Forrest: This last week I was getting home.
Forrest: I was pulling into the driveway.
Forrest: I noticed that my wife's car was in there, and I was on the phone talking with somebody and I was texting and I was busy for the end of the day.
Forrest: And I came walking up the sidewalk and into the door and I walked into the living room.
Forrest: I knew that Emily, my wife, had left to go pick up the kids, and I walked into the living room and there was the car seat.
Forrest: I was like, that's strange.
Forrest: How's she picking up the kids without the car seat?
Forrest: And so I ran the corner and all of a sudden there was Emily.
Forrest: And I was like, whoa, hey, what are you doing here?
Forrest: And I'm thinking, did the car break down?
Forrest: Is somebody boring the car?
Forrest: Like, all this stuff is going through my mind.
Forrest: And I asked Emily, I said, Where's your car?
Forrest: And she said, it's out in the driveway.
Forrest: I was like, no, it's not.
Forrest: A follow with her.
Forrest: No, it's not.
Forrest: She's like, look out the window.
Forrest: And I looked out the window, and her whole car was sitting right there in the driveway.
Forrest: Completely distracted.
Forrest: Total lack of awareness.
Forrest: You ever distracted?
Forrest: You ever have a lack of awareness because there's so much busyness, there's so much it's filling your mind, there's so much that's filling your life and the calendar, all the to-do lists, that you're looking down and not aware of what's going on?
Forrest: How about not being aware of what's going on inside of you?
Forrest: Not only just not being aware or in it observing your surroundings and what's happening in life, but are you aware of what's happening in your heart?
Forrest: Are you aware of what's happening in your relationships and the demands and the challenges in your relationship with God?
Forrest: We jumped into this series last week, Rhythms, talking about rhythms as we begin this new year and those rhythms that are actually going to renew us in our life.
Forrest: And we taught last week and started about talking about evaluating where we were at, to take a serious and real inventory on our life because we believe that our life has meaning.
Forrest: That we're meant for something.
Forrest: And asking ourselves the question: who am I meant to be?
Forrest: And what am I meant to do?
Forrest: And evaluating where we are in our life and what we're meant to be, and what we're meant to do with our time, and taking an honest inventory, an honest evaluation of where we are.
Forrest: An awareness of what's going on in your life, in your heart, and what people are experiencing in you.
Forrest: An awareness.
Forrest: Taking an appraisal, taking an assessment of where we are.
Forrest: And we ended last week by looking at and challenging ourselves to ask these few questions, which were this.
Forrest: Who do you want to become this year?
Forrest: What do I need to leave behind?
Forrest: Where are my values in conflict with my reality?
Forrest: Which voices should have a larger platform in my life?
Forrest: Which voices should minimize or eliminate?
Forrest: What dream, risk, or bold move will I finally act on?
Forrest: And I want to ask this question today.
Forrest: What obstacles are in the way of your closeness with God?
Forrest: So one of those questions was, what do I need to leave behind?
Forrest: What needs to be left back in 2022?
Forrest: And what starting this brand new year, this new fresh start, what needs to be left back there?
Forrest: Close the door on it and not go back.
Forrest: See, the reason why we're even taking this honest inventory because each one of us, we want to have a successful life.
Forrest: We want to be successful.
Forrest: Now, success, normally we think about success when you think about business or think about some goal, but success is also in our relationships, our marriage, our parenting, our home, our finances, those parts of our life that we want to succeed in, but most of all, succeed in our relationship with Jesus.
Forrest: So, what's the obstacle?
Forrest: What's in the way?
Forrest: And I'm saying that to say this when we think about the success and the long-term goal, our walk and our relationship with Jesus is not about some future goal, some way down the line, future goal, but instead an everyday faithfulness.
Forrest: The word tells us that one day we're going to stand in front of God.
Forrest: And when we do, if we have walked with Him and been a follower of Jesus, saved by His blood and His grace, that God will look at us and He will say, Come in.
Forrest: Well done, my good and faithful servant.
Forrest: Not about some future goal, but of faithfulness of here and today.
Forrest: And so, this question that we ask of ourselves is what obstacles are in the way with our closeness with God?
Forrest: When Jesus' ministry began, John the Baptist, his cousin, was leading the way and preparing the way for Jesus, and John was baptizing people.
