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Rooted: What It Actually Takes to Stay Grounded · The Grove Church

• 0:01
  Charlie Loften: Hello, and welcome to The Grove Church podcast. I'm Charlie Loften, the lead pastor there, and we are so glad that you're joining us. Whether you are a member and you're just catching up on a sermon that you missed or you're someone who's brand new, we are really glad that you were joining us. And if you are new in some way, and I know that a lot of people will do that, we'll listen to sermons first before they visit. I want you to know that we would love to meet you at any point.
• 0:25
  You can join us live in our services on Sunday, nine and 10:30 or our streaming service at 10:30. Either way, we would love to be able to get to know you. And regardless of why you are here listening to this sermon today, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, good morning. If you are new, I'm Charlie, I'm the lead pastor here, and really glad you are here.
• 0:46
  And if you are new, I would love to meet you. If I have not gotten the opportunity yet, right after the service, I'll be back there. We have a gift we'd love to give you, we'd love to find out how you found us, and any way that we can help you, we would love to know. So I'd love to meet you after the service. Also, if you were here a couple of weeks ago, we prayed for and commissioned out our team that was going to Costa Rica, and they left last weekend and got back in on Friday, and several of them are here today.
• 1:13
  So welcome back. We are so glad. I've gotten to hear already just a little bit about, it sounds like it's a great trip, and can't wait to hear more, and we will all be able to see and hear more about what was going on there over the next couple of weeks. Also, there was a couple that was here, first service, they're relatively new to the church, but actually spent the summer in East Asia on a mission trip. And it was really cool to see them again, to hear their stories about what God's doing.
• 1:43
  And it's just really cool that this summer, just like so many summers before, just to see people from our church going all over the world to share the hope of Jesus. And I get kind of reflective at this time, because it was August 1, sixteen years ago, when our family moved here. We moved here that weekend, and the very first Sunday we preached was August 1. And so just to think about everything that's happened in the sixteen years since then, and I feel like I need to share this story, because it's such an important part of Grove Church lore. So we moved here sixteen years ago, a whole family.
• 2:21
  And on that very first Sunday, we were learning a little bit about The Grove and the people and everything, and they found out that Grove people kind of this shorthand called themselves grovers. They're called grovers, which that's cool. And my wife had what I thought was a genius idea. Why don't you get a super Grover t shirt and preach in it on that very first Sunday? Like, you're there, Grover.
• 2:42
  You're the new lead pastor. You're super Grover. You preach in that. It'll be funny. It'll be really cool.
• 2:46
  It'll be a nice cool way to introduce yourself. Like, yeah, I mean, that's kind of my vibe. I'm of a guy that would do that.
• 2:51
  Charlie Loften: I said, I think this will
• 2:52
  Charlie Loften: be perfect. And so we did that, and I learned two things that day. And for those of you who were here that day, we've got a few, I can see, you'll remember this. The first thing that
• 3:03
  Charlie Loften: I learned, no offense, is that Grove
• 3:06
  Charlie Loften: people in 2010 did not have a sense of humor. It was not funny to them at all. You could see buyer's remorse everywhere that you looked. It was just like, I can't believe this is what we did. The second thing that I learned, I'll show you this.
• 3:20
  Charlie Loften: This is actually the shirt that I wore.
• 3:24
  Charlie Loften: This is it, Super Grover. It's 16 years old. It's a little faded now, but maybe there you can see the Super Grover there. You'll notice one of the most defining characteristic of this shirt is that it is a gray t shirt. That's important for the second thing that I learned, which is that the building we're in at the time did not have adequate cooling.
• 3:45
  And the thing that the church learned that day was I'm a prolific sweater. And so if you're struggling with me in the first place, like why is this guy wearing a Muppet shirt, but also a sweatband right here? It was a day. It was a day, but we got through it. And sixteen years later, here we are.
