The Habit of Devotion

The Power of Spiritual Habits August 17, 2025 Mark 1:35-38 Notes

Spiritual habits act as a conduit that connects us to the power of the Holy Spirit. We not only open up and ask the Spirit to fill us, we create habits that give Him a conduit to fill us and use us to do God’s will. We can be passive with our faith, just waiting for the Holy Spirit to move while we coast through life. “Fill me”, we say, but then we don’t physically do anything.

Today we will be kicking off this series by learning to apply the foundational habit of devotion. The goal of this habit is to get alone with God, spend time talking to and hearing from Him, and be recharged His power. It is during this time that you will be prepared by the Spirit to do the work that God has called you to do. A time of personal devotion is key to many of the other habits we will talk about and is important to our spiritual growth.

In the gospel of Mark, Jesus demonstrated His habit of devotion to His disciples. By studying and applying the practices seen in this story, we too can practice Jesus’ habit of deliberate, daily devotion.

Audio

Transcript

Well, good morning, church. Good morning. It sure is good to see you today. My name is Stephen Combs and I am the pastor of worship here at Eastgate. And I'm delighted to be standing in the pulpit this morning.

And as we give pastor Gary and Ms. Robin, which is strange for me to talk about, that's my parents, Gary and Robin. They're actually down in Mexico right now encouraging a family that we've sent down there on mission, the Castro family. And so I think they've posted a few pictures online or at least I've seen some somehow. And we're praying for them that they'll be encouraging down there and that lives will be changed. And so regardless, it's my honor to be here this morning preaching and to be kicking off a brand new series today called the Power of Spiritual Habits.

In this series that we're going to be speaking about some of the historic spiritual habits of the church. And we'll see that the habits themselves are good habits, but we will also see that they are disciplines that have no inherent power of their own. But when connected to the Holy Spirit, they have incredible power. As I consider this idea of having incredible power, incredible potential, I'm mindful that probably just about everybody in this room has a smartphone in their pocket right now. And you know, it's been said that this device has more computing intelligence than the computers that took us to the moon.

And so we have incredible potential in these smartphones, but they are built with one critical need and that is that they can't self power. They have to be plugged into some sort of source of power that will recharge the battery and then it can then go and be incredibly useful. You take away the power of this phone and it's the most expensive paperweight in your house. And so as we compare that then to, it's interesting some similar similarities here in that the way that God has created you and I, that from the time we were in the womb, he built into us some natural talents and some natural gifting that was going to shape you into the type of person that there's a lot of potential in what he sees in you. And then past that point, if you are a Christ follower, then upon accepting Jesus that he has given you now some spiritual gifting that you weren't physically born with.

But as you've been reborn in Christ in the spirit, he's given you spiritual gifts. And so you have incredible potential. But like the phone, if you don't learn how to plug in and to charge, then you're not living up to your potential. Some of us this morning might feel like you're an expensive paperweight here today. And so what we tend to do is we realize when it comes to physical things that we can't self power like it's a no brainer.

I need food in order to survive. My body doesn't create its own food, I have to find that elsewhere. But my body does know what to do. When I put food in it, it converts it to energy. But when it comes to spiritual things, I don't think we're always so self aware, we don't know always where to plug in in order to find the power that we need to function and to become the type of people that God has called us to be.

And so what we're going to find in this series is that God's given you all the potential. But the spiritual habit is going to act like the power cord. It's going to act like the conduit in which if you will create a habit, the Holy Spirit will flow through that habit and empower you. And it actually will. Then as you go, it's like a cycle there.

Because you've been given that power, you now will expend that power to do great things for the kingdom. And then you plug right back in and you just keep going with that. And so the seal theme here is the book of Ephesians, chapter 4. It says instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy.

And so there's two parts to this that I think are gonna be critical for this series. And that first part is let the spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Let the spirit. So this is an openness to it. This is you saying, I can't self power so I'm gonna let you move.

But then it says your new nature. So it's you saying, I know I need it, but I'm going to put this habit now in place. And I'm asking that this isn't just a willingness of the mind. This is an action that makes itself known through what you physically do. The truth is we all have habits.

I mean it's like, you know, it's part of like who we are. I think as human beings we develop habits and maybe they're not intentional and maybe you just never even really put much thought into the things that we do. I mean when you're hungry, you eat. That's your habit. Like I'm going to eat.

Do you have good habits with that, well, that's, you know. You know that better than anybody. Are you putting in time to eat good food or not? But you do have the habit of eating. Everybody has some sort of habit when it comes to hygiene.

Some are better than others. Some shower in the morning, some shower in the evening. Some brush their teeth after every meal. Some hopefully get it in once a day. But you have your habits that you kind of just this morning naturally go to.

And some of us right here are going, man, like, you're already kind of like hitting on something. Like, I've got bad habits, man. I have this habit of biting my nails. I have this habit of if I have a still moment, my phone just floats out of my pocket and I doom scroll on Instagram. Okay, so some of it might be bad habits that you're doing almost like subconsciously.

So here today, what we're going to say is when it comes to spiritual things that I'm recognizing that me saying Holy Spirit, fill me is more than just a posture of the heart. It's an action that I'm going to intentionally take that's going to give him a conduit to fill me. And then he's going to then use that action to do his will in my life. So the question we have this morning is, what habits are you doing intentionally that are helping you grow more like Jesus? Looking at your own life right now, what habits do you have in place that you are doing intentionally that are helping you grow more like Jesus?

I love this quote from Craig Groeschel. He says, hope doesn't change your life, habits do. You don't drift into consistency. You decide to do it. If you don't decide in advance, you'll likely default to the wrong things in the moment.

Most people don't drift into spiritual maturity, financial stability, or leadership excellence. You pre decide, define the specific habit and you schedule it. Pre decide what matters most, then build your life and leadership around it. I think we're all like, if you've been walking this earth for any length of time, you're aware at this point that oftentimes the good habits are the ones that require pre deciding. They're the ones that are probably at first going to push you outside of your comfort zone.

And I would go ahead and challenge today that we have seven spiritual habits we're going to be talking through. And there's more than that. But. But all seven of these are going to require you stepping out of your comfort zone. Because we are at war with our own flesh.

We are at war with the things of this world which want to drag you into complacency. And let's face it, the world doesn't want you to become the person that God created you to be. And so we're kicking this series off today by talking about a very foundational habit. And that's the habit of devotion. What's the goal when we say this word devotion?

That probably paints a whole lot of pictures for you. Putting simply what this goal looks like, the goal of devotion is to get alone with God, to talk to him and to hear from him, to basically kindle, cultivate a relationship with him and then from that point to recharge your batteries and then go do his will. If you can learn how to get alone, have a relationship and recharge your batteries, then you've learned how to have a good devotion. So how did we develop this habit of devotion? What do we do in order to accomplish the goal of this habit?

Well, as we look to the Book of Mark, the Gospel of Mark, Jesus actually gives us his own real life example on his habit of devotion. And by studying and applying the practices that we're going to see in today's story, we too can practice Jesus habit of devotion. It's going to give us three ways here to practice the habit of Christlike devotion. So as we read together, would you stand to your feet with me? We're going to open up our Bibles to chapter sorry Mark chapter one.

Turning to Mark chapter one. It's also our church uses the Church center app. And you can see the event here and it'll take you right to it in the Bible app. Mark chapter one. I'm going to start us and then we'll read the end of it together.

And rising very early in the morning while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place. And there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him and they found him and said to him, everyone is looking for you. And he said, let's read this verse 38 together. And he said to them, let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also.

For that is why I came out. Let's pray together Father, as we have read your word now and Lord, just in this whole concept of devotion, I pray God that you would use these words to change our life. Help us to look at what Jesus did and to model our lives after Him. I pray that someone here today will give their life to Jesus and will surrender to Him. And we ask all this in Jesus name amen you can be seated.

So we can practice the spiritual habit of Christlike devotion by first setting aside a consistent time. Setting aside a consistent time. So right there, first thing we read in verse 35, and rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, we see Jesus do this thing so very early in the morning. When you study the Greek language that this was originally written in, it's meant to kind of point towards the fourth watch of the night. And so kind of estimating like somewhere between 3am and 6am, this is very early.

And I know some of you, some of y' all like that. That's, you're, you're up that early. That's not normal for me. I'm not a 3Amer. Okay?

And so Jesus is up very early. It's still dark outside. So I think it's important for us to. Like, when I read stories about Jesus, I can have a tendency to be like, well, he's Jesus, okay? He's gonna do the good things and the right things and it's gonna come easy to him.

But he's 100% God. But he's 100% man. Here's the context of this. The day before, it was the Sabbath, okay? Now in this time period, you have to understand, the Sabbath was a Saturday.

Sunday was the first day of their week. Sunday was their Monday. Okay? So the day before Saturday, it's their Sabbath. He and his disciples enter into the city of Capernaum, and Jesus goes straight to the synagogue and he preaches.

