SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome and thanks for joining us on this episode of the Midweek Podcast, brought to you by a Fresh Wind Church. Each week, our team brings you new content to help you take steps towards Jesus and discover more in Christ. Today's episode is hosted by Pastor Ryan.

Child Dedication And Family Commitment

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Well, hey, welcome back to the Midweek Podcast. Pastor Ryan joined as always with Pastor Tim, and we are in week three of our series in the shop. And uh man, loving this series, but before we dive into it, uh this past week, we had a child dedication ceremony here at the church and uh got to celebrate as 13 kids uh were dedicated to the Lord. So um, man, what an awesome Sunday that was.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

It was uh we saw not only um spouses um vow to teach their kids um in God's ways, but we saw single parents get up there too and say, I'm all in. Yeah, I love that.

Drifting Quietly Despite Good Habits

SPEAKER_03 1:12

Those are uh those are special ceremonies, man. And I and I'm praying each of those parents understand the commitment that they they're making, you know. Um, and I try to hammer it home before we get them up there, but uh it's uh man, this is a big deal, and we need parents who are gonna say, as for me in my house, we're gonna serve the Lord whatever it takes. And so when parents stand up and make that commitment, man, so exciting. And Joy, she was telling me we have uh quite a few different um ladies pregnant in the church right now, and it sounds like we got to run on some boys, a lot of boys getting ready to come into the church. And I was like, sweet! It's like we need some godly men and we're gonna train them up, right? Um, and so Lord's given us the opportunity to do that too. Um and so, man, just an exciting time to be part of Fresh Wind for sure. Um, but I just and baptisms, probably my favorite thing that happens in church. Right. Child dedication's close second, man. It is, it's it's beautiful. It's fuel uh for my fire when you see these parents say, Man, we're all in on this thing. Yeah, um, and so church want to encourage you, be praying for those kids, be praying for those parents. Um, enemy hates when we uh we stand up and say, Man, I'm gonna live for God, I'm gonna take a stand on this. Um He he exists to steal, kill, and destroy. Um so be praying for their protection and just wisdom and discernment as they try to live out that commitment. But then with about the seven and a half minutes I had left in the first service, I tried to preach uh the the week three sermon, and I went long. Um seven and a half wasn't enough, and I was throwing wholesale sections of my sermon just right out the window. Um service two, uh they they got most of it. They got most of it. Um but I told I think you still ran out of time in service two. I did. I still went over. Um and that, yeah, no child dedication to go over, make me go over that time. And not that any of you probably care, but the program uh I use to write my software has a word count. That sermon was a thousand words less than my average sermon, and I still preached it into the ground, just kept going.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Well, spiritual disciplines has been something that uh we've talked about since we started together. These are the things that have to be in your life. Um, or uh, like you said, things on the outside might not change, but you can you can drift. You can drift. And it's uh it's important to understand how that works. I know um we'll be talking about fasting in a little bit, but one of my drifts was money. Watching my money. What what's gonna happen tomorrow? And should I move this over here, move that over there? And um, coming up on my fasting day, the Lord says, I want you to fast from business news. I just I don't want you to look at that. I'm like, how long? And he had to break me of that, and that was a drift. I was doing everything I was supposed to do. All my spiritual disciplines was in uh in alignment, and uh I just I just that became more important than things that are more important. And so uh now I wasn't going crazy, you know, I wasn't destroying my family with it or anything. It was just what was my mind was on all the time, and the Lord said, I want you to take your mind off that for a while. But what if I miss an opportunity? What if I you know lose some money? What what I you know what you know, retirement's coming up, what and um he just said, you know you're not doing all that great anyways, so why don't you just let me handle it? And you quit thinking about it. And it took a couple of couple of times he asked me to fast that until it broke me. And um now I don't pay attention at all, which is terrible. There's a balance in there somewhere, but uh the Lord said, Hey, this got too important. Uh just don't let that be too important. I'm priority, put that down six or seven, you know, or eight or nine. And um I think we if we don't have these different spiritual discipline disciplines in our life, then there's a section in our life that the Lord doesn't have access to.

