Speaker 1: God is great, god is good.
Speaker 1: Let us thank him for this food, a simple prayer that we teach our kids but bears so much weight after you've been through some things.
Speaker 1: You magnify him and you praise him, and then you thank him for the blessings that he's given you In three simple sentences.
Speaker 1: Well, while you're still standing making your way back to your seats, I was talking to somebody last week or the week before, and we began to notice that on Sundays after service, the people would just linger with each other.
Speaker 1: You build a strong church when people enjoy talking to each other, and I thank God for the church he has established here that the people actually enjoy being around each other.
Speaker 1: You may not enjoy the singing, you may not enjoy the preaching, but the people are good.
Speaker 1: So look over.
Speaker 1: If you have your Bible today, and if you don't, we will have it on the screen.
Speaker 1: In Romans, chapter 7, we're going to read verse 15, and then we're going to jump a little ahead to 18 and 19.
Speaker 1: Romans, chapter 7,.
Speaker 1: If you got it, say amen.
Speaker 1: If you jump a little ahead to 18 and 19.
Speaker 1: Romans, chapter 7.
Speaker 1: If you got it, say amen.
Speaker 1: If you need some more time, say hold up.
Speaker 1: All right, I got you.
Speaker 1: I got you.
Speaker 1: Romans, chapter 7.
Speaker 1: If you don't know, it's in between Genesis and Revelations.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to help you out the best I can.
Speaker 1: Romans, chapter 7, verse 15.
Speaker 1: It says I don't really understand myself.
Speaker 1: Anybody ever felt that way before?
Speaker 1: For I want to do what is right, but I don't do it.
Speaker 1: Instead, I do what I hate.
Speaker 1: Verses 18 and 19,.
Speaker 1: It says remember.
Speaker 1: This is Paul writing is known for the majority of the New Testament and this is what he is writing to the Roman people.
Speaker 1: And I know that nothing good lives in me Can anybody understand.
Speaker 1: If you think you've got some good living in you, you don't understand who Christ is, because we are all in desperate need of a savior.
Speaker 1: And I know nothing good lives in me.
Speaker 1: That is in my sinful nature.
Speaker 1: Anybody got some sinful nature in the house.
Speaker 1: Some of you probably had to pray it off where you got the church this morning, if you've ever in in my house.
Speaker 1: There's two things that make me mad about my wife and my child.
Speaker 1: These are the only two things I will ever complain about with them.
Speaker 1: Okay, there may be more, but the only two I'll tell you about is that when it's time for me to be somewhere.
Speaker 1: I am 15 minutes early or earlier.
Speaker 1: But if my wife is with me, that never happens.
Speaker 1: If my son is with me, that never happens.
Speaker 1: The same goes with getting out of the vehicle.
Speaker 1: For some reason it takes an act of God in Congress to get out of the vehicle so I can lock the door.
Speaker 1: So sometimes I have to pray off my sinful nature before I go into Walmart because I'm already ticked off getting out of the car.
Speaker 1: It's a little small, petty stuff that find the little, small cracks in our personalities, in our relationships, and we allow them to grow and grow and grow, until every day I'm finding something to complain about, but I know nothing.
Speaker 1: Good lives in.
Speaker 1: That is in my sinful nature.
Speaker 1: I want to do what is right, but I can't.
Speaker 1: Verse 19 says I want to do what is good, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyways.
Speaker 1: Now let's pray.
Speaker 1: Father, thank you so much for your mercy and your grace.
Speaker 1: Thank you, god, for your presence, coming down in the worship service today.
Speaker 1: I pray, god that it continues on, that not only continues on but begins to grow and, father, that we allow you to come into our hearts, that we allow you to shine your righteous light into the dark places of our hearts, that we look inside of ourselves and say Holy Spirit, search me.
Speaker 1: Holy God, search me, look inside of me, show me what I need to change, show me what I need to get rid of.
Speaker 1: In the name of Jesus, we pray Amen.
Speaker 1: You may be seated.
Speaker 1: So we have a plague in the church house today, and two of those are this Self-righteousness and entitlement.
Speaker 1: We didn't get even half the church saying amen on that one, but Paul understood this that when I begin to actually look at myself, the Bible says that our righteousness, compared to God's righteousness, is that of filthy rags.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 1: That levels the playing field for every single person, that it doesn't matter how bad you've been or how good you have been, there's actually no good inside of you.
Speaker 1: If Jesus himself said why do you call me good?
Speaker 1: No one is good but the Father.
Speaker 1: How can we say the term a good person?
Speaker 1: It starts leveling the playing field and we have nowhere to look down on the people from when we realize that we all are in desperate need of the saving salvation of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Now, today, I want to show you the most important spiritual quality that has the greatest potential, not only to impact the trajectory of your coming year, but also can begin to move your life in a positive direction.
Speaker 1: Anybody ever had your life go in a direction where you felt like you wasn't in the driver's seat In your own car.
Speaker 1: You feel like you're getting a ride.
Speaker 1: This quality is absolutely and completely the key to your spiritual strength.
Speaker 1: It's the key to your ministry impact.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something Just because you're not holding a microphone and you're not on the stage does not mean you are not in ministry.
Speaker 1: And I tell you this that Jesus took people that did not have degrees in theology and put them to work.
Speaker 1: That brings good hopes for me, because if God can save a fool like me, if he can redeem a moron like me, if he can turn my personality that got me in so much trouble into something to be used for his kingdom, what is coming next?
Speaker 1: This is the key to your ministry impact.
Speaker 1: Every single person in here has some sort of inner circle sphere of influence.
Speaker 1: It may be people at your job, it may be your children, it may be your parents.
Speaker 1: It may be your brothers, your sisters, your grandma, your grandpa, but you have people in your life that you can, in a positive way or a negative way, impact their day.
