260. Why Spiritual Habits Never Stick // John 15 // Josiah Bogue

A lot of people try spiritual habits like prayer, reading the Bible, or going to church… and walk away feeling bored, frustrated, or unchanged. Some assume they’re doing it wrong. Others assume God isn’t real.

In this episode, Josiah talks about why so many spiritual practices don’t work the way we expect—and why that might actually be the point. It isn’t about being more disciplined, more religious, or fixing your life. It’s about why so many of us feel distant, even when we’re “doing all the right things,” and what closeness is actually supposed to look like.

If you’ve ever thought, “I tried this stuff and it didn’t work,” this one’s for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everybody, thank you for listening to the Collective podcast. My name's Josiah and I'm one of the leaders here. Collective is actually the young adult ministry for Grace Church Bath Campus. And this podcast is just a collection of all the teachings we give every Thursday night at 7 o'clock. So if you are a young adult between the ages of 18 to 29-ish, I want to invite you out to personally see Collective for yourself. The thing I love the most about it is it's not just a place for Christians. So if you still have a lot of questions about Jesus and don't know what to think about God or the Bible or whatever, you're gonna fit right in. So whether that's you or you've been following Jesus for a really long time, I hope to meet you in person and I hope you find today's episode helpful. All right, let's get to it. Last week we started a brand new series of conversations called Rooted. So we're on the second week uh of that series right now. And I I just want to open up with a question. Is that chill? This whole series is really uh hinging on one question. It's this question right here. Are you as close to God as you want to be right now? Are you as close to God as you want to be right now? I just want you to think back to this past year, 2025. Were you as close to God as you wanted to be in this past year? Uh I I when I'm thinking back on this past year, you know, I I've been following Jesus, uh I started following Jesus in high school. So it's been a little bit. But even after years have gone by, I look back on this past year, I'm like, man, there's all these areas of my life that I wish I was closer to God, I wish I was more like God. I know some of us are uh newer Christians, so maybe that's the past couple months or a couple years, or I don't know what it is. But I'm sure you would look at your life and you're like, man, I I just wish there were, you know, ways that I trusted God better. I was closer to God. And then I know a bunch of us, like, you know, you're not sure where you're at with God, but but I would ask you the same question. Like, if God was real, if God was actually out there, whether you can trust that or not, if God was there, would you want to be close to Him? Here's what I want everybody to do. I want everybody in this room to think of a number uh between one and ten. And here's what I mean. With one being the worst and ten being the best, are you as close to God? How close do you feel to God right now? Everybody think of a number between one and ten. One being the furthest, ten being the closest, how close to God do you feel right now? Everybody got a number? Let me know. Nod your head when you got a number. Okay, everybody got a number. Okay, here's my follow-up question to to that then. If your number is between one and nine, raise your hand if your number was between one and nine. Put it up. Okay, every single person in the room. Uh if your number by the way, if if your uh number was ten, you struggle with something called arrogance. If your number was between one and nine, my my next question is what are you gonna do about that? What are you gonna do about that? You know, so on Christmas Eve, uh something really exciting happened uh for me. On Christmas Eve, a friend of mine uh showed up to our church Christmas program, and he has not been uh to church in a very long time. His name is Will. No, not the Will who can harness the power of Vecna. You know, not that will. Um, but but this is a different will, and I have not seen Will in years. Uh Will actually he he he was around our church for a while. He was around collective, but basically what happened was a couple years ago, um, he had stopped following Jesus because he had he had met this girl, you know, who wasn't really a follower of Jesus, and he knew it wasn't what he should have done, but he just chased this girl and he started falling away from God and all sorts of areas of of his life, and they they moved in together, and he kind of cut ties with with all these guys. Well, on Christmas Eve, Will just showed up. He can't he walked into the lobby, and I just saw him and just gave him the biggest hug in the world. I'm like, dude, long time. I was so excited, long time no. See, you know, what brings you here? And he started telling me the story of why he came to church that day. Basically, what had happened was he started telling me that in the past few months, his relationship with this girl had slowly been falling apart. And he went on and on for about 20 minutes about how miserable he was now and and how toxic the relationship had become, that that they had been, you know, fighting and she had become manipulative and controlling, and he wanted to leave, uh, but he didn't know how, you know, all this kind of stuff. He was just going on and on and on about this. Um, but then he said the words that I never thought I'd heard him say. He he looked at me and said, Josiah, I need to come back to God. What should I do? Josiah, I need to come back to God, what should I do? And I'm thinking, this is amazing. So I looked at him like, all right, bro, let me give you some next steps. Like, I can't tell you everything, you know, in in in two minutes, but let me give you some next steps. So I said, first, you probably need to move out. It sounds like this relationship is pretty toxic. You know, it sounds like you get need to get out of that scenario. And he goes, Well, we do live pretty close to my workplace, and I'm not sure how I'm gonna like make the bills work, and it is nice paying half for rent. I don't know if I can move out. I'm thinking, okay. And so I try and give another suggestion. I'm like, well, dude, if you want to come back to God, you definitely need to be around the church, bro. You definitely need to be around people who are followers of Jesus, who who can push into your life. Well, it is a pretty far drive. You know, well, I, you know, I do that, you know, Thursday night, that's normally when I do these other things. I'm not sure that I can actually do that. And I looked at it, I'm like, dude, I I'm just gonna be honest, I don't think you're gonna be able to make it on your own. If I gave you, you know, a stat, I think you have a 0% chance of following Jesus on your own. You really need to go back to church. And he's like, oh, okay, Josiah, I guess you're right, I guess you're right. But work is kind of busy right now. What if I just start coming back to church in April when when the season's over? And finally, after he gave excuse after excuse, I just looked at him and I said, Well, let me get this straight. Let me get this straight. You just went on for 20 minutes about how messed up your life is and how miserable you are and how badly you want to come back to God. But at the same time, you are unwilling to make any changes or any sacrifices to