• 4:07
  And it really is cool just to think about the church that we were then and the church that we have been, the church that we are, the church that we are becoming, and to think about all the really cool things that God has done, again, globally, just sending people for short term, for longer term, to places all over the world, the impact that we're able to have in our community by meeting needs from backpacks to our food pantry, to our community care ministry, and the way that we love and support the people who are in need in our community, in the way that we have created a space that I believe that is that is beautiful. Where no matter who you are, no matter where you've come from, no matter what your background is, we've created a place, a safe place for anyone and everyone to hear the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and a place of great community where people can really find their people. And again, that those people then can take and share that hope with the world. And as I think about who we have been and where we're becoming, I think it is really important for us to strengthen all of those things, to become even more the church that God has called us to be, to be even more committed to this mission, this vision that God has given us, and the kind of impact that he is calling us to have.
• 5:29
  And so what we're going to do for the next three weeks is we're going to spend some time just working our way through our mission statement, and breaking them down into different parts. And basically, then also with each week, we're going to have an application point, kind of a collective thing, a commitment, a goal that we are going to make together as a church. And here is our mission statement that some of you will be familiar with, you've heard me say it, inviting Northwest Arkansas to know Jesus, pursue meaningful relationships, and to share His hope with the world.
• 6:07
  Charlie Loften: Now there's three different ideas here. Right? The first
• 6:11
  Charlie Loften: one is we want people to know Jesus. And really, it's kinda two different aspects to that. There's the people who just don't know him at all. People that we've created a place where if you don't know who Jesus is, you're still exploring that. You've not fully given your life to him, but you're you're curious.
• 6:27
  You're interested. We want this to be a place where when you come here, you you can get to know
• 6:33
  Charlie Loften: who he is. But also, for those of
• 6:35
  Charlie Loften: us who have taken that first step and and have come to know him, that we can know him, that we could grow in our, not just our knowledge about who God is, but our heart and our passion and our commitment are really to know him well. And then we also believe that if we're gonna grow in this relationship, if we're gonna grow in our faith and just grow as a person, that happens in the context of meaningful relationships. There are a lot
• 7:04
  Charlie Loften: of us that are living life alone, and you can
• 7:07
  Charlie Loften: be alone in a crowd of people. You can come to church and be surrounded by people and be alone. You can be in a neighborhood full of people. You can to be hearty. You can be at work.
• 7:15
  Charlie Loften: You can be surrounded by people, but feel alone because you haven't found your people. And we want this to be a place where you can find your people,
• 7:24
  Charlie Loften: people that care about you, that are taking initiative with you, that that that can that you can love well and that and that will love you well, and we can build these relationships because real growth happens in the context of these sorts of relationships. And then this mission that God has given us is recursive. I I come to know Jesus. I grow in my faith through meaningful relationships, and then God has called me out then to do the same, to take that hope that he has given me and to share it with the world that is desperate for
• 7:56
  Charlie Loften: it. And this
• 7:57
  Charlie Loften: is the mission that God has given us, and we're gonna spend the next three weeks breaking them down into three different parts. And what we're not going to do, we're not going to tell you, I'm not going say everything there is today about what it means to know Jesus, or next week what it means to build meaningful relationships. We're to talk about it in general, but really kind of focus in on one specific thing. One specific way, rather than feel like we've got to do everything, let's just focus on one idea, one thing that if we made a commitment to this year, would help us to know Jesus better, to build meaningful relationships, and to be people who are sharing his hope with the world. And so today, we're going to be really looking at the importance of God's word and the role that it can play in our lives to help us to really know Jesus well.
• 8:44
  And the and the passage we're going to look at today is in Psalm chapter one. Look at the whole Psalm, and it is it's six verses. Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law
• 9:05
  Charlie Loften: of the Lord and who meditates on
• 9:07
  Charlie Loften: his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever they do prospers. Not so the wicked, they are like chaff, but the wind blows away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
• 9:30
  For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. Very simple idea, I think, that he communicates here. It's very simple, but instead incredibly profound as well. It's like, it's you're blessed. You're blessed if you can somehow not fall into this trap that wicked people fall into.
• 9:52
  But instead, you can be someone who is meditating deeply on God's word. And when this happens, you'll
• 9:57
  Charlie Loften: be strong. You'll be strong, and you'll be
• 10:00
  Charlie Loften: able to like a tree that takes in all the resources it need, a tree right by the river that has everything it ever needs all the time and can grow strong. And no matter what happens, it'll stay strong. You won't be blown away. And you can be strong in this life, and
• 10:15
  Charlie Loften: you have confidence then in the next life. This is what this is
• 10:20
  Charlie Loften: what the author this is
• 10:21
  Charlie Loften: what God is trying to communicate to us. This is who we can be. If we if we we can be blessed if we reject this, embrace this, and then we can be strong in this life, and that carries over to the next. So let's just kinda break this down one piece at a time. Verse one, blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers.