Speaker 1: Let me give you a quick another story of how I'm a terrible husband.
Speaker 1: I will be upset with something that had nothing to do with my wonderful, perfect, beautiful wife and she will come home to a husband.
Speaker 1: Actually, I got mad on the way here because my phone wouldn't play through the system and I'm trying to warm up my vocal cords and the stupid thing won't work, and all it took was for my beautiful wife.
Speaker 1: Actually, the first thing she did, let me tell you this she said let's pray, fine.
Speaker 1: Tell you this.
Speaker 1: She said let's pray, fine.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you got to submit to prayer when you don't want to, but it always works Every single time.
Speaker 1: She took that thing.
Speaker 1: She exited out of the app After we prayed.
Speaker 1: I was fuming before I got to the church.
Speaker 1: I'm like this stupid thing.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, I heard music coming through my speakers and then, like a little child, once I got what I wanted, the anger subsided.
Speaker 1: Oh, finally, things are going the way that I want them to.
Speaker 1: Am I the only person in the house today, we get so angry and upset on things when they do not go our way, when the word of God says that every single thing we go through, good or bad, every single relationship that we have, good or bad, if you are following God, your steps are being ordered and everything that happens to you can be a work that God can do through you.
Speaker 1: This key quality for your ministry, for your physical health, for the quality is the key for relational intimacy.
Speaker 1: It's the key for financial potential.
Speaker 1: Anybody in the house you thinking, okay, financial potential.
Speaker 1: Now I'm in the sermon.
Speaker 1: This quality is the key to accomplishing your goals.
Speaker 1: So can anybody guess what the quality is?
Speaker 1: Probably not, because I've given no hints at all.
Speaker 1: I just did a blanket statement of all these good things that's going to happen for you.
Speaker 1: Well, before I tell you what it is, let me tell you what it's not.
Speaker 1: The good news is that this quality is not based on your appearance.
Speaker 1: This quality, it is not based on your background.
Speaker 1: It's not based on your education.
Speaker 1: This quality that has the potential to impact your entire life is consistency.
Speaker 1: No one likes that one.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because we're terrible at it.
Speaker 1: The only thing we're consistent at is complaining and whining.
Speaker 1: We're real consistent in sinning.
Speaker 1: We're real consistent in entitlement and self-righteousness.
Speaker 1: Turn to your neighbor and say it's your consistency.
Speaker 1: Don't be scared of them.
Speaker 1: Y'all know I give y'all extra opportunity to preach to your spouses when you get the chance, so I got some more for you.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 1: Consistency has the power to give you back the power in your life.
Speaker 1: Has anyone ever felt that the circumstance or the season that you were in it was just happening to you and there was nothing you could do to make it any better?
Speaker 1: Like I said a minute ago, that you're in the passenger seat of your own car and someone else is driving, and it ain't the Lord?
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, when we do let the Lord drive, we try to give him directions.
Speaker 1: No matter what season you're in, it never feels like that.
Speaker 1: You're in the driver's seat.
Speaker 1: You always feel like you're the passenger in your own car.
Speaker 1: Without consistency listen to me without consistency you cannot have sustainability.
Speaker 1: Without consistency, you cannot have sustainability.
Speaker 1: This is why finding happiness in relationships or in people or in places or things only last until the new wears off.
Speaker 1: Then you have to go to the next relationship, then you have to go to the next church, then you got to go to the next location, then you got to buy that next truck, then you got to go to the next location, then you got to buy that next truck, then you got to get you a new spouse and you're still you carrying old baggage into a new season and God does not desire for you to carry that with you.
Speaker 1: Because all of these things and y'all know I love shoes Shoes make me happy, but they do not deliver sustainable joy.
Speaker 1: Your spouse can make you happy, but if you search for that relationship to make you joyful, you will find yourself empty, alone and wondering what happened.
Speaker 1: If you find it in a substance and you find yourself drinking or whatever else, and all of a sudden it's got you bound, you are subject to whatever it wants you to do.
Speaker 1: God desires for his people to live a free, a holy and sustainable life full of joy, not of happiness.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because when good things happen to you, you feel real good, you're in a heightened state of whoa, yeah.
Speaker 1: And then when things start going bad, all of a sudden you're wondering.
Speaker 1: Everything says so.
Speaker 1: Where are you, lord.
Speaker 1: He's right where you left him on the sidelines watching tapping his foot, wondering when you're going to stop being stupid, because the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Speaker 1: If you're feeling weak in the house today, let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: You've been trying to sip on the milk of happiness, but God has the meat of joy ready for you today, because joy will sustain you.
Speaker 1: Happiness will betray you.
Speaker 1: It'll make you base everything you go through on feelings instead of facts.
Speaker 1: It's not true.
Speaker 1: Joy, it has no actual substance, so it can not sustain you.
Speaker 1: Anybody in the house likes some ice cream or cake.
Speaker 1: Woo, pretty sure God was in the making of that.
Speaker 1: But you can eat this all the time and it tastes good.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, it gives you a little bit of a high and you feel good when you eat it.
Speaker 1: My birthday's coming in about 10 months, so if y'all are wondering, my favorite is chocolate cake and a scoop of vanilla ice cream and I go scoop, scoop, boom.
Speaker 1: I love sweets.
Speaker 1: We had the growth track a couple weekends ago.
Speaker 1: Man, we had cookies left over.
Speaker 1: Yes, lord, we had cheesecake.
Speaker 1: Hallelujah, it did not expire.
Speaker 1: I promise you that I put to good use every four complaint in that house to make sure that I finish it, because that's my duty as the pastor, but it won't sustain you.
Speaker 1: No matter how good it tastes in the moment, there's no sustainability.
Speaker 1: Some people look at Christianity and they're like, oh my goodness, look at all those rules.
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: They're not rules.