Faithfulness Over Flashy Moments

SPEAKER_03 5:56

That's what these maintenance uh disciplines, routines, or practices are are all about, is keeping us from that drift. Um and we have we've hammered it on the podcast, we hammer it in our sermons because it's it's important. Um I said this on Sunday, you know, we all want it to be something flashy, we all want it to be some big mountaintop experience. But much of the Christian life is just these faithful steps over and over and over again. Even two weeks ago, uh, when you were preaching, you you were talking about how it's you know these baby steps just over and over. And then every now and then God allows you to take this big step. But if you're not doing the maintenance, the big step never comes. That's true. And we we think God's impressed with our activity, and what he's impressed with is faithfulness. Right. Um, do you show up even when you don't feel like it? Do you do you pray even when you don't feel like it? Do you open his word even when you don't feel like it? Um that sort of faithfulness. And um, you know, I quickly in the sermon I went over nine different practices. Um and that feels heavy. It does. But I think as we we kind of lay this out today, hopefully it'll feel manageable. Manageable. That's a good word. Um, because here's the truth we're we're not natural, we're not static. Um, my chiropractor uh Dr. Brennan used to tell me, you know, you you don't stay the same. You're either getting stronger or you're getting weaker. Right. Um, I think John Maxwell says you grow daily or you die gradually. And that that's true, right? So we're not just here in this spot, and if we never do anything else, then we're just gonna stay here. That's that's not how life works. We're being formed. Every scroll, every conversation, every habit, every craving. And so the question is who or what is shaping us. Right. And I tried to get the church to understand on Sunday, you get the choice. You get the choice.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

If the Lord's not shaping you, the world is. That's right. There's no there's no in-between.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

So nine different maintenance practices uh that if you would begin to to build these things into your life will keep you from that spiritual drift. And I'm not gonna tell you there's not gonna be seasons when God feels a little more distant or whatever. Um, you don't seem to get the goosebumps you used to get uh during the worship songs. There's there's seasons, uh, even uh in our spiritual walk, but these are the things that'll keep pulling you back in, pulling you back in. Um and it's it's that constant just realignment, you know. Uh you realize when you're driving down the highway and that car starts to drift to the right a little bit, these are the maintenance practices that get you back in alignment so you can keep driving straight. Um and then you got something to say?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

I was gonna say Martin Luther um he came to this point in his life where he understood that sometimes it's not about the goosebumps, you know, it's about faith. The just shall live by faith. And the Lord is going to demand that you live by faith. You're gonna have some times that are uh not feel good times, and he's gonna expect you to live by faith. The way he trains you to do that is by every week you go to work, you know, nothing great happens spiritually, nothing uh big happens at church, you're not involved in a salvation or whatever, but you continue to do what God has called you to do, and that's faithfulness. And God, God will um He'll be silent. Uh, I think uh Billy Graham's wife wrote that book, Streams in the Desert. When you just feel like God is distant, that doesn't mean you can uh throw a fit and say, God, I know I want you, I want all that stuff. No, you keep walking, live by faith. I got a stream out here for you, come find it. And um we need to understand that that what that's what the Lord's doing, He's training you for the days you're really gonna need your faith. And if you don't engage it on the days that are just blah, then you're not gonna be to engage it when you're in crisis.

SPEAKER_03 10:20

We've talked about this quite a bit. Um you know these these are things that allow you to be ready to be used by God. And I think we all have an idea, you know. God, I want to be used by You know what?

SPEAKER_01 10:32

I made that sound, I use the word crisis, but um it's better better to say in crisis God uses you. So, but in a in a time where God's gonna use you, if you don't live by faith, you're normal every day, then when the Lord wants to do something, you won't be the one he picks.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

You're not ready, you're not equipped. Right. Um scripture says study to show thyself approved. Well, that means God's God's paying attention. Are are you putting the time in? Are you showing up? Paul kept telling people train, train, train, train yourself to be godly. Um he's like, Man, I wish I could feed you guys some steak, but here we go. I'm drinking milk again. Like, let's go, let's move on to some other things. Um, there is this expectation that as Christians, we're supposed to grow. And these are the things that are going to grow us so that we can be used by God. And then when situations come up and the Lord is drawing someone to them and he needs someone to go share the gospel, he can say, Hey, go over there and talk to him, and you'll be ready to do it.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

And it's not just uh those situations, which are fantastic, but it's also the situations where somebody's getting ready to do something. Um let's say, like cheat on his wife, you're at work, this guy, he's thinking, man, I should go ahead and go go see her. And and marriage comes up and everybody's complaining, and you you step in and say, Marriage was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Love your wife, you'll never regret it. And it might stop that person. So you want you want this um training so that when you get in a situation where everybody's down in their wife or complaining or whatever, there's someone there that stands up and says, This is the truth. And um I had someone tell me a long time ago, says, Love your wife. You won't regret it. And it's it's it's important. It's important that we're there and we're ready to step into those situations. And if you're not training, you're not gonna be ready. You're not gonna hear the spiritual depth of the situation that you're in because you hear that thing all the time. But there's someone there who's getting ready to make a decision that you can just stand in front of and say, This is the wrong way to go, and you don't even know it. So God uses this all the time. So we have to be ready.

SPEAKER_03 13:03

And who was it? Uh Lord was looking for someone to stand in the gap. Um man, we preached a whole sermon series on this, and his name just slipped through my mind. One of the prophets. Um man, who was it? There was a lot of prophets. I know, I know. He's he was looking for someone to stand in the gap. And man, when we're ready, we're those people who can stand in the gap for our friends, for our family, for our spouses, our kids.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Um Jonas stood in the gap, but he didn't want to.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

He didn't want to. The most reluctant preacher on the planet.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Hey, but his I think his his sermon was only nine words long. And yours was a thousand, did you say something?

