squeeze it out and you will never get it.
25:50 And you will never be close to God
25:53 without intentional time with God.
25:56 It's the habit of slowing, the habit of solitude.
26:02 Whichever one you want, they both begin with S.
26:04 I couldn't decide, so you decide.
26:06 Because you cannot continue,
26:11 I'm here for you, I got it down,
26:15 I'm gonna do it all, I'm gonna do it all,
26:16 I can get it all done, I can get it all done.
26:18 You cannot continue to pour out
26:21 unless in the presence of God you fill up.
26:25 And what many of you are gonna say is,
26:27 I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time.
26:29 Let me just promise you right now,
26:31 you always have time for what you choose to have time for,
26:33 period, no excuses.
26:36 You have time for what you choose to have time for,
26:40 no excuses.
26:41 You can make excuses or you can know God intimately,
26:46 but you can't do both.
26:47 Jesus consistently, intentionally,
26:51 disconnected from the crowd,
26:52 He drowned out all of the distraction,
26:55 silenced all the never-ending noise
26:59 and looked up to heaven.
27:01 Didn't just talk, but listened,
27:05 because there is no such thing as intimacy
27:08 without intentionality.
27:09 You cannot busy your way to God.
27:14 You can't continue to pour out if you don't fill up.
27:17 And so, be still.
27:20 The habit, not every noun,
27:25 but the habit of slowing your mind.
27:29 Go unto God, be still, He says,
27:34 and know that I am God.
27:37 And when the focus shifts off of you,
27:40 back onto Him, you will realize He is always enough.
27:45 So Father, today, we slow our minds.
27:52 (gentle piano music)
27:56 Taking a moment to be still in your presence.
28:03 Church, without looking around,
28:14 I'm gonna just invite you to do something with me.
28:17 You don't have to, you can do something different,
28:19 but I'm gonna invite you,
28:22 if you don't already have the habit, start the habit.
28:24 Start at five or 10 minutes a day.
28:27 Just start there, it'll grow,
28:28 because once you start spending time with Him,
28:30 you're gonna want more.
28:32 There is a Bible plan, and our campus pastors
28:34 will tell you about it more at the end,
28:36 but there's a Bible plan called
28:38 How to Slow Down and Simplify Your Life.
28:40 It's seven days.
28:42 So between now and seven days, we'll be together again.
28:45 God willing, we'll be together again in church
28:47 in seven days from now.
28:48 I'm gonna invite you just to do that study with me
28:50 if you'd like.
28:51 It'll take you about five minutes.
28:52 I'm gonna recommend you get crazy
28:54 and add another five minutes on there.
28:55 We just listen to God.
28:57 Maybe just say, "God, what do you wanna say to me?"
29:00 You don't have to do that, that's a plan,
29:02 but what I will suggest is that you
29:05 continue or start the habit of slowing before God
29:11 five, 10 minutes a day and watch it grow.
29:16 If you'd like to do that plan or do whatever
29:19 helps you grow in and with God,
29:20 that you're gonna commit in the next seven days,
29:22 I am slowing before the Father.
29:24 Would you lift up your hands right now?
29:25 Just lift them up, all of our churches,
29:27 tons of you, praise God for you.
29:29 Online, you can just say, "I'm committing to slow down
29:33 "and spend time with my Father.
29:34 "I'm committing to slow down."
29:36 Father, I thank you in advance of
29:38 what we're gonna experience, your grace, your goodness,
29:42 your kindness, your gentleness, your loving conviction.
29:49 You're gonna direct our steps,
29:50 we're gonna hear from heaven.
29:52 God, I thank you for what you're gonna say to us,
29:55 what you're gonna do in us,
29:57 and what you're gonna do through us
29:59 as we slow down to enjoy your goodness,
30:03 to be still and know who you are,
30:05 your God, supreme King, ruler, Lord, Savior,
30:10 the rock, our redemption,
30:12 the soon returning King of all kings.