your current life to make that happen. And finally, I just looked at him and I said, Listen, bro, you cannot tell me that you want your life to change while simultaneously telling me you're unwilling to make any changes to your life. And I'm just looking at everybody in this room right now, myself included. I'm just gonna say it to everyone, listen, you cannot tell me that you want your life to change while simultaneously telling me that you're unwilling to make any changes to your life. If you want to be closer to God, my question is, what are you gonna do about that? What's the plans? What are what are the shifts that we are gonna put into place? And that is why this series, this rooted series, is I'm so excited about this. You know, I've been leaning collective for five years. We have net this series is different than anything we have ever done before because starting next week, so the week of January uh 11th, we're gonna be launching a bunch of small groups, groups of about uh 10 to 15 people that are going to, and those groups are gonna coincide with the talks that we're gonna be doing here and the talks we're gonna be doing on our Sunday and Saturday services for 10 weeks. And our goal with Rooted is to get every single person in collective. So there's probably about 300 people in this room. Our goal is to get all 300 of us to join one of these groups, to be a part of one of these communities, to move our relationship with God forward. Whether you don't know God at all, or you're like, I don't even know if God exists, to all the way to I've been following God for 20 years. The goal is that all of us would experience this together. You know, in the Bible, God teaches something actually really, really fascinating. Um, there's a lot of people who say, Well, Josiah, like I follow Jesus on my own. You know, like my relationship is like me and God. I hear this all the time, right? And what you mean is like, you know, I read the Bible at home, or like I have my like prayers, you know, that I say to God, or or I go to church, you know, I might not be super involved, but I go to church and I, you know, learn the stuff and then I and I go home. And and that's great if you do that. Like that's all awesome. But what the Bible teaches very clearly is that if you follow God on your own, you're gonna hit a ceiling remarkably fast. You're gonna hit a limit really fast. Uh, I think about the belts and and karate. Now he's bigger than me, shiny than me. Uh, I think of like belts and karate. So so if you think about all these different belts, you basically can only get to a yellow belt following Jesus on your own. Because what's gonna happen is you're gonna read the Bible and there's all these things in the Bible that you're basic you are completely incapable of doing outside the context of community and other people. And I know that a lot of us are feeling that limit. You're like, I try to get closer to God, but nothing, I don't know what it was, but I couldn't keep going further. And this is probably it. So here's a dream. There's 300 of us in this room right now. Imagine if all 300 of us were 10 steps closer to God than we are right now. Maybe it's moving from negative 10 to zero, maybe it's moving from 90 to 100. But imagine if all 300 of us were 10 steps closer to Jesus than we are right now. That's what these rooted groups are custom designed to do. Two and a half months, 10 weeks, that's it. Two and a half months to change your life. And so if if you what I'm asking is that uh if you're interested in joining a rooted group, there's a QR code for that right there. There's a sign-up booth right outside that, that, uh outside the doors right there. And we want to go on this journey together. Now, you're probably asking, what is rooted all about? Like, what are we gonna talk about? Okay, here we go. Let's get in the meat of this talk today. In the Bible, in the Bible, God shows us seven rhythms for getting closer to Him. If you want to get closer to God, God gives us seven rhythms for a healthy relationship with Him. And if you read Acts chapter two, which all of Rooted is based out of, in Acts chapter two, you're gonna find these seven rhythms to get closer to God. And here's what they are uh number one, daily devotion. So that's time in the Bible hearing from God. Number two, prayer. That is talking to God. Number three, repentance. Uh, that just means turning away from my old life and embracing a new life with Jesus altogether. Number four, sacrificial generosity, recognizing that that my uh money is not my money, my stuff is not my stuff. I want to give that to the poor. I want to give that so that other people can figure out who Jesus is. Number five, serving the community. It doesn't take long to figure out that in your neighborhood or in your house or in Akron or wherever, there's a lot of needs. People need love serving the community. Number six, sharing Jesus with other people, or Rudy's gonna say sharing your story. To tell other people about what God has done in my life so that they can experience the same thing in their own life. And lastly, worshiping God to say, God, you are my king. I I look to you before I look at myself. Like I just think you're incredible, I just think you are wonderful. And these seven things are the pathway for getting closer to God. These are the daily and weekly rhythms of a follower of Jesus. And so here's how this series is gonna work. On our weekend services, so our Saturday, Sunday services, uh, Big Jeff and the other pastors, they're gonna be talking about each of these topics one at a time. So we're gonna go our way through that. I'm actually gonna be jumping in on the weekend services. Some so if you uh you go to collective, but you've never been to our Saturday or Sunday services, this is a great time to start going. Then what we're gonna do is during collective, during our times, I'm just gonna do a deep dive into two of these that I think really trip us up. And the two that we're gonna do a deep dive into is the Bible, daily devotions, and prayer. So we're gonna be talking about that in a in a much more thorough way. So if you go both to collective and the weekend services, you're gonna get like the 3D experience. It's gonna be pretty incredible. But can I just be 100% honest with everybody? Can I just do it straight right now? If I was sitting in the audience right now, and some guy was standing up here talking about how for the next two and a half months we're gonna be talking about the seven rhythms that get us closer to God, I would have the exact same reaction that most of you have had for the past five minutes that I've been talking. Snooze! This seems like the perfect ten weeks to skip. Like this, it it sounds, it sounds boring. Uh, it it sounds some of us actually probably have some baggage with these things. So I know that some of us grew up in church, and you be basically the it the implication was if you don't do these things, you're a bad person. If you don't do these things, God is disappointed in you. And so as soon as I bring this up, that's never what I'm gonna say at all. But you're immediately like kind of triggered. You know, like I don't want to go to hell for you know what I mean? Like that that's kind of the baggage. Others of us are like, what's the point of doing any of this? But I think what a lot of us have is is this objection right here, a common objection, which is this. Josiah, I know these are the things I should be doing, but when I try to do them, it just doesn't feel like anything's happening. I know that these