Y'all give the worship team a hand. You can do better than that. Come on, guys. Wake up. How's everybody doing this morning? Typical mid-February in Memphis. 40-degree drop since yesterday. Hey, whatever. You know, it is what it is, right?
Guys, welcome. Thank you so much for being here this morning. It's a privilege to have you here at Harvest. Man, what a great day to be alive. And so we're so glad that you're here with us.
Listen, whether you are a guest with us or whether you are part of the Harvest family, we ask everybody every week to fill out our connection form. If you would take just a moment and do that, we would so appreciate it. You can scan that link on the screen or the QR code on the chair in front of you.
If you would take just a moment, fill it out, let us know that you are here and that you are part. If you're part of the Harvest family, obviously it just allows us to keep up with our records and know that you're here and that you're with us. If you're a guest with us, it allows us to get a little information from you and let you know how much we appreciate you taking the time to visit with us.
We want to reach out to you and let you know how much we appreciate you being here this morning. I also want to mention that at the bottom of that connection form is a place for you to fill out your prayer needs. Whatever your prayer request may be, take a second, fill those out and know that we've got a team that every day is committed to praying over those prayer needs that you submit.
Every day this week, they're going to be praying over those, and we're believing for breakthrough in your life because we serve a God who answers prayer. He's a God who cares about the big things and the small things, right? He cares about every little desire of your heart. So if you would put those things down, we want to be agreeing with you and praying for you this week as well.
So just welcome you. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome those who are watching online. Welcome those at Rolling Hills. Y'all give our online folks a hand. Thank you so much for joining us for service this morning. Believe you're going to be blessed.
Got a couple quick announcements, and we're going to jump into the word this morning. Just wanted to remind you that three weeks away... Awesome.
All right. Well, guys, welcome again. Welcome, 9 a.m. folks. You know, something very interesting as we're observing this since we started two services in August. We recognize that, you know, we expected the first service would be smaller and the second service would be larger. You know, we were totally proved wrong. Almost all the way through last year, the first service was the largest.
Anyway, since we started the new year, it's shifted. I think some of you 9 o'clock folks, some of your fellow 9 o'clock folks, some 11 o'clock folks. And the 11 o'clock service has been growing. And so that's all right. Good to have options sometimes, isn't it? Good thing.
So welcome again to Harvest. We're a family of Christ followers. We love God. We love people. We serve the world at the hands and feet of Jesus. If you're part of the Harvest family, what's our vision? To make, grow, and equip followers of Jesus to fulfill their God-given purpose in life. And we do that through community, discipleship, and outreach.
Well, we are in week three of a series. What's the series called? Pulse Check. Pulse Check.
Anybody in here got a pulse? Shake your wrist. Make your neck there. Yep, got a pulse. Doing good. All right. Still got a pulse.
Well, week one, Pastor Bob talked about the importance of self-examination of the heart. That's not always the funnest thing in the world, is it? But that's all right. How many of you know? David asked the Lord repeatedly. We see him saying, "Lord, seek my heart. I mean, search my heart," right?
And so self-examination is so important. He highlighted that while our spirit is made new in salvation, our soul requires ongoing renewal through God's word, through repentance, and ultimately leading to healing and freedom in our lives.
And then last week, week two, Zach talked about how true contentment is found not just in Christ, but in relationship with Christ. He urged us to focus on gratitude and blessings that we already have rather than comparing ourselves to others and seeking fulfillment through material possessions.
How many of you were blessed by that? It's just a good encouragement, a good reminder in our everyday life.
Well, I want to continue today. I'm going to hit another area, and I'm going to be honest, I kind of, actually, I'm going to kind of start with a disclaimer, kind of like Zach did last week. This is another one that's a tough one for me because, you know, it's interesting when you get up to talk to folks about something that you're actively trying to work on in your own life. Something that you recognize is a weakness in your own life.
And so when I'm talking today, this is actually going to be different than what I normally do. I do have like four points, but it's going to be very, very practical because I'm going to tell you the things that I've learned since probably the middle of last year and things that I'm trying to implement in my own life.
And so how many of you would agree that sometimes life just seems so crazy and so busy and so overwhelming? How many of you would agree? Most of you in here. I'm not telling the truth. Life can seem so crazy and so busy and so overwhelming sometimes.
And we look around, and if it's not us, we at least see the people around us who are stressed out, they're burnt out, they're depressed, they're anxious, you know, all these other things. And there's a myriad of reasons why, and we're going to talk a little bit about that today because I believe that if you're going to fulfill your God-given mission in life, then you've got to learn to live a life of peace and contentment in Him.
In Him, you're only going to get so far because what you find is if you're leaning the other direction, you're relying on your own strength. And how many of you know, you're going to get burnt out. You can only navigate this life so far on your own until you're done. You need a strength that surpasses your own.
And how many of you know that we have the blessing to be able to tap into a strength that is unlimited? There is no cap on it. And so how many of you would agree that this can be a difficult area in your life sometimes when it comes to peace and contentment and slumber and happiness? Slowing down and being in the moment. Definitely in my life.
And so, like I said, I got four points. This is going to be very practical. You can follow along in your notes. You can scan the QR code on the chair in front of you, and you can get the notes there. We had an issue earlier with the YouVersion Bible app this morning, but I believe it's working now. If you have the YouVersion Bible app, it's free. If you have that on your phone, you can open it up, hit events, and hit more. Our notes should pop up on your screen there.
But I'm going to give you four very, very practical thoughts and points to go along with that.