And then while he's there, a demon possessed person shows up. And Jesus cleansed the demon possessed person. He heals people. And then he finds out that Simon Peter's mother in law is sick with a fever. So he goes to her house and heals her of her sickness.

But now at this point, word's getting around of what he did in the synagogue earlier, the things that he taught, the things that, the miracles he did. And now there's a line at the door of Peter's house on into the evening. And Jesus isn't turning them away, he's healing them, he's freeing them, cleansing them of their demons. And he worked really hard. Okay, let's just to summarize, he worked really hard.

What did he do the day after he worked so hard? Did he sleep in? No, he got up so early that it was still dark outside. Because I think, honestly, I think that partially he knew Stephen Combs was going to be reading this one day and being challenged by this and inspired by this, he wanted Us to see. Hey, man.

Even after a long day of pouring out, I know how important this habit is. And so he made a point of it. He got up really, really early, basically on a Monday. Okay, that's going to be all of us tomorrow morning dealing with this. And this isn't his first time.

He has this hab. If you look at Luke 22, it says, and he came and went out, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives. And the disciples followed him. This isn't just the first time or only time. He does this regularly.

And then it says, like we said earlier, it was still dark. And that gave him the amount of time that he knew he was going to need with the Lord. And when you read the Book of John, chapter 15, Jesus tells us, abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit in and of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. So this picture in my head I have here is that Jesus has set aside enough time to breathe to start the day.

Not in a gigantic hurry, just abide. I don't know who here loves working in the garden, but things don't happen like that in the garden. If you want to see a flower bloom, then it starts as a seed, and then it takes root, and then the leaves come. And then by the vine abiding in the branch, the flower eventually comes, but it doesn't happen quickly. So what I hear God telling me here is that when I am planning pre deciding how much time it's going to take for Stephen to call this a good devotion, how much time is it going to take me to abide?

What does that look like? For you to cool your jets, to have time for God to speak to you, to correct you, and for you just to enter the day in a state of rest. Now, as we're talking about habits, and I know I was talking about the phone earlier, there is someone else that comes to my mind, as you know, anybody that was a child of the 90s and before you know that the goat in basketball is Michael Jordan, it's just not even a debate. And I know that there's people that try to debate this on. This man's got six championship rings, he's got all these records, and he did it in so few seasons.

I mean, the guy took a break and played baseball, for heaven's sake, you know, so. But we see that early on in his career, he's in high school and he tries out for the basketball team and gets cut doesn't make the high school basketball team. And I think, you know me outside looking in, I'm like, what a goofy coach to cut Michael Jordan. Well, he wasn't Michael Jordan yet. He had not put in his hours yet.

And so what did Michael Jordan do? Did he quit and give up on hopes of that being something that he would become great at? No, he worked really hard. And some places you'll read that he worked practice five and six hours a day until he got better at that thing, until he became Michael Jordan. And so as I ponder the story of Michael Jordan, I think about you and I, and I think about what we said earlier, which is that even in the womb, God knew what he wanted to do in and through you and I, he knew the way that he had created you.

But now he also knows that if you were a Christ follower, the spiritual gifting that he's given you, he has a plan for you. But if we take the first sign of controversy, the first sign of difficulty, and we quit, then we miss our opportunity to do the Michael Jordan story that God has for us, the one that he has in mind for you and I. And so it starts with, I didn't say this earlier, but, you know, I've been a Christian now since I was 7. I've been hearing about devotion since I was born. This seems so basic.

It seems so simple. It seems like, you know, like maybe it's become a word of white noise in your life. Like, you've heard it so many times, and you're like, I can't seem to get a habit. But it's the basic, simple thing. It's the foundational here, this element of devotion that I wholeheartedly believe that Jesus modeled it for a reason and that if we will start with this, that he has great things that he wants to do in and through you and I, despite the difficulties that you're having in your life right now.

So let's get practical here. Like, what's a good starting point here for creating this habit? You know, one is set a goal. Like, okay, what time is it going to be when I get up tomorrow? And I'm like, all right, it's time.

We're going to start spending some time in devotion. What time is that going to be? Focus on making small changes. So Jesus was the three Amer. Don't make that your starting point.

I mean, it might work tomorrow, but who knows? And the next day is. It may not. You're gonna be like, I can't do that again. Start small.

If you're not in a habit at all. Start small. But how much time do you need? How much time do you need to abide? How much time is that gonna take?

And only you know that. Establish a daily routine. Make sure you're doing this every single day. Maybe you need to find somebody in your life that's gonna, you're gonna be like, hey, I'm gonna, you're gonna be my accountability partner. I need you to ask me about this every day, if you, if you would.

And hey, did you get, did you have your devotion today? And just kind of held me accountable to it. Here at Eastgate, we've got kind of a recurring course that we do called Practicing the Way. There's actually one starting up on September 7th, and I think that would be actually a really terrific next step for a lot of us. Practicing the Way is actually going through a lot of the spiritual disciplines, more than we'll be even talking through in this series.

But that would be a great way to not only learn about it, but have accountability there as well. But remembering that the habit is the conduit, it's the avenue in which the Holy Spirit is going to flow through and empower you. And this is kind of funny to me. Mike Laramie is preaching in our Rocky Mountain campus. He found this quote from GK Chesterton.

Daybreak is a never ending glory. Getting out of bed is a never ending nuisance. And, you know, I think we all know that this is not going to be easy, but this is really, really, really important. And so kind of reading one of the lines from that Craig Groeschel quote earlier, he said, you don't drift in the consistency, you decide into it. So this is a decision that you're going to need to make tonight.

Maybe tonight you're going to lay out all your clothes for Monday, because that takes you some time in the morning. Maybe tonight you're going to go ahead and lay out your Bible and lay out your notebook wherever you're planning on having this time. So that way it's out and it's ready to go. Maybe you're gonna go ahead and get the coffee grains ready in the coffee maker. So all you gotta do is push a button in the morning, take away every obstacle you can think of.

So that way tomorrow morning you can jump this thing. And then second, we can practice the spiritual habit of Christlike devotion by departing to a solitary place. Departing to a solitary place now. So in verse 35, this is not rocket science where we get these points from. It says, he departed out and went out to a desolate place.

Now that's a synonym of solitary. It means to be in a lonely place. Jesus was alone. He was so alone that in verse 36 it says, Simon and those who were with him searched for him. He had to be searched for.

He was so alone. And when they found him, they were like, everybody's looking for you. Well, remember, and I'm telling you, it's funny how I've read this so many times in my life, but I've never. When you look at it in context, it just kind of changes. Your feeling in this moment is that you had a door, a line out the door of people the night before, of people that were wanting to see Jesus.

Do you think they just woke up and forgot about that? No, them people are back and disciples are there going, what are we going to do? Like, we, we can't heal anybody. Where is Jesus? Has he left us?

You know, and so Jesus in his head, he was like, you kind of wonder what just fell out of there. You kind of got to think, maybe I'm thirsty. That's why that fell off. Thank you, Lord. I need a drink.

All right, so. So maybe as Jesus was going out to that solitary place, he was thinking, you know, oh man, they're going to be freaking out looking for me. But this is more important right now. I don't know, I just kind of, for me, I just try to find the realism, the rawness in some of these stories. But anyway, so Jesus has gotten away to this solitary place.

And it's not something that he did just once. You see in the book of Luke chapter 5, that Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. There's an example. This was not the solitary thing was, this was something that he did a lot. And not only that, but we just read this earlier, but Luke chapter 22, and he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives.

So he didn't just have a daily habit, he had a go to place. He had somewhere he liked to go and be alone. And if it's not enough to just look at the example set by Jesus as a reason to do this this morning, look at what he told us to do. Matthew 6, he says, and when you pray, go into your room, shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret. Who here has heard the phrase go to your prayer closet before?

All right, we're quoting Jesus right here when we say something like that. And does it mean to literally go and shut a door in a prayer closet? Well, if the shoe fits. But what he's trying to say is, get alone. Find a place where it can be just you and God together.

So he had this. He had this regular habit of getting alone. He had a go to place. He's given us, you know, here's what you should do. But he also had another thing that you would see him do from time to time where he'd break out of his go to because the need called for it.

When you read into a few chapters after that, in chapter one, later in Mark, you see the story where Jesus, he gets his 12 disciples for the first time. Like, he actually, like, he calls those 12 and he sends them out and he says, I want you to go and preach repentance. I want you to heal the sick. I want you to cast out demons. And you're going to do it in my authority.

He sends them out. And so then they're out. They do amazing things. But on the way back, they learn. Jesus, cousin, John the Baptist, maybe y' all didn't know that John the Baptist is beheaded.