are things I should be doing, but when I read the Bible, I'm gonna be honest, I got nothing. It just is kind of boring. When I try and pray, it just feels like, you know, I'm talking to the sky. When, you know, I've never really connected with the church. I've never, you know, all these things. I know there are things I should be doing, but they are not working. In fact, just a quick show of hands. Can you raise your hand if you've tried any one of those seven things and you felt like nothing was happening before? Can you put your hand in there? Yeah, so listen, I I teach the Bible for a living. That's what I do. And I cannot tell you how many times I've stared at the Bible and it's just like it's just like a bunch of words on a page. But here's what I've learned. If you look at these seven things and you feel like they're not working, there's a very specific reason for that. And it took me a really long time to learn from the Bible what that reason is. But the reason is this although I'm doing exactly the right things to get closer to God, I'm doing them with the wrong goal in mind. And because the wrong goal is in mind, I'm I'm not looking for the right result. So in high school, I was notoriously clueless when it came to girls. Like, absolutely clueless. Like whenever a girl liked me or whatever, I just like didn't pick up any of the signals. You know, I just like never understood, you know, what was happening. I remember one time I was working at this summer camp and uh I was driving a golf cart to get some supplies off of the soccer field. And there was this girl, another counselor, was in the golf cart with me. And I was driving and she goes, and like puts her head on my shoulder. I'm like, wake up. You know, like we got work to do. You know, like I just like never picked up the signals on any of this. Well, when I was about 16 years old, uh there was this one girl who apparently really liked me for a long time. And and I had no idea that she liked me. To be honest, like, so my best friend was like in love with this girl. And so, like, bro code number one, I didn't even like consider her. You know, that is bro code. By the way, some of you need to learn this. Some of you are like, I don't know why I don't have any friends. I can tell you exactly why you don't have any friends. Anyways, you simp. Anyways, um, so there was this one girl that that that really liked me, and I had no idea. And she went on uh like a missions trip to Los Angeles. She went to do like, you know, ministry in Los Angeles. And uh at the time, I was really like trying to learn more about what ministry is, what does that look like, you know, what does it mean to follow God in that way? And so when she came back, legitimately, out of nothing but genuine curiosity, I went up to this girl, and it sounds so stupid now that I'm saying this, but I went up to this girl and I said, Hey, I would really love to hear about what you learned in Los Angeles. Would you be down to get coffee sometime and explain to me what ministry was like in Los Angeles? And she was ecstatic about this. You know, she was so excited, and I had no idea. And so she goes to all of her friends and she's like, You'll never believe what happened. Josiah asked me to get coffee with him, you know, her friends are all freaking out, you know. But mind you, legitimately, my only goal, my only goal was to learn about ministry in Los Angeles. That was it. And so we get to the coffee shop, and and first of all, I show up like 20 minutes late because I'm not even thinking about chivalrous or you know, you know, whatever. And then we're in line for coffee, and I'm sure she like was waiting for me to pay for her. I'm like, you got Apple Pay? Like, wait, you know, come on, you know, let's go. You know, but but the worst part was we sit we sit down at the table, and uh no joke, we sit down at the table, and the first thing I do is I pull out my laptop and I put it on the table and I open it up and I just start like writing down the things that she's saying. You know, you know, it was like this, it was like that, and I'm just writing it all down. And so we start talking, but to my absolute annoyance, this girl could not stay on topic. She just starts talking about herself and her feelings and her aspirations and her dreams. I'm like, can we get back to the Los Angeles? Like, I don't think you understand. And then she starts asking me really thoughtful questions about what are you looking for in life and what where are you trying to go? And she starts telling me how meaningful our friendship is. I'm like, I legit. And like, can we get back on track? Like, I really feel like you don't understand why we're here. And finally, about 45 minutes into this thing, no joke. 45 minutes, I go, I think I just figured out blues clues. You know, it finally hit me. This girl thinks we're on a date right now. Oh, I get it. She thinks we're on a date right now. So, do you want to know what I did? I want to know what I did. I did what any respectful 16-year-old boy would ever do. I got out of there as fast as I could. I bolted out of that coffee shop. My my wife, uh Sarah, who was friends with her at the time, she told me years later that this girl was absolutely devastated, crying. Like I broke this girl's heart. Now, listen, listen, listen. Here's the point. My goal, my goal on this coffee date was to learn about ministry in Los Angeles. Her goal was to begin a relationship with me, to get close to me, to learn about me, and so I can learn about her. And actually, that is a perfect analogy for our relationship with God. When it comes to these seven rhythms, I actually think most of us in this room are me. We have an objective. We want to get something done. Take a note, check it off the list, whatever it is. God is like the girl. He just wants to get to know you. He just wants to have the closest relationship that he can possibly have. But because we have different goals, I left frustrated and she left heartbroken. Listen, the reason these rhythms aren't working in your life is not because there's anything wrong with the Bible or with prayer or with the church or even with you. There's nothing wrong with you. The reason they're not working is because you have the wrong goal. You're trying to get something out of the Bible that the Bible's not trying to give you. You're trying to get something out of the church that the church wasn't designed to bring to you. So actually, I actually think this is good news. Everybody hear me with something. Everybody hear me on something. If you don't get anything out of these rhythms, there's nothing wrong with you. You're not unspiritual. God is certainly not ignoring you. God is not upset with you. You're not stupid. You're not like at the bottom of the totem pole, whatever it is. No, no, no, no, no. You just are looking for the wrong goal. You have the wrong point system. So what is the right goal? What is the right goal? Well, according to Jesus, the only goal of these rhythms is to become as relationally close to Jesus as possible. The only goal of all seven of these is to become as relationally close to Jesus as possible, to become one with Jesus. So Jesus says this in John chapter 15. He says, Listen, I have loved you even as God the Father has loved me, so remain in my love. Now, how do I remain in that love? Here's how. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love. When you engage in these rhythms, you remain in my love. Just as I obey my father's commandments, and I remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with joy, so it's not a burden. So that you will be filled with joy, yes, your joy will overflow. The only goal of these rhythms is to be as close to Jesus as possible, to be one with him, to make my mind the same as Jesus' mind. To make the things I care about be the same things that Jesus cares about. To make, honestly, like my life, the things that I do, the same things that Jesus does with his life. But if I participate in these rhythms for any other reason, I'm always going to leave frustrated and disappointed. My dad has this great quote that I find really helpful. He says, This listen, you can never think of God outside of the context of a relationship. You can, however, you think of God, every time you're getting distant from God, every time things are going wrong in a relationship with God, it's because you're thinking of God outside of the context of a relationship. So the closest relationship in my life, as an analogy, outside of Jesus, is with my best friend, the love of my life, Sarah. There's a photo. Oh, that's a photo of Sarah and I at the Cavs game. I know, skinny jeans. They were in. Anyways, I get it. I got it. I I showed this photo on Tuesday night and my group chats are blowing up. You know, they're like, that thigh gap. Wow. Listen, so Sarah and I make it a habit in a discipline to try and go on a date every single week. Every week we try and have a date night. Now listen, there's All sorts of reasons we could go on a date night. There's all sorts of goals I could have. We could be going because I really like the calves and I want to see them play. We could be going because I love seeing new movies, and that's a great way to see new movies as I need a buddy. We could be going because uh I really like flexing on Instagram that somehow I landed a girl as attractive as Sarah. Like that that's a that's an objective too. And listen, those are fine side effects, and those are perfectly fine byproducts, but those are horrible goals. Horrible objectives. What is my only goal? My only goal in a day is to be closer to Sarah, to be as close to her as I possibly can be. Now listen, the flip side is also true because there's a lot of us that would say, yeah, yeah, yeah, all that matters is my connection with God. I don't need to participate, you know, in church. I don't need to, it doesn't matter what I do with my money. Like all I care about is my connection with God. But let me, that's not true. Listen, you can't have a healthy relationship outside of these rhythms. It's impossible to have a healthy relationship outside of these rhythms. Can I show you? So you can't think about God outside the context of a relationship. Let me show you the equivalence of all these rhythms with God to like my relationship with Sarah. Let me give you just like the relational equivalent. So listen, daily devotions, that's the equivalent to like listening to Sarah. Prayer, that's the equivalent of talking to Sarah. How could we have a relationship if I don't hear her words and speak to her? Repentance, that's the same as like apologizing to her and changing for the better. Sacrificial generosity, that's me giving my full life to her. The moment we got married, our two bank accounts became one bank account. We share everything that we have. Serving the community, that's the equivalent of loving the people that she loves. If I looked at Sarah and said, I love you, I love you, I love you, I just hate your family and never want to talk to them. Well, I don't really love her because I'm not letting my heart become one with her heart. Sharing Jesus with other people, sharing your story, that's the same as like having a purpose, having a mission, having a goal with the person that you love the most. You can't have a relationship without that. And then worship, that's the same as like complimenting her, adoring her. Listen, if you talk to any relationship counselor ever, any relationship counselor ever who does not believe in God, they will tell you that if you remove any one of these rhythms from a romantic relationship, that relationship will fall apart. Any one of them. You cannot have a healthy relationship without it. But my motivation is not out of obligation. My motivation is out of love for her. So here's what I want to do. For the remainder of our time, all I want to do is I want to look at two goals to participate in these rhythms that feel like they're the right goals, but they're actually the wrong motivation. I think there's a lot of actually Christians in this room, and I actually think we're actually engaging in these rhythms for the wrong reason. So I want to look at two faulty motivations for engaging with all of the right rhythms. Here's the first one. Ready? The wrong goal for the right rhythms is I participate in these rhythms for me. The wrong goal for these rhythms is I do it for me. In other words, I pray, I serve, I read the Bible, whatever it is, to improve my life and to become a better person. You know, one of the things that's big on social media, especially in like the dude community. Girls, you can tell me if it's popular on your feeds, but I know it's popular on the on the dude's feeds. It's something like this alarm goes off at 5 30 a.m. Yeah. I arise, meal prep for the week, count my calories, count my proteins, hit the gym, go home, read the Bible. That's the path to becoming a better man. You know what I'm talking about? Like there's this idea that that's really popular right now that God is one of the things, probably the most important thing, to improve my life, to be disciplined, and to become the person that I want to be. In other words, like I have like my physical life, I have my emotional life, I have my professional life, and then I have my spiritual life. But God is kind of like in the same category as like going to the gym or being on a good diet, or like it's it's like all kind of self-improvement stuff. Now, there's a massive problem with that category of thinking. I have a question for you. Who does all of that revolve around? Me. Who is the only benefactor of going to the gym? Me, right? All of it revolves around myself. So here's the problem: you're not treating God like a person, you're treating God like a program. You're not treating God like a person, you're treating God like a program. Imagine if Sarah asked me, Josiah, why are you so invested on taking me on dates every single week? And I looked at her and says, Oh, that's easy. It improves my mental health. Oh, that's easy. Because the day after we go on a date, I am so much more productive. You know what I mean? That would be absolutely self-centered and it would deteriorate our relationship. So here's a question: What shouldn't be the reason I take her on dates? What should be the reason? I want to get to know you. I want to be as close to you as I possibly can be. I just want to spend time with her. And the same is true for our relationship with Jesus. It's exactly the same. Let me give you an example. Can I give you an example? If you start reading to the Bible and you get to a boring part, you know what I'm talking about? The boy, am I allowed to say that? So you start reading the Bible and you get to a boring part and you go, Ugh, this doesn't apply to me. How am I supposed to apply this to my life today? Listen, that is the equivalent of you going out on a date with someone, you're sitting at dinner with them, and they start telling you some story about their past, some story about their life, and you go, Ugh, how am I supposed to put this into practice today? Ugh, what principle should I