Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / December 21, 2025 | Streak - Getting Started

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December 21, 2025 | Streak - Getting Started · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, disco ball's gonna drop down from the ceiling.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna we're gonna have a good time.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, uh so glad to be with you this morning.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And these this week and next week, we are going on a bit of a a change of pace considering where we've been, four months in the book of Ephesians, and uh starting in January, three months in the book of Judges, right?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so a little bit of a change of pace, a breather for us all, really practical, hopefully, this morning and next week, focused on what does it mean uh right for us to set some goals in 2026 about growing closer with Christ?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that look like?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get started and how do we keep going?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're anything like me, right, I love setting goals.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I love having something to work towards, I love having something that I can track and measure.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh maybe for you, 2026 is the year where you're finally gonna lose those pounds, read those books, and take on that new hobby, right?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think that the era of sourdough bread has ended, and we are looking for a new hobby for people to pick up on.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully just as tasty.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're really on top of your game, you're going to be setting something in 2026 that sounds like I want to grow closer to the Lord this year.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know him more deeply, more fully, to understand and to seek out his presence.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the question becomes, how are you going to do that?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: What does it look like to say, not just have that goal, but have things that back it up throughout the year?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the great answer for us is that for about 2,000 years, Christians have been working on this problem.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: The answer comes to us in saying that it is about creating a lifestyle of rhythms or disciplines that promotes spiritual growth.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: About creating a lifestyle of rhythms or disciplines that promotes spiritual growth.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hear me well, this is not the only way we might say we chase after that proximity, that relationship with God.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: But if you look through the centuries, those who have brought some level of order and structure, a framework, if you will, into their relationship with God, they have found, generally speaking, that it is much easier to climb that ladder and to grow closer with God because intention and effort has been put forward into the practice.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so this morning, what we're doing is we're really splitting up a list of 12 different disciplines into two different weeks.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: This morning is focused on the inner, the personal, right, the private, uh, those things that are really just between us and God.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Next week we'll look at the external, the communal, the types of activities that are done in community with other people.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we split up this list, and I give you the number 12, hear me well.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, the point is not all 12, right?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's as we're looking towards 2026, we're gonna say, what does it look like to take on one or two and to really grow on them, focus on them in the new year?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: A great place for us to begin, um, even just speaking about spiritual disciplines, is in Paul's letter to his young mentee Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 4.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: There, Timothy was a young leader at his church and had a lot of zeal and excitement for the Lord.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul, his mentor, his spiritual leader, writes to him, telling him, Timothy, this is how, uh, this is one of the ways, at least, that you should be sort of directing all of that energy for Christ into something that is going to produce lasting change.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: In 1 Timothy 4, verses 7 through 8, Paul says, But have nothing to do with pointless and silly myths.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, train yourself in godliness.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: For the training of the body has limited benefit, but godliness is beneficial in every way, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Living in a Greek Roman culture, right, everyone is obsessed with body image, okay?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: You've seen what those folks decided to carve out of marble, okay?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of people with not a lot of clothes on, all right?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: They were obsessed with the body, the beautiful body, the athletic body, right?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: We've got the Olympics coming from them.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so this image of an athlete that is training, okay, is pervasive in their culture.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: These are the celebrities of the day, those who are disciplined and have trained their bodies such that they can do these amazing acts that everyone admires.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul takes that concept and he's like, okay, you're familiar with the athlete, you're familiar with their training.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: What if, okay, you took some of that same kind of discipline, same kind of effort, and now began to apply it to the spiritual life.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: What might happen there?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: He says, training for the body, it has benefit, it's good, right?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: It has things that are produced that are valuable for this life, but he goes, the life of one who is seeking to train in the spirit, who is growing in godliness, looking more and more like Christ every day, they are the ones who have truly found something valuable.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when Paul is talking to Timothy here, he begins by saying that you should have nothing to do with pointless and silly myths.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And in context, what's happening is that there are some folks, some Christians around Timothy, who in their faith are doing foolish things, right?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily harmful things.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're not great, but they're focused on parts of the Christian faith that really we don't want to place focus on.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're really tied into certain practices that they say every Christian needs to abide by, and they're beginning to sort of cause some division when other people don't follow after them.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Paul, that's what this first sentence is referring to.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, have nothing to do with these pointless and silly myths.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, they're they're on a train of thought that ultimately isn't fruitful.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the first lesson to Timothy as he's beginning to understand and is connected to this training and godliness, is that you need to learn to say no.