Spiritual Tune-up | May 18, 2025

Alright, well welcome

to Testosterone Sunday.

We did all of this work just

so I had a good place to put

my coffee cup right there, man.

That looks good.

It looks good too.

Looks good.

All right.

Whew.

Um, please tell Jamie that

I wore a suit to church.

I think that's important.

I wanna make sure I get full credit.

And if this is your first

testosterone Sunday, Tara, thanks

for that confession of faith.

This is, uh, a fun morning

where the wives are away and we

get to be in charge at church.

Patty, don't look at me like that.

Jamie does it every Sunday.

I don't want that look today.

Just turn and stare at Jeff.

Jeff needs that look today.

Not no.

You know what, if you're not looking at

me skeptically, then you don't love me.

And that's what I know.

So thank you Patty.

I appreciate that.

Hey, a couple weeks ago we had our men's

retreat and we talked a lot about running

the race that God's laid out for us

and kind of got deep into the car vibe.

There's I think like 53 ladies at retreat

this weekend, so they kind of tried to

up upstage us guys, but that's okay.

That's okay.

The ladies are impressive over there.

That's great.

They've had a great time from the

early reports, um, but we had a

pretty fun time too, guys, and I

wanna share a little bit of guy stuff

this morning on testosterone Sunday.

So let me apologize right off the bat,

we're gonna talk a little bit about car

stuff and I only know enough car stuff

to be dangerous and you're probably

gonna hear me say some things and

you'll be like, no, that's not right,

that's gonna make your car explode.

So if it's a real safety hazard,

feel free to interrupt me.

That's okay.

Alright, because I'm not trying

to encourage you to do things

to set your car on fire, but.

I think unpacking some fun car

imagery could be a little bit of fun.

You see, Jesus did this technique where

he took stuff in everyday life and he just

helped people understand spiritual truth

using trees and seeds and dirt, right?

And different stuff from our life.

And Jesus never did a sermon on

car parts or car maintenance just

because, well, probably because they

didn't have it and they wouldn't

know what he's talking about.

But also, well, I don't know

why else you would've done it.

I think Jesus would've been like,

Hey, let's flip open the hood and

let's talk about your spiritual life.

So this morning we're gonna have a

little bit of fun if you'll humor me.

And we're gonna look at car stuff

and spiritual stuff and see if we

can't make some parallels that are

encouraging and helpful and maybe.

Might help us down the road of life

that God's got us journeying down.

So I wanna invite you this morning to

step into God's garage established.

Uh, well always.

It's been here forever

and it always will be.

God has been in business from before, time

began and he'll be in business doing fine.

Well, after this thing

we call, time is gone.

But this morning I wanna invite you

into God's garage and we're gonna do a

little, uh, I don't know, inspection.

A little maintenance checklist.

Maybe just look through the engine.

Maybe a little tuneup, maybe.

Uh, I don't know what other

car words to use there.

We're gonna stop.

So, God's garage.

I've been working on this slogan.

I think I got some real winners here.

What do you think about this?

God's Garage where service

and pricing are miraculous?

Oh man.

Okay.

Definitely didn't get the

reaction I hope for there.

Um, he turned water into wine.

He can make sweet

lemonade outta that lemon.

You're driving.

Alright, well lemme just go with this one.

You gotta go with this one.

Right home of the eternal guarantee.

Man, you guys didn't

sleep much this weekend.

Watching your kids, it sounds like.

Whew.

Tough crowd.

Alright, so forget the slogans.

Let's just move on.

So God's Garage is the backdrop here.

I want to talk about this morning.

And I do want to just give a

little shout out to Zach Boonstra,

who let me use his uh, Polaris.

That is a great way to get

to church in the morning.

I just want you to know, 50 mile

an hour, no windshield, 50 degrees.

It just gets you going for the

day, you know what I'm saying?

So that was really fun.

Um, Brian Burkhart, I apologize he

wasn't able to get here on time today

'cause we took the engine out of his car.

So we'll get that back to you

later on and, uh, appreciate that.

And uh, Josh, all the bad choices you

did and Derek, your racing slicks.

We got a lot of guys at

church with car issues.

Thanks for making that possible today

to use these as some backdrops and

hopefully it'll help us maybe think

through a few things spiritually.

Well, let me begin with this concept.