Speaker 1: They're parameters to keep you from suffering in ways you never want to suffer.
Speaker 1: Guidelines and disciplines from God and from the word of God are things that will sustain you in any season.
Speaker 1: So if you want to remain sustained, you have to remain consistent.
Speaker 1: If you want to remain sustained, you need to remain consistent.
Speaker 1: I told you I was going to have something for you.
Speaker 1: Turn to your neighbor and say be consistent.
Speaker 1: It was really easy right then for me to tell who was the most outspoken, because one turned and said it out loud.
Speaker 1: The other one laughed and giggled.
Speaker 1: Now this scares most of us.
Speaker 1: Why this word?
Speaker 1: Consistency means I have to be tied down to something.
Speaker 1: I have to say that I am putting a stake in the ground, that I am going to do what I set out to do, that I'm going to do what I said I was going to do.
Speaker 1: Let me point out some things to you that maybe you have the issues with too.
Speaker 1: I work out almost every day that I can at the gym, and it's not because I want to look really good, it's so that I can work off the sweets I have from the weekend before.
Speaker 1: I have a system down, I will starve myself during the week so that I can cheat on Sundays.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I got the process down that I can play any game I want, because on the week I'm going to kill myself, I'm going to starve myself, and then by the time the weekend comes, what's up?
Speaker 1: We got growth track.
Speaker 1: All right, cheesecake, here I come.
Speaker 1: We're inconsistent with what we eat.
Speaker 1: We say I want to be healthy and we still eat everything.
Speaker 1: We're not supposed to.
Speaker 1: Some of you.
Speaker 1: If you go to a restaurant and they put something green on your plate, you take it back.
Speaker 1: I'm not a rabbit.
Speaker 1: We're inconsistent with our desire to exercise.
Speaker 1: We're inconsistent with our reading the Bible and with our prayer time.
Speaker 1: We can't even get on time to places consistently.
Speaker 1: Is anybody?
Speaker 1: We got some late people in here.
Speaker 1: Y'all know who you are.
Speaker 1: You ain't got to raise your hand, your spouse will point you out you can't get anywhere on the time you're supposed to be there and no matter how early you wake up, something happens.
Speaker 1: The devil breaks loose in your house and everything goes wrong and you can't make it.
Speaker 1: It happens.
Speaker 1: Some of y'all are wired that way.
Speaker 1: I'm the opposite.
Speaker 1: I got to be there early, but we can't be consistent on being places.
Speaker 1: The only thing I'm consistent in is being inconsistent.
Speaker 1: You ever felt that way before?
Speaker 1: That inconsistency is the only routine you have.
Speaker 1: And if you find yourself like most of the rest of us, with really good intentions, but you struggle to follow through like going to the gym, eating right, we make it.
Speaker 1: A few days, we slack off.
Speaker 1: I'll start as soon as day one of next month comes.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get it, I'm going to hit that grind and I'm going to be looking fine, but until then, where's the cake?
Speaker 1: Four months later, we go another time, we eat one salad and then, four months, we look back and we're like what happened?
Speaker 1: I don't like the way I look.
Speaker 1: Oh God, what is going on in this season in my life?
Speaker 1: I don't hear you anymore.
Speaker 1: It's because you ain't been listening.
Speaker 1: Something that I learned being in ministry full time was that I did not spend enough time in my private time praying out loud.
Speaker 1: Now you say, well, why does that matter?
Speaker 1: Do you have to pray out loud?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: Well, why does that matter?
Speaker 1: Do you have to pray out loud?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: But when you're the pastor of a church, people come to you to pray over the weirdest things.
Speaker 1: Because you're there, you have to pray in front of everybody.
Speaker 1: You have to bless the food.
Speaker 1: You have to pray over the baby.
Speaker 1: At a birthday party we were at the birthday party for Truett.
Speaker 1: He turned one.
Speaker 1: They said, hey, will you bless the food and will you pray over Truett?
Speaker 1: Okay, sure didn't prepare anything, but let me get my notes.
Speaker 1: Well, I have to get into the habit of consistency to where, in any season, in any circumstance, I know that I can pray out loud with confidence because I've already been practicing in private.
Speaker 1: We're wanting to fight spiritual battles and we're not doing any private practicing until we get in the middle of the field.
Speaker 1: And then we wonder God, why are you allowing this to happen?
Speaker 1: A lot of times it's not God allowing things to happen.
Speaker 1: So much as that you haven't prepared for what he's been trying to tell you the same habits and thoughts and processes.
Speaker 1: We apply the same thing to our bad eating habits, our bad gym stuff.
Speaker 1: Whatever you want to do, apply it to whatever your toxic relationships that you keep letting in your life over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: We apply the same stuff spiritually, the same habits and thought processes.
Speaker 1: We allow this to infiltrate our spiritual walk.
Speaker 1: I'll pray with my kids.
Speaker 1: Starting tonight.
Speaker 1: I'm going to start a weekly devotion with my baby.
Speaker 1: Four months go past and we've done it twice.
Speaker 1: Tonight comes man.
Speaker 1: It's been a long day.
Speaker 1: It's been full of stress and anxiety and now I'm feeling a little depressed so I need some cheesecake and all the excuses in the world of why we don't do or why we don't finish out.
Speaker 1: What we set out to do don't do, or why we don't finish out what we set out to do, that we know to do but we don't yet have the habits to stay consistent in our spiritual walk.
Speaker 1: I promise after this week we'll start reading and praying together.
Speaker 1: Next thing, you know it's been three months and you end up doing nothing you set out to do three months ago, inconsistent good intentions with zero follow-through.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I find it strangely comforting when Paul was writing to the Romans in chapter 7, because he said this We'll read it again.
Speaker 1: He said I don't really understand myself.
Speaker 1: This we'll read it again.