implement? And how is this story improving my life? Listen, listen, why is that person telling you the story? That person is telling you the story just so you can get to know them. And so that you can get to know like what their life has been like and what they care about and the kinds of things that are on their mind. Listen, Jesus is actually not after change. He's after closeness. Jesus is actually not after change, he's after closeness. But closeness always produces change. And Jesus says it right here, John 15, 5. Those who remain in me stay close to me, and I in them, they will produce much fruit. They will change. And apart from me, you can do nothing. So let me just clarify something. Can I just clarify something right now? Listen, if you're spending time with God with the expectation of learning new information, or the expectation of like feeling a certain feeling, that's like the number one reason people don't read the Bible. It's like I didn't feel anything, or with the expectation of like learning a new principle that you can apply to improve your life or date better, or you know, whatever it is. If you're spending time with God for one of those expectations, you are spending time with God for the wrong reasons. Those things will happen like a lot. You will learn a lot of stuff. You will feel things every once in a while, but those need to be byproducts, not goals. There's actually a few phrases that I hear in Christian circles. So if you're not a Christian, just let me pick on the Christians for a second. I love doing this. There's a few phrases that I hear in Christian circles a lot that are actually dead giveaways that you don't think about God as a relationship. And the reason these phrases are dead giveaways is because these phrases are phrases you would never say on a date at dinner with the person that you love. Let me go through a couple of these phrases. As a ministry, I would just love to ban these phrases. Like I would, nothing would make my heart sore, but it's fine. Whatever. So here's a few of them. Number one, I'm not getting anything out of it. I did the thing, I went to it, you know, whatever, I listened, I didn't get anything out of it. Number two, I didn't feel anything. It didn't work, I didn't feel anything. Number three, that doesn't apply to me. That I listen, listen, listen, but that didn't apply to me. Here's another one. That wasn't deep enough. That message, that song, that group, whatever, it wasn't deep. They just talked about love the whole time. You know, like that wasn't deep enough. And here's here's a big one. I I've heard this one a lot recently. It didn't hit for me. I don't know where this one came from, but uh it didn't hit for me. You know, so a couple weeks ago, actually, uh, I was talking to a guy at Collective uh who is just awesome. Um, and and this guy is uh on the baseball team for the University of Akron. And so we we got into a long conversation and he was telling me something interesting. He said, Josiah, you know, a few months ago, we were getting like a ton of the players from the Akron baseball team to come to Collective. Like things were were going really well, and they seemed to really be enjoying everything and whatnot. But then one by one they just kind of stopped coming. One by one, they they they start, you know, they stopped coming. And when I would ask them, they go, ah, you know, whatever it is. And so I asked him, I was like, oh, that that's interesting. Like, why did they stop coming? Like when you're driving home or when you invite them, what are they saying? And and and he said, What he said, this is what happened. When they first started coming, whatever you were talking about, they were like, Man, that applies to me. You know, that really hit for me. Hit hit for me and is Christianese because Christians can't do drugs, so they have to use it about God. Anyways, uh hit for me is like Christianese for like that had an emotional punch to me, right? That's what they mean. It applied to me somehow. So he said, when we first started coming, whatever topic, they felt like it applied to them, like it you were talking about what they struggle with. But then as the weeks went on, they kept saying, Well, I don't struggle with that one. Well, I don't struggle with that one. Another topic, I don't struggle with that one. And they said, eventually you did so many weeks in a row of things that they don't struggle with that they stopped coming. And as he was saying this, I literally had an epiphany as he was talking to me. I go, Oh, you think that's what church is supposed to do? Like I'm like saying this out loud. It looked hit me. Oh, you think that's what like you think church is like this. One week is like chest day, and the next week is like shoulder day, and the next week is like leg day, and like every week we have like a different topic, and it's your job. Like, I talk about something, and you're like, I'm gonna defeat pornography this week, and then you go conquer it, you know, good luck. And then and then the next week it's like I'm gonna defeat jealousy this week, and every week I give a different struggle, and it's your job to conquer it. But if I'm giving struggles you don't have, we're mean shallow and it doesn't apply to you, and you can graduate to a deeper church. I'm like, that's what you think the church is? And I I literally said, I'm like, bro, you guys have a complete misunderstanding of what the church is. You have a complete misunderstanding. My goal is not to give you a new challenge or a new struggle every week. I only have one goal every single week. I want to talk about who Jesus is and what God's heart is like. Every goal, every week. That's my only goal. Who Jesus is and what God's heart is like, which means every single message, every time, no matter who you are, it applies to you. Listen, listen. If I'm talking about pornography and you have never looked at pornography in your life, I'm not actually talking about pornography, I'm talking about the grace of God, which we are dependent on every single day. So even if you've never looked at pornography, you should be able to do the math and say, well, I'm dependent on that same forgiveness and that same grace, and I have access to that same love. In fact, listen, every single week applies to every single person because we are always talking about Jesus from the word of God. And if you can't figure out how to apply that to yourself, it's not because the church is shallow, it's actually because you are. You don't understand how desperately you need the love of God. You don't understand how deep your need for the gospel is. Listen, the purpose of the church or the Bible or prayer or whatever is not to make you feel, it's not to make you learn, it's not even necessarily to fix your life. Those things will happen over time as byproducts. The purpose of these rhythms is for you to have consistent time with the same old boring Jesus. That's the goal. But if you actually think that Jesus is boring and you actually think that that is mundane, that's okay, but that should be a sign to you that you haven't fallen in love with him as deeply as you think you have. And it's okay. Keep going, you're on the right track. But you need to continue to draw deeper and deeper and closer and closer to God. So, first wrong motivation to do these rhythms is for me. So, what should the right motivation be? What should the right motivation be? Well, a lot of Christians would say the right motivation would be like for God, right? But actually, this is wrong. Um, this one's