So the first thing I want to mention is a racing mind is a challenge. How many of you can lift your hand up high and say a racing mind is a challenge? Ecclesiastes 2:22, what's it say? What do people get for all the toil and all the anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? What do you get for all this stress? All their days, their work is grief and pain; even at night, their minds do not rest.
I'm going to ask over and over again, who can relate? Solomon describes, what's he describing here? He describes anxious striving, anxious striving where our consistent busyness and toil prevents us from rest and peace in life.
I don't know about you guys, but I've been through periods where rest and peace was hard to find. How many of you have ever gone on vacation and it took you two or three or four days to unwind and slow down and be able to enjoy and be in the moment? How many of you know that is not God's best?
Little examples of anxious striving. This is where I told you guys, be real practical. Constantly checking messages, emails, and notifications, feeling unable to unplug. How many of you have one of these on you? And we constantly get that ding or the little tweet, tweet, tweet, whatever it is you may have on there.
Saying yes to every request or opportunity out of fear of missing out or disappointing somebody. Comparing yourself to others. This has gotten really bad with the invention of social media. And then what does that do? That leads to feelings of inadequacy.
Overcommitting to a ton of activities and responsibilities, leaving no time for the Lord, no time for rest, no time for personal reflection. Feeling guilt or restlessness when taking a break. How many of you have ever felt just restless? Like I say, when it came time for vacation or break time or day off or whatever else you might have had, just feeling restless, and you found yourself having to do something and keep busy.
Why do we do that? Well, because we believe our productivity equals our value and our worth. Many of us go to bed with our minds racing. Many of us sleep has eluded us for years. It's been difficult to find because the mind is racing, replaying the day's events or thinking about tomorrow and what's ahead.
And so we may have this full schedule, and it may be full of things even that are good and maybe even for the Lord. Yet we look, and many times we find our spiritual cup is empty.
So I'm going to give you eight things I just jotted down, ways to quiet a racing mind. Some of y'all need to take some notes today. All right. Now listen, we could do a conference on this, okay? This is going to be quick, but I want you to grab onto everything you can.
And by the end, what I'm going to challenge you to is to seek and ask the Holy Spirit at the end of this, what are two things that I can implement this week to begin to find peace and contentment in life?
So ways to quiet the racing mind. First thing I was going to mention was breathe deeply and meditate on scripture. Breathe deeply and meditate. Now listen, some Christians freak out when you start talking about breathing. I'm not getting into some weird Eastern religion thing.
Listen, how many of you know that when you are stressed out, what do you do? You start breathing faster. You're not even stressing your body. You're not working out or anything, but you get these little shallow breaths. How many of you know it is one of the best things you can do is to slow your breathing?
Stop and take deep, slow breaths. Did you know that slowing your breathing actually lowers your heart rate? Some of you wonder why you got high blood pressure and all these different things. Some of you just need to slow your breathing, slow your roll.
Oh, and I know because obviously I check my blood pressure and things quite a bit these days. And I found that when it's borderline or a little bit high, if I sit down for a moment and close my eyes, just meditate on the Lord for a minute and breathe deeply, my heart rate will drop drastically in that moment.
So stop, breathe deeply. But the second thing I mentioned was to meditate on scripture, meditate on a verse, speak it over your life. Like Philippians 4:6, tell yourself, "Don't be anxious for anything." The peace of God guards my heart. Say these things, meditate on these things within yourself. Allow God's peace to calm your thoughts.
Another one, practice gratitude. Practice gratitude. Hey, you know, we focus on the negative way too often these days. Instead of allowing your mind to focus on the negative or focus on worries or things that might be, begin to list the things that you're grateful for.
Guys, I had a whole list at one point. I had a note in my phone of stuff. So when I began to, my mind began, I began to go negative and whatever it may be, I could pull out this list and I could look at my phone and I could go, "Man, I am so grateful for that. And I am so grateful for that."
And I'm so grateful to begin to shift my thoughts and shift my mindset to what I am grateful for. It's just our mindset from anxiety to contentment. And then as you remember the things you're grateful for, you thank God for them because all good things come from above, amen?
Thirdly, limit digital distractions. Guys, set boundaries for yourself. It's time for us to set boundaries. One of the things we started doing a couple of years ago, Apple came out with this cool little thing called Focus.
And now I have it set. Some people don't love it, you know, that I actually do this, but I actually have it so my phone doesn't ring after 8 p.m. unless it is my wife, my kids, my parents, my in-laws, you know, it doesn't ring outside of that.
Well, what if somebody really needs to reach you? Well, people within the church, hopefully, are involved in community groups and they got lots of other people surrounding them that are receiving a lot less calls than I am, right?
And what I've also found is that most things can wait till morning. Most things are not an emergency. And so I'm going to focus on family and rest, right? Limit digital distractions, especially if you have trouble sleeping, especially before bed.
Take intentional breaks from social media because it does fuel comparison and fuel stress and different things like that. Engage more in worship. Worship and prayer. Guys, I went through a period of time where I felt like the Lord told me to stop listening to anything but worship music.
Nothing wrong with Christian music, but I felt like the Lord told me to quit listening to it. And so I did for like a year and a half. So that constantly what was happening, God's word was playing in the back. I had it playing all the time in the background.
And how do you know that? That'll lift your spirits in moments as you're walking through life. Speak your worries and your stresses and your fears and anxieties. Speak them out loud and surrender them to the Lord.
1 Peter 5:7, just say it. Say, "I cast this worry," name it. "I cast this thing upon the Lord because he cares for me." Isn't that what it says? And so speak those things.