Practice One Prayer And Listening

SPEAKER_03 13:48

It was a thousand less. Um, all right, nine practices uh that you can begin to put into your life. Um, this maintenance schedule that'll help you grow, follow Jesus, and and man, experience the life, the rich, satisfying, abundant life that Jesus has prepared for you. Um, and I think number one begins with prayer, right? We are being trained into distraction. Notifications, noise, constant input. I mean, we are just we're on overload, and prayer begins to train our attention. Um, and and what I love about the gospels is we see Jesus, Son of God, creator of the universe, still withdrawing to pray, to have this line of communication uh with his father. And if he needed it, man, how much more do we?

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Absolutely. I think we don't um right now I think prayer is one of the most important things you can do for just sanity. We are in it, inundated. You were just saying before we started the podcast that you don't believe anything on the internet at all because it can all be faked all the time, and nobody's telling us. You know, I I chasing down Brown's trades. That never happened, you know? It's like and at the end they say, so they're thinking about this trade. What? And I it's ridiculous. Everything's a lie. And so we don't hear any truth until we pray. And so it's important that we that we pray because the Lord wants to communicate with us. I think a lot of people think that prayer time is us talking at God. No, it's talking with him.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

Yeah, yeah. He he he responds us. And the here's the thing, we'll sit in these moments of prayer, right? And and sometimes you got a lot to say and you say it, but I would encourage you, you need to build some time to sit and listen.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 15:53

The problem is we we have been so busy, so conditioned, um, that for a lot of us we're not even sure what God's voice sounds like. And so we'll sit in the silence and we'll have all these thoughts running through through our head, and we don't know, is that me? Is that God? What did Jesus say? My sheep know my voice. Right. We need to begin to get ourselves in tune with the voice of God so that when he speaks, we can hear it. And that means we need to be intentional about building in space to allow God to speak to us. And then it goes into number two is scripture. We need to know his word because God will never tell us something that contradicts his word.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

And so if you're sitting in those moments and you have this thought, I I need to go hang out with that girl who's not my wife. Word of God's gonna stand up and say, you sit down and shut up.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Or that guy dropped his wallet because God's blessing me. Right. So we we there's a lot of things that uh we need the Holy Spirit to correct us. He uses the word and he uses prayer. And I I I think um people drift when they pray, and let me counter that because I think the Holy Spirit brought it up to me right now. When you're praying, and you say, okay, I'm gonna sit down this 15 minutes to pray. And uh if you've been through our powerful prayer um study, then you know you need to confess, you need to worship, tell God uh how great he is, praise him, and um, then you need your um petition, what you're asking God for. Um you need to pray for other people, and uh, and then you need to pray for yourself. And so you got to have those five things. So we want you to to put that together. And uh so if we do that course again next year, try to get in it. But those are the things you need to do. Number one, your maintenance is uh confession. You need to confess your sins and um take a draw on your uh bank account that God has filled with everlasting grace and say, Lord, I was wrong here, you know, thanks for correcting me. I'm gonna repent, and that means don't do it anymore, and um and and move on. So we we need to do those things in prayer, but the thing that we don't ever do, it seems like, is we get to the end of our prayer and we're like, dot, period, gotta go, see you later. So that's like trying to have a relationship with your wife where you in the morning you say, Hey, honey, take care of the kids, gotta go. And then at breakfast you say, Hey, thanks for the eggs. And at lunch, you say, Hey, thanks for the sandwich. And at dinner, you say, Hey, thanks for this food. And at night, you say, Take care of the kids, good night. Um, what kind of relationship are you gonna build? But that's what we're doing in our prayer life all the time. We well, we'll pray for our food, we'll, you know, uh pray in the morning, God take care of the kids at church uh at school, and God take the care of the kids as they sleep, and here we go. And God is just looking at you like, do I get a talk in this conversation? You ever talk to somebody where you can't get a word in edgewise? Well, that's how we pray.