• 10:56
  Charlie Loften: What I think we learn here is this,
• 10:57
  Charlie Loften: is that we are blessed we are blessed when we separate ourselves from sin. We separate ourselves from sin.
• 11:05
  Charlie Loften: Again, I wanna I wanna say that very precisely, because I do not believe that what he's saying is we separating ourselves from people who are sinning. Even though it can give you that impression, it really is more about you separating yourself from sin becoming a part of who you are. Like, I don't want sin to be a part of me. Because the last thing I want you to hear when it says here, man, you need to you don't want to sit with them. You don't want to walk with them.
• 11:31
  You don't want to stand with them. You want to keep away from sinners. That's actually not what he's communicating here. What he's communicating here is like, I don't want to walk in the step. I don't want to walk in the way that they walk.
• 11:45
  I don't want to stand, and I don't want to take stands. Right? I don't want to
• 11:49
  Charlie Loften: stand where they stand. And when it
• 11:51
  Charlie Loften: says sit with them, right, we just talked about we want this to be a
• 11:55
  Charlie Loften: place that no matter who you are, you can come here and hear the truth about who Jesus is. And if you're gonna come here, we hope you'll sit, and we'll then have to sit with you. Right?
• 12:06
  Charlie Loften: And so it's not it's not like that. It's not like that. Imagine more like a council. Like the council is seated. I do not want to sit in this council.
• 12:17
  I mean, it's kind of a weird thing to think about. Well, there's a council of people, and it is their job to talk about being sinners, and how big a sinner we can be, and how much sin we can possibly do, and what's the best way to do sin. Like, I don't I wanna be I
• 12:30
  Charlie Loften: don't wanna be over there plotting sin. I want to keep myself away from that. And if you've been here more than once, I'm sure you have heard me say this. And there's a world out there full of hate and division that is destroying people. There are systems and ways of thinking and ways of approaching life that will eat your soul from the inside out.
• 13:01
  Charlie Loften: Things that people do, things that people say, people the way that people treat each other,
• 13:04
  Charlie Loften: the way things that are happening in people's hearts, and you can see it, and it's corrosive. And while God has called us to bring hope to those people, we do not want to sit in their counsel. We do not want to follow them. We don't want to take stands with them. We want to
• 13:25
  Charlie Loften: be with them but not be a part of it. I'll use this metaphor. It is not basketball season. It is only August. However, however, the Arkansas Razorback basketball team is playing in this kind of exhibition tournament in Bahamas.
• 13:41
  So a little bit this weekend, it has been basketball season, which has in front of mind my apologies. Not really. I don't really apologize because I would stop doing it if I cared. I'm going keep doing it. So I go to all the games.
• 13:53
  And one of the things that I don't really like is when somebody close to me apparently has sold their season ticket and sold it
• 13:59
  Charlie Loften: to somebody from
• 14:02
  Charlie Loften: the other team. Like, you're in my house. And if you're going to come to my house, and you're going to you can't can't act
• 14:07
  Charlie Loften: anyways. So
• 14:08
  Charlie Loften: you gotta you gotta behave yourself. It's fine. You gotta come here and root for your team, but you you came to my house, our house, you can't act a fool, and some people do. So I'll tell you what I did. One of the times that I did this, and I'll do respect to some of the
• 14:21
  Charlie Loften: fans that are sitting here, like right here, I went to
• 14:26
  Charlie Loften: a Mizzou basketball game, saw the Razorbacks play Mizzou, and a Mizzou fan, alumni, he brought me, he took me with him, he paid for the ticket. It was a really nice time, it's been several years ago. And I decided I made a decision. I was not going to wear a Razorback t shirt. I was going to be cool.
• 14:44
  I certainly was not going to wear Mizzou colors. I wore just a neutral shirt. And I was respectful. I didn't stand up and whoop. I didn't point at my friend or anything like this, maybe just golf claps.