Ground yourself. Guys, this has been a big one for me. Ground yourself in creation. We have taken more walks in the last year. Guys, get outside and go for a walk. Get away. You know, we are not meant to be closed up in an office or in a house or whatever it may be, you know, most hours of the day.
Get outside and go move. And you know, one of the things I've recognized is when we get outside, what you'll recognize if you look for it is you'll realize that most of creation outside of humanity isn't striving, isn't worrying, isn't stressed out, isn't burnt out.
Nature, creation moves and it ebbs and it flows with the heartbeat of its creator. We're the ones who are striving. Spend some time outdoors. Observe how the world moves that God created.
Another one, use scriptural self-talk. How many of you know, we all generally have self-talk? We'll talk to... are any of you all guilty of talking to yourself? I talk to myself. My wife reminds me how much I talk to myself. I talk to myself.
Guys, we've got to say the right words to ourselves. So when I say use scriptural self-talk, when anxious or negative thoughts come up, we replace them with God's truth. Let me get that out of the way.
2 Corinthians 10:5, you just begin to say, "I demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God in my life. Now I take every thought captive into obedience in Christ, in Jesus' name." Speak it, speak it out loud.
Declare, "The Lord is my shepherd. I have all that I need." Speak these things, speak them out loud of yourself. One more I was going to mention real quick was, especially when it comes to bedtime, create a wind-down routine.
How many of you have come to a place of recognizing you need some time to wind down before bedtime in the evening? And so create a... and they'll tell you, you know, avoid stimulating activities, TV, you know, messages, emails, social media, all those kinds of things before bed because it gets your mind moving and gets your mind racing when your mind's supposed to be chilling out.
It's time to rest. God created your body with the need to rest. So stop stimulating it when it's time to rest, right? Read a devotional. At bare minimum, guys, stop and talk to the Lord for a few minutes as you lay down at night. Pray. Allow your mind to focus on his peace.
We got to stop worrying about tomorrow and ask ourselves, what's the next right step I can take today? We got to learn to be in the moment.
So the racing mind is a challenge, but it's something that has to be dealt with. And look, I understand our society and our culture is fueling this, but we... well, we'll talk more about that. We've got to... we were called to be separate, right?
So the racing mind is a challenge. Number two, Jesus modeled slowing. Jesus modeled slowing. So what does that mean? We're going to talk about it here in just a second, but I'm going to read you a story.
And I've used this story before, but I actually learned more about it this week. I read this from a book, and unfortunately, I didn't write down where it came from.
Yeah, I didn't write it down at all, but it's a story of Susanna Wesley. Many of you know about her. And so here's... I'm going to read this straight from the book, but Susanna Wesley was married to a preacher. They had 10 children, of which two grew up to bring millions of souls to Christ.
That would be John and Charles Wesley. But behind the door of her home, hopeless conditions were the norm. She was married to a man who couldn't manage money well. They disagreed on everything from money to poverty. They disagreed on politics.
They actually had 19 children, but nine of them died in infancy. Sam, her husband, left her to raise her children alone for long periods of time as he worked. This was sometimes over something as simple as a small argument.
One of their children was crippled. Another couldn't talk until he was nearly six. And Susanna herself was desperately sick much of her life. There was no money for food, and debt constantly plagued them.
Sam was once thrown into a debtor's prison because their debt was so high, which doubled their problems. Twice the homes they lived in were burned to the ground, losing everything they owned, and many believed that their church members did it because they were so mad at what Sam was preaching from the pulpit.
Someone slit their cow's udders so they couldn't have milk. Someone killed their dog, and someone burned their flax field. But when Susanna was young, she had promised the Lord that for every hour she spent in entertainment, she would give an hour to him in prayer and in the word.
Taking care of the house and raising so many kids made this commitment nearly impossible to fulfill. She had no time for entertainment or long hours in prayer. She worked the gardens, milked the cows, schooled the children, and managed the entire household herself.
But out of sheer determination, she decided to instead give the Lord two hours a day in prayer. She struggled to find a secret place to get away with him, so she warned her children that when they saw her with her apron pulled over her head, that meant that she was in prayer and was not to be disturbed.
She was devoted to her walk with Christ, praying for her children and more knowledge in the Word, no matter how difficult life may be. One of her daughters got pregnant out of wedlock, and the man never married her. She was devastated but remained steadfast in her prayer for her daughter.
In the end, she knew that one day her hard life would be over, and she alone would stand before the throne of God and give account for how she lived her life. Life can be busy and even very difficult and hard, but we must take Susanna's example, flipping our apron over our head and praying in the middle of it all.
But back to the beginning of the story. Her sons, John and Charles, were powerhouses for the glory of God. John Wesley preached to an estimated one million people in his day, and at the age of 70, he delivered the gospel message of salvation to 32,000 people in one moment without the use of a single microphone.
He brought revival everywhere he traveled. His brother Charles wrote over 9,000 hymns, many of which we still sing today, including "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."
Guys, Jesus practiced slowing. And I'm using this example because we don't see Susanna Wesley's life really slowing, but she got creative and she found ways to get along with the Lord.
And it's funny because today, many parents escape. They'll escape to the bathroom, lock themselves in the bathroom for a little while just to get some peace away from the kids and the hustle and bustle.
In the hustle and bustle, if you're not doing anything in town, just be a big, big, big failure, you know, for just a little while. Like Jesus, we too need intentional time away from distractions to get refreshed and renewed in our connection with the Lord.
So who do we want our life to be like? Who do we emulate? You can say it louder. Jesus. So if we're to emulate Jesus, let me tell you something I recognized a few weeks ago.