Maintenance and I tried to sell it.

Let's try it one more time.

Did you get excited about

maintenance when you saw that?

No.

Nobody gets excited about maintenance.

That's why I was trying, right?

We don't love maintenance.

Maintenance is not something

like your husband or your wife.

They walk in the door on a Friday

night and they're like, Hey, let's

do some maintenance this weekend.

Woo.

What do you think?

Right?

Like, nobody gets excited

about maintenance.

In fact, on our men's retreat, we,

uh, talked a little bit just for a

second about maintenance and I was

kind of curious how many people did

maintenance on their own vehicles.

And uh, first I asked the question,

how many of you guys, you know,

regularly maintain your vehicles?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

How many of you do the

maintenance on your vehicles?

Oh, not as much.

Right?

'cause we pay people to

do maintenance for us.

We kinda hand that

responsibility to somebody else.

What I wanna encourage you to think about

this a little bit this morning, that our

spiritual engine, right, our spiritual

life, requires some regular maintenance.

If we are not engaged in some kind

of scheduled maintenance in our

spiritual life, man, our engine and our

whole vehicle starts to deteriorate.

One of the reasons scripture encourages

us not to forsake the gathering

together of the body of Christ and to

meet together regularly, to praise, to

worship, to encourage, to share, to read

into God's word, is because we need that

regular routine, spiritual maintenance

in a world that's saying a whole lot

of stuff that's contrary to what God

says about who we are and what matters.

And if we don't have some regular

scheduled maintenance spiritually,

it's really gonna affect our affect,

our performance, and our ability to

get to destinations we need to get to.

It's gonna hurt our acceleration,

it's gonna hurt our ability to stop

sometimes when we need to stop.

There's a lot of things that it affects.

So I wanna encourage you that

making maintenance a regular

part of what you think about.

When you think about your spiritual

life is a really important thing.

You schedule it on your car.

You don't go over a certain mileage

without getting some work done.

You don't drive on tires that are shot.

You need to make sure there's spiritual

maintenance going on in your life,

and that can look a lot different.

You don't have to go to an official shop.

You could have your buddy help you

in the garage, that's cool, but you

need to find ways that you're getting

poured into and refreshed and tuned

up regularly in your walk with Jesus.

So let's talk about this vehicle of

your life, this spiritual engine.

And I wanna first talk about

fuel for a few minutes.

And if you were to step into God's garage

and maybe he sent somebody who looked

like this in this really nice outfit,

they might say, what octane you running?

Right now they couldn't

use regular English.

Like, excuse me sir, what is the

octane you're placing in your vehicle?

Right?

You gotta say it like some dude who just

walked out of a, of a back room somewhere

and hasn't talked to somebody in years.

That's, you know, I probably watched too

much Lightning McQueen as a kid, right?

Mater stuff.

But what kind of octane are you

running is a fair question about

the vehicles that you drive, right?

If you ever go to a gas pump, you

see numbers like these, right?

87, 89, 93, whatever it is, there's

all kinds of options for what kind of

octane you're putting in your vehicle.

I know a lot about Octane that I didn't

know because I bought a used old Lexus

one time and it required high premium

gasoline and I started to do the math

and decided I don't want to drive this

old Lexus that needs high protein,

you know, high quality gasoline.

So I moved on to something

that didn't because there's a

lot going on here with Octane.

Lemme say this here real quick.

I won't get in trouble

with my car guy friends.

I know it has to do with combustion

and pre ignition and compression.

Those are the only three words I know.

I don't even know what they mean, but

I'm not trying to be dumb about Octane.

Put the right stuff in your car.

Okay.

Are we good with that?

Just check with somebody else besides me.

But when you think about what octane

are you running, I want to kind

of dumb this down for my purpose

today and really ask you this

question about your spiritual life.

What octane are you running

in your spiritual life?

What are you putting into

your head and to your heart?

What kind of fuel and what kind of

percentage of quality and purity

of octane are you putting into

the engine of your spiritual life?

'cause see, the world is gonna

tell us a lot of stuff, right?

And the world is gonna bombard us with

its truth, claims and ideas and pictures

of what a destination should look like

and a daily life should look like and

acceptable behavior should look like.

And we've gotta put in the right

things into our spiritual engine.