Speaker 1: He said I don't really understand myself.
Speaker 1: Does that make you feel better?
Speaker 1: Or what that makes me feel better because of sinful nature.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we'll do things and look up and be like how did I get here?
Speaker 1: And you don't understand.
Speaker 1: How did that conversation go that way?
Speaker 1: You ever been through a conversation and all of a sudden it got real heated.
Speaker 1: Somebody you loved and cared about and you end up saying some things that you really didn't mean.
Speaker 1: And then you go later and you're like how did that conversation even get there?
Speaker 1: We started off talking about tacos.
Speaker 1: That sounds funny, but that's true.
Speaker 1: We'll start in one area of a conversation that is easy, that is gentle, that is just conversational, relational.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden we look up and the house is burnt down.
Speaker 1: But he says and of you, if you ever say this, I don't understand myself, you're in good company, because Paul didn't either.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I don't know why I do it.
Speaker 1: He said I want to do what's right, but I don't do it.
Speaker 1: He's talking about the lack of consistency in his life that he says I am going to be this way, I am going to serve God For me in my house, we're going to serve the Lord, but yet you look at the fruit and there's nothing there.
Speaker 1: I want to do what is good, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I want to do.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyways.
Speaker 1: There's an inner conflict that Paul is talking about here, that every single person of the sound of my voice can understand, and I can relate to that.
Speaker 1: If you know that consistency matters, but you find yourself often inconsistent, today's message is for you.
Speaker 1: Today's message is called the power of consistency.
Speaker 1: There's something about consistency when you do over and over and over.
Speaker 1: So last week I introduced this proclamation of faith and I think a lot of times in our life we allow negativity to cling to us and so then we begin to reproduce more negativity, and a lot of times it's over ourselves, it spills onto the people that we love, and I think that, as children of God, we should be willing and able to speak life, speak vision, speak the word over ourselves and say I am who God says I am, that the world does not dictate who I am.
Speaker 1: The world does not make my definition.
Speaker 1: Only God can give me that when we read this, it'll be behind me.
Speaker 1: I am ready.
Speaker 1: That was last week.
Speaker 1: I am ready.
Speaker 1: That was last week.
Speaker 1: I am ready.
Speaker 1: We talked about last week about temptations, that you need to know where you are weak and stay on guard.
Speaker 1: We talked about moving the line, that sometimes the line of temptation on the other side is the sin, but right here, like little kids, we go up to the line and we want to get as close as we can before we fall, and that is a remedy for disaster and sinful nature to take over your life.
Speaker 1: This is why we have pastors, ministers, deacons, people that know better, that know the word of God, and they end up falling because they get right up on the line.
Speaker 1: Put that separation around you away, move the line, leave that line there but set you another one and between you and that temptation put people you trust and know will pray for you.
Speaker 1: I said this before.
Speaker 1: My wife has all access to every single social media and email anything.
Speaker 1: She knows my passwords.
Speaker 1: She knows the emails.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because she is my best friend and I know that I can trust her with everything that I am, even the things I struggle with.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it has to be your spouse, but don't tell somebody.
Speaker 1: Your business is going to tell somebody else.
Speaker 1: People listen to me.
Speaker 1: If somebody tells you something, shut up.
Speaker 1: It's not your place from God to go tell the prayer team of somebody else's business.
Speaker 1: Shut up.
Speaker 1: It's not your place from God to go tell the prayer team of somebody else's business.
Speaker 1: Shut up, because that causes division in the house.
Speaker 1: And this is where church hurt comes into play.
Speaker 1: Nine times out of 10, it's a betrayal of trust and the church is consistent in that.
Speaker 1: But we want to declare this over ourselves.
Speaker 1: I am ready, I know where I am weak and I'm going to put the necessary boundaries around me so that I do not even get close to stumbling.
Speaker 1: I am consistent.
Speaker 1: I am consistent, I am devoted, as next week.
Speaker 1: I am generous, I am faithful and I am a finisher.
Speaker 1: What God put in my heart, what God set me out to do, I will finish it.
Speaker 1: I will stay true to what God has placed in my heart.
Speaker 1: I will be who I say I am, whether it's in my own room, at my house, where no one will ever know, or out on the street or in the church.
Speaker 1: We need to be exactly who we say we are in front of people.
Speaker 1: It's called character and the church is lacking character.
Speaker 1: We've got some characters, but we're lacking true character, that we are who we say we are.
Speaker 1: This is why the world can point to us and say how can you tell me anything?
Speaker 1: Look at you.
Speaker 1: We are to be blameless and righteous, and God, that doesn't make us perfect, but we need to be pursuing perfection and actually the original text when Jesus said be perfect, as I am perfect, it's actually maturity.
Speaker 1: We need mature Christians in the church that when somebody gets upset with somebody else, you can go and talk to them.
Speaker 1: Not to everybody else.
Speaker 1: I'm your pastor, but if I hear that you talked about me to somebody else, I will not trust you anymore.
Speaker 1: We often speak negativity over ourselves, but the church needs to begin to understand that I am a child of God and only by Jesus am I made righteous.
Speaker 1: It's time that we begin to proclaim and prophesy over ourselves what god has called us to do.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something very real to me is when I, when I got out of jail, as part of my probation, they made me go to.
Speaker 1: The 12-step program is based on biblical principles and at this time when it finally came about, I had been free from drugs and alcohol for a couple years and it broke my heart that a part of the program was that every person that was in there would introduce themselves and say I am, and then prophesy over themselves I am an alcoholic, you better not be.
Speaker 1: You're on probation, you get caught, you're going back to jail.
Speaker 1: See, all of a sudden that starts to fall apart.
Speaker 1: I am addicted to pornography, I am Fill in the blank With whatever you want to fill in, whatever problem you have, and all of a sudden you begin to speak over yourself that you are that thing.