So they come back to Jesus with, hey, your cousin's dead. So Jesus is dealing with this heavy news. So he says, all right, okay, I got a plan. Let's go to a solitary place. So he's inviting the disciples to come with him and they go to a desolate place is what it says.

But they got followed by over 5,000 people. And so they get out to this desolate place. And the disciples were like, freaking out. They're like, dude, we just brought enough food for ourselves because you said it was just going to be us. And now look around at all these people.

And so what does Jesus do? He does one of the greatest miracles in the Bible. He takes the five loaves and the two fish, and he multiplies it, and he feeds every single person there so well that there were baskets left over.

But then he's sending the people home, and he's like, I hadn't forgotten. I need to get alone. This has been a hard day. And so what does he do? It says in Mark six, and after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray.

Now, this is an actual picture right here of the Sea of Galilee. Is that the mountain he went to to pray? I don't know, but I kind of like to imagine, what if this was the mountain. He's kind of able to look down on the city and kind of get that, like, distance and kind of get his thoughts together. But he looks out there on the sea of Galilee.

And he sees his disciples who he is told, hey, go on ahead, go to Bethsaida, go ahead and go ahead of me. And I'm just going to go spend some time with God up here. So they go ahead, he looks out there and they're like struggling to row because there's this bad storm coming up. So he's like just nothing but a thing. He's just like, I'm just going to go out there and I'm just going to walk on water.

So he walks on water and it says, this is funny to me because as a parent I've done this, I feel like I've done this. But I've also like, anytime I've been like alone for a while, I feel like I've done this. It says he meant to walk by them. He didn't even mean to stop and say hey. He was actually kind of in his head, I think thinking, I'm not ready for them yet.

But they see him and they're like, ah, it's a ghost. He's walking on water. And he's like, okay, all right, it's all right, it's just me. And then crazy Peter is like, I want to come to you. He's like, come on man.

And so we know the story there. I mean this is, this is a, we could preach a sermon, a sermon on this. But you know, Peter's eyes are fixed on Jesus and as soon as he looks down he starts to sink and Jesus says, all ye of little faith, you got that whole thing.

But inside of these great, awesome. Been hearing these stories since I was a kid is this one line of he went to the mountain by himself to pray. And I think there is. The inherent lesson to be learned here is that there are times where you need to break outside of the usual go to place because the day has called for it. Maybe you've gone through some recent loss, maybe you're dealing with something extremely difficult and you need more than just your usual morning time that we've just talked about.

You've got it, you're doing it now. Maybe now you're looking at it going, alright, I'm going to look ahead. Wow, what a concept. I'm going to look ahead. I'm not going to live into today.

And all right, there's a Saturday four weeks from now that doesn't have anything on it right now. Something's about to be there. I'm going to go to Lake Wilson that day. I'm not going to wait until that Saturday morning and wake up and be like, all right, is it going to work? Because guess what?

It won't. Something will have already taken its place. You have to pre decide. And so what would it look like in your life for you to acknowledge what you're going through and say, we got to get a little bit more time? And sometimes you have to just do like Jesus did and just say, it's got to happen now.

You know better than anybody. I found it fascinating, as I was just thinking about this week, that Jesus. We have the story where he's. He gets baptized and then he goes into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. He doesn't ever like.

When I read that story, I'm like, wow, that sounds really awful and really hard. How hungry was he? He was getting tempted by the devil. But there's a side of it that I think. I wonder if Jesus ever missed because it was his one chance that he ever had again to be alone with God for that long.

Because once he started his ministry, he had them little footsteps behind him everywhere he went.

And so maybe you need to look at your life right now and find your 40 days. You maybe need to find that retreat in your life and to get alone. And I'm mindful, you know, you're kind of hearing the underlying, like, the little feet thing. I'm a parent. I know what it looks like to.

Can't find a room in the house where they're not searching for you. We've looked everywhere for you.

I've shown pictures and video of my son. Deacon. Like, Caroline's just trying to go to the bathroom, and he's like kicking the door on his back, waiting on her to come out. I reckon I know that this is our life. So maybe the solitude is tied to the time.

Maybe the only way you're going to make this happen is to get up before the rest of them little feet get up.

But let's model after Jesus, and then finally we can practice the spiritual habit of Christlike devotion by cultivating a relationship with God. Cultivating a relationship with God. So now we're going to finally get to. He did this consistently at this particular time. He went to the solitary place.

But what did he do while he was there? He prayed. Okay, well, there's that word, and that's a loaded concept because, I mean, when you look up the word prayer, it's got just paragraphs of definition. And like means to supplicate, which means to like to ask for things. It means to worship.

It means to call on God. There's So many things. But let's just put this simply. Prayer means talking to God. And I would say that, you know, there's a reverence inside of it that I think is important because this is the God of the universe who created you and knows your future and your present and your past.

So there's that reverence side of it, but then there's the other side of it, of why wouldn't I talk to God as if he were my friend standing right here next to me? And to be able to just be open and honest with him about the things I'm going through and then to want to hear from him. How do you spend time? How do you develop a human relationship? You spend time with them.

I think about the friends that I had when I was in college, which is crazy to say. It was 20 years ago when I was in college, and how much we love one another. To the point where I was like, man, we'll be friends the rest of our lives. But then what happens? You graduate, you start families, you all go your different ways, and the next thing you know, you haven't seen each other for so long that the relationship itself has suffered because you don't talk to one another anymore.

Maybe there's somebody here this morning and they're looking at their relationship with God and they're like, man, that's me today. I do love him and I did give my life to him, but I'm treating him like he's not even there. I'm not even talking to him. We're far apart right now. And so today, this step for you looks like prayer.

Talk to him, hear from him. And then check this out. Verse 38, it says, and he said to them, let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also. For that is why I came out. And so what happens?

Jesus, he gets up before dark, he gets alone with God, he talks to God, and then what happens? Like that picture, that battery on that screen, it fills up. He's like, let's go. I got this thing that I was called to do. What was Jesus called to do?

Do miracles. Preach. That was what he was called to do. Maybe you're called to go and be a great mechanic. But regardless, your time with God empowered you to.

Now, while you're being a great mechanic, there's also this other side of you that is different from the rest of the world. And that's you're full of the Spirit and the spirit wants to build the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God has grown by you telling people about Jesus, not you just saying, would you feel me? And you know, like, if it feels just right, I might talk about Jesus today. No, this is the Spirit has filled you.

It's bursting at the seams to talk about Jesus because He is a friend that you have that you want everybody to get to know. Because there's no better relationship on earth than like that one. Amen. So, all right, how do we pray? Because somebody here today is like, man, that word scares me to death.

Anytime we try to pray at small group, I'm not the person you want to call upon because I just get bumped up. I don't know what to say. Well, here's what he says. It's two way communication. Philippians 4.

Do not be anxious about anything. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. Jesus actually wants you to ask him for things. He actually wants you to come to him in need because he's your father, you're his child. And who turns their child away when they ask for something because they're in great need.

This is part of the relationship is the asking. And then God responds. Look at Jeremiah 33. Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. Does anybody here have a time where, you know, man, I called upon Jesus and he did reveal some things.

Maybe he revealed something that you had not really thought of in your situation. Maybe he revealed something about your own heart. But we. But he says, I will answer you, so call upon him. That's the part that we mess up.

We call upon ourselves. We try to be the phone that self powers, but call upon Him. So, okay, prayer, that's the word we've been studying. But there's other ways to hear from God. He also speaks to us through His Word.

It says in second Timothy, chapter three, all scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be compelled, complete, equipped for every good work. I love this concept of, like, when I read His Word, he's going to use it because guess what? Every day Stephen wakes up probably walking the wrong direction. God needs to do a little bit of correction in me, like first thing in the morning because I wake up wanting to do things my way. And so when I read His Word, that's part of the correction process that he has in my life.

All right, so what do I do? Like, all right, that's Great, Stephen. But look, when I tried to read the Bible, I started in Genesis and it was all really interesting. And then I got the book of Leviticus and about died and I just gave up. All right, so what do you do?

Well, if you're new to this reading the Bible thing, there are so many resources out there. Go on the Bible app. There are plans that you can choose from there that'll tell you where to start and it'll actually help you to. To find a starting point that will work for your where you're at, I guess, in spiritual maturity. But here would be the challenge that you've heard Pastor Gary say.

This is not new, but read until God speaks. And so when you read, you're not just reading to be a student. In fact, I want to make this clear. Like we are going to be talking about study later on in this series. That is an important aspect of being a Christ follower.

I think we should be students, but we're talking about devotion. I'm reading with a purpose, to hear from God. And so once I get those words I've heard. Once you get the word you've heard, I don't. That just kind of happened.

But anyway, poet didn't know it, so sorry, I'm a dad. Those kinds of things just start happening after a while. But once you have heard from God, then, hey, and when I say that, have you heard him out loud? Not necessarily. I'm not saying he doesn't do that.