Forrest: And then Jesus began to baptize people, and the followers of John came to John and said, Hey, John, have you noticed that Jesus is baptizing more people than you are?
Forrest: Like Jesus has got more followers than you do now.
Forrest: You know what John said?
Forrest: He looked at them and he said, This, he must increase and I must decrease.
Forrest: He must increase and I must decrease.
Forrest: What obstacles?
Forrest: What is it in your life that needs to decrease?
Forrest: What aspect of you and your outlook needs to decrease so that God can increase and your closeness with him can flourish.
Forrest: A couple chapters later in John chapter 5, we have a story of Jesus where he meets a man.
Forrest: Where he meets him is in this place called the pools of Bethesda, right outside of the temple gates, the five porticos, you walk out, and there's this pool of Bethesda.
Forrest: I've seen it before, I've been there, I've been to Israel, and I've seen this place.
Forrest: You can still see it today.
Forrest: These giant open, uh, open areas and compartments where there are these different pools.
Forrest: And what was rumored and believed at the time is that the pools of Bethesda, that every once in a while they would bubble and start swirling, and there was a rumor that if you were sick, that the the the waters, if you got in them, that you would it would heal you.
Forrest: There was rumors that it was angels that were stirring the water.
Forrest: Now we don't know if not, but we know this.
Forrest: They believed that, and there were a lot of people who were hanging around those pools with hope to be healed.
Forrest: Jesus crosses the plain and heads over to these pools, and he sees a man.
Forrest: A man who has been sick, has been infirmed, has been disabled for 38 years.
Forrest: That's 13,870 days, if you were wondering.
Forrest: A long time.
Forrest: And he's sitting there next to the pools, and Jesus speaks to him.
Forrest: In verse 5, when Jesus saw him, he knew that he had been ill for a long time.
Forrest: He asked him, Would you like to get well?
Forrest: Isn't that a funny question to ask somebody who's been sick for 38 years?
Forrest: Wouldn't that seem obvious?
Forrest: But look at what he responded.
Forrest: He said, I can't, sir, the sick man said, for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up.
Forrest: Someone else always gets there ahead of me.
Forrest: Jesus says, Do you want to get well?
Forrest: This person who's been sick for 38 years and he can't even give him a yes or no.
Forrest: He gives him an excuse.
Forrest: He's been stuck and sick and in this place for so long that when the Savior comes along and asks him, do you want to be healed?
Forrest: Do you want to be well?
Forrest: Do you want to have your life changed?
Forrest: He can't even say yes because he's distracted by his excuse.
Forrest: He's distracted.
Forrest: By everything else that's going on, Jesus has mercy on him.
Forrest: And in verse 8, Jesus told him, Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk.
Forrest: Instantly the man was healed.
Forrest: He rolled up his sleeping mat and began to walk.
Forrest: But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, so the Jewish leaders objected.
Forrest: We talked about these Jewish leaders last week, these Pharisees.
Forrest: They said to the man who was cured, You can't work on the Sabbath.
Forrest: The law doesn't allow you to carry that sleeping mat.
Forrest: But he replied, The man who healed me told me, pick up your mat and walk.
Forrest: Who said such a thing as that?
Forrest: They demanded.
Forrest: The man didn't know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd.
Forrest: But afterward, Jesus found him in the temple and told him, Now you're well, so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.
Forrest: And then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who healed him.
Forrest: Jesus heals this man.
Forrest: And I love this story because Jesus heals this man and he immediately goes to the temple.
Forrest: He immediately goes to worship.
Forrest: He's been sick, has been infirmed for 38 years.
Forrest: Jesus heals him, he stands up.
Forrest: This, I feel like this story would not be half as good if he had just like gone to go get lunch.
Forrest: God and put it in application.
Forrest: Start working.
Forrest: But he chose to go to the temple.
Forrest: But he was met by a group of people, the Pharisees, these religious leaders, these religious lawyers, so to speak, that basically what they had done is they had taken God's law, the Jewish tradition, all the laws that were in the tradition, for instance, like that you should rest on the Sabbath.
Forrest: God gave the Sabbath day, the seventh day, to his people for them to rest and dedicate to rest, just as he dedicated the seventh day of creation to rest, this rhythm of renewal that he gave to the Jewish people, so that they would be reminded that God was not a slave driver like the people in Egypt who had once enslaved them.
Forrest: But instead he gave them a day that they would be able to rest.