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Training means saying no, right?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: There is no great athlete.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: When I talk about great athlete, I don't mean like the guy who scored 30 at the local rec league basketball game.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm talking about those who are paid to be an athlete, okay, that we watch on TV.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: They don't go to McDonald's every single day, okay?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: They have discipline, they have structure, they have a diet, they usually have a diet coach or multiple ones, right?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: They are um basing their life around a framework that is going to produce the best results possible.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to do that, they have to learn how to say no.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you and I, we have a muscle, a no muscle in our bodies.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: For some of you, you need to learn that it exists, okay?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: It requires exercising, but it does.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's nestled somewhere in there, maybe right next to the appendix.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's just present.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this training, right, to become and to rather to train in godliness, it requires setting aside the things that are unworthy and unvaluable for our time.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you could do this for a couple different reasons, right?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're all, it's not all one place.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: On the one hand, we we might say it's to create margin.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of us have no margin in our lives.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: We are moving from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, and you've got to understand your life is not just about stacking things, continuing to divide that one pie in ever smaller pieces.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Occasionally you have to say no so that you can pick up something else.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're talking about training and godliness, that is something else.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, one reason that you would say no to these things that are unworthy, that aren't a good use of your time, aren't a good use of your energy, your mind and your thought and all of that, is because we want to create margin.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Another reason is that we want to remove distractions, right?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is telling Timothy, don't worry about these pointless and silly myths.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can almost picture him if you were right next to Timothy, going, look, they're gonna come to you and they're gonna ask you and they're gonna talk with you about it's not worth the breath that it takes to explain to them or to fight against their reasonings.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: They've got their own priorities.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: You have different ones.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: But cultivate this life that is reflective of pushing back against those things that are ultimately not wholesome or profitable, right?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: We need to learn a training even in godliness, like an athlete, means saying no.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Second, that it means training with a purpose, right?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: That there is a goal that we have in mind.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Any athlete, and this is really where I think his illustration comes to the front, is you go, okay, if you've got a somebody who's training to be a tennis athlete or volleyball or football or an F1 driver or all of these different disciplines and practices, they don't all train the same.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: They have different goals, they have different body types or skill sets that they need, right?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: There is not just one general training for an athlete.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, when you and I, when we're setting goals, it's not, I just want to be a better reader.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's well, I want to read this many books.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or I don't just want to be healthier in the next year.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's, well, I'm gonna cut out sugar, or I'm going to, you know, go on a run, or well, I'm not going on a run, but you might be going on a run, right?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: It could be your thing, it's not my thing, but when you have a goal in mind, it doesn't work to just apply it generally.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And really the hard truth there is that we're saying desire alone does not, sadly, does not always produce the results we want.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have to become more specific.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we go into 2026 and we say we're doing this with a purpose in mind, it is not simply I want to grow closer to God, but we're beginning to put things behind that in answering the how question.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get to that in just a moment.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: What are the elements that we uh bring behind us?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I think a different way to say this is that your growing in godliness, your desire to be closer with Christ is not going to happen by default.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: You don't stumble into these things.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: They don't just happen by chance and you just move through life slowly growing.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like it takes effort.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when we talk about effort, the question always becomes our motivation.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: What is ultimately motivating us into this relationship with God?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great question to ask.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because we shouldn't be motivated simply by a desire to check things off a box, right?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't be motivated certainly because somebody just told us to do these things.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't be motivated because our exclusively, because our friend did them last year and we need to one up them this year, right?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: We need to have these motivations that come from a good place.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: That place is going to come from our trust, our faith in Christ, our desire to be more close with him.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when we find that, even that ember, right, that even if it's weak, that little flame within us that says, I just want to know Jesus more.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: These practices that we're talking about, this is fanning that into a much greater burning flame in our lives and in our hearts, right?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: These practices do not do anything in and of themselves to bring you closer to God, but rather you are cultivating a life where you are focused on Him with a purpose.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Third and finally, Paul tells Timothy that this training pays off.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we just spoke about motivation, and so it's clear that Paul is not giving here primary motivations, right?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Our primary motivation for training in godliness is to be closer with our Savior, but he brings out some helpful things that I think it's okay that they they're the wind at our back.