unknown 19:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

And uh so I encourage you to do this one thing um is to take five minutes and just be silent. Say, Lord, I'm putting myself in your presence, ready, set, go and do five minutes. And I I guarantee you the Lord's gonna start talking to you in those five minutes. If you'll if you'll be faithful in that, he'll speak to you. And um and just say, Lord, I I want to be in your presence. If you don't say anything to me, praise God. If you tell me things I need to confess, praise God in another way. And then if if you just tell me you love me, praise God. Um, I'm just gonna sit here. The problem is, I know most of you, I wouldn't say most of you, half of you are like me. It's like, man, I gotta read these scriptures, so I'm gonna mow the lawn and listen to them so I can do two things at once. When you're praying, you can't do two things at once. You know, I know we're driving, this is gonna be my prayer time, but no, you need that time where you're not distracted by anything else to stop and listen for the voice of the Lord. I don't know if it's gonna be in the morning or if it's night at night before you go to sleep, but it's important. And then when you have that prayer drift where you're you're praying and uh um you start thinking about other things, and pretty soon you're like, How did I get here? I'm supposed to be praying. Um don't when that happens to you, don't think, well, Satan's attacking me, whatever. No. When you end up in a situation where you're thinking about your boss at work and you're mad and you're like, what am I gonna do today? Oh, wait, I'm supposed to be praying, pray for your boss at work and what you're supposed to be doing that day. If you're mad at the president or if you're mad at your congressman and that's popping up in your head as you're praying, then pray for your pray for your anger first, and then pray, pray for that person. And don't, don't let if Satan drifts you away from your prayer and you think it's him, pray for whatever he drifts you into. And that'll stop that real quick. Another way to fix that, two things, just out of my own personal prayer life. Um, pray for whatever you're thinking about if you get in that prayer drift while you're praying. Number two is pray out loud. Pray out loud will stop the drift. And uh, you can stay centered on uh what you were praying about. And sometimes we're praying about our kids or um maybe about a struggle. That you're having in your own life and you don't want to drift. So pray out loud and it'll help you. Just a couple things out of my prayer life.

Practice Two Scripture Rewrites Your Narrative

SPEAKER_03 22:07

That's good. Second one that we were we mentioned briefly was scripture. Again, we're we're being discipled by headlines and algorithms, right? They they know us better than we know ourselves, I think. Um and they catechize us every day. Fear, outrage, comparison, uh, urgency. We need scripture to re narrate our lives, to re-narrate um reality for us. Paul said, do not be conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We need the word of God to begin to renew our minds, to recalibrate us so that we one will know God's voice, so that when we're praying and those thoughts come in, we we can know. Is that you or is that me?

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Holy Spirit, was that you? Was that a bad taco? Right. Um, what's going on here? We'll know. Um, when situations come up, we'll have his word. Um, scripture says, Man, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you, so that when temptation comes, we man, we we don't battle with with just our willpower. We have the the spirit of God and his word living inside of us. When Jesus was um, and we're gonna talk about fasting here in a minute, but when he went out into the wilderness to fast and Satan came and tempted him, how did he fight? He fought with the word. We need to know God's word. Um, it it needs to be inside of us. It's it pierces, it's double-edged, you know. It comes in and it it separates our our thoughts and our desires, our innermost being. And it begins to teach us, man, this is how God thinks on these things.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

You know, we have a lot of uh, I've had some people say, Man, you use a lot of scripture when you preach. And I do. I like I like to back everything up I say, and uh, but you know, there's a lot of preachers out there who take a verse or a half a verse and preach a whole sermon on it. And I'm not saying that that's wrong, but my opinion as a pastor about a verse or what I think it's saying to me is not as powerful as the scripture itself. That's right. So I like to read those scriptures out loud. God promises that his word, not Tim's word, will never come back void. Uh, so the scripture is powerful. And um, one word that we hear a lot in life today is the narrative, the narrative. You know, the news is trying to produce their narrative over everything that happens. Well, the world is trying to change your narrative. That this thing is about me, that this thing is about my kids or my politics or my whatever. The Bible straightens your narrative out because you are living a narrative. You are um your salvation, the rest of eternity, is part of the scripture. Your life is going to be part of God's scripture. This is what I done in Tim. This is what I done in have done in Ryan. And uh that story lives on forever, that narrative, and you need to correct your narrative and make sure that um you're living in the narrative that the the Lord has laid out for you. And that's what reading the scripture does.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

So here's what I would encourage you to do. Um you can join a Bible reading plan. Um, we have one. If you go to the, you know, any of the QR codes in the building, you scan it, you can download it, um, and you can just start reading with us. Or if that's feels like too much, um you can just commit to reading, reading something. Um, you know, maybe say, hey, in the next month, I want I want to read through the book of John. Um and get through John this month. And then when you're done with John, go on to Romans. Read the book of Romans for a month. Um make make it easy. Um and and here's what I'm convinced. If you'll start to do that, um you'll develop a hunger for God's word. You'll want to read it. Um, God's gonna work on your want-tos here. And um it's uh, you know, I I used to challenge the the youth group back when I was leading the youth ministry, um, Bible before Facebook. I don't know if teenagers are on Facebook anymore, but they were back then. But my challenge was because every time you pick up your phone, you know, you go to that, whatever your social media app of choice is, and I wanted them to begin to see that icon and know it was a prompt and a challenge to say, man, have I been in God's word before I get on here and I consume all this information and all these other people's thoughts and their anger and their outrage and and my jealousy and all this stuff. Have I have I taken time to read God's word? Do I know what God wants to say to me? And so maybe that use that um whatever before whatever you do, uh, usually in the morning. Um for me, it's in a news app. I love I love to catch up on some news. Um, you know, or I got some podcasters that I like to listen to before I jump on their podcast. God, have I spent time with you? Um, because as as you said, Tim, these are the this is the thing that's going to remain. This is the thing that lasts. It is more powerful than even what pastors have to say about God's word. Um and that that was the point Tim was making. The the scripture never returns void, it's going to produce fruit in in due season. And we need to know it. We need to know it.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