Forrest: But that wasn't enough for the Pharisees, for the religious people, for the people with all the answers and the religious spirit.
Forrest: What they did was they took this rule of you shouldn't work on the Sabbath.
Forrest: The Sabbath should be a time of rest.
Forrest: And they started to put offense of all these other little man-made laws around that law.
Forrest: Like you can't carry your mat.
Forrest: So this man has just been healed after 38 years, and these so-called religious people, instead of celebrating the healing that he's just experienced, they said, Well, you can't carry your mat.
Forrest: It's a Sabbath day.
Forrest: Completely distracted.
Forrest: You know, we can be distracted by sin, traps, temptations of the enemy, the things that we kind of all think about.
Forrest: Lust of the flesh and eyes of passions, things that we know that are not holy and not of God, that so oftentimes that we find ourselves doing.
Forrest: But we can also be trapped and we can also be enslaved by a religious spirit as well.
Forrest: Thinking that we're better than everybody.
Forrest: Thinking that our way is the right way.
Forrest: Thinking that we have all the answers.
Forrest: I know this.
Forrest: Jesus is the only one who is the way.
Forrest: The truth and the life.
Forrest: And I know in this place today, there are some of us.
Forrest: There are multiple people in the room today who have overcome drug addiction in this house.
Forrest: There are also people in the room who've overcome a judgmental and look down your nose spirit at people.
Forrest: But you know what else I know?
Forrest: I also know that there are some people in the room today that are not free.
Forrest: That have not been fully healed.
Forrest: They're like this man in John chapter 5 who is sitting right next to the one who can heal him.
Forrest: And Jesus is asking us, do you want to be well?
Forrest: And we can't give him a straight answer.
Forrest: I think that that's in part some of us, all of us, in one way or another.
Forrest: And it goes back to my question of what is it this year that you need to leave behind?
Forrest: What is it this year that you need to eliminate?
Forrest: Is there a voice in your life that you need to eliminate?
Forrest: It's not consistent with scripture?
Forrest: Someone who is that acts like they have all the answers, but it's not actually consistent with God's word.
Forrest: And this is what I'm getting at is that I know for all of us across the room, we all have some distractions, some things in our life that are obstacles to our closeness with God.
Forrest: No man's stronger than his prayer life.
Forrest: There's a richness and a wholeness and a goodness that comes.
Forrest: When we eliminate the distractions in our life so that we can have wholeness and have closeness with the God of the universe.
Forrest: How's your prayer life going?
Forrest: Are you spending more time on a phone?
Forrest: Social media checked in here than you are in your prayer life.
Forrest: In the word?
Forrest: I know that's the vast majority of us.
Forrest: That we're looking at our phones.
Forrest: They say that some people, the average person touches their phone some 2,000 times a day.
Forrest: And this is just like our normal life now.
Forrest: It's 2022.
Forrest: But it makes me wonder if there's something for you to do to take a step closer and to eliminate some obstacles between you and God so that you can have a richness and closeness with Him.
Forrest: Do you need to fast from social media for a while?
Forrest: This new year?
Forrest: Do you need to deactivate some accounts and some voices?
Forrest: Because it's getting in the way of your closeness with God?
Forrest: Is there a friend that you have who continues to draw you back into that sin?
Forrest: That you need to kind of reassess and say, alright, is this the best thing for my relationship with God and my closeness with the Lord to be continuing to do this with this person or be drawn into this?
Forrest: Is there something I need to leave behind?
Forrest: In 2023.
Forrest: One of the things in this passage that kind of blows my mind the most is in verse 14, Jesus finds him in the temple.
Forrest: And he tells him, Now you're well, so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.
Forrest: I'm like, the guy was sick for 38 years.
Forrest: Couldn't walk, couldn't go anywhere.
Forrest: Jesus, like, what?
Forrest: Really?
Forrest: Like, what worse are you talking about?
Forrest: What worse are you talking about?
Forrest: And he's talking about the loss of soul.
Forrest: What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and to lose his very soul?
Forrest: That's what the scripture says.
Forrest: Jesus tells him, hey, stop sinning.
Forrest: He said the same thing to the adulterous woman who was caught in adultery.
Forrest: He said, He said, Woman, I do not condemn you.
Forrest: Your sins have been forgiven.
Forrest: Go and sin no more.