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Well, you need to know that your ROI, uh your return on this effort that you're putting into it, it's not just good for this life, Timothy, and it is good for this life.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's a better training and benefit to your life than just training the body.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not just this life, it's also the one to come.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: That if you're playing the long game, if you have that in mind, that the effort that you're putting into this life and to the cultivation, this intention, this purpose, all of those things, right?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: That what you're doing in this life will pay dividends, not just now, but when you go to be with your Savior.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: What an amazing statement that Paul could make here.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: That your training in godliness is one of the most profitable, beautiful, great uses of your time and energy that you could possibly have.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: It will not go to waste.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we do need to answer a why question here, or maybe push against an attitude that is sometimes present.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes like this: somebody says, Well, why do I need to do any of these things if my relationship with God, certainly my salvation, is based on faith alone?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: If we are saved by grace through faith, then why is it that I should have some kind of Bible reading plan in my life?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: What purpose does that follow?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Am I not supposed to be led by the Holy Spirit?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Well and good Christian, that's a fair question to ask, and it's important to divide one from the other.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's never been a prayer journal, a Bible reading plan, there's never been a certain discipline or practice that you have ever or could ever institute in your life that is going to save you.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: You are saved by the cross of Jesus Christ, you are saved by grace through faith, and explicitly is not a matter of works, so that nobody can boast.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no part of this that, I mean, makes God love you more or receive necessarily like more blessings into your life, other than the growth of growing in godliness.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: There is no part of this that makes you the better Christian or compares you one to the one next to you and says that you are higher up on the that, and there's no part of this that is just making you the number one pupil in heaven.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: What we are doing here is we are saying, if we have that desire, if the one who is asking that question truly wants to grow closer to Christ, and they do not have an answer to their own question for how they are pursuing it, maybe there is a lesson to be learned there.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you say, I want to grow closer to Jesus, and somebody asks you how, and you don't have an answer for them, might I submit to you what we're talking about this morning?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not exclusively, but perhaps optimally.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: The way that you can grow closer to Christ, not in salvation, but it is a desire to know your Savior more closely, is through creating a life of rhythms and disciplines that leads you into spiritual growth.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you're interested at all in that, there is one name that you should know, and he's a guy named Benedict.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Saint Benedict, in fact.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: You might be familiar with an order of monks today called the Benedictine order.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Saint Benedict loved talking about spiritual disciplines.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he influenced the way that we think about these things so much that it completely changed really Western thought about what spiritual growth looks like.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, Benedict, um, he said that there should be an order to life.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote on this extensively, because the human will, left to its own devices, will wander and go astray.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you have ever felt that in yourself.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly have, that when I don't have something that is sort of locking me in or guiding me, and I'm just, you know, doing it on my own volition, the results are never really what I hoped they would be.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to think that by my nature I am disciplined enough to do something without help.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: But uh studies show that I'm not, right?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so Saint Benedict, what he did was he said, and ultimately he kind of went to ten here, you know, he cranked it up and he created an order and a group of people that were based around Bible reading, work, prayer, silence, community, and all of these things.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but really he was pushing back against this notion that said the Christian who is just saying that they're going to be led by the Spirit is rarely growing in the way that somebody who has put some level of effort into a structure is growing.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not that it is about comparison necessarily, but as an individual who has the option between the two, they should choose to put effort into this kind of life.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Later writers would pick up on what Benedict was saying, and they would create this visual image of a trellis, right?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: That a vine grows on.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And they said that creating this disciplined life or this rhythmic life or practical life, whatever you want to say, right?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Creating this life was like building the trellis that then the vine grew upon.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: The fruit of the life came from the vine, not from the trellis, but it gave it something to attach itself to and to grow even higher than it would have otherwise.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so this image and the garden of this beautiful vine just growing higher and higher, this is what he had in mind.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when Benedict was talking about these kinds of things, he had certain practices in mind.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Practices that you might say you uh don't want to follow.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't want to go and become a monk.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe you do, in 2026, want to grow closer to Christ.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: You want to move a little bit deeper than the sort of surface-level Christian faith that maybe you feel has defined this last year.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you just want something more, a deeper and better relationship than you have now with Jesus.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's the case, then you might consider what we're talking about here.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: From a personal perspective, uh, you know, I go back to when I was a student pastor, we always took our high, still happens here at TBC, we take our high school students to Sky Ranch Camp.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh during June, they go for five days, and it's just a time away at this camp where we go and we, there are messages, you know, there's there's time in prayer, there's there's focus in these things, but really it's just a space to go and focus on the Lord.