Sometimes it almost sounds like your inner voice, you know, the one that talks to you all day, that voice. Sometimes that voice has the word of God in it and tells you something. And then finally, in Psalm 19, we see that God speaks through his creation. The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. So maybe for you, if it's not your norm in your solitary place that it's outdoors, maybe from time to time you need to walk outside and you just need to take the my eyes and go up and just to go, whoa.

When I look at those clouds, they are so far away. And then I see at night, I see the stars. And I'm like, wow, how big is this universe? Whoa. God's even bigger than this.

The whole thing's in the palm of his hand. That's how big he is. And just as you just let your mind run away like that of pondering this, the magnitude of his glory, it says that God, the heavens declare the glory of God. And maybe you've been that maybe you've Been standing on a mountain. Maybe you've been standing on the beach or just standing in your own backyard.

And you've observed the glory of God just by looking at his creation, he will speak through it. Isn't that cool? I think the part that inside of this and that I'm hoping that we're hearing inside of this work, devotion, is that it's not something that you just do one thing over and over and over and over and over again. And to the point where it's like. So I'm mindful of the fact that my wife Caroline, and I, this year, we're celebrating.

Celebrating 20 years of marriage. This actually, next month, we're celebrating 20 years of marriage. Thank you. And so. And I.

It has to be said, I'm sorry, Caroline has aged like a fine wine. I've aged like Walmart grape juice. And it just. I don't know, we've been eating the same things, and I don't know, something different happened with me. But anyway, so I've just been eating more of it.

Maybe that's what it is.

But anyway, so the reason I bring this up is to get to 20 years, you have to cultivate that relationship. And one of our first dates, we went to Outback Steakhouse, had a really good steak. What if I had just gotten it in my head, like, that was a good experience? Let's do that every single time from now on. How stale would that have gotten?

Not just for her, but for me, too? And so we know, I think we understand this, that when it comes to marital relationships, that you need to put some time into it. That. What a crazy thought that if every single day, Caroline and I just kind of coexisted in our house and never talked to one another and never with intent, spent time alone together. Because this is so cool.

I really think that God instituted marriage to teach us some things about what it looks like to be in relationship with him. Because alone time is so crucial to a marriage, just like it is with God. And how, you know, far be it for me to own my 20th anniversary next month, to not do anything, just be another day. And so I think that one's easier to wrap my mind around. But somehow the stuff with God, I can't seem to put my hands on it, that relationship with him.

I think I can't comprehend it well enough to see that it needs cultivating, to see that I need to mix it up for my own sake. That. Okay. All right. So I heard Stephen, man, I've got my time now.

I'm Doing this, but maybe you're in a good habit. I'm not trying to break that habit. Please keep that habit going. But maybe one day a week, you're like, all right, we're gonna go to a different place. I'm gonna take a prayer walk.

And so instead of going up to my bonus room where I can get a loan, I'm gonna just go out walking and kind of treat it like if I was walking with Caroline, my wife. Oh, this is nice to get away from the kids. You know, kind of think about that with God. Like, oh, this is nice, God, you know, abide. I just love abiding with you right now and just breathing in the air of this new day and to look at your creation.

Maybe. Maybe you would take the book of Psalms and read it like a prayer, like, all right, Psalm 1, here we go. I'm just going to read this out loud and pretend it was my prayer, because I know that God said David was a man after his own heart. So what would it be like to pray? Like the guy who has a heart like God's?

Maybe. Maybe you're, like, trying to figure out some new methods on how to. To maybe focus your attention, because I have. I've never been diagnosed. I must have ADD of some form, because, like, when I'm doing my sermon prep, I like to go to Lorima Coffee House, where there's, like, overstimulation.

And somehow that works for me, because if I go in my office and shut the door, I'm like, ah, it's too quiet in here. And so there's. Maybe I'm weird. Maybe y' all agree, I don't know. But when it comes to prayer, if I just sit quietly, the brain goes other places.

It'll start working. I'll actually start doing my work. And so I have to journal. And I'm doing a typing gesture because my handwriting is so horrible. And so I just.

It'll do me no good to write it. I won't be able to read it later. And so I like to type my prayers, but also when I'm talking to God, I. I'll practice. If I'm talking on the cell phone, this is what I'm doing. I'm just kind of pacing back and forth.

And there is a path in my bedroom that the carpet is wearing out from. If I'm talking on the phone to you, this is probably what I'm doing.

There's cracks on the stage, so my OCD doesn't step on the cracks because you break your mama's back and I heard that was true. I give these examples and I could keep going. All you gotta do is talk to somebody who's been a Christian for any length of time and they'll give you new ideas. If you're willing to go to a marriage retreat and to learn more about how to be a better spouse, and if you're willing to put in the time and the energy to cultivate that relationship, why wouldn't we spend 100 times that amount cultivating relationship that we don't even deserve? Where he chose us first while I was his enemy, and then he brought me in and loved me when I hated him.

And then he changed my heart and has opened my eyes to who he is and who I am before him. How foolish of me to not pour every ounce of my time and energy into. Into getting to know that person. And so that makes it worth it. We're being real practical.

This is all good, good practical stuff. But if you don't want that, you're not going to do this. So my prayer for us today is that we would all want this, that we would all in our heart, desire deeper relationship with God. And that in doing this, setting that time, departing to that place and hearing from God that the battery fills up in your life and you're like, here I go, I'm ready to go. And it's gonna, it's gonna domino effect.

Or that's not a domino. But you know what I'm trying to say. The other things that God's called you to do, it'll compound. That's the word I was looking for.

But it started with that. And now God's going to keep doing amazing things through you. So tonight, before you go to bed, you're probably going to take your phone and you're probably going to plug it in next to your bedside. Because let's face it, we have a habit probably of being on our phone. And if you don't have this habit, you're a better person than I am.

Mine's right here. And. But you're gonna probably do that when you go to bed tonight. Are you gonna make a plan in the morning to do this from a spiritual sense? Are you going to make a plan in the morning to plug in and charge this battery to be ready for the day?

Will you set aside a consistent time, depart to a solitary place, and cultivate a relationship with God? Let's pray.

Lord, this is a word that I needed to hear today. And it seems like such a basic thing to conceive Lord, and it's one we've heard a lot. But in my heart, God, I feel the burning that what was kind of being said there at the end is do I really want this? Because if I do, then I will do this. So God, in each one of us right now, Lord, would you burn, burn in our soul, burn in our heart.

This desire to be known and to know you and to be like you and to be filled and changed by you. And if it's your. If you're here this morning and you're a follower of Christ but you know that you need to step this up, would you pray with me? God, I surrender. And as we read in that theme verse earlier, I'm going to let you move in my life.

I'm opening my hands to you right now. But I also recognize that I can be like that expensive paperweight of a phone that's doing nothing with all this potential. God correct my heart, clean my heart and I pray God that help me now, empower me to take these actions. But I'm choosing right now. I'm pre deciding some things are going to change right now and I want if I'm going to look for an accountability partner, let it be you first.

Maybe you're here this morning and the concept of relationship with God is foreign to you because you don't know Jesus. And maybe you've been like we were saying earlier, you've had your fist shaking at him and you've been his enemy. There's all kinds of reasons why maybe you don't know him him. But friend, there's no better relationship on earth or in the whole universe than that one. And we can't earn it on our own.

We can only receive the gift that he's given us. So would you pray with me? God, I confess with my mouth Jesus is Lord, I believe in my heart that you have risen him from the grave. And so God, would you by my confession and by my faith change my life. Forgive me of my sins, I repent and I choose not to turn down that path anymore.

And would you be the Lord and the king of my heart. And as I surrender to you, God, do your willing and through me, friend, if you prayed that prayer right now all of heaven is rejoicing because you have gone from death to life. You are a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. And God has a big big big plan and adventure he wants to take you on.

We ask all this in Jesus name. Amen.

Audio

Transcript

Good morning, church. Good morning again. For those of you who saw me last week, my name is Mike Laramee. I'm happy to be here. I normally attend the Wilson campus.

I'm the Eastgate Director of discipleship. I run all the small groups and Life on Life discipleship and those kind of things. And I'm a member of the preaching team and it was so fun to be here last week. I decided I'd come up here again this week. So Pastor Jonathan is finishing his vacation.

Today's his last vacation day and, and he should be back in the office Monday. We'll see. Yeah, he should be in there. But we are really excited this morning to be kicking off a new sermon series. This is a seven week series called the Power of Spiritual Habits.

And so, brand new sermon series and we're talking about the study of Christian disciplines that have been passed down from the early church. These are things that the church has done for eons. And maybe, you know what, we may not be all that familiar with some of them. So I'm gonna introduce to you a serious theme verse and that comes from Ephesians 4, 23 and 24. And it says, instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes, put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy.