Speaker 1: But our sin, when we are sanctified, is no longer our definition, because my defining moment that changed my definition of who I am was when I gave everything over to God, when I completely submitted myself.
Speaker 1: Who I was just the day before did no longer apply, because I was fully submitted to the sanctification process, mapped out by the Lord, mapped out by the Lord.
Speaker 1: I am consistent, I am consistent, I am consistent.
Speaker 1: I will no longer look at pornography.
Speaker 1: I will no longer be addicted to cigarettes or alcohol or meth or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1: Say it over yourself until you begin to believe it, because your body, your mind, your life, it moves in the direction of your strongest thoughts.
Speaker 1: So if you're constantly saying I am bound and addicted, you will remain bound and addicted.
Speaker 1: But if you want to be set free of what is binding you, you need to begin to speak that I am free, I am saved, I am redeemed, I am a child of God and nothing the devil throws at me will bring me back to that bondage again.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean you will not struggle.
Speaker 1: Struggling and bound are two different things, and the key element here is I am consistent with God's help.
Speaker 1: You cannot change anything in your life and stay away from it and not go back to it like a dog to its vomit if you do not have God's help.
Speaker 1: In this AA class, one of the guys that had been there for a while I don't know how long he said he was telling a story and he said well, if you believe God's helping you, you could believe that doorknob's helping you.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter, as long as you got something anchoring you down.
Speaker 1: I'm like you.
Speaker 1: That was the worst advice I've ever heard in my life.
Speaker 1: Yes, you need God, because addiction is strong.
Speaker 1: The bondage is real.
Speaker 1: Now, why does consistency matter?
Speaker 1: Listen to this.
Speaker 1: Because successful people anybody want to be successful in their life.
Speaker 1: You first got to start by saying I am going to be successful, because if you don't believe it, nobody else will.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 1: Successful people do consistently what other people do occasionally.
Speaker 1: Do consistently what other people do occasionally, and we know this is true because successful people do over and over and over again what other people do every now and then.
Speaker 1: Let me give you a real world example.
Speaker 1: If you work with a company and they have a 401k you don't know what that is, that's retirement funds, okay, or a Roth IRA or whatever it is and you start, I think at the age it was like 24 or 25, and you go till whatever it is, and you start, I think at the age is like 24 25, and you go to your 65 and you only put in $100 a month $100 a month by the time you were a retirement age.
Speaker 1: You will be a millionaire because of compound interest and doing the same thing consistently, what some other people do every now and then.
Speaker 1: Now this same thing applies in our spiritual walk.
Speaker 1: That's why I challenge you every single Sunday five minutes of prayer, five minutes of reading your word, five minutes of worship, doing one small act of faith every day and inviting someone to church, because you need that in your life.
Speaker 1: These are small deposits that will later have a large return.
Speaker 1: Five minutes of prayer, five minutes of reading your word and five minutes of praising.
Speaker 1: Start your day off this way and whatever comes your way, you will have already made up your mind.
Speaker 1: You will already.
Speaker 1: The Bible says do not fix your eyes on what's in front of you.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because what's in front of you sometimes can be terrible.
Speaker 1: Some people sitting in here right now have some of the worst lives or stories that none of us will never actually know.
Speaker 1: But if you keep looking on the problem and you don't look to the problem solver, you will constantly stay in bondage.
Speaker 1: Be consistent on where you look, because when you look at the right spots and you know where your help comes from, when temptations come your way, when struggles come your way, when conflict comes your way, when bondage comes your way, you can shake it off and say not today, satan, because I know who is on my side, and if he is for me, what can be against me?
Speaker 1: So I want you today To look with me at some scripture Actually, no, before we go to the scripture.
Speaker 1: So I want to, collectively, as a church.
Speaker 1: Now, I can't independently, each one of you, go to your house every single week and disciple you and say, hey, come on, let's read, and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1: But what I can do is point you in the direction of what you need in your life.
Speaker 1: Does anybody want some better habits in your life?
Speaker 1: You may have it all figured out.
Speaker 1: If you're one of those and you've got everything figured out and you're on top of the world, whatever, that's all right, just sit there and be quiet.
Speaker 1: The rest of us got some things to figure out.
Speaker 1: So, behind me there's going to be a QR code.
Speaker 1: Does everybody know what that is?
Speaker 1: You get your phone out, your smartphone, and you use the camera, and when your camera's on there, you'll see this yellow box pop up and what that is?
Speaker 1: It takes you to a seven-day Bible study in a Bible app to build better habits.
Speaker 1: Is it working for everybody?
Speaker 1: Good, good, she tested it from back there.
Speaker 1: I was like, if she gets it there, that'll work, because we want to choose first is.
Speaker 1: Our constant theme in this entire seven-week series is choose first.
Speaker 1: How do you make the decision to choose first you start to build better habits in your mind and in your life, and this will walk you through that.
Speaker 1: We want to decide first that.
Speaker 1: I am going to be consistent Seven days of building new habits in your life.
Speaker 1: And if you can't get it to work on your phone, that's okay.
Speaker 1: We also are going to send out the link to it where you can just click it.
Speaker 1: And if some of y'all are having some issues, it's fine.
Speaker 1: We know what age you're above.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: I say that some of y'all got technology Now.
Speaker 1: I'm probably better than I do, and some of y'all just admit it because you know.
Speaker 1: So if we make good, consistent decisions now, we are choosing first the quality of our life in the days to come.
Speaker 1: So turn with me to the book of Daniel, chapter six.
Speaker 1: Now, daniel, chapter six.
Speaker 1: This is where Daniel gets set up.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give you a little bit of a back story.
Speaker 1: Right, quick, we're going to run through it.