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: And also swim in a really awesome creek that is sort of down by there.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it tends to be the case that uh every year, once the students come back, a majority of them, I'm not trying to give blankets that a majority of the students will return saying, Man, that was the closest that I felt to Jesus this entire year.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: I felt more close with Christ or had more of those sort of what seems to be almost an elusive experience when somebody says, I just, I felt like God was near to me.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: I had those experiences when I was at Sky Ranch.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, well, how is that possible?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's nothing really special about Northeast Oklahoma in June.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's probably not what was doing it.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what is happening is we have cultivated five days that are focused on the Lord.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's no phones, there's almost no cell reception anyway, right?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's no screens.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: We are praying, we have dedicated time for prayer, dedicated time for Bible reading, dedicated time in community with one another, that is both intentionally about faith things and also just wholesomely living life together, eating together with like-minded people.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not exhaustive, right?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a crazy regiment to the day.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there's almost, if you look, this the portion of the day that is devoted to spiritual things, you might be surprised that it's not all that long.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: But generally speaking, when students come back from that experience, they say, I was closer with Christ.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, well, my life isn't summer camp, right?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: I have anxieties, I have due dates, I have things that have to happen, I have kids I need to schlep around to soccer practice, right?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: I have all of this pressure at work that's playing bail, like you don't even know.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm my car is breaking down, all of this things are just weighing on me.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds nice, but how could I ever replicate it?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is that the things that were done there in Oklahoma were more easily done because we removed ourselves from an environment that we're familiar with.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, every single thing that we do in Oklahoma can be done in your life.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: You also can have quiet minutes, quiet time for 15 minutes a day.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: You also can spend your time intentionally in Christian relationships.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: You also can say no to the distractions, some of the distractions of this life, if you really want to be intentional.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: So on and so forth.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: My point is simply that this life that we're chasing after that says that it is closer to Christ can be found to a degree in our daily mundane rhythms.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: The difficulty is that we have to introduce new rhythms into the mundane.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And in that space, at least Benedict would say, God speaks.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are some disciplines that we can pursue?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, we have twelve in this series.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're splitting them up in half.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: This morning we're looking at six.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: These are the more personal, individual, private dimensions of our faith.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I give them to you as sort of a buffet, all right?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: For you to choose one or two of these, not necessarily to do all of them all at once.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: The first one, and if you had been betting people, you would have guessed.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Bible reading.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here's one I want to press in on this particular topic.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to elevate your view of Scripture to where it should be, which is that when you go to the Bible, you are not looking for motivational verses, okay?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: You are not going necessarily just because I'm struggling with anxiety and I need a verse about anxiety today, okay?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: When you have the Bible, whether on your phone or in book or whatever it is, you're listening to it, you have God's divine word given to you in its perfection, such that all the things that you need for this life to grow in your faith are present.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: It does not answer every single question that you have, but it does answer all of the questions that you need to have answered.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, so that you can understand God's will for your life, for this world, and for the world to come.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: When we are talking about Scripture, I think, frankly, if we had lived a couple hundred years ago, maybe I should go further back in that, if we had lived about uh five, six hundred years ago, before Mr.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Gutenberg really got his printing press rolling, and we would have to travel like four towns over to find the nearest copy of Scripture, where it might just be one book or one chapter that had been handwritten and hand designed, I think we might have a greater appreciation for what it means to have God's word.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: It is so ubiquitous.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um it is so easily accessed.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is free, right?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have free copies of it out in the lobby.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible, grab one.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Such that we, I think, have lowered our view of the Bible because of its commonality, which is such a beautiful thing, and we have such easy access to it that we in fact don't access it much at all.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so the wound I want to press into is that just hearing me talk about a passage of scripture or some other teacher on a Sunday, or just going to a verse of the day on your phone, is not sufficient to mold your life around the Bible the way that God has intended it to be.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: That does not mean that you have to read the whole Bible in 90 days, okay?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it does mean that a consistent practice of scripture reading is integral to your spiritual formation.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: You need to read it or listen to it by yourself or with other people in a consistent fashion, right?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Here in a moment, once I'm done with this list, I'll give you some ways that we can incorporate this.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: But frankly, friends, it's it's right, we get this, don't we?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to it, read it, by yourself or with friends in some consistent fashion that is more frequent than just like once a month.