I think sometimes um there's different personalities out there. And uh I want I want to try to speak to that just for a minute. When you stretch something out a long way for some of you guys who have that personality where um you know I I want this to be done. You know, I I it's a goal. You want me to do this? I don't want to do it all year long. I want to kill it. You know, I just I want to get it done and put it behind me. So if one of your goals is to read through the Bible in a year, just take um just take about a week and say, okay, I'm gonna read the New Testament this week. Takes about nine hours, nine to ten hours to read the New Testament. You're like, that's all? And you're stretching it out over a year. I could get that done in the first week of January and I'll be done. And uh so I encourage you to do that, but that shouldn't be the only scripture for the rest of the year, because things are happening all year long, and the Lord wants to speak to you through his word. So I know there's a lot of rush aheads, check that box, I got that done, and that's great. I think you should do that, but at the same time, you should have a devotional that you pick up every day and read a scripture and think about it that day. Also, don't think that you can kill this thing in January, because you could. You could in the month of January, you could read the whole Bible. Um, takes about 10 hours, takes about 25 hours to get through the Old Testament. It's not as big as you think it is. Um, it looks big when you open it and the words are so small and you think I'm never gonna get through this. But um, if you um read it and not listen to it, you can get you can get it done, New Testament, about 10 hours. And that's great. I'm not saying that's not great, but what we want you to do is live in God's word, and that means every day you gotta pick it up. That's right. All right, sorry I added all that to the end.

Practice Three Daily Worship Reorients Life

SPEAKER_03 29:53

That's good. Um, I'm watching our time here. This might end up being a part two. Yeah. It'll be part three of the sermon uh going on. Um, but the third practice was was worship. Um you know, we we need to to spend some time where we are focused on on the Lord and not asking him for things, but we reorient our our lives around man, he is he's holy, he is supreme, he is seated above it all. Um is God on on the throne? Um, does he have my affection? Does he have my devotion? Uh loyalty is a word that we use a lot around here. Um and man, we we become what we worship. We do. And so when we worship, you know, growing up, I wanted to be in the NFL. That was my dream. And so you start to worship these quarterbacks, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and you know, we don't call it worship, but it it's all you think about, all you're focused on, right? That's what it is. And then you you want to start dressing like they dress, you want to walk like they walk, throw like they throw.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

You know, your your approach uh to your throw, you your footsteps when you throw, and you you look at everything he does, and that's the way that's the way we need to worship the Lord. Um and I think uh worship has to be daily, and that's kind of weird for us, you know. Okay, God, you're awesome. Now what do I say? You know, um, but we have psalms that worship the Lord uh that you can read to him. Uh now when we someone's having a birthday or it's an anniversary, well, you go get a card where someone else decided what was sweet to say, and we buy it and say, Yeah, I feel like that. Here, take it. You can do that with God too. You can sing them a song. And and matter of fact, that's a big thing that's going around the church right now is there's these uh daily songs. Teresa's been doing it, um, and they'll pick uh older songs and they'll sing, and you can hear it on your phone. Uh they'll sing and you sing with them, and you sing uh to the Lord. Uh just one song. It's not um, you know, a worship time at church or anything like that. You just sing them a song saying, I Lord, look, I you don't have to be breaking down in tears every time. It's just this song is what I want to say to you. You know, this is who you are. And by faith, I'm gonna worship you and sing them that song, read them that song, get an old hymnal, read them those songs. Uh if we buy cards for your wife to say sweet things because you can't think of anything, then man, there's things laying around in your house right now that you can read to the Lord, especially in the Psalms. That's right. And say, Hey, this is this is what I think about you, this is what I think I think about you, make that real in my life that I think this about you. You know, your unfailing love. You're my shield, you're my um portion. You there's so many things in the scripture that you can read to him, and that's what they're for, uh, for us to worship him. So don't, don't, when we say worship, it's like, okay, you know, God is great and God is good. Oh, wait, this isn't dinner. Um, we have to let's let's get expressive. Uh Troy was telling me he's doing that song thing that Trace is doing, and he's singing a song every morning uh to the Lord. And uh you can do that or you can read an old hymn book. Let's just do it. Let's just he wants us to worship him. Let's worship him every day. Then when you get to church, you get to corporate worship. It's the only time of the week that you can get together with other believers and lift your voice to him. So when we're in church sing the songs, you don't have to dance like Ryan.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

And um, I'm all over that front row.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

The cutest, cutest thing I've seen in a long time was yesterday. Um Ryan takes this big step out away from his seat. So he couldn't do it if he wasn't sitting on the front row. Steps out and he raises his hand, and he does it just about in a certain part of every song. He always does it. He doesn't even know he does it. Nope. And but um Reese was standing next to you, your son Reese, and uh he started stepping out when you stepped out, raising his hand. And I thought, man, that was awesome. I wish we'd got that on tape. Now you're crying over there. But uh uh we need the corporate worship. Man, sing those songs. That's your opportunity to tell God, hey, I'm here because of you. I'm not here because of me. That's right. I'm not here to for you to fix me or get me over my anxiety or whatever. You may do that, but I'm first thing, I'm here for you.