Forrest: Jesus looked at people and told them, Go and sin no more.
Forrest: Stop sinning.
Forrest: How is it possible for us to completely rid our life of sin?
Forrest: Not on this side of heaven.
Forrest: But we can get closer and walk in holiness and closer to the Lord, and we can become more like Jesus today than we were yesterday.
Forrest: If we're focused on our closeness and walking with God, eliminating distractions, eliminating obstacles that we can walk alongside our Father.
Forrest: But I know this.
Forrest: That change, that heart change, it starts up here in renewing of your mind and your belief.
Forrest: Romans 12, too.
Forrest: Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by what?
Forrest: The renewing of your mind.
Forrest: Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is.
Forrest: It's good, pleasing, and perfect will.
Forrest: And so I will tell you this.
Forrest: The stop of sin is the start of renewal.
Forrest: The stop of sin in your life is the start of renewal in your life.
Forrest: A revival of the soul.
Forrest: A renewing.
Forrest: A transformation.
Forrest: A transforming power of God.
Forrest: You know, it's the beginning of the year.
Forrest: And so the first day of the year on January 1st, Emily and I got a treadmill.
Forrest: We got a treadmill.
Forrest: I don't know.
Forrest: Uh thankfully we didn't have to pay for it.
Forrest: It was given to us.
Forrest: We've been barring it for a time, but we got the treadmill.
Forrest: We actually didn't have some space in our basement.
Forrest: I don't know about your basement or your storage area.
Forrest: For me, it's like 50% stuff we're used and 50% just stuff, right?
Forrest: So we cleared out a room in the basement, cleared out all the stuff and the junk.
Forrest: We put this treadmill down in the basement.
Forrest: Because we're going to get healthy.
Forrest: New year, on that diet, on that workout plan.
Forrest: Cleared out all that junk.
Forrest: Got the treadmill.
Forrest: But you know, we're missing one thing.
Forrest: Anyone know what this is?
Forrest: This is the safety key, is what it's called.
Forrest: And we just got this from uh Amazon yesterday.
Forrest: So we had this giant treadmill in our basement, and for the last few days, it's literally been sitting there because we hadn't had the safety key, because you have to have the safety key plugged into the treadmill for it to go.
Forrest: You clip it on your shirt.
Forrest: For those of you who've never walked on a treadmill, you clip it on your shirt so that if you fall down, then it pulls it out and stops and it doesn't shoot you into the wall.
Forrest: There's a safety key.
Forrest: In the same way, we can eliminate and clear out a bunch of stuff in our life with intentions to get happy.
Forrest: But if you don't have the key, that's Jesus, you're not gonna get very far.
Forrest: You're not gonna get very far.
Forrest: You gotta have the key.
Forrest: You gotta have the key, which is Jesus.
Forrest: You may be looking at me today saying, you know, force, there's things in my life, and you know what?
Forrest: I've tried so hard to kick this habit.
Forrest: I've tried so hard to stop this specific sin.
Forrest: I've tried so hard, and what I'm telling you, it may be time for you to stop trying so hard and let God do the work.
Forrest: You're trying to do it on your own, and there's something in your life that you know that needs to be eliminated, that Satan is knocking at your door, and coming after you, and continually tempting you, and continually eating your lunch and wrecking your relationships, and it's time for you to start talking back and telling the devil where to go, to look at him and say, I'm an overcomer in the authority of the name of Jesus, by the power of shed blood, leave, leave my marriage, leave my relationships, leave my finances, leave my children alone.
Forrest: I am the righteousness of God in Christ.
Forrest: I am a chosen child of the one true King, Jesus.
Forrest: I am saved by the blood of the Lamb.
Forrest: Leave me alone.
Forrest: It's a starting place of eliminating the obstacles to your closeness to God.
Forrest: But it doesn't just stop with clearing the room or good intentions of putting the treadmill, but it takes you having the key and walking with the King, Jesus, so that you'd have closeness with him.
Forrest: You know it's so difficult to do it on your own.
Forrest: You know that being a Christian is not a solo sport, but it's a team adventure.
Forrest: That's why you need people in your life who can walk alongside you.
Forrest: That's why small groups are kicking off this week.
Forrest: Come on, come on.
Forrest: Small groups are kicking off this week.
Forrest: And some of y'all have been hesitant.
Forrest: What do they even do there?