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you are getting your oil changed in your car more often than you are reading the Bible, okay, good litmus test.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is prayer.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And these two go so closely together.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I would say if you struggle with reading the Bible, doing that in a consistent fashion, okay, you might find prayer to be a little bit easier because there isn't as much of a framework to it.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Those, like type A people, reading the Bible is a lot easier, okay?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: To the people who struggle, right, to, you know, in the personality test, like you're the Labrador Retriever or whatever, uh, prayer is probably the thing that is going to be easier for you because it is a bit more free-flowing.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there are example prayers in the Bible, right?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: We have the Lord's Prayer Jesus gives to us.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: There are prayers down throughout history that Christians have prayed that we can read them, right?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: This year I've been going through a book called The Valley of Vision, which is a collection of Puritan prayers as a part of my quiet time.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to hear some people who know how to pray, those Puritans, those East Coast folks, they've got it down, okay?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Puritans, they knew how to pray, and so I've been reading some of those.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: But really, what it is is that God tells us He wants to hear from us.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to know what you think, what you are feeling, what you are struggling with, what you desire, your hopes and your dreams and your struggles and your frustrations, and all of these things, right?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's why the psalms are such beautiful language that we can pray through, is because they are the human emotion put down into words that God has given us so that we can find some voice that might align with what we are feeling in the times when we cannot find the words ourselves.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: But prayer is this thing, this communication with our Lord that draws us close to Him.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Others use a journal, some recite these ancient prayers, some pray in groups.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: I invite you, the second Sunday of every single month, we have a prayer group that gets together here at the church where we pray for one another and pray for individuals in need.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great thing to institute.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: But prayer is one of these necessary habits.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Third is confession.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're starting to get off of the beaten path here, okay?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Confession, if you grew up Catholic, you've got to leg up on the competition here, okay?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um you are probably much more familiar with this topic.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: But what confession looks like is this posture of the heart for Christians that even after we have come to faith in Christ, right, and been covered by his blood and forgiven of our sins, that we continually go before him.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Timothy 2 says that Christ is the mediator between God and man.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: You do not need to go to a confessional booth to do it.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you go before the Lord and you simply confess to him the areas of your life where you have fallen short and you have not met his standard.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, well, what's the point of that?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't I already forgiven?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you are.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: In Christ, you are forgiven for your sins, but your sins, even post salvation, your sins still prevent you from fully experiencing your relationship with God the way that it was intended.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the way that you were designed and created by God.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: You are forgiven in Christ, but you can still feel distant from him.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: That verse in Revelation about I stand at the door and knock, but anyone who would let me in, I would enter and eat with him, right?
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: That is not a verse about salvation that's written to Christians or some people who have kept the door shut, and we need to let Jesus in.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so confession is a way that we can keep this process going, this posture of our heart.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: King David said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: He found comfort, peace, and a reminder of God's forgiveness in that.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth is silence.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now I will let you know that it wasn't until I was an adult, being an only child, that I realized not everybody loved silence.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Any only children in the room?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: We love our silence, don't we?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: We love to just sit and be quiet and have our space and could not talk for days, and we'll be okay.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: All right?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: But the kind of silence that we are talking about right now is not just being mute.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: It is an intentional desire to seek the Lord's presence.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, that sounds a little woo-woo for me.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that means.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, well, think think about like going to the movies with a friend, right?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully you're not talking during the movie.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so you bring a friend with you because you just want them near you.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: You want their presence.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you're aware, you're cognizant that they're sitting next to you and they're and they're, you know, kind of breathing the same air, okay?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully not too close, but like you enjoy and are satisfied by the fact that they are near to you.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And there's something to that and what happens when we simply desire to go and be with the Lord.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: He is with us at all times.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: He is omnipresent.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's no place we can go where the Lord is absent, and yet it often takes, especially in these things which we describe in more spiritual terms, like seeking the Lord's presence, right, or being near to him.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about it from our perspective, not his.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so what does it look like to create a space where we are not just inviting the Lord in, but going and not necessarily to hear an audible voice, but to recognize his presence.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Frankly, some of us have never even slowed down or been quiet long enough to even see if this is possible.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Occasionally I'll set a timer on my phone, go to a quiet place, and I'll just try and sit there for two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Just can I kind of go, press myself a little, go until the timer, and try not to just let my mind wander.