We don't one time in scripture see Jesus in a hurry. Not one time. Do we ever see Jesus run? No, I'm not saying don't go run, don't work out. We don't see Jesus ever in a hurry to the point that we see one of his very best friends dying.
He wasn't in a hurry. He just trusted and went where he was led to go, right? And if we're meant to emulate him, then maybe we need to learn to slow our roll a little bit.
Because I don't know about you, but sometimes I can find myself to always be in a hurry. Mark 1:35 said, "Rising very early in the morning while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place. And there he prayed."
Guys, I can only imagine the demands of the ministry of Jesus. I imagine that the ministry he filled in that three years is not something that we probably as human beings, we could not have walked that out and walked in his shoes.
I mean, definitely not the price that he paid, but even his ministry day-to-day over that three-year period, even in the midst of all those demands, we see that Jesus was frequently withdrawing, it tells us, to the solitary places to spend alone time with his father.
Even after performing miracles and facing opposition, he would pause to recharge spiritually. This tells me that we've got to learn to slow down and pause.
I'm going to give you a few things here real quick, like I did the last point. Some steps of slowing down your life. First thing is, guys, we have got to learn to spend quality, unhurried time with the Lord.
I don't know about you, but I've gotten a habit a while ago, I've gotten a habit of spending quality, unhurried time with the Lord. I've gotten a habit a while back of, man, I just... man, I just... man, I'd have my daily Bible reading.
I actually read the Bible through for like the sixth year in a row last year. And closer to the end of last year, I said, I'm done not reading the Bible through again next year. Because you know what? It became words. It became a routine. Been doing it for six years.
People be like, "Whoo, a lot of people boast. I read the Bible for six years." I'm like, "Man, the last year, it was just trash." I mean, for me, because I wasn't getting anything out of it. I was feeling a duty and obligation. Does this make sense?
And so I was like, I'm going to do something different. I'm spending more intentional time in the New Testament this year. Instead of trying to cover the whole thing, I'm really focusing in on some specific things.
But spending quality, unhurried time with the Lord. Set aside specific time each day to spend in the Word of God without rushing. And I encourage you guys, consider starting your day with this rather than jumping right into work or right into scrolling on social media, whatever it may be.
Stop and give the Lord your first and give him your best and don't be in a hurry about it. Give him your time.
Number two, the second thing there was, is practice the Sabbath. Make rest and worship a priority. And guys, setting a time a day a week to cease the striving, to rest, to worship. Engage in activities that draw you closer to the Lord, like worship, going for walks, spending time with others, deep relational conversations, meaningful conversations, whatever it may be.
Guys, I don't know if y'all recognize this, but the Sabbath rest is one of the 10 commandments in Exodus chapter 20. And actually, you do realize that if you didn't observe the Sabbath and take a day off to rest and worship the Lord, it was punishable oftentimes by death.
Now, I'm not saying we should reimplement that today, but I am saying this was impossible. I'm not saying we should do that today. I'm saying this is important. And I would argue that it is still important.
If you don't have a day to take off, you need to rearrange your priorities. If you don't have some time to take off to be able to relax and rest and spend time with family and with God, then you need to make it a priority.
Again, we keep pounding this, but set boundaries for technology, turn off notifications, you're in prayer, bedtime. What about mealtime? This is something that we need to do.
This is something that we were talking about. You know, we've been back for a week now from Europe. And something I already knew, but we were really cognizant with Shauna's whole, you know, being present in the moment thing, you know, her goals for while we were overseas.
We were sitting in restaurants on a couple different occasions. We're sitting in a restaurant, a dining room full of people. And you look around, and you don't see one phone in a hand. Matter of fact, you don't even see one phone on a table.
And it's different if you've ever been to Europe. Mealtime is different. You don't rush mealtime. Mealtime is a time to rest, and it's time to relate, and it's time to enjoy some food.
I mean, it's very common when you go to Europe. I mean, a meal can take you two, two and a half hours easily. And us as Americans, we're going, "What's taking them so long?"
I mean, I was finding myself going, "Are they ever going to bring our check?" You know, it's time to go. It's been an hour and a half. But what if we made a rule in our homes that phones were not welcome at the table?
And we put those things down, and we actually related to one another. Slow it down. Limit screen time, especially that nonstop scrolling on social media.
How many of you get caught in that trap sometimes? Somebody sends you a meme, and you look at it, and you're like, "Oh, that's funny." And you just kind of swipe to the next one. "Oh, that's funny." An hour later, you're still like, "Oh, that's funny."
You know, you're still scrolling through. We got to stop. Did you know stats say the average American today picks up their phone, checks their phone at least 96 times a day? We need to refocus.
Simplify your schedule. Identify what truly matters and eliminate things that are non-essentials. There may be some things that are good in your life, maybe some things that you do well and you find satisfaction in, but is it what God's calling you to?
Is it just wasting more time and taking up more time in your schedule? Guys, it's time to simplify. Prioritize time for rest, for family, for church, for spiritual growth.
How many of you know Martha was busy doing the work of the Lord, but Mary chose what was better by stopping and sitting at the feet of Jesus? Engage in meaningful reflection.
Guys, this is something that somebody told us about back over the summer, and we have been trying to practice doing at the end of the day before going to sleep, stopping, and just reflecting for a few minutes, maybe even journaling on what God did in my life today, what I'm grateful for, and where I see him at work, and what he's doing, and getting our focus on him.