• 14:57
  In my heart, I was having a great time because we did win that game. And I was just like this, no taunting, no laughing, nothing like that. I was being who I was, but there was this great environment, right? And we're all, everybody here in
• 15:11
  Charlie Loften: this environment is after one thing, and then there's me. I am. I'm glad to be here with you. But I'm not sitting in your council.
• 15:20
  Charlie Loften: I'm sitting in your arena. I'm not sitting in your council, right? I'm not with you. What you're on about is Mizzou basketball. I can't be a part of that, but I can't
• 15:31
  Charlie Loften: be with you. Sorry for the metaphor. It's a good one. Sorry, due all due respect. I want to be engaged with the world.
• 15:45
  I want to love people well, but
• 15:47
  Charlie Loften: I can't I can't I can't my heart can't be there. There are corrupting forces out there in our world, and we can feel them. We know when, like, when I'm doing it, when I'm with them, I'm engaged, it's corroding me. And you will be blessed if you can separate yourself from that. Again, not the mission to bring the love and life and hope and the gospel of Jesus to them, but from their counsel, from their path, I'll be blessed.
• 16:16
  And not only that, you know, not only will you be blessed if you can separate yourself from that, but you'll be blessed for those whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on His law day and night. Rather than sitting here in this council and letting this idea, this motivation, this morality take root inside of my life. I'm going to separate myself from this, but rather than that, I'm going to
• 16:40
  Charlie Loften: let God's word deeply rest inside of me. I'm going to
• 16:45
  Charlie Loften: let it be a part of me. I'm going let that be the counsel that I take. And we'll say it this way, We're blessed when we separate from sin and when we dedicate our hearts and minds to God's word. When I take it and I let it really sink in, there is something. There are something, a series of some things, a group of
• 17:07
  Charlie Loften: some things that you're allowing to kind of settle into you to make you decide who you're going to be, the type
• 17:17
  Charlie Loften: of character you're going to have, the values that
• 17:19
  Charlie Loften: you have, the morality that you have, the decisions that you make, the culture that
• 17:23
  Charlie Loften: you have at work, the culture in your family, the culture in the world, the culture in your social media, the things that you are consuming. The things that you are consuming are having a collective influence on you and are helping you become who it is that you're ultimately becoming. And you're gonna be blessed if you can separate your heart at least from the way that the wicked think, the corrosive ideas and influences that are out there in the world. I can separate myself from that. But instead, I'm going to allow myself to be filled with what God has to say.
• 18:05
  If I want to be blessed, I want to become the man, the woman that God has called me to be, I'm gonna be blessed if I can do this twofold thing. I'm gonna set my separate myself from the really unwise counsel and and and deeply get into what it is that God has called me to be. And really, it is a daily pursuit. It is a daily pursuit that we have to live. This is something that we have to strive for.
• 18:31
  This is not the kind of thing I come to church once a week. I'm, quote, trying to be a good person. There is a daily pursuit and maintenance and life and things like a person that I need to be becoming. If I want to become the person that God has called
• 18:44
  Charlie Loften: me to be, the real work was done by Jesus. But there is some real life maintenance that needs to happen that I need to be diligent to that.
• 18:54
  Charlie Loften: I need to be diligent to separate here. I need to be diligent to kind
• 18:58
  Charlie Loften: of take in what
• 19:01
  Charlie Loften: it is that what it is I need to hear, what I need to believe, what
• 19:05
  Charlie Loften: I need to do. I'm gonna use this metaphor, and I apologize in advance.
• 19:09
  Charlie Loften: It may not work. It it just may not work. I got a metaphor here. It may not work, and you're like, bro, the only reason you think this work is because it is your current obsession of the moment. So let me explain this to you.
• 19:19
  So please, please feel free after the service to be like, well, whatever. Right? Okay. So as some of you know, not everybody does, two years ago, Heidi's mom, she moved in with us, and we made a decision that she was gonna sell her place, we're gonna sell our place and buy a house together so that she could have her own space, we could have our own space, but we
• 19:38
  Charlie Loften: could be there together to kind of take care of her, right?