And I think of it like this man,

like 87% means there's 13% gunk

or something else, some other

additive going on in there, right?

And 93% means we're

getting closer to purity.

But as a follower of Jesus Christ,

shouldn't I be running on a hundred

percent high octane from the Holy Spirit

and from God's word that I'm putting in?

What is the percentage of truth

versus crud that you're blending

and putting into who you are?

Scripture encourages us here in

Philippians to whatever is true,

brothers and sisters, whatever

is noble, right, pure, lovely,

admirable, excellent, praiseworthy.

Think on these things.

What are you putting into your head

and your heart in relation to the

stuff that the world says is good?

What does God say, right?

We're supposed to be people.

Who always talk about God's word

and keep it in front of us and

his truth, right in Joshua, keep

this book of the law on your lips.

Meditate on it day and night

so that you may be careful to

do everything written in it.

And here's the cool part about how

our God works when we're faithful to

him, he's faithful to us and we find

prosperous and successful destinations

when we do things God's way versus

when we try to do 'em our own way.

And man, the world is gonna throw these

things at you, but we've gotta be careful

to demolish arguments and pretensions that

set themselves up against the knowledge of

God and take captive every thought, right?

And make it obedient to Christ.

And so the fuel that we put in,

the, the, the quality of purity,

of octane that we're putting into

our spiritual life matters, right?

And listen, bad fuel really clogs up and

gunks up the fuel injectors in your car.

It'll make it so that you have

diminished horsepower, diminished

efficiency, and diminished longevity.

But make no mistake, when you put

crud into your spiritual life,

it's gonna affect your power.

It's gonna affect your ability

to accomplish the things God's

called you to do, and to push and

press and to stand when it's hard,

it's gonna affect your power.

'cause our power is connected to the

Holy Spirit as we walk in righteousness

and purity with him, it's going

to affect how efficient we are.

'cause when we're bogged down with crud

and junk and sin in our life, we're not

able to accomplish the things or live the

way that even we want to live because of

the gunk that we've allowed to be in us.

And listen, longevity, that's like a

car that's not gonna make it very long.

Right?

And God's pretty clear that if we

choose to live as sinful people, there

are consequences that'll affect us

in this life and the life to come.

And your eternal longevity

might be in play.

If you're dealing with bad

fuel and crud and gunk.

So as you think about the fuel you're

putting into your heart, into your

head, I wanna encourage you to think

about the purest octane you can get.

Meditate on God's word.

Be in association and

relationship with God's people.

Surround yourself with truth, not lie.

Surround yourself with God's worldview

and perspective, not what the world's

telling you, because it'll affect

your performance, destination, power,

ability, it affects everything, man.

The whole engine could end up right

here hanging on this chain because

of the gunk that you put in it.

Let's talk oil for just a second.

Um, I don't know.

This is one of the most helpful things

anybody ever said to me with regard

to oil, and I think it's always stuck.

Hey, dipstick, check your oil right.

If you don't know what

that is, that's a dipstick.

And if you know somebody who has this on

their dashboard, that's also a dipstick

because these are called idiot lights.

Right now in modern cars,

there's a lot of flashing lights.

But if you have a shiny, bright warning

light on your dashboard now, it could be

because a lot of the guys in this church

have helped me work on my cars, and that's

why they've called them idiot lights.

Like, Hey, idiot, check your oil right?

But these warning lights are there when

you've, whoa, you're in danger, right?

Hey, check the oil dipstick.

That helps me.

And if you don't check your oil,

you're gonna run outta oil and

you're gonna cause some huge

amounts of damage to this engine.

Oh, there we go.

I got some grease on there.

All right.

We're looking for some of that earlier.

See, that'd be great.

Okay.

Thank you, Brian.

That's added bonus, man.

Free grease.

I didn't see that coming.

Hey, when you talk about engine oil, um.

I was asking this question and I found

this definition from some mechanics and

I thought it was actually pretty legit.

Check this out.

Here's what engine oil does.

It lubricates moving parts, reducing

friction and wear, which helps prevent

damage and ensures smooth operation.

See oil fills every crevice

and every part of this engine.

So these pistons can move

back and forth, right?

It's everywhere.

Just in case.

Let me just a little bit more there.

Okay?