And as we reflect on our day, you may need to look at it and go, "Man, is the busyness of my day? I was so busy. I was so overwhelmed today. It was my busyness. Did it bring me closer to God, or did it actually distract me from him?"
You know, we see, we've got the book of Psalms because David was constantly pouring out his heart and writing it down. He was journaling these things, writing it into songs and poems.
Another one, remember, we're talking about Jesus modeled slowing. Just learn to slow your pace. Slow down your pace. You know what I've recognized in myself over the last year?
And obviously, there's some things that have led me to be so reflective, right? Most of you know I had heart surgery just a year ago in November. And I've learned to have to, because I didn't have any of the risk factors.
And they were like, "I think maybe you need to learn to slow down and reduce the stress in your life." And so I'm looking at all this. And so I'm sitting here thinking, you know, we move so fast.
We talk about breathing fast and all these different things. But you know, this fast-paced life has us doing other things too. You know what else I do? I drive fast. I walk fast. I talk fast.
Y'all think I talk fast. You should have seen me talking at a German church a couple of weeks ago. A couple of folks were going, "I think I caught, this is what you're saying. You talk very fast."
Shauna was like, "That was slow compared to normal." We get to where we do everything fast, and we're rushing from one task to the next task to the next task. And everything has to be fast.
What if we slowed it all? Slow down. Deep breaths. Slow our mealtime. Slow our driving. Slow our pace from one task to the next. Slow our roll.
By the way, talking about eating meals. Eating meals without distraction. Savoring food and relational connection. By the way, food is different too.
European food is so good. Made from scratch. They eat quality ingredients. You know, I ate everything. And I don't think I gained one pound while we were overseas. No issues.
Come back to the U.S. You have to be all careful again because everything we eat is trash. It's all full of junk. Terrible ingredients.
But eating meals without distraction. Savoring the food and relational conversation. Did you know that studies show that eating slowly improves digestion and reduces stress?
You know why there's such a rise right now in gut issues? I just think this may be a small part of it. Stress. And how we do everything so fast, including eat junk fast all the time. Slow down.
Slow down a little bit. Last one I was going to mention again was, I kind of mentioned last time, was develop a bedtime routine. Slowing down. Avoiding screens for 30 minutes before bed.
Enjoying a passage of scripture. Praying. Talking to the Lord. Sleep experts recommend a calming bedtime routine. That more often than not will improve sleep quality.
So racing mind is a challenge that we've got to learn to deal with. Jesus practiced. He modeled slowing. So we've got to begin to practice slowing our own lives down.
Thirdly, I was going to say, be still and know God. Now these kind of run together, but I'm making different points through them. So follow me here.
We talked about dealing with racing anxious thoughts. We talked about slowing down. Now I'm more talking about silence. I'm talking about slowing down. I'm talking about balancing the noise and intentionally being content in God's presence.
Psalm 46:10 says, "Cease striving and know that I am God." How many of you know, we got to cease striving, and that's going to take some practice on our behalf. That's a practice we have to put in place to cease striving all the time.
God calls us to cease striving and trust that he's got it. He's sovereign. Jesus demonstrated this after his baptism. What does he do? He goes 40 days into the wilderness before his ministry even gets kicked off, right?
And 40 days and fasting and praying for the Lord. Many of us believe, as I said a few minutes ago, that our value and our worth is tied to our productivity.
But here's the thing, taking time to be still before God reminds us that we are loved for who we are, not for what we do. Some of us, I think everybody would look at this and say, "I know that. Yes, that's absolutely true."
But I think very few of us actually live that. Taking time to be still before God reminds us that we're loved for who we are, not for what we do.
Practicing silence before God is an intentional act of slowing down, quieting external and internal noise, and simply being in his presence. It's not necessarily about the absence of sound, but creating space for God to speak and for our hearts to listen.
So a few practical things that I've been working on. One of them is find a quiet place. Now, I'm going to talk more about that in a few minutes because that can be a challenge in and of itself.
We can go back to the example of Susanna Wesley, right? That can be a challenge, but choose a spot where you won't be constantly interrupted.
And maybe, I know a few of you in here, you've got a dedicated little room or closet in your house as a little prayer room. Get away in your prayer room, or maybe you need to go for a walk and walk down to the park and sit on a bench, or maybe it's an unused meeting room at work, or maybe it's in your car while you're driving, or maybe you just need to have time where you go out to your car in the driveway and sit down in it, close the door, put on some worship music, and spend a little...
If that's the only place that you can find some solitude, go for it. We see that Jesus often withdrew to solitary places to pray.
The next thing I'll mention in that is eliminating distractions. Man, and now, I'm going to talk a little bit about that. And when you do this, you're going to have to leave your phone in another room. I mean, you just got to do it.
Close your eyes, focus on being present with the Lord and being in the moment. Remove external noise if you need to. Put on some soft instrumental worship music in the background, but be very intentional.
Now, listen, I'm talking about solitude and silence. Now, for some of us, this is difficult if you've never done it before. It's something Shauna and I started practicing back over last summer.
And you may need to, you may need to sit down and pray. You may need to set a timer. But listen, don't put the clock in front of you. Don't make it about time because all your mind will think about is how much time is left, right?
How many of you ever done that with your quiet time before? You make a commitment in January, "I'm going to spend 20 minutes with the Lord every morning." And you find yourself just watching it. "Oh, I still got... oh, still got nine minutes left. Oh, four minutes left."
Oh, don't look at the clock, right? Close your eyes, focus. Set a timer. Relax and be present. Take slow, deep breaths. Settle your body and mind.
And when you do that, you're going to be in the moment. And when you do that, you're going to focus on the Lord's presence rather than spouting off a whole list of prayer requests.