And what we're gonna, we're gonna drill in on that, letting the Spirit renew our thoughts and attitudes. And we're gonna do that through these spirit disciplines. So in this series, again, we hope to speak about, maybe we're going to introduce some new habits to you. We'll probably put a spin on some of the habits that you might already have that have again been historical in the Christian church. So these.

Now the habits themselves, let's not get too focused on them. The habits themselves are good, but we don't do these things to make God happy with us. We do these things in order to allow the Spirit to empower us to make these habits better and to empower us for ministry. So when we talk about habits, do you have some bad habits, perhaps? I think most of us do have some bad habits.

Do you maybe bite your nails? Maybe maybe pick your nose in traffic? I know sometimes I've been caught, you know, hey, it happens, right? You know, you think you're all alone, you know. No, there's someone sitting right next to you.

See, when we're left to our natural state, we're gonna develop habits, right? Things that we just do cause of practice and things that we've done for a long time. But how many of those Habits that we have are actually good habits. And that's what we're talking about this week and in the following weeks. How many of them are good habits?

You see, a lot of times we as Christians can be passive about our faith. We're just waiting for the Holy Spirit to act. And I've heard this before, I'm just waiting on the Spirit. And that is a good thing. But if you're waiting on the Spirit by sitting on the couch and doing nothing, that's not a good thing.

And that's why we're talking about these habits, these practices that will get us out of our comfort zone from time to time in order to let the Spirit change our thoughts and our attitudes. Like Ephesians 4 said, by practicing these habits, then again the Spirit will empower us to make those habits even more effective and they will be life changing. Let me share a quote with you from Craig Groeschel. He's a pastor and Christian author, and he says this. He says hope does not change your life.

Habits do. You don't drift into consistency. You decide into it. If you don't decide in advance, you'll likely default to the wrong things in the moment. Most people don't drift into spiritual maturity, financial stability, or leadership excellence.

You pre decide. You define the specific habit and schedule it. Pre decide what matters most and build your life and your leadership around it. You see that he's saying you're not gonna just sit there and do nothing and all of a sudden become a super Christian. That doesn't happen.

Okay? That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about some of these habits that will help develop the ability for us to be attuned to the Spirit within us and to hear what he's trying to do for us. Now, one of these habits, the habit that we're talking about this week, is the habit of devotion. The habit of devotion.

And devotion is foundational to the other habits. So during a time of devotion, as I define this, you can pray, you can read the Bible, or you can practice solitude. There's a bunch of other things that we'll also talk about as we talk about devotion. It's during this time that you're going to be prepared by the Spirit to be able to practice other ministries. This is a time of personal devotion.

Or you might hear me refer to it as quiet time, right? So a quiet time. And this is the key to the many of these other habits that we want to practice. And in the following weeks, it's very important to Our spiritual growth. Now, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus demonstrated his habit of devotion to his disciples.

He demonstrated this. See, we can practice it just like Jesus did. We can practice Jesus habit of a deliberate daily devotion. So how can we do it like Jesus did? How can we practice this habit of devotion?

Well, the text is gonna give us three steps that we can do. Three ways to practice the habit of Christlike devotion. And so we're in Mark 1, 35, 38. And if you join me in reading, it'll be up on the screen. And if you're old school like me and you brought a Bible, read with me.

Mark, chapter one, verses 35 through 38. And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place. And there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, everyone is looking for you. And he said to them, let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also.

For that is why I came out. May God bless the reading of his Word. Amen. So we're looking for three ways that we can practice the spiritual habit of Christlike devotion. Here's the first way.

Setting aside a consistent time. Setting aside a consistent time, we're going to see all of these three things, all in verse 35. In the beginning of verse 35, it says, and rising very early in the morning while it was still dark. That's when Jesus did this. Now let's talk briefly about habits as we introduce habits.

And we're very intentional about using the word habits sometimes, if you've been in the church for a long time, we talk about disciplines and those kind of things, but really we're talking about those things that we do all the time. And so let's talk about how habits are formed. They are important for our daily lives. Okay? You have habits.

I'm sure you recognize that. Like, for example, I have a habit when I take a shower, I know exactly where I go, right? I take the soap. First place I go is right here. And you guys may have your own way.

And I go down here. And then I have my methodology to make sure everything gets washed, right? So I have a habit so that I don't walk out of the shower and go, did I wash? No. I've got a habit that makes that happen, right?

So we all have different types of habits. Now, habits can be good, they can be bad, okay? Psychology today tells us that habits are built through learning and repetition. So you learn habits and you repeat them, okay? But a person develops habits in pursuit of a goal.

If it's a good habit, if it's a bad habit, it's something you probably just fall into, right? Maybe your bad habit. Here's one for me. Your bad habit is losing your temper, driving along on i95. Yeah, I do that a lot.

That's not a good thing. That's a bad habit. So I need to practice some better habits. Here's some tips for, for creating good habits. The first one, set a goal.

Set a goal. Let's say, for example, you're like, hmm, feeling a bit chunky. I think I need to lose some weight. Well, I'm gonna set a goal, right? My goal is I wanna lose X amount of pounds by such and such a date or whatever that is, okay?

And so I've set that goal. The next step in building a good habit is focus on making small changes. So, you know, when you're in your 50s, you know, when you're kind of a little older, you know, it takes. It's a little harder to do that. It's not like I'm 18 anymore and where I could just say, no, I'm not going to have that Twinkie and I lose five pounds, right?

That doesn't happen anymore. Now I have to make small changes. And so the small changes may be, hey, I'm going to eat a little bit better and I'm going to exercise, so eating a little bit better, maybe it is, okay, I'm not going to grab that Twinkie after every meal or whatever it is. But I'm not gonna say, you know what? I'm gonna start working out.

So tomorrow morning I'm running a half marathon, right? That doesn't happen, right? I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna try and walk first. Hey, can I actually walk half a mile or a mile or whatever? And if I'm in better shape, maybe I'll jog half a mile or a mile.

And eventually I build that up, right? So you make small changes and you focus on that. You're setting your goal, you're making that small change. Number three, you establish a daily routine, okay? A daily routine.

Make it daily. Make it something that's going to happen every day. When I was in high school, I had set a goal for where I wanted to attend my undergrad, right? You guys heard it last week. I attended the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

And that's a very tough school to get into. And I realized that day one, they're Going to run me. And so by my sophomore year in high school, I had decided that I was going to do that. So I thought, I need to get in shape. And so every morning before school, I ran three to four miles.

Now, it doesn't look like it now, but yeah, I was quite a runner back then, okay. And sometimes that daily goal was not as easy to do. Right. My next door neighbor was helping me with step four. Step four is have an accountability partner.

My next door neighbor was the same year as I was. He went to a different school, but he wanted to run too. So, you know, he would help wake me up on those mornings that I was a little hesitant to get out of bed. And I lived downstairs in the basement in my house. And I went to high school in Rhode Island.

And so, you know, November, December, January, February, it's cold and snowy and awful up there, okay? That's why I live here. I've lived here for 35 years, okay? I live here now. Cause I don't live like that, okay?

But I would hear. Cause I had the, you know, the little basement room and you know, those little basement windows, if you've ever seen, they're like this big. And I'd hear as he's knocking on the window, as I'm still in bed, going, maybe he forgot, maybe he forgot, maybe he forgot. I guess I gotta get up. So I'd get up and we'd go run.

So I had a partner. And you know what? It was a good thing. It made that routine good. And so I actually got a habit where I enjoyed.

I don't know that I ever enjoyed running. I ran for like 30 years, you know, I don't think I ever really. I enjoyed being done, okay? That was the fun part. But I enjoyed the products and the produce of doing that.

Now, let's not just focus on the habit though, because remember, they're disciplines whose primary purpose is to connect us to the spirit. So the discipline is an important part. But far more important to this habit is the connection that we are trying to establish and maintain with the Lord. Let's look at Jesus timing for his habit. Okay?

It says in verse 35, very early in the morning he rose. Now, this literally is the fourth watch of the night. The fourth watch of the night is that period from 3:00am to 6:00am okay, yeah, I see the faces, you know, right. Sleep physiologists will tell you that's the window of circadian low, right? That's when everybody wants to.

To be asleep, right? Now, to be fair, Jesus lived in an agrarian culture. He didn't have electricity. He didn't have his cell phone keeping him awake until 10:30 or 11:00 clock at night, you know, so. So three or four or five o' clock in the morning probably wasn't as early for him as it would be for us because he probably went to bed sometime after the sun went down.

And we don't know what time of year this is set. So I'm not going to say I know what time he went to bed and what time time he got up, okay? All we know is he got up early and he got up before everybody else. Okay? He got up before everybody else.

It's early in the morning. I love this quote from G.K. chesterton. For those of you who are not morning people like me, daybreak is a never ending glory, but getting out of bed is a never ending nuisance. I agree with him, man. I tell you what, one of the blessings and curses of what my job entails is my schedule moves all over the place.