• 19:41
  Charlie Loften: And so we did that about two years ago, and this house that we got together came with a pool. And I've learned a couple of things from that. One, I know everybody in our family, including me, I love a pool. Pool is great, love a pool. You know what I don't love?
• 19:55
  Taking care of that thing, taking care of it, taking care of it. I've had some nasty fights with this thing, and it's interesting. Green is now my least favorite color in the world. I hate it. I see green, I just hate it.
• 20:10
  We were recently
• 20:11
  Charlie Loften: I'm not
• 20:12
  Charlie Loften: trying to do a bit here, but it's what it's called. We're recently at the Gulf Of America. Anyways, it was green. Of course, it's green. It's the Gulf, right?
• 20:21
  It's salt. But it was like told him, was like, I'm a little triggered by this. Why is the water green? How much chlorine do we have to put into this thing to get this thing not be green anymore? And I've learned, I've had to learn a lot in order to keep the pool from being green.
• 20:37
  And interestingly enough, blue is now my favorite color, which in basketball season will become my least favorite color. It's just kind of how it works. Summer, blue's good. Fall and winter blue is bad. So we just kinda we just kinda we're kinda different seasons here.
• 20:49
  Anyways, I think I've got it figured out.
• 20:52
  Charlie Loften: It's been blue for a while now. Took a lot of work, a lot of work to get that thing blue, to get it to where it was fine.
• 21:03
  Charlie Loften: But I'm telling you, there is a constant battle that is happening. The sun isn't helping. The shade isn't helping. You think one of those could help? Nope, they're both bad.
• 21:13
  The things from the trees in the back blow into the yard constantly, constantly. Everything that blows into that's a problem. And if it takes root, it's going to cause algae. Then all of a sudden, now green is going to happen. And so I've constantly got to be getting all of this stuff out of there.
• 21:27
  And there's things that I have to do. I have to do it every day. Have to do it every day. It happens every day. I'll be heading out.
• 21:33
  Hadi's like, what you're about to do? It's like, I got to
• 21:35
  Charlie Loften: go do my part time job. I got a
• 21:37
  Charlie Loften: part time job, I got to go do it. Summer job, got a
• 21:39
  Charlie Loften: little summer
• 21:40
  Charlie Loften: gig, I gotta go do it. I gotta go do it. And there's a little bit that I have to do every day. Take care of the bottom, make sure that's getting cleaned, get all the stuff off the top, and I have to go and I check these chemicals, and it's so immensely complicated. This has to be in this range, but this also has to be in this.
• 21:53
  And if this gets here, and then this will
• 21:55
  Charlie Loften: happen here. It's really complicated. What's happened is me, Chad GBT,
• 22:01
  Charlie Loften: people that I know that have a pool, and the good people at Burton Pools and Spas who will take
• 22:06
  Charlie Loften: a sample of my water and tell me what these numbers are. Together, we're working this out, keeping the pool clean, helping it to be the kind of pool that it needs to be, doing the little bit of work every day to make this thing become what it needs to become. The daily maintenance that it takes. Because here's the thing that
• 22:30
  Charlie Loften: I know. I tell you I've got it worked out. There's also going to come a time, and it happened once, and we got through it, where something happened I didn't know. I didn't know this could happen. I didn't know this was an option.
• 22:42
  And it did, and all of a sudden my pool started turning a little bit green. This was about a month ago. And again, me,
• 22:49
  Charlie Loften: AI, people that I know, a pool company, all working together to figure this out, to get it right back where it needs to. And I'm sure there is more to come.
• 23:05
  Charlie Loften: There is more that is gonna get thrown at this pool
• 23:08
  Charlie Loften: that is gonna try to destabilize it. The more that I learn,
• 23:15
  Charlie Loften: the more that I grow, the more the the longer I keep the the more con as and I consistently do the maintenance,
• 23:24
  Charlie Loften: the pool's gonna stay good. This is my life. Right? My my my my life is a pool that if if I get I
• 23:36
  Charlie Loften: let a little bit too much of this gunk get in there and I let it set in, there's gonna be a there's gonna be
• 23:42
  Charlie Loften: a problem. And with just a little bit of maintenance, every day, a little bit work, a little focused diligence, I can I can I can I can keep this stuff from taking root and be the man that God has called me to be?