SPEAKER_03 34:53

Here's what's so powerful about worship is every time we do it, God gets bigger. And I don't mean physically God gets bigger. He he's God, right? He gets bigger to us. Our our perspective of him, our view of him, gets bigger. And as that happens, everything else around us begins to get smaller, and it gets to it gets put in its right place. No, no, no. I man, I have been spending so much time thinking about this thing. But as I start to think about God and his bigness, his grandeur, also in this thing, shoot, that seems tiny in comparison to God. And man, if God could do all these other things, well, surely he can take care of this, and God just gets bigger and bigger in our lives. Um man, worship is powerful. We used to sing this. I don't think we've sung it in a while, but you know, this is how I fight my battles, uh, talking about it's through praise, it's through worship. Right. Um, we we need to to worship, and it's one of the things I love about David. Um, he was a man who definitely flawed, had a lot of got a lot of things wrong. But he was a man after God's heart, and he loved to worship his king. Um, and he was a guy who danced too.

Fellowship Beats Isolation And Delusion

SPEAKER_01 36:13

So yeah. Hey, um, moving on, we're gonna talk a little bit about fellowship here. And it's one of those things we talk, we we say it all the time. Um, it's about community. Um the we are God's assembly. We are a bunch of people that um need to be together to grow. And I don't I uh it's it's a tough sell in our culture nowadays. I don't want anybody around me, I don't want to have to deal with anybody else. All they do is hurt me or disagree with me. And uh, but the problem is we think that isolation makes us lonely, but uh it doesn't. Isolation makes you delusional. Ouch. I think uh it does. We don't have anybody to stop us in our thoughts and our opinions and uh and we resist that. We don't want anybody telling us that we're wrong or anything like that. And but the problem when we get isolated is there's nobody to stop our foolishness. Yeah. So look at um oh, what's that singing competition that we do here uh in the United States? What was that thing called? American Idol. American Idol. Right. You watch we uh I I only watch the first few shows where the people are um I don't know, they're just trying to get in and and most of them can't sing. But they've been just with their little family group or whatever, and and they think they're awesome, but they've never been around somebody who don't think they're awesome. And our opinions about the Lord and stuff like that need to go through crunch time with fellow believers. You know, we need to talk about that's what life group's all about is to just this is what I was thinking, and you need someone to say, no, don't do that. You know, look at look over here at this scripture. This is probably not the direction you want to go. This is the way this character in the Bible went, and uh, so you need to lean back on forgiveness. And uh so we have um many, many things that can happen when you're isolated that just being around a group of believers changes.

SPEAKER_03 38:38

So important for our lives. Um, and that's why we do, we push and encourage everybody to join a life group. Uh we need to be around people who will hold us accountable, who will encourage us, but yeah, who help us see those blind slots. Man, I believe this about God. And they're like, What? Why why do you believe that about God? Right. Um, we we need those people. And if our and I think this is one of the things the enemy does is he pushes us in further and further into isolation, especially when we find ourselves wrapped up in something we're not supposed to be. Um, or you know, we're struggling with that sin uh that so easily entangles us, whatever. He'll make us think, man, you're the only one that struggles with this. You're you're a horrible Christian. Nobody else deals with this kind of stuff, just you. Uh man, if they knew this about you, they'd they never treat you the same, they never look at you the same way. Um and man, then we we start to believe those lies. We need to be in community. Um it's it's one of the most important things. And listen, I get it. It's it's not easy. Um you know, Joy and I, we've been hosting life groups at our house for I think 12 years now, and getting your house cleaned up every week to invite these people over, and um you know, making sure you you've studied and you prepared a lesson so that when they're there, you're not just wasting everybody's time and it it's a lot of work. Um but man, we've some of our closest friends are people that joined our life group and we've got to know them and we do life together now. It's we have people in our corner because of it, and we're in their corner. When they need something, we want to be the first to say, Man, we're we're here for you. We need that kind of fellowship, that kind of community. And I love how I mean you've always described this as a tribe. We're a family of families, right? Um, and that's that's who we want to be. Um unfortunately in culture, we're we're pushing against that. You know, everyone used to have a front porch and they used to go out and sit on the front porch in the evening and engage their neighbors. Now we all got decks on the back of the house. We don't want to associate with anybody privacy fences and shrubs so that we can't see them. That's that's who we've become. Isolationists. Now I got my little postage stamp right here, and I'm gonna sit on it and don't talk to me.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Listen, if you're an isolationist, the monsters are gonna come to you. Um it's it's just natural. Look at look at what happens with hyenas. They try to break out the one that gets alone. You know? Um lions do the same thing. Any hunters are trying to find that one who wanders away from the herd and get that one. And uh, we need to be careful as Christians because that happens to us a lot. We think I need to isolate myself so I don't get hurt. No, you need to not isolate yourself so you'll get tough, is what you need to do. And that's a that's a hard speaking, because a lot of people got hurt really bad in church. And uh, and I apologize for that. I I don't want you I won't want you to be hurt, but I'm talking about um aligning our thoughts with the Lord. And he's speaking to his church all the time. And uh if your church hurts you, I'm I'm sorry. You come here, we'll leave you alone and just tell us I'm church hurt and I'm trying to recover. Uh we'll put you in the back corner and just let you worship. And uh, but one day we're gonna expect you to get back in the in the tribe at here or somewhere else. And uh so, but we want we want you guys to fellowship with each other and get to know each other because iron sharpens iron. We need that.