So you can prove right it's there oil's

in all of that engine and it's helping

lubricate the parts so they can move

freely without rubbing metal on metal

friction without wearing parts out and

preventing damage occurring where your

engine just locks up and seizes up, right?

So what this is, it hit me.

This is actually one Corinthians

1614 from the mechanic Bible, which I

don't think exists, but check it out.

This is what one Corinthians 1614 said.

Let all that you do be done in love.

See, here's the principle.

Everything we do needs

to be saturated in love.

It's the defining characteristic

of God's people, right?

People know your, my disciples,

Jesus said by your love, right?

And love when it's involved in

relationship and in the context of

the stuff we're doing, man, it helps

everything move fluidly and comfortably.

It helps avoid friction and wearing down.

When we're walking in love and we're

living in love, it helps prevent damage

occurring in relationships between

people because love is in that space

and we're always using love in our

interaction, in our communication,

even in our conflict resolution, right?

Love saturates all of it, and

love ensures smooth operation.

So I don't know what

the love level, right?

We gotta check the, I'm sorry.

Love level.

Forget the oil level.

Actually don't forget the love.

Do check that in your car,

especially you Josiah.

But then love what's the love level

in your heart and in that engine that

you're deal, you gotta cracked oil pan.

I used the right word

there, Austin, didn't I?

Alright.

I dunno how you crack an oil pan, but

it just sounded right in the moment.

Love needs to be filled up to the

max, connected to the God of love

who fills us and keeps our reservoir

full so that we've got the right

amount of love to be able to do all of

these things in the way that we live.

Hey, and also you gotta

use a good filter, right?

Important to use a good

oil filter in your car.

It's really important to use

a good filter in your life.

God's word needs to be the filter

through which you filter everything.

That oil doesn't just sit there, it runs

through the system, and all the junk

and the contaminants get filtered out.

And God wants us to be people who filter

out the lies and the sin and the junk from

the world around us with His word being

the filter that helps purify our love.

Sometimes we take love as a definition

by what the world says, and we're

like, oh, I'm living in love.

Well, you better run that

through the filter of God's word.

'cause sometimes love sure doesn't

look like just enabling people,

and it sure, sure doesn't look like

just affirming sinful behavior.

That's not a biblical picture of love.

God's called us to love in truth and to

love in gentleness and respect, and we

gotta run love through that filter of what

God defines it as, not what your world

maybe thinks or my world thinks it is.

Kinda a big deal.

Hey, also, you gotta

check your fluids, right?

Windshield washer fluid, super easy.

It's the one gallon jug we

can get at Speedway, right?

And you just walk out there and

you're like, oh, it looks empty.

You pour it in, it spills all over

the engine, and you're like, I did it.

Right?

It's a good feeling.

Keep your windshield washer

fluid full because you never

know it's gone until what?

Till you need it, right?

Always.

Jesus encourages us in his word in

Hebrews to fix our eyes on Jesus.

And your windshield washer fluid helps

wash all the gunk and the crud off the

windshield to give us clear vision, right?

And some of us are really comfortable

driving with a filthy windshield where

we've got all kinds of sin and crud and

crap that are caked onto our windshield.

And we've gotta be people who use a

reservoir full of the power of the

Holy Spirit and the purity of God's

word to rinse off the crud and the

lies, and the deception, and all the

things our world says, Hey, it's fine.

Just leave it on your windshield.

Now we need to clear and clean windshield.

Make sure that reservoir is full.

An engine coolant.

Mm, you running hot man?

Just saying, scripture

warns us in Hebrews.

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow

to speak, slow to become angry, because

when we're running hot, that anger burns

in us and it begins to overheat our

engine and we begin to break down, right?

Scripture says that the anger

that we have as humans does not

accomplish what God wants us to do.

We would never run our cars with

a crazy thermostat peaked out at

highest temperature because we're

gonna blow that engine, right?

But we do it a lot as people holding

onto anger, internalizing it, letting it

just be there in our spiritual engine.

Just walk with it.

Now we gotta process that out, and we

need to make sure we've got the coolant

of forgiveness and God's grace and mercy

and perspective to help us navigate

the seasons that we're walking in.

Let's talk suspension

for just two seconds.

I don't know much about this.

I keep trying to jack up my

truck and Jamie keeps saying no.

So I'm still working on learning more.

But the suspension involves shocks,

struts, things like that that help

our car absorb the bumps, right?