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Try not to just fill it with various things or my to-do list, but just to be with God.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is an area of growth for you.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth is rest.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is tied very closely with silence, so I won't spend too much time here.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's also tied closely in the sense that if you struggle with silence, you also probably will struggle with rest.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Rest is something that God has baked into the human identity.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: You were made and designed for rest.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Your body does not function without it, but also your spiritual life requires it.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: God, who does not need rest, rested on the seventh day from creation as an example to humanity for how we should live.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, you followed the Sabbath day.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: In the New Testament, Jesus changes the rules a little bit, but the uh command to rest is still present.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as we are doing this rest, maybe the biggest uh sort of correction here is that rest is not mindlessly scrolling your phone for two hours before bed, okay?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Rest is not binging like half a season of a show in two days just because we had the time to do it.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Rest is intentional, it is purposeful, it is that which fills us up, rejuvenates us, energizes us such that we can go out and carry out God's will to the best of our abilities.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, this includes sleep, but it also includes other things that we have intentionally planned for and are anticipating.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you think of the way that you look forward to vacation, there's something present in that here, even in our daily life.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sixth and finally, are you ready for my curveball?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Fasting.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, fasting, fasting, fasting.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Fasting is something I'm growing in.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm new to it really this year.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was not something that I had done much before.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: I should say I hadn't done beforehand.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also somebody who has a list of favorite buffets in the top of their mind.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is this was a new thing for me.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Fasting, long story short, um, it is the again, you'll find the word intention here, right?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: The intentional practice of foregoing a meal so that you might redirect your efforts into the spiritual.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Your same energy, your thoughts, even in fact, your pangs of hunger that you feel, the discomfort is drawing you closer to the Lord in this space.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so, uh, for those of you who do like intermittent fasting, you're just like, I don't eat breakfast.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's not really what we're talking about here.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is like, I plan to eat, I'm choosing not to eat, okay, and I'm doing during that time, I'm then going to focus my attention on the Lord.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount puts this, uh, you can tell how common this is, how we could say expected this is.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: He lists fasting right after uh giving, prayer, and anxiety, okay?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not in order of importance, but in terms of like how frequently people are pursuing these things, right?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: He lists it right up there.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, frankly, many of us have never done it once.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that is not me throwing a stone, like I said.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's something new for me, too.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Jesus did it for 40 days, okay?
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: We can probably handle four hours.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so I would encourage you to think about this, and especially maybe if you're somebody who's like, I've got my Bible reading plan, I've got my prayer, I've got like my life is my trellis is pretty well formed.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is something that you can begin to incorporate.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: I know this, that was kind of you might have said that wasn't quick, but for me that was kind of quick.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Working through all of these things, the point is not to go in depth on them, but before I leave, I want to give you hopefully some helpful tools for incorporating these spiritual disciplines into your life.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Whichever of them uh you find yourself being led towards.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: The first, which I've already said, is that you would choose one or two, okay?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Don't need to fill your plate all the way full.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can go back to the buffet later, okay?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um choose one or two of these.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: In 2026, I want to read the Bible more, right?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: In 2026, I want to be more consistent in my prayer time.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: In 2026, I want to start fasting once a month.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take something and incorporate it that changes my next year and develops that uh trellis so that my vine can grow upon it.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh number two, excuse me, start small.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um very quickly, I had a uh I gave a message similar to this a couple years ago to some college students, and one of them came up to me afterwards and they said, Hey, I I would really love to start doing some of this.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: I in fact, I want to start memorizing scripture.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Man, that's awesome.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's so great.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna do?
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I'm gonna start memorizing one verse of scripture every single week.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, right?
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, far be it from me to hold you back, but also let's think about this in as a let's say that you're going to keep this discipline, not just this year, but every year, okay?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, you can memorize 52 verses this year, but what if you just memorized once a month, okay?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of that year, you would still have, frankly, more verses of scripture memorized than than you certainly do right now, okay?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, than a lot of Christians have in their entire life.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, what would it look like in five years, in 10 years?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for you to create a practice that you are not going to become discouraged by because you have set the bar too high?