Make It Manageable Starting Sunday

SPEAKER_03 42:32

Yep, absolutely. All right, I'm looking at the clock here, uh Tim, and we're we're pushing it. Um I think we've we have uh brought up fasting a couple times. So I think we should get through fasting, the fifth practice, and then we we might break off and uh we'll come back for next two or part three, I guess, next week. Um but uh I don't I don't want to take up your entire you know what let's not go fasting now.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

Let's let's uh talk about them as a general thing. When I when Brian said nine up on the stage, I just I felt the heavy. You know, it just feels heavy. How I'm gonna get these nine things into my life. I just want to encourage you that you can get several of these things done on Sunday. Right? You can serve on Sunday, you can fast on Sunday, you can worship on Sunday, and you can fellowship on Sunday. You can get all four of those done before you even get um uh to Monday and start your week trying to do your maintenance on your spiritual life. So don't don't give up. You can you can say, I'm not gonna eat till after church. I want to be focused on him. And every time I look at those uh honey buns out there in the prayer uh in the uh coffee room. I'm going to say, man, I I want one of those. And you can say, no, but I'm here to focus on him. And it just reminds you to do that. That's what's fasting's all about. When you want to do that thing you're fasting from, it's supposed to turn you back to the Lord. So if you're fasting over a situation, am I going to sell my house or am I going to move or am I going to have another baby? Um that's what it's supposed to do. Man, I'm hungry. I'm going to eat. No, I need to, Lord, do you want us to move? Do you want us to sell this house? Or even buy a car or you know, something like that. So fasting is something I do, I try to do once a month, but a lot of people only do it, you know, twice a year. Um, they do it coming up on Easter, and some do it coming up on Christmas. You know, I'm going to take um a day to fast and pray about something for our family or something like that. So um we're not asking you to do it uh like crazy, but if you go to bed on Saturday night saying, okay, 7 o'clock, I'm not eating till after I worship my Lord on Sunday, that'll make such a difference in your life. You I can't tell you how much that'll make a difference in your life. Just take that one thing where your stomach is pointing you back to God on Sunday morning. You'll be ready to worship. And uh so that's that's just fasting. And then service, find a place to serve in the church. It's not hard. We got places all over the place where you can serve his bride every Sunday, and then you don't have to worry about that anymore. You know, you don't have to find you don't have to find uh charity to work in. And uh, but one thing about service is that once you start to serve, you can't get enough. Um when you serve the Lord, when you realize I'm not doing this for the church, I'm not I'm doing this for Jesus, it'll change the way you think about serving. And and then fellowship. Find somebody to go to lunch with to break that fast. Hey, come help me break my fast, and we'll we'll talk about what's going on at church. And uh so um it's a little bit different now since church is not at 10 and over at 11, and then we we go hit the food trough. Uh takes a little bit longer on my fast, but I'm telling you guys it'll it'll make a big difference. So there's there's all those things you can do right here at church, and um and then you you don't have to worry about them anymore. What do you think about that, Ryan?