actually wrong. Can can I be honest with everybody? Can we just real talk? We've come this far. Let's do real talk. Okay. Um, most Christians, most Christians, the reason most Christians give money away, and the reason most Christians read the Bible or pray or go to church or whatever, if we're being honest, the reason that most of us in this room do this is just because you know that God wants you to do it. You you know that it's the right thing to do, but you actually get no joy out of it. And it always hurts to write the check. And you're always watching the clock, bro. That's the thing. You're always checking your phone, you're always waiting, you know, the bare minimum. Some of you guys, like as soon as the service is over tonight, you're gonna bolt out of there as fast as you can. You're dodging all the people, you know what I mean? Like, get out of there as fast as you can, right? You're always watching the clock and trying to do the bare minimum until it's over. Most Christians, if we're being honest, you do these things to check them off the list because you know that that's what a good person or a good Christian is quote unquote supposed to do. Can I give everybody here peace about something tonight? Can I just clear something up? Can I just clear something up? God does not love you anymore when you read the Bible. And if you never read the Bible as long as you live, he will not love you any less. I I talk to God every day, I pray every day. God does not love me any more than the person who has never prayed in their entire life. And there is nothing I can do to get God's love to go away from me or or to earn a more. Can I tell you something? So the Bible says something really fascinating. The Bible says that if you give your money away to the poor or or to help someone come to know Jesus, if you give your money away because you feel obligated to, or if you feel guilt tripped, the Bible literally says, Don't give the money away. God doesn't need your money. He's fine, he can help that person some other way. If you feel obligated to do it, just don't do it. Everybody rest assured, my acceptance does not come from reading the Bible, praying, or the church. My acceptance comes from Jesus Christ on the cross. The moment I gave my life to Jesus, I was fully accepted. The moment I was born, I was fully loved. And if you have given your life to Jesus, you are not earning God's approval and you are not losing God's approval. You already have it. So let's just take the pressure off. I actually think one of the reasons it's so hard to read the Bible is because you think your soul is on the line all the time. You know what I mean? So let's just take the pressure off. But here's the follow-up question. Wait, Josiah, wait a second. If I don't get into heaven for reading the Bible, you know, like if I don't get anything for reading the Bible and engaging with God, why would I do it? Like, what's my motivation? Like, why should I do that? And I actually think that's a fair question. But I want to ask you another question. Can I ask you a deep question? Everybody ready for a deep question? Are you ready to actually think about this deep question? Here we go. Why do you do anything that you do? Raise your hand if you've made any decision today. Put it up. You just made a decision. You put your hand in the air. Why, why did you make those decisions? Why did you put your hand in the air? Well, yeah. Why did you do that? You know, if you're a person in this room who is skeptical about God or doesn't believe in God or you don't vibe with the whole church thing, you think it's all cringe. I I'm sure this whole time you've been thinking, why would I even invest into a relationship with God? You know, you're like, how does this even apply to me? Why would I invest in a relationship with God? It just doesn't feel worth it. And fair enough, but I'm asking you the same question. If you don't believe in God, if you do believe in God, why do you do what you do? Every person I know has certain categories that you want to invest in. So I don't know what your categories are, but some people's categories are like, so you, so you got emotional health, so you want to have less anxiety, more stability, less spiraling. You got like relational health, good friends, less manipulation, healthy romance. You got like physical health, you got like personal health, maybe you got professional health, like I want to be good at my career, whatever. And then maybe, just maybe, some of us have spiritual health. And like I don't, everybody prioritizes different ones, right? Everybody has like a different pie chart. I don't know what yours is, but all of us have like categories of our life that we want to be healthy, right? Right? Right? Why? Why do you want these parts of your life to be healthy? There's only one answer, and this this is psychology 101, by the way. There's only one answer that you want these things to be healthy. The core of every decision you make is an unrelenting desire for love and validation. Why did you put your hand up earlier? Well, I don't want to look stupid, right?

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Right?

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The deepest reason you want to be successful at your job, not the only reason, but the deepest reason. The deepest reason is because deep down inside you you want validation. You want to prove to your parents that you're not a screw up, you want to prove to the world that you've made it, you want you want to be able to provide for someone and have a family and therefore have them love you, right? Deep down inside you want validation. The deepest reason you want a romantic partner, which I know a lot of you do, is because that that's like proof that I'm lovable, right? This person at least loves me. The deepest reason you go to the gym is because, like at minimum, at minimum you go to the gym so you can look in the mirror and be satisfied with what you see. But more realistically, you're kind of hoping that other people like turn their heads, you know, whatever it is. And so here's what we think. We think if I can get all of these categories up to 100%, if I can somehow like raise all these plates at the same time and keep them all spinning, then I will know and I will feel loved and lovable. But here's the problem, here's the problem. We all believe that deep down, none of us are gonna verbalize it, none of us are gonna say it out loud like that, but it's impossible. Because the moment you start focusing on your school, your relationships start to fall apart. And the moment you start focusing on your relationships, your productivity starts to decline. And so we can't keep all these plates in the air. And so, of course, we never get to spiritual health, which oftentimes seems like the least important of any of these things, but Jesus flips this whole thing on its head in Ephesians chapter three. If you read the book of Ephesians chapter three, here's what God says. God says this, your roots will grow down deep into God's love. Your roots, rooted. This is what this is all based on, right? Your roots will grow down deep into God's love, and that will keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, how deep God's love is. Here's what here's what God is saying. God is saying, listen, it's not that there's emotional health, and then there's physical health, and then there's relational health, and then like spiritual health is like another category, and they're all like equally distributed on the pie chart. That's not