How many of you know, how many of you know it's okay to be silent before the Lord? Somebody described that to us back over the summer too. It was as we were talking through these things.
You know, our relationship with the Lord is described as a marriage, right? So those of you in the room who are married, this, I think this will be a good illustration for you.
You know, in the church, especially in the church, there's a lot of people who are married. There's a lot of people who are married. We're in the Spirit-filled church. We're all about hearing the voice of the Lord.
Talking about, "Well, I'm going to pray and see what the Lord has to say." And we're constantly... how many of you know, how many of you have ever been stuck in a rut where you were striving to hear from the Lord?
How many of you know, when we want to hear from the Lord, it's not really... it's not something we should be having to strive and work hard, like grunt, like, like I'm constipated.
Oh, God isn't. God's always speaking. So, if it's a marriage relationship that you have with the Lord, how many of you that are married, how many of you wake up and you immediately turn over and look at your spouse?
First thing in the morning, first thing, you look at him, you go, "Speak to me, speak to me, Shauna, speak to me, speak to me, speak to me." Of course not.
We're married, we know each other, and we don't always have to talk. We just like being in each other's presence and spending time together. There don't have to be words always exchanged between us.
Why are we striving, always trying to... we like, think our quiet time, we have to fill it with words, or we have to be striving to get a word from the Lord.
"Lord, what are you speaking? Speak to me, Lord, God." It's like, relax, calm down, right? I've gotten off where I'm at.
Listen instead of speaking, yeah? Instead of filling the silence with words, meditate on the Lord and his attributes. Pay attention to peace, conviction, a sense of direction.
All of a sudden you'll recognize, maybe you never heard the voice of the Lord before, and suddenly in the silence, you'll recognize him leading, guiding, and directing your heart.
Acknowledge wandering thoughts. Guys, I don't know how many of you have gone through and intentionally set up, you know, so I'm going to have this intentional time with the Lord on a consistent basis, but you struggled with your mind wandering.
Guys, you don't beat yourself up over it. You just gently bring your mind back, bring your focus back to the Lord. And you train yourself. You just... you don't get upset at yourself.
"Oh, why can't I do this?" You don't get all irritated. You just bring your thoughts back into focus. If you got to do it 20 times, every time you come to the Lord, you just gently keep bringing your thoughts back and meditating on him.
Every breath as you meditate, focus on an attribute of God. One I've been saying since last summer, as I take deep breaths and meditate on the Lord, I've been saying, "God, you are faithful. You are faithful and you are true."
Those have been the words I've spoke over and over again. You are faithful and you are true. Last one I was going to mention, which I've mentioned before, was practicing gratitude again.
This is at the end of your time that you're spending with the Lord. At the end of this, thank God for his presence. Even if you didn't feel something dramatic, even if you don't walk away with a word from the Lord, thank him.
"God, thank you for this time in your presence." Trust that he's at work, even in the quiet. He loves it when you spend uninterrupted intentional time with him.
We just have to quiet ourselves and the world around us long enough to sense him and hear him. You know, I don't know about you guys, but any of you have noise-canceling headphones or earbuds?
I love my AirPods, my AirPod Pros. Man, we were just, you know, a week ago on a plane, a couple of planes for, you know, 10, 11 hours or something. And man, you put those things in and plane noise is gone. Bam, silence.
Sometimes I wear them when I'm not even listening to anything for real, I really do. I go to the gym and I put them in and sometimes I'm not listening to a thing. I just silence.
In the same way, we have to quiet ourselves and the world around us long enough to sense them and hear them. And, you know, it's... silence helps us to tune in to God's voice and into his presence.
So the racing mind is a challenge it must be dealt with. Jesus modeled slowing, so we need to practice slowing. We got to learn to be still and know God, being present in the moment.
And the last thing, this ties into the others as well, but this is practice the habit of solitude. And I'm going to go a little bit different direction with this. Just for a second as well, it's similar in many ways, but Matthew 6:6, he says, "But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you and pray to your father in private. Then your father who sees everything will reward you."
So Jesus taught his disciples, like I say, we touched on this a second ago, but he taught them to get away and find a secluded place to pray to the father. And guys, we're talking about a place away from distraction and a place away from performance.
How many of you know, we get certain... you know, it's funny, I could call different people. I could call out different ones of you to come up and pray. And some of you, man, you'd be digging deep for a good one that you hadn't, you know what I'm saying?
Because you're standing for the church. And so you're going to be digging for every scripture you know and interjecting and trying to give this really great prayer. How many of you know, God's not looking for performance?
He just wants intentionality and honesty. Intimacy with God requires time alone. How many of you know, intimacy requires time alone, right?
So a few things in that. Again, I encourage you to embrace creation, meditating on the Lord and his presence, practicing silence. Like I say, spend time in nature, go take a walk, go walk around your block, watch the sunrise, be present in the moment.
Some of y'all hadn't walked in so long. I tell this, I don't know if I should tell this story or not, but back quite a number of years ago, we took the youth group down to Waldoxie camping.
And every time we go to Waldoxie, I mean, y'all know the campground, not the primitive campgrounds, but the normal campgrounds are a little ways away, separated from like the lake and everything.
So every time we go, I always want people to try something new. And I always encourage seniors to try something they'd never tried before, even if they hate it, at least, you know, now you hate it, but you've done it.
And so, but every time I would take them to Waldoxie, I would take... we would walk up to the lake and we'd do the walk around the lake, which is like a mile and a half or something through the woods there and such.