And there's some times when the alarm is set at 3 o' clock in the morning and then, oh, I hate that. Golly, I hate that. Get up at 3 o' clock in the morning. But you know, what's the reward is that by 6am I'm at 35,000ft watching the sun come up. And there's nothing as beautiful as that.

It is glorious. But hey, you know, Jesus is showing, hey, he got up before dark, right, to make this happen. He was consistent. Jesus modeled this consistency, this consistent daily devotion. Look at Luke 22:39, it says.

And he came out and went, as was his custom, as was his custom to the Mount of Olives. And the disciples followed him. So the disciples knew that this was something he did all the time. He modeled this. This was a custom of his.

This wasn't a surprise that he was doing this. Now, one of the things that we should do as we're setting aside a consistent time is not just a time to start, but let's set aside a consistent amount of time, okay? And that's going to vary based upon what your individual schedules and demands are. But set a consistent amount of time. What do I mean by that?

We need enough time in order to abide with the Lord. Okay? When you're first getting started, if you're just starting a quiet time or a devotion time, you know, five minutes may be a stretch for you, okay? And that may be hard. So that may be a good place to start.

But if you've Been doing five minutes for the last three years. Maybe you ought to, you know, extend that a little bit. And why do I say more? Because we need time enough that allows us to abide in him. Look at John 15, 4, Jesus speaking.

He says, abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me. Okay, Most of you are not going to get away with having a friend that you spend five minutes with and go, all right, see you, bye, and then just not even interact with, right? That's not going to be very successful.

But this is a practice, right? This is a practice. That. And it's consistent. We need to do this.

Now. You guys are learning all kinds of things about me, but one of the things, one of the bands that I really like is a band. It's a secular band. It's called Dream Theater. It's a progressive metal band.

I know you look at me and you go, huh? Yes. I have every disc, every album in their discography. Their lead guitarist is a guy named John Petrucci, and he went to the, the Berklee College of Music. Okay?

This is. If you're going to a music school, this is the school to go to, right? So he's uber talented, incredibly good at what he does, been playing in the band for 40 years, and he still practices four to five hours a day. Four to five hours a day? You know.

Oh, my gosh. Like, haven't you figured out by now you know how to do this? But, you know, when I was learning to become a professional pilot, I had a, a mentor. Tell me, you know, amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.

Okay? There's a big difference. So this consistency, this practice is something that we should be aiming for because we want to be in that place where we can't get it wrong. You know, sometimes that consistent time doesn't necessarily mean time on the clock. Maybe, perhaps you, you do have a job that is very regular and you could set your alarm for a certain amount of time in the morning and do it at that time.

Maybe you're like me, and your schedule moves all around. Maybe the consistent time is right after you wake up, whenever that is. So for me, a lot of times, yeah, it is 3 o' clock in the morning when I first wake up for that early show. Maybe I'm flying at night that night, and I'm waking up at the crack of noon, okay? And that's Morning for me.

Okay. So it's a consistent time as well. A time in your relative day. Now, you know, I recognize that for some of you, merely just starting a consistent devotion time sounds hard. You're saying, Mike, man, you don't know what my schedule looks like.

Yeah, I do. Okay? Yeah, I do. I've been there. Okay?

You can't say yes to anything without saying no to something else. Okay? Everything that you pack into your schedule, you're saying yes to, no matter if it's good or bad. Okay? And so, you know, if your schedule is so busy that you can't afford to have 10 minutes of quiet time with the Lord, I think you probably ought to loosen some things up.

Okay? It's just some free advice from yours truly out there. You may think that you don't have time and schedule, but start small, like I said. Start with five minutes. Pick a time and stick with it.

Okay? And stick with it. There's some things that you can do in that regard. Make some decisions the night before that'll set you up for success. How about go to bed early enough.

Turn off your phone, okay? Turn off the tv. Turn off whatever it is. Go to bed early enough that you can get. Get enough rest.

Okay? Set out your clothes the night before. Prepare the coffee maker or your breakfast or whatever. Lay your Bible out and a notebook, if that's what you use. Remove as many obstacles as you can the night before when you've still got that presence of mind.

I know what it sounds like when that alarm goes off and you're like, I'm trying to start a new habit. This is gonna be hard. Okay? Make it easy on yourself. So that's the first one, a consistent time.

Here's the second. Jesus departed to a solitary place. You can help that by departing to a solitary place. It's right there in verse 35. He departed and went out to a desolate place.

This idea, this desolate place. Solitary, alone, lonely, uninhabited. You can think, if you've ever seen pictures of Israel, this is the places where the flocks would graze because there were just little tufts of grass and mostly dirt and rock. This was not a place you could cultivate. You wouldn't build on it or anything like that, but you could certainly be alone.

So Jesus went out and found a place to be alone. Now, let me fill in some of the gaps to chapter one, verse 35. What was going on in context with Jesus earlier in that day. Okay. If you read earlier in the Gospel of Mark, what you find is Jesus had Just taught in the synagogue in capernaum in verse 21.

So he was. They asked him to preach. Hey, Jesus, come over here and preach. Now I can tell you preaching is exhausting work, okay? It really is.

Maybe not so much for Pastor Jonathan and for Pastor Gary, but for me, this is difficult work, okay? And I go home and usually fall asleep, okay? No kidding. I mean, and I'm not a napper, but. So Jesus preached that day.

Well, during that time in the synagogue, he also cast out a demon. Okay? So now, now he's performing miracles in the synagogue. Later that afternoon, he healed Simon Peter's mother in law, right? That's the same day.

And then the word gets out in Capernaum and everybody's like, hey, Simon Peter's mother in law was sick. And now look, and they start all coming out in droves and they want to be healed. And they start, you know, he starts casting out more demons and healing people and stuff. So he's had a big day the day before. Jesus has had a big day.

And now he likely got to bed late, probably had a short night's sleep, but it was his habit and he went off at an early time and went to a solitary place. So this is a. He recognized, Jesus did, and he modeled this that he needed to get away and connect with his Father and get that empowering of the Holy spirit. In verse 36, we see that Mark reports that the disciples were looking for him, including Simon Peter. Right?

The disciples are searching for him. And we don't really know what their motivation was here early. This is early on in Jesus ministry, you know, so maybe the disciples hadn't quite got it yet. You know, maybe they're looking for him, saying, hey, Jesus, man, you've got a crowd out here. We should do some more healing.

We can get your name out and we can move on the ministry. And you know, they're making. They're probably making plans and they're saying, hey, here's the budget we can make happen and we can build a place and you know, all that kind of stuff, you know, so they're probably thinking something along that, at least along the lines of, hey, that was really cool yesterday, let's do that again today. So they're going to find him, right? There's not really any indication in the Scriptures, at least, that the people of Capernaum were ready to follow Jesus at this point.

Okay, that's probably not happening yet, but it's probably the case that they wanted to see more of the show. Okay, Now Christian solitude that we see Jesus doing is an ancient practice. The idea of getting away and getting alone, turning off the electronics, just being by yourself with the Lord. This is something that Christians have been practicing for a long time, and it's something that 21st century America desperately needs. Okay, I can tell you that I would love.

My cell phone is in Pastor Jonathan's office right now because. And I feel free because, you know, this thing won't be buzzing in my back pocket while I'm up here speaking to you and distracting me. I love that. That's great. I can put it over there and not worry.

And you can. And if you ask my wife, guaranteed she'll tell you. I don't know why you have a cell phone, because you never answer it anyway. Well, because I like to leave it home over there. Right.

Because sometimes I feel like it's a chain. Right. But solitude starts to remove some of these things. Scriptural solitude is the practice of temporarily withdrawing to privacy for spiritual purposes. And Jesus demonstrates this throughout the scriptures.

In Matthew 4, remember, he's led by the Spirit into the wilderness, and he's with the spirit for 40 days and 40 nights. And yes, he's tempted by. By Satan at the end of that. In Matthew 6, he prays all. I'm sorry, Luke 6, he prays all night before he calls the disciples.

So all night he's praying. So he practices this solitude there. In Matthew 14, and we'll talk about this in a little bit more, he goes off by himself on the mountain to pray, and he tells his disciples to do the same thing. And in Matthew 6, he says, when you pray, go into your room and lock the door, and the God who sees in secret will hear you. Right?

So he encourages this idea of solitude. Let's turn off the distractions when we do that. It gives us an excellent opportunity to really focus and think about what the gospel has meant to me today, what it means to. To me today. What is God saying to me?

Maybe I can meditate on some scripture and see what is going on. What is God saying at that point? Maybe I can really think through what is it that God is trying to say to me right now. Solitude is also an ideal setting for journaling. Some people really enjoy writing down their thoughts and maybe keeping a prayer, prayer log and writing that kind of stuff down.

Reading a good book. And you know, I'm not talking about Moby Dick. I'm talking about, read the Bible. Read some good spiritual food, okay? In addition, there are some good books out there.