how it works at all. Here's what he's saying. He says there is spiritual health. There is spiritual health. That's the tree. And everything else is just a branch on that tree. Everything else is just under the category, the umbrella of spiritual health, your relationship with God. The reason that Royal Alexander, where are you at, Royal? Where are you? Put your hand up. The reason that Royal Alexander works at Chick-fil-A is because his professional job is directly connected to his relationship with God. And he sees that as an extension of like, I'm gonna share Jesus with my coworkers that don't know God, I'm gonna interact with other people and try and love them the way that God loves them. Listen, the way you should know who to date and who not to date. You want to can I give you the greatest advice in the world? The way that you know who to date and who not to date is you directly connect your romantic life to your relationship with God. Have you ever noticed that people who have crappy dads tend to pick toxic partners, but people who have good dads tend to pick better partners as a general rule of thumb. Have you ever noticed this before? You have a perfect heavenly father. And if your relationship with God, your father in heaven, who is perfect, defined your life, your romantic relationships would be completely healthy as a result. And when you got into a bad one, you would get rid of them as soon as possible because you don't need that person's love. You have all your love from God. The reason I am not depressed like I used to be a couple years ago, is not because I looked at myself and I worked on myself and I read atomic habits five times. That's not why I'm not depressed anymore. The reason I am not depressed is because I looked to Jesus and his acceptance of me when I was at my absolute worst and I couldn't pull myself together, and I let the rest of my life grow as a result. Here's the difference between a Jesus follower and everybody else. If you're not a Christian, I really need you to listen right now. Here's the difference between a Jesus follower and everyone else. I don't have to do anything to achieve love. I already have it. I don't have to do anything to prove anything to anyone, to earn anything from anyone. I don't need anyone's approval. I don't need to do anything to achieve God's love. I have everything from God. Jesus Christ is the one who loves me the most. Everyone else in the world, they start with the branch, but they have no roots. And their hope is that they can like somehow climb down the branch, you know, make the branch bigger, whatever it is. They can get all the branches in place with no roots. They can keep all these branches in the air with no roots. And then maybe one day they will find love. But because they reject God, who is the tree, they will never find the love that they are actually looking for. But I start with Jesus' love and the roots. And I just grow up and up and up, and I don't have to do anything to prove that I'm lovable. And when I'm insecure about that, I don't look to my own tree for validation. I look to the tree that Jesus was crucified to. And I remember that if God's willing to do that for me, of course I'm lovable. I don't need validation from anything else in the world. The right reasons to do these seven rhythms is not for me. And it's actually not for God. The right reason to do these seven rhythms is for us. For me to get closer to Jesus and for Jesus to get closer to me. For us to grow in our relationship. I'll end on this story. Is anybody a fan of Christmas lights? Anybody put up? I love Christmas lights, bro. Absolute huge fan. But no one is a bigger fan of Christmas lights than my wife, Sarah. I cannot describe how big of a Christmas lights fan she is. And one year, uh when Sarah and I were dating, when we were first getting into our relationship, I wanted to give her a surprise for Christmas. And so here's what I did. This is QAF, I'm not gonna lie. Here's what I did. I created a scavenger hunt for Sarah. So I made about 10 different envelopes, and every one of the envelopes had a hint to take us to one of her favorite spots. And so like the first envelope would be like, order your favorite drink at Starbucks, or like a hint that would get us to Starbucks, right? And so we get to Starbucks, and in Starbucks, there's another envelope. Right? And it'd be like, we're gonna take you to your favorite lunch spot, and then we go to the movies, and then, right, and one by one. And so I created this whole day, all day long, to take us from one spot to another spot, all her favorite places, and we're just in the car together, laughing, having a great time. But the very last card, the very last uh envelope, she opened it up, and what had happened was I found the biggest Christmas lights display in Ohio. The biggest one that I could find, and I boss tickets to it. And the last one said, we have a three-hour drive to the other side of Ohio where we're gonna drive, and we're gonna see the most beautiful Christmas lights and be able to drive home together. So we go all we drive three hours, we're just talking, have a great time. We go see all the Christmas lights. It's absolutely so beautiful. We drive home, and that was one of the best days we ever have. Guys, feel free to take notes. You can copy that. Girls, if your guy does that for you, just remember who the real Rizlord is. Anyways, uh that for Sarah and I at that point in our time, in our relationship, that was one of the most special days, most beautiful days that we had ever had together. Now I'm gonna be real. Can I be real about something? If one of you random people came up to me tonight and said, Josiah, I made a scavenger hunt for us. We're gonna spend all day together. And you had 10 steps, it's like tomorrow morning, it's like we go to Starbucks, then we go to the movies, and then we're going back and forth. And then at the very end, you're like, surprise, three-hour drive with me. You know, if one random person in the here came up to me and said that, I'm not gonna lie, I would hate you. And I I would hate every single step along the way. And here's what I would do. Here's what I'd do. I would try and make those steps go as fast as possible. And so I'd be like, Starbucks drive-through is good, right? You know, and so we're flying in and out of the restaurants, and I try and go through them all, and then when we got to the very last one, and you're like, we got a three-hour drive, I'm like, oh my gosh, right? And so I'd pop in a podcast or whatever to try and make the time go by. It would be nothing but an obligation. Here's what I want you to notice same exact steps, same exact process, but one version is the best day of my life, and the other version is the most annoying day ever. What's the difference? When I'm going with the random person, I'm going for them. When I'm going with Sarah, the love of my life, I'm going for us. When I go with Sarah, I only have one goal: to be as close to the person that I love the most and who loves me the most. And yeah, it's the longest day ever, and yeah, it's the least efficient day ever. And yeah, I didn't learn anything new. But the goal was not to get to the Christmas lights. The goal was the time that we were together. The goal was a relationship. The point was a relationship we were building along the way. Listen, what are the steps? What are the envelopes? Like, what are those? The envelopes were a path. They were a path to a deeper relationship with her. And listen, that is why, everybody listening to me. That is why