And I remember the last time we went, I took the crew out there and we start walking. We're walking from the campground to the lake, got to get there first. And there's a big old hill to get up there.
And man, I had some grumbling teenagers. I was like, "Why are we... we're walking to the lake? Why don't we drive to the lake? It's like, it's not a quarter mile over here, but we can drive over there. We're walking to the lake. Why we got to walk around the lake anyway?"
Well, you know, we're just going to... no, I'm like, "Do you guys not ever... no, we don't walk. Your family's never been on a walk? Our family's never been on... you're lying to me. We walked to the car." That's what they told me.
We walked to the car. Funniest thing I'd ever heard, man. I was like, "Well, you're walking around a lake today. We're walking around the lake."
I think it was Abby actually. That's why I almost didn't say it. She said, "Was it Abby?" Yeah. We walked to the car. That's where we walked.
Guys, go for a walk. Get outside. Practice quiet. Enjoy creation. Even in silent prayer, let your soul rest before the Lord.
How do you know that Elijah, Elijah didn't hear the voice of God in the wind and the fire and whatever. He was that small, still, quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet little whisper, right?
But the thing is, as I said a few minutes ago, solitude can be very difficult to find. And so that's where you've got to get creative and you've got to figure out what that looks like in your life.
You can do this. You've got to do this. You've got to do it. I don't know what that practical solution may look like in your life, but maybe it is.
Maybe you got a time each day that you walk out to your car for a little bit and you sit out in the car and play some worship music. And you spend a little time with the Lord, or maybe like I say, maybe it is a walk.
Maybe it is an empty room at work. I don't know, but remembering Susanna Wesley, her only option for solitude with the Lord was to pull an apron over her head while 10 kids ran around the house around her.
She had to get creative, didn't she? She had to tune out the noise. She covered up her eyes, tuned out the noise. Guys, solitude is not necessarily isolation.
We live in a society where it's hard sometimes to get time completely by ourselves and alone, but it's deliberately pausing to be intentional with the Lord. It's like setting aside time to strengthen a marriage.
Had the 20 or so couples we had just from Harvest at the marriage conference this weekend. It's awesome. Solitude strengthens our relationship. It does so in our marriage. It does so in our relationship with the Lord. It's all about intentionality.
So erasing mind is a challenge. It's got to be dealt with. Jesus modeled slowing. We got to learn to slow the pace. Be still and know God.
Learning to silence external, internal noise and practicing silence and then practicing the habit of solitude, intentionally getting away from all the distractions.
Guys, remember that you can't pour into others what you don't have. You can't pour out to others if you're not filled up first in his presence.
We've got to quiet the anxious thoughts. We've got to slow down. We got to be still and silent. Seek his presence. Seek his presence. Seek solitude, and through this, know that he will renew your strength.
You don't have to keep striving. You don't have to keep being anxious and burnt out. You've got to begin taking steps. You've got to begin to change your perspective and the way that you're viewing life because you were raised in a culture that says hurry, hurry, hurry.
You're raised in a culture that says your productivity determines your value, but those things are not of the kingdom of God. Amen? Amen.
God loves you for who you are. God loves you for who you are, not what you do. So spend time with him. Slow the roll. Allow him to renew your strength.
Amen. I'm going to invite the worship team to come up. And let's just all stand up together. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Close your eyes for just a minute. Close your eyes, take a deep breath. My wife says I sigh a lot. I don't sigh a lot. I take a lot of deep breaths.
Some of you just need to take some deep breaths. Some of you just need to take some deep breaths. Some of you just need to take some deep breaths.
Of work tomorrow? Of course there are. But those challenges are for tomorrow. Take a deep breath. Quiet the noise. Silence your mind.
Reflect for a minute on what God's word says. Reflect on what Jesus modeled for us. We're doing a pulse check right now.
So ask yourself, how am I doing in this area? Are you one that's always stressed out, always striving, finding more value and affirmation in your productivity than in your relationship with the Lord?
So the question I told you I was going to ask earlier is, what are one or two practical steps that you can take this week to allow the Lord to begin to renew your strength?
I believe there are people here, there are people watching online who are burnt out and tired and so fatigued. And dreading Monday. Guys, Monday is a day that the Lord has made.
And you can go in it with your strength renewed, ready to tackle what you're doing. Whatever may come. Ready to be the hands and feet of Jesus. You don't have to dread a thing.
Take a deep breath. God, you are faithful. You are true. Out of all things we talked about, what are one or two things that you need to work on?
Don't try to do it all. Maybe it's just one thing. What's something you can do differently this week? That will draw your heart closer to his.
Maybe it will quiet the noise a little bit. It'll bring you strength and encouragement. What are you going to do to quiet the anxious thoughts, to slow down, to be silent, to reflect on gratitude?
Just ask, Holy Spirit, what would you have me do this week? Actually, I just want us to stand silent before the Lord for a minute.
And keep playing back here, y'all are good. If you want to sit back down for a second, have a seat. If you want to stand, stand. If you want to kneel, kneel.
But I'm going to shut my mouth and I'm going to be quiet here for a minute. And I want you to intentionally allow yourself to sense God's presence and sense his leading in your heart.
Allow yourself to sense his love and his presence and see what the Holy Spirit speaks to you as you reflect on what we've been talking about for the last few minutes.
Don't strive. We're not working to get a word here. We're just resting our spirit, our soul, our body. We're resting it in God's presence.
Just take a deep breath. Just take a deep breath. Guys, just picture yourself, as Pastor Shauna showed a while ago, the illustration, leaning on the Father's chest, his arms wrapped around you.