Speaker 1: Daniel, chapter 6, I'm going to tell a little bit from the first verses and then we'll land on verse 10 of chapter 6 in Daniel.
Speaker 1: Now I want you to understand this, because you say today that I am a man or I am a woman of God does not make the rest of your life be humdrum, rainbows and butterflies.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, the Bible promises that we will be persecuted.
Speaker 1: And let me ask you this how bold are you about your faith?
Speaker 1: You probably haven't been too persecuted Because we don't speak out on truth like we should.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, we let things invade our living rooms.
Speaker 1: My dad used to call it a one-eyed Babylonian idiot box the TV.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised I made that without tripping up on my words.
Speaker 1: That was a mouthful and it was true.
Speaker 1: Everything that we watched, if you pay attention.
Speaker 1: We went to a Holocaust museum in Dallas and over the entryway, the Holocaust museum, and what was it?
Speaker 1: Something, something, rights, human rights.
Speaker 1: They had gay pride, stuff everywhere, even in their store.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was the majority of their store.
Speaker 1: Now, listen, if you're part of that lifestyle, we love you, but we do not affirm sinful nature here.
Speaker 1: Sinful nature is sinful nature, whether it's homosexuality or whether you have a lying problem.
Speaker 1: We believe that we do not affirm sin.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because God doesn't.
Speaker 1: And the same thing happened here in Daniel chapter 6, is that Daniel is over.
Speaker 1: There's 120 provinces.
Speaker 1: Here we have a man of God who did not learn his consistency in the middle of his circumstance.
Speaker 1: Instead, he had chosen.
Speaker 1: He chose first.
Speaker 1: Before the battle, he decided that he was going to remain faithful to God.
Speaker 1: So we started this chapter and it's given us a little bit of a layout of kind of what's going on.
Speaker 1: So they've all been captive.
Speaker 1: There's this kingdom of Darius the Mede.
Speaker 1: There's 120 provinces here in this land and each had an appointed high officer over each province.
Speaker 1: So they split up the kingdom and then over that there was men that were placed over those guys.
Speaker 1: So you have kind of a pyramid scheme going on.
Speaker 1: Well, daniel was in that group of the top of the top.
Speaker 1: He was over the people.
Speaker 1: Who was over the provinces?
Speaker 1: The officers.
Speaker 1: Darius appointed Daniel and two others as administrators over them, and I want you to understand this when God gives you favor, jealousy arises.
Speaker 1: When God begins to do things in your life.
Speaker 1: People are going to look at you and get mad because they're not in the spotlight.
Speaker 1: So the other administrators set out to kill Daniel.
Speaker 1: They leaned into the king's pride and ego.
Speaker 1: But what did they say?
Speaker 1: King for the next 30 days?
Speaker 1: Say King, for the next 30 days, everybody should only pray to you and no other deity, no other human, only you, of course the king.
Speaker 1: He's like oh really, I like that, let's do that.
Speaker 1: Puts a stamp of approval on it.
Speaker 1: No one can pray except to the king, verse 10, it says this.
Speaker 1: But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home.
Speaker 1: He knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its windows open towards Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: He prayed three times a day, just as had always say always, as he had always done.
Speaker 1: He did not let the circumstance put him through the fire.
Speaker 1: He chose first, before the circumstance arose, that he was going to have a prayer life.
Speaker 1: His faith was not built in the battle.
Speaker 1: His faith was built when he was on his knees, was not built in the battle.
Speaker 1: His faith was built when he was on his knees.
Speaker 1: He had consistently sought after the heart of God three times a day.
Speaker 1: Day after day, week after week, month after month, he consistently sought after God.
Speaker 1: Now, why is it that some of us are inconsistent with our relationship with God?
Speaker 1: It's because Daniel prayed consistently and we're only willing to pray occasionally Some of us in this building right now we're only willing to pray and seek God and stand in the gap for other people when we come and pray for him at the altar.
Speaker 1: Because Daniel prayed consistently and we choose to pray whenever it's convenient.
Speaker 1: Convenience will rob you of a calling.
Speaker 1: It's not what we do occasionally that makes the difference, it's what we do consistently.
Speaker 1: So three important things, right, quick, how to be consistent?
Speaker 1: Three things.
Speaker 1: You need to start with the why.
Speaker 1: Why do you need consistency in your life?
Speaker 1: Why do you need this in your life?
Speaker 1: Number two is plan to fail.
Speaker 1: You're gonna mess up, mess up.
Speaker 1: You're going to have a day where you skip prayer.
Speaker 1: You have a day where you skip your Bible plan.
Speaker 1: My goodness, you do a every single day reading through the year.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, you're on day 47 and you're like well, it's halfway through the year.
Speaker 1: I know there's been more days than that past because we get busy, but we need to plan to fail.
Speaker 1: And number three is we have to fall in love with the process.
Speaker 1: So why?
Speaker 1: Why do we need consistency in your life?
Speaker 1: Why do I need consistency in my life?
Speaker 1: How did Daniel stay consistent.
Speaker 1: His prayer life was born out of devotion.
Speaker 1: He can have a strong desire to do things.
Speaker 1: You can have a strong desire to do things.
Speaker 1: You can have a strong desire to do things, but if you will not devote yourself, you will not keep doing it.
Speaker 1: You can have a strong desire to go to church, but if you don't devote yourself to a body, you are weak and vulnerable.
Speaker 1: You can have a strong desire to do things, but if you will not devote yourself, you won't keep going.
Speaker 1: It's not sustainable.
Speaker 1: This is why we're on March right now, almost in April.
Speaker 1: This is why New Year's resolutions how many of you made one and you left it on January 20th, just gone, like, whatever, I give up, I quit, lay down on the floor and say I'm done.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing it Because you had a great idea with no follow through.
Speaker 1: You had a great desire I'm going to go to the gym.
Speaker 1: Thank God we're still going.