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are some of you, I get, that you have that type of, you have that addictive personality.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you say, I want to run, your first goal is I'm going to run a marathon, okay?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Brother and sister, have at it.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can set your goals to be whatever you want them to be.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to those of us who live more in the normal world, okay?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Where discipline is a constant fight, that we might set our goals, be intentional with them, but set them at a level that is reasonable for us to take on and add to our daily life.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: All right?
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: So start small.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can always increase the intensity from there.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and ultimately, once you uh excuse me, think more in terms of, again, that long term, right?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: How is this habit done over time going to multiply upon itself?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Third is that you would stack habits, okay, that uh whether it's like this or like this, meaning one on top of the other or adjacent, long story short, all the studies are going to say that if you are focused on building a new habit, it is best to attach it to a current habit.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: This past year for me, I was trying to bring more uh Bible reading into my life, and so I started listening to the Bible app on my phone when I was on my commute to work.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, now, uh, when I get in the car, one of my first thoughts is like, okay, do I need to turn on my phone?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm it's it's developed a new habit for me, but I attached it to something that I was already doing.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Another way you can do it is by bringing it before or after something that's already taking place, before your coffee time in the morning, or while your coffee is brewing.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: Say, before I'm gonna pick up my phone and look at the news or scroll Instagram, I'm going to sit in prayer or silence for five minutes.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Stack these habits not for the sake of efficiency, you're just trying to get more done, but so that you can develop them and they can take root.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth and finally, is that you would celebrate growth.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Not completing tasks, not that you would celebrate doing more than somebody else, but that you would celebrate growth in your relationship with God.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: That is what this is all about.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about reading a certain amount or praying a certain length of time or fasting for a number of meals.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: It is about growth in Christ.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea that by incorporating some of these practices, as Benedict would say, God is living in these disciplines.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: That in these, well, as we pursue them and we find them and we intentionally pull ourselves closer to Christ, we are going to find ourselves knowing him more deeply.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, because we are practicing some of the things, or all of the things, that Christ Himself incorporated into his spiritual life.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so let us celebrate growth.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: Bring somebody alongside you, you know, tell a friend about these things so that you two can encourage one another and lift one another up when inevitably, right, we fall short.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, next week, the focus is okay, we've gotten this started.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: How do we keep going?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: How do we find some endurance in these habits so that they aren't flashes in the pan and done by February, right?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: All of this being said, let me give you one kind of final reminder.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Your life is already formed to create the type of person that you want to be.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or at least that is how you have formed it up to this point.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because the disciplines and the habits and the practices that you already are doing is forming the kind of person that you care enough about to change.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you don't have habits that are leading to the type of person that you want to become, then it probably means that that motivation has not been present up and until now.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps that the desire has been there, but the how question had never been answered.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so don't hear this as a list of things to do for 2026.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: But as hopefully you are saying, led by the Spirit, man, I want to know my Savior more deeply, that you would understand that a proven practice throughout the centuries has been incorporating some of these elements into your life in such a way that it creates new habits, new rhythms that provide room and space for God to speak and for your relationship with Him to grow.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: So pick one or two of these things and let us seek to grow closer to the God who already loves us and desires to have a relationship with us.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: These things do not make you more beloved in his sight, but it can deepen that relationship.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: What a worthy goal for 2026.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: We know, Lord, that it is by your grace and our faith that we are saved by Christ.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, it is something that you have called us to, to know and to love your Son as much as we can, to be driven by our desire to be close to our Savior.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, if we're honest, some of us are satisfied by seeing him from a distance.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: We do not wish to be near, we just wish to be in the same room or zip code as Jesus.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, what would it look like for us to be a people who are intentionally putting forth this effort?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, not for the purpose of reward or not for the purpose of greater love, which you cannot give, for you love to the extreme.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: But God, instead that we would simply understand our Savior more deeply.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: God help us to find the truth in these disciplines, that they do not save in and of themselves, but they help us to understand grace and purpose in the Spirit even more.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: Father, help us convict us, our hearts, to pick one or two of these things, whatever they might be, to build upon our life and to develop that uh trellis, that framework, so that the vine that is rooted in Christ may grow upon it and bear much fruit.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, if you're in town, I will see you at 1, 2 34, or 5 30 for Christmas Eve.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't, Merry Christmas.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: Love you.