Besides, what's in the fiction section. Now I love, I love to read, I love fiction and I love reading history. But solitude's a good time for that. Solitude is a, is a good context for practicing these personal disciplines. Bible reading, study, fasting, prayer, meditation, solitude.

Get away for a time. Okay? Get away for a time. Jesus had this regular habit of getting alone. Luke 5:16 says, Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

He got away. He got by himself. And then pulling from the same scripture we saw in point one, Jesus had a go to place. Look at Luke 22:39 again. He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives.

So when he was in Jerusalem, he liked to go to the Mount of Olives. That was his go to place. So he had not only a habit of getting away, but in different places where he was, he had certain places that he liked to go. Now, Jesus knew when to retreat. Okay?

Now retreats are not just places where we go and, and go hang out in the woods and eat food with a bunch of people that look like us and you know, have some guy talk at you the whole time. Retreating is this idea of getting away. Okay? Do you know that all of your staff, every one of the paid staff, takes a personal retreat every year for two to three days? They go away to hear what the Lord is doing in their heart.

Where is it that you know that we should be going in the next next year? And then your staff takes a retreat as well to do the same thing where all of us lock ourselves in a room and really focus on where God is leading our church. Should that not also be a worthy practice for us? I'm not saying you should do it on a certain time schedule or a timeline, but every once in a while, take a personal retreat and go away and get away from your normal life life, your normal job, your normal house and all those kind of things. Obviously with the blessing and consent of your family.

Especially if you've got young kids and you're leaving them with Mama. That's not. You may not just want to go, hey, I'm leaving this weekend. You know, let's just, you know, have some planning involved. But a personal retreat is a good idea.

In Matthew 14, Jesus models this. Okay? Matthew 14 to refresh your memory, this is just after John the Baptist Jesus cousin was killed. Okay? As soon as Jesus got the news, he tried to remove himself.

He tried to retreat because he wanted to process this and pray and grieve and do those things for his cousin, right? Well, if you read the story you can see what happens. He gets interrupted. The crowds keep following him, right? There's this huge crowd that's following him.

And if you look Matthew 14, this is where Jesus feeds the 5,000, right? So he's trying to get away and do his quiet time. And he's got 5,000 men following him. So likely it's probably 15,000 people if you count all the women and the children and all the others that are there. There's a whole bunch of people, right, following him.

And what does Jesus do? He feeds them, right? He takes a little boy's lunchable, you know, and he kind of makes it go for all these people, right? He feeds them. And so he performs this awesome miracle.

And then what happens in Matthew 14:22? Immediately, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him. So he says, hey, guys, we're done here. You go across the Sea of Galilee, I'll meet you, okay? I really need to get away.

I need my quiet time, right? And he dismisses the crowd, okay? And in verse 23 of Matthew 14, it says, after he dismissed them, the crowd, that is, he went up on the mountainside by himself to pray. So Jesus finally gets his quiet time after being interrupted by that huge lunch, right? Now, after the meal, this is the interesting part, what happens after that meal, right?

The disciples are rowing across the Sea of Galilee. And you remember the story. Jesus comes walking on water out there, you know, you can see the charging that he gets from his quiet time, you know? Now, of course, he's the Son of God, King of Kings, you know, and the elements obey him, but he recharges. And he's out there walking on water.

Not only is he walking on water, but if you read the story carefully, you can see that he actually is kind of making like he's walking away or going in a different direction than what the disciples are and that they're freaked out. What is that? Is that a ghost? You know, what's walking on the water. But if you read the story too, remember, Peter actually walked on the water for a time as well.

All of that from this idea of retreating and this reconnecting with the Lord. See, we can't always get alone in the desert like Jesus did. We don't even have a desert here, right? It's been raining almost constantly, on and off. You know, my grass is greener than it's ever been, okay?

It's not a desert here in eastern North Carolina. Not this summer, okay? Many of us, though, have a hard time just getting alone Time. Okay. Many of you may have a house full of family, right?

And you might. You just, you know, have a hard time having any time by yourself. But you know what? I bet you if you look really carefully, you can pick a time or a place that can maximize your chances of being alone with God. Even if you've got littles at home, you know, maybe perhaps it's before they wake up in the morning.

Okay. Maybe when they're down for a nap, maybe after they go to bed. Okay. Or if you've got older kids and you're in that busy season where the kids have, you know, gymnastics and soccer and all the different things that's going on, you know, I'm sure there's a time that you can carve out some time for quiet time where you can be alone with God from time to time. Maybe try a prayer walk in your neighborhood.

You know, just walk. Be alone with the Lord and just pray over the houses. The people that maybe even you haven't met yet. Take some time to be alone. You know, I find too, if you're going to pray out loud, take that little ear thing so that people know that you're not just talking to yourself.

Right? That's probably a good idea. Idea. Okay. People don't think you're crazy.

Go to a state park. You know, my wife and I went to two state parks yesterday. It was glorious, you know, to be out. Went up to Umstead park in Raleigh, then went over to Lake Jordan. It was beautiful.

It's great to get on out there, take. Take a walk out there, maybe take time to go, like I said, on an overnight retreat. So there's. So let's be intentional about the time and the solitude. And here's the third way.

This is the third thing that Jesus is doing. Cultivating a relationship with God. Cultivating a relationship with God. We're still in verse 35, and you can see not only did he get up early, not only did he go to a solitary place, but there he prayed. Okay, here's where we get to the heart of why Jesus got up early.

Right here's at the heart of why he removed himself from all the others. He wanted to spend time with his Father. Don't we think we need to do the same thing? You and I also need to spend time with the Lord. He went there to pray.

Now, you know, if you think about it, we've taught on this before, but prayer in the first century to the Jew is a little bit different than what we think of. Okay? There were things that were a lot more scripted. Okay. They were expected to pray the shema from Deuteronomy 6.

4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul and your might. Right? And they had to pray that morning and night.

They prayed before every meal with very scripted prayers. They prayed the tefillah, which was 18 benedictions, that they prayed three times a day, which were praying different parts of scripture, praying blessing over different people. All good things, but very scripted. Right. But one of the good things about that is they were basically reading scripture back to.

That's a really good way to enhance your prayer time and to listen to what God is saying by reading scripture back to him as a prayer. Use the Psalms. What a great way to do that. David was very prolific in the Psalms with prayers that you could read through and read back as your own prayer back to God. So Jesus, you know, was certainly familiar with these scripted practices, but we also get insights into other prayers that he did.

You think about his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, right, as he's praying in anguish where he had drops of blood that were coming out because he was so stressed. Doctors, medical doctors call this, I think it's anhidrosis or something like that, where literally your capillaries burst under the extreme stress. This is not just some med. This stuff can really happen. Okay?

So Jesus was certainly not praying the Tefla like that. He was praying in anguish, Father, you know, if. If it's your will, take this away from me. So it wasn't scripted. Okay.

He, you know, when he chose his disciples, you know, he probably did not pray the Shema over each one. He was praying for each and every disciple that he chose when he prayed in John 12 to be glorified in front of his disciples. And the Lord answered with an audible voice. That was not a scripted prayer. But if Jesus needed time with God, we do too.

So Jesus needed to connect with him in order to continue his ministry. Now, if you've been coming to Eastgate for any length of time, you've probably heard this teaching on quiet time, and it's called soap S O A P. Okay. S O A P. What's the S stand for? Scripture. Scripture, Right.

Read some. Okay. I'm not going to tell you how much to read. Okay. Because you might ask, how much should I read?

Two chapters, two verses, What I would say, read until God speaks. Okay. Read until God speaks. What version should I read? Whatever one gets you reading the Bible.

Okay. So if you're a KJV person and you really want to read King James, please, as long as you read it, you want to read NIV or ESV or you want to read, I don't care which one you read. Read the Bible, read until God speaks, okay? Scripture O is observation. Now we're going to be an investigative reporter.

We're going to ask those questions. Who, what, when, where, why? Who's speaking? Who are they speaking to? Where is this?

What's the context? What's going on? You might need a good Bible dictionary at this point, maybe look at some concordances and stuff and figure out what's going on. So ask those good questions. What's going on here in this text that I'm reading a application.

Now as I look at what's going on, I want to make the application to my own life, okay? Here. Today, the scripture that we've picked out is easy, right? We're asking what's going on. Jesus is going off by himself early in the morning to pray, right?

What's the application? I should do the same thing. Okay, that's pretty easy. Now if you're reading through a narrative, for example, maybe you're reading through Genesis or Exodus or something like that, it might be a little bit more difficult to work towards an application, but it's there, trust me. Work towards an application.

What do I mean? How does this scripture change what I should be doing? What should I now do with these observations that I've come up with? And finally, p. Prayer. Okay, speak.