Speaker 1: I want to go to the gym.
Speaker 1: I desire to look better.
Speaker 1: I desire to have more energy.
Speaker 1: I desire to feel better.
Speaker 1: I desire some compliments every now and then when my guns are showing through a shirt or something.
Speaker 1: You know Strong desires.
Speaker 1: But if I'm not backing that up with devotion.
Speaker 1: It is pointless.
Speaker 1: I have a strong desire to remain married to that woman, but without devotion it will not last.
Speaker 1: We apply the same thing to our spiritual walk all the time, day after day after day.
Speaker 1: We have strong desires to serve the Lord, but we will not put in some devotion.
Speaker 1: This is why they fall apart.
Speaker 1: They're born from desire, which is a good thing, but they have to be built on devotion.
Speaker 1: Daniel had established devotion.
Speaker 1: When things came to try to rock his world, he already had established devotion as the foundation of his life, and we know that this ultimately led him to the lion's den.
Speaker 1: This is why he established devotion.
Speaker 1: That was his why, and his why pulled out his devotion.
Speaker 1: Number two we've got a plan to fail.
Speaker 1: Now, when we plan to fail, this dismantles the illusion of perfection.
Speaker 1: Anybody ever watch anybody else's Instagram reels?
Speaker 1: I'm a photographer and do video work and I'm like man.
Speaker 1: How'd they get it to look like that?
Speaker 1: I have a desire to have my photos look like that, but I ain't got the devotion or time to put in the work.
Speaker 1: When you start paying attention to everybody else's end product of their devotion years and years, you think that you can go and try first at one time and you get it.
Speaker 1: I guarantee you.
Speaker 1: This man right here can paint circles around me Because he's had years and years of devotion, being consistent in his craft.
Speaker 1: Consistent in his craft.
Speaker 1: You cannot compare yourself to the person across the aisle in the church that has spent years and years in devotion to the Bible and the word and reading and praying and seeking God's face.
Speaker 1: You can't compare your desire to their devotion.
Speaker 1: It doesn't translate.
Speaker 1: You have to understand that in the body of Christ, every single person in here, like I said, in the body of Christ, every single person in here, like I said in the beginning, we all need a savior Plan.
Speaker 1: To fail, you have to give yourself some grace and get some established devotion in your life.
Speaker 1: That cancels out the illusion of perfection.
Speaker 1: My dad was a Symmons of God, preacher my entire life, and there was this little old lady her name was Sister Cantrell I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: She was old, she was.
Speaker 1: We were little kids and she was almost our height.
Speaker 1: She was down there.
Speaker 1: We'd go mow her yard, rake up the leaves.
Speaker 1: My dad's got pictures of me and my little brother in the leaves.
Speaker 1: You know, looking out, our heads are sticking up, we're just having a blast.
Speaker 1: You always had these, these little ice cream cups that you would get from the swan man and woo, we didn't mind the work because it paid off good Probably where I got my first addiction from ice cream.
Speaker 1: But you look at someone like that who's been in the faith years and years and years and you wonder how can they continue on even though they may be in the worst season of their life.
Speaker 1: It's because consistency, when rooted in devotion, does not waver.
Speaker 1: When you're devoted it surpasses just a desire but it becomes a part of who you are.
Speaker 1: Some of the biggest successes were grown in the soil of failure.
Speaker 1: In the soil of failure.
Speaker 1: The biggest successes that are in people, that you see them successful in their life has been born, birth and grown in the soil of failure, because we always see the end results.
Speaker 1: We don't see the process of how they got there.
Speaker 1: Henry Ford's first two automobiles failed his companies.
Speaker 1: Y'all know who Ford is Ford truck.
Speaker 1: Oprah Winfrey you heard her name was fired from an early job as a television news anchor.
Speaker 1: Jerry Seinfeld anybody ever heard that before?
Speaker 1: Jerry Seinfeld, comedian, was booed offstage in his first stand-up comedy appearance.
Speaker 1: Sir James Dyson suffered through 5,126 failed prototypes before he landed on the first working Dyson vacuum Over 5,000.
Speaker 1: I would have gave up after four.
Speaker 1: But he had devotion, he knew what he was in and the progress he could see past what was in front of him.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you today, if you only see your life, of what's in front of you, there is more.
Speaker 1: But you have to stay consistent.
Speaker 1: Stay on the path that God puts you on.
Speaker 1: It is straight, it is narrow, it is hard, it is tough, but if you stay consistent it will pay off.
Speaker 1: Allow yourself room for failure, not room for giving up, because you really don't actually fail until you stop trying.
Speaker 1: Know your why plan to fail.
Speaker 1: Number three fall in love with the process.
Speaker 1: Daniel wasn't praying three times a day out of duty.
Speaker 1: He a day out of duty.
Speaker 1: He was praying out of delight.
Speaker 1: He was not praying out of duty because he had to.
Speaker 1: He enjoyed his master, he enjoyed being with the Lord.
Speaker 1: He enjoyed praying, lifting up his heart to him, praising the Lord.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we come into church and we come to consume and we never contribute beyond Sunday and then we wonder why our week isn't sustained, why we don't get involved in what the church has going on.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I can't answer that for you, but God has things for us to do, but he wants us to enjoy the process, out of delight, not of duty.
Speaker 1: He was enjoying praying.
Speaker 1: He would pray just to pray.
Speaker 1: When was the last time Listen to me, saints?
Speaker 1: When was the last time listen to me, saints?
Speaker 1: When was the last time you just prayed, not for anything, but just to be in his presence for a moment?
Speaker 1: You know we have prayer meeting on Tuesday mornings at 10 and also again on Tuesday nights at 7.
Speaker 1: And one morning I was walking around and I was.
Speaker 1: I often will go and anoint everything.