30:15 As you keep praying today,
30:18 some of you will be like, "You know, I might do that,
30:20 "but I don't even know where I'd start.
30:22 "I don't know where I stand with God."
30:25 And if that's you today, I just wanna say,
30:27 "Hey, congratulations on being here,
30:29 "because God wants to do something
30:31 "very, very special in your life."
30:33 We talked about Jesus who never sinned
30:36 and gave his life on a cross.
30:37 Why did he do that?
30:39 If we sat down and had an honest conversation,
30:43 and we talked about God, you'd say,
30:45 "Hey, I know I've done some stuff wrong.
30:47 "I might feel guilty for it,
30:48 "but I'm trying to be a good person.
30:49 "I wanna be good enough for God," or whatever.
30:51 And I would just point you to God's Word that says,
30:54 "Every single one of us have sinned.
30:55 "We all have.
30:56 "You have, I have, and none of us are good enough for God."
30:59 And that's why the gospel means good news.
31:03 God in his love and grace sent Jesus, his Son,
31:07 who was without sin.
31:09 Therefore, he could give his life on a cross
31:12 for the forgiveness of our sins.
31:15 Jesus died in our place,
31:18 and God raised him from the dead
31:20 so that our sins would not be held against us today.
31:23 If you don't know where you stand with God,
31:26 if you feel guilty for your sins,
31:27 all we're gonna do is we're gonna step away from our sins.
31:30 We're gonna step toward Jesus.
31:31 We're gonna trust him that he's enough.
31:33 Scripture says that we are saved, we're made right with God,
31:36 not by our good works, but our faith in Jesus.
31:39 And today, there are those of you that God brought here
31:41 to say yes to him.
31:43 The weight of your sin is holding you back.
31:45 The guilt of some things is holding you down.
31:47 When you confess your sins,
31:49 God is faithful and just to forgive your sins
31:51 and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
31:53 Those of you online or at any of our churches who say,
31:56 "I need his grace, I need his forgiveness.
31:57 "I don't know him personally, but I want to."
32:00 You will never know him without intentionality.
32:02 Today is your first step.
32:03 You step away from your sin.
32:05 You step toward him.
32:06 You call on his name.
32:07 And when you do, he hears your prayers.
32:09 He forgives your sins, and you will be brand new.
32:12 And all our churches today, those who say,
32:13 "Yes, I need him.
32:15 "Yes, I need to trust him.
32:16 "Yes, I want his forgiveness.
32:17 "Today, I surrender my life to him."
32:19 That's your prayer.
32:20 Lift your hands high right now, all over the place.
32:22 Right there, praise God for you.
32:23 Oh my gosh, three, four of you.
32:25 All of you here together, praise God for that.
32:28 Others today say, "Yes, Jesus," right over here,
32:30 right back up here.
32:32 Oh, come on, church, let's worship God.
32:34 Right back over here in this section saying, "Yes, Jesus."
32:37 Online, just type in the comment section,
32:39 "I'm surrendering my life to him."
32:41 Church, we're not praying for revival.
32:43 Come on, somebody, we're living right in the middle of one.
32:46 Why don't you just stand to your feet today?
32:49 Stand to your feet all over the room,
32:51 and we're gonna pray together.
32:53 Pray aloud, pray, Heavenly Father.
32:56 I trust you to save me, to forgive me, to make me new.
33:01 Jesus, transform me, fill me with your spirit
33:07 so I could know you and serve you and follow you
33:11 all the days of my life.
33:14 I commit to put time aside to know you,
33:19 to hear from you, and to do your will.
33:23 Thank you for new life.
33:26 You have all of mine.
33:27 In Jesus' name I pray.
33:30 Can somebody worship God?
33:31 Can somebody give him praise?
33:32 Somebody tell him thank you for who he is.
33:35 Did this message on healthy habits speak to you?
33:38 Well, we've got even more videos ready for you right now.
33:41 Click here to access more content on habits.
33:44 (upbeat music)