The dips, the potholes, the

crevices, makes for a smoother ride,

helps stabilize control, right?

And here's what happens with

our suspension in our car.

Sometimes we've absorbed so many bumps

and we've dealt with so much that we

start to get kind of stiff, right?

Sometimes we seize up, sometimes we, we

rust up because we're avoiding things

so much to the point that our suspension

is kind of shot and it's so stiff and

so rigid that it no longer absorbs and

makes the ride reasonably manageable.

And we gotta get that thing

serviced and repaired.

See, scripture wants us

to have a perspective.

Where we set our minds not on the

stuff and the circumstances that make

us rigid and hard and rusted up and

callous in this life, but instead to

think about things that are eternal

and not lose that perspective as we

look not to the things that are seen,

because those things are temporary.

We look at that transient.

That's a great translation.

The things that are unseen,

man, those things are eternal.

And so God wants us to have a suspension

perspective, if you will, to see that

the things that we're dealing with,

he's given us what we need to be

able to navigate those ups and downs.

But we gotta keep the perspective of

eternity in mind, not just the temporary

circumstances that we walk through.

Sorry, I gotta get a little

more WD 40 in me here.

I'm just kidding.

I just wanted to do that for fun.

Hey, let me just wrap up with

this thought Tire pressure tire.

Pressure kind of a big deal, right?

You gotta check your tire pressure.

How many of you guys regularly

check your tire pressure?

Holy cow.

Two of you.

That's great.

Good work.

Good work.

We don't even believe we need to

check our tire pressure, right?

Because what's gonna happen is our

tires are gonna just go flat when it's

time for them to go flat, and then

we'll get new ones when we have to.

And that's how we do

tire maintenance, right?

But let's step back from

that crazy for just a second.

And I'm terrible at checking my pressure.

Hey, lemme tell you a little

secret about tire pressure.

If you drive a car where your

tires don't hold air, like,

well, you'll check more often.

I've been doing that for years.

It helps me stay on top of tire

pressure management, right?

'cause I have a slow leak.

So just get a slow leak

and you're gonna do this.

Great.

No, not really.

Um, here's the thing about tire pressure.

You gotta maintain the

proper balance in your tires.

It really, really matters.

Safety, efficiency, all kinds of things.

It's important.

Now most of us have digital cars

maybe that tell us, or some of

those idiot lights like, Hey,

your tire's flat, don't drive.

Whatever that looks like.

But tire pressure and maintaining the

proper balance, it's kind of a big deal.

How do we know what pressure

we should have in our tires?

We open up the side door, it's

got the little sticker, right?

Or you might have something in your

user manual there, your owner's manual.

And I would just encourage you that

maintaining a proper balance of pressure

in this life, you and I together, it's

important because we're gonna deal

with a lot of pressure and God has

given us a user's manual, an owner's

manual, Chilton, something like that.

Is that the right word?

Chilton?

Still a thing.

Alright, nevermind.

Um, this scripture is kinda helpful.

I think for me when I think about

pressure, because there's a lot of stuff

we need, there's a lot of stuff we want.

What's the balance?

How do we do it?

Well, Jesus told us in

the Sermon on the Mount.

That we're supposed to seek first his

kingdom and his righteousness, and then

all the other stuff, he's gonna help

take care of that clothes that we need,

food that we need, shelter that we need.

He promises that if we'll seek first his

kingdom, that all the other stuff, he'll

take care of us and he'll meet our needs

according to his riches in Christ Jesus.

He's got us.

If we'll focus on the right balance

of what our life should look

like, I think it's interesting.

If you go too low and your tire pressure,

you're, you're really inefficient.

You lose your gas mileage.

Uh, I guess if you're

offroading that's different.

But when you have your tires

really low, the tread wears funky.

There's all kinds of

bad things that happen.

You can break the seal around

your tires when you're too high.

Like if you're an overinflated kind

of guy, uh, your tires wear out in a

weird way, right where the middle of

that tread gets worn out differently

and, and what happens is you're unsafe.

And what's crazy is.

It's not about being too high

or too low, it's really about

finding the right balance.

'cause here's a cool

principle I ran across.

God has given you the tread.

You need to navigate the weather and

the conditions of the road you face.

That's right.