God gives us those seven rhythms. They're a path. Look what the book of Psalms says. Psalm chapter 16, verse 11. You will show me the path of life, and that path will grant me the joy of your presence, of being with you in the pleasures of living with you forever. When God gives us these seven rhythms, he's not laying out a checklist, he's laying out a path to a deeper relationship with him. And listen to me, if that deeper relationship is the goal that you want, it's the objective that you want, then listen, you'll stick with it. Even when the Bible is confusing, even when you're annoyed with all the people at the church and you, oh, I can't even with them, you'd power through. And even when you're going through suffering, you'll stick with it because you know that this is the path that God has laid out for you to be close to Him. But if you have a different objective in mind, you'll try and get away as soon as you possibly can. Listen, why do I spend time with God? Let me just talk personally. Josiah, why do I spend time with God? Can I tell you why I spend time with God? Because every single morning I wake up and I remember that the one who created the universe, the one who created every person that I look up to and I admire, the one who invented like DNA and RNA and math and music and everything that's brilliant and everything that's beautiful, the God who created all the cosmos and everything around it. I wake up every morning and remember that God loves me so much that he's willing to bleed out just to hold me in his arms. You know that feeling when your crush texts you? I mean, like, whoa, you know, like a shot of adrenaline shoots through your system. You're like, this is the best day ever. Listen, that is how God feels every time you talk to him. Every time you are God's favorite person. You do you know that? You are God's favorite person. All God wants is a relationship with you. You have no idea how much it makes God smile. Like every time you talk to him, he just beams. He loves you, he is obsessed with you. Do you know that about yourself? Oh, but I have all these doubts about God. Oh, but I'm I'm so lazy with my life. Oh, I've made all these mistakes sexually, I'm so perverted, I'm such a screw up. Oh, I have all listen, God doesn't care. God loves you. It doesn't matter what you do, you are God's favorite kid. And when you're insecure about that, you should not look to the tree of your own life for validation. You should look to the tree that Jesus Christ was crucified on to know that the God who made everything, everything, loves you so much that he was willing to be crucified just to have a conversation with you for the rest of his life. He died to hold you in his arms, he's thinking about you all the time with a smile on his face. And if you really understood that, you would want to talk to him every day, all the time. So, who wants to go on that journey? Who wants to have like that kind of a relationship with God? If that's you, man, if you want next steps, if spending time with God daily is a struggle, if you know you could be closer to God, if you've been following God for 20 years and you want to be closer to God, that's what these rooted groups are going to unpack. I don't want to force anyone to do it. Everybody's an adult. I don't want anyone feeling manipulated, like nothing like that. But listen, 10 weeks, if I knew that in two and a half months I could get absolutely ripped, like absolutely Hugh Jackman, Deadpool 3 ripped. You know what I mean? No CGI. Like, just like if I knew that I could do that in 10 weeks, I would take that up every single time. 10 weeks to be closer to God, to figure out what the rhythms are, to put them in practice, to have the relationship with God that will change your life. So here's what I want everybody to do. Everybody take out your phone. Everybody take out your phone. You know, some of you have done a great job with that tonight. Take out your phone. I'm not gonna stop talking until I see a bunch of phones. Okay. Everybody take out your phone. There's a QR code on the screen right there. Listen, if you're not in a rooted group right now, if you if you're not signed up for one and you want that relationship with God, no force, but if you want that relationship with God, I want you to sign up for a rooted group right now. There's also a table out in the lobby. Listen, you can request any leader, any day of the week, anytime. You can do it with any person. There's gender-specific groups, there's co-ed groups, you can request anybody you want. You can do it with your boyfriend, you can do it with your best friend, you can do it, you know, what whatever. But sign up for those groups right now. Now, listen, listen, listen, listen. One last thing. Everybody hear me? I know some of us might ask, but Josiah, I don't love Jesus like that. Josiah, all you have done for the past 45 minutes is tell me that I don't love God. You know, what should I do if I don't love God? I don't feel like worthy to join one of these groups. I'm gonna say something that's gonna sound like I'm contradicting myself. Just track with me. I'm not contradicting myself. If you don't love God but you want to learn how to love God, you need to put yourself in a context where you could fall in love with God. If you don't love God, but you want to love God, you need to start putting yourself in situations where you could fall in love with God, which means you should sign up for a rooted group too. And you should make me in here every Thursday night the rhythm and the priority of your life so that you can encounter the one who loves you the most. What if this is how you kicked off your year? What if this was the thing that it's it's not rooted that's gonna change you, it's God that's gonna change you. But what if this was the thing that set everything up for success? So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna pray. The band's gonna come up, they're gonna take us into a time of reminding us how much God loves us and how much God wants us. Can I pray? Can I pray? Jesus, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Um God, you were willing to take whatever it took to get close to us. Um you made 99.9% of the journey when you died on the cross. And now what's left is that 0.1% of us just saying yes to you and beginning the relationship with you. So, God, I pray that we can do that today. God, I pray for all the the cynics tonight. I know there's a lot of us that are cynical and and that you know they feel kind of superior to what we're talking about right now. God, I pray that you would soften their hearts and realize that there's a problem with something off and draw them close to you. God, I pray for all the people here that feel far from you right now. You would I just ask that during these songs you would show them how much you love them. God, you love us so deeply. We want to love you and you love us so deeply. Um, so reveal that to us right now in your name, Jesus. Amen. Once again, thank you so much for listening to the Collective Podcast. If you have any questions about any of the things we talked about, feel free to shoot us an email. Our email is collective at graceohio.org. Those emails come straight to my inbox, and I'd love to have a conversation with you. And I'd love to meet you in person at Collective. We meet every single Thursday night at 7 o'clock at 754 Gent Road, Fairlawn, Ohio. And if you have any questions or need any more information, you can find that on our Instagram, GCM underscore collective. We would love to see you soon.