Forrest: I'm not gonna go to somebody's house.
Forrest: It's weird.
Forrest: What if I don't like the food?
Forrest: I got a crazy kid.
Forrest: Like, they don't want that.
Forrest: What am I gonna say?
Forrest: I don't got anything to say.
Forrest: What if they call on me?
Forrest: What if somebody asks me to pray?
Forrest: Oh my goodness, I'll die.
Forrest: People already do all that.
Forrest: Those in the room who are laughing know because those circles that we have each week are not a place of judgment, but a journeying with Jesus and walking alongside of each other and praying for each other and encouraging each other.
Forrest: And so you may be hit, may you may have been hesitant to take a step to plug in.
Forrest: Can I encourage you?
Forrest: You need other believers who can walk with you and help to encourage you so that you can overcome by the power, the strong power, mighty power of Jesus, by shed blood on the cross.
Forrest: And by the love that's shared by other believers in genuine Christian community walking together, on this journey together, I want to take a second to celebrate.
Forrest: We got some uh small group leaders in the house who have dedicated their time and their heart to lead and disciple our people.
Forrest: And would you join me in a round of applause?
Forrest: I want them just to stand real quick so we can celebrate those.
Forrest: If you're a small group leader in the house, will you stand up right now and we can celebrate you?
Forrest: And there's more.
Forrest: But I'm thankful, I'm thankful for the work of God in and through our lives, our church, people who stand up and say, Yeah, I'll walk with you to see God, see something powerful in you.
Forrest: I'm believing in faith.
Forrest: I'm believing that we're going to a new height.
Forrest: I'm believing that we're gonna have a revival of the soul.
Forrest: I'm believing that we're going to be renewed in Christ this new year.
Forrest: But it starts with an honest evaluation of yourself.
Forrest: It starts with eliminating the obstacles to your closeness with God.
Forrest: It'll lead us into our next week.
Forrest: But I want to pray specifically now for each one of us in the room, for your relationship with the Lord, for what God's doing in you, and for anyone who needs to begin the journey.
Forrest: So would you bow your head and pray with me now?
Forrest: Father, all across this room.
Forrest: I pray right now, the body of our church.
Forrest: God, there's some that are in our midst right now who are entrapped and struggling in sin that they feel like they cannot break out of.
Forrest: God, I pray, Lord, that you would stop the lies of the enemy in their mind.
Forrest: That they wouldn't be held back by excuses, shame, challenges.
Forrest: But instead, God, that they would give you a firm yes to wanting to be healed and well.
Forrest: Father, I pray across the room right now, Lord, for each one of us has shared this word.
Forrest: God, you you put on people's hearts and minds what they need to leave behind.
Forrest: What they need to leave behind in 2022.
Forrest: God, I pray that you would give them the strength, not in their own power, but in your power, God, to ask for your forgiveness and ask for you to change them.
Forrest: To change their heart, to change their mind, to change their attitudes, to change their habits.
Forrest: They come from you.
Forrest: Father, I pray all across the room today, Lord, for anybody who's in the room today, and God, they have not been freed.
Forrest: They've not been healed because they haven't begun a relationship with you, Jesus.
Forrest: They've not believed in the shed blood of the cross, in the sacrifice, that you died in their place 2,000 years ago, so that they would not perish and be apart from you, but God, they would be close to you now and into eternity in heaven, not separated from you.
Forrest: Father, all across the room right now, God, I pray if there's anybody in this place that has not followed you, who's not asked for your salvation, but they would do it today.
Forrest: We begin today, this very minute, that they would pray, Jesus, save me.
Forrest: I believe that you're the Son of God.
Forrest: Pray in your mind and heart.
Forrest: I believe that you died on the cross for me.
Forrest: Forgive me, change me, so that I can be in heaven one day with you.
Forrest: I give you my life, as you gave your life for mine.
Forrest: Thank you for saving me.
Forrest: In Jesus' name.
Forrest: Amen.
Forrest: If you pray that prayer today for the first time, there's a step for you to take to begin following your relationship with Jesus.
Forrest: That step is baptism.
Forrest: That's happening here in a couple of weeks.
Forrest: Maybe that decision is what you need to do to take the next step for you to begin your relationship with Jesus.
Forrest: I'm gonna invite you now to stand together as we close in worship and lift up to the Lord.