And I believe this is all my heart

because it's essentially from that same

mechanic Bible I just made up two Peter,

chapter one, verse three, that God

has given us through his divine power.

Everything we need.

See, God has given you the tread

to navigate the winter weather, the

different seasons that you're in.

But check this out.

Tire pressure can shift during

different seasons, can't it?

You ever go out in the wintertime

and your tire, TPMS things or no?

That's a break thing, right?

No, that's right.

I know my idiot lights, let me tell you.

So the TPMS thing that goes off

right says, Hey, hey, it's low man.

It's low, and maybe it's not.

Maybe it's the weather, or maybe it

did get low because of the weather.

Different seasons can affect the pressure

in our tires, just like different seasons

can affect the pressure in our life.

And we've gotta maintain and

check for the right balance of

where those pressures are at.

If you go too low and you just withdraw

and you get lazy and you disregard,

well, you do some damage there, you're

not effective and you can't accomplish

some of the things God wants you to.

But if you go too high, sometimes

you're really ineffective and you

wear things out in a whole different

way than you ever intended to.

So you've gotta find a way to maintain

the proper balance by seeking his

kingdom first, recognizing he's given

you everything that you need to be able

to navigate the road that you're on.

You gotta trust him.

But you also have to do some

routine maintenance spiritually

to make sure that you're at the

right spot you need to be in.

That involves checking, getting a little

tired gauge, and maybe a spiritual tire

gauge looks like a friend or a coworker

or a spouse or a family member that you

talk to about where you're at and how

you're balancing and juggling all the

pressure and the weights that you feel.

'cause God has a way through whatever

you're in, whatever terrain you're

facing, if you'll follow his principle.

God's garage is an awesome place.

I didn't get to talk about transmission,

timing bells, spark plugs, blinker,

fluid, none of that good stuff.

You know what I mean?

This is not really a thing, right?

Come on, mechanics.

You're supposed to be

laughing at that one.

At least.

Gimme, gimme some credit.

I know what you're trying

to sell on the cheap, right?

Blinker, fluid.

It's not a thing.

People, if you get, Joe used to work over

there at the what, uh, service writer.

How much blinker fluid did you sell?

I'm just curious.

I'm none.

No, it's not a thing.

Uh, it's just a running

joke in the mechanic world.

I was trying to be inside.

Joke funny.

Didn't work out.

Moving on.

Hey, stay tuned up.

Make sure that you do scheduled

maintenance in your spiritual life

and if you do those things, you're

gonna be able to be equipped for

a safe and long and comfortable.

Well, for reasonably, depending on

the train you're in, ride in the

road that God has laid out for you.

He is good.

He is the master mechanic.

There's nothing he doesn't know.

There's new, no new technology he's

unfamiliar with and trying to figure out.

He's totally got this.

But we've gotta be disciplined to

come into his presence, to follow

his recommended guidelines for how we

maintain and service this heart and

head and spirit that he's given us.

And if we do that, there's some

pretty cool things in store.

Lord, thank you so much for a few minutes

to hang out in your garage this morning

and think about some of these things.

Thank you for the principles

from your word, the truth.

Help us to be able to apply

those maybe, maybe this morning.

Some of these word pictures and

object lessons help us get a different

perspective, and that's awesome.

Maybe it was super confusing and

we have no idea what's going on.

Thank you that your Holy Spirit

breaks through all that stuff too.

And I pray that your truth would

permeate everything that we've talked

about here this morning for each of us.

God, help us to pay attention

to what we're putting in.

Help us filter and just coat

things in love, listening to

truth and not the world's lies.

God help us as we navigate

all of these different road

conditions that we're facing.

Thank you.

That you're right there with us.

And that is a better than GPS.

Sometimes you even take the

wheel for us and help us navigate

things we can't figure out.

You are so good to us.

Thank you for loving us.

And Lord I pray you would help us to step

out in faith and encourage and engage

in the things that we need to and have

the discipline to make ourselves walk

in the ways that you've designed for

us to experience the most efficiency

and power and longevity and joy.

Thanks for loving us and thanks

for the time this morning together.

And Lord, I pray you'd be with

all the wives coming back,

keep 'em safe and the ladies.

And, uh, be with all the guys

who are racing home right after

church to clean their house.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Hey, love you guys.

Have a great day in the Lord.

And, uh, get those houses