SPEAKER_03 46:33

I love that because you know one of the things we said earlier is we want this to feel manageable, and I think this is a way that it feels manageable. Oh my gosh, I can get four or five of these things done right on Sunday. Um does that mean Sunday's the only time you do it? No. But if you'll start there, here's what I trust God to do to change your want-tos. Right. And he's gonna start giving you, and you've heard this if you've been listening to the midweek podcast. Um, I know the most of the first service, we're still trying to get the 11 o'clock service folks to the midweek podcast. Um, but if you've been listening to the midweek podcast, you've heard this before. God will give you both the desire and the power to do what pleases him. And so as you show up in this way and say, Lord, on Sundays, I'm gonna do these things, he'll start changing one-tos, and then you'll see opportunities to serve him all throughout your week. And it's gonna be little things. You know, I was at the grocery store um just this past week, and I saw this lady, she's uh, you know, elderly lady, not very tall, trying to get in the refrigerator to grab some yogurts that were in the back of the refrigerator, and I could just see her looking up. I'm like, ma'am, you need me to help you grab something. Um, just a little thing like that. Your eyes start becoming open to these things, and you realize, man, I get to serve God's people, his bride, all the time. And it's all these little things. And so it doesn't have to be this huge thing where yeah, you need to go and you know, log 47 volunteer hours at second harvest, even though I'm sure they would appreciate it. Yeah. Um, we're just saying, man, be the kind of people ready to serve in any situation. Um and when a need comes up, be there. Say, man, I I can do that. Man, I I get to I get to serve my king in this way. Um, I get to serve his bride in this way. And and I I love when people do stuff for me. I love it even more when they do stuff for my bride. Um when people, you know, take care of my wife, man. I I I can't express how much I appreciate it, you know. Um and when you you serve God's bride, he loves it. He loves it. And it man, you you get that opportunity. And so, yeah, you can you can knock a bunch of these off in one day. So I think you'll start doing it more often.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

I I said that to lighten the load. Next week we'll put together um a schedule on how how we do this, and uh you'll see that it's not a it's not this unmanageable thing. Okay, so I want you guys to understand that. And next week we'll we'll walk through how that looks in daily life and um and in your life as we talk about fasting and sabbath. And uh there's so many important things in there that that need to be these nine things really need to be a part of you to keep you on schedule, your maintenance schedule on schedule, so that your lights don't come on. And if you got a lot of lights coming on um lately, then then something has happened to your maintenance schedule, and you might need to take an take another look at that.

Next Steps Prayer And Ways To Connect

SPEAKER_03 49:42

That's good. So we'll uh we'll come back next week. We'll kind of flesh the rest of these out a little bit. We'll give you a little bit of a look at how this practically um can be a part of your life, and we promise it's it's not as difficult as it looks from the outset. Um we I want to encourage you, you know, we've you heard all nine in the sermon on Sunday. Um we've got gotten through four or five of them here today. Um I want to encourage you to pick one of these things this week and start to focus on it. Um prayer, time in his word, service, um, fasting, whatever it is. Pick one of those things and say, Lord, I'm I'm gonna give this to you. And I don't really understand it all yet, but I'm best way I know how I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna pray. And I don't even know how to pray, but I'm just gonna I'm gonna tell you what's on my mind, my heart. I'm gonna, you know, Tim walk through some things you can do, confession, petition, um, all those things. I'm gonna do that, and I'm just gonna sit here for you know three, four, five minutes. I'm just gonna listen. Um, if you did that every day this week, I think by next week you'd be different. Yeah, and so we trust God to begin to change your want-tos and all this. And so um, I'm excited to see what uh what God does as you guys start putting these things in your life. And here's what I'd really love for you to do is I'd love for you if if you start implementing this and you start seeing some some progress or some change happen, send us an email. Uh, email Pastor Tim, email myself. Um there's a button on the website you can click to shoot us an email. We would love to hear how God's uh working in your life in this way and celebrate those things with you. And if you need anything, um guidance on anything, shoot us an email. We we'd love to talk with you through those things. Had a lady bring up fasting on Sunday, looking for some information on that. I told her we'd get to it in the podcast. I don't think we covered it very well for you today. No, we'll tune in next week. We'll start that again. Tune in next week. Um, but man, if there's questions that come up, let us know. Um we we'd love to answer those for you. Past him, will you pray for us?

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Father, I want to thank you for these spiritual disciplines, and I know I'm uh I I've got a thing about 'em, and I like to talk about 'em, and I run them in the ground sometimes. But Lord, I pray that you'll um you'll speak to our people here at AFresh Wynn about uh how important it is to keep a uh schedule, a maintenance schedule so that your word, your voice, and um your spirit can continually make us like you. That we're never uh too far from the shop uh to where you can make adjustments on us, Father, to make us more like you. And Lord, I know uh the biggest thing is to change our want-tos, but I've seen it happen in my life, and I want to see it happen in everyone else here at uh in our tribe, here at A Fresh Wind. So, Father, I I pray your power and your spirit will speak to us in these things so that people can make some changes, that it'll affect their ability to be used by you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

Thanks again for joining us for this episode of the Midweek Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know how God is using this resource in your life or send any podcast questions or topic ideas to podcast at a freshwind.org. If you would like to support this ministry financially and help us continue offering new resources that equip you to discover more in Christ, simply text any amount to the number 84321. We're so grateful for your support. Make sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the Midweek Podcast. Be blessed and have a great week.