• 23:57
  Charlie Loften: And, again, I do not want to switch into some sort of form of legalism here. It's like, if you don't read your bible every day, then da da da da da.
• 24:04
  Charlie Loften: It's not like that. But I do know I don't have to do pool maintenance every day. I should. And the longer I go in between it, the more problems there's going to be. So here's what I would
• 24:19
  Charlie Loften: like for Sue. Here's our goal. Here's our year long objective that I would like for us to take, is I want us to read through the New Testament together this year. So here's what we're going to do. And if you are a reader of the email that we send out every week, and I know that you're not because there was a thing that you could click and a thing that you're supposed to do, you didn't, which is fine.
• 24:37
  Well, it's not 100% fine, but it has elements of fine. If you go to the Bible app, the YouVersion app right here, you open it up, open it up right here, right down here at the bottom, there's a little magnifying glass Discover. And right there at the top where it says search, you can put
• 24:53
  Charlie Loften: in The Grove Church. And this is the part where
• 24:55
  Charlie Loften: I can't help you with, but we are helping you a little bit. There's a lot of Grove churches. You have to make sure that what you click matches that logo right there on the screen. And you can join that. And we are in the process of becoming fully formed here.
• 25:09
  There'll be lots of other features and things that we can do. But if you will do that, then you'll see right there a plan where we were reading through the New Testament together. Now I thought about a lot of different things. We could read through the whole Bible together, which is a really great endeavor. I encourage you to do it if you never have.
• 25:26
  That really is more of a study of kind of consuming everything here in a year. But reading through the New Testament is a different sort of thing. It is a small amount that you'll be reading every day, which is great for new people that are new to this. But even if you're not new to reading the Bible, having a small amount that you're reading, even if you're also doing some bigger plan where you're reading a lot, but I've
• 25:48
  Charlie Loften: got this one thing that I'm meditating on.
• 25:52
  Charlie Loften: I read this much. I'm learning. I read a little bit, and I spend the day thinking about that. I'm meditating on it. What specifically is it that God
• 26:01
  Charlie Loften: is trying to communicate to me about this? And so even though I
• 26:05
  Charlie Loften: mean, it's not it's not a big task in the sense
• 26:08
  Charlie Loften: that it will take a lot of time from you every day to do this. But I think the big
• 26:12
  Charlie Loften: part big challenge is to do it consistently, to do it for the whole year, and to be talking to one another about it. Again, we're gonna more and more of this is gonna unfold. But let's just go ahead and get started. Let's go ahead and get started and start reading through this together and just talking about it and meditating on it and allowing this thing to happen that the that that the Psalm here promises. I rid myself of this.
• 26:39
  I I I fill myself with this. And what happens? That person is like a
• 26:47
  Charlie Loften: tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, and whose leaf does not wither, whatever they do prospers, not so the wicked, they are like chaff, that the wind blows away. Alright. You got a
• 27:05
  Charlie Loften: couple of choices. You can be like a tree by the water that has its roots deep and gets everything that it needs all the time. And no matter what happens, no matter we get throw gets thrown at it, it stays strong. Or it can be like some cut branch or some cut piece of wheat that is just kind of wherever the wind takes it. What happens?
• 27:24
  It just go. It does get to decide. It doesn't
• 27:28
  Charlie Loften: get to it just goes wherever. These are our choices. And we are blessed when we separate from sin and dedicate our hearts and minds to God, and then we will be grounded. And
• 27:41
  Charlie Loften: then we will be grounded and prepared for whatever life brings.
• 27:45
  Charlie Loften: Like a tree deeply rooted in the river,
• 27:51
  Charlie Loften: unmovable. No matter the season, no matter what happens, that tree remains firmly planted right where it is, becoming a stronger and better tree all the time. Not blown away by the latest idea, the latest fad, some some new obstacle, some some new thing that happens that just kind of unmakes me that that can undo
• 28:27
  Charlie Loften: you. Adversity, trauma, a a a a a tragedy of some type, a transition of some time, man, life comes at you hard, and our roots have to
• 28:40
  Charlie Loften: be grounded. If we're gonna be the men and women God called us to
• 28:43
  Charlie Loften: be long term, we need strong roots. And and we need
• 28:48
  Charlie Loften: to we we need to be able to be strong because there is so much coming at you all the time, pushing you towards something else, to become someone or something else. But we can be grounded. I stay away from here. I let God do this thing here.