Speaker 1: I walk up on the stage.
Speaker 1: I anoint every instrument, every microphone, the table, the altars I anoint.
Speaker 1: You see the grease stains right here.
Speaker 1: That's anointing all.
Speaker 1: And I go and I touch and I anoint back there with the baptistry.
Speaker 1: I anoint the cameras.
Speaker 1: I go up in the booth.
Speaker 1: I anoint every single.
Speaker 1: If y'all try to turn things up and down and you're slipping, it's probably my fault.
Speaker 1: I touch everything back there because I want the anointing to be on everything this church has.
Speaker 1: I go in those door frames right there.
Speaker 1: I anoint.
Speaker 1: On both sides of those on the entrance from outside.
Speaker 1: I anoint on both sides of those.
Speaker 1: I walk back to the kids' hall, the right now the storage room.
Speaker 1: I anoint it for future classes.
Speaker 1: I go to the baby's room, the nursery.
Speaker 1: I go to the room, to where the workers go, and I say God bless the workers in the field, give them strength beyond what they can carry, rise them up on the wings of eagles, let them not grow weary.
Speaker 1: And I anoint this kitchen that out of it will flow sustenance.
Speaker 1: I go out here and right where the corner is of the plants, right there where you have the walkway coming into the front door If you look about that big, on both sides I pour anointing oil on both sides of that entryway.
Speaker 1: Whether you've got something to deal with or you need freedom, deliverance is in the house.
Speaker 1: Whether you just got issues in your mind and you're not thinking straight, deliverance is in the house.
Speaker 1: People in this church right now that come to this church that had started a few months ago.
Speaker 1: Every time I walk out into the parking lot on Tuesdays at prayer meeting I say every vehicle that goes on this road, let them be drawn in by your spirit.
Speaker 1: We have people in this house today that were drawn in One report said.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what it was, I just felt like a magnet was pulling me just to come in and sit in the parking lot.
Speaker 1: The spirit of God is real and if you have the spirit of God resting on you, should not people who are dying and going to hell in need of salvation and restoration and deliverance be drawn to you?
Speaker 1: You know, one Tuesday morning I was praying, I was doing my normal routine, and I felt such strong conviction and I began to cry and God placed it in my spirit and he said why do you always beg me for things but you never thank me for things?
Speaker 1: Why do you always pray for future things, believing in faith, but you never thank me?
Speaker 1: In faith?
Speaker 1: You may not know this.
Speaker 1: We have put out there that we are looking for a worship leader, and so it's been heavy on my heart because sometimes I feel like I cannot be the pastor because I'm wearing another hat.
Speaker 1: I'm torn between the two, and God told me this you don't have to beg me for what I've already given you.
Speaker 1: Just because you're not there yet doesn't mean it is not on its way.
Speaker 1: And so I began to walk around and everything that I anointed and prayed for, I began to thank it for it already being done.
Speaker 1: We've got to stop begging God for promises that have already been established and begin to thank him for the good God that he is and begin to worship him, not for what he is doing, but for what he has done and for what we know he will do and for who he is.
Speaker 1: What kind of relationship would it be if I only prayed to him when I wanted something?
Speaker 1: Imagine if we had these same relationships in our life, that we only made contact with each other when we wanted something.
Speaker 1: Those relationships are exhausting and become toxic.
Speaker 1: You always talk to me when you want something.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 1: You always are desiring something from me.
Speaker 1: Pull, pull, pull.
Speaker 1: Soon you will become exhausted.
Speaker 1: The amount of spiritual filling that I get when I just begin to thank him for what I have yet to see in my life.
Speaker 1: I thank him for a worship leader.
Speaker 1: I thanked him.
Speaker 1: This is my prayer over that baptism that it be worn out to where we have to build another one because the people coming to Christ, we need to begin to thank God for what he has already done.
Speaker 1: Thank God for what he has already done.
Speaker 1: What kind of relationship is that, if we have that relationship with God where we're always asking there is no joy in that, there's always a I need mentality.
Speaker 1: This does not translate and it sounds goofy if I say that with my wife, well, I better go say hi to her or she'll get mad.
Speaker 1: We won't have a good marriage.
Speaker 1: That's no marriage.
Speaker 1: That's out of obligation, not enjoyment.
Speaker 1: We pray to God.
Speaker 1: We seek God's face when we need something, when we want something.
Speaker 1: God is looking for a church, for a bride that is not just wanting something from him, but is wanting to bless him and give something to him.
Speaker 1: God, whatever it is in me that I have not given you yet, take it today.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is in me, I don't want anything but just to praise your name.
Speaker 1: When was the last time you stopped begging God for something and you started praising him?
Speaker 1: Just for being good, just for being righteous and holy, just for giving you the blessings that you have?
Speaker 1: But we make a shopping list with God.
Speaker 1: We make a checklist on our daily to-do.
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm all about consistency, but God wants us to enjoy the process of consistency and we call that relationship.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you is God another thing on your list to check off, because if he is, you're going shopping, you're not being sincere and wanting an actual relationship with him.
Speaker 1: I'll be the first today to answer my own altar call.
Speaker 1: I want everything God has for me in my life.
Speaker 1: I want God more in my life that I don't want to be a beggar.
Speaker 1: I want to be a believer.
Speaker 1: Some of us come to the table of God begging him for things when he's not asking you to beg.
Speaker 1: If I go into my father's house, I don't have to beg Everything he has in there, everything that he owns.
Speaker 1: It belongs to me by birthright.
Speaker 1: Some of you are living in bondage right now and you are not listening to what God is saying to you, that you can be set free.
Speaker 1: It is your birthright.
Speaker 1: We have been grafted in to God's family.
Speaker 1: I want to fall in love with him over and over and over and over, not asking for anything, not asking what can he do for me, but, god, what can I do for you?