So God has spoken to you right through the scripture. Now we pray back to him. So it's a great analogy there. Now why do, why does Jesus do this? Look, in verse 38 it tells you why he did his quiet time.

And he said to them, let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also for that's why I came out. So Jesus was connecting with the Lord so that he could continue his ministry.

You've heard this before. Prayer is two way communication, okay? It's just talking to God. If you're a little weirded out by prayer, maybe perhaps, you know, you've been taught wrongly or whatever. It's just talking to God.

You don't have to use scripted words. You don't have to sound flowery, you don't have to say just a lot, which we tend to do. You know, we don't have to, you know, use flowery language. Just talk to God. Jeremiah 33, 3, God speaking.

He says, call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. God will answer you, he says. And in Philippians 4, 6, he encourages us, Paul does, to not be anxious about anything. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. Remember, this is not because God doesn't know what you need.

God wants you to pray. Now. God speaks to us through His Word. We know this from 2nd Timothy 3, 16, 17. Very famous passage.

All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work. God speaks to his us back through His Word. And the last place that God speaks to us, I wouldn't say the last place, but one of the other places is through his creation. Psalm 19:1 says, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Sometimes God speaks through his creation.

Now, I am not discounting that God still can speak audibly. And I've met some people who have had that experience. They have heard the audible voice of God. It hasn't happened for me, but I would not discount that that could still happen. So God could certainly do that.

What is the purpose behind all this communication? Well, as we said, we're cultivating a relationship with God. Now, let's think about that for a second. The best example would be those of us in the room, who are married. Okay.

And even if you're not married yet, but you're thinking of about, you know, someday I'd like to be married. Okay? We want to cultivate a relationship with that person. How do you make a relationship with someone? Well, you talk to them, you listen to them, you spend time with them.

How many of you, all who've been married for any length of time, would say, okay, yeah, I said I do on my wedding date, so we're good to go. You know, obviously that's not right. Right. I need to spend time with my spirit daily. I need to connect daily.

That's another hard one. Right? I'm already saying you need to do a devotional time, but we need to spend time with our spouses. And for those of you who are not married yet, that needs to be a priority for you. You need to, especially if you're in a dating relationship.

Let's find out who this person is. Let's get to know this person. Is this somebody that I could eventually see myself being married to cultivate the relationship, the relationship as it Grows. As the relationship grows, so do we. When you do this, talk to God, be honest and vulnerable about what you're thinking and feeling.

And husbands, really quickly paid political announcement. No, not paid, but your wife wants to know what you're thinking, okay? Even though. And wives, most of the time, what they're thinking is. Is nothing.

Okay? We're really not thinking about anything, okay? Most of the time, we're not thinking about anything. But your wife wants to know what you're thinking, okay? They really do.

So, yeah, you know, guys, we don't do this with other guys, right? I mean, we can go out and go hunting, go golfing, do whatever, and say four words to each other and think, man, that was a great time, right? Women don't understand that, okay? Like, they want to sit face to face. And how many times have you said, seen this?

You know, where two women just start opening up and sharing their deepest, darkest secrets with someone they just met? Okay? It happens. You know, guys, yeah, we don't do that. We don't do that at all, okay?

But men, your wife wants you to be vulnerable. She wants to know what you're thinking. She wants to know your struggles. She wants to share that. That's part of intimacy.

Intimacy. You could define that as into me, so she wants to see that. And you know what, guys? Trust me, it's better when you do that. Everything is better when you do that.

God wants to have that intimate level of relationship with you. Talk to God like you would even on a cell phone. Like, keep the phone lines open all the time. Keep talking to God as you're going through your day. Stand up, pace the floor, right?

Or if you need to sit, kneel, however it is that you can get connected with him. Another technique. Pray yourself empty, and then pray yourself full. What do I mean by that? Pray yourself empty.

You know, if you're like me and you get distracted by all the things that are going on, hey, my phone just buzzed. And, hey, you know what? I'm thinking about this problem and that problem, and, oh, the dog's barking outside. And, hey, someone's vacuuming out in the hallway. You know what you do there is you go, all right, God, here are the things that I'm concerned with.

Yeah. You know, this big issue here. Let me hand this over to you. Okay? That part's empty.

That dog's barking outside. God, I don't know what you can do about that. I'm sure you can take care of that, but, you know, maybe have the owner feed him or, you know, Take him inside or whatever. You know, pray that part out. Oh, you know what, the maid's vacuuming outside my hotel room.

Well, she'll be done, Father. I pray blessing upon her. Pray that out. Get all the distractions out. Pray them out.

And then when all those distractions, all those thoughts are held captive, now we can pray to be filled. Now we can pray to be filled. Find a Bible reading plan that works for you. Now, you know, we do the One Year Bible at Eastgate and there's a. You know, I get it.

Some of you will have said this. Oh, I've tried it. I've tried it. I just. I start falling behind and I feel stressed about it.

And then I don't care if you read through the Bible an entire year, just read, okay? If you read two or three verses a day, I'm much more happy with that than for you to say. Well, I tried the One Year Bible and I got stuck in Leviticus and then I stopped. Okay, I hear it all the time. I get it, okay?

Just read. Spend some time with it. Read until God speaks. Highlight your Bible. Write in your Bible.

It's okay, by the way, to write in your Bible. Matter of fact, I met a dude at the men's retreat last year. He writes in his Bible, sticks stuff in his Bible until it can't close anymore, then he goes and buys another one. Okay? He's got stacks of these things.

Okay, I'm not saying you have to do that, but it's okay to write in your Bible. Listen to a worship song either, and you can sing along or if you don't like to sing or you're not good at singing, meditate on what it's talking about. Go outside, look up, look at his vast glory, and just thank God for who he is. There are lots of ways we can cultivate a relationship with God. There are lots of ways that we can make our quiet time productive.

See, the spiritual habit of daily devotion is simple, but it's very powerful. And like I said, it lays the groundwork for all the rest of the day for your spiritual walk and for the rest of your life.

A little tidbit for you. If I haven't seen you in a while and I know you, one of the things that I like to do is, rather than just some inane greeting like, hey, how you doing? Sometimes I like to say, how's your walk going? How's your walk with the Lord? You know, because that gets right at the heart of what's going on.

How's your walk with the Lord. I encourage you to use that as well. How's your walk with the Lord? Because that is so much more diagnostic than just, hey, how you doing? Cause what happens?

Oh, fine. Nobody's fine, right? Everybody's got stuff going on, right? You're like, oh, I gotta pay the bills and I got the kids. You know, nobody's fine.

Everybody's got stuff going on. But how's your walk with the Lord? Cause you know what? If your walk with the Lord, your daily quiet time is doing well, those other things pale a little bit in importance, we start to see the eternal significance. I would encourage you to use that.

How's your walk with the Lord? See, we can lay a foundation for a better walk with him by improving or maybe even starting a daily devotion. Okay. As Jesus did. We can do this by setting aside a consistent time, departing to a solitary place, and cultivating our relationship with him.

Let's pray. Father, I pray for my friends here, and I pray for those who, in the hearing of my voice, that there are times that we struggle with this idea of a daily devotion. But, Jesus, you modeled it for us. You showed us how we can do it. And many of us know how beneficial this can be, but yet we still struggle to do it.

So, Father, I pray for the Spirit. You're welcome here. Search us out and help us to find those ways that we can reinvigorate our daily quiet time, our devotion with you, so that we can grow with you. Now, if you're with us today, and you've never done a quiet time because you don't know Jesus, you haven't met Jesus yet, well, you know, you can remedy that right now. And I want you to pray with me.

If you're feeling that, yeah, I'm missing out on this thing, and I want to know this Jesus of whom you speak. Well, you can get to know him today. And there's nothing magic about the words that I'll share, but just pray along with me in your heart and your seat. And I just say, jesus, I pray that you would become real to me, that you would come into my life, that you would forgive me of my sin, that I could. I could live with you, and I could be on mission with you, that I could live forever with you.

Now, friend, if you prayed that as well, if you prayed that along and you earnestly sought him out this morning, then welcome to the family. You are a child of God, and we rejoice with you. Now, many of you, perhaps, as you hear the message today, you're thinking, wow, there's a way that I'm just not measuring up. I'm not making this happen. Well, that's not my intent, friend.

I want to pray for you as well. So, Father, I pray for those here who have struggled with their daily quiet time, who maybe it's not been as consistent as it once was. Maybe it's become kind of a go through the motions kind of thing. And so, Father, I pray for each one of us who still struggle with this, including me. I pray, Father, that you would strengthen us, that you would show us the benefits of that time with you, that we would want to do it more and more, give us the drive and the energy to be able to spend more time with you, that we could be empowered to do your ministry, the ministry that you've called us to do.

And I pray this in Jesus name, amen.

You're caught up!

Here's a random sermon from the archives...

Surrendering to God’s Lordship

October 6, 2019 ·
Romans 6:15-23
Watch