• 29:06
  Charlie Loften: Just to keep
• 29:09
  Charlie Loften: with pool and water metaphors. Right? I mean, you're in
• 29:11
  Charlie Loften: the pool Again,
• 29:13
  Charlie Loften: we're not talking about the chlorine. Please, let's not talk about that anymore. Just talking about you in the pool. Oh, nothing. You're just in
• 29:18
  Charlie Loften: the pool. It's a calm little pool.
• 29:22
  Charlie Loften: Contrast that to a couple of beaches I've been to over the last year or so. Right? You go to that from the to to the Gulf. And when you're in the Gulf, there's waves, right? And they can knock you around, right?
• 29:34
  And you have to you have to stand a certain way. You have to be ready for it or otherwise, you know, it could it can it can move you around. But this this summer, I had a speaking thing and I took my oldest daughter with me and we actually were on the the ocean side and went and and went there and it was the first time she had been there And I don't know if you've been outside. I mean, is where Arkansans do. We we just we go to the Panhandle.
• 29:59
  Beach is Panhandle, right?
• 30:00
  Charlie Loften: We just it's where we go down there, right? To the gulf. There
• 30:05
  Charlie Loften: is a difference between the gulf and the ocean. Those ocean waves, they'll knock you out. And it's not the first one that gets you. The first one you see it coming, and you do something,
• 30:16
  Charlie Loften: go, Okay.
• 30:17
  Charlie Loften: And then you go, whew. And then what happens? It's that next one. And that next one will make you do a flip. It'll knock you clean out, right?
• 30:27
  This is what
• 30:27
  Charlie Loften: happens. Life's a lot more like that.
• 30:34
  Charlie Loften: A relentless series of waves that if you don't have a plan, a strategy, a firm solid base, you're going to get knocked out, knocked around everywhere. Depending on where the current is, you're to end up someplace you don't mean to be, further out than you mean to be, further in than mean be, further down than you mean to be. And this is what I do, where everybody else maybe is on their floaties. I'm standing on the ground and I've got this point of focus there on
• 31:02
  Charlie Loften: the shore where our stuff is. And I've got
• 31:06
  Charlie Loften: a point over here. This is this is where we're wanting to be. And it actually takes a decent amount of work and a body of water that is moving to just stay in the place where you want to stay. And we're trying to actually do a little bit more than that. We're trying to do more than just stay where we are.
• 31:31
  We're trying to grow. We're trying to thrive. We're trying to become. While there are waves crashing down all around us, pushing and pulling us to all sorts of different places. But if we can remove ourselves from this council and we can fill ourselves with the truth and the encouragement that comes from taking in fully God's word, We will not only stand firm, we will thrive and grow.
• 32:04
  Let me pray. God, I thank you so much. I thank you for that really simple idea in really simple Psalm. And God, I pray that it would take root in us, that this would be a year of the word for us, That it would be for those of us who have it as a rhythm already, God, that you would break us out of routine and into real nourishment and refreshment and to meditating on your word. And for, God, that those of us, this is a lost habit.
• 32:43
  I pray that we recapture it. And for those that it's brand new, I have to take we would just take the step. God, we no longer want to be people just blown about by wind and waves, But we want to be able to stand stand strong, stand firm not resting in past confidence or arrogance but doing the maintenance god that we need to do to stay strong, to thrive, and so god, I pray that each and every day, you'd be teaching us, growing us, establishing us, and helping us become the men and women god that you we know that you've called us to be. Not just simply to survive but to thrive. And as always, we're so thankful for the gospel of your son, Jesus Christ, the life that he lived, the death that he died, the resurrection that he did to conquer death that makes all of this even possible, and it's in his name that we pray, amen.
• 34:03
  Thanks again for joining us on our in I'm future. I'm you're culture or theology, those kinds of things, you can check out our cultivate podcast. It's on the same feed, however you found this particular podcast. So again, this is Charlie, the lead pastor at The Grove, and thank you so much for joining us.