Perfect peace, perfect love, perfect security. Everything you need, all provision.
Father, help us to slow down, to quiet our minds, and to intentionally seek you. Teach us, God. Teach us to find peace in your presence and to know that you are God.
May you just be with us. May each person here prioritize time with you above all else, experiencing renewal and peace, Jesus.
You don't know yet the peace that I'm talking about. Guys, the Bible tells us that there's a peace that surpasses all understanding. The world, those who don't know Christ, just won't get it.
But that peace can be yours. You can live a life with purpose and security and meaning, and you can live a life of intentionality. You don't have to live just from day to day, week to week, paycheck to paycheck, crisis to crisis.
There's so much more to this life. That was the idea from the beginning, that we would be in relationship with our creator. We would walk with him and talk with him.
We would understand God's will. But sin got in the way through our own free will, separated us from that intention that the father had, separated us from our holy, righteous father.
There was nothing we could do to pay the debt that we owed to restore that relationship. So what does he do? While we were still yet, he sent Jesus to die for us, to live the life that we were supposed to live, righteous, upright, holy, and die paying the punishment that we deserved.
So now the Bible tells us that if we'll surrender our lives to him, our way of doing things, what we think is best, instead surrender to him, dying to our old self, repenting of our sin, making him Lord of our life, following him every day, he makes us a brand new creation.
Our spirit becomes brand new. It comes alive. And from that moment onward, every time God the Father looks at us, there's no separation. He sees the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
He sees you just as holy as he sees his son, Jesus. And then he calls you son, and he calls you daughter.
So I'm going to pray a prayer here in just a minute, and I encourage you to pray with me if that's you. If you're with me, if you're with me, maybe you have surrendered your life to Christ or maybe you haven't before, but one way or the other, you recognize that he's not the one that's guiding your life.
You recognize that it's you, that you're your own Lord and Savior. And you recognize today that you need him.
With all eyes closed, is there anybody here today that just be bold and say, "I recognize that I need to surrender my life to Jesus today?" Would you just lift your hand up?
Anybody here? Maybe somebody watching online. Anybody here? Maybe somebody listening to this right now.
I'm going to pray a prayer. I'm going to pray a prayer. And I just invite you to pray something like this. Say, "Father, I thank you so much for the gift of Jesus. So I recognize I'm lost and dead in my sin.
I thought I knew what was best. I thought it was okay for me to be in charge, but all I do is jack things up. Jesus, I need you.
And so today I repent for living life my own way. I repent for my sin. And I ask you to forgive me.
Today I confess on my mouth that Jesus, you are Lord. I believe in my heart that you were raised from the dead.
And today I make you my Lord and my Savior. Make me that new creation. Walk with me. Give me purpose and peace, guidance and direction.
I'll follow you all the days of my life. Just say, "Holy Spirit, fill me with your love. Fill me now and empower me. That could be everything you called me to be from this day forward in Jesus' name."
Everybody said, "Amen." I want to invite our prayer partners down. Pastors, elders, senior leaders, if you would, that we're going to have some across the front, across the back.
And guys, we're going to just sing here for just a moment. We're just going to worship for just a moment. Some of you may need to practice just standing here in silence for just a few minutes.
Even as we worship, maybe you just need to practice that. You need to stand and just allow yourself in this moment to sense the presence of God, to sense his arms of love wrapped around you.
But maybe there's some of you, actually what I'd really love, if you really felt convicted in one of these areas, I'd love for you to tell one of these folks.
If at least tell somebody who's a part of your community group or your community group leader, somebody else, and allow them to help hold you accountable in this.
Because guys, how many of you know, we have got to learn to slow the roll. We've got to slow down. We got to learn to be still and know that he is God.
We've got to be in his presence. And so I just encourage you, however you want to for the next one to two minutes, press into his presence for just a minute.
Again, I use the word press. I'm not talking about striving. Guys, this is a... it's more of a release. It's letting go. It's not trying to get something. It's letting go and surrendering and allowing yourself to stay in his presence, to know his voice.
So we're going to press in for just a minute. I just encourage you now to ask the Holy Spirit, what are you speaking to me today? Allow him to minister to you.
How do you feel a little bit refreshed this morning? You feel at peace. Comes from being in the Lord's presence.
And it doesn't have to just happen on Sunday morning. Something that you need to practice every day of your life. Walking in his presence, being aware of his presence, every moment of every day.
You can walk in this peace all the time. Amen. As we're going to continue, I got some good things coming up in the coming weeks.
We're going to continue this for another week or two, this series, Pulse Check, as we do some self-evaluation. I think I'm going to go into a series after that on the role of women in ministry.
It's going to be fun. Love it. We're going to dig into what God's word says. And we've heard a lot of things. We see things happening in the news. What does God's word say about the role of women in ministry?
I want us to talk about that. And then we're going to go into a cool series leading up into Resurrection Sunday. It's going to be a powerful time. I'm really excited as we're looking forward to that.
But guys, with that said, you guys go forth, be salt and light. But, practice solitude and silence before the Lord. Slow the roll this week. Make it your goal. Amen?
Guys, we love you. You are dismissed. Those of you watching on the live stream, thank you so much for being a part today.
If you joined us, hope you too are blessed by the message. If you didn't fill out your connection form, if you would do that, that should be in the live stream feed there. Fill that out for us. That'd be awesome.
We would love to know that you were a part. We'd love to meet you in person sometime here at Harvest. Come and see us. But in the meantime, have a blessed week.
We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you.
on Feb 16, 2025
